CANADIAN OUTLOOK

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 83, 5 October 1933, Page 11

CANADIAN OUTLOOK

POLITICAL SITUATION

FORCES OF OPPOSITION

RE-FLEX OF BAD TIMES

(From "The Post's" Representative.) VANCOUVER, September 13. Tho Nova Scotia elections, iv which a Conservative regime of eight years' standing was decimated by the Liberal Party, reflect the political restlessness of the whole country. British Columbia -will go to the polls shortly, and it is certain that the ■ Conservative Government will be defeated. Two reasons are assigned to,the change. Mr. Mackenzie King, who has spent half the summer addressing prairie picnics while farmers are waiting for the wheat to head up for the harvest, says it is a sign of revolt against Mr. Bennett's Conservative rule at Ottawa. The more generally accepted view is'that any Government- going to the people just now. is assured of defeat, as the country, is unsettled, after: a losing battle with depression for three years. Provincial Governments have adopted some unique, irritating taxation experiments, such as the wage tax and the meal tax, in their search for revenue. The meal tax has teen quashed by the Courts. The wage tax is due for a severe test. The fuel oil tax has been declared 'ultra vires' by-the Privy Council. The gasoline tax, which has laid up thousands of cars in the past two years, is universally condemned. Tho irritation extends also into tho Federal sphere of taxation. Eager to exploit this discontent, both Federal Opposition groups are actively campaigning,. although there is little likelihood of an election within: two years. The issue is clouded by the noise associated with the emergence of a third party. POINTS OF POLICY. . The Conservatives follow their traditional policy of maintaining the present capitalistic, structure, and of providing generous • tariff protection for domestic manufactures. The existing economic and social order, in their view, is quite safe, subject to moderate readjustment. The Liberal Party demands tariff reform, reciprocity with the United States (which wrecked Laurier), and a. change in banking practice, to cheapen money, mainly on the prairie. The Commonwealth Co-operative Federation, still in the debating society stage, is navigating as closo to Communism as it.dare. Its first,convention, held recently, was a confusion, of voices, with extreme radicalism tho loudest. The C.C.i\ is running with, tho farmer, as well as the worker. But its plan to socialise production niet spirited, agrarian, opposition until it exempted the farm from confiscation. Its candidates, in their first contest, in Nova Scotia, lost their deposits. Both the Liberals and tho C.C.F. want a Central Bank. Their recital of what it would do to set Canada on its feet moved Professor Gregory, the noted English economist, who was at the Pacific-Conference- at Banff, to observe that tho Central. Bank was being asked to do the impossible. Lord MacMillan, presiding over the Royal Commission on Banking, heard tho same flights of fancy, in tho evidenco given on the prairie, and may bo expected to sound a similar warning. RETURNING PROSPERITY. But tho Canadian wheat grower is emerging from the slough,of despond. Mr.-Bennett "bonused" his^ wheat production, and guaranteed him a fixed minimum value'for the pound, at only a shilling below tho pre-depression parity. An Act of God—Mr. Bennett's phrase —saved the Dominion Treasury ,froni paying out millions on this guarantee. The world wheat agreement, with its 200,000,000-bushel export quota for Canada, and its fixed price—at a figure higher than the farmer dreamed was possible:—did tho rest. His outlook was never brighter. Three months from now, when he is handling plenty of cash for a good crop, ho will have no quarrel with the banking structure. The natural forces of recovery, unattended'by the ballyhoo that marks the effort at revival across 'the international border, will dissipate much of the .clamour indulged in. by Mr. Bennett's critics. In four months 200,000 new jobs have been found. A continuance of the present steady rate of progress will bring prosperity nearer. With prosperity cornea forgctfulness of the past.' Tho task of unseating the Administration will be more difficult. Hence the feverish desire, of the Liberals and tho C.O.I 1, to force the issue.