CANADIAN GOVERNMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 22, 26 January 1940, Page 8

CANADIAN GOVERNMENT

IMMEDIATE APPEAL TO THE COUNTRY

DATE NOT INDICATED

(By . Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright.) (Received January 26, 1.10 p.m.) OTTAWA, January 25. The Governor-General, Lord Tweedsmuir, in opening Parliament, announced an immediate General Election. The Government, he said, felt that it should have a direct and unquestioned mandate. The date of the election was not indicated. Parliament has been dissolved. The unexpected announcement of the General Election came at the end of Lord Tweedsmuir's 300-word speech. Subsequently, the Prime Minister, Mr. MacKenzie King, told the House of Commons that the election could be over before the end of March. A great spring offensive was possible on the Western JFront, and it was desirable to have the election over beforehand. He added that he had hoped for a regular session to pass essential legislation, but this, was now unlikely because of lack of unity. Mi. King stressed that the attack of the Premier of Toronto, Mr. Hepburn, condemning the Federal Government's prosecution of the war, had changed the situation. He declared that since the outbreak of the war the Federal Ministers had devoted every ounce of their energies to the prosecution of the war, although without spectacular effect, being highly conscious of the gravity of the situation and their responsibility.