CANADIAN ELECTIONS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 158, 4 June 1935, Page 9

CANADIAN ELECTIONS

EMPIRE TRADE FACTOR. UNITED STATES AS RIVAL. The coming Canadian elections have an important interest for Australia, as the Premier, Mr R. B. Bennett, is expected to appeal to the country for closer trade relations between Canada and the United States. Mr Bennett returned to Ottawa on May 19 from the Silver Jubilee celebrations, and will take his place in the leadership hoping that his health will remain satisfactory until the end of the session. On this experimental basis, Mr Bennett will decide whether his heart will stand the strain of leading the Conservative Party in the elections next August or September. In that contest, the betting is 10 to one that Mr Bennett will be defeated, and will be succeeded bv Mr Mackenzie King’s Liberal Administration. Mr Bennett’s brother-in-law, Mr

1 William Herridge, has been working for many months very closely with President Roosevelt for a new trade treaty. It is quite on the cards that a big test of Empire trade relations is coming. Canada can avoid grave difficulties with Britain, and possiblv with the British Dominions, if a Canada-United States treaty is consummated, because the United States will surely demand entry into Canada for goods which Canada to-day buys from England. Canada already has learned that Japan is threatening to reduce her imports from Canada to a mere fraction of their present size, and besides this, Japan apparently designs a real test of the strength and scope of the British Empire trade treaties. Tokio officials have frankly admitted that Australia is unsuitable territory for their test, because Japan cannot afford to discontinue the purchase of Australian wool, and cannot get wool satisfactorily elsewhere.