IMPORTANT ISSUE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 3 June 1930, Page 5

IMPORTANT ISSUE

s IN CANADIAN ELECTIONS TREATIES WITH AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND EAST AND WEST SHARPLY DIVIDED (•United Press Association—By Bleotrio Telegraph—Copyright) OTTAWA, Ist Juno. With the election date set and the decks cleared for tho impending political battle, something of the diverse forces at work to create an important division of opinion over the Australian and New Zealand treaties, stand out in clearer perspective. To begin with political circles generally agree that Tory opposition to the Australian Treaty was frankly an effort to garner a few voles in the prairie provinces. While Canadian farmers were concentrating on wheat, because it was more profitable than dairy and mixed farming, there was little outcry against imported butter. The tune was changed when tho market fell out of wheat. In British Columbia, where the Treaty is generally popular, sheep breeders are likely to attack it. They want a prohibitive duty on Australian lamb, claiming that they are now practically in a position to supply domestic needs.

The east of Canada sees the treaties strictly in commercial terms, since that section is not a producer of primary products and sees bettor business because of tho pacts. It appears clear that the industrial east, having very much at stake in the Australian Treaty, _ will throw its weight against those' primary producers in the west who are making an outcry against the pact irrespective of whether their claims are real or illusionary. As the election campaign gets well on tiie way it is expectecf that the Australian and New Zealand treaties will loom very large, but because the inclination seems to bo to make political material out of what should be a strictly economic and business consideration, both parties will have to.be extremely cautious in their utterances, because the treaties may prove a two-edged sword. Other important issues in the election are the Budget, which has been recently very much criticised; Mr Mackenzie King's alleged reflection on Sir Wilfrid Laurier in an introduction to the biography of the statesman, since repudiated by him but which nevertheless may lose him some seats in Quebec; and the business depression, which despite claims of improvement is generally unchanged since the American relapse of last autumn.