DIONNE BABIES

Southland Times, Issue 22921, 20 June 1936, Page 16

DIONNE BABIES

Helping Canada’s Budget The Dionne quintuplets became an inperial problem recently after earlier endeavours to make a race and religious issue of them had failed to take root in the soil of Canadian public opinion, writes John MacCormac from Canada to The New York Times. Oliva Dionne, holding stubbornly to his belief that children are the private property of their parents, exercised a subject’s right to bring his troubles to the foot of the Throne. He wrote to King Edward asking that his five famous daughters be returned to him. The King transmitted the appeal to Canada’s Governor-General, Lord Tweedsmuir. Since the King is a bachelor and Lord Tweedsmiur a married man, this engendered the opinion in certain circles that his Majesty was exercising the Royal prerogative of “passing the buck.” Actually King Edward was merely proceeding in a constitutional manner. As “King of Canada,” he transmitted the letter to his representative. The Governor-General sent it to the Dominion Secretary of State. The Secretary of State sent it to the LieutenantGoveror of Ontario. The LieutenantGovernor passed it on to the Ontario Government and it is now in the hands of David Croll, the Provincial Minister of Welfare. Unsympathetic. Mr Croll, who is an official guardian of the quintuplets and largely responsible for the Ontario Government’s policy towards them, is preparing a reply. Doubtless the reply will ultimately reach Mr Dionne after traversing the same channels. But modern British Kings have invariably acted only on the advice of their Ministers and it is not expected that King Edward will depart from precedent. Mr Dionne’s action, far from shaking the belief of Ontario’s citizens that their Government did the right thing in temporarily nationalizing his daughters, seems to have confirmed it. The Ottawa Journal observes that “Ontario has done few things in years of which it has more reason to be proud than its treatment of the Dionne quintuplets.” The newspaper poked fun at New York reporters and prodded American promoters with a sharper point.. “We are given sentimental pictures of a‘quiet-spoken’ farmer from Northern Ontario and ‘his heartsick wife.’ ” The Journal says, “but we know that only the voice is the voice of the Dionnes. In the background is the moving hand of those who hope to profit from the Dionne association.” The newspaper, supporting the view of two Ontario medical members of the Canadian Parliament, does, however, criticize the Ontario Government for permitting the children to become central figures in a Hollywood motion picture “which will convey to hosts of ignorant people the impression that Canada is backward.” What it and other organs of Canadian opinion will have to say if Hollywood carries out a reported intention to star Pere and Mere Dionne and their five elder children cannot be predicted, but may be guessed. Meanwhile, not even Mr Hitler nor Mr Aberhart has been able to drive Dr. Dafoe’s young ladies off the front page. The Liberal member of the Ontario Legislature for Niagara has complained that they are taking traffic away from Niagara Falls, and tourist figures for 1935 show that for the first time since the depression, American expenditures in Canada again passed the 200,000,000 dollars’ mark. . The quintuplets are helping Canada to balance its Budget.