The Daily News SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1935. CANADIAN POLITICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 July 1935, Page 6

The Daily News

SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1935. CANADIAN POLITICS.

OFFICES: NEW PLYMOUrB. Currlo STRATFORD, Breadway. HAWERA, Hlyh Street.

Judging’from latest reports, one of s the principal factors in the approaching general election in Canada will be the physical ability of the Prime Minister, Mr. R. B. Bennett, to take a leader’s share in the electoral campaign. His Ministry, like opiers,- has suffered from the tendency, of any electorate to seek a scapegoat for economic depression, and the Cabinet itself suffered from the disruption caused by a breach with the former Minister of Trade and Customs, Mr. H. H. Stevens. That arose through the premature disclosure by Mr. sievens of a report by a Royal Commission set up to inquire into economic conditions and the measures that could be taken for national recovery. The report proposed '-almost the complete regimentation of Canadian commercial and industrial enterprise. It recommended the creation of a Federal Trade and Industry Commission with legislative power to supervise business and repress Unfair tactics — much on the same lines as was suggested in the “codes” of the United States’ ‘‘new deal” since declared unconstitutional. Prices and marketing of raw material, regulation of labour conditions and wages were also to come under, the purview of the commission, but in regard to these matters the co-operation of the Provincial Governments was to be sought. Mr. Stevens gave public support to the recommendations of the Royal Commission before their consideration by the Cabinet had been completed and was expelled from the Ministry for his breach of joint responsibility. The indications of by-elec-tions held since Mr. Stevens’ expulsion are that the electorates agreed with the expelled Minister that a programme of social legislation was overdue in Canada, and Mr. Bennett announced in January last one that in some respects went further than the proposals of Mr. Stevens. It rested principally upon a Federal and Provincial programme of public works, subsidies for housing, and expansion of credit by reduction in interest rates. Efforts were made to heal the breach in the Conservative ranks before the Prime Minister left for the Jubilee conferences in London. He refused, how-

ever, to readmit Mr. Stevens to the Cabinet, and the latter is now devoting his energies to the development of a “Progressive Conservative” party that will not accept Mr. Bennett’s leadership, but might coalesce with the more orthodox Conservatives if Mr. Bennett were jettisoned by them. Up to the time he left for England Mr. Bennett retained his ojd control of the party, but while in London his health broke down, and it is still uncertain whether he will be able to take an active part in the general election that must be held this year. Meanwhile the Liberals, under the leadership of the former Prime Minister, Mr. W. L. Mackenzie King, have been' content to criticise the Government without placing their party’s alternative proposals before the country. The tactics have been successful in winning by-elections, but something more definite will no doubt be required to win a general election. Judging from the cautious indications given by Mr. King from time to time there Seems more likelihood of reciprocity in trading with other portions of the Empire under a Liberal Government than under one headed by Mr. Bennett. In Canada, as in Australia, it is the commercial and manufacturing interests that have exercised the most potent influence in Federal politics. Tariffs, freights, railway services and industrial legislation has been shaped, say the opponents of the Government, for the benefit, of those interests. It is true that with the domestic market for manufactured goods protected by a high tariff there has been no objection to similar protection for primary products, but troubles in the “prairie” wheatgrowing provinces and in the dairying 1 districts in Eastern Canada have had their effect recently to the extent of Federal support of the wheat pool in the hope of maintaining prices, and a straight out subsidy to manufacturers of cheese. Desire for trade reciprocity with the United States rather than with Great Britain is another charge laid against the Bennett administration, and there have been bitter complaints in Britain, that Canada has exploited to the full the Ottawa agreements where they favoured Canadian exports, but has been much less punctilious in affording imports from Great Britain the chance of competing with Canadian manufactures also.implied in those agreements. In addition’to the two Conservative and Liberal parties there is a fourth that demands the selection of a National Government to rescue Canada from her economic difficulties. The New Zealand attitude, so far as reciprocal trading is concerned, will be probably that no Canadian leader could have been stricter than Mr. Bennett in his determination to preserve the domestic market for Canadian producers, primary and secondary, and that any change in Government or policy there should assist rather than retard trade reciprocity between the two Dominions.