THE QUEBEC PROVINCIAL ELECTIONS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 256, 30 October 1939, Page 6

THE QUEBEC PROVINCIAL ELECTIONS

elections in the Province of Quebec have been held under conditions which should have caused the destroyers of freedom in Germany to be right glad. The racial issue, usually a strong one in the province of Old Canada, was deliberately raised by Air. Duplessis, the Provincial Premier; he. sought io exploit the war-psychosis by advancing the elections by as much as two years; and he waged a campaign which appealed to the narrowest of racial and provincial prejudices. Assimilation was supposedly to be the. aim of those who supported the Federal Prime Alinister, Air. Mackenzie King, that is to say, the elimination of the racial bloc which is nominally French, being French in language and too frequently Seotish in type, and Roman Catholic in religion. The result of the provincial elections has shown what should have been apparent to everyone, that the psychology of the mass of the people has profoundly changed since 191.4 to an entirely different constitution to-day. This change of mass-psychology is not the work of British agencies: indeed, it can be said that British agencies have been very much behind-hand in the endeavour io shape the public mind. The change that lias been wrought has been effected by the work of Herr Hitler and his lieutenants. In .1914 people had been living for a lung lime, in a world that was peaceful. There was talk of a "German Menace,” but nobody believed that it was imminent and that the floodgates of destruction would soon be flung wide open. It was not surprising, therefore, to find that the Dutch in South Africa, smartingunder memories of wrongs suffered during the Boer AVar and the I'rench Canadians who felt, themselves to he a race apart in Canada, should not be aware that their hatreds and grievances and isolationism were standing in lhe way of the preservation of their own liberties. To-day. however, no such misconceptions are possible. Herr Hiller has been, by word and by deed, demonstrating that, he seeks to destroy liberty, that the freedom of minorities is something that lie will not tolerate, that nations which stand in his path will be “absorbed.” Hitler has been the arch propagandist and he has revealed bis purpose by works which should make all decent men shudder. AVherc would be the liberties of the Drench Canadians on the morrow of Hitler gaining dominance in Canada ? This is a question that the French Canadians have for a long time been asking themselves. It is Hitler who has been forcing it on their attention. It has been impossible, to escape from the problem. Mr. Duplessis, therefore, can blame Hitler for Hie breakdown of a Liberal Party reign of forty years’ duration, coupled, of course, with his own misreading of the signs of the limes, a mistake which was shared by General Hertzog in South Africa. There are people in New Zealand who are half-hearted aboutassisting Great Britain in the effort to preserve the liberties—or what is left of them—of the people of New Zealand. They should mark well the fate of General Hertzog and Mr. Duplessis, for if they attempt to do as did these men, the fate, of all will be a common one, namely, the shadows.