Evening star., 1935-10-15
Canada Goes Liberal.

Canadian Liberals have apparently
won the Dominion parliamentary elec-
tions in a landslide. Prime Minister
Bennett and his Conservative govern
ment, which sought to give the country
an anti-depreSsion New Deal on semi
Rooseveltian lines, are ignominiously
swept out of Office, to be succeeded by
Liberal regime headed by the sea-
soned William Lyon Mackenzie King,
who has occupied the premiership on
three previous occasions.
1t comes as particular satisfaction
to the victor to triumph under the cir
cumstances which again place him at
the helm. Mackenzie King was in
power in 1880, when the economic crisis
gripping the United States and the rest
of the world struck Canada. Just as
its results were destined to doom the
Hoover administration they proved the
undoing of Canada Liberal government,
and the Conservatives under Bennett
were voted into control by an over
whelming majority Mackenzie King
and his cohorts have now turned the
tables on their conquerors of 1880. Is
it perhaps an omen that history just
made in Canada may repeat itself here
in 1886 under circumstances not alto
gether dissimilar?
Late returns indicate that the Liberals
have won clear majority of the 245
seats in the House of Commons, with
safe margin over all opposition groups
combined. Mr.. Benefits supporters will
outnumber other minority elements that
figured in the election-the up-and-
coming Social Creditors" the Recon-
structionists and the Cooperative Com
monwealth Federation-but the two
last-named parties, new arrivals in Ca
madam politics, made their inroads
chiefly at Conservative expense and
paved the way to the downfall of the
Bennett government. There were cam
paign suggestions that neither Liberals
nor Conservatives might win sufi-
ciently decisive victory to justify one
party government and that a coalition
cabinet, representing all groups, would
be established. The smashing Liberal
victory gives Mackenzie King man
date for a regime consisting exclusively
of his partisans. The Liberal sweep set
in in the eastern maritime provinces
Sir Wilfred Laurier's old strongholds-
and rolled across the western industrial
and agrarian provinces with irresistible
momentum. Reelected from his old
constituency in Alberta, Mr.. Bennett
now becomes leader of the opposition.
The Liberals pledged the country to
do away with much of the New Deal
program invoked by Prime Minister
Bennett in the hope of restoring pros
perity. They promise a trade and tariff
policy based on broad reciprocal lines,
especially through agreements with the
United States and Japan. They oppose
privately owned and controlled ma
tional banking system, planning to sup
plant it with government-ruled system
to perform the functions of rediscount
and control of currency and credit in
terms of public need. Canadian relations
with Great Britain are likely to be So
lidified in the empire spirit under the
Liberals, while those with the United
States, because of Mr.. Mackenzie Kings
eagerness for mutually beneficial tariff
arrangements, face nothing but change
for the better.
The Dominion, like this country, is
steadily recovering from the ravages of
depression, though, like ourselves, Too,
it is not yet out of the woods. Ameri-
cans will cordially wish that in swapping
horses at Ottawa, our great neighbor will
find that it has chosen wisely and well.