ELECTIONS IN CANADA
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—May one point out a slight error in your comment last week on the recent provincial elections in Canada, where you say that Ontario has been " inflexibly Conservative for a generation " ? In 1919 the then Conservative Government, which had been in power for 14 years, was defeated by the " United Farmers " Party, a coalition of fanner-pro- gressives and labourites, headed by the Hon. E. C. Drury. It was not until 1923 that Ontario reverted to the Con- servative Party.
The peculiarity of the federal system of government is that the individual State may be both things at once—with one party in power in the State or Provincial Legislature, but with a predominance of the opposite party elected, from precisely the same territorial area, to represent it in the Federal Parliament. This is because the party name does not always mean the same thing in the two spheres. Thus, while the " Farmers " were in control of Ontario, the Ontario representation at Ottawa contained, out of 82, 21 Liberals and 37 Conservatives. When Mr. Mackenzie King was last in power at Ottawa, the General Election which sent him back (1926) included the election from Ontario of 23 Liberals, 53 Conservatives and 6 Progressives. Yet simultaneously there was a very strong Conservative Pro- vincial Government in Ontario, headed by Mr. G. H. Ferguson,
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