CANADA'S ELECTION PROSPECTS
By B. K. SANDWELL*
CANADIAN federal politics are at the moment un- usually obscure, confused, and full of unprecedented and incalculable factors. But the obscurity is mostly superficial ; what is going on underneath is neither so unprecedented nor so incalculable as the casual observer might supposc.
What is taking place is the reconstruction and re- Orientation of the historic Conservative Party. The operation will be a long one ; the patient is on the operating table, and the anaesthetics have been adminis-' tered ; unconsciousness will continue until some time after the general election ; convalescence until well on in the life of the next Parliament. But there is no reason to doubt recovery.
The immediate cause of the reconstruction operation is the closing of the period of the personal domination of the party by Mr. R. R Bennett. From the time of his selection as leader in 1927, he has exercised a prac- tically complete one-man control over its policies and actions, but he leaves no political heir. Until the break- down of his health early in the present year, it was generally supposed that he would carry on for another Parliament, and the question of the future tendencies of the party" did not therefore appear urgent ; and while the party's popularity in the constituencies was obviously diminish- ing, there was a good deal of confidence in the resource- fulness of the Prime Minister, and of belief that when lie gave the matter his attention he would be able to infuse new life into the old Conservative doctrines.
His attempt to do so in the Five Great Broadcasts of January this year excited fresh hopes in a large section of the party for several weeks. Had he called an election in the early months of the year, it is quite possible that * Mr. Sandwell is Editor, of the well-known Toronto weekly, Saturday Night. he would have been able to command a fair degree of party unanimity, and that the new policies which .he enunciated would have appealed to considerable numbers, of the politically unattached and economically distressed elements. But his impaired health, and his desire to attend the Jubilee ceremonies, prevented him from' taking this course ; and long before the 'last session of the seventeenth Parliament ended it had become clear that Mr. Bennett's autocratic command of the party was at an end. He was persuaded, probably much against his will, to retain the leadership for the term of the campaign. Of the two ablest of his lieutenants, one started a party of his own and the other retired to the Senate ; and the Toronto Telegram, one of the most devoted of Conservative organs,. printed a, cartoon depicting the leader as captain of a storm-tossed Vessel handing out life-preservers to his crew with the Words : " You have wives and children, boys; and you'd better save yourselves the best you can ; I have nobody to love me and I'll stick to the ship I " In these circumstances, it is obviously not to be expected' that the Conservative Patty 'will make much of a showing in the fortheoming elections. Mr. Stevens, the former Minister of Trade and Commerce and chairman of the Price Spreads Committee, who is at the moment leading', what he calls the ReconStruetion Party, is far ttio practical' a politician to devote' IthriSelf permanently rte'',the task of building up an entirely "riew third • .partylor fourth or fifth party, as the case may be.. If, 115 secins most likely now, he manages to bring into the next House, of Commons a considerable body of followers pledged to obey his leadership, he will be able to negotiate from a very advantageous position with 'whatever " rump " of his former Conservative colleagues may get back to the House and haVe to settle the question who shall lead them when Mr. Bennett retires. One thing is very clear from the present attitude and language of the Conservative Press and candidates, namely that they do not propose to commit themselves to any position in which they will have to regard Mr. Stevens permanently as a traitor to the party. Some such crucial struggle as this over the future ten- dencies of the Conservative Party was doubtless inevitable, though a. more skilled politician than Mr. Bennett might have succeeded in keeping it ,within the ordinary limits of caucus conflict. Neither of the old parties had, until Mr. bennett's broadcasts, made any concessions to the rising tide of Socialist thought—which in any case has not risen 41 Canada to anything like the height that it has attained in European countries. The party which, in Canada, was Obviously indicated as the one which must either- make Such concessions or lose' votes to an avowedly Socialistic new party was the Conservatives. They are the urban Party and the industrial party ; they are accustomed to State interference with commerce in the form of the Protective tariff, and they are accustomed to the idea of distributing some of the benefits of this tariff to the workers by State regulation of working conditions. The liberals.are an agricultural party, and in•Eastern Canada they draw a great deal of their support from French- Canadian, and therefore Catholic, elements ; and on both grounds their sympathy with Socialism is necessarily limited, • It was therefore far easier for the Conservatives than for the Liberals to make concessions to the new economic opinion which demands extensive regimentation and planning in industry and commerce ; bUt even the Conservatives could not do it without a wrench, and the wrench is now going on. • It would not do to draw too many conclusions from the results of a succession of provincial elections, but so far as they suggest anything, it is that there is a definite desire to ensure a strong Government by concentrating' votes upon the party which looks like the winner. Mr. King at any rate is appealing to that desire very strongly, and he is a pretty good reader of the political weather. The chances, never very good, of the C.C.F. or Socialist Party increasing its present representation have been greatly worsened by the advent of the Stevens Party, which will gather up most of the dissatisfied except those Who have out-and-out Socialist convictions—and these latter are exceedingly few in all but five or six con- stituencies with a large non-native population. Socialism is not an indigenous North American plant ; it could'. not well be so in a continent only just out of the pioneering' Stage.. Most of the Canadians• who regard themselves as Socialists are , merely advocates of a wide programme of State intervention in production and distribution. Present indications, therefore, are for a working majority of Liberals in the next House, with a C.C.F. re- presentation perhaps smaller than the present group— not all avowed Socialists—who recognise a certain limited' allegiance to Mr. Woodsworth and talk of themselves as " we in this corner of the House." The proportions in which the rest of the House will be divided between regular Conservatives and Stevensites it is quite' im- possible to predict. The Conservatives have • the money, the organisation and the tradition ; the Stevensites have the energy and the popular enthusiasm. Their relative strength will have little effect upon the course of legisla- tion for the next few years, but it may have much effect Upon the line of development of the Conservative Party;
Previous page
