The Grit Administration

On the morrow of the reassembly of the Canadian Parliament at Ottawa, certain signs have taken form, clearly indicating that Premier William Lyon Mackenzie King, temporal and spiritual successor of Canada's great Prime Minister, Sir Wilfred Laurier, intends to throw the country a bone of contention by asking the Governor General to dissolve Parliament and call a general election.

Of these signs, as yet only abstractly visible, the principal one is that Premier King is feeling strong enough to face the country and confident enough that the Grits* can score an even greater victory than they did in the last Dominion election. These considerations are materially strengthened by the fact that a number of recent bye-elections have resulted in victories for the Liberal Party now in power, thus re-electing to some extent public approbation of the policies of the Government. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Premier came forward, last week, and threatened that any obstruction of his policies on the part of the Opposition (strongest in the Senate) would be met with a general election, although the Government's lease of political life does not legally expire until next year.-- It was the opinion among certain opposition sages that the Premier would be obliged to use his threat; for it was and is thought improbable that the Conservative Senators (majority group) will stoop to swallow the pie made for them by Chef King. The latter may repeat in vain that there is no pie like his, be it ever so humble.

With the prospect of an early gen eral election, some speculation has been heard on the probable planks on which the Liberals will carry on their campaign. Three main issues have been named: 1) Tariff Re form, 2) Senate Reform, 3) Railway Freight Rates.

Tariff Reform. Canadian Liberals, like their elder brothers in Britain, are confirmed free traders, but here the analogy has to be reversed. Protection is as much of an accepted political dogma as is Free Trade in the Mother Country, with this great difference: a swing from Free Trade to Protection in Britain would not have the immediate consequences that a swing from Protection to Free Trade would have in Canada; for, in the latter case, the country would be thrown open to the exploitation of the U. S. mass production magnates, against whom the comparatively juvenile industrialists of Canada could not stand. Any Canadian Premier that had the courage to go to the country on such an issue would fall; Premier King naturally does not raise the issue, but the Progressives and the Conservatives do.

The Progressive Party, which has as its leader, Robert Forke, M. P. for Brandon, Manitoba, and as its disciple that intrepid Irishman Robert A. Hoey, M. P., for Springfield, Manitoba, is essentially a farmers' party of the West. This party has recently lost faith in Protection, which is understandable enough; for, if the protective tariff were done away with, they would stand to gain by being enabled to buy farm implements, etc., cheaper and at the same time risk nothing, their great wheat markets being unaffected. For all they cared, industry could go by the board.

The Conservatives, ardent champions of Protection, want the protective tariffs raised to where they were before Premier King reduced them a year ago, or even higher. Upon these reductions they base the present depression of business conditions now being felt in the great Dominion, and doubtless (to their own satisfaction) they can prove it.

Thus Premier King stands between the Progressives and the Conservatives. He believes his legs strong enough to support him throughout an election and an ensuing five years of power.

Senate Reform. This is the "big issue" and one that has often been heard of in Canada. Premier King, here joined by the Progressives, is determined to reduce not only the powers of the Senate but its very composition. He would reduce the powers of the Senate to the undignified status abhorred by the British Lords; that is, he would make it an empty debating chamber with a suspensory veto whereby any measure passed three times by the Canadian House of Commons would become the land's law no matter what the Senate thought about it. As regards the composition of the Senate, the Premier would have the Senators elected (not appointed) for definite periods and with a definite retiring age.* There can be no doubt that such radical legislation, if carried, would not only impair the dignity of that august House (make it a forum of party politics rather than a custodian of national rights and liberties as at present), but would remove a pillar of the Constitution, as well as such hoary Senators as nonagenarian George Casimir Dessaulles, Dean of the Senate, and a most active man.

But it is easier to talk about Senate Reform than to accomplish it, as no less a Canadian statesman than Sir Wilfred Laurier found out. The House of Commons can initiate and pass a bill; of that there is no doubt. The bill would necessarily take the form of an amendment to the British North America Act (the Canadian Constitution)+- and that requires--irrespective of whether the bill were passed over the heads of the venerable Senators, which is impossible--an address from both Houses of the Canadian Parliament requesting the Mother Parliament at Westminster to amend the Act. Thus it becomes apparent that the rights and privileges of the Senate cannot be altered except by the consent of the Senate itself.

Freight Rates. The Progressives want a uniform freight rate applicable to all sections of Canada and apparently Premier King's past flirtations with the Progressives have resulted in his agreement to the measure. This subject is extremely intricate and is virtually a fight between politics and the Canadian Pacific Railway, but whether it is practical politics is doubtful.

The Premier's maternal grandfather was William Lyon Mackenzie, the "Little Rebel" of the Rebellion of 1837. His father's name was King and he (the present Premier) was christened William Lyon Mackenzie, but so distinguished a name is Mackenzie in Canadian annals that he decided to style himself Mackenzie King.

In his earlier days he was known as "Billy," received his education at the Universities of Toronto, Harvard, Chicago; and, in a distressful interlude in an otherwise progressively successful career, he was said to have wandered about Chicago "ragged and cold."

Today, at 51 years of age, he can easily be detected in the House of Commons, where he is prone to wield his fists and "bellow with lungs of brass." In stature he is short, fat, broad, with massive chin and jaws and a red face. When speaking, he rocks himself on his toes and heels, his corpulence advancing and receding alternately. Before his corpulent days, it was said that he could "box, chop wood, throw trunks."

Apart from having written two books (of no great merit) on economics the Premier is unquestionably a clever man, although even his best friends would deny that he was "brilliant." Perhaps that is the fault of his old chief, Sir Wilfred Laurier, whose mantle Mr. Mackenzie King now finds about his shoulders. His speech is fluent and of mellow tone, his diction eloquent, but he has none of that courteous power with which Sir Wilfred was blest.

Before and during part of the war, Mr. Mackenzie King was engaged in industrial research for the Rockefeller Institute. Many Canadians thought that he should have been at the War; and, when he returned to Canada actively to enter politics, he was "the most unpopular man in Ottawa." But so successfully did he defend himself in the House, by declaring that he was of more value to the world in his work than he would have been at the front, that society's front doors opened to him.

By and large, the Premier is popular. His correctly and excellently tailored clothes give him a quiet dignity which, refreshed by his chubby geniality, won from Mrs. Asquith (now Countess of Oxford), when she visited the country in 1922, the epithet of "Angel."

*Senators are appointed for life on the recommendation of the Prime Minister by the Governor-General under the Great Seal of Canada.

/-The Constitution of Canada, which made the Dominion a federated state, is diametrically opposed to the U. S. Constitution. The 48 United ' States of America endow the Federal Government with only such part of their sovereignty as they have ceded. In Canada, the Federal Government exercises full sovereignty and allows to the nine provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan) and Yukon and the North-West Territories only such legislative and administrative powers as directly concern them.