First Foot Forward

The first socialist government in Canada put itself on exhibit this week.

Saskatchewan's C.C.F. Cabinet, duly sworn in and settled down to work, offered Canadians a preview of what they could expect in the way of a national socialist government. Premier Tommy Douglas' twelve-man Cabinet was long on party loyalty and enthusiasm, naturally short on administrative experience. The Cabinet's strongest point: it was thoroughly typical of the rural, grain-growing people who had put the C.C.F. in provincial power. Among the members were one clergyman (Douglas), five farmers, three schoolteachers, one expert on farm cooperatives, a railway man, a lawyer. Three of Douglas' principal advisers:

P: Attorney General John Wesley Corman, 56, is the Cabinet's oldest member, its strongest personality. When appointed, he was in his fifth term as mayor of Moose Jaw (pop: 20,500). Eastern bred and eastern educated (Toronto University), he is now as western as Moose Jaw. He firmly believes the rural west has had a raw deal from St. James Street (Canada's Wall Street).

P: Provincial Treasurer Clarence Fines, 38, used to be a schoolteacher. He has been working at political socialism for 15 years, was in on the party's birth ten years ago in Regina. Fines learned what he knows about public finance from his own homework, eight years on Regina's City Council.

P: Agriculture Minister George Williams, 49, was a Canadian Army major until he was invalided home in May. He has been a schoolteacher, a farmer, his party's provincial leader. In 1931 he represented Saskatchewan's farmers at an international wheat conference in Rome. At Moscow's invitation he studied Soviet Union methods and later wrote a book about them (The Land of the Soviets).

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