Uncertainty

All Canada was restless. The people, itching with impatience, wanted to know whether there would be another session of the 19th Parliament, and when the gen eral election would be held.

The press was frustrated and angry. Columnists tried to sound knowing, merely sounded vague. Said the Montreal Gazette: it is time "to clear the air and to put an end to the uncertainty that is strangling the nation's effort at home. . . ."

Neither of the week's two developments cleared the air. First, the Government issued a proclamation formally extending the current adjournment of Parliament from Feb. 28 to March 31. March 31 is the Saturday before Easter. Parliament could still be called any time before then, or there could be another extension, or Parliament might not be called at all. Later, Canada's Chief Electoral Officer, Jules Castonguay, announced cancellation of nine upcoming by-elections. His reason: they were unnecessary because Parliament will certainly be dissolved on or before April 17, when its legal life ends.

The situation was full of perplexities. For one, Canada's appropriations run out March 31, and it is Parliament's job to vote new funds with which to run the country and the war. Most appropriation bills are debated fiercely. Even if Parliament should be called to pass them, would there be time? If Parliament did not meet at all, the Government could, in a pinch, have the Governor General issue warrants for expenditures. But would Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King deem that method undemocratic, politically dangerous, expedient, wise?

Another complication was Canada's Victory Loan drive, which is scheduled for late April and early May. A general election and a bond drive could hardly coincide.

While the country simmered, the one man who has to make all the decisions bided his time. The men who know him best were sure last week that Prime Minister King was thinking more of the war than of higgledy-piggledy politics at home.

In his jolting defeat in Grey North's recent by-election (TIME, Feb. 12), the Prime Minister had seen how wartime emotionalism could affect judgments, and he did not want an election until the war was nearer its end, if he could help it. He wanted to fight his next campaign on the issues of Canada's part in world security and reconstruction at home.

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