Battle of Bachelors

(See front cover)

July 28 is National Election Day in Canada. Wooing the electorate are two bachelors:

Bachelor William Lyon Mackenzie King has been Prime Minister since 1921, except for an interval of three months when the Conservatives got in (TIME, July 5 to Sept. 27, 1926). Thus Mr. King and his Liberals parallel the U. S. Republican Party in their long tenure of Power. But they are more like U. S. Democrats in being free-traders with a wobble toward protection.

Bachelor Richard Bedford Bennett, the Conservative leader, is a "new" man, 60 years old. He has never been Prime Minister. He won his leadership at the Conservative Party caucus of 1927, after Conservative Prime Minister Arthur Meighen had been forced out of office a total failure.

The Issue. Just as U. S. Republicans and Democrats stand broadly for much the same things, so do Canadian Conservatives and Liberals. There is a little ''religious issue" up in Saskatchewan (the Catholics claiming that Protestant Bennett is abetting the Canadian Ku Klux Klan) but this is scarcely of Dominion importance. Down east in Quebec there is the issue of "conscription." Canada had a Conservative government during the War. Its members forced conscription upon all Canada, against the bitter protests of Quebec. After the War, Quebeckers (who had been called "cowards" by their ancient Ontario enemies) turned Liberal and have stayed Liberal. Up to this present election they have voted for Mr. King not because they are Liberal at heart (for French-Canadian farmers are as conservative as French peasants), but simply as a rebuke to the Conservatives, hated imposers of conscription. In this year's election, however, many believe that Quebec has worked off her old grudge, will switch to Bachelor Bennett.

The real issue has nothing to do with Saskatchewan Catholics, Quebec farmers or Ontario's industrial proletariat. The na- tional issue is the Canadian tariff.

"Traitor" King. In their campaign speeches Bachelors Bennett and King have made amply clear that each is resolved to deprive the U. S. of any undue tariff advantage. The recent budget, brought in by Mr. King's Finance Minister, the Rt. Hon. Charles Avery ("Charlie") Dunning (TIME, May 12). wobbled as far from traditional free trade as did the Al Smith- Democratic platform of 1928.

Mr. Dunning's basic innovation was "countervailing duties." If the U. S. duty on cold storage eggs is raised or lowered to X-c- per dozen, then the Canadian duty on U. S. cold storage eggs automatically goes to X-c-. From the Liberal standpoint of preferring to have free trade, the Dunning scheme looks like an honest effort to set Canadian duties no higher than "circumstances make necessary" and to lower them again at the first sign of "cooperation" from the U. S. or other high-tariff countries.

But shrewd Mr. Bennett has looked through this Liberal telescope from the opposite end.

"So our opponents are going to let the United States write Canada's tariff act!" he has exclaimed with effective horror upon numerous platforms. He has asked, "Shall this be?" Waving the maple-leaf-embroidered shirt of Canadian patriotism, he has suggested that Mr. King is in effect almost a traitor to the Dominion.

"Traitor" Bennett. On the constructive side of his campaign speeches, Mr. Bennett has urged much more than countervailing duties, in fact high tariffs all around, and protections for Canadian industries even against those of the Mother Country. By turning this idea inside out Mr. King and his henchmen (who favor "preferential tariffs" on Empire goods) have been able to impute to Mr. Bennett a sort of spacious treachery to the Empire as a whole, a niggardly and local view. This is the more grotesque because the Conservative Party is traditionally the arch-Imperial party of Canada. But in this election Mr. Bennett has wobbled too. Of course neither of Canada's suave and astute bachelors has actually called the other "traitor," any more than Messrs. Hoover and Smith called each other names, but the animus, the insinuation has been there.

Ten Million Dollars. Surveying Mr. Bennett as a potent figure who may soon become Prime Minister, he is seen to be courageous, rich and righteous. Born in the Province of New Brunswick, he early showed a passion for industry and recti tude. While other little boys and girls were at play, he read and later studied. Today at 60, though he can be genial, he has not yet learned to play.

Graduated by Dalhousie University, Mr. Bennett was called to the Canadian bar in 1903, rose steadily as a corporation lawyer, became in time counsel for Canadian Pacific Railways and Hudson's Bay Co. Having thus reached the top of his profession, he argued for these two world-potent clients before the highest Empire court, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London.

Oddly enough a major portion of Lawyer Bennett's wealth--estimated at $10,000,000--came as an absolute windfall. He had been one of three zealous Sunday School teachers in his youth, the other two being a young woman and her brother. This three-cornered friendship was lifelong. The young woman married Lumber Tycoon E. B. Eddy. Presently he died. Mrs. Eddy and her brother, when they died, left 1.507 shares (control) of E. B. Eddy Co. to their pious friend "Dick" Bennett.

In 1893 the square-chinned, keen-eyed lawyer began his political career in the Northwest Provincial Legislature, has steadily advanced in the Conservative Party, was at one time Minister of Justice. In 1927, with the Party politically bankrupt, Bachelor Bennett was called to a helm he has since masterfully held, putting new vim and fight into Conservatives. He lives at Palliser Hotel in Calgary, Alberta, in austere magnificence with his sister, who idolizes and prays for him. In the lay councils of the United Church of Canada he is paramount.

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