Turn of the Tide?

Is the political tide beginning to turn against Canada's long-dominant Liberal Party? Politicians wondered last week after four hotly contested by-elections in Quebec and New Brunswick ridings that were regarded as Liberal strongholds. The Liberals won only one of the by-elections in their oldtime form. In the second their majority was sharply cut and in the third the Liberal nominee barely managed to win. In the fourth by-election, the opposition Tory candidate won a seat the Liberals had held for 22 years.

The upset winner was Charles Van Horne, 34, a Campbellton, N.B. lawyer, who carried a constituency where the Liberals had a 5,500-vote majority in the 1953 election. Before voting day, Tory Van Horne staged a monster dance and a succession of oyster parties and receptions, where he met and shook hands with an estimated 10,000 voters. The Liberals moved in Cabinet Ministers, Senators and M.P.s to make formal campaign speeches, but Van Horne's personal contacts paid off with a 2,000-vote majority.

In Quebec--usually as solidly Liberal as Georgia is Democratic--the returns gave Liberal politicos far more to worry than to cheer about. In one riding, where the party's 1953 winning margin was 12,591, their margin was reduced to 3,203. In another district, where no Tory candidate had come close since 1911, the lead seesawed for hours before the Liberal candidate finally slid in front by 562 votes. In the one Quebec riding where the Liberal majority was normal, it was a question whether the appeal of the party or the luster of the candidate's name drew the votes; the Liberal nominee was Jean-Paul St. Laurent, 43, second son of Canada's Quebec-born Prime Minister.

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