AN ANGRY SENATE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1167, 30 June 1911, Page 5

AN ANGRY SENATE.

PROGRESS OF RECIPROCITY. By Tclccraph—Press Association—OoDyrtetai Washington, Juno 28. Senator Penrose's motion that the vote in the Senate on the Reciprocity Bill be taken, on July 21, the vote on the Wool Bill on July 26, and the Free List Bill on July 28, was defeated. The reason Senator Penrose was defeated is believed to lie in the intention of tho Democrats to pass the Wool and tho Farmers' Free List Bills before reciprocity, thus compelling President Taft to accept them or lose reciprocity. The Reciprocity Bill was advanced another stage in a remarkable manner. While the Senate Executive was in session for fifteen minutes, the Vice-Presi-dent, Senator Sherman, finding no one ready to speak, announced that the Bill would be reported from tho Conimitteo of tho Whole to the Senate. Tho Bill actually passed that stage before members realised what was happening. There were angry protests, as Senator Sherman's action precluded the possibility of a vote on the measure. Senator Penroso finally acceded to the Bill returning to the committee stage. CANADIAN OPPOSITION.

A FIGHT TO A FINISH. Ottawa, Juno 28. Mr. K. L. Borden, Leader of the Canadian Opposition, campaigning in the Prairie provinces, outlined the Conservative policy. If returned to power at the coming elections, he declared that his party would favour preferential trade within the Empire with a common defence scheme, a referendum on all great National questions, reform of the system of making land grants to syndicates, the abolition of bonuses on growing industries, and a tariff for protection. Mr. Borden reiterated his intention to fight reciprocity to the bitter end. ' MB. BOBDEN'S CAMPAIGN. Mr. Borden, wrote the Ottawa correspondent of the New York "Evening Post" last month, is to take his course westward next month. Ho is going to the prairie provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, surrounded by his most effective speakers and by an admiring lot of newspaper men connected with the Conservative press. His mission is to preach anti-reciprocity to the people of those provinces and to show to them the error of their ways. If he can accomplish this in a few weeks at the rate of three meetings a day in the whirlwind Rooseveltian way, he will have accomplished something which will place him among the political wonders of the century, in the judgment of Canadian politicians. It is from theso western provinces that the ever-insistent demands for reciprocity, and even free trade, come.

That there will be a general election in the near future seems practically inevitable. Each side seems to want it; each side wishes to inaka reciprocity the main issue; each side seems to be equally confident of the result. Whether this samo confidence will continue after tho recess, when the rival parties will havo had an opportunity of feeling tho electoral pulso, remains to bo seen. So far (continues the correspondent) I am doubtful if the Canadian public has mastered the intricacies of the principle involved to anything like the extent that the voters on your side of the boundary have done, or have had tho opportunity of doing. Thero has been nothing like the samo closo examination into detail, tho same weighing of ,prps, and, cons in the House of Com,uioris as 'in.the House of Keprcsentatives. Here the arguments havo been mainly academic, and side issues, such as the question of annexation, have been magnified out of their relativo importance because one cannot help suspecting that the main issue is too clouded by the inexactitude of political economy as a science, and the conflict of individual interests, to bo approached with safety.