SIDE OF ALLIES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20079, 27 October 1939, Page 7

SIDE OF ALLIES

ELECTION DECISION DUPLESSIS DEFEATED SUPPORT TO OTTAWA POLICY OF WAR (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Oct. 27, 11.15 a.m.) QUEBEC. Oct. 26. With one result still to be declared, the state of parties as a result of the Quebec provincial Parliamentary elections is as follows: Liberal .. • ■ 63 Union Nationale .. 15 ■ National .. 1 Independent . . 1

The outstanding questions on which the Quebec province voted were provincial autonomy, conscription, and Canada’s participation in the war. Although the Premier, Mr. Maurice Duplessis, was himself re-elected, seven of his Cabinet were defeated. Dr. J. Godbout will return to the Premiership. The Duplessis party conceded the Liberal victory. The Federal Minister of Justice, Mr. E. Lapointe, in a statement, thanked voters and said he was remaining at his post. The defeat of the Duplessis Government eased the tense situation in the Dominion Cabinet, from which three Liberal Ministers of Quebec had said they were resigning if the party was defeated. The leader of the Action Liberale Nationale, Mr. Paulgouin. was himself defeated.

Mr. Duplessis declined to comment

Sweeping Endorsement

Dominion officials acclaim the Liberal victory is a sweeping endorsement of the Federal Government's war policy. The Prime Minister, Mr. W. L. Mackenzie King, asserted that it was impossible to exaggerate the significance of the voting, which, he said, had shown that the people of Quebec shared the determination of their fellow Canadians that a united Canada should co-operate on the side of Britain and France in the war to defend freedom and resist aggression.

Ottawa messages state that the Canadian press states that without the Quebec election there would doubtless have been a general election in 1940, but since the Government’s war record was to a considerable extent the issue in the Quebec poll, Mr. Mackenzie King might consider the result as a vote of confidence sufficiently convincing to warrant him in asking Parliament to extend the life beyond the five years in the same way as on the outbreak of the Great War.