CANADA.

Hokitika Guardian, 11 September 1926, Page 4

CANADA.

POLITICAL ISSCKS. CAMPAIGN LAUNCH El). VANCOUVER, July 28. In officially announcing the Canadian I’edernl election for September IMlh. Hon. Arthur Meigli an. Conserva- I tive Lender, in the official opening speech of the campaign, took opportunity to delineate the issues of the stormy days before the electorate. An enormous crowd assembled in Ottawa to hear the Conservative Premier open his guns on his Liberal enemies, and. incidentally, the astute Canadian lawyer delivered a scathing expose of the corruption which occurred during the last administration iii thc/Customs Department of the Government. The big issue of the campaign, judging by the prominence Mr Meighen gave it. is the Customs scandal and the responsibility of the late Government, hut he also dealt with the constitutional issue and briefly with the fundamentals of the Conservative policy. None ol them was clothed in obscurity. Senator Robertson addressed himself to what he described as the main work ol the session, the enquiry into the Customs administration. Tie characterised it as “ such a profundity of inefficiency and neglect and such a mass of malfeasance on the part of officers high and low and of the Afihister Idmsell as had never been paralleled before in revelations of any Canadian Parliament. V

He asked people to read for themselves the evidence and the report, alluded to the high importance of the Customs service that collects 200.000.000 dollars'’annually, charged that 90 per cent, ot the stolen goods in the United States came to Canada, and. in strong language, denounced smuggling and trafficking in stolen automobiles, goods, and liquors, charging it with demoralising consequences upon legitimate trade and industry, upon Canadian workmen seeking employment and upon the revenue. The degeneracy, he said, began under the Mackenzie King administration “ with the full knowledge of the Prime Minister.” He had done nothing effective to stop it. -V COLLAPSED COVERNALENT.

Mr Meighen declared that the Customs Department, as an instrument of government, had collapsed. The Premier quoted at length from the evidence as to the effects of smuggling on legitimate business. The King Government, he stressed, had been rightly censured by the House by a majority of ten. Should such a Ministry, he demanded, he given a certificate of character? He scouted the idea. The Premier characterised as baseless the suggestion of any sectionalism in the Customs enquiry as affecting Quebec, and touched upon the appointment of Sir Francois Lemieux to continue the enquiry.

Tlie Prime Minister gave short shrift to the “ constitutional ” argument, warmly defending Lord Byng. Upon this he said, in part “ It can be definitely stated -that, never within a cen-

tury, never in the history of Parliamentary Government as we have it today, has any Prime Minister ever demeaned himself even to ask for dissolution while a censure of his own Government was under debate. In the present case that happened.” Mr Meiglien’.s conclusion was a stout reaffirmative of the protective principle, of the intention of initiating a fruitful immigration policy, of assisting tire remote parts of the Dominion in access to the central markets, and of developing commodity co-operation in marketing. He appealed for support of all classes of the country. “Nothing could be worse for Canada than to impeach, the conduct of the representative of the Throne,” said Mr Meighen, “ and bring the great and revered link of Empire into the turmoil of political life. As'' a matter of truth there is no constitutional issue.”