CANADA, DOMINION OF. 



In February Mr. W. F. Maclean, M. P., editor 

 and proprietor of the Toronto World, published 

 the following platform, which he has since con- 

 tinued to press, and many planks of which are 

 approved by x the Conservative party. Some, how- 

 ever, such" as nationalization of telegraphs and 

 public ownership of franchises, are new to party 

 platforms: 



1. Rounding off confederation by taking in 

 Newfoundland. 



2. Imperial federation and preferential trade be- 

 tween the sections of the empire. 



3. Protection to Canadian industries and a reci- 

 procity of tariffs as between us and those who tax 

 Canadian products. Export duties sufficient to 

 compel the manufacture in Canada of Canadian 

 logs, woods, pulp, ores, metals. Customs duties 

 or bounties sufficient to build up a great iron 

 industry in Canada. 



4. State-owned cables between Britain and 

 Canada, and between Canada and Australia. 



5. Nationalization of the Canadian telegraph 

 and telephone systems as a part of the post office. 



0. A national fast Atlantic service between the 

 nearest available Canadian and British ports. 



7. Canadian railways to have their Atlantic 

 terminals in some Canadian port. 



8. Maintenance of the independence of the Cana- 

 dian national railway (the Intercolonial), and its 

 gradual extension westward. This national rail- 

 \vuy to be the complement of the fast Atlantic 

 service. 



9. A strong and impartial railway commission 

 to regulate rates and the relations of railways one 

 with the other and with municipalities and indi- 

 viduals. 



10. No railway subsidies without corresponding 

 control and ownership of the roads subsidized. 



11. A federal insolvency law. 



12. Laws to regulate trusts, corporations, trade 

 combinations, and holders of patents in their treat- 

 ment of the public. 



13. Extension of the principle of public owner- 

 ship and control to all public franchises within 

 provincial and municipal jurisdiction. 



As the electoral conflict approached the press 

 teemed with references to the policies and per- 

 formances and promises of the two parties. The 

 Government, or the Liberal party, held that during 

 its four years of power an immense amount of 

 useful legislation had been enacted and the coun- 

 try greatly helped in its path toward prosperity 

 and nationality within the broad bounds of the 

 British Empire. Their claims may be summarized 

 as follows: The settlement of the Manitoba school 

 question; the reduction of the tariff; the granting 

 of a preference to Great Britain; sending of Cana- 

 dian volunteers to South Africa; the vigorous de- 

 velopment of transportation facilities; the estab- 

 lishment of imperial penny postage; the establish- 

 ment of the postal-note system ; the placing of the 

 Intercolonial railway on a paying basis; the aboli- 

 tion of land grants to railways; the gaining of 

 valuable concessions from existing railways and 

 the control of freight rates and running 'powers 

 over all new roads; the opening up and establish- 

 ment of liberty, law, and order in the Yukon, 

 without cost to the Dominion ; the abolition of the 

 franchise act; the repeal of the superannuation 

 act : the attempted repeal of the " gerrymander 

 !i<-t '' of 1882; the abolition of the sweating system 

 in Government contracts; the securing of the con- 

 ir-sidii by the British Parliament allowing British 

 irust funds to be invested in Canadian securities; 

 the securing of the abolition of the United States 

 quarantine regulations, which increased the export 

 of cattle to the United States from .$8,870 in 1896 



to $1,173,000 in 1899; the establishment of a sys- 

 tem of cold storage for the transportation of our 

 products to Great Britain; the reservation of Do- 

 minion lands for the settler and not for the specu- 

 lator. 



The Conservative view of the issues involved can 

 not be better outlined than in the following de- 

 nunciation of the Government, contained in the 

 Montreal Gazette of June 16 and repeated in vari- 

 ous forms from a thousand platforms : 



It broke a contract for fast Atlantic mail service 

 to put the St. Lawrence on a level with New York, 

 and it proved itself unable to make another. 



It broke an arrangement by which the Crow's 

 Nest Pass Railway was to have been constructed 

 for $1,600,000. and made another that cost the 

 country $3,600,000. 



It bought from a political supporter, at a price 

 far above its cash cost, the Drummond County 

 Railway, and then bonused another railway to 

 take trade away from it. 



It made a contract, without tenders being asked, 

 for the construction of a railway into the Yukon 

 country, pledging as a bonus millions upon mil- 

 lions of square miles of land in the great gold- 

 bearing region, a contract so bad that the whole 

 people revolted against it. 



It filled the Yukon country with officials whose 

 conduct was so scandalous that the greatest 

 journal of opinion in England said the relations 

 between people and rulers in that section of the 

 British Empire were everything that they should 

 not be. 



It refused a public independent inquiry into the 

 conduct of these officials, though charges were 

 made against them by name on the floor of Parlia- 

 ment by a member of the Privy Council. 



It bungled its tariff legislation so that Canadian 

 grain was shut out of the German market. 



It instituted a splurge preferential tariff system 

 from which Canada has not received, and can not 

 receive, any commercial advantage, and which can 

 not be made effective of its intended purpose ex- 

 cept at the risk of Canadian industries. 



It put an insulting " no precedent " proviso in 

 the order in Council authorizing the dispatch of 

 Canadian soldiers to the war in South Africa. 



It compounded cases of customs fraud which had 

 been brought into the courts, and this against the 

 protests of straightforward importers and mer- 

 chants. 



It appointed unqualified men, and men who had 

 been condemned by the courts as political corrup- 

 tionists, to important places of trust and emolu- 

 ment. 



It spent tens of thousands of dollars in paying 

 partisan commissions for going about the country 

 looking through the public service for employees' 

 who had voted against its party candidates. 



It raised millions more by taxation than its' 

 members had declared the people could bear, and 

 spent ten millions more a year than they had 

 pledged themselves to show was sufficient for the 

 needs of the count ry. 



It established the system of giving contracts 

 without tender to political friends, who sublet the 

 work, at a profit to themselves and a loss to the 

 country, to men not capable of doing it. 



It forced two qualified commanders of the militia 

 to throw up their positions in disgust at the ideals 

 and methods of its administration of the country's 

 armed forces. 



On Oct. 9 Parliament was dissolved, the nomina- 

 tions to be on Oct. 31 and the elections on Nov. 7. 

 The country was at once in a political turmoil, 

 although the issues wcro really not very serious. 

 Sir Charles Tupper, the veteran Conesrvative lead- 



