ng the snake!

The essence of Liberalism has always been liberation; emancipation.
But the farmers are out to smite all the shackles from all of us. They
intend to stop short only of Bolshevism. An ex-Cabinet Minister of
Alberta predicts that the farmers will sweep the country at the next
election and steer it down the rapids of economic ruin. He cites Drury
and Co. as examples of a certain sort of cunning whereby they did not
at first show their real hand, in order to get people to feel that
Agrarianism is not half so bad as painted and then--the broadening out
into the People's party. The farmers are not notorious for sheer
cunning; neither for stupidity. They are naturally hesitant about
being as radical in office as they were on the stump. As an economic
group they are no different from the old Free Trade Liberals, except
that they seek to govern as a class on behalf of that particular group.
Meanwhile the nation more or less opposed to farmerism is
disintegrating itself into more groups. Labour is out for a species of
self-determination; a Labour Party. A veteran Liberal statesman
recently asked me this question:

"Suppose that in industrial centres like Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton
and Winnipeg, Labour puts a candidate into every constituency; that
in smaller factory centres which dominate essentially rural ridings
they do the same. In each of these more or less labour-dominated
fields suppose we have the possible four candidates. Is the
Labour-Unionist in doubt over his own candidate going to vote Liberal,
Liberal-Conservative, or Farmer?"

"As a man of long experience in elections--suppose you answer that?" I
suggested.

He did not, but went on:

"I know what I should say to a labour elector under such circumstances.
I should say to him: 'You had better not touch the farmer candidate
with a ten-foot pole because--the farmer wants dear food and you want
cheap food; he wants long hours and you want short hours; he wants
imported manufactures and you want employment in your home town; he
wants free trade and you depend upon a measure of protection.'"

Nobody has ever more pithily stated the case. There is no basic
mutuality between the farm and the labour union. The farmer is as much
a capitalist as he is a labourer.

I asked the Liberal statesman bluntly:

"Don't you think that in order to avoid political devastation by
splitting the vote into three opposition groups each fighting the
other,