aller scale as bad a
case of wasting the public money as the railways of Canada ever
perpetrated. The cost of administration being a matter of either
experience or graft, it is probable that the Coalition will cut down
the cost when they get more experience. The Chippewa Canal is one
glaring instance of high labour cost which a Farmer Premier with Labour
colleagues did not presume to regulate. If anybody knows what a day's
work is it should be the farmer; but the farmer in this case was not
absolutely free to express his opinions, because he depends upon Labour
for his voting majority in the House.

In the matter of referendum Mr. Drury has been an advocate instead of a
judge. He and his--notably the church-ridden Mr. Raney, who does not
even smoke--are a dry lot. They wanted Ontario to be bone dry and
therefore preferred to have the people vote either foolishly for the
iniquitous O.T.A. or fanatically for absolute prohibition. Mr. Drury
should have taken the spark plug out of his Methodist car long enough
to reflect that what keeps a man contented is going to keep him from
stirring up trouble. If the Government of enlightened and moral
Ontario had brought in a measure to create a referendum on the
alternative of prohibition _vs._ effective government control of
reasonable liquors, it might have less cause to be panicky over
Bolshevism.

The legislation to exempt from taxation houses costing less than a
certain amount looks like a pretty straight play for the Labour vote,
and the propagation of a semi-Bolshevistic principle that unless
checked somewhere will exempt the many at the expense of the few.

But before Mr. Drury has the chance to be truly elected by the people
of Ontario to carry on his People's Party, he hopes perhaps that he may
have a chance to be called to Ottawa. It is freely rumoured that Mr.
Crerar has no intention of taking the Premiership which the liberated
people of Canada are going to bestow upon him by virtue of one more
group-coalition. In which case he may invite Mr. Drury, who has given
a sparring exhibition of being a Premier, to succeed him. Then we
shall have the undemocratic farce of an appointive Premier all over
again--for the third time in three years. And then--well, we shudder
to think what is going to become of Mr. Drury's hitherto unimpeachable
Christianity and of the economic welfare of a country which has as much
right to modern factories as the bush farmer ever had t