Skyrocket Doused

One of the biggest turnouts of voters in Quebec history went to the polls last week and returned the eleven-year-old government of foxy, popular Liberal Premier Louis Alexandre Taschereau with a smashing majority. Even the Liberals were surprised.

Ever since 1897 the Province of Quebec has remained unflinchingly Liberal. Last year, however, the rest of Canada turned Conservative with a vengeance and swept Dominion Premier Richard Bedford Bennett into power on a Canada-First platform tinted ever so delicately with anti-U. S. sentiment. Many Quebeckers voted for Bennett. Conservative tacticians decided that last week's provincial election was the moment to invade the province in earnest.

Their standard-bearer was that political skyrocket, stocky, peppery Major Camillien Houde of Montreal. There is nothing conservative about Mr. Houde except his party. He first appeared in politics less than ten years ago when he unexpectedly won a seat in the Legislature from the stanch Liberal division of Sainte-Marie, Montreal. Since then he has shot from post to post, winning not only the mayoralty of Montreal but the leadership of the Conservative Party in the province. In his drive for the Premiership he has stumped Quebec all summer hurling accusations of gross extravagance at Premier Taschereau, blaming the Liberals for everything from unemployment to an attempt to assassinate him, Camillien Houde. He had one cureall: Government loans at 2% to Quebec farmers. Canadians flocked to listen to him. Impressed editors prophesied that if he did not win the election he would pare the Liberal majority to a sliver. Quebec's performance at the polls last week only proved again that listening to inflammatory speeches and voting for candidates are two affairs. Liberal Taschereau won 79 out of 90 contested seats. Skyrocket Houde followed an old Canadian maneuver and ran for office from two separate districts (expecting to resign from one or the other after election). He was defeated in both. Quebec's election day had its Chicago aspects. In Montreal 232 people were arrested. A man was killed in an argument in Sorel. Hooligans wrecked an anti-Houde newspaper office. Voting booths were raided, ballot boxes stolen. Municipal constables and provincial police arrested each other. Worried election officers imported phlegmatic Indians from up-country to telegraph the results.

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