CANADA: King Home

“To many countries of Europe we are little known. To them Canada is a country of snow, very far away. I thank the Prime Minister of Canada for having been our ambassador and having made Canada known as it should be known. . . .

“He comes from the other side, after a triumphant voyage, where he has done honor to Canada, our Parliament and himself. I bid him welcome in the name of Quebec.”

Thus spoke last week, while massed thousands throated, the Premier of Quebec,* quick, forthright, able Monsieur Louis A. Taschereau.

A few moments previously the S. S. Empress of Scotland had steamed into Quebec harbor, bearing home the Prime Minister of Canada, jovial, rotund, adroit Rt. Hon. William Lyon Mackenzie King. Only persons of tolerably keen memory recall that Mr. King sailed from Manhattan on the S. S. Ile de France with U. S. Secretary of State Frank Billings Kellogg (TIME, Aug. 27), to sign for Canada at Paris the Pact Renouncing War.

Since then Prime Minister King has hobnobbed through Europe, climbed several Swiss alps (by funicular), and dined at Buckingham Palace. As travelers will, Canada’s King buoyantly reminisced, in Quebec last week:

“I would like to say how much Canada’s voice is listened to in Europe. . . . What is interesting to other nations is that Canada and the United States have already worked out the very thing that they are struggling for in Europe—namely, Canada and the United States determined, by the Rush-Bagot Treaty, that there should be no armaments on the Great Lakes, and renounced war as a means of settling differences. I pointed out over there that our Minister of Finance, in bringing down his Budget, does not consider the appropriation of a five-cent piece for defense against our neighbours. If they could come to that in Europe they would all be prosperous very soon. But their Budgets are still burdened because of fear of aggression from other nations. Europe will have to come to the New World point of view before it can become absolutely free and prosperous as it should be.”

Of his visit to Buckingham Palace, Mr. King said: “His Majesty asked many questions. … I was struck by the fact that his Majesty had been following in minute detail matters which had taken place in this Dominion.”

Bristling a trifle, the Prime Minister made clear that in chatting with George V he had strongly emphasized the absolute self-determination in internal affairs now enjoyed by Canada under the Crown. While on this theme, Mr. King recalled that he inaugurated in Paris the new Legation in which now resides Canada’s first Minister to France. “The opening of our Legation in Paris,” cried Mr. King to his Francophile Quebec audience, “revives old associations which link early beginnings in Canada with the present day.

“What some of our people in Canada do not realize is that, when it comes to dealing with Governments, the older Governments always require or like to deal with some one of a certain diplomatic standing. If you have not that standing you do not reach other Governments, except by courtesy or good offices of others.

“What the new arrangement really does is to give the Canadian representative in France equality with the Ministers of other nations.”

Finally the rich basso of Prime Minister King boomed out a note of exultation: “After seeing Europe … I have returned to Canada with a feeling that our country is the happiest of all lands—that we have more in the way of prosperity than any other country, and that opportunity lies more in our way than is the case with any other country in the world!”

*The Province of Quebec and the other eight provinces of Canada each have a Premier and a Lieutenant-Governor; and the Dominion as a whole has a Prime Minister and a Governor-General, the former responsible to Parliament, the latter representing the King.