afoe has long found it impossible to support
either of the old parties. The Coalition was a new one which he
consistently supported on its merits and up to a point. The point was
reached. Unionism and Agrarianism were incompatible. Therefore
Unionism was a Tory institution; and the only Liberal programme left
for the _Free Press_ was to form an alliance with Mr. Crerar and his
great group of class-conscious Agrarians.

By this time, if he reads this, Mr. Dafoe will have observed that we
are trying to corner him on the question:

If you were opposed to a Labor Soviet which aimed at making a little
Moscow of Winnipeg, what are you going to do about a Farmer Soviet that
aims to capture Ottawa?

Already he has begun to answer. He uses a label for the party led by
Mr. Crerar and evolved with the aid of Mr. Dafoe:

The National Progressive Party.

A good name, even if not new. What is behind the label? That the
party so named has now taken over all the Liberal economic traditions
in the West and after the next general election will become the real
Liberal Party of Canada. In the opinion of Dafoe, Mackenzie King
should keep out of the West in the coming election in order to let Mr.
Crerar romp home with three-fourths of the entire representation in
Parliament. He alleges that Laurier destroyed the old Western Liberal
party in 1917; that King has not revived it--though Mr. Fielding might
have done so; that Western Liberals have become Progressive except in
the cities, where some have become Unionists. In making this statement
he probably reckoned on Michael Clark becoming a Progressive. But
Michael Clark has turned out to be one species of even Free Trade
Liberal which Crerarism cannot absorb.

Let us concede that here is one of the most absorbing problems in
Canada. If Dafoe backs Crerar in the effort to get that preponderant
majority away from Meighen and King, then he is afterwards committed to
Crerarism. Dafoe cannot afford to take Crerar and abandon the
traditions of the _Free Press_. If he is so keen about real
"nationalism" in this country as to regret that Bourassa made the word
obnoxious, he has surely decided that the policy of the N.P.P. must be
to build up a true national life in Canada. And the man who was
Canada's press representative at the Peace Conference, with such
exceptional facilities for focussing Canadian national sentiment among
other nations, will not dare to countenance in Mr. Cre