Vital By-Election

Canada's most important by-election campaign in years got under way in the Ontario riding of Grey North. There a member of Parliament would be chosen Feb. 5. There the political destiny of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King might be at stake. The political usefulness of National Defense Minister Andrew G. L. McNaughton, the Liberal candidate, certainly was.

As a result of November's Parliamentary crisis over conscription (TIME, Nov. 13), General McNaughton had become the key man in the whole Dominion Government. It was up to him to make the Government's new conscription system work. To do so, he needed a seat in Parliament. Grey North's voters now had a chance, ahead of any other part of Canada, to express their like or dislike of Prime Minister King's conscription policies.

At the outset the Tories were confident. With Garfield Case, three-term Mayor of Owen Sound (pop. 14,000) in the field against McNaughton, they felt they could pick up enough dissident Liberal votes to win. But last week the situation abruptly changed. The Socialist CCFers picked a candidate of their own: Manitoba-born Albert Earl Godfrey, 54.

He was a shrewd choice to run against the General. Like McNaughton, he was a top-rank soldier. He fought with the Royal Flying Corps in World War I, won the Military Cross and the Air Force Cross. He switched to the R.C.A.F. when it was formed, became an air vice marshal in World War II. Last year, he retired.

As a candidate, Godfrey was a surprise threat whose seriousness seemed all the greater because nobody knew how great it really was. Normally, CCFer Godfrey could hardly expect to win in a constituency that has always voted for the old-line parties. But this election was not normal. Postwar problems entered into the campaign, but it was being fought largely on the grave issue of conscription. In a three-cornered fight, if Godfrey took enough votes away from McNaughton, Tory Candidate Case might win. But Tories foresaw a split of the anti-Liberal vote. If his candidate lost, Prime Minister King would almost certainly have to appeal the verdict to the whole country. Already it was conceded in Ottawa that the opening of Parliament (Jan. 31) would be a token affair, that real work would await the outcome of Grey North's voting.

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