2110-7-11-1

[image: embossed seal, Office of the Prime Minister Canada]

Kingsmere, Que July 4th 1936.

My dear JB

I have written you one or two letters since parliament prorogued, but the paragraphing was so badly done in this one, and I was so long in signing the other - I have been in and out from Kingmere - that I destroyed both, and felt I would prefer to write by hand.

You have been most kind in writing me as you have and I am deeply grateful

for your several letters. I would have replied immediately to those received at the time of this session had its concluding days not been so exacting. When this session was over, I experienced for a few days very great fatigue, and since have been kept busy with many matters which had to be attended to before Ministers left for abroad, and others which had been held over until parliament had prorogued. I have still very much in the way of correspondence to overtake, before it will be possible to think of a rest.

The extent to which all matters requiring personal attention has fallen into arrears is little short of appalling.

I do hope that you are feeling quite strong and well again. I was much distressed and not a little concerned when I heard that you had a return of an old trouble. That is not a good symptom. You, even more than I, are in need of all the rest possible. I doubt if you realize how very active you have been during the months which have elapsed since your arrival in Canada. It is now our

a year since you began the severance of immediate associations and relationships in the old land, that of itself must have been a great strain. The taking on of new and fresh obligations here has been another tax upon your strength and nervous energy, and much greater than you could have realized at this time. I am not surprised, therefore, that you feel the need of "slowing up" a bit, for a while, and I sincerely hope you will give yourself as much latitude in that direction as you possibly can.

I am glad you feel as you do about the mood of the session.

2.

I thank you warmly for your kind words in reference to it. The programme was a heavy one; exceptionally so for a first session. Becoming acquainted with a new parliament, and keeping in line the many members of one's own party was not an easy task. You may have noticed that in all the divisions of that session, we did not lose a single vote, and in practically all, received substantial support from members of other parties or groups in the House. This, by the way, seems to me to illustrate the advantage, to all

concerned, of holding to the straight party system, in preference to attempting national governments where there are more than the two parties. The government is pretty certain to receive support from one or other of the opposing groups for what is in accord with the will of the people, and is pretty certain to leave altogether alone measures that are not. I found that to be the case when we were in office between 1921 and 1925, with a Liberal majority over all of only one. That parliament in fact, as I pointed out at its close, was the parliament of largest majorities for this government of any up to that time. Sometimes, support came from the right, sometimes from the left, seldom, only once in fact, as I recall, did the extremes unite against us, at which time the actual majority was 3 or 5.

I doubt if any parliament in Canada since Confederation enacted in the course of its entire term as many measures of importance as we put through in the one session just concluded. Certainly, at no first session of any parliament, were so many election promises fulfilled.

I was glad to be able conscientiously to wire you as I did as to not returning to Ottawa for prorogation. Could I have fixed the hour, or even the day, with certainty, I would have held to our original