Party politics in Newfoundland, 1949–71: A survey and analysis

Party politics in Newfoundland, 1949-71: a survey and analysis PETER NEARY Looking back at the post-Confederation political history of Newfoundland, it is now possible to delineate three distinct periods, each marked by a dramatic opening event. A first period obviously began with the completion of Confederation and the accession to power in St. John's of Joseph Roberts Smallwood. A second period can be said to have started with the Progressive Conservative victory in the federal general election of 1957 - an event which drastically altered the realities facing Smallwood and the provincial Liberal Party. A third period, it could be argued, began with the sweeping Conservative victory in Newfoundland in the federal election of 1968, the first Conservative electoral victory in the Province's postConfederation history. Running through these periods is a common theme: the continuing erosion of the traditional, staple, subsistence, outport economy of Newfoundland by the forces of urbanism and industrialism. 1949-1957 Although a number of the members returned in the first provincial election, held on May 27, 1949, had been active in party politics before the loss of responsible government in 1934, the basic determinant of party affiliation in the immediate post-Confederation period was attitude towards the issue of union with Canada. The Liberal Party arose naturally out of the political machine which Smallwood and others had built up to fight the referenda campaigns of 1948 and with which _they had ultimately secured union with Canada; the Progressive Conservative Party inherited the support of most of those who, for one reason or another, had opposed Confederation. 1 Smallwood became premier first and Party leader second. The first post-Confederation cabinet was sworn Journal of Canadian Studies in on April 1, 1949, its number including Leslie R. Curtis and William J. Keough, both of whom, like Smallwood, held office continuously into the 1970's. On April 28, 1949, the founding convention of the Liberal Party assembled at the Church Lads Brigade Armoury in St. John's which had been decorated for the occasion with flags and bunting scavenged from the convention which the previous year had chosen Louis St. Laurent leader of the national Liberal Party.2 On April 30, this convention unanimously selected Premier Smallwood to be leader of the provincial wing of the Party.3 F. Gordon Bradley, who had been closely associated with Smallwood in the struggle for Confederation, was "unanimously selected to be the Newfoundland Liberal Party head in the federal field."4 The St. John's Evening Telegram captured something of the reforming zeal and brimming self confidence of the 1949 generation of Newfoundland Liberals in this account of remarks made by Smallwood about the convention: "For the first time in history ... a party is being born in this convention by the hand of the people. This was no small hole in the wall affair held in a back room. People from every bay and district of Newfoundland were here to iaunch a party. They were the blood and sinew of Newfoundland, for the people make a country ."5 In the event the Liberal Party of Newfoundland , which Smallwood described in one of his most memorable phrases as the Party of the "toiling masses," was not to meet in convention again for over twenty years. During the founding convention of the Party Smallwood announced that the first provincial election would be held on May 27. Needless to say, his political opponents had been organizing for some time in anticipation of this announcement. On April 8, H. G. R. Mews, who had opposed union with Canada, had been chosen leader of the provincial Progressive Conservative Party at a meeting in St. John's.6 His election had been followed 3 by a v1s1t to the province of the national Party leader, George Drew, who thus became the first important 'mainland' politician to venture onto the hustings in the new province . His visit did not bode well for the future of his Party there. While in St. John's he stated that, although he was not opposed to the union of Newfoundland and Canada as such, he objected to the procedure by which union had been effected. 7 In the circumstances...