Sir William Hearst and the Collapse of the Ontario Conservative Party

Abstract

IN ONTARIO GOVERNMENTS ARE ALMOST NEVER DEFEATED. Perhaps this is one reason why the x 9 x 9 collapse of the Tory administration of Sir William Hearst has been attributed to some more than ordinary concourse of events. Elsewhere political defeats may be explained in a variety of ways, but in Ontario, it would seem, some more dramatic and extraordinary explanation must be called upon to account for such a rare phenomenon. Thus the fall of the Hearst administration has been attributed to the stridently abnormal condkions which afflicted the province in • 919. The strains created by the Great War undeniably played havoc with the existing party structure, and the rising tide of farm and labour unrest, which catapulted two new political movements to the fore, presented a challenge which would have sorely tested any government. No less an observer than Sir John Willison believed that 'there could not have been a worse time for a general election. 'xThe Toronto Daily Star maintained that 'the feeling of dissatisfaction was so general that neither Sir William Hearst nor any other man in his place could have stood against it? Indeed, the spontaneous nature of the disaffection in Ontario's cities and countryside in x 9 x 9 has led some students to argue that the government was a victim of circumstances beyond its control. One political scientist has suggested that the mood of protest was directed less against the Conservative government than against