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~WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, -- P Cvenimeneainant ns & cssy " »mlels + J. G. Lethbridge of West Middlesex Comes Out Strongly in Favor of Es-- ® + ® ® I tablishing Ministry® of | Power--Insult to Keep _I+,s+ Hydro Out of Politics WILL TOT AL $50,000,000 Just when Opposition -- members in the Legislature were beginning to assume there was not a fighting man in the ranks of the U. FP. O,| private members, there arogse one in the House yesterday who -- refuted | any such condition. J. CG. Leth. bridge, U. F. O. member for West Middlesex, discarded his ordinarily' benign and tnlera'nt attitude to. : -- ward Government criticism and | waded in to defend the Administra-- tion. HMon. George 8. Henry, who pre-- ceded him in the debate on the Address, had severely taken the Gov-- ernment to task for its alleged waste-- fulness and extravagance in expen-- | ditures on good roads. Lumping | this and all other criticisms eman-- 'ating from the 'Opposition side dur-- | ing the present session, Mr. Leth--| bridge branded them as so-- much | camouflage thrown out --to mislyad' the people into a distrust of the' Drury Goyernment. Half--truths, he said, and some of even smaller percentage, had ; been bandied about in speeches to | attempt to discredit the (;overn-: ment, which, according to Mr. Leth--' bridge's summary of its accomplish . | ments, had a record second to none of any that had preceded it He believed the people of the Province were beginning to wake up to the fact that most of what had been said were only half--truths, uttered with the deliberate hope that they would weaken the Government. The member for West Middlesex, who was Chairman of the special Hydro Committee, came out flat-- footedly in favor of the establish-- ment of a Ministry of Power. He could see no logical argument against such a step, he said. "They tell you we should keep Hydro out of politics," he added. '"Did you ever hear of such an insult to this House and to this Province? Why not keep all our departments out of politics?" Hon. Mr. Henry, the first speaker to resume the debate, devoted a con-- siderable portion of his time to agri-- cultural conditions. After a statis-- tical comparison of past and present conditions, he declared that he did not believe that agriculture was suffering at present any more than industry generally throug_rlg_ut On-I 'tario .wus- suffering. > "I do admit," he said, "that agriculture is suffer-- ing, and I am sorry to see it. But we should get on a broad plane, and there should not be this note of| pessimism." After taking Hon. Manning Doherty to task for the note of agricuitural | pessimism sounded by him, Hon. Mr.: Henry, the ex--Minister of Agricul--| |ture, commended him on his move |to assist fruit growing -- and fruit marketing, and recommended to his |attention the question of the estab-- lishment of a grain storage elevator | in Ontario. .