Despite continued depression in the fisheries industries, New Brunswick enjoyed a moderately prosperous year in 1938. Provincial finances were out of the red in 1937 for the first time since 1929, and L. T. Richards, provincial treasurer, estimated that the new taxes on gasoline, trucks, and buses, together with an increase in corporation taxes, would produce an additional $300,000 in revenue during 1938.
Legislation.
The most significant legislation sponsored during the year by the Government, headed by Premier A. A. Dysart, was the Labor and Industrial Relations Act. This legalizes the right of both workers and employers to organize, and prohibits strikes and lockouts where no resort has been made either to the Fair Wage Board or the new conciliatory machinery set up by the law. A bill to modernize New Brunswick's antiquated debt legislation, under which it is still possible to imprison debtors, was withdrawn by the Government just before the close of the legislative session.
Political Issues.
The New Brunswick Government joined with Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario in an anti-Dominion attitude before the Rowell Commission. It held that the various provinces continued to be sovereign nations after the Confederation. It claimed that the Dominion Government had misunderstood and evaded the principles which lay at the basis of confederation with the result that 'confederation has not conduced in any way to the welfare of New Brunswick and has been disastrous to the province.'
Widespread reports to the effect that Premier A. A. Dysart was preparing to resign as leader of the Liberal Party were laid at rest in July when two of his chief opponents within the party — H. F. Bridges, Speaker of the House, and Dr. A. D. Dyas — resigned their posts. Premier Dysart resigned as Minister of Public Works during the year, but took over the Chairmanship of the New Brunswick Electric Power Commission.
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