Angus Lewis Macdonald

Angus Lewis Macdonald, PC, QC (August 10, 1890 – April 13, 1954), popularly known as 'Angus L.', was a Canadian lawyer, law professor and politician from Nova Scotia. He served as the Liberal premier of Nova Scotia from 1933 to 1940, when he became the federal minister of defence for naval services. He oversaw the creation of an effective Canadian navy and Allied convoy service during World War II. After the war, he returned to Nova Scotia to become premier again. In the election of 1945, his Liberals swept back into power while their main rivals, the Conservatives, failed to win a single seat. The Liberal rallying cry, "All's Well With Angus L.," was so well received that the Conservatives despaired of ever beating Macdonald. He died in office in 1954.

Macdonald's more than 15 years as premier brought fundamental changes. Under his leadership, the Nova Scotia government spent more than $100 million paving roads, building bridges, extending electrical transmission lines and improving public education. Macdonald dealt with the mass unemployment of the Great Depression by putting the jobless to work on highway projects. He felt direct government relief payments would weaken moral character, undermine self-respect and discourage personal initiative. However, he also faced the reality that the financially strapped Nova Scotia government could not afford to participate fully in federal relief programs that required matching contributions from the provinces.

Macdonald was considered one of his province's most eloquent political orators. He articulated a philosophy of provincial autonomy, arguing that poorer provinces needed a greater share of national tax revenues to pay for health, education and welfare. He contended that Nova Scotians were victims of a national policy that protected the industries of Ontario and Quebec with steep tariffs forcing people to pay higher prices for manufactured goods. It was no accident, Macdonald said, that Nova Scotia had gone from the richest province per capita before Canadian Confederation in 1867 to poorest by the 1930s.

Macdonald was a classical liberal in the 19th-century tradition of John Stuart Mill. He believed in individual freedom and responsibility and feared that the growth of government bureaucracy would threaten liberty. For him, the role of the state was to provide basic services. He supported public ownership of utilities like the Nova Scotia Power Commission, but rejected calls for more interventionist policies such as government ownership of key industries or big loans to private companies.