Prime Minister: Second Parliament
Because of the possibility of losing a vote in the Commons, due to insufficient numbers, while Meighen and his ministers were in the process of being re-elected (a relic of British law dating to 1701 that was repealed in Canada in 1938), Meighen advised that the Governor General make the ministers of the Crown "acting" only, and not take the oath of office. King created an uproar about this tactic, attracting Progressive support to take down the government. In the event, the government lost the confidence of the House by one vote. With no other parliamentary grouping to call upon, Byng called the Canadian federal election, 1926. Meighen's party was swept from office, and Meighen himself was again defeated in Portage la Prairie. His second term as PM lasted just three months.
Meighen resigned as Conservative Party leader shortly thereafter, and moved to Toronto to practice law.
Read more about this topic: Arthur Meighen
Famous quotes containing the words prime and/or parliament:
“My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain:
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.”
—Chidiock Tichborne (1558–1586)
“The war shook down the Tsardom, an unspeakable abomination, and made an end of the new German Empire and the old Apostolic Austrian one. It ... gave votes and seats in Parliament to women.... But if society can be reformed only by the accidental results of horrible catastrophes ... what hope is there for mankind in them? The war was a horror and everybody is the worse for it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)