<P> By defeating the William Lyon Mackenzie King in the 1930 federal election, he had the misfortune of taking office during the Great Depression . Bennett tried to combat the depression by increasing trade within the British Empire and imposing tariffs for imports from outside the Empire, promising that his measures would "blast" Canadian exports into world markets . His success was limited however, and his own wealth (often openly displayed) and impersonal style alienated many struggling Canadians . </P> <P> While he was the first Prime Minister representing a constituency in Alberta, his party only won four of the province's sixteen seats . His speeches to the Empire Clubs in Toronto and Montreal, when chairman of the House of Commons Committee on Representation under Borden that settlers from the United States are suitable to be included with those entitled to vote they lacked the' noble element' normally found in the British . At the time the federal government as required by a Statue of British Parliament representation to Alberta and Saskatchewan was to be re-adjusted based on the 1911 census . The re-adjustment made to the four western provinces at the time can only be correlated if only those having British and French origins are considered . </P> <P> When his "Imperial Preference" policy failed to generate the desired result, Bennett's government had no real contingency plan . The party's pro-business and pro-banking inclinations provided little relief to the millions of increasingly desperate and agitated unemployed . Despite the economic crisis, "laissez - faire" persisted as the guiding economic principle of Conservative Party ideology . Government relief to the unemployed was considered a disincentive to individual initiative, and was therefore only granted in the most minimal amounts and attached to work programs . An additional concern of the federal government was that large numbers of disaffected unemployed men concentrating in urban centres created a volatile situation . As an "alternative to bloodshed on the streets", the stop - gap solution for unemployment chosen by the Bennett government was to establish military - run and - styled relief camps in remote areas throughout the country, where single unemployed men toiled for twenty cents a day . Any relief beyond this was left to provincial and municipal governments, many of which were either insolvent or on the brink of bankruptcy, and which railed against the inaction of other levels of government . Partisan differences began to sharpen on the question of government intervention in the economy, since lower levels of government were largely in Liberal hands, and protest movements were beginning to send their own parties into the political mainstream, notably the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and William Aberhart's Social Credit Party in Alberta . </P> <P> In July 1931, Bennett's government passed the Unemployment and Farm Relief Act in an effort to stanch the depression, but events were rapidly falling out of their control . </P>

Who were the prime ministers during the great depression