On Canada: Essays in Honour of Frank H. Underhill 9781487577469

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ON CANADA

ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF FRANK H. UNDERHILL

EDITED BY NORMAN PENLINGTON

ON CANADA

Essays in Honour of Frank H. Underhill

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS

© University of Toronto Press 1971 Printed in Canada by University of Toronto Press, Toronto and Buffalo Reprinted in 2018 ISBN 0-8020-1725-8

ISBN 978-0-8020-7708-0 (paper)

AND TO OTHER GREAT TEACHERS

contents

PREFACE

MARGARET PRANG

ix

F.H.U. of The Canadian Forum 3

Public Policy and Private Pressures: The Canadian Radio League 1930-6 and Countervailing Power 24

GRAHAM SPRY

Lord Durham and the Assimilation of French Canada 37 WILLIAM ORMSBY

FRED COGSWELL ESCOTT REID

The Poetry of Modern Quebec 54

Memories of Louis St. Laurent, 1946-9 71

NAIM KATTAN

Le Canada et la France 83

NEIL COMPTON

In Defence of Canadian Culture 95

ARNOLD SMITH

Canada and the Commonwealth 111

Bibliography of the Writings of Frank H. Underhill 131 Contributors 193

Preface

Frank Hawkins Underhill, son of Richard Underhill and Sarah Monk• house was born 26 November 1889 in Stouffville, a village about thirty miles northeast of Toronto. His paternal grandfather, a cobbler, emigrated in 1867 with his family from England to Canada. His father founded a successful boot and shoe business in Stouffville, the centre of a prosperous farming community and one that produced doctors, lawyers, and a bishop. Although young Underhill excelled in mathematics, the high school principal George H. Reed, a classics graduate of the University of Toronto and a great teacher, interested him in the study of Latin and Greek and persuaded his parents to allow their son to spend a sixth year in high school preparing for the provincial government's senior matriculation and entrance scholarship to the University of Toronto. Underhill won top honours in the province and the Prince of Wales entrance scholarship.1 In the classics course at the University of Toronto he made continual translations into English of Greek and Latin, and vice versa. Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Cicero, and Tacitus, from whom he learned much of his prose style, interested him most and in these subjects he was well taught, but in poetry and Greek tragedy his professors seemed lacking in sympathy. While at Toronto he also took a second honours course in English 1

Much of the following account of Underhill's career until the mid-thirties and of his early years in Stouffville (pp. 17-4;), comes from W.D. Meikle, 'F.H. Underhill Interviews' (1967). The original of this and the 1968 interview are being deposited in the Public Archives of Canada.

x I Preface

and history. In history he was fortunate in having G.M. Wrong, who interested himself in his students and who brought Underhill to the Department of History in 1927. In his fourth year he was awarded $75 for the best fourth-year essay, and promptly bought sets of John Morley and Matthew Amold.2 Graduating with first-class honours in classics and thus winning a Flavelle fellowship of $750 (half the value of a Rhodes Scholarship), he entered Balliol College at Oxford. Together with an 'exhibition' from Balliol and support from his father he got by as well as other Canadians. Indeed in his first year he embarked on a book-buying spree and toured Britain and western Europe, being especially impressed by Renaissance painting. He joined many clubs, notably the Fabian Society as an associate member and the Ralegh Club, which was concerned with imperial relations. He was stimulated by the intellectual atmosphere of pre-1914 England with its brilliant talk, London weeklies, writings of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, H.G. Wells, and above all Bernard Shaw, though in Toronto he had already come upon the latter two writers. At Balliol, one of the colleges taking only honours students, Underhill continued the study of Latin and Greek classics in 'greats.' In effect this was a study of the classical spirit and a critique of ancient and modem civilizations. The course required the writing of a weekly essay discussing the pros and cons of a problem. Much hard digging for facts and ideas went into the essay, one aim being to make a point 'as succinct and as incisive as possible.' It was then read to his tutor, the main one in philosophy being A.D. Lindsay (later Lord Lindsay). After winning a first in greats, Underhill spent a third year at Oxford studying modern history. 8 Underhill was offered two positions at the end of the academic year in 1914; a lectureship in history at the University of Manchester or a professorship of history at the University of Saskatchewan, then only five years old. He took the second. After an uneventful first year in Saskatchewan, he returned in the summer of 1915 to Toronto. Its war fever and the feeling of shame at reading London Times casualty lists of Oxford contemporaries induced him to join the 4th University Company of university graduates, which was sent overseas to reinforce the Princess Patricias. Bored by nearly a year's drill in England, he managed to trans2

Ibid., 43-66

~

Ibid .. 67-12~. So-go

xi/ Preface

fer to an English territorial regiment, and after the necessary training became a second lieutenant. In 1917-18 he had two turns of duty in France, the period between being spent in an English hospital, Underhill having been wounded in the March 1918 German offensive. Meantime he continued to read widely. After 11 November Professor Wrong got him out of the English battalion to teach history to Canadian troops at the Khaki University of Canada which was part of the Canadian military effort. 4 This teaching came to an end in the following year when Canadian troops rioted to speed their return to Canada. In the same year Underhill returned to teaching history at the University of Saskatchewan. From this period dates his only extensive piece of historical research- on Canada's military contribution in the First World War. His account appeared in The Empire at War, edited by Sir C.P. Lucas. Its tone is not anti-war or anti-British, but proudly Canadian. In his years in the west, his Canadianism was also made more conscious by the writings of J.W. Dafoe in the Winnipeg Free Press. He was much moved by observing western democracy in action - the Progressive party, the grain pools, and the protests against eastern manufacture and finance. Thus his first research venture into Canadian history was an analysis of western Ontario farmers' movements of the 1850s and 186os.11 In coming to an understanding of the succeeding period of Canadian history from 1867 to 1914, the writings of Goldwin Smith provided a kind of key. The realistic analysis of English-French relations by Andre Siegfried also attracted him, as did the writings of Charles A. Beard and Carl Becker, which were concerned with the relationship of ideas to politics, relativism, and emphasis on the present time. In 1927 Underhill moved to the University of Toronto, where he taught history until retirement in 1955. He was not really an historian, but a student of ideas and political institutions and a commentator on politics, whose extensive reading on the past and present, and ability to express himself with wit and clarity, help explain something of the reason for his excellence as a teacher and his following among students. His forte was the essay and the commentary on public affairs. In the period 1930-42 The Canadian Forum became the medium for much of his writing energy. This journal, founded in 1920, endeavoured to articulate a 4 Ibid., 124-56 5 Ibid., 157-72 passim

xii / Preface Canadian point of view. 6 Underhill himself espoused the point of view of western farmers in the journal; he strove to enlist intellectuals in the definition and solution of social and economic problems. Implicit too in much of his writing is the aim of transforming the country's climate of opinion. His point of view could be found in hundreds of signed and unsigned editorials and reviews of books on politics, history, and the political and economic institutions of Canada, Great Britain, the Empire, the Commonwealth, and the United States. As the depression worsened, Underhill' s thought moved in a socialist direction and concentrated on the deficiencies of Canadian capitalism and the need for an organization to make Canadians aware of those deficiencies and to provide remedies. In 1932 Underhill, Frank Scott of McGill University, and other Canadian intellectuals founded the League for Social Reconstruction.7 Its name defines its purpose, and in the seven years of its existence the League exercised considerable influence. It published a book, Social Planning for Canada (1935), as well as pamphlets, and its leaders made frequent speeches for a socialist Canada. They also contributed a great deal to the founding and the policies of a Canadian socialist party the ccF (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation) - a party of farmers, intellectuals, and trade unionists. Underhill himself wrote the first draft of the 'Regina Manifesto,' which proclaimed the goals of the ccF (1933). He also made many addresses spreading the social gospel and was in frequent consultation with ccF leaders. But the teacher, the essayist, and the public gadfly was unhappy as a compromising politician. His thought was drifting from social action to the liberty of the individual. Fear of fascism and the prospect of war accentuated this drift. The probability of Canada's participation in another war especially aroused his vigorous opposition. His use of anti-imperialist arguments against participation led his thought in an anti-British direction. One of his most notorious anti-British comments was made as a result of the establishment by Prime Minister King and President Roosevelt in August 1940 of the Permanent Joint Board on Defence. Canada, Underhill affirmed, had 'two loyalties - one to Britain, and the other to North America ... The relative For Underhill and The Canadian Forum, see below, 'F.H.U. of The Canadian Forum,' by Margaret Prang. 7 For an account of the League see Michiel Horn, 'The League for Social Reconstruction' (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Glendon College)

6

xiii / Preface importance of Britain is going to sink no matter what happens.' Because of discouragement to recruiting implied in this statement, Arthur Meighen in effect requested the minister of justice to have Underhill interned, as was done with the neo-fascist Camillien Houde, former mayor of Montreal. 8 Though the minister of justice did nothing, the Toronto Tory establishment_and, apparently, the Board of Governors of the University of Toronto, demanded Underhill's resignation. With the virtually unanimous support of third- and fourth-year history undergraduates, a bloc of history alumni, and strong support from the faculty, he successfully fought back.9 The electoral defeat of Meighen early in 1942 and the election the following year of a CCF bloc to the Ontario legislature registered a change of opinion that henceforth was less antagonistic to Underhill's point of view. After his 1942-3 sabbatical in the United States, his published articles were fewer in number but those he wrote now appeared in other journals besides The Canadian Forum, and in the 1950s over radio and in newspapers as well. The divisions between himself and the establishment grew narrower, since the political bugaboos of the thirties, such as welfare measures and full employment, had become planks in party platforms. The threat of Nazism and Stalinism turned Underhill's attention to the preservation of freedom. It was partly over this issue that he fell out with many of his erstwhile ccF associates. While the defence of freedom continued as one of his central concerns, his interest in the late fifties turned, if not returned, to the creation of a climate of opinion that would foster excellence in individual and collective accomplishments.10 The preservation of freedom and the fostering of excellence have been the two basic purposes of his writing in the past twenty-five years. The means were the same: the short essay, the review, the commentary. The subjects were also the same : domestic and external affairs of the day, especially in Canada, Great Britain, and the United States, and the impact of the latter two countries on Canada. Underhill's primarily political interests occasionally included educational and cultural interests where they For the quotation and Meighen's letter of protest, see Roger Graham, Arthur Meighen, III (Toronto 1965), 122 9 For the whole incident see W.D. Meikle, 'The University of Toronto and the Threatened Dismissal of Professor Frank H. Underhill, 1940--41' (unpublished M.A. essay, Carleton University 1967) 10 Frank H. Underhill, In Search of Canadian Liberalism (Toronto 1960), xiii 8

xiv / Preface intruded on public attention. The approach was the same - witty, clear, and informed. Underhill's approach did not differ essentially in his more academic studies. In :1955, having been invited to inaugurate the Center for Commonwealth Studies at Duke University, he gave three lectures on the British Commonwealth: an historical analysis of the Liberal-Victorian empire, an account of the Commonwealth between the wars, and an analysis of the structure and prospects of the Commonwealth since :1945.11 Other lectures concerned Canada and the United States. He was especially critical in the late fifties and early sixties of those Canadian nationalists who fed on 'un-Americanism,' and who would make of Canada a North American Ulster. He admitted that the dissimilarities between the two countries which certain Canadian writers emphasized might once have had validity, but he asserted that they no longer had- similarities between the countries were now more important. 12 That Underhill did not advocate the virtual identification of Canada with the United States is shown by his long-time interest in Canadian political parties, in which he emphasized the bi-racial party. 18 He was concerned also with the growing split between French and English Canadians. In the Massey Lectures, The Image of Canada (cBc :1964), he tried to explain French and English aspirations. French Canada, he thought, viewed democracy as protection of minority rights; English Canada viewed it as majority rule. He deplored French-Canadian ignorance of what French Canada had in common with English Canada. In this outline of his writings and lectures, it should not be forgotten that with the exception of his three years as curator of Laurier House he continued teaching students: until :1969 he taught 'Canadian and American Political Traditions' at Carleton University, Ottawa. Since the end of the Second World War there has been increasing recognition of his abilities and contributions to Canada. Already his ideas are being cited and his penetrating statements and memorable witticisms extensively quoted by political scientists, historians, and students of English and intellectual history. His essays are also being anthologized. In The British Commonwealth. An Experiment in Co-operation among Nations (Duke University Press, Durham, N.C. 1956) 12 'The Image of Canada,' Founders' Day Address, 8 March, 1962, Univ. of New Brunswick pamphlet, 22 13 Canadian Political Parties, Can. Hist. Assoc. booklet, No. 8 (1957, rev. ed. 1968)

11

xv/ Preface 1945-6 he was president of the Canadian Historical Association, and in 1949 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. The Canadian government awarded him the Canada Medal in 1967. In 1969 over a hundred of his admirers and friends, including a former prime minister, Lester Pearson, gave him a banquet on his eightieth birthday. 14 Since 1955 six Canadian universities have honoured him with honorary degrees. The citation of Carleton University on granting him an LL.D . in 1959 is a fitting conclusion to this sketch of his career and ideas :

We can only suspect that Frank Hawkins Underhill is descended from the boy who, in spite of what others said, pointed out that the emperor had no clothes on. We do know that intensive studies in the classics gave him a delight in incisive thinking, in questioning what others took for granted. To wide scholarship and stirring teaching in history, he added a searching interest in our own times. Sacred animals have been the better for jumping at sparks from his mind. Liberalism, socialism, and conservatism have all felt the keen edges of his writing. Many thoughts in many heads have been of his ignition. And he has always been ready to stand and declare himself, in his own distinctive way. The chancellor was requested to confer the honorary degree on 'Frank Hawkins Underhill, who has so often made so many Canadians think again.'u When I requested essays for a collection honouring Professor Underhill, it seemed obvious that the theme should centre on Canada. In honouring Underhill, the essayists are also in effect honouring the country that produced such a man. Underhill's own interests dictated that the essays should be in history or its neighbours - humanities and the social sciences. In selecting possible contributors, I wish to thank Professor David Farr, Department of History, Carleton University, Professor William Kilbourn, Chairman, Humanities Division, York University, and Professor Louis Dudek, Department of English, McGill University, for their assistance, and to those who contributed I extend deep thanks. Finally to Professor 14 For an account of this banquet see Toronto Star, 27 Nov. 1969; Toronto Telegram, 29 Nov., 1969; Ottawa Citizen, 5 Dec., 1969; Ottawa Journal, 5 Dec. 1969. 15 A copy of the citation is in the possession of Professor Underhill. The other universities granting him honorary doctorates of laws were Queen's 1959, Toronto 1962, Saskatchewan 1962, Dalhousie 1968. In 1964 the Univ. of Manitoba awarded

him an honorary doctorate of letters.

xvi / Preface Underhill himself I extend the hope that he continue to write, with the wit and clarity for which he is so well known. I am particularly grateful to Professor Underhill for the use of 'F.H. Underhill Interviews, 1967,' taped and transcribed by Mr. W.D. Meikle. I am grateful, too, to Professor Underhill for the use of his own list of Canadian Forum articles written between 1930 and 1942, which enables his anonymous articles to be traced, and for other lists of publications, speeches, broadcasts, and suggestions. I am much indebted to Mr. W.D. Meikle, a graduate student at Michigan State University, for informing me of the existence of the interviews and of The Canadian Forum list and for use of them, for discovering many bibliographic entries, and for assisting in proofreading. I also wish to thank the following for bibliographic information: Mr. Graham Spry, Ottawa; Mr. Edward Keefer, graduate student, Michigan State University, East Lansing; Mrs. Alice Braybrooke, Reference Librarian, Dalhousie University, Halifax; Mr. Ian Wees, Assistant Director, Reference Branch, National Library, Ottawa; Mr. Thomas G. Butson, N.Y. Times; Mrs. M. Hoogenraad, Public Archives of Canada; Miss Carol Lindsay, Librarian, Toronto Daily Star; Miss Marion E. Brown, Head, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Toronto Library; Mr. Gerald Hallowell, Archives of the United Church of Canada, Victoria University, Toronto; Mrs. Alice H. Janisch, Reference Librarian, The University of Western Ontario; Miss Ruth Buggey, Librarian, Winnipeg Free Press. For help in checking bibliographic items I also thank: Mr. W. D. Meikle, Mr. Edward Keefer, Michigan State University; Mrs. G. Ethier, Audiences Services, CBC, Ottawa, and Miss Sharon Marcus, Program Archives Dept., CBC, Toronto; Professor Donald Coles, York University; Professor Paul Fox, University of Toronto; Mr. Elmer Roper, Edmonton, Alberta; and the staffs of the reference departments of Michigan State University Library, especially Robert M. Williams, the Library of the State of Michigan, Lansing, the Detroit Public Library, and the Library of Congress; and to the following reference librarians: Mrs. Olga Andersen, Acting Head, Reference Department, Library, the University of Alberta, Edmonton; Mrs. Alice Braybrooke, Reference Librarian, Dalhousie University, Halifax; Miss Amanda Ferguson, the library, The Globe and Mail, Toronto; Mr. T.E. Ratcliffe, Reference Librarian, University of Illinois, Urbana; Mr. Ian Wees, Assistant Director, Reference Branch, National Library, Ottawa;

xvii / Preface

Mrs. Alice Wiren, Reference Department, The Ohio State University Libraries, Columbus; Mr. W.I. Smith, Acting Archivist, Mrs. M. Hoogenraad, Manuscript Division, Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa; Miss Gail P. Juris, Reference Librarian, Saint Louis University, St. Louis; Mr. D.C. Appelt, the Librarian, and Miss Ruth Murray, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon; Mr. Ross Anderson, Social Science Section, The Toronto Public Library; Miss Katherine Wales, Head, Reference Department and Miss Marion E. Brown, Head, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Toronto Library; Mr. Gerald Hallowell, Archives of the United Church of Canada, Victoria University. Toronto; Miss M. I. Belle Grant, Head, Reference Department, University of Waterloo, Waterloo; Mrs. Alice H. Janisch, Reference Librarian, University of Western Ontario; Miss Ruth Buggey, Librarian, Winnipeg Free Press; and Mrs. N. Tenaschuk, Librarian, Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. While the bibliography is as complete as possible the editor makes nc-, claim to have assembled a definitive bibliography of Professor Underhill's writing. I~ 1959, at a Carleton University lecture, Professor Underhill himself observed that he 'was surprised now when young people come up and ask me if I remember that article in such-and-such a journal. I don't even remember the journal.'16 Under such circumstances, it is certain that many more items will be discovered. I therefore request that any reader finding items at present unlisted in the bibliography included in this volume, send them to me, and I will have them published at an appropriate time and place. I also wish to acknowledge grants of expenses from the Michigan State University All-University Research Fund. I am grateful to Mrs. Jann McGivern, Mrs. Elaine Smith, and Mrs. Pam Schirado for typing the large correspondence, and to Mrs. McGivern and Mrs. Schirado for typing large parts of the manuscript; I am especially grateful to Miss Coral Johnson for the final typing of the bibliography. This book has been published with the assistance of a grant from the Social Science Research Council of Canada, using funds provided by the Canada Council. NP

June 1970 16 'Political Radicalism in the Thirties,' Seminar 3 mimeo, Carleton Univ. Lib., 4

ON CANADA ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF FRANK H. UNDERHILL

ONE

F.H.u.

of The canadian Forum MARGARET PRANG

When the initials 'F.H.u.' began to be familiar to readers of The Canadian Forum the periodical had enjoyed seven years of precarious existence. With a circulation never exceeding 1,000 it had more than once been on the point of folding up for lack of finances, and had been saved from that fate only by contributions from the pockets of members of the editorial board. Despite its vicissitudes, the Forum had come a long way since its birth in 1920 when it had inherited the subscription list of thirty-five paid up subscribers to The Rebel, the journal published six times a year from 1917 to 1920 by students and staff of the University of Toronto, and devoted mainly to the publication of original literary productions and the discussion of university issues. When a number of the students decided that the faculty members were running the paper the professors withdrew and created a new periodical with broader interests and appeal, The Canadian Forum. From the first, the Forum endeavoured to present a distinctly Canadian point of view on politics, literature, and the arts. As the editors told readers of the first issue in October 1920: 'Too much of our news is discoloured and distorted before ever it reaches the Canadian press. Too often our convictions are borrowed from London, Paris, or New York. Real independence is not a product of tariffs and treaties. It is a spiritual thing. No country has reached its full stature which makes its goods at home, but not its faith and its philosophy.' Oddly perhaps, the Forum depended in its first decade on British born and educated academics for an articulation of its Canadian point of view. Three of the five members of the first

4 I On Canada

editorial board were Britons; the chairman, Gilbert Jackson, and the literary editor, Barker Fairley, both professors at the University of Toronto, and Peter Sandiford of the Ontario College of Education, the business manager. Other British immigrants who played an important part in the affairs of the Forum in this first period included John A. Stevenson, a Scottish journalist who wrote political commentary from Ottawa for a time, Herbert J. Davis of University College who served as literary editor and a frequent reviewer, and S.H. Hooke, professor of oriental languages and literature at Victoria College, and an eminent scholar of comparative religions ; although he wrote occasionally for the Forum on religious subjects he appeared regularly as a reviewer of contemporary novels. Many of the Britons associated with the Forum, notably Barker Fairley, were already well advanced in that identification with Canada which enabled them to play such a large and creative part in the life of the community. On the Forum they worked with a group of native born Canadians: C.B. Sissons, professor of ancient history at Victoria College and the periodical's first regular political commentator; John D. Robins of the same institution, literary editor for several years and a frequent contributor of reviews and short stories; E.H. Blake, a Toronto businessman and grandson of Edward Blake, who wrote most of the editorials on imperial relations; and a mainstay of the whole enterprise, Richard De Brisay, a semi-invalided war veteran who wrote extensively on international affairs and in 1.924 became the first general editor. Initially, many of the Forum writers expected the theatre, led by the new Hart House Theatre at the University of Toronto, to provide the centre for a flowering of a genuine Canadian culture. Drama criticism by Fred Jacob, long with the Toronto Mail and Empire as drama critic, and later by R. Keith Hicks of Trinity College, was a major feature of the journal. This optimism about the theatre proved to be excessive, but the Forum found a more enduring enthusiasm in the field of painting, and became one of the few defenders of the Group of Seven in its early days. In addition to reproducing in black and white the paintings and drawings of the new group, as well as of other Canadian artists, it also printed much intelligent criticism and frequently allowed the artists to write interpretative articles on Canadian art. During the twenties several members of the Group of Seven served on the editorial board or its advisory committee, A.Y. Jackson,

5 I F.H.u. of The Canadian Forum Arthur Lismer, Lawren Harris, and J.E.H. Macdonald. Thoreau Macdonald, not a member of the group, but very close to it, was also on the board for several years and reproductions of his lino or woodcuts were a regular feature of the Forum's front cover. The Forum consistently saw the work of the group as the most authentic expression of 'the Canadian spirit' and rejoiced at the positive reception accorded an exhibit of their paintings in Britain in the spring of 1924 as a milestone in Canadian cultural growth. Although the Forum critics may sometimes have exaggerated the artistic distinctiveness of the Group, their appreciation of its success in capturing the 'feel' of Canada was a useful antidote, not least for the artists themselves, to the general disdain of the popular press for the new Canadian art. Perhaps the most positive contribution of the Forum to Canadian cultural development was in its encouragement to a whole generation of creative writers. In the 1920s it published the work of most of the poets and short story writers who became the major figures in Canadian literature in the following two decades, and provided these writers with a calibre of literary criticism without precedence in Canada. Although never disavowing their hope for the emergence of a distinctly Canadian literature, the Forum critics eschewed chauvinistic standards and consistently refused to praise works merely because they were Canadian. Although the early Forum boasted a fairly large group of contributors and reviewers it is not difficult to identify general points of view in its editors and major contributors. With few exceptions the writers of editorials, articles, and book reviews shared a faith in evolutionary progress, to be furthered by the extension of the benefits of physical science throughout the world, and by the application of the new social sciences to the problems of individual and community living within the framework of parliamentary democracy. The political theorists and social scientists who received the greatest attention were, like the Forum writers themselves, the liberal and socialist democrats common throughout the English-speaking world in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Thus, approval was frequently given to Lord Bryce, R.M. Maciver, H.G. Wells, the Manchester Guardian, J.B. Bury, the Fabian Society, Charles and Mary Beard, A.D. Lindsay, Ernest Barker, the Birth Control League, and John Dewey. Faithfulness to scientific methods, and liberal and democratic principles, especially in education, would further progress and to this end strong

6/ On Canada

support was given to adult education, university extension, co-operatives, folk schools, the International Labour Office of the League of Nations, and the Frontier College, as agencies making for the general education of the populace and a good society. Most of the Forum writers had lost, or had never had, any form of orthodox Christian belief, yet the space devoted to the discussion of religion, both in articles and letters to the editor, was remarkable. Would a group of intellectuals in any other country have been as much interested in this subject at so late a date in the history of the secularization of the western world? Among the rather sizeable group of persons who wrote about religion there was considerable emphasis on efforts to demonstrate the absence of conflict between science and true religion. While the old God of traditional Christian revelation was already dead among the young, 'science is going on to triumphant verification of Christ's way of life,' wrote Davidson Ketchum, a young psychologist at the University of Toronto, in 'The Saving of God,' a typical statement of this point of view. 1 Professor Hooke's articles on Biblical criticism and on religion devoid of the miraculous as expounded by Julian Huxley and others, were in keeping with the general spirit of reviews of books by John Middleton Murry, Bernard Bosanquet, B.H. Streeter, Georges Brandes, and Bishop Barnes of Birmingham. Most of the Forum writers drew a sharp distinction between 'the Jesus of history' and 'the Jesus of the churches' and they consistently accused the churches of using ancient dogma, 'religion about Jesus,' to obscure the true meaning of 'the religion of Jesus.' Scorn of creed and devotion to the conviction that everyone must arrive at his own belief independently of tradition and the dead hand of authority were vigorously acclaimed. In so far as the church still had any role it was as a prophetic voice against social evil; the church was judged almost solely for its usefulness in preparing the way for 'the new ethics' and for its preaching of the Christian socialism of Salem Bland and Ernest Thomas of Canadian Methodism, and of R.H. Tawney, C.E. Raven, and Bishop Charles Gore in England. In the working out of the personal ethics of members of the new order the great teachers were not to be the saints of the traditional Christian calendar, but Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, and Havelock Ellis. 1

Canadian Forum, III, April 192:,. Hereafter all references are to volumes of the Forum, except where otherwise indicated.

7

I F.H.u. of The Canadian Forum

By 1927 when Frank Underhill joined the Department of History at the University of Toronto the Forum had become an important national medium for the expression of opinion among a small but significant sector of the academic and professional community in English-speaking Canada, and an authentic voice of the post-war nationalism of English Canada. In this same year the periodical was rescued from its month-to-month financial struggle. When Hugh Dent of the English publishing firm of J.M. Dent and Sons paid a visit to Canada he was impressed with the contribution the Forum was making to Canadian intellectual life and arranged to have the Dent firm underwrite its deficits. There was to be no interference from Dent in the shaping of editorial policy and no attempt to use the periodical to further the firm's publishing interests, an agreement which was always strictly adhered to throughout the seven years in which this arrangement lasted. For the first time a full-time general editorship was established and F.J. White, a philosophical Marxist rather to the left of most of his associates, was appointed to the position. Despite the Forum's improved financial situation there was no deletion of the brief notice, familiar to readers since the beginning, informing prospective contributors that although it was hoped to pay writers at some future date this was impossible for the present. Fortunately for Canadian readers Underhill was one of many who were prepared to write for the love of it in a journal whose general tone he found congenial. At first he contributed mainly book reviews, usually on British and American history, and early in 1929 joined the seventeen-member editorial committee which assisted the editor and his five associate editors. At the same time he began a regular monthly column of current political commentary, 'O Canada' over the initials 'F.H.u.' As Underhill wrote later: 'This got me started on current Canadian politics and ruined forever all chances that, as a university professor, I would achieve that austere impersonal objectivity which was exemplified by most of my academic colleagues who lived blameless lives, cultivated the golden mean, and never stuck their necks out."2 'O Canada' appeared in every issue from March 1929 until October 1932, covering topics ranging from business domination of Canadian political parties, imperial relations, the merits of proportional representa2 Frank H. Underhill, In Search of Canadian Liberalism (Toronto 1960), x

8 / On Canada

tion, constitutional amendment, and the failures of arts education in Canadian universities. After the autumn of 1932 Underhill continued as a regular contributor of signed articles, a writer of much of the unsigned political comment in the editorial columns, and a frequent book reviewer. Although many of his editorials are unsigned, the well-turned phrase and provocative thrust used to advance familiar points of view, enable the reader to spot most of Underhill's contributions. Although the Forum had always been sympathetic to the Progressive party, and its first political editor, C.B. Sissons, had been close to the UFO (United Farmers of Ontario) leaders, the freshest emphasis which Underhill brought to the Forum initially was his acute appreciation of the vigour of the agrarian protest movement in western Canada. While a professor at the University of Saskatchewan, he wrote later, he had 'experienced for the first time what a democracy is really like when it is thoroughly alive. It thrilled me to attend conferences of the Saskatchewan wheat growers and to watch the executive on the platform keeping a precarious hold over the earnest, excited, opinionated, anti-authoritarian delegates in the body of the hall. I saw the wheat pool being launched in a series of mass-meetings which must have been the greatest revival meetings ever held in Canada. Bliss was it in those days on the prairie to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.' 3 As the decade of the twenties drew to a close it was not easy to remain hopeful about the continuing influence of agrarian protestors, as Underhill fully understood. He admitted that the 'farmers' movements which seemed so promising in 1921 have not succeeded in convincing the rest of the community that they were anything more than expressions of class selfishness.' Contrary to some observers, this failure did not prove 'the viciousness of class movements.' What it did prove to Underhill reveals something both of his view of history and of the function of the Forum: There has never been a political movement in history that has achieved anything that did not have the driving force of class feeling behind it. What has been lacking in Canada has been a bridge between the farmers' sense of grievance and the wider critical outlook which ought to be the gift of the intellectuals to the community. Liberalism in this country suffers chiefly from a want of intellectual leadership and intellectual pioneering. It needs a Bentham and a Mill, not a Gladstone (or a King or a Dunning). And if journals like The Canadian Forum 3 Ibid., x-xi

9

I F.H.u. of The Canadian Forum

never do anything more than provide a field on which a few young men can sow their intellectual wild oats before they settle down safely on the side of the angels and the bankers, something at least will have been accomplished in the right direction. 4 Toward the end of 1930 Underhill's responsibility for whatever intellectual leadership the Forum could give increased beyond that of a monthly commentator when he became an associate editor, along with Felix Walter, E.K. Brown, R. Keith Hicks, all of the University of Toronto, and Thoreau Macdonald, and thus participated more directly in the formation of the journal's policy. As the depression deepened, F.H.u.'s appeals for intellectuals to play a more active role in the definition of social issues and the proposal of solutions to the problems of a society in distress grew more insistent. Yet underlying these appeals there was always a strong note of pessimism about the possibility of any response. One of his earliest 'O Canada' columns contained a typical lament over the long and continuing failure of Canadian university teachers to provide leadership in either thought or action in public affairs. 11 Two years later, a review of V.L. Parrington's The Beginnings of Critical Realism in America, 1860-1890, delivered this judgment: The reading of a book such as this is a depressing experience for a Canadian. It makes him realize the awful intellectual and emotional poverty of our Canadian civilization. For we also have the same social and political struggles between agrarian democracy and centralizing capitalism; we have sat at the same kind of a Great Barbecue under Macdonald and Laurier. A country's literature should make it conscious of the social forces which determine its destiny. But our literature since 1867 displays only a Boeotian placidity. We shall never produce a Parrington because we have not produced the literature for him to interpret. What is the reason for this mysterious sterility in Canadian life?6 Not the least interesting feature of this comment is the reference to 'Canadian civilization.' Underhill frequently chastised Canadians whose national feeling led to excessive expectation or prophecy, as when he attacked William Arthur Deacon's book, My Vision of Canada, as 'bombastic ranting,' similar to a 'Sunshine Edition' of the Toronto Mail. 7 'The 4 x, Nov. 1930 6 x1, July 1931

5 1x, May 1929 7 xm, Nov. 1933

10 /

On Canada

cure for our Canadian self-depreciation' was not to be found in efforts 'to conjure up art and literature and political thought by feverish incantations just as the Mail tries to conjure up prosperity.'8 Yet the suggestion that there was or could be a 'Canadian civilization' surely reveals nationalist sentiments, or at least yearnings, as pronounced as those which F.H.u. sometimes decried. Underhill found little evidence of intellectual leadership or political thought within Canada's major political parties, even when they resorted to the holding of summer schools. Reviewing the published papers of the Conservative and Liberal 'thinking sessions' held at Newmarket and Port Hope respectively in the summer of 1933, he discerned some signs of enlightenment among the participating professors, largely because their contributions contrasted so favourably with those of the politicians: 'The papers in both books which are really worth reading are nearly all by professors who are either not members of the party in question or are advocating policies which have not the slightest chance of adoption by the party. The party politicians ... confined themselves at Newmarket to matter-offact accounts of the problems of departmental administration for which they are directly responsible, and at Port Hope indulged mostly in soapbox stuff.' On the whole, he judged the Conservative volume both meatier and less solemn than the results of Liberal deliberations. 9 In his own political commentary, F.H.u. endeavoured month by month to fulfill what his Fabian sympathies and current observation led him to see with increasing clarity in the thirties as the obligation of an intellectual - to lay bare the relationship between the economic facts of life and political power. Thus his columns regularly called the attention of readers to books which would serve that purpose. Given the poverty of Canadian thought, he only rarely found a Canadian work worthy of commendation, but he gave a hearty welcome to Recovery by Control, by Francis Hankin and T.W.L. McDermott, for its recognition that laissez-faire economics and government were forever discredited in Canada and that public ownership of many services and more government regulation of big corporations were essential to a more equitable society. But these authors were naive, in Underhill's view, about the difficulties of dealing with big business. 'Do they think that any government Department of National 8 xm, Jan. 1934 9 XIV, March 1934

11 / F.H.u.

of The Canadian Forum

Revenue is ever likely to succeed in collecting Sir Herbert Holt's excess profits7'10 Non-Canadian books which F.H.u. found especially relevant to his own country included Stuart Chase's The Nemesis of American Business, Norman Thomas's America's Way Out, and R.H. Tawney's Equality. In Underhill's view Chase's 'series of brilliant pictures of the chaos and waste which is characteristic of uncoordinated private enterprise and which leads to the nemesis of unemployment' was more acceptable than his suggestion that contemporary society needed the leadership of a new breed of 'philosopher engineers.' However desperate the need for intellectual leadership it seemed 'about as wildly fantastic to expect philosophers from the kind of engineering schools which flourish in our modem universities as it would be to expect them from our faculties of commerce and finance.' Concurring fully in Thomas's belief that it was sheerest fantasy to dream of an American social revolution of the Russian variety, F.H.u. lauded the American socialist's discussion of the painful process of building an organized democratic socialist party in a North American setting. For F.H.u. Tawney's book was by far the most appealing of the three, with its prescription for vigorous government extension of the social services to create 'a community that stresses lightly the differences of wealth and birth and establishes on a firm foundation those institutions which meet common needs and are a source of common enlightenment and enjoyment.' What emerges most vividly from these books is the sense of the intolerable vulgarity of a civilization in which the profit motive is the main-spring of action and which is dominated by men whose sole claim to distinction is the keenness of their nose for money. Stuart Chase's most interesting chapter is one entitled 'The Luxury of Integrity' in which he enumerates the various types of yes-men who flourish in our present-day North America, and points out how hard it is for a citizen of the twentieth century to maintain his spiritual independence. In our own country the most serious aspect of these hard times is the danger that threatens the one promising experiment that we have, the attempt of our western farmers to manage their life as a fellowship. The depressing thing about Canada is not so much that the Holts and Gundys and Beauharnois gangs should succeed in collaring most of its natural resources as that most of our young men 10 xiv, Dec. 1933

12 /

On Canada

should be growing up with dreams of emulating these worthies or of becoming yes-men under them. 11 The experiment of the western farmers was threatened not only by capitalist forces in society, but also by one great weakness among the farmers themselves - their inadequate understanding of and rejection of the party system - a frequent theme with F.H.u. during the early thirties when many of the farmers were uncertain about the merits of the new ccr. His fears were spelled out in a lengthy discussion of a pamphlet by one of the prominent Ontario co-operative and farm leaders, W.C. Good, who was decidedly sceptical about Canada's new socialist party. As an exMP, and in Underhill's view, 'the most philosophical mind that the Ontario farmers' movement has produced in our time,' Good's contention that the party system must be replaced by such instruments of 'direct democracy' as the referendum, and the initiative and recall, had to be taken seriously. Underhill found the confidence typical of 'American pioneer democracy' in the capacity of every citizen to decide for himself public issues great and small, as expounded by Good, too primitive for a complex society in which few citizens could possess the knowledge required for the technical details of legislation. All the citizen could do was to cast a vote for a party whose general principles and direction he approved. The proper response to the weaknesses of the party system which had so sickened Good during his time in Ottawa was not independence for individual members of parliament: 'What is wrong with the present system is not party solidarity as such,' Underhill argued,' but party solidarity ... in parties which exist chiefly to enjoy the spoils of office for themselves and their friends. The remedy is not to abolish the party system but to get a party which exists for some better purpose and whose unity depends not on jobs and patronage but on the carrying out of a definite policy.' The great weakness of Good's approach, and Underhill feared that it was shared by all too many within the CCF, was its failure to recognize that democracy would not be realized until economic exploitation of one class by another was ended. Therefore, 'if the farmers and workingmen of Canada are determined to emancipate themselves from this economic domination the first thing they must do is to build up a political movement which is strong enough to face the political servants of big business, i.e., 11 XI, July 1931

13 / F.H.u. of The Canadian Forum

the two old parties, on equal terms. Far from decrying party solidarity or trying to abolish parties they will have to achieve a party in which cohesion and unity are stronger than they have been in any of the parties to which we have been accustomed.' 12 Underhill's feeling for the farmers' movement led him to exaggerate the importance of the agrarian element to the ccF. This tendency was probably reinforced by the fact that he never felt much at ease with the representatives of the other major economic interest in the new party, the trade union movement, for as he later recalled, their world was largely foreign to him, and he abhorred being addressed as 'comrade.' 18 Like millions of others in North America and beyond, F.H.u. welcomed the advent of Franklin D. Roosevelt's 'New Deal' as evidence that at last one democratic nation had produced a political leader who could take some action. The most notable feature of Roosevelt's approach to politics, in Underhill's view, was his reliance on the advice of experts, particularly on academic economists. While admitting the difficulty of allowing experts to take such an active part in the formulation of policy while at the same time preserving control by the public, Underhill was convinced that 'no society will be able to survive in the machine age which does not provide for this organized intellectual leadership of trained experts.' He was not optimistic about Roosevelt's long-term prospects. Clearly the American president was headed in the direction of state socialism; before long the discredited and stunned businessmen and politicians who had been caught off guard and were temporarily unable to resist would rally their forces and revolt against Roosevelt's leadership. It was just possible that Roosevelt's evident genius in reaching the imagination of the average American would then enable the president to appeal to the public over the heads of the old-line politicians. More likely, the extent of Roosevelt's failure to educate the public and his party to accept the radical programmes that he apparently intended to initiate would be revealed: he has not yet solved the problem of carrying the public with him ... The leadership which will keep public opinion continuously educated upon the issues 1.2 xm, Aug. 1.933. Good's reply is in the same issue. 1.3 Tape recording of symposium on the 1.930s, organized by the Institute of Canadian Studies, Carleton Univ., 1.960

14 / On Canada

with which the men at the centre are dealing cannot be improvised in a few months after a general election.14

Within a year F.H.u. believed that his forebodings were only too well founded. The 'heroic effort ... to adapt the American liberal tradition to the needs of the crisis and to reform American economic institutions without transforming them' was being so sabotaged by big business interests that it seemed 'more than likely that the ultimate result of the New Deal will be an American version of the corporate state.' Even so, Roosevelt had 'at least shown that democracy need not inevitably abandon itself to dull despair.' Looking over the Canadian scene, despair seemed well justified. The Liberals, including J.W . Dafoe of the Winnipeg Free Press, whom Underhill had so much admired over the years, talked only of liberty, 'by which they mean chiefly the liberty to acquire property and do what you like with it.' Nor was there anything to hope for in forecasts of 'a revived Tory Democracy' under the leadership of 'the future Earl of Calgary.' Underhill suspected that the investigation into price spreads was probably an election stunt, an attempt to put the desperate little businessman to good political use by championing his doomed cause. As for the CCF, it alone among the parties had a coherent policy but it had failed to bring farmers and urban workers into any real co-operation and its socialist teaching had made little impact on the middle class. The net effect of the depression in Canada, in Underhill's estimate, was to create a climate similar to the one that had fostered the growth of fascism elsewhere: The great majority of Canadians are uneasy, perplexed, and frightened about their individual and collective future; they are deeply disillusioned with the quality of the democratic leadership which is available to them. They are afraid to face any fundamental reconstruction of their institutions. They are in a mood to be captured by a movement of passion and panic which promises definite action; and they are not politically well educated enough to save themselves from being made the dupes of the same kind of appeals as those which captured the middle classes and the agriculturists of Germany and Italy. 11•

Conditions were not ripe for fascism yet, but 'in the absence of any resolute leadership of a democratic kind in tackling our fundamental problems 14 xm, July 1933

15 XIV, Apr. 1934

15 / F.H.u. of The Canadian Forum

we shall drift aimlessly until the conditions are ripe for a Fascist reaction.' At this juncture Underhill found particular cause to lament, as he had often done, the absence of any radical tradition in Canadian society. Indeed, he came close to finding Canada lacking in any tradition at all, a condition born of the fact that 'we have never gone through a generation or a decade when we were compelled to discuss the fundamentals of our institutions. There is always an anaemic quality to the life of a people who lack such an experience. The deep-rooted colonialism of our national psychology, the fact that all our institutions are derivative from either Britain or the United States, has had a debilitating effect upon our communal life.' Neither church nor school was capable of doing anything to remedy this condition. In religion Canadian energies had been absorbed in struggles between Catholics and Protestants, so that neither camp had developed any theological or social radicalism: 'Who now ever remembers to inquire how far forward the United Church got in the Forward Movement about which there was such a pother some dozen years ago?' And Canadian education had never been anything but a pale imitation of 'experiments started by more vigorous and enterprising peoples elsewhere.' True to form, 'the question, "Dare the School build a new social order?", which is now being asked with ever greater insistence in certain educational circles in the United States, has hardly yet suggested itself to our Canadian teachers and students.' Most depressing of all was what was happening to Canadian university students : The Canadian university students are trained to believe that they are an elite who deserve the better things of life, and now that they are graduating to find none of these better jobs available for them, they are going through exactly the same evolution as was experienced by German university students in the decade after 1919. The depression is not making socialists of them, but fascists. If ever a Fascist movement starts in Canada, it will sweep over our universities like wildfire, and neither among the student body nor among the shabby-genteel professorate will there be any effective opposition to it. McGill and Toronto are already ripe for a fine anti-semitic outburst. What all this comes to is that, if we are to be saved from a Fascist reaction in Canada, it will be because of what happens in Britain and the United States rather than because of any native powers of resistance of our own ...16 16 Ibid.

16 I On Canada

This pessimistic pronouncement on the Canadian condition was the last lengthy piece of F.H.u.'s pen for some months. By the spring of 1934 the depression forced the Dent firm to abandon its subsidization of the Forum, and the publishing of the periodical was taken over by a group of young Liberals, incorporated as Canadian Forum Limited. They appointed Steven Cartwright, a Toronto lawyer, as editor, and chose an editorial committee composed of E.H. Blake, Norman McLeod Rogers, a Queen's political scientist, R.A. Mackay of the department of political science at Dalhousie, George V. Ferguson of the Winnipeg Free Press, and N .A.M. Mackenzie, professor of international law at the University of Toronto. During the period of Liberal control, which lasted for little more than a year, the political tone of the Forum continued to be left of the organized Liberal party, but distinctly socialist positions were presented less frequently than before. F.H.u. appeared with the occasional book review or article, the most interesting being his comment on R.B. Bennett's 'New Deal' radio speeches. Underhill remained as sceptical of the possibility of any real change at the hands of Bennett as he had always been. He altogether doubted Bennett's sincerity, and noted that the prime minister's radio talks had made no mention of a fact which Bennett knew very well - that under the BNA Act social insurance and labour regulations came under the jurisdiction of the provinces. There were other significant omissions, including any reference to collective bargaining, taxation and fiscal policy, or the campaign of certain business interests to turn the CNR over to the control of the CPR. But F.H.u. had no doubt that Bennett's oratory had convinced many voters that the Conservative leader was a man of action : the most remarkable phenomenon is the pathetic belief of worthy middle class people in the strong-man myth which skilful publicity has built up around Mr. Bennett. ... Mr. Bennett has shown himself a strong man in dealing with the nonentities in his cabinet, in arresting communists, and in deporting poor immigrants. But in dealing with our big business interests he has yet to show his power to challenge effectively their control over his government. ... He had his great chance to play the role of Sir Robert Peel of the Canadian Conservative party at the Ottawa Conference of 1932, but after several preliminary gestures he backed down before the determination of the textile interests. One of our

17 / F.H.u. of The Canadian Forum

textile leaders is Mr. A.O. Dawson, who is at present head of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and who has announced that businessmen must strive to achieve the golden rule but that they don't want any outside interference in their affairs; and from the point of view of the Golden-Rule Dawsons both governments and trade unions are outsiders. Save when he nationalized radio broadcasting Mr. Bennett has never done anything which our big interests didn't want him to do. They can be trusted to find means to nullify any of his reforms of the capitalist system. From time to time Underhill had expressed admiration for the small group of Christian socialists who had formed the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order, and for the radical social pronouncements which had been delivered by certain church courts, mainly in the United Church of Canada, but he had never held any real hope for the churches as instruments of social reform. Bennett's programme would strengthen the conservative elements in the churches: The most significant result of Mr. Bennett's radio speeches is the relief which they have given to thousands of worried middle-class Christians .... these people were becoming more and more distressed about the working of our social institutions. They were finding it more and more difficult to meet the arguments of socialists inside and outside of the churches. They were beginning to wonder whether they would not have to risk their respectability, for which they and their wives have made a lifetime of sacrifices, and go socialist. Some of the more vulgar of them had gone Oxford Group as soon as the Buchmanites invaded Canada and had thus compounded for the evils of the economic system by damning their own past sins in respect to wine and women. But most of them, to their credit, were still worrying. And now Mr. Bennett has come along and proclaimed that he will reform the capitalist system and his reforms won't involve any unpleasantness to them personally. They can go back to church now and listen to the old sermons about personal religion without any uneasy afterthoughts on the social implications of Christianity. Mr. Bennett has lifted a burden from their minds. And they will vote for him in their thousands at the next election. That Bennett's proposals could be thought radical by so many Canadians confirmed everything that Underhm had been saying for years about the immaturity of Canadian social and political thought:

18 / On Canada

Mr. Bennett's reforms, if they are carried out, will bring Canada up to about the point which England reached under Mr. Lloyd George in the years before the war. They will not touch the root of our troubles, which is the ownership and control of the instruments of production by private profit-seeking interests. That so mild a programme as this could have been received as radical only goes to show how muddled our social thinking still is in Canada. But it also shows what fertile soil this country will provide for a more plausible fascist demagogue than Mr. Bennett, if it ever becomes necessary for capitalist rulers, in the face of a determined attack from the left, to sweep the middle classes off their feet by some well planned pseudo-radical emotionalism. 17

Before the year was out the results of the federal election of October 1935, suggested just how difficult it was going to be to mount an attack from the left: in its first national appeal to the voters the CCF had returned only seven members to the House of Commons, and the good, grey Mackenzie King, scarcely a model demagogue, had been returned comfortably to office. Underhill did not give up his fear of the growth of fascism. When Sir Edward Beatty, president of the CPR, fulminated in a public address against socialists in university departments of economics, and subsequently had the speech circulated in pamphlet form by the railway's public relations office, Underhill speculated about the reasons for the outburst. They could have nothing to do with the number of university economists who were actually socialists, since these were only a handful and confined to Toronto and McGill. In fact, 'the overwhelming majority of our Canadian economists are good, respectable liberals ... still talking the jargon of equilibrium economics though some of them, greatly daring, are beginning to flirt with ideas of state planning.' What was really bothering Beatty, Underhill concluded, was that even these orthodox economists, especially the younger ones, were not 'accepting his propaganda for handing over the CNR to the CPR with that respectful deference to which he is accustomed when he addresses Canadian Clubs and Chambers of Commerce.' Finding it difficult to answer the economists' arguments Beatty 'skilfully confuses the issue by accusing his critics of socialism. He knows that the red bogey still does duty for argument with thousands of worthy Canadians.' 17 xv,Feb.1935

19 / F.u.u. of The Canadian Forum

Beatty had gone on to make remarks about education which Underhill found sinister, especially in a former chancellor of McGill. Education was accorded public support, Beatty contended, because most of the public believed that it produced worthwhile results. But, 'should the time come when the people of this country believe that education is failing to produce men and women better qualified to deal with the harsh realities of life, no theory of the sanctity of education will save its institutions from such criticism and such destruction as the people at large believe they deserve.' To Underhill the meaning of this statement was clear: 'If this is not an invitation for some Canadian would-be Hitler to work up a demagogic agitation against our schools and universities and, when the opportunity comes, to discipline them in the customary fascist manner, what is it?' 18 Their new policy of paying small honoraria to contributors was only one of the causes of the large deficit which soon led the Liberal editors to hand over the Forum to a group headed by Graham Spry, then secretary of the Ontario ccF. As editor, Spry and a group of associates ran the journal for a year, still amid mounting debts, until the summer of 1.936 when they transferred ownership of the company to the League for Social Reconstruction, a Canadian version of the British Fabian Society, whose members were able to raise enough money to sustain the periodical until the League disbanded in 1.939. Thereafter control rested with a politically mixed group, only some of whom had been members of the LSR. When the Forum passed to ccF-LSR hands Underhill's name appeared on the masthead once more and he again began to contribute unsigned editorial comment regularly and a longer signed article two or three times a year. Although in these years the Forum was committed to promoting the cause of democratic socialism, and the League looked upon the journal as an LSR organ,19 it was never merely a propagandist for either the League or the ccF. Nowhere was this independence more evident than in the contributions of F.H.u., the author of the initial draft of the Regina Manifesto, the first president of the LSR, and one of the authors of the League's proposal for a socialist society in Canada, Social Planning for Canada (1.935). 18 xv, Dec. 1935 19 Minutes of Sixth Annual Convention, LSR, 20 Mar. 1937. Report of the National Secretary to the seventh annual convention, LSR, 1938

20

I On Canada

Four years after the founding of the ccF, on the eve of a national convention, Underhill outlined some of the party's weaknesses. If it was to become a truly national party it needed a well-organized central office with an adequate full-time staff; equally essential was a press which, unlike the present ccF papers, would specialize in something other than 'general invective.' The weakness of its press reflected one of the severe limitations of the CCF - its failure to do the hard work of study and planning needed to translate broad policy statements into practical programmes. Underhill believed that Canadians did 'not need much pushing to make them accept two great innovations, the adoption of housing and of health as national responsibilities, which must be undertaken under the direction and leadership of the national government.' Yet the only positive step taken in either of these fields was the health insurance legislation of the Liberal government of British Columbia. 'The next great, popular leader in Canada, unless we slip back into a fascist debauch, is going to be the man who shows the same drive and constructive imagination about housing which the late Adam Beck showed about electric power in Ontario.' And once it had concrete policies, the ccF needed a long-term policy of public education. 20 In succeeding years, Underhill found that the party had changed but little, and needed substantially the same advice. His estimate of ccF strength fostered no illusions about the imminence of a socialist society in Canada. In the latter half of the thirties as war threatened in Europe, Forum writers increasingly emphasized the relationship between the democratic socialist movement in Canada and the international socialist movement. Underhill was no exception and wrote with growing frequency on questions of foreign policy. He had always had a good deal to say about British imperialism, arguing that 'Pax Britannica' really meant 'Rule Britannica.'21 The voice of 'O Canada' was often raised to expose the economic realities of empire. Typical in tone was a comment on R.G. Trotter's The British Empire-Commonwealth. In Underhill's estimation Trotter's interpretation was wanting because of 'his preference for putting politicians in the front of the stage and leaving the profit-seeking entrepreneurs and investors rather decorously hidden behind the scenery. Most of the innocent American college students, for whom this book was originally written, would never gather from it that the British Empire is a business institution.'22 20 xvi, Aug. 1936 22 xm, Apr. 1933

21 x,Mar.1930

21 / F.H.u. of The Canadian Forum

After the mid-thirties when the impotence of the League of Nations was evident F.H.U. issued frequent calls for a delineation of a distinctive Canadian foreign policy, one that would open up the possibility of neutrality in any future war. Underhill contended that Canada was only involved in the controversies of the great powers through British imperialism. 'Commonwealth defence' meant the defence of Conservative British capitalism, whose representatives might soon make a deal with Hitler for the protection of their mutual interests against communism. Without a policy of her own, Canada's entanglements with the League and the British Empire would drag the country into a war that could not serve Canadian interests. Even Canada's finest journalist and most informed commentator on international affairs, J.W. Dafoe, was guilty of failure to propose any alternative to adherence to the ideals of a defunct League. And Mackenzie King's rejection of legislation providing for the possibility of neutrality in favour of a policy of 'parliament will decide' meant in effect automatic involvement when war broke out.28 This was scarcely a unique or difficult prophecy to make at the time, but an accurate one. Although Underhill continued an association with the Forum for many years, the journal never again bore his mark as clearly as in the decade of the thirties, and particularly in the years 1929-34. Precise assessment of the influence of journals and journalists is impossible, but it is evident that the Forum and F.H.u. were read by an increasing audience in these years. During the decade the number of subscribers increased from about 1,000 to around 2,500, a notable achievement in years of depression. Some of the increase can be credited to the alliance between the Forum and the League for Social Reconstruction, which had sixteen branches across the country at the peak of its activities and provided a somewhat expanded constituency for the periodical. But the correspondence columns of the Forum indicate that it had many readers who were much less sympathetic to its views than the members of the LSR. Moreover, the Forum was attacked by editorial writers in a variety of Canadian papers often enough to suggest that it was widely regarded as possessing some influence. At least it can be asserted that the Forum, and F.H.U. in particular, played a unique part in the Canadian social and political debate of the depression decade, and that they were read because they presented a consistently well written and provocative commentary on Canadian so23 xv, July 1935, xvr, July and Oct. 1936

22 /

On Canada

ciety from a distinctive point of view. To their regret they never succeeded in giving to the debate the sharpness or the intensity that they hoped to produce. Re-reading the Forum thirty years later, one wonders whether it would have exerted more influence had its writers, and F.H.u. himself, paid greater attention to his advice to specialize less in general invective and more in detailed proposals for reform. But it is always the first objective of the reformer to clear away obstacles to change. Attention to that necessity may date the journalist's work. That a later Underhill believed it had done so is suggested by his failure to include in his collection of essays, In Search of Canadian Liberalism (1960), more than two short pieces from the Forum of the decade when the volume of his contributions was at its peak. The dominant impression which comes through to a latter-day reader of F.H.u. the journalist is his immense enjoyment of the role. In an early 'O Canada' column he gave his readers an analysis of that role which he found 'so perfect that we must hasten to quote it before someone else quotes it at our expense.' He had been reading H.G. Wells' latest book, The Autocracy of Mr. Parham. The central figure, Mr. Parham, was an Oxford don with visions of becoming the editor of an influential paper: It was to be one of those papers, not vulgarly gross in their circulation, but which influence opinion and direct current history throughout the civilized world. It was to be all that the Spectator, the Saturday Review, the Nation, and the New Statesman have ever been and more. It was to arraign the whole spectacle of life, its public affairs, its 'questions,' its science, art, and literature. It was to be understanding, advisory, but always a little aloof. It was to be bold at times, stem at times, outspoken at times, but never shouting, never vulgar. As an editor one partakes of the nature of God. And without God's responsibility for the defects and errors of the universe you survey. You can smile and barb your wit as He cannot do. For He would be under suspicion of having led up to His own jokes. Writing 'Notes of the Week' is perhaps one of the purest pleasures life offers to an intelligent, cultivated man. You encourage or you rebuke nations. You point out how Russia has erred and Germany taken your hint of the week before last. You discuss the motives of statesmen and warn bankers and colossal business adventurers. You judge judges. You have a word of kindly praise or mild contempt for the foolish multitude of writers. You

23 / F.u.u. of The Canadian Forum

compliment artists, sometimes left-handedly. The little brawling Correspondents play about your feet, writing their squabbling protesting letters, needing sometimes your reproving pat. Every week you make or mar reputations. Criticizing everyone, you go uncriticized. You speak out of a cloud, glorious, powerful, and obscure. Few men are worthy of this great trust, and Mr. Parham had long felt himself among that elect minority. Yes, we may as well confess it. The serene consciousness of belonging to that elect minority is what keeps us going. F.u.u.24 24 xr, Nov. 1930

TWO

Public Policy and Private Pressures: The canadian Radio League 1930-6 and countervailing Power GRAHAM SPRY

The Canadian Radio League was a wholly voluntary organization formed in October 1930 to give expression to public opinion on broadcasting policy and to urge upon the government of Canada the establishment of a publicly-owned system of broadcasting from sea unto sea. The organizers were only a clutch of young men and women around thirty years of age, first in Ottawa and Montreal and then in cities across Canada. Their opponents were the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Canadian Manufacturers Association, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, related interests, particularly those of advertising, and the larger newspapers with their own radio stations. There was also a very aggressive distillery producing, as Professor Margaret Prang has remarked, those two essentials of the 'true North, strong and free,' whiskey and anti-freeze. Its station slogan was, affably, 'cheerio.' The officers of this very informal Radio League financed their nationwide activities over six years of entirely enjoyable battle at the ridiculous cost of some $6,000, much of it from their own pockets. Their purpose was a Canadian broadcasting structure that would establish a national means of communication between regions and peoples, develop Canadian programming, and retain Canadian talent in music and the arts. The spirit was national, not nationalist; no exclusion of popular or useful programmes from the United States or other countries was for an instant considered; and the proposed system including a French-Canadian network was intended to be bi-cultural. This indeed was about the time when the

25 I Public Policy and Private Pressures

word was given some currency, as was noted in Volume I of the Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism.1 There was also a less strong desire to strengthen federal authority. This involved the League itself in actively opposing the claims of Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and New Brunswick to jurisdiction over broadcasting, and the presentation of the League's views by its honorary counsel, Brooke Claxton, to the Supreme Count in Ottawa and the Privy Council in London. This was supported, or at least not opposed, by the remarkably strong French-Canadian members of the League, including M. Louis St. Laurent, then in private practice in Quebec City, and M. Georges Pelletier, editor of Le Devoir, Montreal. Almost every voluntary organization in Canada, as well as every major church, a host of banking and business, trade union, farm, university, teacher and women representatives from every part of Canada, French and English, Catholic and Protestant, endorsed and actively supported the League. The larger part of this varied and representative support was secured almost the moment the League was organized. The initiating, exploratory meeting was on 6 October 1930. By the first public meeting on 8 December, the League had received the formal endorsement from twenty-four national societies, including the Women's Institutes, the Victoria, Vancouver, and Ottawa Boards of Trade, the Trades and Labor Congress, the Canadian Legion, the Professional Institute of the Civil Service, the United Farmers, listeners' associations from coast to coast, the French-Canadian associations of Manitoba and Alberta, the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire, the Native Sons of Canada, and others, as well as forty-two newspapers. That an organization beginning with three or four people in October could in some two months obtain such support is evidence of the fact that the League's task was more to express than to create a lively public opinion. Brooke Claxton, honorary counsel and a most active member of the League, in his address inaugurating the lectures at Carleton University in 1957 honouring the late Alan Plaunt, an original member and voluntary secretary of the League, went so far as to say that in his view the League represented the most powerful movement of Canadian opinion since that which led to Confederation. However this may be, still more generous 1. Vol. 1, general introduction (Ottawa 1.967), xxxi

26 / On Canada

should be the comment upon the work of Sir John Aird, Charles A. Bowman, and Augustin Frigon, members of the Royal Commission, the report of which the League supported in principle, if not in every detail. The League, for example, did not urge the 'nationalization' of every private station and the creation of a total monopoly. On the contrary, partly for tactical reasons to make the government's task easier and to divide the private broadcasters, as well as a fear of monopoly itself, the League urged the continuation of local, low-powered private stations. The League also rejected provincial councils with some control or responsibility, as was feared, for programming. In the result, the League won most of its major battles. In 1.931., the Privy Council decided that broadcasting was a federal subject. In 1.932, officers of the League were able to sit in the gallery of the House of Commons and to expect that only two or three members would vote against the bill establishing the principle of publicly-owned broadcasting stations and networks, financed, not by the government, but by the listeners through a licence fee. Only one vote was cast against the bill. In 1.936, after further years of persistent and quiet intervention primarily by Alan Flaunt and Brooke Claxton, the act establishing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was passed and a voluntary, statutory board of governors, similar to the BBC board, replaced the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission of three full-time officials. These were the three major campaigns won by the League. That the people of Canada - or the little group called the League - won the war is quite another question. Public opinion dissipates, Leagues rise and disappear, but corporations go on. As the sixties march on, the dominant structure of Canadian broadcasting is not the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation but the two or three dozen highly profitable private stations in larger markets and the less important stations in smaller cities and towns. Ahead emerges the satellite and the domination of cable television with a multiplying number of channels, mainly from United States sources. A wholly new position and problem are already emerging. As organizations grow larger and larger, be they corporations or governments or 'Unions or trade associations, the likelihood of the scattered, divided, varied and informed, misinformed or sometimes deliberately misled, multitudes making their common or majority wishes prevail seems to have less and less chance. The early efforts and i;uccesses of the League,

27 I Public Policy and Private Pressures

if only temporary, offer some encouragement that there are methods by which in a favourable moment a countervailing influence can be built up and some other than the particular or interested view of one or a few elements in the community be given expression. There is, however, no case for being sententious about the League nor any ground for referring to the League as the founders of the CBC or to any individual in the League as the CBc's father. The League was but a part of the whole process of public debate and public understanding at a time when communications were less centralized and when only a few businessmen had really appreciated that a broadcasting licence was a licence to print your own money. The story of the League has been admirably written elsewhere and will not be repeated here. Professor Margaret Prang has set it out in an article entitled 'The Origins of Public Broadcasting in Canada' ;2 there is the long and detailed doctoral dissertation 'A History of the Canadian Radio League 1930-1936,' 1964, by the Rev. John Egli O'Brien, s.J.; 3 and, of course, E.A. Weir's The Struggle for Canadian Broadcasting. Since this essay was written, there has also appeared Professor F.W. Peers' admirable and scholarly The Politics of Canadian Broadcasting, 1920-1951.4 Mr. Weir's book, is the first-hand recollection of a warrior of the early battles who writes first of the victories and then of the long, dreary slow defeat 'that, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along,' at the hands of those interests who see broadcasting only or predominantly as a money-making business and of the successive government measures compromising with those interests. In the depression years before and after 1930, business interests and the government were feeling their way and the massive power of the local private stations had not been marshalled. The government was open-minded but determined upon establishing some clear policy rather than a compromise. Given the strong, if at first latent, opinion of the time, there were other factors which gave the League an advantage. In the first place, the small group running the day-to-day tactics of the League had made itself intimately informed of the broadcasting situations in Canada, the United States, and Britain, and knew more about alternative policies for national 2 The Canadian Historical Review, XLVI (March 1965), 1-:,1 :, Univ. of S. Calif. available through Univ. Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Mich. 4 The Struggle for Canadian Broadcasting (Toronto 1965); The Politics of Canadian Broadcasting, 1920-1951 (Toronto 1969)

28 / On Canada

network broadcasting than most broadcasters. Second, this group had friends and acquaintances of ability and knowledge both in the decisive circles in Ottawa and in most Canadian cities. Above all, the League was essentially disinterested; no one was seeking a job, concessions, power, promotion, or even martyrdom: the whole spirit of the League was one not of sentimentalism but of good fun mixed not a little with surprised and mild astonishment about how little the broadcasting interests knew, on a national scale, the business in which they were engaged. The League helped the private stations, at their request, prepare, for example, the statement of estimated income and expenditure for their proposed private and subsidized national network. Indeed, wordy as the debate necessarily was, it was amicable enough, even to early offers of employment to a League officer by two Canadian and one American interest. The private stations and their business associates, it may be gratefully observed, were also unwitting factors in helping the League's case to be accepted. Two or three of these episodes, one of them not without relevance perhaps to the Bell Telephone bill c-104 passed by the House of Commons in 1968, merit somewhat amused repetition here. Helpful also was the extravagance of the anti-League and anti-public broadcasting propaganda. Accusations of state dictatorship, of schedules exclusively devoted to 'high-brow' programming, of the total exclusion of American programmes, and other 'scare' tactics were frequently heard over private stations and in such newspapers as the Toronto Telegram and the Montreal La Presse. The 'cheerio' distillery station in Toronto, for example, predicted remarkably enough that if a public system were established, the interfering civil servant dictators in Ottawa, servants possessed of minds at once high and narrow, would eliminate from the air Pepsodent's masterly programme'Amos 'n' Andy.' Old and wise observers of the Ottawa scene in the Press Gallery, the Chateau Laurier Grill, and the then red leather chairs of the Rideau Club, aware of the power of such propaganda, considered that the battle always went to the strong and that neither big battalions nor any deities known in the corridors of the parliament buildings were on the side of public ownership and the Canadian Radio League. Strangely enough, this was a miscalculation and underestimated both the views of the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. R.B. Bennett, and the fateful mistakes and accidents involving the CPR and the Bell Telephone Company of Canada.

29 I Public Policy and Private Pressures

The mistake of the CPR was made in March 1931, a brief four months after the first public meeting of the League. It was Frank Underhill who brought it to the writer's attention in Ottawa by telephone. There followed a copy of the article submitted to the Canadian Forum by J. Murray Gibbon, the imaginative, cultivated but too faithful general publicity agent of the CPR. 'The Lord has delivered the enemy into our hands.' This, we in the League were convinced, was the Naseby of the CPR.6 5 Frank Underhill, a new planet, first swam into my ken in 1921 when I was debating in Saskatoon for the University of Manitoba. The subject, resolved that Canada should have a minister and not an ambassador in Washington, found Manitoba on the side of a minister. Underhill was, I think, a professorial judge but the subject was not one that gave Manitobans any large opportunity to prove to F.H.u.'s satisfaction their progressive Canadianism or sense of Canada's independent destiny. The telephone call and the proof of Murray Gibbon's article some ten years later allowed him to form a more tolerant view and through that time and the time of the League for Social Reconstruction, the Canadian Forum, the New Commonwealth and the CCF, we were close if argumentative allies. This piece is an affair of broadcasting and a commercial has doubtless been anticipated to cry the merits of that eighty-year-old product, Frank Underhill. Dare it be suggested, whatever the magistral differences, that a comparison between the Chanoine, the Abbe Groulx, and Frank Underhill is not totally impossible? Abbe Groulx was the long-lived historian of the French-Canadian 'nation.' Could Frank Underhill condone the description of himself as an historian - and commentator - of the English-Canadian 'nation'? Both were suffused with their own concept of Canadian history, and both found in Canadian history justifications to support their own convictions about Canada. They commanded not a few of the weapons of scholarship but were not content to let them rust in an academic ivory tower; nor did they scorn to brandish and use their sharp weapons in the dusty arena of politics. Certainly, they stimulated their students and no less their critics; this last, after all, is the fate of anyone with a mission and they both enjoyed it. Their minds, of course, were shaped in almost wholly opposite experiences - the experience of a devout Catholic and the experience of a doubting Protestant; of postgraduate work after Laval or Toronto in Fribourg's profound conservatism and racist thinking in contrast with Oxford's profound scepticism. There are many other contrasts, of course, yet both men in their own way and according to their own lights, were in their political faith and political actions first and foremost Canadians. (Heaven forfend that we should call one a Francophone, the other an Anglophone, as if they were mechanical instruments easily fitted into a computer.) Of the two, Groulx published more books, Underhill more truths. Groulx's mission was to ensure his people's survival; Underhill's his people's enfranchisement. As the decades passed, the Toronto professor, once rejected or suspect for

30 / On Canada

The article was a glorious, swinging attack on the British Broadcasting Corporation, on publicly-owned broadcasting, and the Canadian Radio League. The BBC, Gibbon wrote, was established by the British government to keep in its hands 'a machine for propaganda ... invaluable in war.' Opposed to advertising, the BBC yet derived a fair part of its revenues from the advertisements in its publications. As for talent, a 'cousin of the janitor' could secure employment in the BBC if he accepted 'a janitor's pay.' Emigration, wrote Mr. Gibbon, offered British artists and musicians their only escape from the Corporation. The name of Mr. Gibbon was widely known and respected; and the comment of any officer of the CPR automatically commanded attention. Mr. Gibbon's article was therefore bound to be noticed and quoted. By contrast, a wide Canadian public had really not yet heard of the small Canadian League or its advocacy of a nation-wide system of high-powered stations in public ownership. The report of Sir John Aird had appeared in 1927 and, though not forgotten, had been lost among the problems of the great depression. By one act, the leading and most powerful opponent of public broadcasting made the issue a subject of lively discussion and advertised both the issue and the League from coast to coast. The attention Mr. Gibbon's article received was not wholly accidental. his 'dangerous thoughts,' has been accepted as a manifestation of a generous, changing, liberal spirit in an empirical Canadian tradition. His friends rejoice in this status, but let us not make him out to be either a father figure or a revolutionary hero. He is too close to us to be either; a large, dignified pedestal would restrict, would fetter him. Underhill's views and judgements may not have been always accepted but always they pointed ahead to more generous human relationships and to wider, richer individual human freedoms. And Groulx? It is for French-Canadians to answer. His devoted, concentrated loyalty to his people and their survival commands respect and deserves understanding; his mind is a clue to one aspect of the French-Canadian spirit. But as the new school of French-Canadian historians - Ouellet, Trudel, Fregault, even Brunet - proceeds, they may perhaps find Groulx to be just another of those fine, devoted publicists of introverted, right-wing nationalism who misled and unwittingly injured the interests of the very people whom they sought to serve. It is odd indeed to mention Groulx and Underhill in the same breath. Both were worthies, both looked like worthies, but in the long run Underhill may come to be seen to have shared a greater vision of Canada and a greater sense of those policies and conditions which contribute to the deep interests and survivance of the French-Canadian people than the good abbe himself.

31 / Public Policy and Private Pressures

Friendly newspapers across Canada were given a copy of the article in advance and a memorandum commenting on it. Members of the government and civil servants were similarly advised. A copy was sent to Major Gladstone Murray, the Canadian in a senior BBC post. Thus when the article appeared, a glowing welcome had been prepared for it. As a result, the article became a minor cause celebre. Editorials from coast to coast condemned it. The BBC described the article as a 'unique combination of inaccuracy and malevolence' and when the CPR failed to give an explanation, the BBC announced that the subject would be raised in the House of Commons. At one stroke, the subject of broadcasting became a matter of public controversy and public attention. Few things in the first months of the League's existence contributed more to making it and its purposes known and to defining who its opponents were. Late in 1.931 another episode involved the Bell Telephone Company and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and rendered similar help to the League, particularly in the East Block and cabinet circles. For some weeks the BBC had been working with broadcasting systems in other Commonwealth countries to organize a round-the-world programme for Christmas Day 1.931. On this occasion, the King was to speak to the Commonwealth, a peaceable substitute for those drum beats which were heard about that empire upon which the sun then never set. All arrangements appeared to go well until December. Then emerged difficulties with certain contractual obligations of the AT&T and the Bell Telephone Company. The difficulties were twofold and threatened to exclude Canada from this first 'empire' broadcast. The first related to a request by the BBC for a 'pick-up' of the roar of Niagara Falls. There was in 1.931 no CBC and the CNR Radio, a most creative influence in the history of Canadian radio, was making the 'pick-up' at Niagara. The Bell Telephone Company, doubtless fully in accord with its legal rights, insisted that the broadcast was telephone and not telegraph business and there the difficulty arose. Only by 1.6 December, nine days before the date of the world-wide programme, was this difficulty overcome. The second difficulty arose from the BBC's desire to have a reserve, 'stand-by' trans-Atlantic circuit for use if the regular circuit to be used suffered loss of quality through atmospheric conditions on Christmas Day. The reserve circuit was directly or indirectly within the control of the AT&T and on 1.9 December, it advised the BBC the AT&T

32 / On Canada

could not 'connect its lines with the Canadian National (telegraph) lines,' a competitor. The difficulty was not technical; it was entirely a difficulty of inter-company business relationships. In the situation, it was revealed that an American company could exercise some control over the distribution of a British programme to a Canadian broadcasting service. Throughout the period of discussion, the whole possibility of the empire broadcast came into doubt and, in view of the uncertainties, the BBC cancelled the entire arrangements, though at the last moment, the two private communication companies waived their assumed rights. Indeed, after cancellation both the AT&T and the Bell Company tried to revive the arrangements. By this time, the cancellation of the broadcast was, of course, public knowledge and a wide controversy developed over the reasons for it. Such was the storm that the prime minister protested. Mr. Weir briefly summarizes the affair in his The Struggle for Canadian Broadcasting6 and Major Gladstone Murray, of the BBC answered questions about it in the Minutes of the Special Committee on Broadcasting of 1.932.1 The whole controversy was of great help to the League's cause. It had persistently suggested that, for perfectly good business reasons, the great American electricity and communications companies were almost too interested in Canada. This was not 'anti-Americanism'; it was opposition to the control by any single interest of vital instruments of Canadian communication. For the same reason, the League opposed the CPR's thrust to dominate Canadian broadcasting. Good use was made in government circles of the power of the American 'electricity trust.' An account of the interrelationships between finance, manufacturing, entertainment, and broadcasting companies appeared in League pamphlets and was read into the record of the House of Commons committee. Use was also made of the statement of Owen D. Young, chairman of General Electric, to a committee of Congress that the United States should drive British wireless and other communication services out of North America. The League also emphasized the efforts of one or more of the American networks to secure outlets in some of the larger Canadian markets, though it was not known until after the legislation that as early as 1.929 a proposal had been made to Sir John Aird by an American broadcasting company to buy up the larger 6 The Struggle for Canadian Broadcasting, 141-3 7 Minutes of the Special Committee on Broadcasting, 321

33 / Public Policy and Private Pressures

Canadian stations and organize a Canadian network based upon New York. These suggestions of business influence from American corporations upon Canadian communications were not readily believed in the government; and evidence of contracts having some control of Canadian wire lines, which I found in Washington during a tour in 1931, was rather doubted. The cancellation of the Commonwealth Christmas Broadcast gave of course, great weight to some of these assertions. The cancellation indeed undoubtedly earned more attention and more confidence in the League from the prime minister himself. By experience and conviction, Mr. Bennett was a stern believer in private enterprise and usually a strong opponent of government intervention. But stronger than his early association with the CPR, for example, or his respect for a great company like the Bell Telephone, was his faith in the Canadian nation, his conviction that association with Britain was eminently desirable, and that relationships with the United States, though so often helpful, could be too intimate. The abrupt collapse of the Christmas Broadcast of 1931 was an event that touched these deeper convictions. Once again the stars in their courses had fought for the purposes of the Canadian Radio League. 8 There were, of course, other factors than beneficent stars, or opponents' tactical errors or luck which helped the League to win the eye of the government, including parliament, and the ear of the Canadian public, Frenchand English-speaking. Among some 'activists' of today's younger generation, history is suspect and anything said thirty-five or forty years after the event tends to be regarded as obsolete and avuncular. It is to be doubted, however, if a Maoist handbook or an anarchist tract could have usefully replaced in 1930-6 the study of blue books and the discussion with those who operated stations or made government decisions, or that laudable generalizations influenced the prime minister and his officials as much as real events and solid arguments. One is supposed to grow cyni8

The reference to this little episode has its current relevance. The Bell Telephone Company of Canada has secured through Bill c-104, presented to the 1967-8 session of parliament, the extension of its powers far beyond telephone communication alone; the bill gives Bell the power to engage in almost any and every form of communication. This may be eminently desirable, but public discussion could have been somewhat larger and the full moment of conferring such vast power even upon so efficient a corporation should be understood.

34 / On Canada

cal with the years, particularly about government and politicians. Experience of both in Canada in the difficult 1930s, especially when contrasted with the experience of governments in Europe and Asia since then, induces in me not cynicism but pride. The promotion of change in Canada is not a hopeless or bitter task, though given the nature of the country, it may seem slow. Compared with most of the rest of the world, opinion is still relatively free and public men in and out of government except for the usual deviants do possess a concept of the public interest to a high degree. The Canadian polity must indeed be judged as one of the most healthy and rational of the present day. The tranquil revolution in Quebec and the response to it by English Canada do not negate this optimistic estimate; Canadian governance and Canadian opinion, through their skill and wise judgement in a situation that has wracked other countries, have proven, at least thus far, to support so generous a conclusion. The immediate future in the field of communications and broadcasting will require similar skill, judgement, and patience. The technical changes already in course are challenging and complex : the layman speaks of them with caution and has difficulty seeing a clear line of policy. In 1930-6, the problem and the objective were within limits comprehensible and within the resources of Canada. Ownership of stations, for example, except by one British company and one American film company, was overwhelmingly Canadian. Today the technology now emerging rapidly is largely in American hands or American control - cable television, for example, and satellites. Thus, Famous Players, a subsidiary of Paramount, New York, one of the important shareholders in twenty-one radio and television stations across Canada, and crucial in the film world, had plans for a large cable television amalgamation. The Columbia Broadcasting System is financing other cable systems. Canada is a minor shareholder in the satellite built and operated by American interests but internationally owned with, until recently, majority control in American ownership. A Canadian satellite corporation is, however, in existence and two will be put in orbit in 1972. Cable television is largely confined to urban and primarily densely populated urban areas. Its spread then is following much the same pattern as early private radio and television: there is some growth in areas of scattered pot5ulation but the concentration is in the cities where the revenues are larger. The signal is picked up by antenna and distributed to

35 / Public Policy and Private Pressures

subscribers by cable, the subscribers paying about $5 .00 a month for the service. The effect of stronger reception is to make available several, ultimately many, many more, television channels to subscribers. Thus, in addition to Canadian signals, or direct reception of American stations, more signals from American channels are picked up and 'piped' to subscribers. The effect of the accelerating expansion of cable-TV has been at least to double the number of American signals available to the Canadian audience. This audience for some 400 CATV systems serving one million homes by the end of 1969 was 15 to 20 per cent of the total television audience in a week. Cable television is part of the wave of the future and will grow to serve perhaps 60 per cent of TV viewers. In not too long a time, there will be cables bringing to the 'communication room' in many houses not only television, over scores, perhaps ultimately hundreds of channels, but also other communications: soon these 'pipe-lines' will carry telex, weather service, banking arrangements, information from knowledge stores in computing centres, telephone and telegraph messages - even newspapers and so on - a widening of the range of instantaneous communication on a continental and wider scale from a few sources. To be looked for, then, is a scramble to own and control these multiplying facilities. Add to this expansion the satellite. It is not difficult to believe that the cables on the ground and the satellite in the heavens, as the momentum each has gathers, will fundamentally change the structure, procedures, and control of broadcasting. Networks will not be those we know now. Nor will a single audience for any one station - or for any one advertisement - be as large. The choice of programmes available will grow much greater but the centralization of the selection of programmes to be distributed may well be more concentrated. The future is one in which, to quote The Economist, 'every individual should be able to communicate with any other on the face of the globe,' and, for those who can afford it, to have access in their homes instantaneously or almost instantaneously to almost any kind of codeable and storable knowledge, as well as hundreds of choices of entertainment. All the essentials of this communications revolution have been invented already. No nationalist or parochial or obscurantist obstacle should be allowed to halt or impede the sweep of this revolution, but it is paramount that an adequate share of Canadian services be in Canadian ownership, difficult though this will increasingly be despite a courageous Canadian Radio-

36 / On Canada

Television Commission. There is, of course, the question of who leads and manages the revolution and for whom. In 1930-6, there was vast and critical interest among the Canadian public. Is there comparable awareness, excitement, and critical interest in the still greater revolution which is upon us, upon us and all nation-states?

THREE

Lord Durham and the Assimilation of French canada WILLIAM ORMSBY

Lord Durham's Report is generally regarded as one of the most perceptive and significant documents in Canadian history, but at the same time his recommendation that French Canada should be assimilated is deplored as indicative of a regrettable blind spot. In seeking to explain this flaw in the Durham Report one may very easily fall into over-simplification. It is obvious that Durham greatly underestimated the depth and vitality of French-Canadian culture and nationalism. The 'miracle' of la survivance in the years since 1841 and the ever-increasing strength of the French fact in Canada reveal the recommendation to have been unrealistic - assimilation was an unattainable objective. While this may be acceptable as an ultimate conclusion, it leaves a great deal unexplained. When did Durham decide that assimilation was necessary, and why? What grounds did he have for thinking that assimilation, however necessary, could be accomplished? Why did he recommend a legislative union of the Canadas as the means of achieving this objective, especially after he had condemned such a union throughout his stay in Canada 7 How could he maintain that an immediate answer must be found to the French political threat in Lower Canada, and still advocate that assimilation proceed at a rate which would not offend French-Canadian sensibilities? Until these questions are answered it is impossible either to resolve the apparent contradictions in the Report or to discover the rationale behind Lord Durham's recommendation. 'I expected to find a contest between a government and a people: I found

38 / On Canada

two nations warring in the bosom of a single state: I found not a struggle of principles but of races ... .'1 Probably no sentence in the Durham Report is more frequently quoted than this one, yet rarely is it challenged despite the fact that there is very good evidence to indicate that if Durham ever changed his mind regarding the basic nature of the conflict in Lower Canada, he did so before he left England. From the moment of his appointment, on 15 January 1838, Durham was bombarded with representations from British merchants in Lower Canada, and their partners in London, emphasizing the ethnic aspects of the conflict and urging a legislative union of the Canadas as the only possible solution. George Moffatt and William Badgley, who had been sent to London to present the views of the mercantile element in Lower Canada, warned Durham that 'the evils engendered by the distinctiveness of national origin and the prejudices of opposite and antagonistic races of the Provincial population' would remain to dilute the effectiveness of any reforms he might institute, unless the Canadas were united in a legislative union 'by means of which alone prejudices springing from National origin will be lost in the perfect union of the Inhabitants of both Provinces.'2 In a letter forwarded to Durham by Robert Gillespie, the Reverend John Strachan asserted, 'One thing must never be lost sight of, whether the measure be a Union of the two provinces, or a federal Union of all the B.N. American Colonies, and that is, a representation possessing British principles and feeling must be insured.' 3 In a letter of his own Gillespie declared: I do trust that it may now fully appear to you and to Government that the Inhabitants of French origin in Canada have long meditated revolt. ... I do hope that there is now only one mind in the cabinet as regards the course to be pursued in Canadian affairs. Legislative powers must be conferred on those who have & will support British connection and settlement....4 While he was not prepared to adopt the solution they advocated, Durham's own interest in industrial development and his faith in the 1 Lord Durham's Report, ed. Gerald M. Craig (Toronto 1963), 22-3. Unless other-

wise indicated all quotations are from Lord Durham's Report.

2 Public Archives of Canada, Durham Papers, 6 :i, 418, George Moffatt and William Badgley to Durham, 5 Apr. 1838 3 Ibid, 6 :i, 466, Strachan to R. Gillespie, 2 Mar. 1838, enclosed in Gillespie to Durham, 19 Apr. 1838 4 Ibid., 6 :i, 209-11, R. Gillespie to--, 3 Jan. 1838

39 / Lord Durham and the Assimilation of French Canada

nineteenth-century concept of progress, predisposed him to accept the merchants' interpretation of the nature of the conflict; and he could sympathize with their exasperation at the manner in which their plans to exploit the country's economic potential had been restricted. During the voyage to Canada, Durham clearly revealed to members of his party that while he intended to act with justice and mercy 'he had made up his mind that no quarter should be shown to the absurd pretensions of race, and that he must throw himself on the support of the British feelings and aim at making Canada thoroughly British.' 11 Undoubtedly Lord Durham's preconceptions were strongly reinforced by the situation he found in Lower Canada, but there can be no doubt that when he arrived he had already decided that French Canada must be assimilated. When he came to write his report, it may have seemed to him as he reviewed the evidence, that he had changed his mind after his arrival, or he may have felt that his recommendations would carry greater weight if he conveyed the impression that he came to Canada with an open mind. On what grounds did Durham believe assimilation to be essential 7 A basic assumption in all British constitutional theory and practice was that representative government could not function properly unless a harmony of interests existed among the respective elements of the constitution. This was an idea familiar to all statesmen and one which Durham fully endorsed. He was convinced that such harmony could never be attained in Lower Canada while two separate cultural entities, each with its own set of values and its own concept of ideal institutions, were permitted to exist. In diagnosing the ills of Lower Canada he stressed this defect: At the root of the disorders of Lower Canada lies the conflict of the two races, which compose its population; until this is settled no good government is practicable; for whether the political institutions be reformed or left unchanged; whether the powers of Government be entrusted to the majority or the minority, we may rest assured, that while the hostility of races continues, whichever of them is entrusted with power, will use it for partial purposes.

Durham noted that the clash between the two nationalities pervaded all aspects of social and political life. It forced itself on one's senses 'irresistibly and palpably, as the origin or essence of every dispute which 5 Charles Buller, 'Sketch of Lord Durham's Mission to Canada in 1838' (written in 1840), 343. Published in the Report of the Public Archives of Canada, 1923, 341--69

40 I On Canada

divides the community.' In his opinion it was inevitable that a social clash should have occurred between two peoples differing so extensively in habits, institutions, values, and laws, but when a representative assembly was granted in 1791, the quarrel was provided with the means of full political expression. As English-speaking settlers flowed into the province, the French Canadians saw their way of life threatened. The English were critical of seigneurial tenure and demanded its abolition. They sought to replace the notaries' record-keeping function with registry offices; and they urged that land taxation be adopted as a means of financing local improvements, law enforcement, and the development of communications. Faced with this threat the French Canadians began to use their majority in the Assembly to protect their institutions and customs. 'They clung to ancient prejudices, ancient customs and ancient laws, not from any sense of their beneficial effects, but with the unreasoning tenacity of an uneducated and unprogressive people,' Durham declared. In the eyes of the Englishspeaking minority, and of Lord Durham, such action was a deliberate attempt to prevent the development of the province and to inhibit the spread of English settlement. As the friction increased, the quarrel took on an anomalous appearance with the French Canadians endeavouring to extend the powers of the popular branch of government not for the sake of attaining democratic or progressive objectives, but in order to preserve the status quo. On the other hand, the true progressives, the English-speaking minority, sought to overcome French resistance by aligning themselves with the executive, and thus appeared in the guise of ultra conservatives endeavouring to protect the prerogative against encroachments by the popular branch of government. Durham fully realized that the constitution of 1791 had proved defective in practice - it had paved the way for a collision between the assembly and the executive. He was confident this defect could be remedied by granting responsible government, but responsible government alone would not create the essential harmony of interests in Lower Canada. Indeed, it would make assimilation all the more necessary. It was the Canadian rebellions that brought Durham to Canada, but it was not as retribution, nor even primarily because of the Lower Canadian Rebellion, that he recommended the assimilation of French Canada. The

41 / Lord Durham and the Assimilation of French Canada

Rebellion was merely the final result of a cultural and political clash that had been building up since the first decade of the nineteenth century. Had he come to Canada in Gosford's stead in 1835 he would, almost certainly, have recommended assimilation. If assimilation was essential for the creation of a basic harmony of interests, Durham also considered it highly desirable for another reason. In his opinion French-Canadian society was an anachronism in North America. It was 'but the remains of an ancient colonization and ... ever must be isolated in the midst of an Anglo-Saxon world.' The society had been shaped by the authoritarian institutions of France which 'perhaps more than those of any other nation, were calculated to repress the intelligence and freedom of the great mass of the people.' The French colonist had been permitted no share in government and thus had remained politically uneducated. The seigneurial system had provided him with land in a form of tenure 'singularly calculated to promote his immediate comfort, and to check his desire to better his condition; he was placed at once in a life of constant and unvarying labour, of great natural comfort and feudal dependence.' The authority of the Church was yet another aspect of the same picture. The influence of the French regime had produced a static, unimaginative, inefficient agrarian society, and British policy since the conquest had perpetuated these characteristics: Alone among the nations that have sprung from the French, Lower Canada remains under the unchanged civil laws of ancient France. Alone among the nations of the American Continent, it is without a public system of education. Nor has it in other respects caught the spirit of American progress.

Durham regarded the guarantees extended to French Canada under the Quebec Act as misguided policy. It had been a mistake to attempt to maintain French-Canadian customs and institutions on a continent in which the Anglo-Saxon culture was clearly destined to predominate. French Canada would eventually be surrounded by the more progressive and aggressive culture, and, with natural increase as its only source of reinforcement, it would prove unequal to the challenge. Durham entertained no doubts about the inferiority of French-Canadian culture. He could scarcely conceive of 'a nationality more destitute of all that can invigorate and elevate a people, than that which is exhibited by the descendants of the French in Lower Canada, owing to their retain-

42 / On Canada

ing their peculiar language and manners.' They had been cut off from their cultural source by eighty years of foreign rule and, perhaps even more effectively, by the French Revolution. They were thus a people with no literary or historical heritage. By sponsoring the continuation of the French Canadians' language, laws, and institutions - by encouraging them to aspire to a separate national existence - Durham believed Great Britain had condemned them to political, cultural, and economic inferiority. If assimilation were not adopted now as a deliberate policy, Durham saw only the darkest prospects for French Canada. The French population had increased approximately sevenfold since the conquest but, because of inefficient agricultural methods, including the practice of perpetually dividing the farms into ever narrower strips, agricultural productivity had not kept pace with the increase. Now there remained insufficient land, in areas not already settled by the English, to permit the French to expand and still retain their old agricultural methods. French Canadians were under economic pressure as a result of their expanding population and the narrow limits to which they had confined themselves. If they attempted to spread out, they would become intermingled with the English; if they remained where they were, the majority would become labourers employed by English entrepreneurs. 'The evils of poverty and dependence would merely be aggravated in a ten-fold degree by a spirit of jealous and resentful nationality, which would separate the working class of the community from the possessors of wealth and employers of labour.' Durham considered the French dream of an independent political existence to be only a delusion. If the other British colonies became disaffected, French Canada might act in concert with them to sever the British connection; or it could possibly join forces with the United States to achieve this end. But in either case it would find itself part of an English confederacy. In the unlikely event that French Canadians attained independence on their own, he predicted they would experience a few years M 'a wretched semblance of independence which would expose them more than ever to the intrusion of the surrounding population.' Because he regarded French Canada as a society without a future, and because he believed that French Canadians would be wealthier, more contented, and better governed when they had been anglicized, Durham

43 / Lord Durham and the Assimilation of French Canada

recommended that the prevalent forces of assimilation should be assisted rather than retarded. Durham's picture of French-Canadian society in 1838 contained some exaggeration and some gaps, but on the whole it was an accurate one. He erred, however, in assuming that it was a static, moribund society incapable of further evolution. As Fernand Ouellet has pointed out, French Canada underwent a significant transformation in the decade from 184:0 to 1850.6 The economic forces which Durhain noted, together with social pressures and the new political milieu provided by responsible government, combined to produce a significant change in the French-Canadian outlook. School commissions were established; the St. Lawrence canals and other public works were accepted as beneficial to French Canadians as well as to the English; resistance to the settlement of the Eastern Townships was abandoned and colonization societies were formed to assist the surplus French-Canadian population to settle in the Townships and in other regions where free and common soccage prevailed rather than seigneurial tenure. Eventually French Canadians ceased to regard the seigneurial system as a major bulwark against English encroachment and to judge it on its own merits - to desire first the modification of the old tenure and then its abolition. It was a significant evolution, but it was not assimilation. It was accomplished without the sacrifice of any of French Canada's basic values. Moreover, it produced a working harmony of interests, if not the complete harmony that Durham had envisaged. It was a harmony that would need to be supplemented by a pseudo-federalism while the union of the Canadas lasted and by a true federalism in Confederation; but it was, nonetheless, a working harmony that rendered assimilation unnecessary. Surprisingly, Durham was fully convinced that French Canada could be changed to the extent of becoming completely assimilated, but he failed to see that the society was capable of an evolution that would make assimilation unnecessary. Durham expected the changes that occurred in the 1840s, but he did not expect the process of change to cease until complete assimilation had taken place. The great contrast that he found between the French and the Anglo-American societies and his unbounded 6

Fernand Ouellet, Histoire economique et sociale du Quebec, 1760-1850 (Montreal and Paris 1966), 438-46

44 / On Canada

faith in the superiority of the latter prevented him from even suspecting French Canada's potentiality and its latent strength. Durham never for a moment doubted that French Canada could, and would, be assimilated. He based his judgement on the progressive character of the English, and on their numerical superiority, both actual and potential. To him it was self-evident that French Canada must ultimately succumb: It is but a question of time and mode; it is but to determine whether the small number of French who now inhabit Lower Canada shall be made English under a Government which can protect them, or whether the process shall be delayed until a much larger number shall have to undergo, at the rude hands of its uncontrolled rivals, the extinction of a nationality strengthened and embittered by continuance. The problem was to force the French Canadians to acknowledge the situation which existed in North America. If this could be done, Durham believed their resistance to assimilation would dissolve. He was convinced 'the process of assimilation to English habits [was] already commencing.' English was already gaining ground as the language of employers. He declared that he would indeed be surprised 'if the more reflecting part of the French Canadians entertained, at present, any hope of continuing to preserve their nationality.' For Durham, the example of Louisiana provided absolute proof of the validity of his thesis, and also suggested the ideal means of activating the assimilative forces prevalent in North America. In Louisiana the French were formed into a state in which they had constituted a majority, but they had been incorporated into a great nation in which they were but an insignificant minority. As a result 'the tone of politics was taken from those by whose hand its highest powers were wielded .... It became the object of every aspiring man to merge his French, and adopt completely an American nationality.' The representatives of Louisiana in Congress, although of French origin, had become entirely English-speaking. The Union was not disturbed by racial quarrels and 'the French language and manners bid fair, in no long time to follow their laws and pass away like the Dutch peculiarities in New York.' Durham was convinced that the Louisiana example could be duplicated in Canada. It would be his objec-

45 I Lord Durham and the Assimilation of French Canada

tive to subject French Canada to the influence of a loyal English-speaking majority so that it could not fail to see the futility of resisting the assimilative forces which surrounded it. In arguing from the Louisiana example, Durham led himself into error. He ignored the discrepancies in population ratios, and he also tended to overlook the fact that British North America had no substitute for American nationalism which, on his own evidence, had been a significant factor in Louisiana. Although he probed the constitutional conflict to its social and cultural origins, he failed to grasp French Canada's strong attachment to its own cultural values. He saw that the structure of French-Canadian society gave the priest, the notary, and the doctor positions of pre-eminence in the community, and yet he expected these leaders to assist in, and promote, a social revolution that might deprive them of their positions. When Durham arrived in Canada, he already had a plan by which he proposed to obtain his loyal English majority. Instead of the legislative union of the Canadas alone, he favoured a federal union of all the British North American colonies. It was a spectacular scheme which appealed to his imagination for it would provide both the desired majority, and the means of creating a British North American nation that could serve as a counterweight to the United States. It would also permit the conciliation of the French ' by leaving them the government of their own Province and their own internal legislation,' while, at the same time, removing for control by the federal legislature all matters of general interest and particularly those related to the economic and industrial development of the country. Durham believed that as French Canada became assimilated and communications with the maritime provinces were developed, the federal aspects would disappear and a strong legislative union would emerge. Durham's attention had been drawn to the idea of a British North American union when J.A. Roebuck put it forward as an alternative to the suspension of the Lower Canadian constitution after the Rebellion. Roebuck's proposal had not borne immediate fruit, but when Durham was appointed he followed the matter up. He brought with him to Canada a copy of Roebuck's plan which he had gone over and modified in some respects. During his stay, Durham used the plan as a basis for discussions with the leading men in the various provinces and also with the lieutenantgovernors of the maritime provinces. To his great disappointment, he

46 I On Canada

found few in North America who shared his enthusiasm for nation building. Despite the cool reception given to his proposals, Durham still adhered to the idea of a federal union of British North America. He was, however, ready to modify his plan in an effort to overcome the objections that had been raised. In answer to the Lower Canadian merchants' protests that a federal system would place them again under a provincial legislature dominated by French Canadians, he contemplated the creation of a new province consisting of Montreal District, the Eastern Townships, and the eastern portion of Upper Canada. Such an arrangement would have given the French Canadians control of a reduced Lower Canada extending from Sorel eastward. He further modified the plan in the light of criticism made by John Beverley Robinson, the Chief Justice of Upper Canada and a pillar of the Family Compact. 'You will see,' he wrote to Robinson, 'that I have not pressed any of the points to which you apprehended objections and that I have sufficiently shown my desire not to force my opinions against the settled convictions of those who, from their position, have a right to command respect and consideration.'7 In what was probably a further bid for Robinson's support, Durham added to his plan the idea of colonial representation in the imperial parliament. His strong preference for a North American union rendered Durham a consistent opponent of the smaller legislative union throughout his stay in Canada. 'If you are a friend of your country, oppose it to the death,' he urged Sir Allan MacNab.8 On another occasion he asserted that 'no statesman could propose so injurious a project.'9 Adam Thom informed a meeting of Montreal merchants that Lord Durham was convinced their proposed union of the Canadas alone 'would cruelly disappoint the anticipation of its advocates' for it would permit the French Canadians to unite with a small group of 'revolutionists' from Upper Canada to produce a majority in the united assembly. 10 When the meeting approved Durham's administration, but still pronounced in favour of a legislative union of the 7 The Arthur Papers, ed. C.R. Sanderson (Toronto 1943, 1947, 1949, 1959), No. 316, Durham to Robinson, 16 Sept. 1838 8 Sir Francis Bond Head, The Emigrant (London 1846), 238, MacNab to Head, 28 Mar. 1846 9 Ibid., 238-g, Jarvis to Head, 12 Mar. 1846 10 Montreal Courier, 3 Oct. 1838

47 I Lord Durham and the Assimilation of French Canada

Canadas, he declared to Major John Richardson that it was 'a pet Montreal project beginning and ending in Montreal selfishness.'11 Durham continued to hold fast to his opinions up to the moment of his departure; he informed Sir George Arthur and Christopher Hagerman, when they came to bid him farewell, that 'ii was absurd to suppose that Upper and Lower Canada could exist in harmony as one province.' 12 When Durham recommended the smaller union in his Report, it came as a great surprise to all who had discussed the matter with him in Canada. He had apparently had a complete change of heart. The explanation lay primarily in the fact that while he was on his way home rebellion had broken out for a second time in Lower Canada. He still regarded a British North American union as the ideal solution, but as this could not be achieved immediately he was forced to consider alternatives. In his Report Durham stated that he had hoped his federal union would prepare the way for a gradual transition, 'but,' he continued, 'the period of gradual transition is past in Lower Canada.' In its present frame of mind French Canada would use any power it might be given 'against the policy and the very existence of any form of British government.' Time and honest co-operation would have been required to aid the action of a federal constitution - neither of these elements could now be anticipated. 'I believe that tranquility can only be restored,' Durham reported, 'by subjecting the Province to the vigorous rule of an English majority; and that the only efficacious government would be that formed by a legislative union.' As Chester New has suggested,18 Durham was probably influenced more by the effect the second insurrection had on the Melbourne government in England than he was by the actual situation it created in Lower Canada. French-Canadian unrest was apparent to Durham before he left Canada and he expected another outbreak of rebellion, yet he continued to adhere to his federal union. Although he pictured French Canada as a political threat in his Report, he did not believe it was capable of success11 John Richardson, Eight Years in Canada (Montreal 1847), 227, Durham to

Richardson

12 Head, The Emigrant, 239-40, Hagerman to Head, 12 July 1846 13 Chester New, Lord Durham's Mission to Canada (1929), ed. H.W. McCready (Toronto 196;), 16;-4

48 I On Canada

ful rebellion. 'I do not doubt,' he stated, 'that the British Government can, if it chooses to retain these dependencies at any cost, accomplish its purpose. I believe it has the means of enlisting one part of the population against the other, and of garrisoning the Canadas with regular troops sufficient to overawe all internal enemies It would be costly and he did not recommend it, but he recognized that Great Britain was capable of controlling French Canada by military means. On the other hand, he had reason to fear, especially after the second insurrection in Lower Canada, that the imperial government would ignore his recommendations if he proposed a solution that would permit French-Canadian control of a provincial legislature. By adopting the legislative union, he could still hope to persuade Lord Melbourne ap.d his colleagues to grant responsible government, which he considered the most important of his recommendations. When he pronounced in favour of the smaller union, Durham sacrificed the federal principle and his concept of a British North American nation. He did not regard federalism as vital to the attainment of his objectives for it was intended only to provide a transitional stage leading to a national legislative union. He saw the possibilities of federalism as a temporary solution for bi-national problems, but, because he was confident that French Canada would be assimilated, he never considered the principle's long-range potentiality. If the maritime provinces subsequently joined the Canadian union as he hoped, his British North American nation would be born. On the surface Durham appeared to have sacrificed very little indeed, but in reality the Canadian union would not function as he had anticipated. In Durham's mind a legislature controlled by a loyal English majority was the basic essential of the solution he proposed. In such a legislature the political threat posed by the French Canadians would be neutralized and they would be forced to recognize the futility of attempting to maintain a separate cultural existence. The stage would thus be set for a repetition of the Louisiana example. There was an obvious flaw in the logic which led to this conclusion. If the Assembly in the United Province of Canada were elected on the basis of representation by population, as Durham recommended, it would contain a majority of English members, but, unless they acted virtually as a bloc, the French representatives would hold the balance of power and would be in an excellent position to resist any measures designed to promote assimilation.

49 I Lord Durham and the Assimilation of French Canada

Durham could not have been unmindful of this possibility for it was stressed both by those who wished to see a strong measure of coercion coupled with the union and by those who were entirely opposed to uniting the two provinces. In a report prepared for Sir George Arthur and sent to Durham on 1 June 1838,14 Robert Baldwin Sullivan argued that the union would not make French Canadians any more willing to accept British domination. The idea was based upon the false assumption that there was a 'unanimity of purpose amongst the whole British population,' whereas, in fact, the members of the Upper Canadian Assembly were split into political factions and were 'not all even loyal.' The French would act as a party after the union, Sullivan contended, for they were united by religion, language, mutual ignorance, and peculiarity of manners and habits. They would undoubtedly unite with the Upper Canadian party that would promise them the most; and since the 'democratic party' had been the weakest it would unquestionably undertake anything to gain strength. It is inconceivable that Durham could recommend responsible government without realizing that the possibility of turning out the government, on a vote of no confidence, would increase the tendency towards political alignments. Yet he showed little awareness of this danger in his Report, remarking only, 'If I should have miscalculated the proportions in which the friends and enemies of British connexion may meet in the United Legislature, one year's emigration would redress the balance.' Such a comment rather dilutes the sense of urgency that appears elsewhere in the Report. In all probability Durham could not believe that any significant number of English-speaking members would join with the French Canadians to resist what was essential both to the maintenance of the British connection and to the proper working of representative government. In any case, he felt that action could not be delayed and, as the larger union could not be attained for some time, the Canadian union appeared to be the only alternative. In actual practice the Upper Canadian Reformers joined forces with the French as Sullivan had predicted. It must be admitted, in fairness to Durham, that they united to gain responsible government which he had recommended should be granted from the outset. But even if responsible government had been inaugurated with the union, it is unrealistic to think 14 Durham Papers (bound separately), Report of Robert Baldwin Sullivan on Upper Canada, prepared for Sir George Arthur and sent to Durham 1 June 1838

50 I On Canada

that, without an extended period of readjustment, the Upper Canadian Tories and Reformers would have consistently formed part of the same bloc in the legislature. It is extremely doubtful that French Canada could have been assimilated under any circumstances - certainly the Canadian union was incapable of producing the consistent English majority which was essential to Durham's scheme. Although Durham asserted that the time for transition had passed in Lower Canada, the assimilation formula he prescribed did allow for a gradual transition. He adopted the Canadian union as the means of achieving assimilation, but he was unwilling to couple with it the coercive measures generally advocated by its supporters. The proscription of the French language was usually taken for granted by pro-unionists as a primary step towards anglicization, but Durham disagreed: A considerable time must, of course, elapse before the change of a language can spread over a whole people; and justice and policy alike require, that while the people continue to use the French language, their Government should take no such means to force the English language upon them as would, in fact, deprive the great mass of the community of the protection of the laws.

It had been suggested that the French Canadians should be deprived of representative government and that they should be governed indefinitely by a governor and an appointed council; or that they should be disfranchised until their political education had been completed. Another suggestion frequently advanced was that both sections of the united province should be given equal representation despite the fact that the population of Lower Canada exceeded that of Upper Canada by approximately 200,000. Some Upper Canadian Tories even demanded that Upper Canada be given greater representation than Lower Canada. Durham was opposed to all these devices to increase artificially the political influence of the English at the expense of the French. He was opposed because he considered such tactics unnecessary and undesirable. He had an unbounded faith in the superiority of English cultural and social values and in the ideal of progress. He had no desire to defeat French Canada's national aspirations by means of a stacked deck. On the contrary, all thought of enhancing the English position artificially was to be avoided so that aspiring French Canadians could be brought to realize that their English-speaking

51 / Lord Durham and the Assimilation of French Canada

counterparts had attained economic and political power through their own energy and enterprise. Such a realization would represent a major step towards the anglicization of French Canada. In addition, Durham feared that, if assimilation were forced on the French Canadians, criticism would develop in the United States and Great Britain which would encourage them to resist. He believed that, if his recommendations were followed, the Canadian union would subject French Canada to the political weight of an English majority without any injustice, or the appearance of injustice. When this had been accomplished, he was willing to see anglicization proceed gradually as it became acceptable to French Canada. For him assimilation through conciliation did not involve a contradiction in terms. Durham's opinions concerning French Canada were actually influenced much less than is generally assumed by what he saw and heard while he was in the country. If the Lower Canadian merchants had any significant influence upon him, it was mainly before he left England. He and his staff conferred on a number of occasions with English-speaking political and commercial leaders in the community, but the prime purpose of these interviews was to win support for his federal union of British North America rather than to explore alternatives. Although he modified his plan significantly in an effort to gain wider approval for it, he clung tenaciously to the basic ideas. Despite their strenuous efforts, the merchants failed to convince him that a legislative union of the Canadas was a better means of achieving the ends upon which both he and they agreed. It was the second uprising, rather than the merchants' arguments, that led him to abandon the larger union, and even as he did so, he declared that he would still have recommended a union of British North America if it could have been implemented without delay. He also continued to the end to reject the coercive elements of the merchants' assimilation policy. Chester New has criticized Durham's failure to establish personal contact with the French-Canadian leaders. 111 He believes that this, to a large extent, explains Durham's blind spot regarding French Canada. Durham's failure to obtain French-Canadian views first-hand, in New's opinion, left him open to be unduly influenced by the merchants' prejudices. In all probability Durham considered it impolitic to meet personally with men who 15 New, Lord Durham's Mission to Canada, 99,171

52 / On Canada

had been involved, or who were suspected of being involved, in the Rebellion. But the assumption that underlies New's judgement is open toquestion on other grounds. Could any French-Canadian leader have convinced Durham that a harmony of interests could be attained without complete assimilation; or could Durham have persuaded any French-Canadian leader that the hope of maintaining a separate cultural identity must be given up? One may share New's regret that Durham and LaFontaine did not meet, but it is doubtful that 'mutual understandings would have developed'16 as a result of such a meeting. It is true that French Canadians hailed Durham, on his appointment, as one who would deliver them from the persecution and uncertainty that followed the failure of the first insurrection. It is also true that they approved his general amnesty and his appointment of a new council - both measures that LaFontaine had advocated in letters to Edward Ellice. 17 But they were then unaware of Durham's basic objective. French-Canadian support diminished as it became apparent that he and his staff were consulting with the Montreal merchants; it declined radically when he appointed the arch francophobe and author of the 'Anti-Gallican Letters,' Adam Thom, to the commission on municipal government; and it disappeared completely when he spelled out his intentions in his proclamation of 9 October, 1838. 'My aim,' Durham declared, 'was to elevate the Province of Lower Canada to a thoroughly British character. I hoped to confer on an united people, a more extensive enjoyment of free and responsible government and to merge the petty jealousies of a small community, and the odious animosities of origin, in the higher feelings of a nobler and more comprehensive nationality.' 18 There was no basis for 'mutual understandings.' Durham could not have been influenced by French-Canadian leaders nor they by him. Having witnessed the social and economic impact of accelerated industrialization in Great Britain, Lord Durham could foresee that North America would soon be transformed by the industrial revolution. Under such circumstances he was convinced that French Canada, surrounded as it was by an aggressive, materialistic, Anglo-American society, must in16 Ibid.,99 17 Durham Papers, 6:i, ;42-7, Lafontaine to Ellice, 15 Mar. 1838 18 The Quebec Gazette By Authority, 9 Oct. 1838

53 / Lord Durham and the Assimilation of French Canada

evitably become assimilated. But in this he was entirely mistaken. FrenchCanadian society evolved and adjusted sufficiently in the 1840s to achieve a rough working harmony of interests with the English-speaking majority and it continued to evolve. But throughout the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century French Canada clung tenaciously to its own distinctive social and moral values; to its agrarian base and its concept of a spiritual mission. In 1923, when Henri Bourassa asserted, 'Our race will survive, grow and prosper in the measure it remains peasant and rustic,' 19 he was expressing a basic assumption of a majority of French Canadians. The impact which Durham expected industrialism to have on FrenchCanadian society and values was to be delayed for a century. Since the end of the Second World War French Canada has been undergoing a 'quiet revolution' and in the process it is adopting social and moral values similar to those held by the Anglo-American majority in North America. French Canada is becoming much more materialistic in its ideals and objectives. But, contrary to Durham's expectations, there is no evidence to suggest that this social transformation will result in assimilation. French Canadians are more determined than ever to preserve their separate cultural identity and to take whatever steps may be necessary to achieve that end. 1.9 Henri Bourassa, Patriotisme, nationalisme, imperialisme, cited in Ramsay Cook, Canada and the French-Canadian Q11estion (Toronto 1.966), 96 n.

FOUR

The Poetry of Modern Quebec FRED COGSWELL

During 1967-8 I selected and translated one hundred and twenty poems which represented what I considered to be typical of the best of the poetry of modern Quebec, including work by thirty-eight writers. 1 The task of selection and translation primarily involved the evaluation of poetry as poetry per se and of finding equivalent nuances of sound and rhythm to reproduce the French originals in English verse. It could not, however, be carried out without an understanding being gained of the attitude and mind of the original authors. This article, then, is an attempt to describe and interpret what I consider to be the more important trends in the French poetry of contemporary Quebec. The roots of the poetry of modern Quebec lie in the poetry of the late nineteenth century, and they are very like the roots of English-Canadian poetry if one makes allowance for the differences between Roman Catholicism and New England transcendentalism, and between French Romantic and Parnassian stylistic influences and their English equivalents in Romantic and Victorian models. This poetry, whether in English or 1

Alain Grandbois, Alfred Desrochers, Saint-Denys-Garneau, Rina Lasnier, Anne Hebert, Gilles Henault, Eloi de Grandmont, Sylvain Garneau, Pierre Trottier, Jean-Paul Filion, Olivier Marchand, Gaston Miron, Gilles Vigneault, Georges Cartier, Roland Giguere, Michel van Schendel, Cecile Cloutier, Fernand Ouelette, Jean-Guy Pilon, Gatien Lapointe, Luc Perrier, Jacques Brault, Fran~oise Bujold, Jacques Godbout, Andre-Pierre Boucher, Odette Fontaine, Eva Kushner, Suzanne Paradis, Michele Lalonde, Alma de Chantal, Gerald Godin, Juan Garcia, MarieClaire Blais, Paul Chamberland, Andre Brochu, Andre Major, Micheline de Jordy, and Andre Chaurette

55 I The Poetry of Modern Quebec

French, was imitative in style, conventional in thought and tone, and had behind it the values of a rural or small town religious and puritanical community. Moreover, it held those values to such an unqualified degree that the imagination was only called on for their decoration. Religion, morality, the home, and the fatherland, in rural settings, were - whether the poet was English or French - celebrated in poetry as the elements which alone gave meaning and purpose to life. In English-Canadian poetry, forms are still being borrowed but from many more sources and in ever-growing variety. Moreover, thought and attitude have been sharply changed. Poetry is no longer the voice of a unified community but the individual voices of a fragmented minority, as varied as the lives and personalities of its individual poets. It is no longer rooted in the home or the soil, but in the individual response to an increasingly urban scene. It has made a religion out of the fulfilment of the individual will in the 'real world' of the here and now, but with a few exceptions it is not profoundly pessimistic. Like his ancestors, the modern English-Canadian poet still believes in the ultimate value of human living. He has merely chosen to place that value in other places than his forefathers had done, and the varied nature of these repositories gives modern English-Canadian poetry considered en masse a variety and a richness that thirty years ago would have appeared inconceivable and which, incidentally, is not supported by an examination of any individual poem or the works of any single poet. In English Canada, poetry has become more than the poems and the poets; in French Canada, almost the reverse is the case. Only a small part of the poetry of modern Quebec - the work of Alfred Desrochers, Sylvain Garneau, Eloi de Grandmont, Gilles Vigneault, and Cecile Cloutier - strikes the reader as being very much like what a contemporary English-Canadian poet of comparable stature would have written had he known French and possessed the requisite technical ability. The bulk of modern Quebec poetry, however, is to the English-Canadian reader a relatively unfamiliar landscape of the mind and heart, disconcerting and frightening, both for the assumptions it makes about life in the mid-twentieth century and for those it does not make. Much of it is negative poetry of great power, and the power comes from the modern Quebec poet's almost overwhelming belief that there is quite literally nothing for the individual in the universe except the daily pre-

56 I On Canada

sense of ennui and the ultimate fact of neant. Under these circumstances, to be born into such a world as a feeling creature is the ultimate irony, as Anne Hebert succinctly puts it in a stanza of 'Eve':

a

L'enfant notre sein roucoule, l'homme sent le pain brule, et le milieu du jour se referme sur nous comme une eau sans couture2

But the poignancy of life under these circumstances lies not merely in the fact of birth with the ability to feel death. Man, in addition, carries death about with him, like a caged bird, as Saint-Denys-Garneau expresses it in his celebrated 'Cage d'Oiseau':

Je suis une cage d'oiseau Une cage d'os Avec un oiseau L'oiseau clans sa cage d'os C'est la mort qui fait son nid ... II ne pourra s'en aller Qu'apres avoir tout mange MoncCEur La source du sang A vec la vie dedans II aura mon ame au bec8 The child at our breast is cooing, but man tastes burnt bread, and our mid-day closes over us like seamless water 3 I am a bird-cage A cage of bones With a bird in it 2

That bird in the bony cage Is death, building his nest ... He will not leave until He has eaten all of me My heart The source of blood And the life inside He will have my soul in his beak

57 / The Poetry of Modern Quebec

Since death is no respecter of persons and neant marks the end of existence, of what use is morality? It is merely another meaningless irony, if we are to believe another stanza of Anne Hebert's 'Eve': Ladouceur sous le fer est brulee jusqu'a l'os, son cri transperce }'innocent et le coupable sur une seule lame embroches4

Or, as in Gerald Godin's 'Fins (1),' all expression becomes meaningless and all action is paralysed : j'ai peur de partir ici cette peau qui meurt au bout de mes doigts pres des ongles cette peau morte qui tombe ces plaques jaunes aux chevilles nous vivions si peu ii faudrait aller tellement loin et le temps qui nous manque et le creur5

From the state of mind that prompts these poems emerges a corollary to the primary truth of death. This is the secondary truth of isolation. In 'Cage d'Oiseau' life is a bony cage, while in an earlier section of 'Fins (1),' the protagonist's sole communion is with himself and a mirror. The best known example to English-Canadian readers of the use of the mirror in this poetry is doubtless Anne Hebert's 'Ancestral Manor' as translated by 4 Sweetness under the iron bums to the bone its cry transfixes guilt and innocence pinned by a single sword 5 I am afraid of leaving here this skin which dies at my fingertips close to the nails this dead skin which falls off these yellow badges on my ankles we live so little we would have to go such a distance and we lack time and heart

58 I On Canada

F.R. Scott, but even more explicit is the linking of death and mirror in the closing lines of Andre-Pierre Boucher's 'Je Suis le Gar~on': II y a toutes sortes des cadavres J'en ai vu un hier avec des prunelles mortes d'algues bleues des cheveux couleur de rives blondes et voyageuses II m'a regarde longtemps-longtemps car Je suis le gar~on qui se regarde clans l'eau. 6 An overwhelming sense of loneliness and of the futility of human action is the distinctive feature of the poetry of modern Quebec. On the one hand, it gives universality and power to individual poems. On the other, it impoverishes the poetry of the provinces as a whole by diminishing the importance of almost all areas of life as subjects worth poetic expression. This can be best seen in the relative absence in modem French Canada of the poetry of natural description, the poetry of human and social engagement (including love and the urban present), and the poetry that seeks to recapture the wholeness of childhood. All these are areas in which present-day English poetry is strong. Since nature is a mere ornamental extension of the bony cage and like the soul is in the beak of the bird of death, it is of little consequence to most modern Quebec poets and, apart from the poems of Alfred Desrochers, the last and best poet of rural description, nature is either a stylized conventional backdrop (nightingales still sing in French-Canadian verses after three hundred years of exile from the birds' native land) or an attempt at exotic word painting as in the soul voyagings of a Grandbois. When they lost their faith in heaven, hell, and purgatory, most French6

There are all kinds of corpses I saw one yesterday with dead eyes of blue seaweed and fair hair like sunlit coasts and travelling girls He watched me a long time - a long time

for I am a boy who looks at himself in the water

59 I The Poetry of Modern Quebec

Canadian poets did not abandon Roman Catholicism for hedonism. 7 They merely exchanged an eternal verity of hope for one of despair, and from the grandeur of positions rooted in the twin truths of neant and ennui looked at all transitory attempts at forgetfulness or consolation in the communion of the flesh as no doubt entertaining and worthy of the pen of the prose novelist but all unworthy of the truths of eternal poetry. Although there are a few isolated personal love poems, no modern FrenchCanadian poet to my knowledge has attempted to create poetry on a philosophy of human relations, and no anthology equivalent to Love Where the Nights are Long could be culled from the work of modern FrenchCanadian poets. Human loves, as Gatien Lapointe demonstrates, are too prone to accidental circumstances to be permanent: ... Une aune, le vent adouci tourne les pages blanches Incertitude La fuite du regard, la fuite du langage dos Le bruit sale repousse la presence trop lourde de Dieu Chair des parfaites tranquillites Au bord cl'un absolu du desir d'aimer Penche sur l'eau, un enfant a pleure de chagrin 11 a fait un grand bateau A vec la mie blanche de son pain8

'God must have been fascinated with matter, He made so much of it,' Tom Macinnes once wrote, and it is an appreciation of this attitude that 7 A startling, inexplicable exception to this generalization is Odette Fontaine's 'La Fille de Ble,' which in an otherwise innocuous volume, exults in anti-clericalism and in a hedonistic defence of love out of wedlock as natural and about the best thing most men and women have encountered during their lives. 8 One by one the lowered wind turns the white pages Uncertainty Flight from a look, flight in silenced speech A tearful sound repels the too-heavy presence of deity Perfectly tranquil flesh Touching the absolute of its longing to love Leaning over the water, a child wept with regret He had made a great ship From one of his white bread-crumbs

60 I On Canada

makes such writers as Alden Nowlan, Irving Layton, and Raymond Souster take such a delighted interest in both human beings and their surroundings. Apart from the poetry of de Grandmont, Desrochers, and Vigneault, such a treatment is rare in Quebec verse; even Sylvain Garneau uses familiar streets and ordinary people, not as experiences or beings of value in themselves, but to illustrate the eternal and unchanging nature of the human constants - loneliness, alienation, and death. In consequence, there is no Quebec equivalent to The Blasted Pine. One feels that human affairs not involving metaphysics are beneath the dignity of the Quebec poet who, while 'waiting for the end,' feels that he must use his time thinking thoughts of a 'high seriousness' that a Matthew Arnold might have envied. Few 'high jinks' are allowed to mar the sober face of the French muse in Canada. When one reads the best of these writers - Hebert, Grandbois, Lasnier, Giguere, Lapointe - it is clear that they are not always satisfied with the contemplation of lofty but fruitless verities. They long to be or to go elsewhere - to childhood, to a primitive exotic wilderness, to a land of marvels, or simply to be unreflectingly in motion. The symbolic journey is very much a feature of this poetry- usually it takes place in the air or under the sea, but is in reality an internal journey - but whatever the journey, it is always temporary and vain. One cannot travel forever; one always returns, and whatever one has gained or lost stands him in no stead on the road to neant. Journeys to happy lands - particularly of childhood- are, in fact, sources of pain, as Alain Grandbois makes clear in these lines from 'Le Sortilege': ... Mais une fois j'ai vu les trois cypres parfaits Devant la blancheur du logis ]'ai vu et je me tais Et ma detresse est sans egale Tout cela est trop tard ...9 9 ... But once I beheld three perfect cypresses Before the innocence of home I saw them and I keep silent In my unequalled distress All these thoughts come too late ...

61 / The Poetry of Modern Quebec

Poets with such an attitude are not likely to write convincingly of the simple joys of childhood, nor have they often done so. An anthology in French equivalent to The Enchanted Land could hardly be extracted from the work of our modern Quebec contemporaries. In fact, poems of ecstasy, or joie de vivre, are rare in an attitude which corresponds to mediaeval acedia or post-Renaissance Jansenism. Occasionally, in the flight of a bird, or in the contemplation of a beach, the poet perceives beauty and joy, but wherever human joy is depicted it is apt to be in the description not of contemporary but of past life, and then to have overtones of asceticism, as in Rina Lasnier's very fine 'Le Palmier,' written for Saint Paul, the first hermit : Cette longue mature nue de voiles, Cette meche prise clans le silence, Cet elan sans tendresse de branches, Tres haut l'eclatement vert d'une etoile. Entre le vent et les astres cette corbeille, Ce buisson d'oraison pour eprouver le ciel, Cette fusee fixee au bout de son extase, L'ermite tient son a.me comme une palme ...10 A marked exception to prevalent acedia may be found in the poems of the otherwise conservative poet Suzanne Paradis, in whose work a pagan nature merges with the joy of life. The concluding stanzas of her 'Acte de Poesie' are a fair specimen in thought and tone of her work at its best :

J'epouse du matin le denouement sans tache le mouvement de fete aux seves des vallons les petunias lourds et le lis martagon les pluies alentes eaux clans la luzerne lache. :10

This tall mast that no sails screen, This long fuse set with no noise, This thrust without tender boughs, And this star-burst lofty and green. This bush of prayer to test heaven's balm, This basket between stars and wind, This rocket fixed to its own joy's end, The hermit holds his soul like a palm •••

62 / On Canada

Au poing la fleur extreme et la lenteur de l'ceuvre je respire al'haleine mobile du temps la future saison et les jardins latents ou la joie glissera ses graces de couleuvre. 11

By no means all modern French-Canadian poets are what, for want of a better name, may be called existentialists. Many still write more or less traditional poetry on Roman Catholic themes. The same qualities and attitudes appear in this work, vitiated somewhat through the over-use of conventional imagery and trite phrases. (An exception must be made of the work of Rina Lasnier, surely Canada's greatest and most original religious poet. Her imagery is fresh and her mind critical and honest.) Actually, the break between orthodox Roman Catholic attitudes and those of existentialism is little more than a surface phenomenon. It does not involve any fundamental change of attitude. A Catholic without grace feels alienation and separation, dreads death, and feels life futile and meaningless in the grip of events. All Catholics are therefore, unless they are saints, at times in their religious careers existentialists. Only the terms change : sin becomes ennui; perdition is neant, and God seems the unalterable configuration of the Universe. More important, the authoritarian and dogmatic attitude, the scorn of the world of the senses, and the deep concern with the moral nature of man remain as constants. To sum up, most modern Quebec poets have adopted an essentially metaphysical attitude toward poetry. Not only are they solemn to a fault, but they set down their lines with the air of conviction that belongs to dogma. No attempt is made by the poet to establish that the reality of existence is exactly as he sees it; before the poems are written, assumptions are made that such and such an attitude is true and the reader is treated as though he is already in a position of agreemeht. The 'real world' is fitted into an abstract pre-determined pattern of belief and is given little u

I marry pure need from the morning on the care-free flow of sap in the valleys heavy petunias and the prairie lilies the patter of rain on the loose luceme. With slow toil and a vivid flower in my fist's embrace as time moves and breathes I breathe in the air of future seasons and of latent gardens where joy will glide in ribbons of grass-snake grace.

63 / The Poetry of Modern Quebec

consideration as a thing in its own right. This simplicity of outlook and narrowness of theme is matched by a corresponding unity of form, whether the writer uses classical or free-verse forms. When one is very sure of what he is saying, one can divert most of his energies into seeing that it is well said. The effect of a single modern Quebec poem is one of melody, conviction, and power. The effect of an anthology or a volume of verse is one of monotony and depression, 'a common grayness silvers everything.' In modern Quebec the cumulative effect of poetry is much less than that of the individual poem or the single volume. This is narcissistic poetry turned in on itself, looking to break through the wheel of existence at the in-point rather than at the circumference; its favourite symbols are mirrors or reflections in pools. (See Andre-Pierre Boucher's 'Je Suis le Garc;:on,' Gerald Godin's 'Fins (1),' and Roland Giguere's 'L'Effort Humain.') Merit is not what the world sees in the poet but what the poet perceives in himself, either directly or in the reflected image of himself that the world provides. In a poignant poem, 'Notre Jeunesse,' Gilles Henault shows himself to be fully aware of the sterility of this inward-turning: Notre secheresse nous rendait les yeux vitreaux. Notre petit monde interieur devenait sec et sonnait creux notre petit monde interieur dont nous etions les demi-dieux n'etait que vieille calebasse de faux complexes, de vieux myths et prejuges tenace ...12 Henault, however, can find no hope outside the circle: 12

Our dryness made us glassy-eyed our little universe inside grew dry as well and rang quite void our little universe inside in which ourselves as half-gods ruled was but an ancient gourd of false complexes, myths of old, and prejudices deeply scored ...

64 I On Canada Rien n'existe, disions-nous, sinon les folies qui menent leur ronde au petit monde interieur. 13

Either the Quebec poets of existentialism must alter or lose their audience. The events of the 'real world' may be of little account metaphysically, but they do have a way of forcing themselves upon and modifying the views of even the most metaphysical thinkers. There are already unmistakable signs that French-Canadian poetry is altering in directions which lead it closer to its English counterpart. The first, most clear-cut indication of such a change appears to me to be in some of the clever but slight imagistic verse of Cecile Cloutier, Eloi de Grandmont, and Micheline de Jordy. What is significant is not merely the concentration and concreteness of form and the use of fresh metaphors, but rather the realization that poetry does not necessarily have to be concerned with 'high seriousness' in a high-serious way in order to be poetry; Eloi de Grandmont's 'La Femme a la Plage' points out what more portentous poets too often ignore - that in an absurd world of isolation and mortality there is irrelevance and irreverence as well, and that out of these last poetry can also be constructed. If the universe is a mad one, surely the sane thing is to laugh at it: La saison du soleil Et du voyage des nuages Commence aujourd'hui midi. Oui, j'ai retenue mon nuage Et je pars amidi J'ai decide d' aller vers Dieu Cette annee. L'agence de voyages Me dit que c'est la mode J'ai achete une aureole Qui fait vraiment tres chic. Je la porterai en guise de bikini. 14

a

13 Nothing exists, we said, save foolishness

that finds its way to the little world inside. 14 The season for sunlight

And cloud trips Begins today at noon.

65 / The Poetry of Modern Quebec

Furthermore, such imagist poems as 'En Guise d'Erreur' and Cecile Cloutier's 'Naissance' show the systematic development of the metaphysical image - the fusion of unlikely elements into a common mental relationship. (This more than any set philosophy is the true breeding ground of great metaphysical poetry.) Likewise, Anne Hebert in her later poems, which in form are the reverse of imagism, uses the imaginative mental juxtaposition of unlikely physical components in such a way as to exercise the muscles of the imagination. Such a process, if cultivated in poetry, means the inevitable death of the concept of a monolithic world consisting of the important 'me,' the inconsequential 'not-me,' and the inflexible God, 'death,' which inevitably eats both the 'me' and the 'notme' - a concept which, if established as dogma, is bound to stultify human creation. Gaston Miron, Jean-Guy Pilon, Jacques Godbout, Paul-Marie Lapointe, Luc Perrier, Olivier Marchand, Jacques Brault, Paul Chamberland, and Andre Major are the best of a legion of poets who have attempted to write patriotic poems in honour of Quebec. Such poetry is as a rule uneven: in it rhetoric almost always overrides a more private and discriminating feeling. Nevertheless, this unlikely area is proving the vehicle that more than all others is leading Quebec poets gradually back to the common clay out of which most poetry is made. Just as he was maintaining conservatism with a new nomenclature when the modern poet changed from Roman Catholic to existentialist, so when the modern French-Canadian poet celebrates or mourns the state of Quebec in verse, he is only continuing a position which the Roman Catholic church had fostered in Quebec for centuries, and much of the new poetry maintains rhetorical devices and phrases hallowed by past usa_ge. 'My country bleeding at the heart' and phrases of a similar nature still sprinkle poems of many of Quebec's newest patriot poets, and yet their Yes, I have booked my cloud And I leave at noon I have decided to go God-ward This year. The travel agency Tells me that it's the rage. I have bought a halo Which truly is very smart. I shall wear it as a bikini.

66 I On Canada

very feeling for Quebec has led them to look at the landscape with real eyes and to find a beauty there worth painting in words; from their native landscape they have drawn concrete fantasies with which to depict their country's future, as in the close of Gaston Miran's 'Heritage de la Tristesse': vents accouplez-vous, et de vos bras de fleuve enserrez son visage de peuple detruit, donnez-lui la chaleur et la profuse lumiere des sillages d'hirondelles 15

or the same author's eloquent close to 'L'Octobre': nous te ferons, Terre de Quebec lit de resurrections et des mille fulgurances de nos metamorphoses de nos levains ou leve le futur de nos volontes sans concessions les hommes entendront battre ton pouls clans l'histoire c'est nous ondulant clans l'autumne d' octobre c'est le bruit de chevreuils clans la lumiere l'avenir degage16

The above passage suggests another consideration. French Canadians have been in the past a moral people. Even though divine sanction for action in Quebec is not now the force that it was, nevertheless the habit of justification dies hard, and in seeking to justify their nationalistic feelings such poets as Miron, Pilon, and Brault have been led by their imaginations to unite their land with the best they have loved and to construct 15 come, couple, o winds, and with your river arms embrace this face of a ruined people, give it the warmth and the abundant light that rings the wake of swallows 16 we will make you, Land of Quebec a bed of resurrections and in the myriad lightnings of our transformations in this leaven of ours from which the future is rising in our uncompromising wills men will hear your pulse beating in history this is ourselves rippling in the autumn of October this is the russet sound of deer in the light the future free and easy

67 I The Poetry of Modem Quebec

from that union genuine human reasons for loving Quebec. It is this imaginative reaction which justifies Pilon's otherwise mawkish patriotic poems, and it is this reaction which has led Jacques Brault to write 'Suite Fraternelle,' where out of his grief and bewilderment over the death of his brother in Sicily during the war, the poet had distilled hope and meaning for his present life in Quebec: L'herbe pousse sur ta tombe Gilles et la sable remue Et la mer n'est pas loin qui repond au ressac de ta mort Tu vis en nous et plus surement qu'en toi seul La ou tu es nous serons tu nous ouvres le chemin Je crois Gilles je crois que tu vas renaitre tu es mes camarades au poing dur ala paume douce tu es notre secrete naissance au bonheur de nous-memes tu es l'enfant que je modele dans l'amour de ma femme tu es la promesse qui gonfle les collines de mon pays ma femme ma patrie etendue au flanc de I' Amerique17 In 'Suite Fraternelle' one can see the fusion of fraternal and patriotic love which has produced a nobly dedicated human being and poet. Brau1t's work is the fruition of traditional French-Canadian nationalistic verse, and it finds a more generalized and therefore feebler echo in 'Verte ma Parole' by Andre Major, but in both Brault and Major nationalism is seen at work leading toward a new and more attractive humanism. Not development but revolution, from an artistic point of view at least, marks the work of Paul Chamberland. He writes of violence with 17 The grass grows on your tomb Gilles and the sand moves

And the sea which responds to your death's ebb is not far You see into us more surely than into yourself Where you are there we shall be you open the way for us I believe Gilles I believe that you will be reborn you are my comrades with their hard fists and soft palms you are our secret birth into happiness you are the child I shape in my wife's love you are the promises which swell on my country's hills my fatherland stretched out on America's Bank

68 I On Canada

violent imagery, which often seems too savage for the circumstances: homme de boue je marche ala hauteur commune je me tais et j'entends crepiter sous mon crane la grele des pas clans le canon des rues je suis l'affiche d'ou votre sang gicle camarades eclabousse la nuit des tra1tres et le petit matin des vengeances18 He also makes explicit in the language of a manifesto his break with the style and attitude of the ivory tower traditionalists and his reasons for that break: parce que je ne veux pas vivre amoitie dans ce demi-pays clans ce monde amoitie balance dans le charnier des mondes morts ... et tant pis si j'assassine la poesie ce que vous appelleriez-vous la poesie et qui pour moi n' est qu'un hochet car je renonce atout mensonge dans ce present sans poesie pour cette verite sans poesie moi-meme19 However exciting these lines may seem to Quebec ears, the EnglishCanadian reader when he hears them is back again in the familiar North American world of Whitman and Ginsberg. :18 a man of clay I walk on the common level I hold my tongue and I hear crackle under my skull the bullet-hail of footsteps in the rifle-barrel streets comrades I am the billboard where your spurted-out blood spatters the night of traitors and the early morning of all your vengeance :19 because I do not wish to half-live in this half-land in this world half-wavering in the charnel-house of dead worlds ... and so much the worse if I assassinate the poetry that you would call poetry but which for me is only a child's toy for I give up lying completely in this present without poetry on behalf of this truth without poetry myself

69 I The Poetry of Modern Quebec

The survey given above has presented only one problem for the literary historian, and that problem is more apparent than real. FrenchCanadian poetry has, with one exception, modelled itself upon the poetry of the France of its own or preceding generations. The exception, however, is an important one, and this seems to me to be the way of it. The Franco-Prussian War was a traumatic experience for the French nation in the 1870s. Out of the moral and spiritual loss which that war entailed, the French writers sought relief in the creation of sensation and illusion. Sensation and illusion, however, had relatively little impact upon still rural, still provincial, and still Catholic Quebec - as was also the case in the non-urban parts of France. The one memorable disciple of symbolism in French Canada was the ill-fated poet, Emile Nelligan, whose work compared to that of Rimbaud, Verlaine, LaForgue, and Valery is timid in thought and conservative in form and language. When, however, French intellectuals forged existentialist attitudes out of the trials of twentieth-century living, they found in Quebec a group of avid readers and imitators. Existentialism of the more predominant type is a world view eminently suited to those who already have a sense of isolation, frustration, and loneliness. By the 1940s, such a group had emerged in the cities and universities of Quebec - a group cut off from the beliefs and ways of most of their still rural and pious countrymen and at the same time isolated from their English urban counterparts who talked in an alien tongue. These new Quebec intellectuals espoused the views of the French moderns and followed them, as Christ followed Peter, from far off, for in their case the symbolist and surrealist revolution had not intervened between their original Catholicism and their new-found existentialism. It was not with them as with the French a case of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis (tradition, revolution, and counter-revolution), but rather a modification of the tradition to fit new circumstances without any real intervening revolution. The fact that they had missed the revolutionary stage in French development and had seized on to the tag-end of a counter-revolution explains the relative prudery of their attitude and their avoidance of slang and use of conservative, almost oldfashioned diction. All indications, however, are that as French Canadians grow and develop and replace their feelings of inadequacy and frustration with the consciousness of their own power and achievement, they will replace the

70 I On Canada

existentialism they now know with a version which will enable them to see value in the universe independent of size and duration - the value which men create out of the crucibles of experience. They will then arrive at the varied and meaningful response to the 'real world' that characterizes most of present-day English-Canadian poetry. Just as the fiction of the two Canadas has tended to develop along similar lines independently, so, I feel, will the poetry. I regard the current French-Canadian brand of existentialism, to be, like separatism, a temporary phenomenon.

FIVE

Memories of Louis st. Laurent 1946-9 ESCOTT REID

The first time I worked closely with Mr. St. Laurent was during thesession of the General Assembly of the United Nations which met in New York in the autumn of 1946. 1 Mr. St. Laurent had just been made foreign minister and was head of the Canadian delegation to the Assembly. I was principal adviser of the delegation. Russell Hopkins, who was then legal adviser of the Department of External Affairs, was also a member of the delegation. One morning shortly after the Assembly had opened, Hopkins and I called on Mr. St. Laurent in his sitting room at the Biltmore Hotel to go over some problems with him. Hopkins had done a memorandum for Mr. St. Laurent on one of these problems. I remember the memorandum was two and a half pages long and single-spaced. He presented it to Mr. St. Laurent. The way Mr. St. Laurent read that memorandum taught me a lesson on how to read memoranda which are prepared for you by advisers. His eye went down the first page-very quickly. He read the second and the third pages at the same rapid speed. Then he turned back to the beginning; read the first page slowly; turned over to the second page, reading slowly. When his eyes reached the middle of the second page, I saw him pause in his reading for about two seconds. He said nothing. He continued to read the memorandum slowly till the end. Then he turned back to the second page. This time he did not start reading at the top of the page. He started in the middle of the page. He studied the paragraph in the middle of the 1. The following memories were written in Dec. 1.959 and revised in Sept. 1.967, and have the approval of Mr. St. Laurent for publication.

72 I On Canada

page. Then he spoke for the first time. Politely he questioned an argument in that paragraph, doubted the validity of the conclusion derived from that argument. He was right. He had put his finger on the weak point in an otherwise admirable memorandum. And he had done it with economy of time and effort. How many people have I given memoranda to who have started commenting before they had finished reading the first two sentences. 'Oh,' they will say, 'but what about such and such a point?' And the reply usually is, 'I've dealt with that on the next page.' Or the first time they read through a memorandum they will read through slowly. In a highly-compressed presentation (as a good memorandum on a difficult subject ought to be), Mr. St. Laurent's method saves time. You first read through quickly to get the general drift of the argument and the conclusions or recommendations. Then read a second time - carefully. It is on that second reading that you will find the points you want to query. But don't pause too long on this second reading. Read to the end and then come back to them. This was the lesson Mr. St. Laurent taught me in that November morning in that hotel room in New York as for the first time I watched him read a departmental memorandum. I remember another lesson he taught me two years later. He had just been made prime minister. Mr. Pearson had succeeded him as foreign minister but he had almost immediately gone off to Paris for the United Nations General Assembly. One of the issues at that Assembly which was difficult for Canada was the declaration on human rights because many of the rights set forth in the declaration impinged on matters over which the provinces and not the federal government had jurisdiction. I had to go to Mr. St. Laurent with a long telegram of instructions to our delegation on the subject which had been approved by Brooke Claxton, the acting Foreign Minister. Mr. St. Laurent read it quickly and handed it back to me. He said, 'The general line is all right. I cannot take any responsibility for the precise language.' Now he had become prime minister he realized he could no longer be concerned with the details of policy on an issue of this kind. Within two weeks of his becoming prime minister in 1948 it was said in

73 / Memories of Louis St. Laurent 1946-9

Ottawa that Mr. St. Laurent had aroused more devotion in the civil service than Mr. King had in his whole twenty-three years as prime minister. Because of an incident which had occurred the year before in my relations with Mr. St. Laurent this did not surprise me. It was at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in the autumn of 1.947. I had been given the job of taking a press conference every morning. The press conference was held at 9 :45. At nine every morning we had our daily meeting of the delegation when we would go over what had happened at the plenary meetings and in the committees of the Assembly during the previous day, and discuss what line the Canadian delegation would take on issues expected to arise in the near future. On 26 September Mr. Vishinsky, the leader of the Soviet delegation, gave the Soviet statement in the general opening debate in the Assembly. It was a vituperative attatk on the West, and especially on the United States. No such speech had ever been given in the Assembly. The cold war had not by then broken out. I knew that the first question I would be asked at my press conference would be, 'What does the Canadian delegation think about Mr. Vishinsky's speech?' I had talked to enough members of the delegation, Liberal, Conservative, and ccF, to know how they felt. I had, therefore, before the delegation meeting jotted down the general lines of the reply I proposed to make. I brought the subject up at the meeting. The delegation approved unanimously of my reply - adding to it comments even more pungent than those I had jotted down. The formula which I was to use was : 'The general impression of the Canadian delegation is ... ' I opened the press conference. The question was asked. I gave my reply. I said, 'Anything I say you can use provided you preface your story with some such formula as that "in your conversations with members of the Canadian delegation you have gathered that the general impression of the delegation of Vishinsky's speech is as follows".' I said: 'To be prepared for a speech by a Soviet representative, what you should do is to write the kind of speech which the critics of Soviet policy could with justice make against the Soviet government and then change a few words in that speech in order to turn it into an attack by the Soviet Union on other governments.' The Soviet government had ordered Czechoslovakia to withdraw its acceptance of the invitation to

7 4 / On Canada

attend the first Marshall Plan conference. Now Vishinsky attacked the Marshall Plan as making the European nations in need of relief give up their inalienable right to dispose of their own economic resources. I drew the attention of the correspondents to a statement in the morning's New York Times that 'veteran correspondents' had said that if you had dosed your eyes in the United Nations Assembly hall when Vishinsky had been speaking 'you could hear the voice of Hitler in the Sportspalast.' I also reminded them of the famous paragraph in Mein Kampf about 'the big lie.' That day was a particularly heavy day for me. I was chairman of a fifteen-nation committee of the Assembly which had been charged with revising the Assembly's rules of procedure in order to save time. We were trying to finish our work before the Assembly went into committee and that night we sat well after midnight. By the time I got back to the Biltmore Hotel from Lake Success it was one in the morning. I was sound asleep in a few minutes. I was wakened by the telephone. It was Toronto calling, the Toronto Globe. They had a story from New York quoting me as saying- and then followed the remarks I had made that morning about Vishinsky's speech. They were sure that it must have been in error that these remarks had been attributed to me by name. I said that they were entirely right. I had made the statements, but the rule governing the press conference was that statements such as these were not to be attributed to me but to the Canadian delegation. The Globe said they would make the necessary change in the story. I thanked them for calling me, looked at my watch, saw it was two o'dock and went to sleep again. About seven hours later my telephone rang while I was having breakfast in my room. Again it was long distance. This time from Ottawa. It was Gerry Riddell from the Department of External Affairs. The Department had just sent off a cipher telegram to Mr. St. Laurent, as head of the delegation, asking for an explanation of the grave infraction which I had committed of the rules governing civil servants by making to the press in my own name such forthright statements on a matter of foreign policy in my remarks on the Vishinsky speech. Riddell explained that my remarks were bound to arouse controversy in Canada. The Department had to send this telegram in order to keep the record straight. He was phoning me to warn me that this telegram was coming and to say that Mr. Pearson knew there

75 I Memories of Louis St. Laurent, 1946-9

must be a satisfactory explanation. I asked where the story had appeared. It was in the early edition of the Toronto Globe, though not in the later editions, and it was front-paged in all the editions of the Montreal Gazette. The stories in both papers were by the same correspondent. When the telegram came I went with it to Mr. St. Laurent. I explained to him what had happened. The Department feared there might be newspaper controversy over this. There might be questions in the House of Commons when it met in two months' time. Mr. St. Laurent did not pause for one second. He said, 'Send the following telegram to Ottawa: "Everything Reid said he said under my instructions. St. Laurent." ' He added 'I think the thing will blow over. If it doesn't I will make a public statement to that effect.' With those words Mr. St. Laurent made me his devoted admirer. I knew that here was a man who deserved loyalty because he was loyal. I had done what I had been authorized to do. One newspaperman had failed to respect my anonymity. Because my remarks were probably in advance of public opinion in Canada, this might damage the government. In such circumstances many politicians would have been careful not to commit themselves to support a civil servant until they had had time to find out which way the cat would jump at home. If it turned out that the party's interests would be served b)(. repudiation, they would repudiate. Not Mr. St. Laurent. If it had been Mr. King I had been dealing with and not Mr. St. Laurent, I would have feared that he might sacrifice me if he considered that the national interests demanded this - and Mr. King was not accustomed to make a clear distinction between his own interest, the party interest, and the national interest. I should not have been surprised by Mr. St. Laurent throwing the mantle of his protection over me on this incident of the press conference in 1947 because in the previous year he had never. complained to me over what he could legitimately have said was an error of judgement on my part at the United Nations General Assembly which had caused him some political embarrassment. I had been representing Canada in the final stages of the Political Committee debate on Spain. It was the last day of the discussions on Spain. Various resolutions, amendments, and sub-amendments were being voted

76 I On Canada

on. There had been a proposal for breaking diplomatic relations with Spain. We were opposed to that. This proposal having been defeated in the political Committee by a vote of twenty to twenty with ten abstentions, Belgium put forward a compromise proposal recommending that the members of the UN should withdraw from Madrid their ambassadors or ministers and leave their mission under a charge d' affaires. Most of the important powers, with the exception of Great Britain, had already withdrawn their heads of mission from Madrid and the British delegate urged the committee to adopt the Belgian proposal. Privately, both the British and the United States delegates on the committee urged me to vote for the compromise. This proposal for a withdrawal of ambassadors and ministers was unexpected and made at the last minute. My instructions did not cover this possibility and there was no time for me to seek instructions. I therefore had to act on my own. I informed the British and the United States representatives that I would vote for the Belgian proposal. It was adopted by a vote of twenty-seven to seven with sixteen abstentions. Looking back at it the next day I decided that the spirit of my instructions probably would have better justified an abstention on the vote than a vote for the proposal. I learned indirectly some months later that Mr. St. Laurent had received protests against my vote from se\leral high dignitaries of the Roman Catholic church in the province of Quebec and that in his replies he had firmly defended my action. He had not taken the easy way out of his political difficulties by saying that I had acted without instructions. I had had a good deal to do during the Second World War with the framing of the recommendations to the government on our international air transport policy. One of the principal recommendations was that only one Canadian airline should be given permission to fly international routes and that that should be the nationally owned airline, Trans-Canada Airlines. The government acc~pted this recommendation early in 1944. Some four or five years later one of the leading civil servants concerned with civil aviation matters came to see me. Under the constant pressure of Canadian Pacific Airlines some of the principal members of the government were now prepared to reverse the decision of 1944 and to grant CPA the right to fly to Japan. He remained convinced that this would not be in the national interest. It was only the United States which could afford the

77 I Memories of Louis St. Laurent, 1946-9

luxury of having more than one of its airlines fly international routes. The last hope of stopping the decision in favour of CPA was the prime minister. Could I mention it to him? I had to see him the next day on a half dozen matters. I brought this one up. He said, 'It all depends on where you draw the line between liberalism and socialism.' It was clear that he had become convinced that to give the government-owned airline a monopoly of international routes was socialism, not liberalism. I think that the longer he stayed in office the more policies which he had once conceded might be reconcilable with liberalism, he now felt were socialist. His great accomplishment as foreign minister was his successful crusade in 1948 for the North Atlantic Treaty. Two incidents in that crusade remain especially vivid in my mind. It was June of 1948. Mr. Pearson was still under-secretary and I was his second-in-command. Mr. St. Laurent was foreign minister; Mr. King was prime minister. During the last two years or so of the war, Mr. King had broken with his pre-war belief in isolationism for Canada - a policy of no comr!iitments in advance, nonalignment, and a repudiation of the provisions on sanctions in the covenant of the League of Nations. Instead Mr. King had accepted the purest doctrine of collective security. He said that we must create a new world order where there would always be an overwhelming preponderance of force on the side of peace. But almost as soon as the war was over and the United Nations set up, Mr. King began beating a retreat to his pre-war doctrine of isolation for Canada. Late in 1947 he went so far as to threaten to resign from the cabinet and stump the country against the government if his colleagues would not agree to his demand that Canada withdraw from the then Korean commission. (Canada did not withdraw and he did not resign.) Thus when at the beginning of 1948 the first feelers were put out by Mr. Attlee, then prime minister of Great Britain, on the possibility of Canada participating in a defensive military alliance directed against the Soviet Union in which the principal members would be Great Britain, the United States, and France, no one, no matter how well they knew Mr. King, could safely predict what his reaction would be. He balked at the first hurdle in January 1948 and it was a relatively low one. It was Mr. Pearson who persuaded him to take the jump. In March, following the Soviet

78 I On Canada

coup d'etat in Czechoslovakia, Mr. St. Laurent and Mr. Pearson persuaded him to give a public blessing to the treaty of alliance between Great Britain, France, and the three Benelux countries - the Brussels Treaty. At the beginning of June Mr. Pearson went off on a speaking tour of the United States. I was left in charge of the department. Mr. Pearson's final words to me were that if while he was away the crucial issue arose of whether Canada would send an observer to the military committee of the Brussels Treaty powers, I was to get Mr. St. Laurent to speak to the prime minister. If Mr. King were to refuse to take this jump there would be no hope of persuading him to support Canada's entry into a North Atlantic treaty. We were very much afraid that he would refuse. He disliked participation by Canada in military committees of any kind. He disliked any kind of committee in London. This was to be not only a military committee but a military committee in London. It was the symbol of everything he had fought against in the period from 1921 to 1939. The invitation came in while Mr. Pearson was away. 2 I drew up a very careful memorandum to tl\e prime minister. I remember it just ran over to a second page. It ended with the recommendation that we accept the invitation. I took it to Mr. St. Laurent in his office in the parliament buildings late one June evening. He changed the last sentence to read that we should join the committee because this 'would enable us to make our position clear from the outset.' This was the kind of ambiguous phrase calculated to allay Mr. King's suspicions. In those days the under-secretary for external affairs still used to send memoranda direct to the prime minister. This was a carryover from the time less than two years distant when the prime minister was also foreign minister. Mr. St. Laurent said to me, 'You will be initialling the memorandum.' I demurred. I thought it would be better if he did. He agreed. I wanted Mr. St. Laurent to go to Mr. King with the memorandum and not just send it to him. I was afraid that if the memorandum were sent to Mr. King it might be returned with a curt 'No' in the margin. Then it would be extremely difficult to get Mr. King to change his mind. If Mr. 2

The material from this page to the end of this section (pp. 78-81) first appeared as part of my article, 'The Birth of the North Atlantic Alliance' in International Journal, xxu (summer 1967), 429-35, and is reproduced by kind permission of the editor.

79 I Memories of Louis St. Laurent, 1946-9

St. Laurent would take the memorandum to Mr. King he would have a chance to argue the points. Learning that Mr. King was in his office, Mr. St. Laurent and I went in together. I could see that Mr. St. Laurent had nerved himself for a battle with Mr. King. He said, 'You know, Mr. Prime Minister, that we have been expecting an invitation from the Brussels Treaty powers to send an observer to their military committee in London. We have now received the invitation.' He paused, before going on to marshal the arguments in favour of our accepting the invitation. But he had no opportunity to advance the arguments for Mr. King interrupted him : 'And about time too. Now as to the visit of the Prince Regent of Belgium.' And we spent an hour talking over every detail of the forthcoming visit of the prince regent. It was in this manner that Mackenzie King gave his approval to Canada being associated with the Brussels Treaty organization. Some years later I told this story to Norman Robertson, who had worked closely with Mr. King over many years. His comment was: 'And he might just as probably have said, "No," and refused to listen to any argument.' Shortly after this episode the estimates of the Department of External Affairs were being debated in the House of Commons. It was 19 June 1948. In accordance with custom, I, as acting head of the Department, sat on the floor of the House in front of Mr. St. Laurent. A question was asked about what had 'been done toward completing any relationship between Canada and the countries of Western Europe, and, in particular, with the other members of the Commonwealth with regard to resisting any possible breach of the peace from any quarter whatsoever.' In his reply, Mr. St. Laurent began by referring to a statement in the Ottawa l ournal that Canada had been conducting a crusade for a North Atlantic pact. 'That title, of crusade,' he said 'perhaps justly describes the attitude we have adopted. We feel that, should war break out that affected the United Kingdom and the United States, we would inevitably be involved and that there might be great value in having consummated a regional pact ... whereby these Western European democracies, the United Kingdom, the United States and ourselves agreed to stand together, to pool for defence purposes our respective potentials and coordinate right away our forces, so that it would appear to any potential aggressor that he would have to be prepared to overcome us all if he attempted any aggression.'

8o

I On Canada

That was strong medicine for June 1948. It went beyond anything which had been said in public by the United States government, the British government, or any western European government. But, warming to his subject, carried away by the fervour of his crusade, Mr. St. Laurent went further. He said that, if the United States were willing to join in an alliance with Great Britain, France, and the three Benelux countries, 'we think the people of Canada would wish that we also be associated with it.' This was the first unambiguous public statement of Canada's willingness to enter a North Atlantic military alliance. He sat down. He leaned across to me and said, 'I wonder how that will go down.' I said, 'I think it will go down very well in the country.' Mr. St. Laurent said, 'I wasn't thinking of the country. I was thinking of Laurier House.' - Mr. King's residence in Ottawa. Mr. St. Laurent had made his decision in favour of a North Atlantic treaty by the end of March 1948. Once he made up his mind he became the leader of a crusade for the treaty, with L.B. Pearson as his senior partner and Brooke Claxton as his junior partner. The task was not easy. It meant for Canada a complete break with the past. Up to then we had resolutely rejected any proposal from any source that we enter into any kind of military treaty, even with Great Britain. Opposition to such proposals was nation-wide but it was especially strong in French Canada. It was, therefore, especially difficult for a French Canadian to lead a crusade for a North Atlantic treaty. Yet Mr. St. Laurent did. The tradition of Canadian diplomacy not only at that time but for many years after was that on an issue of this kind Canada should not get out in front either in private talks or in public. It was up to the three principal western powers to take the initiative. It would be presumptuous for Canada on an issue like this to force itself to the front. Moreover, if we played an active role in the negotiation of the treaty, this would increase the danger that we would be expected to make a large contribution to the common defence effort. So went the traditional argument. A cautious man would not have got out in front in an international crusade for the North Atlantic Treaty. A cautious man in the private diplomatic negotiations would have thrown his weight on the side of those who wanted a weak treaty, with ample provision for every nation to decide for itself what it should in fact do if one of its allies were attacked. There were plenty of opportunities to do this during the negotiation of the treaty. Instead Mr. St. Laurent campaigned in private and in public for a

81 / Memories of Louis St. Laurent, 1.946-9

strong treaty - in speeches, in cabinet, and in instructions to our representatives in the international negotiations. The North Atlantic Treaty is a monument to his foreign policy. Mr. St. Laurent sometimes preferred to make his points indirectly. I remember his treatment in December 1948, of Mr. Charles te Water, an official propagandist for the racialist views of the South African government. Mr. te Water had the rank of ambassador-at-large. He had been making a tour of the capitals of the western world. The South African high commissioner in Ottawa arranged a dinner for him. Mr. St. Laurent, who was by now prime minister, was at the dinner with two members of his cabinet. I was present as acting under-secretary for external affairs. After the dinner, before the men had joined the ladies, Mr. te Water launched into what was obviously a carefully prepared statement of the views of the South African government. He emphasized what he called the inevitable clash between races. He said that the only solution for the East Indian problem in South Africa was the 'return' of all the East Indians to India. He referred to the high birth rate of the East Indians and said that unless they were deported they would, before very long, outnumber the white population. Mr. St. Laurent commented dryly that the simplest way for the British to have dealt with the French-Canadian problem after the British conquest of Canada was to have deported the 50,000 French Canadians to France. However, the British government had not done this and the result was that there were now some 4,000,000 people of French-Canadian origin on the North American continent. Mr. te Water went on with his exposition. The white man had been driven out of Asia. Unless the white race stood together, they would be driven out of Africa. Mr. St. Laurent said that this, of course, raised the whole question of 'Adam's will.' Mr. St. Laurent wondered whether there was any justification for the belief that the white race had been divinely ordained to occupy the greater part of the earth's surface while the coloured races remained crowded in a small part of the world. Mr. te Water looked somewhat taken aback but he plunged ahead with his defence of the racialist policies of the South African government. He paused in order to allow Mr. St. Laurent to comment. Mr. St. Laurent said, 'You know, Mr. te Water, one reason why I never become completely pessimistic about the long-run future of the world is

82 I On Canada

that I cannot believe that the good God in his infinite wisdom and mercy would permit his work of creation to perish until the resources which he has placed at the disposal of his children are fully exploited.' Mr. te Water was exasperated and gave utterance to his exasperation. He had not come to Ottawa, he said, to discuss large philosophical problems. He had come to discuss the practical politics of the situation which South Africa faced. Mr. St. Laurent refused to be drawn. He had made clear to any reasonable man how opposed he was in principle to the philosophy which lay behind the policies of South Africa. He said no more and we soon joined the ladies. In New York in October 1946 there was a special high mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral to mark the opening of the UN General Assembly. There had just been a Marian Congress in the United States and there must have been a half dozen cardinals in the chancel. After the complicated and impressive service, instead of going out formally with the official guests past the cardinals, I slipped out through a side door and, walking around the cathedral, I happened to arrive near the door at which this ceremonious leave-taking was taking place just as Mr. St. Laurent came out of the cathedral. Others, in greeting the cardinals, gave me the impression of being either too deferential or too nonchalant. Mr. St. Laurent, tall and handsome, courteously showed the cardinals the deference that was their due but, at the same time, maintained the dignity that was his as foreign minister of Canada. I often think of Mr. St. Laurent as he appeared on that October day in New York. Mr. St. Laurent once told me that when Mr. King asked him, in December 1941, to leave the practice of law in Quebec City and become his second-

in-command in the government in Ottawa, he consulted Cardinal Villeneuve. The cardinal advised him to accept and then said: 'I have one word of advice to you. The good God does not expect you to bear the whole burden of the world upon your shoulders. He expects you to bear only your fair share of the burden.'3 Mr. St. Laurent cheerfully bore more than his fair share of the burden of the world. :; The foregoing paragraph appeared as part of my concluding paragraph to 'The Conscience of a Diplomat' in Queen's Quarterly, LXXXIV (winter 1967), 574---92, and is reproduced by kind permission of the editor.

SIX

Le

canada et la France NAIM KATTAN

En decembre 1966, l' Association France-Canada reunit a Paris un certain nombre d'ecrivains canadiens-fran~ais et fran~ais.* On les invita a discuter les rapports entre la litterature canadienne-fran~aise et la litterature fran~aise. Venus specialement de Montreal pour participer a ce collogue, Marie-Claire Blais, Hubert Aquin, Jean Basile et moi-meme tentames de dire aux romanciers, essayistes, critiques fran~ais qui se trouvaient dans la salle que la litterature canadienne-fran~aise possedait une autonomie par rapport a celle de la France. Les Fran~ais ne l'entendaient pas de la meme oreille. Le celebre ecrivain Andre Chamson, membre de l' Academie Fran~aise, qui fit un bref sejour au Canada, comprend mal qu'on accueille avec tant de reserves sa generosite et sa solicitude. Pour lui, en effet, les ecrivains de Montreal, de Quebec, de Trois-Rivieres ou de Rimouski ne sont point differents de ceux de Marseille, Lille ou Strasbourg. Certes, Paris demeure la capitale de !'edition francophone, mais tous ceux qui s'expriment en fran~ais appartiennent ala meme famille. Un autre academicien, non moins illustre, Pierre-Henri Simon, fit montre d'une generosite non moins grande. Pour lui l'ecrivain francophone n'a qu'une patrie : la langue fran~aise. 11 peut exister des regionalismes et les Canadiens en forment un. Yves Berger, romancier et critique qui, en tant qu'editeur, a presente au public fran~ais quelques ecrivains canadiens dont Marie-Claire Blais et Jean Basile, dit que le probleme fondamental pour chaque ecrivain n'est point le pays OU la region, mais l'ecriture, et • L'essai original etait ecrit en 1.967.

84 /

On Canada

quand ii s'agit de s'exprimer clans une langue, cette ecriture prend la coloration de cette langue. Sans vouloir confirmer cette opinion, Marie-Claire Blais exprima son sentiment de romanciere. Elle ne se comporte pas en patriote quand elle redige une nouvelle, un poeme ou un roman. Si elle est canadienne ce n' est pas d'une maniere arbitraire ou voulue. En mai 1968, la revue Liberte organisa une Rencontre d'Ecrivains a SteAdele pres de Montreal. Le theme de la Rencontre qui s'est deroulee pendant trois jours etait : les ecrivains et I'enseignement de la litterature. L'une des questions que l'on a abordee et qui a attire !'attention et des ecrivains et des enseignants qui assistaient a cette Rencontre fut la place que devrait occuper la litterature canadienne-fran~aise, ou plutot la litterature quebecoise (tel que preferent la nommer uncertain nombre d'ecrivains), clans l'enseignement de la litterature en general, et de la litterature fran~aise en particulier. Un jeune professeur de l'Universite de Montreal, Andre Brochu, qui est un adepte de la critique thematique et qui a collabore, a ses debuts, a la revue Parti-pris, a dit que clans l'enseignement de la litterature de langue fran~aise ii est necessaire de donner la priorite a la litterature quebecoise, et ceci, non pas pour des motifs nationalistes comme certains peuvent le croire. Pour que l'acces a la litterature soit significatif ii est essentiel de rechercher les themes et les autettrs qui sont proches du lecteur et de l'etudiant. Ainsi, le jeune etudiant n'aura pas a aborder la litterature par le biais de textes et d'auteurs etrangers. Car, malgre !'existence d'une langue commune, les ecrivains fran~ais ne parlent pas aux Canadiens de leur pays ou de leur paysage familier. II n'est pas question evidemment de limiter !'horizon du jeune Canadien. Mais, pour que la litterature ne soit pas pour lui indefiniment un territoire lointain, ii est important qu'il fasse son entree clans cet univers grace a des mediateurs aptes a le lui rendre moins difficile d'acces et, au debut, plus familier. Mais la, un probleme se pose : la litterature canadienne-fran~aise est malgre tout, clans une perspective sinon universelle, du moins francophone, une litterature encore mineure, ou comme on aime dire, une litterature qui se fait. Par consequent, si le jeune etudiant fait son entree clans le monde de la litterature par l'intermediaire d'une litterature non achevee cela ne veut-il pas dire que son acces ala litterature va etre fausse des le depart ? Brochu est

85 / Le Canada et la France

d' avis qu'il faut eviter une telle defaillance qui serait nefaste, et pour y parvenir il est necessaire que l'enseignement de la litterature quebecoise soit accompagne d'un enseignement, au moins aussi important, de la litterature fram;aise. II importe alors de tracer les limites entre les deux litteratures, de faire comprendre, et surtout sentir, a l'etudiant qu'il s'agit la de deux litteratures differentes et que toute comparaison facile serait injuste pour l'une comme pour l'autre. Si je me suis etendu sur des problemes litteraires ce n' est pas pour conclure que les seuls liens veritables entre la France et le Canada doivent commencer par etre definis sur le plan litteraire, ni meme sur le plan culture! ou intellectuel. Cependant, la litterature qui unit et qui separe Canadiens fram;:ais et Fran~ais marque a la fois la confusion, les ecarts, les malentendus qui existent entre deux peuples qui sont en meme temps etrangers et de la meme famille. En d'autres termes, c'est par rapport a la France que le probleme de l'identite du Canadien fran~ais se pose avec le plus d'acuite, sinon avec le plus de clarte. Et c'est par la langue, ecrite et parlee, au Canada et en France que la confusion se manifeste. On a l'habitude en France de faire la distinction entre l'anglais et l'americain. On dit qu'un ouvrage de Faulkner est traduit de l'americain, tandis qu'un livre de Virginia Woolf est traduit de l'anglais. Par contre, les Fran~ais ne reconnaissent !'existence que d'une seule langue fran~aise : le fran~ais universe!. Depuis quelques annees l'on organise meme des biennales de la langue fran~aise ou des linguistes, des grammairiens et des enseignants de tous les pays francophones se reunissent pour se mettre d' accord sur un vocabulaire valable pour tous les francophones. Les elites du Canada fran~ais poussent depuis de nombreuses annees des eris d' alarme sur la deterioration de la langue fran~aise au Canada. II n'est pas question ici des archai"smes qui n'encombrent pas cette langue mais qui lui donnent un caractere particulier que les Fran~ais sont les premiers a accepter. Mais, il est question des anglicismes qui n'atteignent pas le vocabulaire seulement, mais aussi la syntaxe. Le probleme n'est pas nouveau ; I'on a constitue depuis longtemps des associations de hon parler fran~ais et I'on a lance des campagnes pour I'amelioration de la langue ecrite et parlee. Mais, depuis quelques annees on a assiste a un phenomene nouveau : quelques ecrivains, tres jeunes, notamment Jacques Renaud, Gerald Godin et Claude Jasmin, ont decide d'ecrire dans la langue parlee

86 I On Canada

par le peuple. Langue deterioree, avons-nous dit, et qu'un ecrivain canadien-fran~ais, Andre Laurendeau, a surnomme le " joual ». Le mot " joual » est la maniere dont on prononce le mot " cheval » , ce qui indique l'ecart entre la langue ecrite et parlee. Or, ces ecrivains ont declare qu'ils ont honte, bien sur, de cette langue, qu'ils croient que la langue que devraient parler les Canadiens fran~ais devrait etre le fran~ais de France, le fran~ais universe!, mais qu'ils ont decide d'ecrire dans une langue demunie, anglicisee, pour protester contre une situation politique, sociale et economique qui a eu comme consequence cette deterioration de la langue. Ils ne croient pas que le " joual » devrait etre une langue litteraire. C'est une langue qui est utilisee comme un instrument de protestation et qui devrait conduire a l'action politique. Mais, si cette action aboutissait a un resultat, si, en d'autres termes, les Canadiens fran~ais etaient maitres de leur langue parce qu'ils seraient maitres de leur economie et de leur Etat, cette langue " le joual », disparaitrait. C'est une litterature, par consequent, qui s'annule elle-meme. Cette litterature a avorte. II y a eu quelques ouvrages interessants, mais le plus talentueux parmi les ecrivains qui ont adopte cette langue, Jacques Renaud, a decide de n'ecrire qu'en fran~ais. Le fran~ais du Canada n'est pas une variante locale, ou regionale. Ce qui le distingue n'est pas simplement un accent ou quelques particularismes du cru. C'est un fran~ais qui souffre d'une cohabitation avec l'anglais, et d'une situation de minorite linguistique dans un continent anglophone. Et l'on fait face au dilemme suivant: pour que sa langue puisse s'ameliorer, le Canada fran~ais a besoin d'une aide constante de la France. Mais, plus sa langue se deteriore et plus le Canadien fran~ais se sent eloigne de la France, de sa culture. L'on assiste depuis quelques annees a une veritable revolution dans l'enseignement. Celui-ci est la responsabilite des provinces au Canada, et le gouvernement de la province de Quebec a multiplie les efforts dans ce domaine ces dernieres annees. Mais, ii faut tout faire en meme temps : construire des ecoles, mieux enseigner le fran~ais, mieux preparer les instituteurs, les payer davantage, enseigner les sciences et les arts selon les exigences de l'Amerique du Nord, adopter des methodes progressives et nouvelles. L'effort que l'on fournit est enorme. Mais c'est un travail de longue haleine, et l'on ne saura que dans plusieurs annees si, grace a la reforme de l'enseignement, l'on arriver a a ameliorer le niveau general de la langue parlee. D' aucuns ne cachent pas leur pessimisme et proclament que la bataille est deja perdue. D'autres ne placent pas leur

87 I Le Canada et la France

confiance dans les seules reformes de l'enseignement. Ils sont d' avis que seul un changement du regime politique pourra sauver le franc;:ais. Selon eux il faut commencer par le commencement, c'est-a-dire proclamer l'unilinguisme dans un Quebec veritablement autonome, sinon separe du reste du Canada. Si le franc;:ais n' a pas un statut officiel et si l'anglais n'est pas considere dans le Quebec comme une langue etrangere que l'on peut apprendre, sans y etre force, le franc;:ais restera une langue minoritaire et aucune reforme de l'enseignement ne pourra le sauver. Le gouvernement du Quebec sait que s'il peut avoir les ressources financieres pour accomplir une partie importante des reformes qu'il preconise, les ressources humaines risquent de lui manquer. C'est en cela que l'appui de la France lui semble necessaire. Des accords culturels entre Quebec et Paris furent deja conclus sous le gouvernement de Jean Lesage. En juillet 1967, le General de Gaulle, lors d'une visite memorable au Quebec, a crie a Montreal C Vive le Quebec libre •. L'on a, au debut, voulu minimiser la portee de cette phrase, mais plus tard, de retour a Paris, apres avoir refuse de se rendre a Ottawa, le President de la France a explicite son attitude envers le Canada. II n' a plus laisse de doutes que, pour lui, la province de Quebec devrait jouir d'une autonomie politique et culturelle telle que I'on voit mal de quelle maniere cela pourrait s'effectuer sans demembrer le Canada. D'autre part, le General n'a pas eclairci la confusion sur l'identite des Canadiens franc;:ais. A plusieurs reprises il a fait allusion aux Franc;:ais canadiens ou aux Franc;:ais du Canada. Dans I'esprit de !'ensemble des Canadiens, de langue anglaise comme de langue franc;:aise, quand on dit « Franc;:ais du Canada ,. ou « Franc;:ais canadiens ,. il s'agit d'immigrants venus de France qui ont choisi le Canada comme leur pays d'adoption. Mais, dans !'esprit du President de Gaulle il s'agit bien des Canadiens franc;:ais qu'il considere encore, non pas uniquement comme de lointains cousins des Franc;:ais de France, mais comme leurs concitoyens. II est indeniable que la visite du General de Gaulle et l'appui qu'il a donne au sentiment nationaliste canadien-franc;:ais ont souleve beaucoup d'emotion et, surtout, beaucoup d'espoir. Mais, de la a penser que les Canadiens franc;:ais s'identifient desormais aux Franc;:ais de France il y a une marge. En realite, les Canadiens franc;:ais qui savent qu'ils sont Nordamericains et qui menent sur le plan quotidien une vie nord-americaine sont heureux de pouvoir compter sur l'appui d'un homme prestigieux comme le General de Gaulle et surtout d'un grand pays : la France. Pour

88 I On Canada

une minorite francophone entouree d'une majorite anglophone ecrasante

ii s'agit la d'un contrepoids salutaire. 11 est vrai que tous les Fran~ais ne partagent pas les opinions du General de Gaulle sur le Canada, et plus particulierement sur le Canada fran~ais. Nombreux sont ceux qui sont venus voir de plus pres ce qui se passe dans le pays, a }'occasion de l'Expo 67 tenue a Montreal. Leurs temoignages sont quasi-unanimes : ii n'y a pas de doute que les habitants du bord du Saint-Laurent sont des nordamericains. Ils parlent fran~ais, ils conservent certaines traditions europeennes, mais leur comportement, leur vie quotidienne, le confort dont ils jouissent sont essentiellement nord-americains. D'ailleurs, a l'automne 1.966, quand certains romanciers canadiensfran~ais ont attire }'attention des critiques litteraires et des lecteurs fran~ais, ce sont leurs caracteristiques propres qui furent mises en lumiere, plutot que ce qui les rattache aux Fran~ais. On a decouvert chez Rejean Ducharme, dont le roman L'avalee des avales a suscite un grand interet a Paris, une fraicheur, une innocence et une violence d'imagination et de verbe peu communes dans les milieux sophistiques et raffines de Paris. Jacques Godbout semble vouloir meme tabler sur cet interet. Dans ses romans Le couteau sur la table et surtout Salut Galarneau ii met en scene des Nord-americains de langue fran~aise. Souvent, ii les fait parler, non pas arbitrairement, mais d'une fa~on voulue et consciente un langage qui frappe les oreilles fran~aises, sinon par son excentricite, du moins par son etrangete. Quelle que soit, en definitive, leur identite et en depit des malentendus qu'une partie des Fran~ais et, notamment le General de Gaulle (n'a-t-il pas declare dans une conference de presse en juin 1.968 que l'un des actes revolutionnaires qu'il a accomplis fut « le commencement de la liberation des Fran~ais du Canada » ), entretiennent la-dessus, les Canadiens-fran~ais entendent collaborer avec la France et solliciter son aide et son appui. Mais la une question pratique se pose dont les consequences constitutionnelles et politiques sont considerables : Qui represente les Canadiens fran~ais a l'etranger, particulierement en France ? Jusqu'a present personne ne mettait en doute }'exclusive juridiction du gouvernement federal d'Ottawa en matiere de relations exterieures. Or, depuis quelques mois le gouvernement provincial du Quebec, par la voix de son premier ministre, M. Daniel Johnson, declare que la

89 / Le Canada et la France

constitution canadienne reconnait aux provinces une juridiction exclusive en certaines matieres, notamment !'education. D'apres M. Johnson le gouvemement provincial du Quebec a le droit de conclure des accords intemationaux en education et d'assister, d'une maniere autonome, a des conferences internationales consacrees aux problemes de I'education, car il ne s'agirait la que d'un prolongement exterieur d'une juridiction interieure. Ainsi, quand, au debut de 1968, le Quebec re~ut une invitation du gouvernement du Gabon pour assister a une conference internationale des pays francophones sur I'education, le gouvernement provincial accepta !'invitation et y delegua son Ministre de }'Education, M. Jean-Guy Cardinal. Ottawa, apres de longs pourparlers et avec le gouvemement du Quebec et avec celui de Libreville, decida de faire connaitre publiquement son desaccord et de suspendre ses rapports diplomatiques avec Libreville. Certains commentateurs ont reproche au gouvernement d'Ottawa d'avoir monte en epingle un petit incident. Or, il s'agit en verite d'un probleme complexe et d'une option fondamentale sur la structure interne du Canada. Si le Canada demeure une federation de dix provinces, le Quebec qui n'est que l'une de ses provinces, se trouve et se trouvera toujours en minorite. On a voulu trouver une solution de compromis en disant que le Quebec n'est pas une province comme les autres. Avant d'acceder au pouvoir, M. Daniel Johnson, chef du parti de }'Union Nationale, avait ecrit un ouvrage ou ii disait qu'il existe deux nations au Canada dont l'une est la nation canadienne-fran~aise et I'autre, la nation canadienne-anglaise. Le Quebec est le territoire ou la majorite des membres de la nation canadienne-fran~aise resident. Le gouvernement de cette province est tout naturellement leur porte-parole. II importe, par consequent, que ce gouvemement ne soit pas dote uniquement de pouvoirs provinciaux mais egalement de ceux dont devrait jouir un Etat national. II faudrait pour cela modifier la constitution canadienne et conclure un nouvel accord, non pas entre dix provinces, mais entre deux nations. Certes, il existe un million de Canadiens fran~ais qui n'habitent pas la province de Quebec. Mais, celle-ci pourrait, selon le point de vue du gouvemement actuel, conclure des accords avec les autres provinces pour preserver les droits culturels des Canadiens de langue fran~aise qui ne sont pas quebecois. D'ailleurs, le Quebec n'a-t-il pas toujours traite avec une parfaite equite sa minorite anglophone qui, elle aussi, se compose d'environ un million de personnes ?

90 I On Canada

La deuxieme option est celle du gouvernement federal exprimee avec vigueur et clarte par le Premier Ministre, Pierre-Elliot Trudeau. II n'y a qu'un Canada et le gouvernement federal est son gouvernement central. II represente tousles citoyens canadiens et defend avec egalite leurs droits culturels, linguistiques, economiques et sociaux. Bien sur, ii y a eu dans le passe des inegalites et des injustices, mais au lieu de defaire le regime actuel ii s'agit de le reformer, de l'ameliorer. Ainsi le gouvernement federal procede-t-il ades initiatives nombreuses et diverses qui tentent a renforcer le bilinguisme dans le service civil federal, a rendre le Canada, du moins en ce qui se rapporte a son gouvernement central, un pays veritablement bilingue. C'est vers cela d' ailleurs que tendent les recommandations de la Commission royale d'enquete sur le bilinguisme et le biculturalisme instituee en 1963 par le gouvernement federal et qui dans le premier volume de son rapport final recommande la reconnaissance et le renforcement du bilinguisme partout au Canada. Certes, cette Commission reconnait, clans son rapport, au gouvernement provincial du Quebec, le droit d' exprimer les aspirations de l'ensemble des Canadiens fran~ais. En verite ii est question d'un rapport de majorite-minorite, et nombre de Canadiens fran~ais voudraient modifier le rapport qui existe actuellement et qui fait des Canadiens fran~ais une perpetuelle minorite. Si ces derniers n' acceptent plus l'appelation c Canadiens fran~ais >, mais designent leur identite sous celle de « Quebecois » ils deviendraient une majorite, car la majorite des Quebecois sont des francophones. · II semble que le gouvernement du General de Gaulle a decide d'etablir des rapports directs avec le Quebec sans passer par l'intermediaire du gouvernement federal d'Ottawa. Depuis 1964, les contacts entre le Quebec et la France se multiplient. La cooperation s'institue dans tous les domaines. Des delegations parcourent les deux pays de part et d' autre. II ne semble pas toutefois que le General de Gaulle veuille restreindre l'aide qu'il apporte aux Canadiens fran~ais aux seuls Quebecois. En effet, ii a invite a Paris une delegation d'Acadiens et la France a offert son assistance culturelle ala province du Nouveau-Brunswick. II n'en reste pas moins que le gouvernement du General de Gaulle entend traiter directement avec les Canadiens fran~ais, ou plutot les Fran~ais du Canada sans passer par un gouvernement federal qui comporte un fort element d' Anglophones. Certes, la France ne veut pas ignorer le reste du Canada. Mais, ii existe

91 / Le Canada et la France

une difference entre les rapports que le gouvernement du General de Gaulle etablit avec les francophones du Canada qui sont consideres comme des Fram;ais du Canada, autrement dit, comme des fils eloignes de la France, et les anglophones a la disposition desquels l'on met les fruits de la culture fran~aise universelle comme d' ailleurs l'on fait avec tous les etrangers. L'on comprend que ceci pose un probleme irritant pour le gouvemement federal. Non seulement le General de Gaulle n'accepte pas de considerer le gouvemement d'Ottawa comme celui qui parle au nom de tous les Canadiens, a toutes occasions, mais ce point de vue se trouve partage par l'ancien Premier Ministre de la province de Quebec, M. Daniel Johnson. Ainsi, un pont s'etablit directement entre le Quebec et la France sans que le gouvernement federal y soit implique. La tension interieure qui dechire le Canada trouve ainsi un prolongement international, en France. Pendant des generations les Canadiens fran~ais ont voue a la France une admiration ambigue : c'est la mere-patrie mais qui a abandonne ses fils lointains a leur sort ; c'est le foyer de la culture dont vit la communaute francophone au Canada, mais c'est aussi le pays de la Revolution fran~aise, la ou la religion est battue en breche. Depuis quelques annees le probleme religieux ne pose pas d'obstacles dans les rapports entre la France et le Canada. II y avait un temps ou tous les Catholiques de droite en France etaient convaincus, avec raison jusqu'a un certain point d'ailleurs, que le Canada fran~ais etait le gardien des valeurs chretiennes catholiques traditionnelles. Desormais, des Catholiques de gauche et des laics de gauche trouvent a Montreal et a Quebec, non seulement des oreilles, mais egalement des personnes aptes a leur donner la replique d'egal a egal. Et meme s'il reste au Canada des personnes qui pensent encore que la France est un pays de perdition du point de vue moral et religieux, ils ne sont pas tellement plus nombreux que ceux qui, en France, ont la meme opinion de leur pays. Ainsi l'elite canadienne-fran~aise se nourrit volontiers et sans reticences aux sources parisiennes. Et si, nombreux sont ceux qui parmi cette elite lisent les hebdomadaires litteraires, artistiques et politiques qui viennent de Paris par avion, la masse de la population s'interesse bien sur davantage a ce qui se publie clans le pays meme, ce qui est absolument normal ; mais, ce qui est plus frappant, cette masse s'interesse egalement aux publications americaines de langue anglaise ; et si l'on faisait des statistiques a ce sujet l'on decouvrirait peut-etre qu'il existe beaucoup plus de Canadiens fran~ais qui lisent des periodiques americains que de Cana-

92 / On Canada

diens fran~ais qui lisent des periodiques venant de France. L'on peut dire qu'une coupure separe une elite canadienne-fran~aise, de plus en plus impregnee de culture fran~aise, d'une population qui veut jouir de tous les conforts de la vie americaine et qui ne rejette pas spontanement les produits de la culture de masse venant des Etats-Unis. Et plus l'elite devient sensible cette coupure, plus elle reclame une protection gouvernementale de la culture fran~aise, et le gouvernement auquel s' adresse cette elite est celui de la province de Quebec. Dans les rapports entre la France et le Canada c'est la dimension politique qui l'heure presente semble avoir la priorite. Pour le Canada ce n'est qu'un aspect des tensions qui divisent Canadiens francophones et Canadiens anglophones. Pour la France cela peut etre autre chose, mais ii sera difficile de sonder d'une maniere precise les veritables intentions gaullistes clans ce domaine. Certains commentateurs avancent des hypotheses : la France voudrait utiliser le Canada fran~ais comme un marche-pied pour s'implanter en Amerique du Nord ; d' autres sont d' a vis qu' en appuyant les nationalistes canadiens-fran~ais, notamment ceux du Quebec, de Gaulle ne fait que poursuivre la longue lutte qu'il mene contre les Anglo-Saxons. II est manifeste toutefois que la politique fran~aise envers le Canada exerce une plus grande influence sur ce pays que ne le fait la politique canadienne envers la France sur le gouvernement du General de Gaulle. A longue echeance !'aspect politique des rapports entre le Canada et la France ne prendra surement pas le dessus sur les autres aspects de ces rapports. II y a plus qui attache les deux pays que les exigences d'une politique gouvernementale, et les divergences des hommes politiques des deux pays prouveront sans doute qu'elles sont passageres. Partant des premisses que le Canada est et restera un pays uni et independant, et je sais fort bien que non seulement des separatistes mais d' autres Canadiens mettront en doute ces premisses (ii s'agit pour moi plus que d'une constatation ou d'une prevision d'avenir : d'une conviction), pour parer aux menaces qui l'assaillent de toutes parts, ce pays devra accepter d'etre veritable~ ment bilingue et biculturel. Cela voudra dire que les Canadiens anglais accepteraient que les Canadiens francophones seront leurs egaux, et non pas une simple minorite laquelle l'on concede des privileges. De leur cote les Canadiens fran~ais apprendront vivre au Canada, et en Amerique du Nord comme les tenants d'une culture universelle, meme si elle est minoritaire sur ce continent. II n'y aura jamais une division ideale des droits, des

a

a

a

a

93 / Le Canada et la France

responsabilites et des devoirs des deux groupes linguistiques et culturels, mais il y aura, esperons-le, un equilibre, une acceptation de l'egalite des chances et un respect mutuel. L'equilibre que le Canada doit decouvrir et consolider sur le plan interieur, ii doit egalement le trouver dans ses rapports avec les autres pays. L'on s'appuie deja considerablement sur le plan economique sur les Etats-Unis. Pour que le Canada puisse sauvegarder son independance, pour qu'il puisse jouir d'une liberte d'action politique et culturelle reelle par rapport aux Etats-Unis, ii ne peut pas compter uniquement sur ses propres forces, bien que celles-ci soient determinantes. II faut qu'il puisse equilibrer ses rapports avec les Etats-Unis par des rapports in times avec d' autres pays. Jusqu'a present l'on fondait plus que des espoirs sur la Grande-Bretagne et le Commonwealth, mais l'on voit que cela n'est point suffisant. D'autant plus que la Grande-Bretagne elle-meme s'aligne tres souvent sur la politique americaine et a besoin de l'appui des Etats-Unis. C'est la qu'entre en jeu un element relativement nouveau, la francophonie. Une participation active a la francophonie permettra au Canada de jouer un role international autre que celui que peuvent jouer les Etats-Unis ou la Grande-Bretagne. Ce pays nord-americain, l'un des plus avances sur le plan technique et materiel, possede deux cultures universelles. Pour qu'elles puissent vivre cote a cote il est essentiel que le pays en reconnaisse les dimensions internationales. Prendre part a la vie culturelle des pays de langue frans:aise qu'ils soient europeens ou africains ne doit pas etre simplement un moyen de satisfaire certaines revendications des Canadiens frans:ais. L'implication du Canada dans la vie francophone sur un plan mondial devrait etre une exigence de la part des Canadiens dans leur ensemble, qu'ils soient de langue anglaise ou de langue frans:aise. Et ceci donnera aux rapports du gouvernement federal avec la France une realite qu'ils n'ont pas toujours eue, rapports de famille, rapports d'interets communs, rapports d'une equipe qui mene sur le plan mondial une action culturelle a laquelle elle croit. C'est tout le Canada qui doit etre appele a participer a une telle action, car ce pays ne peut etre celui des Anglophones ou des Francophones, meme si une partie importante de ses citoyens ne parlent que l'une ou l'autre des deux langues. Et les deux cultures du pays appartiennent a tous les Canadiens et ce rapport entre le Canada et les pays francophones les impliquent tous quelle que soit leur langue ou leur culture. Ainsi, les rapports entre

94 / On Canada

le Canada et la France ne peuvent qu'etre bases sur la conception du Canada actuel et futur. Bien stir, cette conception ne correspond pas a celle qu' expriment le General de Gaulle et son gouvernement sur la composition du pays actuel ou sur son avenir. Mais, ii ya d'autres Frans:ais. Et nombreux sont ceux parmi eux qui seraient d'accord avec l'idee qu'ont aujourd'hui une majorite de Canadiens de l'avenir de leur pays, et de l'avenir des rapports de ce pays avec la francophonie.

SEVEN

In

Defence of Canadian culture NEIL COMPTON

It is doubtless bad form to build an essay in honour of a great scholar around a disagreement with something he wrote almost a generation ago. Nevertheless, I am going to risk it. Frank Underhill's beloved liberal tradition is founded upon creative dissent, and he would not appreciate a volume which was redolent of nothing but incense and treacle. He has always relished a good controversy, and pokes fun at amiable colleagues who have 'lived blameless intellectual lives, cultivated the golden mean, and never stuck their necks out.' 1 In any case, he may probably agree with much of what I have to say: In his 1946 Presidential Address to the Canadian Historical Association, Underhill lamented the mediocrity and second-handedness of Canadian intellectual life: Canada is caught up in the modern crisis of liberalism as are all other national communities. But in this world-debate about the values of our civilization the Canadian voice is hardly heard. Who ever reads a Canadian book? What have we to say about them that has attracted the attention of our contemporaries or has impressed itself upon their imagination? In the world of ideas, we do not yet play a full part. We are still colonial. Our thinking is still derivative .... For our intellectual capital we are still dependent upon a continuous flow of imports from London, New York, and Paris, not to mention Moscow and Rome. It is to be hoped that we will continue to raise our intellectual standards by con1 In Search of Canadian Liberalism (Toronto 1960), xi

96 I On Canada -

tinuing to import from these more mature centres, and that we will never try to go in for intellectual autarchy. But international commerce in ideas as well as in goods should be a two-way traffic at least, and preferably it should be multilateral. ... one sign of this colonialism in our intellectual world is to be seen in the present state of Canadian historiography. The guild of Canadian historians confine their activities very largely to the writing of studies in local national history. South of the border American historians have long been demonstrating their intellectual equality by pouring out books on English and European and world history as well as on local subjects. But how little of this kind of research and writing has been done in Canada! 2 After regretting our 'seeming incapacity for ideas, or rather this habit of carrying on our communal affairs at a level at which ideas never quite emerge into an articulate life of their own,'8 Underhill went on to attribute this shortcoming to the fact that 'we never had an eighteenth century of our own' : All effective liberal and radical democratic movements in the nineteenth century have had their roots in this fertile eighteenth-century soil. But our ancestors made the great refusal in the eighteenth century. In Canada we have no revolutionary traditions; and our historians, political scientists and philosophers have assiduously tried to educate us to be proud of this fact. How can such a people expect their democracy to be as dynamic as the democracies of Britain and France and the United States have been7 4 Reading these words in the late 1960s, Canadians are less likely than the original audience to accept so unfavourable a comparison between their own traditions and those of France, Britain, and the us. For various reasons, none of them reflecting any special credit on our own wisdom and virtue (or, for that matter, upon our ancestors') the Canadian mode of existence seems at this moment to be, in many ways, more satisfying and to offer more promise for the future than any of the democracies whose dynamism was admired by Professor Underhill. Is it mere conservative brainwashing that makes people feel this, or are there solid grounds for this confidence? 2

'Some Reflections on the Liberal Tradition in Canada,' ibid., 5-6

3

Ibid., 8

4 Ibid., 12

97 I In Defence of Canadian Culture

The purpose of this essay is to suggest an answer to this question. But that requires at least a cursory glance at the state of affairs about which Underhill was complaining. It was rather daring of him to ask 'Who ever reads a Canadian book?' Presumably, he was consciously echoing Sydney Smith's notorious question about who reads an American book, and felt reasonably confident that no Canadian Hawthornes, Melvilles, or Poes were about to rise and challenge the implied answer. In a sense, he was right: no Canadian novelist or poet has reached the highest international eminence. On the other hand, at the very moment that Underhill was speaking these words a number of Canadian scholar-thinkers were at work on seminal studies of exactly the kind he was calling for. Though they did not and do not constitute a school (in spite of the fact that most of them gravitated, at one time or other, to the University of Toronto), their work, collectively considered, does seem to exhibit some characteristically Canadian traits. However, if I am right about the nature of these traits, it is not surprising that Underhill's book is called In Search of Canadian Liberalism and that the search is largely unrequited (except in the case of the odd immigrant such as Goldwin Smith). In spite of the name of our dominant political party, classical liberalism is apparently not a native growth, though Canadian thought and institutions have been influenced by its predominance outside our borders. If there is a Canadian intellectual tradition, it seems to be characterized by a number of essentially un-liberal (as distinct from illiberal) tendencies: (1) a sense of the hardness and immutability of environments, amounting almost to determinism; (2) an awareness of the inevitable pitfalls and distortions of human communication; and (3) a lack of commitment to the rationalistic, individualistic ethos of our age. Three very eminent thinkers whose ideas exhibit these characteristics in varying degrees (though they would doubtless object to being lumped together) are the late Harold A. Innis, H. Northrop Frye, and H. Marshall McLuhan. All three were engaged upon highly important and original (not to say revolutionary) works of scholarship in 1946, the year of Underhill's presidential address. I intend, rather arbitrarily, to centre much of my subsequent discussion upon the work of these representative figures. 11 5 I was tempted to add other names, particularly that of S.I. Hayakawa, author of Language in Thought and Action (1.939 etc.). However, he does not quite fit the pattern, and probably no longer considers himself Canadian.

98 I On Canada

Geography and history have conspired to make Canadians unusually aware of the brutal limitations that nature and society can impose upon the free exercise of human choice. The best of those 'studies of local national history' to which Underhill referred almost all stress the way in which the austerities of the Laurentian shield and a sub-arctic climate restricted early economic activity to a very narrow range of highly organized enterprises based upon the St. Lawrence River system. In spite of our superficial resemblance to Americans, the myths which pervade Canadian history are different from theirs. In contrast to the pastoral image of America as a new Eden inhabited by a breed of free and innocent men, and the related tradition of an open frontier to which Huckleberry Finn and others could light out when 'civilization' became too constricting,6 Canada's geographical image from the first tended to be inhospitable, even sinister. Canada was 'the land that God gave Cain' (Jacques Cartier), 'a few acres of snow' (Voltaire), 'a region of desolate sterility ... a cold, uncomfortable, uninviting region from whence nothing but furs and fish were to be had' (Samuel Johnson). Until recently, only a few untypical areas - notably Prince Edward Island and southwestern Ontario - participated in the North American myth of agricultural plenty : Mrs. Moodie's Roughing It in the Bush, Maria Chapdelaine, and the NFB film The Drylanders, with their emphasis upon backbreaking work and unpredictable harvests, probably are closer to the mainstream of the Canadian imagination. As for the frontier, the extreme climate and bleak terrain made it an unattractive alternative for social drop-outs, who tended to head south and become Americans. In any case, the fur trade which opened up the northwest could be carried on only by the application of large-scale bureaucratic methods - very different from the independent small-holders' ethos of the American west. In addition to occupying widely separated enclaves in so vast and formidable a territory, Canadians have also had to contend with a political situation which, until recently, allowed minimal opportunities for free manoeuvre. French Canadians were governed before the conquest by officials appointed in Versailles, suffered the trauma of abandonment by France according to the terms of a treaty in the making of which they played no part, and have spent the subsequent two hundred years resisting 6 See Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land (New York 1950) and Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden (New York 1965)

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the pressures of English-Canadian culture from within and Americanization from without. As for English Canadians, they clung for years to the safety of the British connection as a bulwark against Yankee imperialism, and pay for such cultural and economic independence from the us as they now enjoy by constant expensive protective economic measures. Since the aspirations of francophone and anglophone Canadians differ in so many respects, political reality in Canada is an intensely complex and shifting set of relationships in which at any moment the range of viable choices is always severely limited. The technological triumphs of the last fifty years have tended to liberate Canadian society from at least some of these constraints, but our culture and institutions continue to reflect their influence. In particular, there seems to be something fundamentally impersonal about the Canadian imagination : as has often been noted, it has been haunted less by faces than by places. 7 There is no Canadian pantheon of heroes to match (say) Robin Hood, Lord Byron, George Washington, or Wild Bill Hickock. French Canada has its Dollard des Ormeaux, its Jean de Brebeuf, and its Radisson and des Grosseillers, but even they symbolize either defeat at the hands of a hostile environment or free adventure in a kind of social vacuum. Though English Canada does not lack for records of heroic achievement, it is almost totally devoid of meaningful heroic myths. Samuel Hearne's overland journey to the Arctic in 1771-2 was an aweinspiring achievement, for example, but its mythic importance is chiefly to emphasize the puniness, the impermanence and, almost, the irrelevance of man in the vast, empty Canadian setting. Isn't that the message of our greatest native school of painting, the Group of Seven? Or of Gilles Vigneault's 'Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays,/C'est l'hiver' - which was first sung in a somberly beautiful little NFB film about life in northern Quebec, La neige est tombee sur Manicouagan? There is no need to retrace in this essay the story of Harold Innis' intellectual development, from his brilliant early illuminations of Canadian economic history, The Fur Trade in Canada (1930) and The Cod Fisheries (1940), to his later speculations on the role of communications media of all kinds in determining the nature and scope of national or international 7 The recent success of the TV series Wojeck suggests that urbanization may be changing this state of affairs. In French-Canadian fiction, the figure of the young separatist hero is a similar (though more ominous) example of this trend.

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polities. Quite clearly the somber determinism of the macrocosmic theories which he expounded in Empire and Communications (1950), The Bias of Communication (1951), and Changing Concepts of Time (1952) can be directly related to Innis' intimate familiarity with the story of the long struggle of Canadians to overcome their environment - and with the countless ways in which this struggle has left its mark upon them and their institutions. Marshall McLuhan, who moved to St. Michael's College, Toronto in the year of Underhill's presidential address, was at that time known chiefly as a politically conservative 'New Critic' with an interest in rhetoric and subliterary genres. He was already at work on 'the folklore of industrial man,' and published The Mechanical Bride, his wisecracking iconographical study of advertisements, newspapers and other media, in 1951. Around this time, he came under the influence of Innis, with the result that he dramatically revised his whole attitude toward contemporary culture.8 His hatred of industrial capitalism, which had been motivated by a conviction that old-fashioned mechanical technology was leading man inevitably to fragmentation and dissolution gave way to the vision of a beatific future based upon electronic technology. Television, computers, photocopiers, tape recorders, and the like will by the mere fact of their existence restore man to a state of unfallen wholeness and community, which McLuhan has not hesitated to identify with the mystical body of Christ itself. 9 From 1953 to 1959 he and the American anthropologist E.S. Carpenter published a periodical, Explorations (a significant geographical metaphor, in the Canadian context), in which many of his ideas were tentatively put forward; and the full McLuhanite doctrine was eventually spelled out in The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) and Understanding Media (1964). There might seem to be a world of difference between the somber clottedness of Innis' prose and the euphoric, shapeless, and sometimes almost fatuously optimistic pronouncements of his disciple. Nevertheless, McLuhan's famous slogan, 'The Medium is the Message,' epitomizes their common conviction that men are invisibly moulded by their environments, and there is little that they can or should try to do about it. 8 See James W. Carey, 'Harold Adams Innis and Marshall McLuhan,' Antioch Review, xxvn (1967) and my article, 'The Paradox of Marshall McLuhan,' New American Review, no. 2 (January 1968) 9 See McLuhan; Hot and Cool, ed. Gerald E. Stearn (New York 1967), 267

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Northrop Frye is not a determinist of the Innis or McLuhan type (he was probably unamused when Time recently described him as a disciple of McLuhan), but I don't think it is over-ingenious to suggest that he conceives the structure of the human imagination to be something just as formidably given and immutable as the geography of Canada was for Innis. Fearful Symmetry (1947), his first great book, not only laid the foundation for the modern study of William Blake, but also for Anatomy of Criticism (1957), Frye's treatise on literary myth, symbol, and genre. Its title also suggests his vision of an elaborate and impersonal artistic order to which all significant works conform and which it is the business of criticism to expound. In the Anatomy and its successors (notably Fables of Identity, The Well-Tempered Critic, and The Educated Imagination - all 1963) Frye argues eloquently for the idea that literary criticism is, or ought to be, a science which eschews individual judgments of value and exploits a totally coherent and intelligible body of knowledge. This takes the form of one great archetypal myth which informs all literature (and, for that matter, all religions): In the solar cycle of the day, the seasonal cycle of the year, and the organic cycle of human life, there is a single pattern of significance, out of which myth constructs a central narrative around a figure who is partly the sum, partly vegetative fertility, or partly a god or archetypal human being.10

The phases of this myth - corresponding to times of day, seasons of the year, or stages of life - are each related to one of the classical literary genres. Frye's encyclopaedic Anatomy (the title alludes to the Anatomy of Melancholy) aims at nothing less than an all-inclusive schema in relation to which any conceivable work of literature may be not merely classified, but also judged. He allows the immediate, the personal, and idiosyncratic their place in the system, but the archetype is for him the only constant and infallible touchstone of literary authenticity. For him, the collective imagination constitutes an order which invisibly shapes the mind of every individual, transcending (though it includes) all local habitations, names, dialects, and fashions. If the debt to Jung and Frazer is obvious enough, Frye's ruthless insistence upon categories is all his own. His subtle and graceful prose style 10 'The Archetypes of Literature,' Fables of Identity (New York 1963), 15-16

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seems to express a more humane vision than the crabbedness of Innis or the undisciplined enthusiasm of McLuhan, but it is marshalled in the interests of a theory of literature as austere, impersonal, and formidable as the landscape of the Laurentian Shield. We have seen that it was no accident that Innis' studies in the economic history of Canada formed the basis for his later theoretical work on communications. Fate seems to have destined this country to be a unique textbook example of the way in which a society and its culture can be shaped by the pressure and pull of communications media. The comparative lack of intellectual dynamism (about which Underhill complained) has prevented ideological passion from complicating and obscuring the process. Even a thumbnail history illustrates this point. At each stage of the story, the dominant means of communication largely define the range and scope of the social order. The St. Lawrence River system looms large in the early years: fishing ports; rangs of long thin farms running down to the river banks; the fur trade, served by canoe and gradually extended to the foothills of the Rockies; lumbering, dependent upon tributaries, waterpower, canals, barges, and steamships. Then Confederation, made both possible and essential by the railway; the development of heavy industry and large-scale wheat farming; and the subsequent challenges of the automobile (with its highway system), the airplane (opening up the north), and radio and television (erasing the forty-ninth parallel). Every development in communications technology established a new frontier and wrought changes in the settled areas. Finally, there is Canada today, with its formidable array of semi-public and public agencies concerned with communication - the CPR, Bell Telephone System, Canadian Press and CTV; and the CNR, cuc, Air Canada, NFB, coTc, Canada Council, CRTC, and the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. This last body introduces the problem posed by the two linguistic communities, which has been there from the beginning and is now complicated by the increasing ethnic heterogeneity of the English-speaking community, the distracting competition of American mass culture, and (paradoxically) improved communications which make the old convenient mutual misunderstandings impossible. Granted this complex tangle of relationships and Canada's formidable

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(not to say absurd) geography, it is little wonder that the resulting culture is relatively rich in awareness of ambiguity, tolerance of diversity, and readiness to engage in self-criticism; but deficient in self-confidence, creative elan and firmness of purpose. As the late Kaspar Naegele pointed out,11 Canada is a marginal society, uneasily occupying middle ground between European and American culture, and embracing a bewildering mosaic of marginal ethnic subcultures. These facts help to explain why Canadian intellectual life may appear to some people rather dull and bloodless. There have been no great works of art or literature, no breathtaking feats of speculative philosophy nor daring technical innovations (all of which flourish best in cultures which inculcate a more confident sense of personal identity). Canadians excel in more sober pursuits: scholarship, criticism, applied technology, and the interpretative arts. The successful practice of these disciplines is essentially a matter of communication; it involves respect for given structures and a readiness to subordinate individuality to the act of interpreting, clarifying, or exploiting. Naturally, we should all prefer it if Canada's creativity were as great as that of Ireland or the American South in the first half of the twentieth century. On the other hand, it may be doubted whether life in such artistically fertile societies is much more satisfying than it is in this country. (The Anglo-Irish and the white Southerners hardly represent the wave of the future.) There is evidence that a great deal of talent and intellectual energy is now being generated in Canada, but it is being channeled into arts which involve processes of mediation, communication, or interpretation: scholarship, journalism, criticism, radio, television, cinema, and the performing arts. The tragedy is that some of our institutions seem unequal to the task of providing an environment in which such essentially social and collective arts can be practised. (The recent history of the CBC is a melancholy example.) The truth of this basic generalization about the nature of Canadian creativity can be established by reference to a variety of specific disciplines. Canada has several interesting composers, but none who have attracted much interest beyond the borders of this country. However, it has produced a surprising number of first-rate musicians and singers (particularly the latter), sensitive interpreters of an international musical 11

In Canadian Society, ed. Bernard Blishen et al. (Toronto 1969)

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I On Canada

tradition: Maureen Forrester, Lois Marshall, Leopold Simoneau, Teresa Stratas, Wilfrid Pelletier, Glenn Gould, and Jon Vickers are a few of the names that spring to mind. Similarly, the Canadian theatre is notoriously short of both playwrights and professional companies and there is virtually no Canadian feature film industry, yet the international theatrical and film community contains a high proportion of Canadian actors and directors. The diverse achievements in various media of Lorne Green, Genevieve Bujold, Arthur Hill, Sidney Newman, Norman Jewison, William Shatner, and Christopher Plummer testify to the range and depth of Canadian penetration of this world. Significantly enough, such expatriates usually have so little difficulty adapting to other environments that their admirers often remain unaware of their nationality. So far as I am aware, Canada has never produced an original thinker of the first rank in any intellectual discipline (unless, as some think, McLuhan qualifies under this heading). On the other hand, Canadian universities have turned out a much higher proportion of competent scholars than their comparatively meagre physical and financial resources would lead one to expect. The best products of this tradition (of whom the man we honour is one) combine great learning and shrewd (though seldom profound) insights with wit and elegance of discourse. Like the three eminent theorists with whom I began this essay, most Canadian scholars seem to do their best work in disciplines which involve the analysis of processes or the study of communication systems such as languages. In a volume which will be read chiefly by academics, it would be invidious to mention too many names, but Douglas Bush, A.S.P. Woodhouse, Hugh Kenner, J.K. Galbraith, C.B. McPherson and Harry G. Johnson all, in their different ways, epitomise the ideal of detached (but not unimpassioned) intellectual sophistication which I am trying to suggest. A country which is short of domestic myths and uncertain of its true identity breeds citizens who need to be constantly reassured of their own reality. This may account for the fact that the one form in which Canadian cinema, radio, and television have always excelled is documentary in all its varieties. From Nanook of the North to This Hour Has Seven Days (if it is not too irreverent to couple a masterpiece with brilliant popular journalism), Canadian producers have consistently demonstrated that the impulse to inform or to engage in controversy is not incompatible with

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imaginative power. Some observers attribute the cult of documentary to the fact that there has never been either the capital or a sufficient number of independent theatre outlets to support a fully-fledged feature film industry. Nevertheless, it remains true that the few Canadian features that have been released have been only mildly praised abroad (often for their 'documentary' quality), while Beryl Fox's Vietnam films, Expo's Labyrinth, and Alan King's Warrendale and A Married Couple have been extravagantly acclaimed. Even a television series such as Wojeck- whose plots are a mish-mash of American cliches - generates considerable dramatic power merely from the way in which the camera lovingly explores the Toronto scene. Perhaps no achievement more aptly illustrates the peculiar strengths and limitations of the Canadian imagination than Expo 67. Ever since the Great London Exhibition of 1.851, world's fairs worthy of the name have aimed at a kind of encyclopaedic inclusiveness, epitomising in their exhibits the present state and future prospects of international culture and technology. In essence, they are giant and complex acts of communication. Every year since 1851. the attempt at completeness has become more hopeless, and even Expo ignored vast areas of life on 'la terre des hommes.' 12 Nevertheless, there seems to be general agreement that the Canadian fair came about as close to realizing the ideal as it is reasonable to expect. Expo can thus be regarded as a kind of gigantic attempt at communal self-definition. Most world's fairs have been hard sells for new technologies of one kind or other: steam power and prefabrication (London 1851), steel frame construction (Paris 1889), electric light (Chicago 1893), television (New York 1.939). Expo might have been expected to celebrate the illusory bliss of a future full of electronic kitchens, rooftop family heliports, and workfree lives. However, there was not too much of this sort of thing. Instead, the theme exhibits tended to concentrate upon the paradoxes and dilemmas created by existing technologies. The three most experimental and 'revolutionary' structures at Expo were all the work of non- or newCanadians: Buckminster Fuller's geodesic sphere, Frei Otto's tent-like German pavilion, and Moshe Safdie's Habitat. Though Canadian architects contributed a great number of elegant and functional buildings, the only attempt at something daring, the rusty iron truncated-tetrahedron 1

12 See my article, 'Expo '67,' in Commentary, July 1967, ;2--i}

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theme pavilions by Affleck, Desbarats, Dimakopoulos, Lebensold, and Sise, was a failure with the public (though I retain a certain affection for their melancholy grandeur). The greatness of Expo lay in no single exhibit or theme but in the way in which a number of unpromising and widely dispersed bits of land, and a few hundred spectacularly variegated buildings were orchestrated and articulated to create a uniquely harmonious and exhilarating environment. Its triumphs were triumphs of planning, industrial design, and communication. The art which dominated the fair was photography, both still and moving. With carousel projectors clicking by the score in every pavilion, and multi-screen documentaries in a dozen special cinemas, the flow of information was so thick and relentless that only the most ardent fairgoers were able to stand a full day of trying to take it all in. However, the very shifting, flickering excessiveness of all those images serves admirably to illustrate the Canadian obsession with and zeal (one might almost say lust) for communication. At this point, liberal-minded readers will be preparing to dismiss this essay as no more than a glorification of the status quo and an illustration of its own thesis that Canadian thought has a tendency towards determinism. Their suspicions may seem confirmed by the fact that I am going to join the ranks of those who (to paraphrase Underhill) assiduously try to educate their countrymen to be pleased [though not proud] that Canada never had a revolutionary eighteenth century of its own. However, I am not trying to be a kind of twentieth-century pseudo-Burke. On the contrary, as a liberal radical (or radical liberal) whose sympathies are usually with the left wing of the NDP, I suggest the paradoxical possibility that the comparative weakness of liberal individualism in Canada could (it would be going too far to say may) be a positive advantage in facing the grim challenge of life in the late twentieth century. According to the influential theory of Louis Hartz, the 'new' societies of North and South America, Australia, and South Africa are each founded upon a 'fragment' (or incompletely representative segment) of the European parent community. The effect of transplanting only one element in a complex of interacting social relationships, and building a whole new society upon it, is to interrupt the process of historical development and to 'freeze' the institutions and values of the fragment in their form at the

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time the rupture took place. In Hartz's view, the United States is essentially a liberal fragment of European culture. Like other fragments with different values, Americans tend to assign absolute validity to their own political and cultural traditions, and to be intolerant of deviations from them. Hartz refers to the 'Wilsonian demand that other cultures instantly behave along American lines. The American cannot grasp the relativity of the form in which his historical substance has been cast.' 13 Of course, the American experience is unique and cannot be repeated. There are no new lands in which new societies - American fragments or others - can be established. Hartz's book contains a chapter, by his collaborator K.D. McRae, which uses the fragment hypothesis to explain 'The Structure of Canadian History' (Chapter vu) . French Canada emerges as a conservative, authoritarian fragment of European feudalism, and English Canada is presented as the fragment of a fragment - a loyalist chip off the liberal American block. This theory of the origins of Canadian society has some validity, but McRae is not very successful in suggesting why the notorious diffidence and 'quietness' of Canadians contrasts so sharply with the dogmatic and assertive self-confidence of other new societies such as Australia, Afrikaaner South Africa, and (until recently!) the United States. All sorts of influences have conspired to dilute and modify the predominance of United-Empire-Loyalist 'liberalism' to which McRae ascribes the original character of English Canada: the continuity of British institutions, including the parliamentary system; the continual coming and going of British governors, officials, soldiers, clergy, and teachers - whether as visitors or immigrants; the monarchical system; the enforced interaction and sharing of institutions between French and English; the lack of a 'melting pot' ideology and the relatively large number of communal settlers such as disbanded Highland regiments, Mennonites, and Doukhobors; and the absence of any crucial self-defining document such as a Bill of Rights or a Declaration of Independence. The upshot of all this is to set Canada somewhat apart from other new societies. If we accept the scales of values used by Seymour Martin Lipset 13 Louis Hartz, et al., The Founding of New Societies (New York 1963) 1.18. After I had sent this essay to the editor, I came across Gad Horowitz's Canadian Labour in Politics (Toronto 1968), the first chapter of which is a brilliant critique of the

Hartz thesis along lines similar to mine.

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to define American society by comparison with other English-speaking democracies, Canada emerges as second only to Britain in its loyalty to what are generally considered conservative attitudes.14 Living on the North American continent and in a society which is manifestly less rich than that of the United States, Canadians often seem to feel the need to apologize or to engage in self-laceration for being what they are. That, perhaps, is what is behind these words of Frank Underhill, spoken in 1964:

We Canadians are not a people who have ever shown much aptitude or genius for whole-hearted, deeply felt dedication to purposes and goals beyond those of our particular individual lives. We differ from our American neighbours in this ... they have conceived themselves as a people uniquely chosen by destiny to give the world a model of a new, finer civilization ... and to spread that civilization among more backward peoples. We ordinary Canadians lack the capacity to be caught up into a great crusade for an idea. And this statement is true both of French and of English-Canadians. 16

From the hindsight of 1970, we may be forgiven for thanking God that Canadians have been spared not only this messianic delusion, but also the even more sinister one of another Hartzian fragment, white South Africa. The revolutions of 1776 and 1789 (not to mention the bloodless coup of 1688) are part of the heritage of all European and American societies, and it would be the height of complacency and stupidity to try to deny what we owe to those who fought for them with words or deeds. Nevertheless, all revolutions are at best necessary evils, signifying tragic breakdowns in the processes of justice and communication. Imperfect revolutions (and when was there a perfect one?) disrupt the processes of gradual change, redefine society in terms of specific (and therefore incomplete and distorted) formulations, and tend to fix institutions and social relations indefinitely, in accordance with the balance of power that prevails at the end of the conflict. They release some hitherto frustrated impulses, at the expense of inhibiting others. The mythic power of a revolution may be a liberating influence on societies which are still struggling to achieve basic freedoms, but it can be a stultifying tradition to those who have to live 14 The First New Nation (New York 1963), 248--73 15 The Image of Confederation (Toronto 1964), 60-1

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within its shadow. The recent history of the United States and France does not inspire much envy of the institutions they inherited from 1776 and 1.789.

Although Canada lacks a revolutionary tradition of her own (unless such abortive episodes as the 1837 skirmishes, the Riel Rebellion, and the Winnipeg General Strike can be pressed into service), she is potentially heiress to all the revolutions while the creature of none. The American Revolution left the United States with a constitution which, in W.L. Morton's words, reflects the 'classic symmetry and perfection of the Enlightenment.' Canadian political institutions are more like Victorian gothic :16 ponderous, complex to the point of confusion, ill-suited to modern needs, and encrusted with unnecessary ornament. Nonetheless, Victorian gothic is rich in human associations, glories in diversity, and can be adapted or extended without destroying the total design. There can be little doubt about which system seems to be working best in 1.970, notwithstanding the threat to Canadian federalism posed by Quebec separatism. Now that urbanization, affluence, and the overpowering influence of the mass media are increasing the area of common experience among all the inhabitants of North America, there is an increasing tendency for Americans to think of Canadians as Americans thirty years behind the times,1 7 and for Canadian nationalists to fear that they might be right. However, we have seen that the difference between the two cultures is clearly greater than a mere timelag - which is far from operating in only one direction, in any case. So long as Canadian institutions are preserved under Canadian control (admittedly no mean task) there seems little chance of our being debauched or seduced into the American way of life. On the contrary, Frank Underhill is right: the more fully we remain open to American culture the more intensely we are likely to realize our own individuality. Nor am I talking only about high culture. Tough American writers like Horace McCoy and James M. Cain influenced the intensely French philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre; and (in another world) Elvis Presley, Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan, and Ken Kesey inspired the quintessentially English songs of the Beatles. I believe that I could make a similar 16 The Canadian Identity (Madison 1961), 46

17 Edmund Wilson, in O Canada (New York 1965), Leslie Fiedler, in The Running Man, 1, no. 2. (1968), and even Marshall McLuhan have propagated this error.

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case for the invigorating influence of American culture, pop and otherwise, on the work of a couple of dozen Canadian writers and artists. However, that would require another essay. Nearly a generation has gone by since Frank Underhill uttered the words with which I began this article. If they seem less true now than they did then, this is due not so much to the greater vigour of Canadian intellectual life today (though it is more vigorous) as to the variety of crises which confront the societies which he held up for our emulation. The world of 1970 is, in most respects, a grimmer place than the world of 1946. However, there is at least some satisfaction in the thought that the characteristic virtues of our native intellectual tradition - the recognition of human limitation, the awareness of ambiguity and the urge to communicate - are those which the age seems to demand.

EIGHT

canada and the commonwealth ARNOLD SMITH

Certain political leaders, during the course of Canada's Centennial year, tried to get a debate going on whether Canada was one nation or two, even on whether it had been founded by one nation or two. The real significance of the questions lay not in their superficial divisiveness, but in their openended ambiguity. Frank Underhill once defined a nation as 'a group of people with the memory of having done great things together in the past, and the desire to do great things together in the future.' A voiding the easy trap of procrustean clarity, the definition emphasizes the existential qualities of vision and will. In social and political science it is precisely the most significant categories - for example nation, community, neighbourhood - that have this quality of ambiguity which encourages experiment and growth. When a Jewish lawyer two thousand years ago asked the reasonable question 'who is my neighbour?', he got in reply not a static pseudo-objective answer, but the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the question put back to him, transposed into the form 'who was more neighbourly?' That new question shows the real objectivity and penetration, reminding us that we live not in a static but a dynamic world, and that our job is to change and develop it. The point about neighbourhood is that its scale is merely a fact, measured, I suppose, by how far men can conveniently communicate or visit or trade or throw things. As time goes on technological developments increase this scale. Today, in the age of satellite TV and jet planes and ICBM's, the scale of neighbourhood and interdependence is already for many pur-

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poses global. But if neighbourhood is merely a fact, good neighbourliness is a moral and political achievement. The problem is how to make progress in this moral and political field keep pace with that of technology. The key point about a nation is, as Frank Underhill stressed, what its members have done in the past and what they can hope to do in the future, at home and abroad. Running through Canadian history has been an awareness of inadequacy, in the sense that few thinking Canadians have ever believed that their country was, or could be, or would want to be, a sufficient society in itself. From the beginning Canadians have stretched out to develop and maintain relations with others. From the beginning Canadians have been free of the illusion that they could be self-sufficient economically, or in defence, or in culture. This awareness of inadequacy by oneself is the truest realism, as all countries are beginning to discover, though such awareness understandably comes less easily to great powers. It goes far to explain the creative interest and importance Canadians have attached to international associations such as the Commonwealth, NATO, and the United Nations. This attitude of Canadians meant from the beginning a refusal, for example, to turn our backs on Europe, and a determination to retain and nourish our association with Britain and other democracies of Europe. This attitude is not to be explained merely as the piety of sentiment natural to immigrants. The United States, like Canada, was settled by immigrants from across the sea. Their first and instinctive reaction was precisely to turn their backs on the old lands, and to avoid entangling alliances. The opposite Canadian reaction led to the invention of the Commonwealth of Nations and more recently to NATO. In a sense the Commonwealth has been a product of the desire and determination of Canadians to have things both ways. In politics that desire is not necessarily shabby; it can be one of the most creative of political forces. The determination of Canadians not to cut links with Europe can be explained in part by the fact that Canada, unlike the United States, had been settled mainly by fishermen, fur traders, and then farmers who exported to Europe and wished to retain commercial links; but more, I think, by the fact that as a smaller and weaker group than our American neighbours, we had been concerned about possible dangers to our own independence if in the early stages we were to be left alone with them, in a huge and remote continent.

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Canadians have always had the same desire for freedom and seffdetermination as the Americans, but since for these reasons of prudence we did not wish to cut right through the umbilical cord of colonialism in 1867, we found it necessary, in order to have things both ways, to pull and stretch that umbilical cord out of all recognition, into a new two-way channel of political association among equals. Some years ago, in Moscow at the beginning of July, I was invited to make a speech as Canadian ambassador to a large gathering of Russians professors, editors, scientists, and a sprinkling of officials, about Canada's national day. All Russians are brought up by compulsory courses in Marxism-Leninism at their schools and universities to be much concerned about roads to national independence and freedom; so it seemed to me too good an opportunity to miss. These people were not political leaders, but they were more or less prominent members of the intelligentsia, and I was happy to have the opportunity of telling them about our particular road to independence. In our colonial days there had been quite a lot of political struggle over a prolonged period and a bit of fighting in 1837, but the fighting was called off well short of a clear-cut decision either way. I explained why the Canadians of the last century had wished to avoid a complete severance of association with Britain: the fear of a stronger neighbour was a consideration which my Russian audience found it easy to understand. Basically, I pointed out, Canadians got their independence from the imperial power not by violence but by a gradual process of pressure and persuasion and dialogue, leading to a series of agreements and precedents used in turn as a basis for further political development. This particular road to independence by dialogue and agreement was, I admitted, by no means always possible for all colonial people: whether it proved possible in any particular case depended in part on willingness by the imperial power to be persuaded to accept changes and make concessions. But I emphasized that in cases where it did prove possible, it had tremendous advantages for both sides. When it was feasible, it was a much better road than the alternative, which some political philosophers had claimed is inevitable or even desirable, of violent revolution. As I told my Soviet friends, the road which we Canadians pioneered has since been followed not only by other ex-European settlers overseas in Australia and New Zealand, but also by the peoples of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, of Ghana and Kenya, of Jamaica and Trinidad, and many other territories in every continent.

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. The implications of this particular path to independence, by persuasion and dialogue, were, I suggested, significant not only for doctrines of political science - they are directly contrary to the theses of classical Marxism and Leninism, for example, though I did not need to rub this in to that audience - but for the future, since they can leave a heritage not of bitterness and resentment and misunderstanding, but rather of friendship and co-operation and mutual aid, which can prove of value if we are ever to achieve a truly civilized world, transcending mere coexistence, in which nations will co-operate in the common interest of mankind. I was not surprised that despite indications beforehand the tape recording of my little speech in Russian was not in fact broadcast on the Soviet radio. The implications of these political facts of life were too disturbing for classical, orthodox Marxism-Leninism. The main point I want to make is that Canada's historic invention of and attachment to the Commonwealth association, though it sprang in part from our concern about being left alone on an isolated continent with a much more powerful neighbour, was also in part based, I think, on a genuine and constructive vision that in the long term a satisfactory international environment for us must be more than continental. It was not merely defensive, but creative. That reaching out for overseas friends was a sound instinct. Ultimately, as we now know more clearly than earlier generations, our community of friendship must become global if humanity is not someday to blow itself up. This search for, and cherishing of overseas links is, I think, the deepest continuing element in Canadians' attitude to international affairs. It is much older than 1867. It explains, and justifies for me, the refusal of Canadians to join in the American revolution in the eighteenth century. It explains our successful search for a new road to independence without severing links with Europe, to which I referred a moment ago. Apprehensions about American pressure also played a part in the decision of Canadian colonials a century ago to confederate into a great nation spanning half a continent. You will remember that during the years just before 1867 the Yankees had won a tremendous civil war, and many of them were imbued with the idea that it was the manifest destiny of Americans to harness the whole continent for their particular version of freedom - a good one, but not the only one. You will recall the American election slogan of 'Fifty-four forty or fight.' These things, and the fear that they

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engendered among many nineteenth-century Canadians, played a part in impelling the disparate colonies of British North America, including particularly the French-speaking Canadians of Lower Canada, to join together for greater security, greater borrowing capacity, and a more confident future in independence. A distinguished historian has suggested that our French-speaking compatriots were determined in the last century to remain British precisely because they were French and planned to stay that way. They feared that if incorporated within the great American republic their culture would be swamped in the melting pot. When French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians decided, a century ago, to co-operate in one federal state, they not only showed a sound instinct for defending and developing their own interests, including the cultural identity of each founding group, but they also set their hand to what has proved to be one of the major tasks for the orderly future of mankind: self-government in a pluralist society. There have been plenty of multi-national empires, big and small, in the past, based on conquest and ruled by fiat from above. But with the spread of freedom and democracy the development and maintenance of multi-national, multi-language, multi-cultural political communities have to be based on consent and governed by elected leaders. The fact that today multi-cultural sovereign states are typical, not exceptional, in so many parts of the world, particularly the so-called 'third world,' makes life complicated for responsible politicians concerned, and sometimes temptingly easy for irresponsible ones. But there are advantages. Successful political operators in multi-cultural states are apt to acquire in their bones a feel and facility for building consensus among more than one language group, a tolerance, imagination, and instinct for underlying common interests despite differences of tradition, emotions, and thought patterns, as well as the differences of immediate interests that are the common stuff of politics in single language states as well. Since national politics have to be, among other things, a school for the broader field of world politics, this is of more than domestic relevance. Having to learn to live at home in a pluralist society can therefore help men move, as we must decisively in the next couple of generations, if we are not to blow ourselves up in this age of proliferating atoms, towards the development of an effective articulated political community of mankind on a global basis. The deep Canadian instinct to reach out for overseas connections and

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partnership may have begun as a function of sentimental attachment to parent races, of commercial interest in trading relations with western Europe, and of an instinct for self-protection as a relatively small power sharing a continent with a vastly more populous and powerful neighbour. But it has merged and by today I think has become indistinguishable from Canadians' sense of realism, our recognition of larger interdependence, and our idealism. It is part of our striving, together with idealists and realists in other parts of the globe, for the establishment of one world, for the development of a community that will be global in scale. One expression of this instinct is the Commonwealth; another is the United Nations which from its inception has been supported very strongly by all Canadian parties and virtually all sections of our people; a third has been NATO. The Commonwealth, unlike Venus, did not spring full-grown from anyone's forehead. An English wit once suggested that his country had acquired the British Empire in a prolonged fit of absence of mind. This was never very true, even of the Empire. But certainly the Commonwealth has been the product of a great deal of presence of mind, the result of a whole series of conscious, courageous, and not always easy decisions by statesmen from all over the world. It has been a gradual evolution, which is still, of course, going on. It is possible to discern the formative decisions and landmarks. The first was the determination of Canadians, a century ago, to acquire independence by a method which would retain most of the diplomatic and trading benefits, and the protection, of close association with Britain while getting rid of the subordination and disadvantages. The implications of the new relationship took decades to work out, but the concept proved a remarkably creative invention which has since been followed by many people in every corner of the earth. The second crucial development, I think, was that led by Canada during World War I and after, when the original legalistic theories of 'diplomatic unity of the Empire' were decisively rejected, and Canada and the other so-called Dominions successfully asserted the claim to independent representation at conferences, beginning with Versailles, and to diplomatic representation in foreign countries. The Statute of Westminster, with its reference to equality of status, recognized this development, although there remained references to a difference of function which seemed to hark back to older theories. If these other theories had not in fact been gradually discarded, they would have

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made further development quite impossible. In the 1930s, and indeed during World Warn, there were still many advocates, particularly in Britain and Australia, of the opposite concept of an Imperial Cabinet and a centralization of policy around Downing Street. Mackenzie King led the successful opposition to that concept. He did so for good Canadian reasons, but had he not been successful there would have been no conceivable chance of Asians and Africans and others deciding, once they attained independence after World War 11, to remain in the family. Throughout this and subsequent developments the fact that Canada is partly French in language and culture has been vital in Canadian thinking and policy. It helps explain Canada's consistent determination to shape the Commonwealth in a way acceptable also to peoples of non-Anglo-Saxon origin. These by now are the overwhelming majority. The modern multi-racial Commonwealth is to a great extent a product of the vision of Jawaharlal Nehru, who resisted the obvious temptation to base his nation-building policies on nourishing and perpetuating resentments and negative emotions based on memories of racial inequalities and injustices of the past, including often personal memories of jail. Nehru decided instead to transcend these emotions and to use, as one of the instruments of his foreign policy, an association which, as he put it, could prove invaluable precisely because it brought together peoples of various races and cultures, from North America, Europe, Australasia, and Africa, for frank discussion without prior legal commitments, and which could thus often make possible practical co-operation in a variety of fields. Nehru's world vision has since been followed by many, though not all, of the leaders of National Liberation Movements in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean. Nehru's desire that India should remain in the Commonwealth when it became a republic raised the question whether the sovereignty of the Crown was after all the essential feature, or even an essential feature, of the association. Constitutional logicians claimed that it was. So at first did several of the key men involved in the decision-making process. Canada, under the leadership of that great French Canadian, Mr. St. Laurent, again played a key part in getting the difficult but crucial decision that the sovereignty of the Crown was not essential, and that an independent republic should be allowed and indeed encouraged to retain membership when all those involved desire it. The Queen's position as head of the

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Commonwealth symbolizes and points to a brotherhood which transcends mankind's divisions of sovereignty and race, and thereby performs in modern conditions a role subtler but potentially more creative and durable than Empire. Again, Canadian governments, of both parties, have played a crucial and, I think, decisive role in the various decisions of the present decade which have enshrined the principle of racial equality as a basis of Commonwealth membership and behaviour. In the discussions which led to the withdrawal of South Africa, and later to the decisions to discuss and then to reach a series of firm mutual commitments on Rhodesia, Canadians have been in the forefront. These decisions have been neither obvious nor easy; they have been controversial and at times agonizing. The Rhodesian problem is at the time of writing far from resolved, and this is not the place to discuss it, though it is, I believe, of great importance to the future of relations between the races of mankind. The point here is that Canada, not only at the beginning but continuously over the past hundred years, has played a major role in the creation, shaping, and maintenance of the Commonwealth. This has been motivated not by reasons of sentimentality, though sentiment is not irrelevant, but by the fact that Canadians have seen in the Commonwealth a valuable instrument of policy. I have mentioned only a few crucial examples, all political. But Canadian initiative is also worth recalling in the establishment in the early thirties of the system of Commonwealth Trade Preferences, or as it was then called Imperial Preferences, first worked out at a Prime Ministers' Conference in Ottawa. If Canadian influence on shaping the Commonwealth has thus far been of the first importance, as I believe it has, the reverse is equally true. Commonwealth influence works both ways, and though some people find this disconcerting, therein lies its real point and value. The Commonwealth has been a major factor, and often the determining factor, in the evolution of Canadian thinking and policy in world politics. Commonwealth meetings and associations have been decisive in enlarging Canada's horizons, clarifying and sharpening our vision, extending our awareness. And it is of course precisely these factors - the quality and breadth of vision, the intensity of awareness - that are the real motive forces and determinants of history. In 1914, and again in 1939, Canadians concluded that German aggres-

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sion against the democracies of western Europe posed a vital threat also to democracy in North America. So Canadians entered both wars within a few days of their conception, and fought them far from our borders, which is the best way to defend yourself if you do have to fight. But if the Canadian assessment of the threat to North America was correct in 1914 and 1939, as I think it was, then it was just as relevant to the vital interests of our American neighbours as to ourselves. Yet it took two and a half years in each case, and an assist from Japanese bombs at Pearl Harbor in the latter case, to bring our American friends to share the Canadian assessment of a common vital interest. Commonwealth influence on Canadian thinking and policies has become even more important since 1945, as the Commonwealth has expanded and become more significant. For many years Western-Soviet relations and the cold war dominated much of the world scene - and understandably so. But our Commonwealth contacts and meetings with people like Jawaharlal Nehru did a great deal to save Canadian statesmen and diplomats from the dangerous over-simplifications of so much western thinking in those days. I have devoted many fascinating years of my life to working directly on Soviet-Western relations, seven of them living in the Soviet Union at different periods, and I do not downgrade their importance. But to think of the central issue in world politics in terms of a struggle between Communism and anti-Communism has always been dangerously simplistic. There was a period when a great American Secretary of State seemed to believe that 'neutralism' was immoral. This implied that there was only one major issue in world politics, and that that issue should be conceived in terms of a struggle between righteousness and evil. Through the height of the cold war, in the early fifties, Canadians engaged in international affairs were helped to avoid the trap of western self-righteousness, and the inadequate and stultifying idea that we live in a bi-polar world, by intimate contact at Commonwealth meetings and elsewhere with leaders and representatives of new countries in Asia and later Africa. We were helped by the persuasiveness of men like Nehru to realise early on that the future of our world would depend not merely on the defence of the West against Communism, but at least as much on the results of the struggle of colonial peoples for self-government, on what happens in the field of race relations, on what happens in the inevitable

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spreading revolt of the non-white majority of mankind against poverty and illiteracy. In the 1930s Canadians, like Americans, had been isolationists. After the war there was a danger that we both might revert to those narrow horizons. After a short' period of indecisiveness the Americans snapped out of it by recognising that they were the most powerful of world powers, and responding to the challenges and responsibilities that power involved. Canadians were unlikely to turn their backs on Europe, but with our limited resources and experience we might have left it at that. The fact is that the development of Canadian interest and involvement in the affairs of Asia and Africa since the war has been largely a product of our membership in the Commonwealth. The opening of Canadian diplomatic missions in Asia and Africa since the war has until recently been not entirely, but overwhelmingly, the response to the decision of so many leaders of former British Colonial peoples in those continents to apply for Commonwealth membership. Of course it would have been sensible for Canada to open missions in these countries anyway : but the normal resistance of Treasury and Cabinet to any new activity that costs money, which could have prevented this development for many years, was overcome by the sense of obligation and opportunity arising from Canada's membership in the Commonwealth club. Naturally, as we stationed diplomats in these new Commonwealth countries, our increasing contacts with their people and their problems educated us, and influenced the development of Canadian thinking and policies. The same thing is true about the development of Canada's external aid programme. It began as a result of the recommendations of a meeting of Commonwealth Foreign Ministers in Colombo, in 1950. The idea that some Canadian tax revenue should be used as gifts to countries to help poor countries develop their economies was considered radical at the time, and met opposition, as you would expect, in the government machine and Cabinet. It was the appeal by a few men of vision to the idea of Commonwealth co-operation, and the eventual recognition of their colleagues in the Cabinet and the top civil service that the Canadian public would respond to the idea of Commonwealth co-operation in this field, that got Canada started on this new policy. It should of course have happened anyway: eventually it doubtless would have happened. But the fact is that it was our Commonwealth membership, and the value we attached to the

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association, that opened Canadian hearts and minds to a new breakthrough from parochialism. Again, it was Canada's membership in the Commonwealth, and pressures from fellow members, and our recognition of the legitimacy of those pressures and the value of the Commonwealth association and what it stands for in the world, which has gradually led Canada to reduce and then remove the original rigid racial discrimination in immigration laws and regulations and in domestic legislation. Canadian military assistance programmes in Tanzania and some other Commonwealth countries are also worth mentioning. This is not military assistance to an ally. It is a contribution to the internal stability of a friend. That country found it politically impossible for various reasons to seek such assistance from any Western great power, though had Canada not provided it, it might have sought increased assistance in this field from China. This is another example of Canada responding to a request from a fellow member of the Commonwealth in need, and getting involved in a new and important if not obviously easy field of responsibilities. Thus the Commonwealth association, which Canada has so greatly helped to shape, has correspondingly been significant in shaping Canadian thinking and policies. It has hastened our maturity. It has helped us to grow up, and to pull our weight in the world. The existence of the Commonwealth has also been of importance in increasing Canada's international influence. The friendships and respect and confidence that Canadians have earned are an important asset, if used constructively. Naturally this influence operates not only in Commonwealth affairs, but in the UN and other international activities, bilateral and multilateral. People used to think international society was divided into two types of animal: great powers, who acted and shaped developments, and the rest of us, who could merely react to changing situations. If that was true, it is true no longer. The existence of international associations, and the multilateral meetings and negotiations they involve, has enormously enhanced the opportunity for influence of the middle and small powers on the decisions that shape the future. Surely this is a healthier situation. In a national legislature, the influence of an individual representative does not vary according to the size or wealth of his constituency, but according to his capacity to make friends and to give leadership in thinking and speak-

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ing about problems of general concern. International society is not yet at that stage, but it is evolving. I have often noticed that there are two kinds of diplomats - I mean apart from the obvious dichotomies of bright or stupid, relaxed or stuffy, serious or indolent. One kind thinks of himself almost exclusively as the agent of his national government, whose job is to advance the particular interests of his own country in relation to those of others. This philosophy assumes that the national sovereign state is the inevitable and eternal political unit of mankind, and that international affairs is a sort of sum of bilateral inter-governmental relations. The other kind of diplomat, with the same primary responsibilities, thinks and acts also as a man with a special opportunity and therefore responsibility for participating in the evolution of thinking and action of a gradually developing world community. He is not exclusively the agent of his government, but also to some extent a representative sent by his government to play a part in the general development of international opinion about the situations of concern in the capital where he lives; somewhat as a member of parliament is not merely the representative of his own constituency, but one of a group of men and women sent from various individual sections of a country, to participate in deliberations about the affairs of society as a whole. Of course, in the present embryonic state of communities beyond the national scale, one cannot push this analogy too far. But the distinction between the two philosophies, and the two types of diplomat, is a real one, and increasingly important. The latter type is usually also the more effective agent of his own government. The fact that Canada has never been, or thought of being, a great power, is in some ways an advantage. This broader type of thinking and operating comes relatively naturally to at least some of its representatives. It has to, if you represent a smallish country, and are interested in influencing big international decisions. Since you haven't the resources to bribe or coerce others, that temptation is easy to avoid. To be effective you must try to see where long-term real interests of various parties can be harmonised, and try to persuade the others (and your own government, not always the easiest sell!) to see it too, and to implement it, compromising where necessary on more superficial or shorter-term interests. Often the necessary decisions and action are multilateral and collective. Canadian diplomacy since World War u has been particularly active in

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such international associations as the Commonwealth, the UN, and NATO. It is not surprising that the original proposal to organize a North Atlantic Community for collective security was put forward by Canada: or that Canadian governments sought to use this organization not merely for defence, a need which they hoped, and still hope however long the haul, would prove temporary, but for purposes of consultation and harmonisation of policies also in political, social and economic fields, as envisaged in Article II of the NATO Treaty. The point is that the North Atlantic community, as a community, is a very old concept in Canadian thinking. The North Atlantic triangle was a basic concept in Canadians' attitude towards world politics, long before NATO became a twinkle even in Canadian eyes. From what I have already said it will be clear to you that Canadians have always tended to see the Atlantic Ocean as a link, rather than a dividing element, between North America and Europe. It has facilitated cheap transport, for trade, for immigration, for cultural and linguistic contacts, for tourism and educational co-operation, from the beginning of the modern period of history. North America and western Europe have, for centuries, indeed from the first settlement of the western hemisphere by Europeans, been closer together in almost every way than western Europe and eastern Europe have ever been. This goes for languages, for culture, for the movement and contact of peoples, for kinship of populations, as well as for political and commercial and strategic relations. The North Atlantic today and in recent centuries, like the Mediterranean in earlier millennia, has been a unifying rather than a dividing element for those who live around its shores. The current propensity to think of regional groupings in land-mass terms is inadequate, and this recognition is, I think, fundamental to the deepest Canadian instincts and outlooks and policies. These international associations have achieved some important results. There have also been some notable failures, and inadequacy. The need for sober stock-taking and reappraisal is widely recognized. Though at least the basic purposes and point of such associations as the UN and NATO are widely understood, this is less true of the Commonwealth. Many false images, which once involved part truths, ha:ve persisted: a 'kith and kin' Anglo-Saxon club, a sort of ghost or dilution of empire, etc. The realistic view of the Commonwealth is as one of the instruments available to its members to help shape the future. It has always been the

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product of hard-headed forward-looking calculation. It has not been an automatic product of the dissolution of empire. Many countries once ruled by Britain - Burma, Egypt, Iraq, The Sudan, Aden, for example - did not apply for Commonwealth membership. Those who did apply did so because they were more concerned with future potentialities than with past resentments. Those who did, did so because they were concerned with the future and saw how the Commonwealth association could be constructively used. I have been closely associated in the past few years with the leaders of the new Commonwealth countries, and I know that their decisions to apply for and retain membership have also been based on hardheaded calculation of what they will get out of it, in the way of aid opportunities, trade opportunities, and diplomatic knowledge and friendships; and of what they can put into it, using it as one of the channels whereby they can influence the thinking of others, and thus play a part in shaping international outlooks that will determine the future of our world. These hard-headed calculations about the future are not merely selfish. At this level, idealistic vision for humanity and long-term considerations of national interest can coincide. The main point about the Commonwealth today is its significance, above all its potential significance, as a functional association of governments and peoples linking one-fifth of the world's nations and a quarter of its population, as a cross-section of mankind and of the problems of mankind, with the priceless advantage of a number of similar traditions, institutions, and habits, which can make it - I won't say easy - but less difficult, for its members to talk to one another, to listen with forbearance, even sometimes to understand and to co-operate. Though only a minority of Commonwealth members have English as their native tongue, members of governments, senior officials, business leaders, journalists, and teachers use English easily as a working language. There are a number of shared traditions, in important fields as varied as public administration, education, the rule of law, military staff procedures, the organization and ethic of the professions, the concept of a non-partisan civil service, and the ideal (if not always the practice) of a free press. There are vast networks of friendships and business or professional contacts. Above all, there are habits of informal and private consultation. At a recent Commonwealth conference one delegate said that Commonwealth consultation usually begins where larger and more formal or more public

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international gatherings leave off. Its very intimacy gives an advantage over many other groupings. Many people are inclined to think of meetings of Commonwealth prime ministers and presidents as the only tangible form of Commonwealth consultation and co-operation. Less spectacular, but very significant, and of course far more frequent, are the functional meetings of Commonwealth ministers and officials responsible for law, education, health, trade, and finance. There is a good bit of practical co-operation and development assistance in these fields. A whole network of inter-governmental co-operation within the Commonwealth has also grown up in such fields as scientific research, agriculture, civil air transport, telecommunications, and broadcasting. In addition there are the innumerable semi-official and non-governmental links between members of professions, businessmen, trading and sporting associations, youth movements, and ordinary citizens. There is a Commonwealth Foundation, financed by Commonwealth governments, to promote the exchange of ideas and to increase co-operation among professional bodies in the Commonwealth. It would be fol~y not to build on these contacts, and on the similarities of so many institutions and practices, to consolidate and deepen the understanding and practical co-operation which our world so much needs. If we have the eyes to see its potentialities realistically and the wit and the willingness to make use of it - these are both big IFS - then the Commonwealth can be far more significant in the decades ahead than it has ever been in the past. This is because the membership of the new Commonwealth is far more relevant to the major problems of world politics, today and tomorrow, than the earlier membership was to the problems of the past. A generation ago the Commonwealth was small and homogeneous - a rich man's, white man's club. That club was peripheral to the most dangerous problems, which until 1945 were relations between the nation states in Europe. Most Commonwealth members could do little to influence or prevent the mishandling of these problems, though the Commonwealth helped mightily in fighting the two wars which followed. The great area of danger between 1.945 and 1.963 was western/Soviet relations. These nearly led to thermo-nuclear war during the Berlin and Cuban crises, which I lived through close up as ambassador in Moscow. Here again the Commonwealth association as such was peripheral. But from here on out for some decades to come, the most important,

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most difficult, and potentially most dangerous problems of world politics are those concerned with relations between peoples of different races, between different continents and regions, and above all between the small group of industrialized affluent nations and the larger and much more populous group of developing, poor, and newly independent countries. The composition of the modem multi-racial Commonwealth puts it right in the middle of these issues. Naturally this involves stresses, which could weaken or destroy the association. Alternatively, to the extent that the Commonwealth association is used effectively to help deal with these problems, it makes a contribution not only to its members but to the world. Associations which seek to bridge the gaps between nation and nation have been having a difficult time in recent years. The Commonwealth, the UN, the Organization of African Unity, NATO, and the others, have all been passing through a time of troubles. The universality of this trend does not make it less disturbing. Men almost everywhere seem to have lost some of the will and impetus to co-operate on the broad international scale that was a mark of the late forties and early fifties. During the past five years, in many parts of the world, millions of ordinary men and women seem to have become less tolerant of people whose language and culture are different, or whose skin colour is different, or whose economic levels are different from their own. You can see these trends dangerously at work in many parts of Africa, and not only across the Zambezi and the Niger, those two rivers which have been the scene of so much trouble; you can see them at work in many parts of Asia, and in North American cities. You can see them in Britain. In bi-cultural or multi-cultural countries, outside and inside the Commonwealth, these trends threatened national cohesion. Mutual irritation is perhaps an understandable reaction to the mounting pressures which an ever more inter-dependent world is bringing on all of us to take increasing account of each other's hopes and fears, interests and needs. But it is not good enough. Another trend is towards neo-isolationism, a dwindling of horizons to merely regional limits - as if it were safe to concentrate, in an age of proliferating atoms, only on one's immediate neighbours and on what is, relatively speaking, one's own backyard. Another problem is that what with health improvements and the population explosion, in spite of all that has yet been done in the field of inter-

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national co-operation for development, the gap between the rich and the poor has been, and is still increasing. This growing gap, coupled with the expansion of education, information, and communications, could lead to a dangerous degree of frustration, and then to the political irrationality and hatred that frustration so easily breeds. The credibility gap between peoples and nations has become a dangerous international phenomenon. The levels of vision and the standards of political morality in the world today are disturbing. As a realist operating in the field of world politics, I know that these things are crucial determinants of history, which is what politics is about. The levels vary almost infinitely from man to man, from society to society. That is inevitable. Variation can take place in the same society, the same government, even the same individual, from year to year, and the changes are catching. Maybe in the realm of physical health only diseases - only some diseases - are contagious. In the psychological or spiritual or political field, transmission works both way. Improvements or deterioration in insight and moral standards are contagious, for good or evil. Napoleon once said that in battles the morale is to the material as three to one. This applies in politics too, including international politics, though the relative predominance of the morale is even greater. For those interested in predicting trends in politics, changes in the level of vision and moral standards are indicators to watch; for those interested in influencing political trends, these are among the key things to work on. We must find a way to reverse these recent trends. Reciprocal disenchantment between peoples, and disenchantment with international associations - such as the Commonwealth - designed to promote understanding and co-operation, could not merely weaken and jeopardise irreplaceable associations, they could jeopardise mankind. We must resist the tendencies to retreat into autarchy, national or regional; in an inter-dependent world autarchy and anarchy are the inside and the outside of the same phenomenon. We must resist the resurgence of the 'isms' of protection against external competition and isolation against external events. Unless we succeed in reversing some of the major world trends of recent years, it is by no means impossible that in the decade or two ahead the troubles which have agonized so many American cities in recent summers could develop on a vastly greater scale, within and between continents. Co-operation across the divisions of race, geography, and economic

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levels which could fragment mankind needs to be strengthened. This involves better bilateral relations and more effective use of multilateral associations. If the Commonwealth is to play a useful and constructive part in this effort, as it can, then it is widely recognized that as some of the old traditional underpinnings of the association become less relevant, and as the association broadens and becomes less Anglo-centric, some new content should be introduced. The strength of international associations largely depends on the extent to which they are effectively used. The most important new areas of Commonwealth activity envisaged at present are in fields of functional co-operation; in technical assistance for administration and planning and in co-operation in such areas as education, including health education, and in the professional fields, including law, where the Commonwealth is so natural and logical a grouping. Here the Commonwealth has fruitful habits and methods of discussion which can lead to practical and timely action. The Commonwealth is not an aid bloc, nor should it seek to be. But it can be an effective aid instrument, one of several, to pilot the way towards new means and methods. Businessmen are sensibly guided by the cost-effectiveness of any particular proposition. The cost-effectiveness ratio of multilateral aid within the Commonwealth can be good, perhaps better than for most other aid instruments, precisely because of a similarity in so many administrative and professional habits and methods and the ability to make easy use of a common working language. The Commonwealth can, and I believe should, play an increasingly important role as one of the instruments used by its member governments for international functional co-operation. But the Commonwealth has never been, or sought to become, an exclusive instrument. Its genius has been flexibility, informality, and a minimum in the way of institutionalisation: enough to survive, and to be effective, and to achieve for its members the results they seek. It has never inhibited or sought to prevent its member countries from belonging also to other associations, and using them for what they are worth. The Commonwealth is not a rival to the United Nations but a supplement to it, seeking by less formal and more intimate means the same goal of increased understanding, co-operation, and progress towards a united world community. When I was an assistant under-secretary of state in Ottawa, I was one

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of those who urged, eventually I am glad to say with success, that Canada should open more diplomatic missions and develop technical, educational, and economic assistance and cultural relations with other French-speaking countries. I hope there will be more of this. I like the idea of La Francophonie, and I would like to see Canada co-operate and participate in such a development to foster increased understanding and practical co-operation with other countries who share with us the ability to get along in the French language, whether or not it is their mother tongue (it is not for most of them), and whatever their racial origins. The aim would be the same, to use the heritage of French culture and traditions to help nudge humanity forward toward wider horizons, and an eventual united world. I would like to see Canada an active member both of La Francophonie and the Commonwealth, just as for example Kenya is an active member of the Organisation of African Unity and the Commonwealth. There can be great advantage in overlapping membership among international groupings. It is seldom necessary and even more rarely wise, for a country to belong merely to one group, when different groups can be useful instruments for different, but compatible purposes. There is a current trend to lay too exclusive an emphasis on regional and continental groups, as if the land mass was the only or even the main natural sub-division of the planet, and as if the seas were natural lines of division. There can be great advantage in balancing desirable regional groupings, by effective co-operation among groups based on a different principle that transcends races, regions and economic levels, and uses similarities of working language, culture, administrative and professional traditions, to promote understanding and functional co-operation. The Commonwealth and La Francophonie are two such groupings, with great promise, if their member governments have the wisdom to see it and the will to use it, in shaping a satisfactory future. Because of these similarities, multilateral technical assistance in many fields, within such groupings as the Commonwealth and within La Francophonie can have a cost-effectiveness ratio more satisfactory than that in world-wide or merely continentc\J. institutions. When I say I would like to see Canada participate actively in such associations, I mean exactly that. I do not mean Quebec in one group, the rest of Canada in the other. If kith and kin, or race, were the basis for La Francophonie, or for the Commonwealth, both associations would exclttde

130 / On Canada most of their members and preclude the achievement of most of the worthwhile and important contributions that, properly conceived and implemented, such international associations can make to the cultural, social, and political development of mankind. In the 1930s Canadian foreign policy was paralysed by internal disunity, and was formulated by calculations of what would divide us least. I hope that from now on, Canadian foreign policy will be formulated and implemented creatively, on the basis of what will unite us in serving the cause of building a united world.

Bibliography of the writings of Frank H. underhill

Bibliographies of Professor Underhill' s writings are now beginning to appear. His own collection of essays, In Search of Canadian Liberalism (Toronto 1960), contains a bibliography chosen by himself and arranged by topic; all of its items are listed in the present bibliography. Useful bibliographies of aspects of his career may also be found in the three theses listed under 'Sources.' Manuscript material concerning Professor Underhill is also beginning to be amassed, although his correspondence is still in his own hands. The Public Archives of Canada possesses a selected file of Frank H. Underhill clippings from the 1930s, as well as W.D. Meikle's, 'F.H. Underhill Interviews, 1967 and 1968,' which is at present under restricted use. The University of Toronto Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, possesses the George M. Wrong Papers, which contain an early Underhill letter and two other references to him, and the Woodsworth Memorial Collection, which contains a transcript of a taped 1961 interview between Professor Underhill and Paul Fox. A few mimeographed essays are deposited in Carleton University Library. With few exceptions most of the following items are printed. They are chronologically arranged in two parts: I books, chapters, essays, extracts; u editorials, essays, articles, book reviews, and correspondence in journals and newspapers, short separately printed or Inimeographed articles, commencement addresses, and available printed radio and TV scripts. The principal sources of the following bibliography were the Underhill bibliography referred to above, standard guides, The Canadian Forum, and two lists supplied by Professor Underhill himself. The first of these

132 / On Canada was a list in his own handwriting of all his writings in The Canadian Forum from 1928 to 1942. The valuable part of this list was the indication of unsigned editorial notes and essays. These are referred to in the following bibliography by 'anon.' Otherwise all his other writings either in the Forum or elsewhere are signed in full or by his initials, with the exception of a few pseudonymous articles, signed E.R. Hill, V.R. Hill, J.G. Kay, a Student, and M.M. Apparently owing to some confusion, this list was incomplete from October 1933 to April 1934, the Cartwright regime having assumed control of the Forum in May 1934. Professor Underhill recently picked out the anonymous articles of those seven months; they are included in this bibliography. The second list is one he supplied recently, of book reviews, articles, speeches, and other items that are hard to trace. I have included some of Professor Underhill' s comments in brackets or in footnotes to this list within quotation marks; otherwise comments are my own. The biggest omissions from part II are Underhill's Sunday night radio broadcasts over CBC in the late 1930s. I am informed that the CBC did not keep adequate records until the late 1940s. With an exception or two, Professor Underhill does not have those scripts, and only the more controversial of them can be traced in contemporary newspapers. While I have tried to include all items from well-known journals, more are known to exist. I would request all readers who discover unlisted and/ or unlocated items kindly to inform me of their existence and whereabouts. Standard abbreviations of the more well-known magazines are followed; except that CF stands for Canadian Forum. In referring to The Canadian Forum the reader should be cautioned that until 1934 annual volumes ran from October of one year to September of the next. Owing to the confusion of the changing management from 1934 to 1936, volume XVI ran a year and a half, from October 1934 to March 1936. Thereafter annual volumes run from April to the following March. Readers should also note that the issues from April 1936 to March 1937 in volumes XVI and xvn were not, as was customary, paginated for the whole year but for a month only. So far as arrangement is concerned, Canadian Forum articles are arranged seriatim in each month, other items being interspersed alphabetically by the name of their source. Citations at the beginning of a year are from an annual volume; those listed at the end of a year are known to exist but are at present unlocated.

133 / Bibliography

Sources BIBLIOGRAPHIES

Frank H. Underhill In Search of Canadian Liberalism, Toronto: Macmillan 1960, 271-4

W.D. Meikle 'The University of Toronto and the Threatened Dismissal of Professor Frank H. Underhill, 1940-41,' Master's essay, Carleton Univ. 1967, 31,46-8

Stewart Kinloch Dicks 'The Evolution of Radicalism in the Work of F.H. Underhill,' M.A. thesis, Univ. of Western Ontario, Aug. 1968, bibliography arranged under 12 topics, 234-52 Michie} Hom 'The League for Social Reconstruction,' forthcoming doctoral dissertation, Glendon College, York Univ. MANUSCRIPT SOURCES

Public Archives of Canada F.H. Underhill Collection : clippings; W.D. Meikle 'F.H. Underhill Interviews, 1967 and 1968' CCF Papers University of Toronto Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections : George M. Wrong Papers; Woods worth Memorial Collection Carleton University Library Grube Papers, in possession of Professor G.M.A. Grube, Toronto Scott Papers, in possession of Professor Frank Scott, Montreal BOOKS, ARTICLES, EXTRACTS

'The Canadian Forces in the War,' section II of Sir Charles Lucas, ed., The Empire at War, Oxford : Oxford U. Press 1921, II 79-287 Honour Classics in the University of Toronto, a Group of Classical Graduates, Toronto: Univ. of Tor. Press, 19291 'Sir Sandford Fleming (1827-1915),' in Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, Edwin R.A. Seligman, ed., New York 1931 v1 280 'Robert Fleming Gourlay (1778-1863),' in Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, Edwin R.A. Seligman, ed., New York 1932 vn 6 'Parties, political: Canada,' in Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, Edwin R.A. Seligman, ed., New York 1933 x1 604-5 1

'A book of 83 pages in honour of Principal Maurice Hutton on his retirement. [It is] a statement of the history, aims, and methods of the Toronto honour classical course, prepared by a group, practically all university dons and ex-pupils of Hutton - 9 in all of whom I was one.'

134 / On Canada 'On Canada's Participation in War,' in 'Addresses and Outlines of Addresses Given at the Canadian Institute on Economics and Politics, 1934,' mimeograph 1934,28-