| |
June 1947 — Vol. 28, No. 6 —
Canada's Eightieth
Birthday
Download PDF
version
This Letter is to mark Canada's 80th Birthday,
which she celebrates on Dominion Day, July 1st. In earlier
Letters we dealt with government, our place within the British
Empire, our relations with the United States and various aspects
of economic and social life. This article is frankly a birthday
tribute, addressed to a country which though old in terms
of human age is young and lusty in the measurement of time
applied to nations, and eager to take her most helpful place
among the communities of freedom—loving democracies.
The proper place to start a birthday story is in the past.
There is no need, on this occasion, to wrinkle our brows in
attempting to disentangle the web of events, because all Canada's
history is woven into the fabric of the dress she wears today.
The past is not drab. It was exciting in its happening,
and diversified enough to suit the most exacting story—teller.
It was full of sharp contrasts, both in motive of exploration
and method of settlement. Many nations were represented among
the pioneers who trespassed the unbelievable virgin geography
of the new continent. Colour, bold and rich, splashes every
century, and some of the spirit of those ages has been handed
down to this generation of Canadians. It is said that the
greatest benefit of inheritance is to succeed to an ancestor's
virtues. Together with practical qualities there has come
down to us a love of right things and the desire to live life
for all it is worth.
Though Jacques Cartier made his first voyage to Canada in
1534, the event we celebrate did not take place until 333
years later. Those three centuries were marked by the hardship
of pioneering in a country for which life in French and English
villages was a poor rehearsal. Besides the difficulties of
climate and loneliness there were hostile clans, belligerent
neighbours, natural barriers, and the uncertainty of life
under rulers who were three thousand miles away across an
ocean traversed slowly by sailing vessel, rulers who knew
little about conditions in their colonies. As the country
filled up with adventuresome immigrants, tensions grew, and
finally, as Chief Justice Smith wrote to Lord Dorchester in
1790: "All America was...abandoned to Democracy."
Why Confederation?
By 1867 it was evident to the people who made up the evolving
democracies that something more was needed than the independence
of their isolated settlements.
They thought of confederation as the solution for a great
many political and economic difficulties. Chief among the
political aims was to establish a new nation to meet the changed
conditions of British policy and to unite the scattered provinces
against possible aggression from the south; economically it
was designed to spread dependence over many industries instead
of only a few, and thus lessen exposure to the effects of
economic policies then being pursued by both Great Britain
and the United States. Through mutual concession it was hoped
to preserve cultural and local loyalties, and reconcile them
with political strength and solidarity.
Impossible though it seemed to draw these diverse interests
together, events conspired to bring it about. Each of the
separate colonies arrived at a crisis in its affairs at the
same time, and confederation held out hope of relieving many
worries. Fools undertake great things because they think them
easy, but the Fathers of Confederation were not foolish. While
they knew the anxieties connected with a federation, they
believed that not only an escape from the misfortunes of the
moment but the hope of a brighter future rested upon co—operation.
Making one political body out of two is among the most difficult
of human tasks, and, says Arthur R. M. Lower in "Colony to
Nation": "The difficulty increases as the square of the number
to be united, so to speak. It took centuries to unite England
and Scotland, more centuries to form Italy or Germany. But
here on this North American continent two political miracles
have occurred: thirteen American states peacefully united
to form the United States of America, and then three British
provinces equally peacefully formed the Dominion of Canada."
As Things Were In 1867
The Canada of 1867 would be a strange world to us. It had
none of the features we take for granted, such as great factories,
large cities, highways, automobiles, airplanes, radios, electricity.
There were only a few miles of railway along the St. Lawrence.
The people numbered about 3½ million, 80 per cent of whom
lived in the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. Four—fifths
of the population was rural; Montreal had about 100,000 people,
and it was by far the largest city. Cultivation of the soil
and the extraction of raw products from the forest and from
the sea supported a small group of manufacturing, handicraft
and service industries scattered through the settled areas.
These industries were sheltered from foreign competition as
much by isolation, the advantage of cheap local raw material
and the lack of transportation as they were by the incidental
protection of a tariff primarily intended for revenue.
The time was marked, too, by the self—sufficiency of
separate families, a needful part of the frontier nature of
the economy. In today's Canada about 40 per cent of the gainfully
employed are engaged in supplying services rather than in
producing goods; in the Canada of 1867 the extraction and
processing of natural products absorbed the energies of most
of the population, and only about 18 per cent were engaged
in supplying services. Material income was largely limited
to the basic requirements: food, clothing and shelter. Factory
industry, such as there was, was simple and decentralized.
The worker could retreat at will to the farm, where he became
self—sufficient. This, naturally, gave the economy great
capacity for adjustment to fluctuations.
However, pressures of population and desire for a more abundant
life were being exerted. Western expansion had been disappointing
to the two Canadas. As to other parts, the historical summary
of the Royal Commission on Dominion—Provincial Relations
remarks: "The Maritimes, tied to a dying industry, were in
even greater, if less conscious need. The tiny Red River Settlement
was beginning to find its feet, but was toddling into the
arms of the United States in the process. The Pacific Coast
gold rush had fostered some basically sound development, but
its recession had left a small population stranded with a
large debt."
Of course, enactment of the British North America Act establishing
confederation did not of itself assure solution of either
political or economic difficulties. It did, however, provide
a framework within which we are still working to bring about
the balance of loyalties and interests, needs and supplies,
which an effective federal system requires.
The Record Of 80 Years
It cannot be said too often that new situations need new
measures to meet them, but perhaps the point may be reinforced
by showing a few factual contrasts. Early figures are from
The Year Book and Almanac of Canada for 1868, while recent
statistics are taken from such periodical reports as Trade
of Canada, Operating Revenues, Expenses and Statistics of
the Railways in Canada, and the Return of the Chartered Banks.
That there were optimists in the days of confederation is
shown by the section on population in the 1868 book where
it is remarked: "We may, with some pretension to probability,
assume that the rate of progress of the population of all
British America will be as rapid for fifty years or more as
it has been for the past decade, and this would give as the
population...in 1941, 42,598,000." Our census that year showed
that we fell short by 31 million.
Despite this, large segments of our economy have made advances
which might have satisfied those who ushered in confederation
so hopefully. Railway lines have expanded from 2,495 miles
to 42,546 miles and gross railway receipts from $11½ million
to $711½ million. Exports in the year which ended the day
before confederation in 1867 had reached a sum of which the
new Dominion was proud: $45,070,219. In the calendar year
1946 our exports amounted to $2,312,215,301. Imports in these
two periods were $59,044,982 and $1,927,279,402. Financial
affairs have made equally big advances. The old Year Book
reports the Merchants' Bank, which later became The Royal
Bank of Canada, as having total deposits of $100,000; the
last general annual statement of this bank showed deposits
totalling $1,963,103,952. "Agriculture" or "Farming" have
no mention in the 1868 Year Book index, but agriculture and
related topics take up nearly as many pages in the 1946 Year
Book as there are total pages in the early report. It is mentioned,
in an 1868 table, that there were between 321,000 and 450,000
farmers in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario.
In 1941 these four provinces had a farm population of 1,850,696,
and in all Canada the farm population was 3,152,449.
To all of these changes, each of which meant a new environment
for the people, add the growth of industry and the specialization
incident to the introduction of machinery of ever—increasing
complexity, and it is obvious why at 80 Canada is not the
same kind of place to live in as it was at confederation.
It is evident also that we are severe judges if we criticize
the Fathers for not foreseeing all that we were going to do
to the country.
Personal Achievements
It would be a mistake to concentrate upon numbers and masses
in judging either the growth or progress of a nation. Individuals
are important because of their leadership, initiative and
inventiveness— features which do not belong to crowds.
In the fine booklet "Forward With Canada" prepared and distributed
by the Northern Electric Company Ltd., there are 12 stories
of Canadian achievements that have, in the words of P. F.
Sise, "affected the lives of all of us." Mr. Sise, President
of Northern Electric, and a Director of this bank, continues
in his foreword: "We, as Canadians, owe much to the great
Canadians who have gone before us and their deeds may well
serve as an inspiration for the future."
First in this roster of Canadian achievements is the maritime
saga of the Royal William which sailed from Pictou on August
18, 1833 and, first of all steamships, crossed the Atlantic.
Tom Willson produced the first electric light in Hamilton,
Ontario, and then went on to discover that calcium carbide
could be manufactured in an electric furnace, paving the way
for wide use of acetylene in industry. Nine years after confederation,
Alexander Graham Bell made the world's first long—distance
telephone call. It was from Brantford to Paris, Ontario, and
the message was a quotation from Hamlet's soliloquy: "To be
or not to be." In 1882, John Wright of Toronto visited Thomas
Edison and brought away with him a crude electric locomotive.
Out of his experiments came the trolley pole, solving a 50—year—old
problem and making the electric street car practicable. Robert
Foulis of Saint John, N.B., invented the steam fog horn; Dr.
William Saunders and his son, Dr. Charles Saunders, developed
Marquis wheat, opening up a whole new land to wheat growing.
Professor John Cunningham McLennan devised a method for extracting
helium from natural gas at a time when Britain needed it for
balloons and blimps. The Red Cross outpost hospitals were
planned in answer to the needs of the frontier; insulin was
found by Dr. Frederick Banting who started his search in London,
Ontario in 1920; silicosis, the "dust disease" which took
a heavy toll among miners, was conquered by the Banting Institute
in co—operation with the Ontario Mining Association;
the electron microscope, which can magnify a human hair to
the size of a telegraph pole, was built by three men, Professor
Burton, James Hillier and Albert Prebus, after 3 years of
nerve—wracking work. Last story in "Forward With Canada"
tells how the Mounted Police patrol ship Saint Roch, under
Sergeant Henry Larsen, sailed the Northwest Passage from west
to east in two years starting in June, 1939 - the first time
in history.
There is probably no figure in Canadian life linking the
early days with 1947 as does Mrs. George Black, pioneer of
the Yukon, adventurer in the gold rush on the trail of '98,
authority on the flora of the northland and second woman elected
to the Canadian House of Commons. Mrs. Black's first memory
is of fleeing before the great Chicago fire, when she was
five years old. She hiked over Chilkoot Pass with the gold—seekers,
set up housekeeping in Dawson, and grew with the settlement.
In 1935 she replaced her husband as member from the Yukon,
and her maiden speech in the House of Commons was one of sympathy
with Queen Mary in the death of King George V. That was two
weeks before her seventieth birthday. Mrs. Black's book, "My
Seventy Years," published in 1938, is a thrilling story of
how men and women subdued Canada's northland.
Undaunted By Obstacles
It was as a result of ambition backed by such energy that
Canada grew from the scattered settlements of 1867 to its
present stature. It developed in spite of obstacles which
might have tamed and disheartened lesser people. Our country
is divided by natural barriers, mountains and lakes, and confined
by rocks and tundra. Even today, our settlements still fringe
the southern boundary, and only on the prairie is there any
important town more than 100 miles from the United Stares
border. So large are the geographical divisions that even
within themselves they have distinctive types of people and
differing manners of living. At the time of confederation
people talked of the "two Canadas"; today we have six Canadas
- the Maritimes, the St. Lawrence Valley and the Lower Lakes,
the Canadian Shield, the Prairies, the Pacific Slope, and
the Yukon and northland. Separated by miles of mountain, forest,
lakes, and wide rivers, every division is making its special
and necessary contribution to development of the Dominion.
At first, and indeed until not so many years ago, there
was an inclination on the part of France, Britain and the
United States to look upon Canada as merely a source of raw
materials, chiefly furs, timber, wheat, minerals and, more
recently, wood pulp. We have plenty of resources: our problem
is to use them in the best way for the benefit of our people.
This problem is wrapped up in the world problem. We are living
in the midst of nations which are passionately realistic.
We have to think of our internal development, not only from
the viewpoint of our own people, but through the eyes of others.
Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt summed up the issue when they
devised that paragraph of the Atlantic Charter which reads:
"to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor
or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and
to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their
economic prosperity."
Canada's problem in regard to resources is not one of getting,
but of developing and disposing in an equitable and sensible
manner. Exploration of the economic capacity of our country
is still in its early stages, but we are aware that Canada
is very richly endowed. Everyone knows of our wheat—growing
potential. In the past five years we have averaged for export
and carry—over 633 million bushels a year. Everyone has
heard about our treasure caves of nickel, gold, silver, asbestos,
radium and scores of other minerals vital to modern life.
Our forests are exceeded in size by those of only two other
countries. We have the largest fishing grounds in the world.
We are the world's largest producers of newsprint, platinum,
asbestos, nickel and radium. We are second in aluminum, wood
pulp, and hydro—electric power. We are third in producing
copper, lead and zinc. And yet, and this is the rub, we have
only one - one hundred and seventy—fifth (1/175) of the
world's population.
Added to the question of how best to use our raw materials
is the problem of efficient maintenance of industry. Canada's
manufacturing capacity doubled during the late war as manufacturers
built new plants, perfected new processes, invented new products,
and even erected new communities.
Widening Horizons
Eighty years ago our problem was to wrest from the untamed
wilderness sufficient food, clothing and shelter to keep us
alive in a rough life and hard circumstances.
Today's great problem is to find uses at home for the abundance
of goods produced in factories formerly busy with war goods,
or to find markets abroad in which to dispose of them. These
things are necessary if our living standard is not to be reduced.
They are also necessary if other nations, once they have settled
down, are not to become jealous of our natural wealth. We
are seeking a way to make economical use of our resources,
spreading them around the world where they are needed.
Our ideas of geography have changed. Our neighbours are
no longer the people in the next county or province, but people
in continents at the other side of the earth. Every day sees
thousands of transactions pass through this bank's foreign
department, evidence of business being done by Canadians in
Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Insofar as events of the past quarter century have opened
our eyes to distant prospects, Canada must be classed with
those nations which have gained in stature. When peace becomes
real, this Dominion will be at the centre of the world's airways,
which will form the nerve—lines of world commerce. We
are no longer at the northern extremity of the American continents,
but in a central location relative to all land masses and
in the centre of global communications between the leading
powers of Europe, America and Asia.
Not only Canada but all other nations are faced with the
task of adjusting to new conditions. In the course of that
adjustment, however, we have features and attributes which
should, if we use them sensibly, put us well in the lead in
the building of a good world.
Canada stands between the great and the small powers, too
limited in population to form a menace to any nation, even
if she were belligerently—minded, but too highly developed
as an industrial and trading nation to rank with the small
powers. Our manpower weight is light, but our economic weight
- not alone because of our natural resources but because of
our ability to process them efficiently - entitles us to a
seat near the top in world planning.
Canadianism, which started before confederation but was
given definite direction by that union, is no mean instrument
with which to face new conditions. As J. B. Brebner said in
his presidential address to the Canadian Historical Association
in 1940: "Canadianism...is made up of over three centuries
of successful struggle with a recalcitrant environment, of
over a century's original and successful political adaptation
and inventiveness, and of a kind of conservatism which history
has shown can be converted by adversity into stubborn, indomitable
will." During these years our country has, with some measure
of success, welded an Anglo—Saxon and a Latin culture,
found a middle way between the British and the United States
philosophies of life, established a reputation for seeking
world peace, and shown the way to peace by our co—operative
dealings with our neighbour.
We have a canny, deliberative approach to questions of political,
social or cultural change, an approach which can be useful
when it saves Canadians from some impulsive enthusiasm or
fad long enough, as Dr. Brebner puts it, "to have its emptiness
exposed in Great Britain or the United States."
Looking Ahead
Statements rezardin~ the future, especially when made in
the enthusiasm of a birthday celebration, must be hedged around
with appropriate qualifications. You cannot have a clockwork
regularity in a nation's expansion. There is no such thing
as a universal law of growth in national affairs. There are
too many variables, too many casual events colliding with
national life, too many outside influences over which the
nation has no control. But there is no harm in looking ahead
to what might be.
As has been shown, Canada has made wonderful progress in
her 80 years of federation, and has at least as good prospects
of an equal share of advancement in the next 80 years. She
has broken through frontiers of geography and climate and
philosophy and custom to reach her present position: today
she is leading in attempts to breach old—time prejudice
and selfishness and insularity so that world economic reconstruction
and stability may march side—by—side with political
peace.
This country, of all in the world, has a good chance to
make good in its constructive efforts, and in this country,
if anywhere on the globe, is opportunity: not alone because
of the natural resources of which we are so prone to boast,
but because here of all places there is a sane, balanced way
of life in which to develop nature's - and our individual
- gifts.
We cannot look back, this 80th birthday, on the past as
a pageant which calls merely for applause and gratification.
As the procession of the years passes in review this July
First, each year decked with its crown of laurel leaves for
achievement and its chaplet of rosemary for memories, we must
not forget that 1947 will take its place in the cavalcade.
This year and years to come must not be unworthy.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
[ Return to RBC Letter
home page ]
|
|
