The Canadian Forum/Editorial/1921-01

The Canadian Forum/Editorial 1921-01 written by [[|]]

The New Year

There can be no graver mistake for any country than that of professionalizing politics, of making the study of public questions the interest and business of a few people. The happiness and ultimately even the safety of any commonwealth requires an active and reasonably intelligent interest on the part of all citizens in public affairs. Such a truth may appear axiomatic, but recently in Canada two events have occurred which show the need of clearer thinking on the fundamental duties and privileges of citizenship. Mr. D. B. Hanna, as responsible for our socialized railway system, has issued an edict forbidding employees, on pain of dismissal, to present themselves as candidates for parliament. He points out that under the old Canadian Northern management there was a clear understanding that "any officer or employee identifying himself with any party and seeking parliamentary honours" (he says nothing of parliamentary favours) "automatically severed his connection with the company, and that this same practice has been extended under the present Board of Directors". The Toronto Globe applies the same doctrine to another business which we have socialized, namely education. President Reynolds of the Ontario Agricultural College is taken to task for making a speech urging farmers to take an interest in public questions, as citizens rather than as members of a class, and to refuse to be victimized and befooled by the man who advises them to attend to their business as producers and leave matters of trade and politics to wiser heads. Mr. Hanna and The Globe are looking through the same spectacles. They see the person who receives his pay more or less directly from the state as an employee. If the extension of the principle of state ownership is going to involve an increase in the number of those who surrender their obligations of citizenship, we may well dispute the wisdom of such extension. Certainly few Canadians would wish to entrust the education of their sons to men who are condemned to have no political opinions or to keep such opinions as they may have securely within their own breasts. It will be time enough to dismiss or to censure when an interest in public affairs is shown to interfere with performance of duty or when usefulness in the community is destroyed by the expression of stupid, intolerant or pernicious views.

All eyes in Canada are turned to the new third party. The opinion is now fairly widespread that after the general elections it will dominate Parliament. Consequently the recent Winnipeg address by Mr. T. A. Crerar on the occasion of his formal appointment as leader of the Farmer's Party is important as a statement of the kind of government we may look forward to. Perhaps the outstanding points were Mr. Crerar's references to the tariff and to foreign policy. His statements on the tariff were moderate, and in accordance with his view that when elected to parliament a man's duty lies largely to the people who elect him but in a larger and in a more complete sense to the whole people of Canada. He declared his belief in the New National Policy which aims at developing the great natural industries of Canada and at encouraging rather than restricting foreign trade. "Our eyes are set", he said, "on the eventual elimination of the protective tariff as a principle of the fiscal policy of the nation, but we propose reaching our goal by stages. We propose giving time to all legitimate industries to adjust themselves to the new order which we would bring about". Mr. Crerar's robust faith is not confined to industry. He believes that we have an important part to play in world politics; that our particular work lies in "forming the link between the British League of Nations on the one hand and the great federation of the United States on the other". For this service to the world he advocates development along the lines of most complete autonomy in order that we may respect ourselves and have the respect of others. Self-reliance is the keynote of the address.

Mr. Drury’s presence on the same platform with Mr. Crerar emphasized the fact that the Farmer's Movement has evolved from the class stage. From the time of his elevation the Ontario premier has not ceased to advocate a wider appeal for the cause of the farmers. Recently he suggested that the new third party might be named the People's Progressive Party. All the leaders of the [p.100] United Farmers of Ontario, however, do not agree with him. Their view is that success will be attained only as farmers depend on themselves, that the strength of their cause lies in the very fact that it does not compromise. But while hostile to the old political parties, they are friendly enough to Labour, and are even now co-operating in business, and to a degree in politics, with the Labour organizations. But such an arrangement is simply regarded as an alliance of convenience. Mr. Drury's view is that the farmer's interest can be shown to be quite consistent with that of the city man. In matters which fall within the control of his government he has attempted, not without success, to establish identity of interest. The issue between himself and those within the movement who differ from him appears to be simply this, that he considers compromise desirable before elections while they, without the trying experiences of a coalition prime minister, favour compromise after elections.

The suggestion of Mr. Lloyd George that relief from the unemployment situation in the British Isles may well be sought in emigration to outlying parts of the Empire has not met with an enthusiastic reception from Canadians. Possibly it may not have been meant to apply to Canada, but rather to some of the territory recently accepted by mandate or occupied by certain of Kipling's "lesser breeds". Certainly Mr. George would not be so rash as to fill subsidized ships with out-of-works and steer them toward Canada without consulting Canadian authorities. Evidently, however, judging by their letters to The Times, Sir George Foster and Mr. Rowell, our plenipotentiaries at Geneva, were not consulted about the speech. The incident raises the whole question of a rational immigration policy. For the present we are simply falling back on the ancient policy of twenty-five years ago and calling for farmers, farm-labourers and domestic servants. Yet it is recent immigrants, presumably from these classes, who are now thronging our employment bureaux. The facts must be squarely faced by the authorities if we are going to avoid the mistakes of the past, and these are the facts, or some of them. The ordinary British immigrant without considerable capital cannot hope to succeed for many years as a Canadian farmer. The ordinary British labourer is likely to be worth a little less or a little more than his keep while he is learning the varied tasks of Canadian farming; and the ordinary labourer's wife is not content with the want of social amusements in rural parts of Canada. Only in good times can this country successfully absorb a large immigration; but it is in times of depression, like the present, that the British politician calls on Canada for help.

Thomas Hardy's recent poem, "And there was a great calm" in the Armistice Day section of The Times, November 11th, 1920, should be read by as many people as possible, for it is perhaps the only pronouncement by a great poet of what we feel with our better selves in these years of crisis. It is not an orthodox poem and The Times was at pains to correct any wrong impression which the writer might have conveyed. But it printed the poem, knowing that wherever it was read it would compel acceptance by that deep humanity in it which lifts it above ordinary controversy. And so we read, with odd recollections of one Northcliffe,

'Eoes distraught
Pierced the thinned peoples in a brute-like blindness.
Philosophies that sages long had taught,
And Selflessness, were as an unknown thought,
And "Hell!" and "Shell!" were yapped at Loving-kindness.'

The poem flashes back into the mind that ever-present picture of "nightmare-men in miillions" during the years of war and it ends with the curious mental quandary in which many thoughtful people find themselves now, after the Armistice — and after the Peace —

'Calm fell. From Heaven distilled a clemency;
There was Peace on earth; and Silence in the sky:
Some could, some could not, shake off misery:
The Sinister Spirit sneered: "It had to be!"
And again the Spirit of Pity whispered "Why?"'

These are cruel years for the future historian to contemplate. But fortunately he will find that the deep Wordsworthian note of compassion was sounded at least once.

Deciding at the last moment that the Italian people, — "absorbed in their Christmas greediness", are not worth dying for, Signor d'Annunzio has renounced his dream of a beautiful death and is preparing to make his exit from Fiume, not in a chariot of flame as a national martyr, but in an aeroplane with his mistress. Unfortunately before reaching this decision he allowed a number of misguided Italian youths to suffer the fate that he had designed for himself. The anti-climax is complete; but even without it the show would have been a miserable failure. The game was up, in fact, months ago; for nobody in Italy wanted another war except the diminishing group of chauvinists whose mouthpiece is The Idea Nationale; and outside Italy the only sympathy came from a few incorrigible romantics. And yet in other days the spectacle of d'Annunzio, defiant and audacious, would almost certainly have touched the imagination of men. For here, posturing in the Adriatic sunlight, was no ordinary filibuster, but a man of letters who had achieved world-wide fame as an artist long before [p. 101] he became familiar as the poet-aviator of the war correspondents. Nor was his self-imposed task any ordinary raid; it was indeed nothing less than the final stroke that was to complete the sacred work of the Risorgimento by preserving to Italy the faithful city of Fiume. Unfortunately for Signor d'Annunzio, however, it proved to be a case of other times, other fervours; and this time his fellow countrymen refused to allow themselves to be hypnotized by the familiar trumpet call of Italia Irridenta. So instead of another national hero, we see a middle-aged, bald-headed gentleman, who, having failed to embroil his country in war for the gratification of his artistic sensualism, hurries off the stage amid the booes and hisses of mankind.

Following hard upon the recent debates in the League of Nations assembly has come an enthusiastic wireless despatch from Moscow announcing the establishment of a soviet government in Armenia. If this is open to doubt, it is at least certain that the Armenian government has at last accepted the Bolsheviks' offer to intercede on their behalf with the Turkish nationalists. Nor is there any reason to doubt that such intercession will be effective, and, consequently, that the remnants of the Armenian people will be saved, not by the allies or the League of Nations, but by the ogre of Moscow. This is a melancholy commentary upon the futility and confusion of allied policy in the near East. Two years ago the allied statesmen flung Armenia a couple of Turkish provinces and warned her to remain loyal to the allied cause; a few months later when the Turkish nationalists began to show their dissatisfaction with this arrangement by reviving the sultanic massacres in all their horror, the Supreme Council found itself already so absorbed in the problem of defeating Bolshevism that, having failed to persuade the American government to accept a mandate, it threw the responsibility for the safety of Armenia upon the League of Nations. The League, of course, was powerless; for the Supreme Council refused to divert any troops from its other enterprises, although a fraction of the support it gave the Russian Whites would easily have sufficed to save the Armenians. The result is that Armenia, after many months of suffering, has finally abandoned all hope of allied aid and has sought refuge with Moscow.

The production of The Beggar's Opera at Greenwich Village recently by an English company fresh from the outstanding success of the London revival starts various trains of thought. The ironically minded will observe that it virtually coincides in date with New York's homage to Mrs. MacSwiney, the most scathing indictment that the United States could possibly pass upon England in these days as the performance of The Beggar's Opera is the most convincing token possible of quick mental appreciation in the United States of what is finest in the English heritage. The resuscitated Beggar's Opera is without doubt a great event in English music. It has already brought to thousands the recognition that English music did at one time sing with its own healthy and by no means restricted voice. Canada ought to know about it for on the score of music we surely have everything to gain by association with older lands. And here the Canadian ruefully recalls that for all our closer bonds of blood and state with the British Isles the real channel of mental intercourse between the two continents passes between the United States and England. Canada is still in the back-water; that great Gulf Stream of ideas, that alternating current of mental stimulus and provocation, does not touch our shores as yet. We get but a reflected warmth. If it were otherwise The Beggar's Opera would come to Montreal and Toronto as a matter of course and yet we can be sure that there is little or no prospect of it. But why not?

The Little Theatre Movement progresses. The Community Players of Montreal are in the middle of a successful season, having produced first Galsworthy's The Pigeon and secondly, a triple bill, comprising George Calderon's The Little Stone House, Dunsany's The Glittering Gate, and Squirrels, a Montreal Comedy, by Mr. J. E. Hoare. The public support has been excellent and there is nothing that stands in the way of rich developments. Already in the Calderon play the level of acting and production was distinctly high. In common with similar movements elsewhere the Community Players seek to encourage the local actor and the native dramatist. We entertain high hopes for both and expect to report at greater length on this enterprise before very long. In Toronto the Hart House Theatre touched a high-water mark in the Japanese play, Matsuo. Coming as it did at the beginning of the second season after a first season which had been in various ways experimental and had alienated some of those who rather intolerantly expected the highest results immediately, this performance of Matsuo was a very happy augury. The play is also in itself so unique a passage of clean, intense tragic action that we print in this issue a simple account of it which should be of interest to the relatively few who saw the play and also to those who did not see it. The drawing which accompanies the tale was made specially for the purpose by Mr. Arthur Lismer who designed the set for the Hart House production.