The Canadian Forum/Editorial/1921-07

The Canadian Forum/Editorial 1921-06 written by [[|]]

The Coal Crisis in Britain

The voice of Medicine Hat is the voice of the three Prairie provinces. It says to Mr. Meighen with unmistakable emphasis that his government docs not represent and cannot speak for the Great West either at Ottawa or at London. Medicine Hat was perhaps as favourable a constituency from which to seek a verdict as any between the Great Lakes and the Rockies. It is traditionally Conservative and in 1917 voted strongly for the Union Government. The town itself aspires to be a manufacturing centre. The Government candidate was considered a strong man. In spite of all this he actually got considerably less than a third of the total vote, was behind in the town itself and in most rural polls was lucky if he had a half dozen votes. The fact would seem to be that the West made up its mind in 1911, when the East refused it freer trade, and the intervening ten years have only strengthened its resolve. With a solid West and a solid Quebec — so much so that no French-Canadian can be prevailed upon to offer himself as a Cabinet victim — and with Ontario hardly less hostile, if one can judge from East Elgin and West Peterborough, the only thing which can induce Mr. Meighen to continue in office is a serene consciousness that the people of Canada are so many children who do not know what is good for them.

Mr. Biggs has been the storm centre in the Government of Ontario in recent weeks. Mr. Biggs is a farmer and financier, as well as an energetic minister of the Crown. His farm is situated at Clappison's Corners in Wentworth County, and the fact that considerable and expensive road-making had been carried on in Wentworth County, and especially in the vicinity of Clappison's Corners, became the occasion for an attack on Mr. Biggs and his roads by Mr. Wilson, the Federal member for Wentworth. This was accompanied by a challenge to meet on a public platform at twelve and a half cents per ear. Mr. Biggs refused the challenge, but issued a statement in defence and conducted a body of prominent citizens of Hamilton and vicinity over his Wentworth roads, and later defended his work in a speech at Galt. We are pleased to notice that Mr. Biggs is sensitive to criticism even if he disdains the time honoured practice of public debate, but he must remember that two incidents in his previous career have created an atmosphere of suspicion in which criticism readily takes root. Almost a year ago he was advertised for some time as a director of a motor truck company which was being floated, and more recently his department let a large contract for motor trucks in his constituency without the usual safeguard of open tender. The Ontario Government had its origin in a protest against the evils of party politics. Fine moral fibre is an essential in its members. The wife of Caesar must be above suspicion; also the lieutenant of "Abe Lincoln."

It is a common theme in smoking rooms and other places where business men congregate that "labour must now be taught a lesson." The press is full of the hackneyed phrase "the vicious circle." Not all such talk is insincere, but much of it is. Not long ago one of the best of our newspapers, the Montreal Gazette, reported at length a speech delivered by the President of the Canadian Vickers' Shipbuilding yard at the launching of a vessel. The speaker said that the yard must soon close as there were no more vessels on order. Why? Because labour made such unreasonable demands. Labour had not learned that half a loaf was better than no bread. Labour had continued to demand higher wages until it paid no longer to build ships. So shipbuilding in Canada must cease. The Gazette reported this without comment. Yet at that moment five of the Canadian Government merchantmen were lying idle in Halifax alone, and it was generally known that there are hundreds of thousands of idle tonnage all over the world, that there is a world-wide economic crisis, with which Canadian labour can have had very little to do. Because of this shipbuilding is coming to a standstill. To suppose that either the speaker or the Montreal Gazette was not aware of this would be to insult their intelligence.

Less evident but no less serious defects in the news from the continent of Europe provoke the reflection that we are still in some ways an intellectual appanage of the United States. The newspapers of [292] Montreal and Toronto share with those of New York and Chicago correspondents who regale them with gossip and truth picked up from Warsaw to Paris. The news is written primarily for the American public. Often it is obvious that dispatches are inspired by chauvinists in Russia, Poland or France, who are interested rather in producing an effect on the people of America, than on furnishing the truth and nothing but the truth. The result is that our newspapers, even the most liberal, often publish news that is coloured in the interest of causes to which they themselves are opposed. They become unconscious propagandists for all the partisans whose efforts to wreck the settlement of Europe threaten sometimes to wreck civilization also. But if the American journalist is bewildered by complexities in European politics, there is no reason why we should allow him to bewilder us. Newspapers like The Manchester Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Observer maintain correspondents who may be depended on to weigh and interpret information before spilling it at random on their public. Is it too much to hope that some day the progressive Canadian daily will emancipate itself from its dependence upon American correspondents? The paper that first cuts the knot and enters into partnership with a British newspaper holding opinions like its own will achieve a worthy leadership among us.

Mr. Tracey's article in the present issue of The Canadian Forum was written before a settlement was reached. It will serve to give Canadian readers an insight into forces at work and the issues involved in this greatest of British labour upheavals. Mr. Tracey, as private secretary to Mr. Arthur Henderson, was closely in touch with the history of the struggle. The slight despatches to hand on the settlement would indicate that on the question of joint control of the mines as between the owners and the men, the result has been a victory to labour. On the other hand, the attempt to equalize the wages in more or less profitable, or profitless, mines has failed; a limit has been set to the application of collective bargaining. The government has given a substantial sum to ease the shock of the fall from war price to the hard conditions of to-day. Abnormal conditions may warrant this grant. It should be attended, however, by some terms which will ensure to the public, including the handful of owners and the millions of men and their families who now become virtually part owners, freedom for the future from the hardship caused by the closing down of a vital industry. If our elaborate industrial organization is going to result in periodical warfare such as that from which England has suffered in this instance, or if the people must pay taxes to buy off the combatants and pay deficits caused by strife and bad management, we might better return to the stage coach and the village artisan.

There has been another gesture in Ireland, a magnificent little gesture, for the King in person has opened the Northern Parliament. With all the splendour and glory of Westminster itself in miniature, with the Ulster King-at-Arms in all his trappings and all the other heralds, and with a city smothered in colour, the North has finally accepted the Parliament it did not wish. The fact that it was a gesture was emphasized by the proceedings. The formalities over, the speeches made, the Parliament immediately adjourned until September. It is interesting to speculate on the real reason for the presence of the King and Queen. Was it in the hope that a precedent would be set for a much more solemn, much more significant occasion down at Dublin, where there is greater need for stimulants to loyalty, in the conventional sense of the term? The opening of the Southern Parliament would augur much more for the peace of Ireland. Some enterprising journalists have suggested that the immediate effect on one of the Kilkenny cats, when it sees the other lapping the milk of order and security out of the little Parliamentary saucer, will be to make it trot over greedily to its own. Much more effective for peace has been the release of Griffith and MacNeill and Barton, Lloyd George's invitation to De Valera, and the appeal for an armistice as between the police and the Sinn Fein outlaws. Parliament, after all, is only the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, namely, the will to govern and be governed. Without this will the formalities of the opening are a mummery.

At the time of going to press, if one may judge from the conjectures of London correspondents, the grave question of the Japanese Treaty is still in the balance. It would appear, however, that the personal influence of Mr. Meighen — Medicine Hat has given the coup de grâce to his influence as spokesman for Canada — has been thrown strongly against the renewal of the Treaty. If he and Premier Smuts can achieve the overthrow of designs for a private understanding which stands clearly in opposition to the whole spirit of the League of Nations, he will have earned the gratitude of Canadians, dislike though they may his domestic policies. For all our talk, most of it cheap and ill-informed, our happiness is dependent upon our travelling and trading and marrying freely back and forth across our three thousand miles of unguarded frontier. Because of our British connection we do not desire, nor can we afford, to be brought into any alliance which will make us friends for peace or war with those who may prove the enemies of our great neighbour. A London correspondent suggests that our participation in the [293] outcome of such a treaty might be made to depend on ourselves through some saving clause in the treaty. Certainly it must depend on ourselves, but our duty is respectfully to urge that no engagements are entered into by the senior member of the Britannic Commonwealth which might bring us to a delicate and difficult decision. Territorial or trade aggression of any sort in Asia are as distasteful to us as would be similar aggressions in Europe or America. If the treaty is going to put us in a position where we may become, however indirectly, a party to such aggressions we must by all means avoid it. The practically unanimous support given in the United States to the Borah resolution for reduction of armaments suggests that the only acceptable treaty with Japan is one whose main provision looks to approximate disarmament on the Pacific, whose text will be submitted for approval to the League, or its successor, and whose terms will be known to the world.

In this issue of The Canadian Forum there appears the first instalment of Professor James Mavor's personal recollections of Tolstoy, the authentic value of which is doubly apparent in these days of flying visits to Russia and snap-shot interviews with celebrities. Professor Mavor's account is of a different stamp. His intimate, yet detached, picture of a great Russian figure and the life at his back comes, moreover, at a very appropriate time. For after all our perplexity at the tale of distress and bloodshed which has trickled through to us from Russia of late years, we are just beginning to rediscover there the old political truism that the instinctive life of nations cannot be subordinated to political theories and forms of government. The peasant, who was Tolstoy's spiritual master at the last, promises to become the master of Lenin. Prior to Bolshevism Westerners were reading the Russian novel with voracity. Then, as Russia changed colour, the Russian novel was put on the shelf, or so it appeared. Perhaps the time has now come to take it down again and to study it more closely, not for its exotic interest, but for its intrinsic value and its definite bearing on our own future.

A novel kind of art exhibition, comprising unsigned works of contemporary artists, has recently been held in England. The rule of this "Nameless Exhibition" was that all contributions be anonymous, and artists of all types, academic or revolutionary, were invited to exhibit. A good deal of interest was aroused and the critics "spotted" away for all they were worth. As an exercise in critical discrimination, which all may share, this is much more than a piece of whimsicality. Some will recall that anthology of literature, called The Spirit of Man, and compiled by Robert Bridges, in which the authorship of each quotation is relegated to the index. It was a salutary and chastening experience for many a reader of books, not merely to find that he could identify only a small proportion of the passages, but, still more, to find himself again and again unable to distinguish between ancient and modern, native and foreign. When the outward marks were removed, a thousand years were but as yesterday, and the fetish of tradition was gone. The anonymous art exhibition also has its raison d'être. It compels you to follow strictly your own likes and dislikes and to study art in the pictures and not in the catalogue. The experiment might be made with advantage in our larger cities where there is a rapidly growing body of interest in this field. We recommend the idea more particularly to those who are contemplating a Canadian Art Week next fall. It would be popular and instructive, especially if prizes were offered for "spotting."

A short account of the Little Theatre activities on this side of the water during the past year appears in this issue of The Canadian Forum. It is observed that, from the point of view of the theatre in general, this is ]]all of a piece with a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction with the commercialised theatre, manipulated by exploiters who care nothing for art and everything for money. These in the time-honoured phrase profess to "give the people what they want," whereas it is nearer the truth to say that the people want what they get and can be made to like almost anything, good or bad, if they are handled properly — surely a platitude in these days of democratic collapse. It is encouraging to find Canada giving a hand in this endeavour to restore dignity to one of the very greatest of human institutions, but it is early yet for self-approval. The characteristic Canadian situation has, however, already developed, namely, parallel, dissociated activities in several centres. If anything national is to come out of it, that characteristic situation must not be allowed to harden. As a step in the right direction, we would suggest that Hart House Theatre, Toronto, and the community players of Montreal exchange performances towards the end of next season, each group taking the pick of its repertory with it. If this were a success, as we think it would be, we might begin to speak of "the Canadian theatre."

The condition of the theatre is one of lasting reproaches that can be levelled at us by a foreigner. Another more salient one is the unscrupulous abuse of advertising. When the two meet the result is peculiarly exasperating to those who care for intellectual honesty. The case in point is a return of Charley's Aunt with the blatant announcement: "Everything new but the title." The reader may say: What does Charley’s Aunt matter, anyway?" It matters a good deal in one sense. True, it is an [p. 294] ancient and thoroughly orthodox farce, of no particular individual merit, but it amused our fathers and, having made countless thousands smile, it has become, as it were, the property of the people and should not be tampered with. Piety, in the old sense of the word, is never superfluous.. And if "everything is new but the title," why drag in the old lady (or gentlemen?) at all? Merely because it may rake in the shekels and if one of these jugglers of the public whim saw a commercial opportunity in "Hamlet. Everything new but the title. Full Chorus of Female Ghosts" his conscience would be the last thing to stop him.

At this season of the year the Canadian city dweller flees, if he may, to one or other of our great natural playgrounds of lake and river. Very few nations enjoy our wholesale opportunity of going back to nature and strengthening our hold on natural habits and ways of thought; and among our spiritual assets none is of greater worth than this. But no opportunity is so wholesale that it cannot be trifled away. We sometimes have uneasy visions of a North Country in the year 2,000 — not very far hence, if not within our private span — when the disaster of wealth and convention that settled upon a portion of the Thousand Islands and elsewhere has spread like the plague to larger areas; the giant hotel, the showy summer residence, the barbed wire, the motor-launch, the gramophone have grown to Titanic proportions; the code of holiday etiquette fills volumes; the canoe, the log-cabin, the fishing-rod are piously preserved in our museums; the "tourist" goes to the country with the facial expression of a tax-payer and comes home again with a sigh of relief that his annual dues have been paid to the social Moloch and that he can return to comparatively natural life in the city. But we have not yet come to that pass and there are factors which work against it — the North is big and tough and there are still people with sound instincts to be found.