To Our Readers

Unemployment

The Canadian Forum/Editorial/1921-04

To Our Readers written by [[|]]

Unemployment

In The Canadian Forum, April 1921, p. 198

With the March issue, The Canadian Forum completed the first six months of its existence. In defiance of accepted business practice (which seems often to consist in maintaining an appearance of good fortune whatever may be the reality) we are free to confess that the omens which heralded its birth were not auspicious. When paper prices are soaring to their maximum, and when business men generally face a serious depression, the men and women who undertake to start a journal incur a serious responsibility. A beginning must be made in the face of considerable odds, for the cost of the paper and printing is certain to be heavy; and the difficulty of getting advertising is likely to be great.

Plans had been made in March and April of 1920 for publication in October of last year. At that time, the wages of compositors were 95% above pre-war rates; and paper, of the quality used in The Canadian Forum, had gone up by more than 140% since the beginning of the war. We knew also that the cost of sending periodicals through the mails was to be increased by 200% at the New Year. With this in view, publication might well have been postponed for one or even two years, until a fall in the price of paper and a general revival of business gave better promise of success.

This turmoil and uncertainty lengthened the long odds against survival. But they were in themselves a reason for persisting in plans already made. For The Canadian Forum had not been projected as a medium of expression for a few victims of cacoethes scribendi. Its definite purpose was to discuss, without partisanship, certain problems in the life of Canada. The more urgent these problems, the greater the need for such a medium. If any good warrant existed for such a journal of opinion, it was surely strengthened, rather than weakened, by the fact that our troubles as a nation were multiplying daily.

The circumstances were themselves a challenge, and the challenge was accepted. Starting with a subscription list of 35, the first issue was published in October. The thought that perhaps this small number measured correctly the strength of our appeal was an appalling nightmare to the business manager. Meetings of the staff (whose services are given free) listened in respectful silence to his monthly jeremiads on the threatened deficit. By his orders, each member subscribed for the copies that he needed, and, further, signed a written financial guarantee, to be used to meet a deficit. But the gloom was dispelled before Christmas by a stream of subscriptions from outside. The growth in circulation with each succeeding issue has renewed our confidence that [p. 199] publication was worth while. Subscribers are still appearing, at the rate of over one hundred a month.

No board of editors was ever readier to take the cash and let the credit go. They learned by hard experience that a young paper hungers unappeasably for cash. But without seeking praise (which in any case is hard to come by) they were the more anxious for criticism, because of an uncomfortable feeling that they had much to learn. Nor, as they found, was it in the least difficult to find the friendly critic. The trouble was sometimes otherwise: it was not easy to escape him.

The judgments frankly passed on The Canadian Forum have been so numerous that they are not easily summed up. They present a wide range of contrast, comforting and even at times amusing to their victim. It is interesting to set off, against the claim that the paper is too stodgy, the counter-claim that it is too flippant. We may similarly leave the critics who found us too conservative and cautious, to deal with their neighbours who found us far too radical. It was, we believe, a woman who pronounced The Canadian Forum altogether academic, and a man who complained that it was not intellectual enough. Others, from time to time, have urged (a) that they cannot be expected to read a journal which is written by specialists for specialists, and (b) that, like most of our Canadian contemporaries, we devote ourselves entirely to the general reader.

Most of the criticisms we received might in fact be cancelled one against another. So far as any conclusion at all could be based on them, it seemed to be this: that The Canadian Forum was steadily keeping to the middle road, and avoiding all extreme views. The partisan finds inevitably that a non-partisan journal falls short of his cherished ideals. In this case there was a fixed determination to remain non-partisan. To those who write for it (who are no less conscious than its readers of its many real deficiencies) the chief appeal of the journal is simply that it stands for no supposed crusade, has found no Heaven-born Canadian statesman, tolls no politician's dirge, and acts as no man's henchman.

The points on which the critics were fairly well agreed related rather to form and subject-matter than to questions of editorial policy. And here we wish to acknowledge our great indebtedness to all those who have helped us to see ourselves as others see us. Not one of the staff of The Canadian Forum had served a real apprenticeship in the technique of publishing: the business manager had to find out what a 'screen' was; the general editor assumed his duties before he knew the meaning of the word 'em'. Most of us learn the little that we know by making mistakes and paying for them. In this case, the mistakes have been manifold, whether those who made them have profited or not.

The changes in form and appearance, which have been incorporated in the present number, are based for the most part on helpful suggestions from our friends. And, speaking of friends, the names of all the Canadian artists and writers, who have given us the benefit of their experience, as well as an unlimited use of their sketches and poems, would make a list of which any journal anywhere might well be proud.

Adverse criticism has centred for the most part on questions of foreign policy. Our attitude towards the treaty of Versailles, the Spa Conference, the House-Party at Lympne, has savoured of sacrilege to some old-fashioned readers. Those who still refuse to see that the foundations of all Europe have been weakened, who still speak the language, and think the thoughts of 1912, are not unnaturally resentful when the wisdom of the treaty-makers is bluntly questioned. But few who have seen at first-hand the break-down of European commerce and industry can still ignore the change. An immense adjustment must be made to the new conditions created by the war, if the scores of millions of workingmen in Europe are again to be fed and clothed, and maintained in regular employment. A peace which is intended as a punishment has made the task of readjustment harder, for us as well as for our late enemies. It is difficult for those who depend for their information on a Press so lacking in self-confidence as ours, to realise how widespread is the questioning spirit elsewhere, and at this time especially in England. We cannot claim to be unique in our criticism of the Peace Treaty. It is a pity that we are almost unique in Canada.

The view for which The Canadian Forum has consistently stood is easy to define. In the nervous excitement which is the world's inheritance from wartime, the limitless legal authority vested in a Supreme Council may seem closely to resemble absolute omnipotence. But in face of the tremendous, unseen and half-forgotten forces, loosed in the grinding of the mills of God, the puny strength of a peace delegation becomes one of time's laughing-stocks. Our future depends, we believe, more on factors which defy control, than on any human sanction. At best, we may recognize these factors, and accommodate ourselves to their working. At worst, we might oppose them, and be thrown aside or crushed. There is always a newspaper claque at the service of politicians graced with a moment's brief authority. But whether or not we join in applauding them, we must note as best we can the speed and direction of the tide which carries us. As we utilize this knowledge, so shall we escape disaster.

It was in the hope of contributing something to the solution of this problem as well as of the pressing [p. 200] domestic problems which confront us that this journal was started. For while there are numbers of journals elsewhere, which discuss with greater or less freedom the present tendencies in France and Italy, Britain and the United States, Canada has always been poor in such things. And it does not consist with the status of a nation merely to hear echoes of other nations' voices.

But in any case, and in any country, the public to which a journal of opinion can appeal is very limited. It costs as much to set in type an issue of The Canadian Forum as if it were sold by the hundred thousand copies monthly. The circulation is and will always be small, by comparison with the majority of successful periodicals, because there are few who look continuously to the future. It is all the more urgent, therefore, that those who do so should not be ignorant of our existence.

The growth of the paper so far has, we believe, justified all legitimate expectation. But if it has been rapid, it has not been rapid enough. With twice its present circulation, The Canadian Forum will be in a position to face the world. With three times its present circulation, its future is assured. The present rate of growth is a promise of success. But we need an even faster growth.

The journal sells at 25c. per copy. The cost of printing and mailing alone, for the first thousand copies that we circulate, is about 23c. per copy. Beyond the first thousand, the fall is rapid. Increased circulation can now be provided for, at about 8c. per copy.

We can only take full advantage of the prospect of economy which is opening, if our readers are prepared to help us. If those who believe, not that The Canadian Forum is necessarily right in all its verdicts, but that it stands for something so far lacking in the life of Canada, will act on that belief, there will be no room on our part for misgiving, and others, whom the prospect of failure has so far deterred from launching ventures of this character, may pluck up heart of grace.

This is an appeal to each individual, who has so far borne company with us. Will you bring to the notice of at least one friend this number of The Canadian Forum? Will you go further, and persuade that friend, if possible, to join you as one of our subscribers? To those who are prepared to help us in this way we wish to express our thanks, not in words only, but as we know they would themselves prefer, by furthering to the best of our ability an open and honest discussion of Canadian problems.

The Editors