What the Public Needs

Workmen’s Compensation

What the Public Needs written by G. E. Jackson

Domestic Discontent

From The Canadian Forum, November 1920, p.42

The War may have weakened our faith in many things, but it greatly strengthened the belief in propaganda. At one time, not far distant, it was supposed that our liberties as freemen were protected by an active and intelligent public opinion. Governments bowed, and politicians cringed before it. Here in Canada we held it in not a little reverence; and our more impressionable neighbours to the south (at least when they were called to public office) spoke of the Voice of the People as the Voice of God. Those halcyon days are over; maturity has made an end of this illusion. We know that the public cannot be trusted of itself to make up its mind. Its opinion, like the potter's clay, waits for the moulding which shall give it form and purpose. And just as the potter who moulds it is of much more importance than his clay, so may we infer that an artist in publicity, moulding what is still politely described as public opinion, is of much more importance than the thing that he controls.

The new knowledge has brought with it new possibilities of spending the taxpayer's money. Before it was realized that a little judicious expenditure never fails to produce an impression, officials observed a very proper caution in sanctioning expenditure on propaganda. No suggestion is here intended, which would impute to them a niggardly shortsightedness; they were honest creatures of their time. Looking back, however, we can see that their caution was excessive. Holders of office may have been unduly hampered in their duties, by having to "make good" in each promotion, before they could expect their meed of praise. It was all too reminiscent of the jarvey with the carrot. Our own generation has another method. To-day the new head of the Soldier Settlement Board assumes the duties of his office, while his department informs the public (at the public expense) that (besides being prominent in athletics) he "represented Dalhousie in 1905 in the intercollegiate debate with the University of New Brunswick, the subject being Trade Unionism". Lest it should be supposed that his skill is merely forensic, follows the statement that he "took the combined seven years course in three years, and graduated with high honours in History and English Literature". The Board does well to describe the scholastic career of its Chairman as "a particularly brilliacnt one"; and pending fresh triumphs in the sphere of soldier-settlement, the citizens to whom the cost of this biography will be charged have been given something quite instructive to occupy their minds.

The Labour Gazette has been slow to fall in with the movement. The laboriously compiled information which it presents on prices and employment, its records of labour disputes and labour congresses, have been invaluable to the student of Canadian affairs. But they have been informative, rather than persuasive. Only in the summer of 1920 did it commit itself for the first time to the policy of propaganda. The supplement to the August number is [p.43] however a frank departure from the conservative journalism of the past.

The Labour Gazette believes that "the people of Canada do not as a whole fully appreciate the gravity of the socialist movement in this country". In the hope of rousing more appreciation it has concocted a little work, which deserves all the publicity that this magazine can give it. It is called "Information Respecting the Russian Soviet System and its Propaganda in North America". Its facts are collected mainly from three sources. The Gazette relies on "a gentleman who left Petrograd in 1918" (he modestly remains anonymous), on the files of the London Times, and on the report of a committee of the United States Senate. Whether the Gazette thinks there have been so few gentlemen in Petrograd, that this description identifies its correspondent sufficiently, we do not know. In any case, one reader fails to "place" him. The person quoted in The Times is also nameless. But the Senate Committee, more generous in detail, specifies its source of information. The man from whom it learned so much is not a gentleman at all. He is Ludwig G. A. K. Martens, self-announced ambassador of Soviet Russia. The Senators, with fine simplicity, speak of him as "Martens": thereby reminding us that the United States is a democratic country.

Thrice-armed with knowledge, the Gazette cites a great many facts (whose truth is well established) to prove that Russia is a most distressful country. Food is lacking and fuel, locomotives to consume the fuel and men to drive the locomotives. Disorder rules everywhere. It is even said that people "without adequate qualifications" are appointed to responsible posts, "solely because they happen to belong to the party in power". Numbers of Canadians, however, fail to realise this. Idealists may be found among them; and the writer of the pamphlet invites these idealists to consider what would happen to the Dominion if all land not personally tilled by the owner were confiscated, all banks were nationalized, and all persons "who do not perform useful social functions" were deprived of the vote. The rhetorical question is legitimate, yet it may be regretted. Such invitations to thought are under certain circumstances a mistake. They weaken a case that is otherwise extremely strong. For we can imagine a reply by one of these misguided idealists, which might run somewhat as follows: "What would happen in Canada if all coal imports from the United States were shut off by a blockade of long standing, the mines of Nova Scotia were in the hands of foreign enemies, typhus was raging in our cities, and the same foreign enemies deliberately prevented us from getting drugs and medical supplies?" It is to be feared that an open-minded man (on or off the Labour Gazette) would find it hard to frame an adequate rejoinder. Even under the present economic system, it would be difficult to feed and clothe the people. This was indeed frankly recognized as early as March of this year in a British Government document "The Soviet System in Russia in Theory and in Practice", which criticizes the system from quite a different standpoint.

In unveiling the sinister activities of Socialism in Canada the writer of this little work is equally hesitant to drive home the dreadful truth. Here again, many readers will wish he had mastered his scruples. His point is only weakened when in illustrating the statement that almost all the socialist societies in Canada repudiate religion, he reprints (on page 14) a card of membership of the One Big Union which is almost a monument of old fashioned piety. Surely the Labour Gazette has somewhere in its files the card of some revolutionary society which is not distinctively Christian. The suggestion is respectfully offered that if the case of the Jewish Bolsheviki Party had been cited it would at least have met this requirement.

The same disarming chivalry hampers him when he dwells on their activities in Canada. He shows, for instance, that apeals^(sic!) have been circulated to all O.B.U. units in Canada to contribute to a fund for sending medical assistance to Soviet Russia. It is doubtless very reprehensible for these adherents of the One Big Union to succour a people who, if they are not declared enemies of this country (we refused to make war on them and have only blockaded them instead) are at least not among its best friends. Nevertheless there is little room for doubt that the O.B.U. has done things much worse than this. The things it has done may not be fit to print. The Labour Gazette has to consider the susceptibilities of its public, but it is natural to suppose that instances of moral turpitude could be found in the record of the O.B.U., which while not unprintable, were nevertheless more likely to shock the public conscience than this attempt to help the Russians with medical supplies.

Perhaps however this is not the final word on the subject of Soviet Propaganda. Perhaps our author will return to the charge. He has succeeded in this little work in whetting without satisfying an appetite for information. There must be many readers who will ask for more.

Meanwhile it should be noted that the future of departmental propaganda will depend in large measure on the reception accorded to the document. Any coldness on the part of the people, towards a public enterprise of this kind, will make it exceedingly difficult to continue the work begun with so much energy. The possibility that it may be neglected is a distressing thought for any man, who considers it the business of officials to form the public mind.

G. E. Jackson.