THE TIE THAT BINDS
I
It is easy to understand what binds the provinces into a confederation.
They had to bind themselves into a unity with the British North America
Act or see their national existence threatened by any band of settlers
who might rush in and by a perfectly legitimate process of
naturalization and voting set up self-government. At the time of
confederation such eminent Imperial statesmen as Gladstone and
Labouchère seriously considered whether it would not be better to cut
Canada adrift, if she wanted to be cut adrift. The difference between
the Canadian provinces and the isolated Latin republics of South
America illustrates best what the bond of confederation did for the
Dominion. The _why_ and _how_ of confederation is easy to understand,
but what tie binds Canada to the Mother Country? That is a point
almost impossible for an outsider to understand.
England contributes not a farthing to Canada. Canada contributes not a
dime to England. Though a tariff against alien lands and trade
concessions to her colonies would bring such prosperity to those
colonies as Midas could not dream, England confers no trade favor to
her colonial children. There have been times, indeed, when she
discriminated against them by embargoes on cattle or boundary
concessions to cement peace with foreign powers. Except for a slight
trade concession of twenty to twenty-five per cent. on imports from
England--which, of course, helps the Canadian buyer as much as it helps
the British seller--Canada grants no favors to the Mother Country. In
spite of those trade concessions to England, in 1913 for every dollar's
worth Canada bought from England, she bought four dollars' worth from
the United States.
Certainly, England sends Canada a Governor-General every four years;
but the Cabinet of England never appoints a Governor-General to Canada
till it has been unofficially ascertained from the Cabinet of the
Dominion whether he will be persona grata. Canada gives the
Governor-General fifty thousand dollars a year and some perquisites--an
emolument that can barely sustain the style of living expected and
exacted from the appointee, who must maintain a small viceregal court.
The Governor-General has the right of veto on all bills passed by the
Canadian government; and where an act might conflict with Imperial
interests, he would doubtless exercise the right; but the veto power in
the hands of the Imperial vicegerent is so rarely used as to be almost
dead. Veto is avoided by the Governor-General working in close
conference with the prevailing Cabinet, or party in power; and a party
on the verge of enacting laws inimical to Imperial interests can be
disciplined by dismissal from office, in which case the party must
appeal to the country for re-election. That means time; and time
allows passion to simmer down; and an entire electorate is not likely
to perpetrate a policy inimical to Imperial interests. In practice,
that represents the whole, sole and entire power of England's
representative in Canada--a power less than the nod of a saloon keeper
or ward boss in the civic politics of the United States. Officially,
yes; the signature of the Governor-General is put to commissions and
appointments of first rank in the army and the Cabinet and the courts.
In reality, it is a question if any Governor in Canada since
confederation has as much as suggested the name of an applicant for
office.
On the other hand, Canada's dependence on England is even more tenuous.
Does a question come up as to the "twilight zone" of provincial and
federal rights, it is settled by an appeal to the Privy Council. Suits
from lower courts reversed by the Supreme Court of Canada can be
appealed to England for decision; and in religious disputes as to
schools--as in the famous Manitoba School Case--this right of appeal to
Imperial decision has really been the door out of dilemma for both
parties in Canada. It is a shifting of the burden of a decision that
must certainly alienate one section of votes--from the shoulders of the
Canadian parties to an impartial Imperial tribunal.
If there be any other evidence of bonds in the tangible holding Canada
to England and England to Canada--I do not know it.
II
What, then, is the tie that binds colony to Mother Country?
Tangible--it is not; but real as life or death, who can doubt, when a
self-governing colony voluntarily equips and despatches sixty thousand
men--the choice sons of the land--to be pounded into pulp in an
Imperial war? Who can doubt the tie is real, when bishops' sons,
bankers', lawyers', doctors', farmers', carpenters', teachers' and
preachers'--the young and picked heritors of the land--clamor a hundred
thousand strong to enlist in defense of England and to face howitzer,
lyddite and shell? Why not rest secure under the Monroe Doctrine that
forever forefends European conquest? It is something the outsider can
not understand. President Taft could not understand it when his
reciprocity pact was defeated in Canada partly because of his own
ill-advised words about Canada drifting from United States interests.
Canada was not drifting from American interests. In trade and in
transportation her interests are interlinking with the United States
every day; but the point--which President Taft failed to
understand--is: Canada is _not_ drifting because she is sheet-anchored
and gripped to the Mother Country. We may like it or dislike it. We
may dispute and argue round about. The fact remains, without any
screaming or flag waving, or postprandial loyalty expansions of rotund
oratory and a rotunder waist line--Canada is sheet-anchored to England
by an invisible, intangible, almost indescribable tie. That is one
reason why she rejected reciprocity. That is why at a colossal cost in
land and subsidies and loans and guarantees of almost two billions, she
has built up a transportation system east and west, instead of north
and south. That is why for a century she has hewn her way through
mountains of difficulty to a destiny of her own, when it would have
been easier and more profitable to have cast in her lot with the United
States.
What is the tie that binds? Is it the hope of an Imperial Federation,
which shall bind the whole British Empire into such a world federation
as now holds the provinces of the Dominion? Twenty years ago, if you
had asked that, the answer might have been "Yes." Canada was in the
dark financially and did not see her way out. If only the Chamberlain
scheme of a tariff against the world, free trade within the empire,
could have evolved into practical politics, Canada for purely practical
reasons would have welcomed Imperial Federation. It would have given
her exports a wonderful outlet. But to-day Imperial Federation is a
deader issue in Canada than reciprocity with the United States. No
more books are written about it. No one speaks of it. No one wants
it. No one has time for it. The changed attitude of mind is well
illustrated by an incident on Parliament Hill, Ottawa, one day.
A Cabinet Minister was walking along the terrace above the river
talking to a prominent public man of England.
"How about Imperial Federation?" asked the Englishman. "Do you want
it?"
The Canadian statesman did not answer at once. He pointed across the
Ottawa, where the blue shimmering Laurentians seem to recede and melt
into a domain of infinitude. "Why _should_ we want Imperial
Federation?" he answered. "We have an empire the size of Europe, whose
problems we must work out. Why should Canadians go to Westminster to
legislate on a deceased wife's sister's bills and Welsh
disestablishment and silly socialistic panaceas for the unfit to
plunder the fit?"
It will be noticed that his answer had none of that flunkeyism to which
Goldwin Smith used to ascribe much of Canadian pro-loyalty. Rather was
there a grave recognition of the colossal burden of helping a nation
the area of Europe to work out her destiny in wisdom and in integrity
and in the certainty that is built up only from rock bottom basis of
fact.
Has flunkeyism any part in the pro-loyalty of Canada? Goldwin Smith
thought it had, and we all know Canadians whose swelling lip-loyalty is
a sort of Gargantuan thunder. It may be observed, parenthetically,
those Canadians are not the personages who receive recognition from
England.
"Sorry, Your Royal Highness, sorry; but Canada is becoming horribly
contaminated by Americanizing influences," apologized a pro-loyalist of
the lip-flunkey variety to the Duke of Connaught shortly after that
scion of royalty came to Canada as Governor.
The Duke of Connaught turned and looked the fussy lip-loyalist over.
"What's good enough for Americans is good enough for me," he said.
An instance of the absence of flunkeyism from the Dominion's loyalty to
the Mother Country occurred during the visit of the present King as
Prince of Wales to the Canadian Northwest a few years ago. The royal
train had arrived at some little western place, where a contingent of
the Mounted Police was to act as escort for the Prince's entourage.
The train had barely pulled in when a fussy little long-coat-tailed
secretary flew John-Gilpin fashion across the station platform to a
khaki trooper of the Mounted Police.
"His Royal Highness has arrived! His Royal Highness has arrived,"
gasped the little secretary, almost apoplectic with self-importance.
"Come and help to get the baggage off--"
"You go to ----," answered the khaki-uniformed trooper, aiming a
tobacco wad that flew past the little secretary's ear. "Get the
baggage off yourself! We're not here as porters. We're here to
execute orders and we don't take 'em from little damphool fussies like
you."
Yet that trooper was of the company that made the Strathcona Horse
famous in South Africa--famous for such daring abandon in their charges
that the men could hardly be held within bounds of official orders. He
is of the very class of men who have forsaken gainful occupations in
the West to clamor a hundred-thousand strong for the privilege of
fighting to the last ditch for the empire under the rain of death from
German fire.
"How can Canadians be loyal to a system of government that acknowledges
some fat king sitting on a throne chair like a mummy as ruler?"
demanded an American woman of a Canadian man.
"Well," answered the Canadian, "I don't know that any 'fat king' was
ever quite so fat as a gentleman named Mammon who plays a pretty big
part in the government of all republics." He drew a five-dollar bill
from his pocket. "As a piece of paper that is utterly worthless," he
explained. "It isn't even good wrapping paper. It's a promise to
pay--to deliver the goods, that gives it value. It's what the system
of government stands for, that rouses support--not this, that, or the
other man--"
"But what does it stand for?" interrupted the American; and the
Canadian couldn't answer. It roused and held his loyalty as if of
family ties. Yet he could not define it.
He might have explained that Canada has had a system of justice since
1837 never truckled to nor trafficked in, but he knew in his heart that
the loyalty was to a something deeper than that. He knew that many
republics--Switzerland, for instance--have as impartial a system of
justice. He might have descanted on the British North America Act
being to Canada what the Constitution is to the United States, only
more elastic, more susceptible to growth and changing conditions; but
he knew that the Constitution was what it was owing to this other
principle of which law and justice were but the visible formula. He
might easily have dilated on excellent features of the Canadian
parliamentary system different from the United States or Germany. For
instance, no party can hold office one day after it lacks the support
of a majority vote. It must resign reins to the other party, or go to
the country for re-election. Or he might have pointed to the very
excellent feature of Cabinet Ministers sitting in the House and being
directly responsible to Commons and Senate for the management of their
departments to the expenditure of a farthing. A Cabinet member who may
be quizzed to-day, to-morrow, every day in the week except Sunday, on
the management of affairs under him can never take refuge in ambiguous
silence or behind the skirts of his chief, as secretaries delinquent
have frequently taken refuge behind the spotless reputation of a
too-confiding President. But the Canadian explained none of these
things. He knew that these things were only the outward and visible
formula of the principle to which he was loyal.
III
A few years ago the mistake would have been impossible; for there was,
up to 1900, practically no movement of settlers from the British Isles
to Canada; but to-day with an enormous in-rush of British colonists to
the Dominion, a superficial observer might ascribe the loyalty to the
ties of blood--to the fact that between 1900 and 1911, 685,067 British
colonists flocked to Canada. Not counting colossal investments of
British capital, there are to-day easily a million Britishers living on
and drawing their sustenance from the soil of Canada. And yet, however
unpalatable and ungracious the fact may be to Englishmen, the ties of
blood have little to do with the bond that holds Canada to England.
This statement will arouse protest from a certain section of Canadians;
but those same Canadians know there are hundreds--yes, thousands--of
mercantile houses in the Dominion where employers practically put up
the sign--"No Englishman need apply."
"I've come to the point," said a wholesale hardware man of a Canadian
city, "where I won't employ a man if he has a cockney accent. I've
tried it hundreds of times, and it has always ended the same way. I
have to break a cockney's neck before I can convince him that I know
the way I want things done, and they have to be done that way. He is
so sure I am 'ownley a demmed ke-lo-neal' that he is lecturing me on
how I should do things before he is in my establishment ten minutes. I
don't know what it is. It may be that coming suddenly to a land where
all men are treated on an equality and not kicked and expected to doff
caps in thanks for the insolence, they can't stand the free rein and
not go locoed. All I know is--where I'll employ an Irishman, or a
Scotchman, or a Yorkshireman, on the jump, I will not employ a cockney.
I don't want to commit murder."
And that business man voiced the sentiment of multitudes from farm,
factory and shop. I'll not forget, myself, the semi-comic episode of
rescuing an English woman from destitution and having her correct my
Canadian expressions five minutes after I had given her a roof. She
had referred to her experience as "jolly rotten"; and I had remarked
that strangers sometimes had hard luck because "we Canadians couldn't
place them," when I was roundly called to order by a tongue that never
in its life audibly articulated an "h."
IV
Before digging down to the subterranean springs of Canadian loyalty, we
must take emphatic cognizance of several facts. Canada, while not a
republic, is one of the most democratic nations in the world.
Practically every man of political, financial or industrial prominence
in Canada to-day came up by the shirt-sleeve route in one generation.
If there is an exception to this statement--and I know every part of
Canada almost as well as I know my own home--I do not know it. Sifton,
Van Horne, MacKenzie, Mann, Laurier, Borden, Foster, the late Sir John
Macdonald--all came up from penniless boyhood through their own efforts
to what Canadians rate as success. I said "what Canadians rate as
success." I did not say to affluence, for Canadians do not rate
affluence by itself as success. Laurier, Foster, Sir John
Macdonald--each began as a poor man. Sifton began life as a penniless
lawyer. Van Horne got his foot on the first rung of the ladder
hustling cars for troops in the Civil War. MacKenzie of Canada
Northern fame began with a trowel; Dan Mann with an ax in the lumber
woods at a period when wages were a dollar and twenty-five cents a day;
Laurier with a lawyer's parchment and not a thing else in the world.
Foster, the wizard of finance, taught his first finance in a
schoolroom. And so one might go on down the list of Canada's great.
Unless I am gravely mistaken the richest industrial leader of Ontario
began life in a little bake shop, where his wife cooked and he sold the
wares; and the richest man in the Canadian West began with a pick in a
mine. I doubt if there is a single instance in Canada of a public man
whose family's security from want traces back prior to 1867.
But the richest are not rated the most successful in Canada. There is
an untold and untellable tragedy here. There is many a city in Canada
which has a Mr. Rich-Man's-Folly in the shape of a palatial house or
castellated residence which failed to force open the portals of respect
and recognition for himself. Folly Castle has been occupied in an
isolation that was almost quarantine. Why? Because its foundations
were laid in some financial mud, which Canada never forgets and never
forgives. Instances could be multiplied of brilliant politicians
retired to private life, of moneyed men who spent fortunes to buy a
knighthood, a baronetcy, an earldom--and died disappointed because in
early life they had used fiduciary funds or trafficked in politics. It
may impart a seeming snobbery to Canadian life, an almost crude
insolence; but it keeps a title from becoming the insignia of an envied
dollar bill. It keeps men from buying what their conduct failed to
win. It does more than anything else to keep down that envy of true
success which is the curse of many lands. Canadian papers rarely
trouble to chronicle whether a rich man wears the hair shirt of a
troubled conscience, or the paper vest of a tight purse. They are not
interested in him simply because he is rich. If he loots a franchise
and unloads rotten stocks on widows and orphans and teachers and
preachers, they call him a thief and send him to jail a convict. Three
decades ago the premier's own nephew misused public funds. It could
have been hushed by the drop of a hat or the wave of a hand. The party
in power was absolutely dominant. The culprit was arrested at nine in
the morning and sentenced to seven years in the penitentiary by six
that day; and he served the term, too, without any political wash to
clear him. Instances are not lacking of titled adventurers ostracized
in Winnipeg and Montreal going to Newport and capturing the richest
heiresses of the land. These instances are not mentioned in invidious
self-righteousness. They are mentioned purely to illustrate the
underlying, unspoken difference in essential values.
V
Set down, then, two or three premises! Canada is under a monarchy, but
in practice is a democratic country. Canada is absolutely impartial in
her justice to rich and poor. Have we dug down to the fountain spring
of Canadian loyalty? Not at all. These are not springs. They are
national states of mind. These characteristics are psychology. What
is the rock bottom spring? One sometimes finds the presence of a
hidden spring by signs--green grass among parched; the twist of a peach
or hazel twig in answer to the presence of water; the direction of the
brook below. What are the signs of Canada's springs? Signs, remember;
not proofs. Of proofs, there is no need.
Perfectly impartially, whether we like it or dislike it, without any
argument for or against, let us set down Canadian likes and dislikes as
to government. These are not my likes and dislikes. They are not your
likes and dislikes. They are facts as to the Canadian people.
Canadians have no faith in a system of government, whether under a
Turkish Khan or a Lloyd George Chancellor, which delegates the rule of
a nation to butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers and "the dear
people" fakers. They do not believe that a man who can not rule his
own affairs well can rule the nation well. They regard government as a
grave and sacred function, not as a grab bag for spoils. If a party
makes good in power, they have no fear of leaving that party in power
for term after term. The longer their premier is in office the more
efficient they think he will become. They have no fear of the premier
becoming a "fat" tyrannical king. Long as the party makes good, they
consider it has a right to power; and that experience adds to
competency. Instantly the party fails to make good, they throw it out
independent of the length of its tenure of office.
Canadians do not believe that
"I-am-as-good-as-you-are-and-a-little-better." They will accept the
fact that "I-am-as-good-as-you-are" only when I prove it in brain, in
brawn, in courtesy, in mental agility, in business acumen, in
service--in a word, _in fact_. They are comparatively untouched by the
theoretical radicalism of the French Revolution, by the socialism of a
Lloyd George, by the war of labor and capital. They are untouched by
theory because they are so intent on fact. The "liberty, equality and
fraternity" cry of the French Revolution--they regard as so much hot
air. Canadians since 1837 have had "liberty, equality, fraternity."
Why rant about it? And when they didn't have it, they fought for it
and went to the scaffold for it, and got it. The day's work--that's
all. Why posturize and theorize about platitudes? Canadians are not
interested in the Lloyd George theory of the poor plundering the
prosperous, because every man or woman who tries in Canada can succeed.
He may hoe some long hard rows. Let him hoe! It will harden flabby
muscle and give backbone in place of jawbone! Help the innocent
children--yes! There is a child saving organization in every province.
But if the adult will not try, let him die! If he will not struggle to
survive, let him die! The sooner the better! No theoretical parasites
for Canada, nor parlor socialism! "Take off your coat! Roll up your
shirt-sleeves! Stop blathering! Go to work!" says Canada.
"But I think--" protests the theorist.
"_Thinks_ don't pass currency as coin. _Go to work, and pass up
facts_," says Canada.
VI
It may be objected that all this means the survival of the fit, the
rule of the many by the few. That is exactly what it means. That is
the fountain spring of Canada's national idea, whether we like it or
hate it. That is the belief that binds Canada's loyalty to the
monarchical idea--though Canada would as soon call it the presidential
idea as the monarchical idea. She does not care what name you tag it
by so long as she delegates to the selected and elected few the power
to rule. She believes the selected few are better than the unwinnowed
many as rulers. She would sooner have a mathematical school-teacher as
finance minister than a saloon keeper or ward heeler. She believes
that the rule of the select few is better than the rule of the
thoughtless many. She delegates the right and power to rule to those
few, lets them make the laws and bows to the laws as to the laws of
God, as the best possible for the nation because they have been enacted
by the best of her nation. If that best be bad, it is at least not so
bad as the worst. She never says--"Pah! What is law! I made the law!
If it doesn't suit me, I'll break it. I am the law."
Canadians acknowledge they have delegated power to make law to men whom
they believe superior to the general run. Therefore, they obey that
law as above change by the individual. In other words, Canadians
believe in the rule of the many delegated to the superior few. Those
few do what they deem wise; not what the electorate tell them. They
exceed instructions. They lead. They do not obey. But if they fail,
they are thrown to the dogs without mercy, whether the tenure of office
be complete or incomplete. It is the old Saxon idea of the
Witenagemot--the council of a few wise men ruling the clan.
There is the fountain spring of Canadian loyalty to the monarchical
idea. It is not the fat king. It is not any king. It is what the
insignificant personality called "king" stands for, like the
five-dollar bill worthless as wrapping paper but of value as a promise
to deliver the goods.