Canada’s E’(qhtieth Birthday

THE ROYAL BANK OF CANADAHEAD OFFICE, MONTREAL

June, 1947

T HIS Letter is to mark Canada’s 80th Birthday,

which she celebrates on Dominion Day, July 1st.In earlier Letters we dealt with government,

our place within the British Empire, our relationswith the United States and various aspects of economicand social life. This article is frankly a birthdaytribute, addressed to a country which though old interms of human age is young and lusty in the measure-ment of time applied to nations, and eager to take hermost helpful place among the communities of freedom-loving democracies.

The proper place to start a birthday story is in thepast. There is no need, on this occasion, to wrinkle ourbrows in attempting to disentangle the web of events,because all Canada’s history is woven into the fabricof the dress she wears today.

The past is not drab. It was exciting in its happen-ing, and diversified enough to suit the most exactingstory-teller. It was full of sharp contrasts, both inmotive of exploration and method of settlement.Many nations were Tepresented among the pioneerswho trespassed the unbelievable virgin geography ofthe new continent. Colour, bold and rich, splashesevery century, and some of the spirit of those ageshas been handed down to this generation of Canadians.It is said that the greatest benefit of inheritance is tosucceed to an ancestor’s virtues. Together with prac-tical qualities there has come down to us a love ofright things and the desire to live life for all it isworth.

Though Jacques Cartier made his first voyage toCanada in 1534, the event we celebrate did not takeplace until 333 years later. Those three centuries weremarked by the hardship of pioneering in a country forwhich life in French and English villages was a poorrehearsal. Besides the difficulties of climate and lone-liness there were hostile clans, belligerent neighbours,natural barriers, and the uncertainty of life under

rulers who were three thousand miles away across anocean traversed slowly by sailing vessel, rulers whoknew little about conditions in their colonies. As thecountry filled up with adventuresome immigrants,tensions grew, and finally, as Chief Justice Smithwrote to Lord Dorchester in 1790: "All Americawas . . . abandoned to Democracy."

WhyConfederation ?

By 1867 it was evident to the people who made upthe evolving democracies that some-thing more was needed than the inde-pendence of their isolated settlements.

They thought of confederation as the solution fora great many political and economic difficulties.Chief among the political aims was to establish anew nation to meet the changed conditions of Britishpolicy and to unite the scattered provinces againstpossible aggression from the south; economically itwas designed to spread dependence over manyindustries instead of only a few, and thus lessen ex-posure to the effects of economic policies then beingpursued by both Great Britain and the United States.Through mutual concession it was hoped to preservecultural and local loyalties, and reconcile them withpolitical strength and solidarity.

Impossible though it seemed to draw these diverseinterests together, events conspired to bring it about.Each of the separate colonies arrived at a crisis in itsaffairs at the same time, and confederation held outhope of relieving many worries. Fools undertakegreat things because they think them easy, but theFathers of Confederation were not foolish. While theyknew the anxieties connected with a federation, theybelieved that not only an escape from the misfortunesof the moment but the hope of a brighter futurerested upon co-operation.

Making one political body out of two is among themost difficult of human tasks, and, says Arthur R. M.Lower in "Colony to Nation": "The difficulty in-

creases as the square of the number to be united, soto speak. It took centuries to unite England andScotland, more centuries to form Italy or Germany.But here on this North American continent twopolitical miracles have occurred: thirteen Americanstates peacefully united to form the United Statesof America, and then three British provinces equallypeacefully formed the Dominion of Canada."

As Things WereIn 1867

The Canada of 1867 would be a strange world to us.It had none of the features we takefor granted, such as great factories,large cities, highways, automobi!es,

airplanes, radios, electricity. There were only a fewmiles of railway along the St. Lawrence. The peoplenumbered about 3~ million, 80 per cent of whomlived in the two provinces of Upper and LowerCanada. Four-fifths of the population was rural;Montreal had about 100,000 people, and it was by farthe largest city. Cultivation of the soil and the extrac-tion of raw products from the forest and from the seasupported a small group of manufacturing, handicraftand service industries scattered through the settledareas. These industries were sheltered from foreigncompetition as much by isolation, the advantage ofcheap local raw material and the lack of transporta-tion as they were by the incidental protection of atariff primarily intended for revenue.

The time was marked, too, by the self-sufficiency ofseparate families, a needful part of the frontier natureof the economy. In today’s Canada about 40 per centof the gainfully employed are engaged in supplyingservices rather than in producing goods; in the Canadaof 1867 the extraction and processing of naturalproducts absorbed the energies of most of the popula-tion, and only about 18 per cent were engaged insupplying services. Material income was largelylimited to the basic requirements: food, clothing andshelter. Factory industry, such as there was, wassimple and decentralized. The worker could retreat atwill to the farm, where he became self-sufficient. This,naturally, gave the economy great capacity for ad-justment to fluctuations.

However, pressures of population and desire for amore abundant life were being exerted. Western ex-pansion had been disappointing to the two Canadas.As to other parts, the historical summary of the RoyalCommission on Dominion-Provincial Relations re-marks: "The Maritimes, tied to a dying industry, werein even greater, if less conscious need. The tiny RedRiver Settlement was beginning to find its feet, butwas toddling into the arms of the United States in theprocess. The Pacific Coast gold rush had fosteredsome basically sound development, but its recessionhad left a small population stranded with a largedebt."

Of course, enactment of the British North AmericaAct establishing confederation did not of itself assuresolution of either political or economic difficulties. Itdid, however, provide a framework within which weare still working to bring about the balance of loyal-ties and interests, needs and supplies, which aneffective federal system requires.

It cannot be said too often that new situations need

The RecordOf 80 Years

new measures to meet them, butperhaps the point may be reinforcedby showing a few factual.contrasts.

Early figures are from The Year Book and Almanacof Canada for 1868, while recent statistics are takenfrom such periodical reports as Trade of Canada,Operating Revenues, Expenses and Statistics of theRailways in Canada, and the Return of the CharteredBanks.

That there were optimists in the days of confedera-tion is shown by the section on population in the 1868book where it is remarked: "We may, with some pre-tensiont 9vrobability, assume that the rate of pro-gress of thepopulation of all British America will beas rapid for fifty years or more as it has been for thepast decade, and this would give as the population...in 1941, 42,598,000." Our census that year showedthat we fell short by 31 million.

Despite this, large segments of our economy havemade advances which might have satisfied those whoushered in confederation so hopefully. Railway lineshave expanded from 2,495 miles to 42,546 miles andgross railway receipts from $11a~ million to $7111~million. Exports in the year which ended the daybefore confederation in 1867 had reached a sum ofwhich the new Dominion was proud: $45,070,219. Inthe calendar year 1946 our exports amounted to$2,312,215,301. Imports in these two periods were$59,044,982 and $1,927,279,402. Financial affairshave made equally big advances. The old YearBook reports the Merchants’ Bank, which laterbecame The Royal Bank of Canada, as having totaldeposits of $100,000; the last general annual statementof this bank showed deposits totalling $1,963,103,952."Agriculture" or "Farming" have no mention in the1868 Year Book index, but agriculture and relatedtopics take up nearly as many pages in the 1946 YearBook as there are total pages in the early report. Itis mentioned, in an 1868 table, that there were be-tween 321,000 and 450,000 farmers in Nova Scotia,New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. In 1941 thesefour provinces had a farm population of 1,850,696,and in all Canada the farm population was 3,152,449.

To all of these changes, each of which meant a newenvironment for the people, add the growth of indus-try and the specialization incident to the introductionof machinery of ever-increasing complexity, and it isobvious why at 80 Canada is not the same kind ofplace to live in as it was at confederation. It isevident also that we are severe judges if we criticizethe Fathers for not foreseeing all that we were goingto do to the country.

PersonalAchievements

It would be a mistake to concentrate upon numbersand masses in judging either thegrowth or progress of a nation. Indi-viduals are important because of their

leadership, initiative and inventiveness- featureswhich do not belong to crowds. In the fine booklet"Forward With Canada" prepared and distributedby the Northern Electric Company Ltd., there are 12stories of Canadian achievements that have, in the

words of P. F. Sise, "affected the lives of all of us."Mr. Sise, President of Northern Electric, and a Direc-tor of this bank, continues in his foreword: "We, asCanadians, owe much to the great Canadians whohave gone before us and their deeds may well serveas an inspiration for the future."

First in this roster of Canadian achievements is themaritime saga of the Royal William which sailed fromPictou on August 18, 1833 and, first of all steamships,crossed the Atlantic. Tom Willson produced the firstelectric light in Hamilton, Ontario, and then went onto discover that calcium carbide could be manufac-tured in an electric furnace, paving the way for wideuse of acetylene in industry. Nine years after con-federation, Alexander Graham Bell made the world’sfirst long-distance telephone call. It was from Brant-ford to Paris, Ontario, and the message was a quota-tion from Hamlet’s soliloquy: "To be or not to be."In 1882, John Wright of Toronto visited ThomasEdison and brought away with him a crude electriclocomotive. Out of his experiments came the trolleypole, solving a 50-year-old problem and making theelectric street car practicable. Robert Foulis of SaintJohn, N.B., invented the steam fog horn; Dr. WilliamSaunders and his son, Dr. Charles Saunders, developedMarquis wheat, opening up a whole new land towheat growing. Professor John Cunningham Mc-Lennan devised a method for extracting helium fromnatural gas at a time when Britain needed it forballoons and blimps. The Red Cross outpost hospitalswere planned in answer to the needs of the frontier;insulin was found by Dr. Frederick Banting whostarted his search in London, Ontario in 1920; sili-cosis, the "dust disease" which took a heavy tollamong miners, was conquered by the Banting Insti-tute in co-operation with the Ontario Mining Associa-tion; the electron microscope, which can magnify ahuman hair to the size of a telegraph pole, was builtby three men, Professor Burton, James Hillier andAlbert Prebus, after 3 years of nerve-wracking work.Last story in "Forward With Canada" tells how theMounted Police patrol ship Saint Roch, under Ser-geant Henry Larsen, sailed the Northwest Passagefrom west to east in two years starting in June, 1939-- the first time in history.

There is probably no figure in Canadian life linkingthe early days with 1947 as does Mrs. George Black,pioneer of the Yukon, adventurer in the gold rushon the trail of ’98, authority on the flora of the north-land and second woman elected to the CanadianHouse of Commons. Mrs. Black’s first memory is offleeing before the great Chicago fire, when she wasfive years old. She hiked over Chilkoot Pass with thegold-seekers, set up housekeeping in Dawson, andgrew with the settlement. In 1935 she replaced herhusband as member from the Yukon, and her maidenspeech in the House of Commons was one of sym-pathy with Queen Mary in the death of King GeorgeV. That was two weeks before her seventieth birthday.Mrs. Black’s book, "My Seventy Years," published in1938, is a thrilling story of how men and women sub-dued Canada’s northland.

UndauntedBy Obstacles

It was as a result of ambition backed by such energythat Canada grew from the scatteredsettlements of 1867 to its present stature.It developed in spite of obstacles which

might have tamed and disheartened lesser people. Ourcountry is divided by natural barriers, mountains andlakes, and confined by rocks and tundra. Even today,our settlements still fringe the southern boundary,and only on the prairie is there any important townmore than 100 miles from the United Stares border.So large are the geographical divisions that evenwithin themselves they have distinctive types ofpeople and differing manners of living. At the time ofconfederation people talked of the "two Canadas";today we have six Canadas -- the Maritimes, the St.Lawrence Valley and the Lower Lakes, the CanadianShield, the Prairies, the Pacific Slope, and the Yukonand northland. Separated by miles of mountain,forest, lakes, and wide rivers, every division is makingits special and necessary contribution to developmentof the Dominion.

At first, and indeed until not so many years ago,there was an inclination on the part of France, Britainand the United States to look upon Canada as merelya source of raw materials, chiefly furs, timber, wheat,minerals and, more recently, wood pulp. We haveplenty of resources: our problem is to use them in thebest way for the benefit of our people. This problem iswrapped up in the world problem. We are living inthe midst of nations which are passionately realistic.We have to think of our internal development, notonly from the viewpoint of our own people, butthrough the eyes of others. Mr. Churchill and Mr.Roosevelt summed up the issue when they devisedthat paragraph of the Atlantic Charter which reads:"to further the enjoyment by all States, great orsmall, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms,to the trade and to the raw materials of the worldwhich are needed for their economic prosperity."

Canada’s problem in regard to resources is not oneof getting, but of developing and disposing in anequitable and sensible manner. Exploration of theeconomic capacity of our country is still in its earlystages, but we are aware that Canada is very richlyendowed. Everyone knows of our wheat-growingpotential. In the past five years we have averaged forexport and carry-over 633 million bushels a year.Everyone has heard about our treasure caves ofnickel, gold, silver, asbestos, radium and scores ofother minerals vital to modern life. Our forests areexceeded in size by those of only two other countries.We have the largest fishing grounds in the world. Weare the world’s largest producers of newsprint, plati-num, asbestos, nickel and radium. We are second inaluminum, wood pulp, and hydro-electric power. Weare third in producing copper, lead and zinc. And yet,and this is the rub, we have only one -- one hundredand seventy-fifth (1/175) of the world’s population.

Added to the question of how best to use our rawmaterials is the problem of e~cient maintenance ofindustry. Canada’s manufacturing capacity doubled

during the late war as manufacturers built new plants,perfected new processes, invented new products, andeven erected new communities.

WideningHorizons

Eighty years ago our problem was to wrest fromthe untamed wilderness sufficient food,clothing and shelter to keep us alive ina rough life and hard circumstances.

Today’s great problem is to find uses at home for theabundance of goods produced in factories formerlybusy with war goods, or to find markets abroad inwhich to dispose of them. These things are necessaryif our living standard is not to be reduced. They arealso necessary if other nations, once they have settleddown, are not to become jealous of our naturalwealth. We are seeking a way to make economical useof our resources, spreading them around the worldwhere they are needed.

Our ideas of geography have changed. Our neigh-bours are no longer the people in the next county orprovince, but people in continents at the otherside of the earth. Every day sees thousands oftransactions pass through this bank’s foreign depart-ment, evidence of business being done by Canadiansin Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.

Insofar as events of the past quarter century haveopened our eyes to distant prospects, Canada mustbe classed with those nations which have gained instature. When peace becomes real, this Dominion willbe at the centre of the world’s airways, which will formthe nerve-lines of world commerce. We are no longerat the northern extremity of the American continents,but in a central location relative to all land massesand in the centre of global communications betweenthe leading powers of Europe, America and Asia.

Not only Canada but all other nations are facedwith the task of adjusting to new conditions. In thecourse of that adjustment, however, we have featuresand attributes which should, if we use them sensibly,put us well in the lead in the building of a good world.

Canada stands between the great and the smallpowers, too limited in population to form a menace toany nation, even if she were belligerently-minded, buttoo highly developed as an industrial and tradingnation to rank with the small powers. Our manpowerweight is light, but our economic weight -- not alonebecause of our natural resources but because of ourability to process them efficiently -- entitles us to aseat near the top in world planning.

Canadianism, which started before confederationbut was given definite direction by that union, is nomean instrument with which to face new conditions.As J. B. Brebner said in his presidential address to theCanadian Historical Association in 1940: "Cana-dianism . . . is made up of over three centuries of

successful struggle with a recalcitrant environment,of over a century’s original and successful politicaladaptation and inventiveness, and of a kind of con-servatism which history has shown can be convertedby adversity into stubborn, indomitable will."During these years our country has, with some meas-ure of success, welded an Anglo-Saxon and a Latinculture, found a middle way between the British andthe United States philosophies of life, established areputation for seeking world peace, and shown theway to peace by our co-operative dealings with ourneighbour.

We have a canny, deliberative approach to questionsof political, social or cultural change, an approachwhich can be useful when it saves Canadians fromsome impulsive enthusiasm or fad long enough, asDr. Brebner puts it, "to have its emptiness exposed inGreat Britain or the United States."

LookingAhead

Statements rezardin~ the future, especially whenmade in the enthusiasm of a birthday cele-bration, must be hedged around withappropriate qualifications. You cannot

have a clockwork regularity in a nation’s expansxon.There is no such thing as a universal law of growth innational affairs. There are too many variables, toomany casual events colliding with national life, toomany outside influences over which the nation has nocontrol. But there is no harm in looking ahead towhat might be.

As has been shown, Canada has made wonderfulprogress in her 80 years of federation, and has at leastas good prospects of an equal share of advancementin the next 80 years. She has broken through frontiersof geography and climate and philosophy and customto reach her present position: today she is leading inattempts to breach old-time prejudice and selfishnessand insularity so that world economic reconstructionand stability may march side-by-side with politicalpeace.

This country, of all in the world, has a good chanceto make good in its constructive efforts, and in thiscountry, if anywhere on the globe, is opportunity:not alone because of the natural resources of whichwe are so prone to boast, but because here of allplaces there is a sane, balanced way of life in which todevelop nature’s -- and our individual -- gifts.

We cannot look back, this 80th birthday, on thepast as a pageant which calls merely for applause andgratification. As the procession of the years passes inreview this July First, each year decked with itscrown of laurel leaves for achievement and its chapletof rosemary for memories, we must not forget that1947 will take its place in the cavalcade. This yearand years to come must not be unworthy.

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