The Marxist Quarterly Autumn 1965

Turning-Point In Bourgeois Nationalism

CANADA AND IMPERIALISM by Norman Penlington. University of Toronto Press, 263 pp.

THIS WORK by a professor at Michigan State University is a thoroughly documented, detailed study of four years (1896-99) of the lengthy triangular diplomatic struggle in which Canada was involved as "the odd man," first, in between and then along with the rival imperialisms of Britain and the United States. The book received the Distinguished Manuscript Award of 1959 from University College of Michigan State University. It will be valuable to students of Canadian history because some of its detailed recording of events illustrates, albeit by implication, the profound contradiction between United States policies based upon the expansionists' claim to a "Manifest Destiny" in North America, and Canadian independence.

Within the limits set by himself the author has done an excellent job. The book describes Canadian resentment against United States arrogance during that period and shows plenty of reason for it. It shows how anti-U.S. sentiment was fostered concurrently with the campaign for Canadian participation in Britain's colonial war against the Boers in South Africa. The shortcoming is that he restricts his analysis of the forces involved almost entirely to those of pressure by or for the British government and Canadian resentment against the United States; which, carelessly, he terms "Anti-Americanism." He misses the vitally important objective developments and forces, which were and have been ultimately decisive.

It is almost as though the author deliberately eschewed any conclusions which might distract attention from his main argument, which he states in the preface: ". . . it is the major thesis of this study that the importance of Anglo-Canadian relations, which in that day sailed under the euphemistic phrase of 'Imperial unity,' was largely that of a counter-poise of Canadian-American relations; that imperial unity contained much anti-Americanism; and that the latter constituted the significant underlying reason for Canada's participation in the South African war." (My emphasis -- T.B.)

Even violently pro-U.S. readers of the book must recognize that such a thesis is but the obverse of the jingoistic British Empire League propaganda, to the effect that Canadians were "whelps of the British Lion" whose participation in the war expressed solely their pride in the Queen, the Empire, and "the old flag."

Both theses reflect subjective factors. Each of them exerted

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BOOKS IN REVIEW 87

powerful influence at that time but neither of them was the "significant underlying" force which determined Canada's actions. By restricting his study to those subjective, derivative factors, the author by-passed the significance of the fact that, very largely, it was in the course of the four years upon which he concentrated his detailed study that the capitalists
of English Canada turned definitely, as a class, to the policy of systematic assertion of their determination to be "masters in their own house." Evidence of this is in the book; what is lacking is recognition of its importance in the growth of capitalism in Canada and the consequent changes in Canada's role. The author's failure in this respect is more notable because he points out in the preface that research showed the premise upon which he had started to write the book to be incorrect and, "gradually as the study was periodically pursued" he discarded his initial premise. It is regrettable that he failed to follow through on the facts that his research revealed.

His treatment of the Joint International Commission set up to deal with the Alaska-Yukon Boundary dispute illustrates the effect of restricting the scope of the work. In terms of the factual record he deals with that Commission and its frustrations very well. He indicates the relationship of United States expansionism to its unilateral enforcement of what its government described as "the open door policy" in the Yukon Territory. He proves with unanswerable evidence that the U.S. government agreed to the setting up of a Joint International Commission with unconcealed determination to maintain its sovereignty over the Panhandle, and to prevent Canada from acquiring a port to provide direct Canadian access to the Yukon, regardless of what the Commission might recommend. He shows that it was only Canadian refusal to accept any settlement that did not give her direct access, that prevented the British government from arriving at an accommodation with the United States. These facts are brought out clearly.

He fails however to draw the correct conclusions from the relationship, between Canada's intransigeance and the decision that, of the five Commisisoners appointed by Britain, four should be Canadians, chosen by the Canadian government. The relationship between these two facts is the key to the real "significant underlying reason" for a whole series of developments, including the manner and the aims of Canadian participation in the South African war. Exploitation of resentment against the U.S. was an accompaniment of participation; not its cause.

The form in which Canadian self-government was asserted in relation to the Alaska-Yukon border dispute was distinct. But the essential political process was consistent with, even typical of, the manner in which the capitalists of English Canada acquired a national Canadian consciousness in place of their pre-Confederation image of themselves as separate groups of colonials entirely dependent upon

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Britain. Naming prominent Canadians to four of the five British places on the Joint U.S.-British Commission was not simply a diplomatic gimmick to place on Canada the onus for failure, it was part of the retreat by successive British governments before the growing assertion of Canadian self-government—first in domestic then in international affairs.

Through the long drawn out and carefully masked retreat of British imperialism before the bellicose and growing power of United States imperialism, the interests of Canada and her people were sacrificed, all too often, on the altar of "the larger interests" of the Empire. Canadians suffered that for more than a century; they paid that price for dependence upon Britain rather than take the risk of being gobbled up by the United States. But from Confederation onward the rising capitalist class of Canada sought to secure advantage whenever possible from the contradictions between the rival British and U.S. imperialisms -- even when Canada was the victim of Britain's weakness. For eighty years they sought, alternately, Reciprocity with the United States or Preferential Tariffs within the Empire. In no case did they pursue those policies because of pique or resentment against either Britain or the U.S. The law of motion which has impelled them, always, is their compulsion to the expansion of capitalism in Canada. This and not "anti-Americanism" was "the significant underlying reason" for Canada's participation in the South African war. It was this and not anti-British sentiment which misled Canadian capitalists in 1947, to choose voluntary subordination to U.S. imperialism through Louis St. Laurent's policy, misnamed Integration. It is not what the author calls "anti-Americanism" but love of our own country which moves patriotic Canadians, now, to demand that the policy of integration be replaced by policies of Canadian independence in domestic and foreign affairs.

T.B.

 

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-- This OCR was prepared by Kathleen Moore in August 2014 for the legal research purposes of Habeas Corpus Canada. --