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University Daily Kansan Thursday, Nov. 19, 1964
A Troubled Neighbor
Preoccupied with worldly problems in Europe, the Soviet Union, and Southeast Asia, Americans generally have failed to notice that their northern neighbor, Canada, is deeply troubled and faces an explosive situation that possibly could touch off a Canadian civil war between French Canadians and English Canadians.
ON THE EVE of its 100th birthday, Canada is confronted with civil strife, the threat of secession and disintegration of the Commonwealth nation while she makes plans for her centennial observance in 1967.
Last year, Americans caught a glimpse of the turmoil in Canada when Conservative Prime Minister John George Diefenbaker was defeated by the Liberal party over the issue of American nuclear war bases in Canada.
And the widening chasm between French Canadians and English Canadians was sharply illustrated recently when Great Britain's Queen Elizabeth II visited Canada. The royal visit touched off riots and demonstrations in Quebec Province, and 32 were arrested for demanding secession from Britain.
MOST IMMEDIATELY, Canada must deal with the separatist movement in Quebec Province where French Canadians, resentful of feeling like second-class citizens to their English counterparts, are toving with the idea of secession, and the more militant groups are raiding army depots to increase their underground store of weapons and ammunition.
More broadly, Canadians are searching for a national identity and destiny as they approach the anniversary of a mature nation in comparison with the rise of new nations in the world.
At first glance, Canada's dilemma seems a paradox. While Canadians take pride in claiming that they have developed from "evolutionary" rather than "revolutionary" processes, they now are facing the prospect of revolution in their political, social, and cultural life.
AND WHILE CANADA has grown to be a major industrial power and ranks second only to the United States in per capita income, she is confronted with serious economical problems.
But Canada's frustrations are not sudden or paradoxical. They stem from the country's historical development and are the result of forces that have been at work since the British captured Quebec in 1759.
Quebec and the land along the St. Lawrence River was settled in 1608 by the French, who hoped to realize the lucrative prospects of the North American fur trade and the rich fishing waters around Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. In several wars with the British, the French constantly lost ground in North America, and in 1759 the British army defeated the French at Quebec. A year later Montreal fell and the French retreated back across the Atlantic.
The Canadian state came into being with the passage of the British North American Act in 1867. The act provided for a federation based on the monarchial and parliamentary British model.
Under English domination, the French settlers were permitted to retain their culture. But the St. Lawrence settlement began to fear British rule during the American Revolutionary War. Thousands of British loyalists crossed into Canada during the war, and tensions increased between the French and the British. The Crown dealt with the problem by dividing Canada into Upper Canada (now Ontario) and Lower Canada (now Quebec).
THE FRENCH, ever fearful of the increasing number of British, withdrew into isolation where, for the most part, they have remained.
Fear of American imperialism prompted the Canadian founders to create a strong central government. Contrary to the American pattern, they delegated certain powers to the provinces and reserved all other powers to Parliament. The federal executive was given the power to appoint all senators for life, to appoint all governors of the provinces, and to disallow any provincial legislation. These powers, combined with an unlimited taxing power, gave Canada the framework for a strong central government.
Today Canada is essentially a bicultural nation. consisting of the French Canadians who make up 30 per cent of the population, and the English Canadians who make up 44 per cent of
the population. The distinctly bicultural aspect of Canada has been tempered somewhat by European immigration in the 20th century, but these immigrants tended to settle in the western provinces.
EARLY ECONOMIC history favored the province of Quebec. In the first half of the 19th century, Quebec, located on the St. Lawrence River, provided easy access to the hinterlands for furs and timber. Quebec became the geographical center of economic activity in Canada.
But with the industrial revolution in the latter half of the 19th century, Quebec lost the advantages it previously had enjoyed, and Ontario took the lead in economic development. Railroads diminished the importance of the St. Lawrence waterway, and Ontario, located on the Great Lakes and commanding easy access to coal and iron-ore producing areas in the United States, became the center of manufacturing and heavy industry. The impetus to industrial expansion in this period was the opening of the western provinces to the production of wheat, which became the major Canadian export.
Today, Ontario is the most populous and most wealthy of all the provinces, and control of the Canadian economy is in the hands of the English Canadians. French Canadians are extremely jealous of this fact.
QUEBEC HAS AWAKENED, like a Rip Van Winkle, to discover that she is years behind the rest of the country, and the English Canadians are a ready-made scapegoat for the disgruntled Quebeckers.
There may be some basis to the cry of discrimination raised in Quebec. With 30 per cent of the population, French Canadians hold only 13 per cent of the choice federal civil service posts, and only 5 per cent of the corporate directorships. At the executive level, one almost never hears "bonjour," but simply "good morning."
BUT QUEBEC MUST bear much of the blame for its miseries. The province has failed to provide adequate education for its citizens. Compulsory education was finally enacted in 1943, but observers say it has been generally effective only since 1961. Quebec badly needs money for schools, teachers, and highways to adjust her rural peasantry and unskilled workers to the 20th century.
The situation in other Canadian provinces leads some observers to feel that Canada is gradually breaking up. U.S. News and World Report recently reported that the four small maritime provinces—Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick—are depressed with weak economies and unemployment, and that the prairie provinces are trying to outdo each other in the development of nickel, potash and petroleum.
WRITING IN The Nation magazine, Rolf E. Spencer, a Canadian political scientist, said he believed the separatist movement is far better organized than is generally admitted and that "... Quebec's 'quiet revolution' may soon be shattered by a small army bearing stolen machine guns and other deadly paraphernalia of civil war."
Pearson has committed himself to solving the French Canadian problem. He has appointed a French Canadian, Lionet Chevrier, as high commissioner to London. Ten French Canadians are now serving in the 26-member cabinet. Two governmental radio stations have been converted from English to French. And Pearson has established a Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism.
The general consensus is that some bold and imaginative steps must be taken by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson if Canada is to survive its afflictions.
BUT THESE STEPS may be too little too late. Or Pearson's attempts to conciliate the French population may alienate the British Canadians who strongly resented the recent outbreaks during the Queen's visit.
The Prime Minister will need all his skill and imagination to keep the peace in Canada, bolster the Canadian economy, and instill a sense of national identity into the Canadian people if Canada is to celebrate her centennial anniversary as one nation.
Gary Noland
Old Man Of The Sea
BOOK REVIEWS
THE BATTLE OF THE VILLA FIORITA, by Rumer Godden (Dell, 75 cents).
Superficially this recent best-seller, now in a paperback edition, would appeal most to those schooled over the years in the pleasant domestic stories provided by McCall's. What's it about? Well, it's about a liaison between an English mother and a film director, and how her children react to the business.
Divorce, that is. We see teen-age Hugh and 10-year-old Caddie leave their English home and head for the Italian villa where Mama and her boy friend are enjoying themselves. We see how proud Mama (whose name is Fanny) is that her ducklings have chosen her over Daddy (whose name is Darrell). We see how annoyed the lover (Rob) is.
The trouble is that the children really haven't just chosen her; it's that they have come to take her home. You can guess whether they finally succeed. There is a climactic scene and there are some interesting touches that reveal the clashes between English and Italian cultures and there is a good deal of flashbacking, if that's a verb. And though all this sounds rather dismal it's really a perceptive and frequently entertaining book.
*****
SCIENCE IN NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICA, A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY, edited by Nathan Reingold (American Century, $2.45).
Here is no formal history, no technical dissertation that will lose the reader who can't grasp the simplest point of mathematics or physics. Instead, it is a picture of the 19th century scientist as revealed in his own writings, his letters, his papers.
Nathan Reingold has provided a document that gives us a picture of the scientist in his culture. Great ideas are related to their times. The stress is largely on pure as opposed to applied science, even though inventors play a large role in the book.
For the most part the writings appear to be those of a highly personal nature. They show us American scientists cooperating and corresponding with men abroad. They show us efforts to give to the world, first, some new idea.
Reingold has included documents from an impressive group. The writers include Jefferson, Benjamin Silliman Sr., Asa Gray, Joseph Henry, Charles S. Peirce, Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, J. Willard Gibbs and many others. Natural history, geology, evolution, pragmatism, palentology and physics are among the subjects.
Dailij Fränsan
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