R 30 years the figure of Wil- liam Lyon Mackenzie King occupied the stage of Canadian politics. Now, in his The In- credible Canadian, Bruce Hutch- ison tells the life story of the master wire-puller at Ottawa. But Hutchison is a journalist— a commercial journalist who is bound up with the politics he writes about—not an historian. He plays with words as a gifted child plays with crayons. The result is that as an interpreter of Canadian history during the “span of Mackenzie King’s lifes. Hutchison presents a subtle but superficial plea for the free a terprise way of life, moderate by “the welfare state. : At 44 years of age, Mackenzie King -wrote a dull book called Industry and Humanity. It would have been a worse pook had King not been assisted by a more gifted writer. Hutchison waxes lyrical _ over this book: : “Industry and Humanity begins with an indictment of industrial society more penetrating than the indictment of Marx, since it is written by a member of the priv- ileged classes ‘with a surer grasp of economic forces, with a more realistic understanding of society s slow speed and limitations, with an infinitely better judgment of human beings, ‘and with a theory of the future conceivably within man’s limited reach.” In other words, Marx was a yisionary and King a realist. : King’s book ‘was published in 1918, after the Russian Revolu- tion, which ushered in the world crisis of imperialism. This revolu- tion was led by a contemporary of King, the most prilliant exponent of Marxism and a gifted theoretic

ian and .statesman in his own right, V. I. Lenin. Hutchison to the contrary, Mackenzie ing,

Karl Marx and V. I. Lenin were equally members of @ privileged class by birth. None was of prolet- arian origin.

The difference lay in the fact that King dedicated his life to preserving the old order while the other two, with a much deeper understanding of ~ social change, dedicated their lives to the build- ing of the new order. Where King dedicated his life to preserving

. privilege based on the exploitation of man by man, money-grabbing and shady. politics, Marx and Lenin dedicated their lives to the abolition of these privileges by the creation of « classless society.

What were the “revolutionary Principles” put forth in King’s book? A careful study will show nothing more than the stale platit- udes of a decadent liberalism, Seeking to save capitalism by con- Ciliating classes, when the class Strugele was already sounding the death knell of capitalism. Here is a resume of these principles: é

Root cause of man’s evils is divorcement of man from laws of Universe. :

Man’s society is anarchic, suicid- al and illegal. Between two forces, g00d and evil, man more and more tends towards evil in our indus- trial system. The purely material- istic interpretation of life is false. Men having accepted materialism, lurch>from one evil to another.

Unrestrained competition de-

ases the life of the worker and the wealth of the country. The £00d employer is driven out of usiness by the bad employer and the well-paid worker by the un- der-paid worker.

Compare these platitudes with the Communist Manifesto written by Marx and Engels 29 years be- fore the birth of Mackenzie King and you. will understand why the

©mmunist Manifesto has surviv- ed to this day as a profound work of genius and scientific prediction.

Ompare King’s Industry and

umanity: with Karl Marx’s

Pital and you place a dwarf otigside of a giant.

. This man with the “sure grasp” |

failure to

By JACK PHILLIPS

=

of -economic forces refused to believe there would be a crash in 1929, followed by a depression. When the crash came, it found him in office, urprepared and un- willing to help the hungry and homeless. On one of the few oc- casions when he © allowed his temper to get the best of him in parliament, he shouted that he would not give a “five cent piece to help the unemployed in any province where there was a Con- servative government. ‘This was before his defeat by that pompous Tory, R. B. Bennett, in 1930.

But it wasn’t long before King was attacking Bennett for his grapple successfully with the growing unemployment © problem. He was leader of the opposition by this time, and hun- gry to return to office. King was the last man to be worried by charges of inconsistency.

In 1987, after attending the. coronation of King George VI in London, King had a talk with Hitler. His ‘““sure grasp” of the facts of life convinced him that once Germany regained certain territories inhabited’ by Germans (such as the Sudetenland) the danger of war would be over. Mackenzie King supported ap- peasement, from the time of the crisis over sanctions against Italy right down to Munich and the out- break of the Second World War.

Always the autocrat in the cab- __

inet and the party caucus, -when he could get away with it, and the conciliator when he couldn’t, he came to the conclusion that the question of war or peace depend- ed solely on the decision of one man, Adolph Hitler. “Hitler is a simple peasant,” said ; King in 1937, ‘not very intelligent and no serious danger to anyone.” |

On August 25, 1939, King cabled Hitler and Mussolini ‘that “force is no substitute for rea- son.” Mussolini replied ae us was sparing “mo effort to sate- guard the peace of the world.” The “simple peasant” did not reply. On September 1, the German Army crossed_ the frontiers of Poland.

King may have played a smaller role in shaping this policy than. the statesmen of Britain and France and the U.S., but he play- ed an active, not a passive role.

Hutchison credits his hero, John W. Dafoe, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, as the “one clear voice raised in this country against the betraval of Munich. But an hon- est, “serious historian respects facts, however unpalatable and however he tréats them. The fact is that Tim Buck and other Com- munist leaders warned against Munich and all the betrayals that led to Munich with a clarity which Dafoe could never achieve. a

Throughout his long : political life, King worked to divert the attention of the Canadian people from problems he had not prepar- ed to:tackle. He was a man who could not afford the luxury of principles or consistency, and not even too strict a code of political morals. The leader of a gigantic patronage machine, he personally made all’ appointments of sen- ators, judges, deputy ministesr and even lower Officials.

: '

oth King and chaos

“Jn 1938, Britain had asked for the right to train pilots in Canada, under its own control, and King had countered with an offer to train British pilots in Canadian establishments. All military

establishments in Canada, he said, must be under Canadian con- © So writes Bruce Hutchison in The Incredible Canadian.

trol.”

But a decade later, before King retired, he had surrendered the Canadian right he had insisted upon with Britain and the U.S. had its own military establishments on Canadian soil.

He never married, never made warm friendships in his political life and never forgave an enemy. He never hesitated to break a man who stood in the way of his own personal ambitions, even if that man had served his policies well in the past.

Deeply religious, he believed in spiritualism and consulted his dead relatives, Liberals long pass- ed over the bar and, towards the close of his life, the spirit of his dead dog. A cautious man in building up his own personal fortune, he gambled recklessly in politics, when there was no other way out. In most cases, he back- ed the right card.

Imparting something of the late Liberal leader’s mysticism to his book, Hutchison treats the Chanak incident in 1922, the Byng Crisis of 1926, the Balfour Declaration of 1926, the Statutes of Westmin- ster in 1981. — milestones on the

road to winning full Canadian. sovereignty — as conflicts in the |

soul of Mackenzie King, the tug between the geography of Am- erica and the history of? Britain.

What actually took place was something more basic and down to earth. The Liberal party, as the political representative of the dominant sections of the capital- ist class, completed the evolution of Canadian sovereignty.

Tim Buck, in his book Canada, The Communist Viewpoint, des- cribes it as “asserting Canadian sovereignty by bits, avoiding a head-on collision with the British government over the fundamental principle involved — the strength- ening the bargaining power of

Canadian finance-capital, both within the Empire, and with the United States.”) Mackenzie King was the master tactician, directing this development. :

Although Hutchison paints a very interesting picture of King as a politician, he does not fill in the canvas to show the underlying class interests that he served so wells

Presenting King as a mystery —‘We do not understand King be- cause we do not understand our- selves’— from his’ opening sen- tence Hutchison obscures rather than elucidates. And-long before the end of the book he demon- strates his utter inabiljty to com- prehend the forces that have shap- ed and are shaping Canada.

His statement, for instance, that King was “a far more formidable Rebel than his grandfather, coh liam Lyon Mackenzie, is sufficient in itself to deny him any serious attention as an_ historian.

In reading this book, it is not difficult to grasp that, having won full sovereignty for Canada, the ruling class has willingly sur- rendered that sovereignty to the U.S., the more effectively to serve its class interests.

Hutchison makes the points without grasping their meaning. Thus, on page 6, Hutchison cred- its King with believing that he had saved Canada “from such an enfilading pressure of Manifest Destiny across its Atlantic gate- way as might well have doomed its future existence” by entry of Newfoundland into Confedera- tion. And on page 269 he points with pride to King’s stand against establishment of British air train-

ing centres on Canadian soil, first in 1938 and again during the war. Yet Hutchison knows, as most Canadians now know, that King and his successor St. Laurent op- ened Canadian territory to U.S. military and air bases! He knows too, of the grip the U.S. has on Newfoundland through its bases there, which King was instrumen- tal in obtaining for the U.S. Always an appeaser, King allow- ed the resources of Canada to be used to strengthen Japan, Italy and Germany and opposed collective security. When the aftermath of the Second World War brought a greatly strengthened socialist sector into the world, with no in- terest in fomenting, supporting or encouraging aggressive war, King

.and his disciples obligingly fell

into line with the aggressive Am- erican war party. Why did they do so?

Sometimes, one question’ is answered by posing another ques- tion. Why is it that in the short span of 85 years, from Confeder- ation ‘to this day, our basic ‘for- eign policy has changed from re- sisting American expansion to sur- rendering to it?

The draft program of the Labor- Progressive party places it this way: .

“Canadian monopoly capitalists are bound body and soul to U.S. monopoly capital. Fearful of Canadian democracy, they betray our country’s true interests and become the creatures of the U.S. in the hope they can hang on to their power and privileges. Such differences as they allow them- selves with the U.S. are those of servile satellites, seeking to main- tain their own personal profits and class privileges.”

e

The Liberal party of today no

longer has faith in the funda- mental principal of King’s Hu- mainty and Industry, the concilia- tion of classes by concessions and reforms. Instead, it seeks to sub- vert democracy by subordinating Canada to U.S. “imperialism and its war aims. Instead of an in- dependent foreign policy for Can- ada, won from Britain, a U.S. foreign policy. Instead of trade with any country where such trade. will serve Canada, a trade policy

subordinated to American inter

ests. e

Behind all this is the mad dream: that U.S. imperialism will succeed”

where Hitler Germany failed, im conquering the world, and_ that Canada as a satellite will share in the spoils. Such a dream was held by the quislings of Europe, who sold their countries into bondage.

The alternative gives them nightmares: an independent for- eign policy for Canada, a stop to U.S. penetration, trade with all countries and an ,end to the

cold war against the socialist USSR, People’s China and the People’s. Democracies. This, of

course, would stimulate democracy in Canada. It would bring to the fore the question of whether or not. the people of Canada are pre- pared to accept the status quo politically or prefer to advance to a higher social order through their democratic will.

But such advance cannot be made_ withoute attacking the monopoly capitalists, who have been served so well by the Liberal party for so many years. Hence, fearful of such a prospect, and seeing no other alternative ac- ceptable to it at the moment, the Liberal party, supported on most basie questions by the other parties in parliament, has thrown in its lot with U.S. imperialism.

‘This is the heritage of, the “in- credible Canadian,” the man who campaigned against British titles for Canadians, but was childishly proud of his connections with the royal family and the decorations they bestowed upon him.

The Incredible Canadian (Long- mans, Green, $5) in one sense is aptly titled. “But it should be ap- plied to the author rather than the subject of this biography.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — DECEMBER 5, 1952 — PAGE 9

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