This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on March 4, 1939.
When I attended the League of Nations Assembly last September, I felt that it was a high privilege to see mankind’s great experiment for peace — even if it had temporarily failed.
The beautiful building, gleaming white on the grassy lawns that run down to the blue waters of Lake Geneva, looks like a palace of peace. Inside may be seen South African veined wood, Australian walnut, Finnish granite, Italian and Swedish marble, African pear-wood; the government of Iran gave Persian carpets; India sent green-wood furniture for the president’s room; Latvia gave woodwork of satin smoothness; Luxembourg gave the bronze gates of the main entrance to the assembly building; Czechoslovakia arranged, decorated and furnished the room for the permanent delegates at Geneva.
The Hungarian government gave tapestries, so did Belgium and Spain, and France sent pictures. The United Kingdom gave the bas-reliefs of the council ante-room. Switzerland donated wall paintings and frescoes. The building cost $29.5 million Swiss francs, which is about $7 million, not including the cost of the library, which was presented by John D. Rockefeller at a cost of $2 million.
There it stands, beautiful and tragic. The 600 members of the secretariat are chosen from many countries. They are able and expert and are doing good work for the world, quietly but efficiently.
The papers recently announced that the Nutrition Committee in Canada, set up last year by the League of Nations, has sent in its report. This is new in our history — to have a definite inspection of our eating habits. (I do not mean table manners.) The Nutrition Committee have had inspectors in representative cities and country places, making inquiries and tabulating returns.
They have found that we do not use enough milk, butter and eggs. They find that 60 per cent of the people on relief in cities do not use milk at all. Their report is available for us, and no doubt it will affect the farm products of Canada.
I hope the Nutrition Committee will recommend lowered tariffs on fruit during the season when green vegetables are hard to get, and lower freight rates between east and west, so that B.C. fruit may be exchanged easily for prairie grain, to the advantage of both. The Nutrition Committee is an attempt to bring expert advice to the problem of food across our country.
When I said the league is tragic, I refer to its inability to keep peace. In spite of its covenant, its signatories (of which Canada is one), its experts, its advisers, its surveys, its library of 240,000 volumes. The league is like a beautiful house with every known mechanical device, crystal chandeliers, lights in every hallway, in every closet, over every door and on the lawns — every electrical device, vacuum cleaners, fireplaces, air-conditioning — everything, but electricity to set them in motion. One thing lacking, only one.
In the case of the league it is power. The power of honesty, courage, fair dealing and the driving impulse to observe the Golden Rule. It is too easy to say the failure of the United States to take responsibility killed the league, or that the greed of Germany and Italy and Japan killed the league.
It goes deeper than that. No one nation did it. We all did it.
I had this in my mind when I came back to Canada. I had seen people in the grip of fear, kindly people who love their homes, their children, decency, music, poetry, all the amenities of life. I saw them twisted and torn with fear.
When I came back to Canada on Oct. 7, it was a bright autumn day, and the sun shone bright on the blue St. Lawrence River. The maple leaves had turned to crimson — cattle grazed on the green after-grass — smoke rose from peaceful homes of contentment and security. It was good to be back. But I could not forget what I had seen. I had looked into the cauldron of war — I had seen fear, cold fear, laying its heavy hand on innocent and helpless people.
Now, what have we to do with this? Canada is remote from Europe. We have the protection of two strong nations. We have a proud record from the last war. We gave up 60,000 of our best men to fight the war to end wars. Can’t we let it go at that, and dig in and be comfortable?
One of the delegates from a South American republic said something like this to me. He said: “Europe is doomed. They have no principles now. They have only hatreds. Why should we go down with them?”
There’s the isolationist attitude, and it has no appeal to me. I think of Conrad’s Lord Jim, where the hero saved his own life when the ship sank, but had no pleasure in it, haunted by a ghost of memory and remorse. When a situation of danger arose again, though he could have saved himself without blame, he did not take the safe way.
“This time,” he said, “I will go down with the ship.”
Canada is made up of people whose ancestors came from Europe. Adventurous souls, seeking liberty of conscience, freedom of action, homes of their own. They were ready to accept hardship, cold and hunger for the right to be free. They paid a heavy price for liberty, but liberty is worth what it costs.
That day, when my heart was warm with the joy of return, I had a new vision of my country. Canada is a land of destiny. It can give a lead to the liberty-loving people of the world, if the flame of adventure is still burning brightly enough to shed a light in dark places, and if we are willing to pay the price.
Canada cannot choose any easy way, nor any selfish policy of isolation. She must be willing to go down with the ship. If the ship goes down. The countries of the world are bound together for good or evil. The festering wounds of Spain and China throb in our hearts.
Dr. Wellington Coo, at the League of Nations, told us this. He said you may not think it matters that there is war in China, war in Spain, war in Palestine. But it does, for war is like blood poisoning.
Now, then, what can we do about it? What can we do here to help in the healing of the nations?
We naturally think of our territory. We have room. Room is wealth. We cannot feel virtuous about holding our country for ourselves just from motives of selfishness. So we dress up our case with reasons.
We say we cannot “take in Jewish refugees, because they always flock into cities, and the only place we have room for people is on the farms.” As a matter of fact, there are many evidences that Jewish people do go on farms and make a success of agriculture.
Jews from Austria and Germany, with their knowledge of chemicals, glove-making, colour-printing, scientific instruments, etc., could introduce and develop in Canada the manufacture of articles that we now import. The Jewish refugees in London have made that city the centre of the fur business, instead of Leipzig.
We have ceramic clay in Canada for pottery and glass, and there are skilled people anxious to come to us, with all their secrets. Think what that would mean.
Refugees have enriched many countries. They would enrich us.
Whether they enrich us or not materially, one thing is certain: If we refuse them, we will be impoverished in our hearts.
