| vill uuu it fs lia ee | a SCOTS, FRENCH PIONEERS INTRODUCED CALLER Square dance originated in Canada, remains Canadian Joy,” and so forth, all the tired- IF THERE IS one thing as typically Canadian as the lumber- jack it is the square dance — with a caller. In no country but America are callers used in folk dancing, for it is really the folk of Canada who have developed these dances. The free-and-easy rollicking ‘ fun is not surpassed in any other dance. When the strains of the fiddle and the beat of the drum strike up “The Devil’s Dream,” the “Chicken Reel,” “Soldier’s ness of the lumberjack and the farmer, and the weariness of the shopworker fall away, for those old jigs and reels make the feet eae to “swing your partners How did Canada come by this fun-loving and lively dance? For reels, jigs and quadrilles — a square dance is really a quad- rille — had been danced for years in both England and Scot- land, but not with the vim as GUIDE TO GOOD READING danced here. The answer is by the introduction of a caller. In the old countries they danc- ed more decorously, following the lead of the head couple. But when the Scottish settlers came to Nova Scotia and wanted to dance their quadrilles or reels, many of their girl friends were French. Canadians and did not know the steps. Some wise and witty Scot who had picked up a bit of French called the steps in French and Palme Dutt writes riaetarly work on crisis of British Empire R. PALME DUTT’s new book, The Crisis of Britain and the British Empire, cuts like a sword through all the cant and hum- bug of imperialist propaganda. It shows that the crisis of Britain is an integral part of the crisis of the British Empire. It is a scholarly work in the highest tradition of Marxist-Len- inist study and writing. Right at the start it punctures all the high-sounding talk which tries to hide the real character of British imperialism by calling the empire a “commonwealth.” It goes on to deal with Brit- ain’s crisis of empire, what the empire is today and how it devel- oped. There are chapters on the price of empire, the crisis of the colonial system, the crisis of Western civilisation and on the Gaited States: and the British Empire. There is a chapter on new tac- tics of imperialism, with special reference to the situation in In- dia, another on new dreams of empire, with special reference to Africa. In the chapter on “Myths of Colonial Development” there is a devastating exposure of the Col- ombo Plan. Dutt has covered a gigantic field, basing his book on enorm- ous study and research work. * * * YOU THINK you are pretty well up on the issues Dutt deals with until you come to new facts, arguments and quotations that give you a jolt. As more and more people come to realise what a desperate sit- uation Britain and the empire are in, and wonder if there is a constructive way out, this book will play a great part in showing that there is a solution. It will show them that Britain and the empire have a great future. It will help to wipe out all the shame and misdeeds of British imperialism. This is a book for every one seriously concerned with Cana- da’s future, as a member of the Commonwealth, with those ques- tions of trade and international relations are the real issues of the present federal election cam- paign. The Crisis of Britain and the British Empire is available in Vancouver at the People’s Co- operative Bookstore, 337 West Pender, price $4.38, Ipcuoine tax. English, “a la main left” and so on. “A la main left’ has, in English-speaking Canada, gradu- ally lost its French flavor, and we usually hear something like ‘allemand left” or “allem on the left,” but it» still just means “to the left hand.” Similarly our present-day “dosi do in the cor- ner” has come down to us from French “dos a dos,” or back to back. ’ * * * NOW IN SPITE of the fact that Henry Ford spent thousands of dollars trying to prove that the square dance was a United States invention, it is nevertheless Can- adian in origin. -It had to start amongst French Canadians and with Scottish settlers to have at- tained its present character. The original tunes were Scottish, Trish and English folk tunes, and these largely remain today. One can imagine those early settlers, many of whom had been evicted from their smallholdings in Scotland, now in a struggle with nature, and with none-too- helpful land. companies and gov- ernment officials, building them- selves a home in a new land, wanting to give vent to their emotions in a hilarious dance. The decorum of the old land was past; life was grim; life was exciting; the dance reflected their life. The accident of the girls not knowing the steps had produced the caller; and so the Canadian square dance was born. As time went on it spread throughout Canada and to the United States. On its way it gathered variations in steps, calls and tunes, according to the lo- cality, but all with-the basic char- _ acter of its Scottish-French Can- _ As this polka is identified with Hungary, so the square dance