By STANLEY
RYERSON

Frou Monklands, the Govern-
Ors residence in the western
at Fla of Montreal, the Earl
aes gin and Kincardine penned
th of his regular dispatches to
® Colonial Office. Dated May 4,
“pg” it closed with the words:

*S. It is the Irish not the French
™m whom we have the most to
fad at present.”

ars hoble Earl, it seems, “fear-
of mon between the followers
€Pineau and the Irish canal
Orkers.» :
1848 was the year in which
ate Street finally yielded to
ae Canadian demand for “re-
Mee government.” Elgin
Bes the governor who -presided
a ‘eas inauguration. The Irish
al Workers — what of them?
=i were co-founders of Canada,
tins ~ Dart in its official history
i: itherto been kept buried in
sil €reet — and dishonest —
nce,

aoe watery pap fed to us (and
off ur children still) was to the
ment that responsible govern-
ind) and Confederation were the
Peri Y gifts of broadminded im-
zt authorities. There was no
« S4Sh revolution, 1837 was an
wont” lapse, and the
Bites class (while graciously
roa Se baa to build ‘cities,’ rail-
kept ; canals and much else) was
. In its proper place—well off
sae Stage of “ordered constitu-
al development.”

Ae fact of the matter is that
State founding of the Canadian
only ‘ia 1867 was made possible
Popu} y three decades of great

arid struggles: the defeated

Ss of 1837-38 in Upper and
the . Canada and, in the forties,
of ‘Uuccessful people’s coalition
oa €nch and English-speaking.

ig mers headed by Louis H.
Pack ine and Robert Baldwin,
rhe by mass strike struggles
in, nee forerunners of the modern

Strial working class.
first © coming to office of the
Win’ Short-lived Lafontaine-Bald-
i Ministry in 1842-3—a prelude
sibilit Winning of cabinet respon-
ehinnt five years later—was ac-
fough Shed by a series of bitterly
Works Strikes, waged by the
' ay on the Lachine and Beau-
f Canals against a wage cut
day" three to two shillings a

dr

When the poverty-stricken im-
ane Irish workers struck, the
diang brought in French-Cana-
break from the nearby farms, to
tactj, the strike. Instead of the
ly the resulting in success, short-
Wom cafter the French Canadian
€rs struck as well.
thes € Reform movement in Mon-
sin... or Sanized mass meetings to
the ort the strike. The unity of
‘4 Middle class Reformers and
+p, ©2nal workers, together with
* alliance of the Reform forces
4 Whole in French and English
de*%a, forced the granting of the
able for a government answer-
to the elected representa-
Of the people.
the 1 On the St. Lawrence and
time Wer Lakes, so in the Mari-
Coagy PToVinces and on the Pacific
force, 8 coalition of democratic
broke the resistance of
autocracy and “Family
- privilege. Howe ae
h smos, together with the
“Toes of '37 and the Reform

tives

~ S
“Olonial
D Mp act »”

\

of expanding

Labor, the nation, and...

The Canadian

_ dream

\
leaders of the forties in central
Canada, are to be accounted
among the founders of the Cana-
dian state. ~

The British North American
colonies might have been united,
administratively, by the British
imperial authorities earlier or
later than in 1867. But, for Con-
federation to mark, as it did, a
milestone on the road to inde-
pendence, the birth of modern
Canada—there had to be the cour-
age and_ self-sacrifice of the
martyrs of 37, the persevering
campaigns and mass petitions, the
parliamentary people’s coalition
of 1848.

It was militant people’s strug-
gle than won the democratic lib-
erties which were to be implicit
in the Act of 1867. It was the
people’s vision of “a new nation-
ality”—an independent Canada—
which breathed life into the dry
legislative formulas of the Brit-
ish North America Act.

*

Against this background of
struggle, the part played by the

““Wathers of Confederation” is not

lessened: it is simply better un-
derstood. ‘
Compared with the people’s
tribunes of 20 years before, the
men who met at Charlottetown
and Quebec in 1865 were of a
somewhat different calibre. Yet
the measure of their stature is
that, although capitalists and
capitalist politicians, they had
the imagination, energy and
audacity to found a Dominion
reaching from the Atlantic head-
lands to the shores of the Pacific.
Their vision of what Canada
could become, their acting upon
it and securing the adoption of
the British North America Act,
July 1, 1867, constituted an
achievement that was truly his-
toric. Without it, the Canada of
today would not have been.
“Whereas the provinces of
Canada, Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick, have expressed their
desire to be federally united in-
to one Dominion under the
Crown . . . with a constitution
similar in principle to that of
the United Kingdom. . . 2 :
So opens the BNA Act; its

provision for “the eventual ad-.

mission into the Union of other
parts of British North America”
being met in 1870 by Manitoba;
1871, British Columbia; 1873,
Prince Edward Island; 1905, Al-
berta and Saskatchewan; 1948,
Newfoundland and Labrador.

Certainly, the state that John
A. MacDonald and Galt, Cartier
and Brown and their colleagues
fashioned in 1865-67 was a capl-
talist state, to serve the interests
capitalism. But in
that day the capitalist class was
still national, able and ready to
promote national aims—not the
least of these being the devel-
opment of the productive forces
on a colossal scale.

The National Policy of promot-
ing Canadian manufactures was
first put forward by MacDonald
in Hamilton in 1872; it was sup-
ported, as in the interest of pro-
gress and the nation, by the in-

dustrial workers, then first org-
enizing a national movement in
the struggle for the nine-hour

day.
*

Whiie not prepared to raise
forthrightly the banner of inde-
pendence, the men who wrought
Confederation had a vision of
Canadian nationhood, and stood
up for its defense against the
threat of U.S. annexation. For
instance, Alexander Galt:

‘I believe the day for inde-
pendence will come. . . . We
must guard our right and not

be put in a position of inferior- ,

ity to the United States. f
wholly repudiate the idea that
this country is in any way sub-
ordinate or ought to be sub-
ordinate to the United States.”
Declaring that Confederation
“will raise us from the position
of mere dependent colonies to
a new and more important posi-
tion,” D’Arey MeGee stressed the
urgency and imminence of what

‘he called “the American warn- _

ing.”

Together with the U-S. raising
barriers to trade, went “the enor-
mous expansion of the American
army and navy.” Of the vast
increases in U.S. armaments, Mc-
Gee said:

“These are frightful figures for
the capacity of destruction they
represent . . . for the lust of
conquest that they represent...
for the arrest of the onward
progress of civilization that they
represent.”

Equally sérious was “the
change that has come over the
spirit, mind and principles of
the (U.S.) people, that terrible
change which has made war fam-
iliar and even attractive to them.”
And he spoke of “the mushroom
millionaires, well-named a shoddy
aristocracy.” :

If his description of the threat
of U.S. militarism has a ring of
actuality about it now, so has a
Bill introduced into the House of

‘Representatives in 1866.

It provided “that the States of
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
Canada East and Canada West,
and the Territories of Selkirk,
Saskatchewan and Columbia, with
limits and rights as by this Act
defined, are constituted and ad-
mitted as States and Territories
ot the USA.”

The Bill, among other things,
arranged for the U.S. taking over
in effect “the navigation of the
St. Lawrence River” — “by the
construction of new canals, or
the enlargement of existing can-
als . . . provided, that the ex-
penditure under this article shall
not exceed fifty millions of dol-
lars.” Generous souls!

The Bill, however, did not
reach consummation. The temper
of the Canadian people, and the
establishment of a united Cana-
dian state, acted as deterrents.
Reinforcing these was the soli-
darity of the labor and demo-

cratic forces in’ both countries. .

Tens of thousands of Canadians
had enrolled under Lincoln’s ban-
ners in the military struggle
against the slave power. And

when Galt had met with the presi-

dent in the midst of the Civil
War, he was able in a memoran-
dum to Ottawa to report Lin-
coln’s attitude in these words:
“He had implicit faith in the
steady conduct of the American
people, even under the trying
circumstances of the war, and
though the existence of large
armies had in other countries
placed successful generals in
Positions of arbitrary power, he
did not fear this result, but be-
lieved the people would quietly

resume their peaceful avoca-
_ tion .. . he pledged himself as

a man of honor, that neither he

nor his cabinet entertained the

slightest aggressive designs up-
on Canada.”

_Later, in new conditions, the
“American warning” would loom
over Canada again; but that was
to be in the time of the twilight
of imperialism—and the dawning
of a new epoch, when the bright
banners of emancipation would

Continued on page M7

SONG about a British Col-
‘umbia strike composed by
the deathless working class
song writer, Joe Hill, has been
discovered in a university lib-
rary: Heh sal PVN Sat ean Cd I baal Si
The song, entitled “Where
the Fraser River Flows,” put
to the music of “Where the
Shannon River Flows,” was
written for the Canadian
Northern Railway strikers in
1912. In that year, construc-
tion workers pushing the line
through to the Coast, struck
against intolerable conditions.

Chorus:

pay, boys;

flows.

flows.
[Repeat Chorus]

them,
[Repeat Chorus]

Joe Hill, the Swedish immi-
grant who became an organ-
izer for the IWW in the Unit-
ed States, was framed on a
murder charge by the copper
trust in Utah. The campaign
for his release spread through-
out the U.S. and Canada and
across the seas to Europe and
Australia.

The Swedish government in-
tervened with the U.S. govern-
ment on his behalf after re-
viewing the evidence. And
President Woodrow Wilson ap-
pealed to the governor of

Where the
Fraser River flows

~ edition of the IWW Song Bock”

Fellow workers pay attention to what I’m going to mention,
For it is the fixed intention of the Workers of ithe World.

And | hope you'll all be ready, true-hearted, brave and steady,
To gather ‘round our standard when the Red Flag is unfurled.

Where the Fraser River flows, each fellow worker knows
They have bullied and oppressed us, but still our Union grows,
And we’re going to find a way, boys, for shorter hours and

And we're going to win the day,

For these gunny-sack contractors have all been dirty actors,
And they’re not our benefactors, each fellow worker knows,
So we've got to stick together in fine or dirty weather,
And we'll show no white feather, where the Fraser River

Now the boss the law is stretching, bulls and pimps he’s fetching,
And they are a fine collection, as Jesus only knows.
But why their mothers reared them, and why the devil spared

Are questions we can’t answer, where the Fraser River flows.

*

Leadership of the strike was
provided by travelling organ-
izers of the Industrial Workers
of the World. ;

The song was found in an

popularly known as “The Little
Red Song Book.” This partic-
ular copy bears the name of
the Lumber Workers Industrial
Union, No. 500, Spokane, Wash-
ington. It is now in posses-
sion of the University of Wash-
ington. library.

Following are the words of
the song:

boys, where the Fraser River

Utah to save his life after the
U.S. Supreme Court confirmed®
the death sentence. The gov-
ernor refused.

On November 19, 1915, Hill
died in Salt Lake City before
a firing squad to which he him-
self gave the order, “Fire.”
But, in the words of the song
made famous by Paul Robeson,
Joe Hill never really died. His
last words, “Don’t mourn, or-
ganize,” ‘have rung around the
world and his songs are sung
wherever labor fights for its
rights.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE MAGAZINE SECTION — JUNE 25, 1954 — PAGE }