CONFEDERATE CANADA

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3939, 13 August 1937, Page 7

CONFEDERATE CANADA

A LACK OF UNITY. PROVINCIAL INTERESTS. Vancouver, July 2. Yesterday, Canada commemorated the 70th anniversary of Confederation, and the centenary of the rebellion led by William Lyon Mackenzie against the Government of Upper Canada., Mackenzie escaped to the United States, but the movement he initiated survived, and, as his grandson, Mr. Mackenzie King proudly pointed out, brought about a democratic form of Government. Little more than perfunctory interest was exhibited in Dominion Day this year. The diamond jubilee, in 1927, was an occasion for national rejoicing. Canada WaS then facing prosperity with swaggering confidence. Boom had succeeded war The Motherland had told her she was an equal partner. Wars had been outlawed by .peace pacts. She was admitted to the Council of nations. The economic millennium was at hand.

To-day facing a world that is turning backward, Canada finds herself somewhat out of joint. She has been sobered and aged and driven nearly to bankruptcy by depression and the unruly conduct of her provinces,. Other Dominions look askance at her neglect of her Empire obligations and her preference for American goods and good will. She ->as lost her cocksureness, and is in no mood for rejjoicing. But the self-confidence of her people remains. The record of achievement of the past seventy years inspires confidence. In 1867, a critic of Confederation predicted contemptuously that, even when the new Dominion stretched from sea to sea, it would have the appearance of two fishing poles tied together at their small ends. When it was proposed to build the Canadian Pacific Railway, critics at Ottawa and Montreal referred to the country to be served as “a sea of mountains.” To-day, 52 shipping lines serve the Pacific terminal of the railway. Looking forward, one sees problems difficult of solution. The Act of Confederation, which was a compromise, is outmoded and unfitted to modern conditions. Yet the provinces have been unable to agree on how to amend it. They have gradually been getting out of hand. They successfully resist any attempt by Canada to legislate for the national welfare, in such matters as unemployment, insurance, basic wage, and marketing. They resist also federal efforts to establish a Loan Council, which would save countless millions in co-ordinating borrowing, redemption, and conversion, The provinces, allied with the municipalities, most of which are bankrupt through their profligacy, demand subventions and loans from the Federal Authority, without according it the privilege of tracing such payments to their ultimate source. The demands of provincial rights, patronage, and petty politics create a fearsome din, causing the people to neglect or postpone the formation of a National Plan, in which all three will co-operate for the common good. In the atmosphere surrounding the 70th anniversary of Confederation, such an awakening of the public conscience cannot reasonably be anticipated in the immediate future.