NEW NORTH AMERICANISM

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20887, 19 August 1939, Page 15 (Supplement)

NEW NORTH AMERICANISM

Canada and United States : : Significant Conference

(William W. Stringer)

THAT 3,000-MILE BOUNDARY between the United States and Canada does have its fortifications. But, they are of understanding and trust. And one mechanism for building these ramparts stronger is the Conference on CanadianAmerican Affairs. Canadian-United States relations today are at their Friendliest in History. Economists, educators and public officials attending the Conference from both sides of the border agreed to that without debate. One may lay present good feeling to the long absence of serious annexation talk in the United States, to the tourist trade, to Munich and events since in Europe, or, most recently, to that profoundly moving visit of Britain’s and Canada’s King and Queen to the United States. But the solidarity can be attributed also to something newly sensed at the conference: Namely, that Canadians and those across their southern border are beginning to realise that they compose an important and influential segment of the world’s peoples—the North Americans. And that this segment may have great promis* for the future of democracy. Possibly because tney appreciated this, possibly because of the world’s tensions, the Conference-planners directed this year’s parley beyond purely domestic problems. Canadian-United States public opinion, they felt, was fixed chiefly on these matters: North America’s external economic and political interests, and the problem of defence and defence commitments. So the gathering looked the present war danger squarely in the face, examined its effects on trade and defence, and tried to formulate North America’s contribution toward combatting the chaos that threatens. There was little dissent on what would happen in Event of a European War. The Canadians had come down to the meeting feeling that they were in for it. Canada would fight. Its British ties, increasingly strong since Munich and London’s March turnabout, would compel that. Probably there would be conscription for home service under the Draft Act, with volunteers furnishing the expeditionary force abroad. French Canada would not object to that. As for the. United States, it, too, both Canadian and United States delegates felt, would be in the conflict if the fighting dragged on, or if the cause of the democracies grew at all desperate. But as to what Canada and the United

States should do to head off war, there th# Conference found the answer more difficult. Should there be joint action to revive collective security under the League ? But United States opinion is not quite ready for that. Should there be a drive to fit Europe with the garment of federalism worn so peacefully, if imperfectly, in North America ? That May Be Too Utopian for the present. Certainly, the delegates agreed, there can and must be education in these directions. And the parley heard World War generals taking the professor* to task for not educating youth in these matters of promoting world security. Still it was difficult to decide on steps to be taken here and now’, before Europe should boil over. Canadians felt Canada could do little alone, Canada w’ith its population of 10,000,000, Canada whose influence has already been placed in the scales. The United States, however, could sway the balance with its vast industrial strength and man-power. Definite Washington commitments, a professor remarked, would obviate the need to Britain of the Russian alliance. Yet American public opinion is distinctly not ready for that. Was there, then, any hope for the “internationalists”? Yea, delegates from both side of the border found great encouragement in this: They sensed a growing apprehension in the United States of the possibility that America's first line of defence may well be in Europe, even as President Roosevelt once indicated. And an appreciation that a totalitarian triumph in Europe might well mean a crushing armaments burden to be borne by the United States for years to come. And finally, a feeling that if dictatorship ruled all of Europe, it could not be kept out of North America, much less South America. This Growing Public Consciousness might keep the United States moving along its present road, away from the extremes of isolation, on a highway built out of warnings to the aggressors and present action to assure the upholders of order, of material aid in event of conflict. Here the Conference found a foremost aim and a hope—that North America, by whatever action it assisted in curbing aggression, would make certain that it was not contributing merely to another Grand Alliance or to another Versailles with its vain aftermath, but instead that North America should cast its influence toward creation of a new world order.