Shades of Gray? “The Foundations of Canadian Policy in World Affairs” in Context

Endnotes

• This article is derived from a paper presented in January 2007 to a conference on “The Gray Lecture Sixty Years Later” at Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec, which was organized by Professor William Hogg. The author would like to thank Professor Hogg and the participants in the conference—most notably, his fellow panelist Dr. Adam Chapnick—for valuable comments on that occasion, as well as the editors and readers for The American Review of Canadian Studies, for their prompt and helpful consideration of this text.
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• Louis St. Laurent, The Foundations of Canadian Policy in World Affairs: Duncan & John Gray Memorial Lecture (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1947). Quotations from the speech are taken from this edition. As Adam Chapnick has noted, the more readily available texts, which were originally distributed by the Department of External Affairs (DEA) in its series “Statements and Speeches” and then reprinted (as in Robert A. MacKay, Canadian Foreign Policy 1945—1954: Selected Speeches and Documents [Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1970], pp. 388–399], omit remarks by others and the first part of the introduction by St. Laurent. Contrary to Chapnick's interpretation, however, I do not believe that this has led to a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of the lecture. From the initial invitation through to the final drafting, the speech was always intended to be about Canadian foreign policy, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between national unity and that subject. Canadian citizenship, as such, was never considered by Riddell, by his colleagues in DEA, or by St. Laurent's hosts at the University of Toronto as a theme of the lecture.
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• There are extensive press clippings on the principal government file devoted to the speech. Library and Archives Canada (LAC), Records of the Department of External Affairs (RG25), vol. 3895, file 9285–40. See also the discussion in Adam Chapnick, “The Gray Lecture and Canadian Citizenship in History,” in this issue of American Review of Canadian Studies.
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• John A. Munro and Alex I. Inglis, eds., Mike: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson, vol. 2: 1948–1957 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), pp. 24–31. George Ignatieff begins the chapter of his memoirs entitled “Golden Age of Canadian Diplomacy” with the announcement of King's retirement. The Making of a Peacemonger (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), p. 107. Please note, however, the qualifying view about the extent of the transformation put forward by John Holmes (cited in note 43 below).
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• C. P. Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 2: 1921–1948, The Mackenzie King Era (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), pp. 376–377; Robert Bothwell, The Big Chill: Canada and the Cold War (Toronto: Irwin Publishing, 1998), pp. 20–23. The author of this article would include himself among those who use the Gray Lecture as a pedagogical tool for conveying an understanding of the early postwar years and Canada's sense of its place in the world at that time.
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• Kim Richard Nossal observes that the Gray Lecture “has come to be regarded as the classic statement of postwar Canadian internationalism”: The Politics of Canadian Foreign Policy (Scarborough: Prentice-Hall Canada, 1985), p. 55. Tom Keating, Canada and World Order: The Multilateralist Tradition in Canadian Foreign Policy (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1993), p. 36. John Kirton, Canadian Foreign Policy in a Changing World (Toronto: Thomson Nelson, 2007), p. 111.
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• John Hilliker and Donald Barry, “Choice and Strategy in Canadian Foreign Policy: Lessons from the Postwar Years, 1946–1968,” Canadian Foreign Policy 3, no. 2 (Fall 1995): 71–81. In his account of the postwar years and King's last government, Bruce Hutchison set the tone for many subsequent interpretations with his characterization of the “tired little man” near the end of his days, who is eclipsed by St. Laurent and Pearson. The only questions of foreign affairs discussed in his book are those that involved clashes between King and his successors. The Incredible Canadian: A Candid Portrait of Mackenzie King: His Works, His Times and His Nation (Toronto: Longmans, Green and Company, 1952), pp. 417–450 (quotation p. 438).
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• The analysis by Adam Chapnick places the Gray Lecture in a different context, with considerably greater emphasis on its relationship to questions of citizenship and Canadian politics.
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• “As long as he remained in office, King paid close attention to initiatives originating in External Affairs”: John Hilliker and Donald Barry, “The PM and the SSEA in Canada's Foreign Policy: Sharing the Territory, 1946–1968,” International Journal 50 (Winter 1994–95): 163–188.
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• Dale C. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), pp. 202–204.
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• J. W. Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent: A Political Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), pp. 17–40.
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• Frank H. Underhill to Lester B. Pearson, 21 October 1946. RG25, vol. 3895, file 9285–40. Pearson replied that he would ask St. Laurent, but “I doubt very much whether I will be successful.” Lester B. Pearson to Frank H. Underhill, 23 October 1946. Ibid.
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• Lester B. Pearson to Escott Reid, 31 October 1946. Ibid. Reid was asked to pass on the advice, which was based on a recent discussion with George Brown of the Department of History at the University of Toronto, to St. Laurent, who was in New York for meetings of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
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• Canadian Consulate General, New York, to Secretary of State for External Affairs, no. 141, 8 November 1946 (Reid to Pearson). Ibid.
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• Riddell is mentioned briefly in the major study of the decryption work of the Examination Unit. John Bryden, Best Kept Secret: Canadian Secret Intelligence in the Second World War (Toronto: Lester, 1993), p. 219. On wartime recruitment to DEA, see John Hilliker, Canada's Department of External Affairs, vol. 1: The Early Years, 1909–1946 (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990), pp. 257–261. As with Riddell, many of these recruits were designated as a “special wartime assistant to the Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs.”
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• John English, Shadow of Heaven: The Life of Lester Pearson, vol. 1: 1897–1948 (Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1989), p. 321. John Holmes wrote privately to Riddell that “your speeches I view with respect—I might even call it awe.” John Holmes to Gerry Riddell, 7 May [1948], University of Toronto Archives (UTA), Papers of R. G. Riddell, B86–0002/001, Correspondence file “Dept of External Affairs 1942–49.”
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• L. B. Pearson, “Robert Gerald Riddell, 1908–1951,” External Affairs, March 1951, 107.
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• Lester B. Pearson to Kay Riddell, 27 October 1951, University of Toronto Archives (UTA), Papers of R. G. Riddell, B2006–00121004(12), “Gray Lecture” file.
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• R. G. Riddell, Note to L. B. Pearson, n.d.; George Brown to R. G. Riddell, 11 November 1946; R. G. Riddell, “Arrangements for Mr. St. Laurent's Lecture” [Memorandum to Pearson], 20 November 1946; Chester Martin to L. B. Pearson, 26 November 1946. RG25, vol. 3895, file 9285–40.
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• R. G. Riddell, Note for Mr. Pearson, 13 November 1946. Ibid. According to a note by Pearson on this document, St. Laurent “will do this along the lines suggested.”
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• “In many respects, St. Laurent's attitude towards foreign affairs was merely an extension of his views on domestic matters, and certainly it was based on his assessment of Canadian politics”: Thomson, Louis St. Laurent, pp. 202–203. Pearson passed the request for additional treatment of national unity on to Riddell. Riddell, Memorandum to Mr. Pearson, 31 December 1946. Riddell Papers, B2006–00121004(12), “Gray Lecture” file.
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• George W. Brown to R. G. Riddell, 2 December 1946; R. G. Riddell to George W. Brown, 6 December 1946, RG25, vol. 3895, file 9285–40.
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• The figure for student enrollment comes from Frank Underhill to Lester B. Pearson, 21 October 1946, RG25, vol. 3895, file 9285–40.
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• George W. Brown to R. G. Riddell, 2 December 1946. RG25, vol. 3895, file 9285–40.
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• C. P. Stacey, “Laurier, King, and External Affairs,” in J. S. Moir, ed., Character and Circumstance: Essays in Honour of Donald Grant Creighton (Toronto: Macmillan, 1970), pp. 85–98; H. B. Neatby, “Mackenzie King and National Unity,” in H. L. Dyck and H. S. Krosby, Empire and Nations: Essay in Honour of Frederic H. Soward (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), pp. 54–70. In his memoirs (Mike, 2), Pearson sketches the postwar situation in contrast to prewar circumstances (p. 29): “After 1945 this unity was not threatened but strengthened by our external activity. International commitments were also made easier to accept because there was a very general and valid fear of an aggressive Soviet Communist imperialism which threatened our basic values and which, it was thought, could be best countered and combatted by collective international action. We were now prepared to play our part in this action and were supported by public opinion in doing so.” For a different view of popular opinion in Canada immediately after the war, see Robert A. Spencer, Canada in World Affairs: From UN to NATO 1946–1949 (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 405.
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• Contrary to the impression fostered by some accounts of the speech, there were no direct references to Russia or the USSR, nor any to the onset of the Cold War or global division. The consideration of totalitarianism and of fundamental clashes of values in world affairs dealt instead with the recent war against Nazi Germany and the threat that had been posed by fascism. That does not mean that St. Laurent and his advisers were not conscious of the Soviet challenge, but it does suggest that the mood was not yet so simply confrontational as later would be the case.
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• Escott Reid, “Mr. Mackenzie King's Foreign Policy, 1935—1936,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 3 (February 1937), 86ff. See J. L. Granatstein, “Becoming Difficult: Escott Reid's Early Years,” in Greg Donaghy and Stéphane Roussel, eds., Escott Rid Diplomat and Scholar (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004), pp. 11–22.
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• Spencer, From UN to NATO, pp. 364–365.
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• The absence of any reference to Latin America or to the Pan American Union was interpreted by one later commentator as evidence of disinterest in that region and that notion. Spencer, From UN to NATO, pp, 329–330.
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• So unconvinced was St. Laurent of the effectiveness of the UN that later in the year he expressed considerable doubts about whether or not Canada should stand for election to the UN Security Council. John W. Holmes, The Shaping of Peace: Canada and the Search for World Order, 1943–1957, vol. 2 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), pp. 57–59.
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• Hector Mackenzie, “The ABCs of Canada's International Economic Relations, 1945–1951,” in Greg Donaghy, ed., Canada and the Early Cold War 1943–1957 (Ottawa: Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1998), pp. 215–250. The loan was still cited critically as evidence of mistaken loyalties and excessive overseas expenditures by Maurice Duplessis, premier of Quebec, in the 1948 provincial election. As for the wheat contract, its unpopularity with Canadian farmers, the group it was meant to please, increased as the gap between the prices paid by the British and those quoted on world markets widened.
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• Perhaps mindful of its limited appeal—especially after the passage of time—Pearson omitted the fifth application from the summary of the Gray Lecture in his memoirs: Mike, 2, 26–28.
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• Chapnick, “The Gray Lecture and Canadian Citizenship in History.”
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• L. A. D. Stephens, “Note for Under-Secretary: Press Reaction to Mr. St. Laurent's Toronto Speech,” 16 January 1947. RG25, vol. 3895, file 9285–40.
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• George Brown to Lester Pearson, 18 January 1947. Ibid.
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• F. H. Underhill to L. S. St. Laurent, 16 January 1947. Ibid.
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• That trend, which is evident in the citations by Adam Chapnick in his paper, has continued with several of the participants in “The Gray Lecture 60 Years Later.”
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• Note that, for example, John Manley cited the Gray Lecture in his first remarks to staff of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
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• L. B. P[earson]., Marginal note [on Riddell's Memorandum to Pearson of 31 December 1946], n.d. Riddell Papers, B2006–00121004(12), File: “1946 ‘Gray Lecture’ delivered by Louis St. Laurent,” in covering letter by L. B. Pearson, 1951.
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• Munro and Inglis, eds., Mike, vol. 2, pp. 24–31 (the criticisms are on pages 25 and 26).
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• Perhaps the best examples of comparable speeches by Pearson in the next few years are two texts which are reprinted in Lester B. Pearson, Words and Occasions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), pp. 67–76, 101–108, respectively: “Some Principles of Canadian Foreign Policy” (Vancouver, January 1948) and “Canadian Foreign Policy in a Two-Power World” (Toronto, 10 April 1951).
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• Remarks by John Kirton at the conference “The Gray Lecture 60 Years Later” (Bishop's University, January 2007) indicate how deeply entrenched the negative image of King has become since it was first put forward in Hutchison's The Incredible Canadian. As an example of how others have depicted the transition, note the following passage: “St. Laurent and Pearson were both very different from Mackenzie King. The old leader remained fundamentally suspicious of the world, ever fearful of the ways in which foreign entanglements could divide Canadians. For St. Laurent and Pearson, World War II had demonstrated that Canada could play an international role, and they wanted it to do so.” Norman Hillmer and J. L. Granatstein, Empire to Umpire: Canada and the World to the 1990s (Toronto: Copp Clark Longman Ltd., 1994), p. 193. Although there was a difference of only nine years between their ages, King and St. Laurent are often portrayed as coming from different generations. More accurately, St. Laurent's shorter involvement in government meant that he brought a fresher outlook to many national and international questions, untroubled by previous episodes.
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• John W. Holmes, The Shaping of Peace: Canada and the Search & World Order 1943–1957, vol. 1 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), p. 4. Another detailed analysis of this period comes to a similar conclusion. Donald Barry, “Continuity and Change in Canadian Foreign Policy: From the Pre-War to the Post-War Experience” (Ph.D. thesis, Johns Hopkins University, 1977), pp. 200–205.
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• [Camille L'Heureux], “La politique étrangère du Canada,” Le Droit, 15 January 1947. “Mr. St. Laurent's ideas are not new, but the manner of presenting them was certainly not common. Rarely, in a speech so brief, has a Canadian statesman presented the broad outline of our foreign policy with such frankness. This is a quality possessed by the new minister of external affairs.”
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• Ibid, p. 195.
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• King Diary: 8 January 1947. Library and Archives Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King Papers, Diary (MG26 J13).
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