CANADA'S POLITICAL CHALLENGE

...Socialist parties with large popular followings are no novelties on the continent of Europe...

...But lack of unity and of a coherent program led to a disintegration of this phase of postwar revolt against the old parties...

...At the same time there will be ample scope for provincial and municipal enterprise and for the development of cooperatives of every type...

...His uncompromising devotion to principle remained with him until the end...

...The Canadian Pacific Railway, with its subsidiary shipping and other interests, will be taken over...

...E. B. Jolliffe, lawyer and former Rhodes scholar who is the leader of the opposition in the Ontario legislature since the party made a spectacular leap from no seats to 34 seats (in a legislature of 90 members) in the provincial election of 1943, offered me this interpretation: "A breakdown of the votes shows that we polled especially heavily among three classes of people: soldiers, war workers, and the miners and lumberjacks in the northern part of Ontario...

...If put into practice, it would involve a very drastic change in the organization and motivations of the Canadian economy...

...Left without means and with a family of six children to support he worked for a year as a longshoreman on the West coast and became closely acquainted with labor and its problems from personal experience...

...The CCF possesses an overwhelm- ing majority in the provincial legislature of one of these provinces, Saskatchewan, is a very strong runner-up in two others, Ontario and British Columbia, and is fighting for political bridgeheads in Alberta and Manitoba, Quebec, and Nova Scotia...

...It lacked the means to promote nationwide organization...

...But on the North American continent north of the Rio Grande the CCF represents the first serious challenge, on a national scale, to the proposition that "free enterprise" is the most desirable principle in economic life...

...Although the CCF supported Canada's entrance into this war, Woodsworth stood up in the House of Commons to make an anti-war declaration...

...Here is a party with a mass following that is avowedly socialist fn philosophy, that is outspokenly committed to a wide extension of public ownership and-public control in the economic field...

...Such authoritative spokesmen for the CCF as Scott and Lewis declare that the CCF will socialize public utilities (a start in this direction has been made with the institution in Ontario, and more recently in Quebec, of publicly owned "Hydros," or power distributing organizations...

...Another element in the new party was the League for Social Reconstruction, composed of groups of professors and intellectuals at two of the larger Canadian universities, McGill, in Montreal, and the University of Toronto...

...It was organized at a conference of labor and farmer groups that favored radical political action in the Summer of 1932...

...The patient spadework of organization and agitation during years when the party seemed to be a negligible force has begun to produce rich fruit...

...It started out with the handicaps that have always beset radical parties and movements in the United States...

...This situation might be reversed if a CCF regime came into power with nationalization plans that might affect the four billion dollars of American capital invested in Canadian industries and natural resources...

...In the past the United States, as the more populous and wealthy country, has influenced Canada more than Canada has influenced the United States...

...More than one Canadian who is not a member of the CCF remarked to me that it is the only party that offers reasoned arguments for its program...

...The Labor Parties in Australia and New Zealand are still stronger than in England...

...A National Planning Commission, "consisting of a small group of economists, engineers, and statisticians, assisted by an appropriate technical staff," will be set up...

...The CCF has gone far beyond the measures of success hitherto achieved by "third parties" either in Can-' ada or in the United States...

...Not being attached to any foreign doctrinaire "ism" or dependent on any foreign power, it has remained so far intellectually consistent...

...The First World War, with its inflation and its aftermath of labor disputes and farmer discontent, broke what had been almost a bi-partisan monopoly of political power in the hands of the two traditional Canadian parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives...

...The Labor Party in England has long established itself as the principal political competitor of the Conservative Party...

...The press was almost entirely opposed to its ideas...

...It is also emphasized that there is no intention to set up a gigantic centralized bureaucracy to operate the socialized industries...

...It was probably wise, from the standpoint of influencing public opinion, that the words socialist and labor were omitted, since the word, socialism arouses prejudice and controversy and the aim of the CCF has been to attract the support of farmers and professional men and women, as well as of labor...

...He became so popular with the workers of Winnipeg that he was elected to Parliament from that city continuously from 1921 until his death in 1941...

...Our social failures in this war have emphasized again the limitations of capitalism, the undemocratic nature of monopoly control, and the inequality and injustice on which its power rests...

...While many Canadians vote Liberal or Conservative from habit or tradition, the typical CCF member is a zealous crusader for his ideas...

...The plan is to set up public boards, with members mainly selected for technical competence, and including representatives of workers and consumers, to manage the industries...

...Another secret of the popular appeal of the CCF is its ability to put its objectives in terms understandable to the average Canadian...

...The CCF did not immediately leap into national prominence...

...It is proposed to pay compensation to the bondholders and stockholders of the socialized enterprises...

...Its tactics and its immediate political prospects will be discussed in a second article which will appear in an early issue of The Progressive...

...There were overturns in some provincial administrar tions and a Progressive Party at one time held 65 seats in the House of 245 members at Ottawa...

...The CCF was a direct outgrowth of the depression...

...David Lewis, the National Secretary of the Party, expressed himself on this point as follows: "The CCF is convinced, first, that the farmer's desire to own his farm is a good and not a bad thing, and, second, that there is neither logical nor practical contradiction between private ownership of farms by working farmers and the socialization of other industry...

...The CCF program provides for various types of public ownership...

...He was a pastor who had resigned from his church because he could not agree with its position in support of the First World War...

...While only the more enthusiastic optimists in the CCF ranks anticipate a clear majority in the federal election that is likely to be held in Canada before the end of the year, non-partisan political observers concede it an excellent chance of winning one third of the seats in the Canadian House of Commons, which corresponds to our House of Representatives...

...All these groups had special reasons for feeling anxious about their prospects of employment after the war...

...The leader of the new party was James S. Woods-worth, a man whose personal idealism and devotion to his ideas won tributes even from those who strongly disagreed with him...

...As two of the prominent leaders of the party, Frank Scott and David Lewis, put it in a recent book: "Our economic achievements in this War have demonstrated that our country is capable of producing tremendous wealth and that national planning toward a united national objective is indispensable to the creation of that wealth...

...The nickel monopoly and the iron and steel industry will be socialized, as will all enterprises which . are monopolistic in character...

...Indeed the Canadian memory of this period seems to be livelier and more bitter than the American...

...CCF spokesmen have pounded home from one end of Canada to the other the argument that the high level of production and employment during the war offers concrete proof of what a democratically planned economy could achieve in terms of well-being in time of peace...

...There was a spate of new political organizations professing to serve labor and farmer interests and supporting programs that Varied-from doctrinaire socialism to mild reformism...

...The great depression of the late '20s and early '30s hit Canada as hard as it hit the United States...

...However, a tradition of independent political action remained, especially in the Western provinces...

...Should the CCF come into power the details and methods of this compensation might well be one of the thorniest problems it would face...

...Meaning Of The Name A CCF government is certainly within the realm of possibility within the next few years...

...Certainly the history, organization, methods, and program of the CCF should be carefully studied by progressive groups in this country...

...So much for the basic political aims of the CCF...

...the CCF promises scrupulous respect for democratic and civil liberties...

...It has avoided the ludicrous extremes of the Communists, who have swung, in Canada as in the United States, from violent revolutionism to a very moderate program of cooperation with Prime Minister King...

...A leading item in this program is the nationalization of all banks in order to insure abundant credit resources with which to finance an ambitious construction program...

...The Canadian Senate is an appointive, not an elective body...

...The Progressive Party melted away and most of its members were reabsorbed in the Liberal ranks...

...Methods of political dictatorship are repudiated...

...Canada is divided into nine provinces, which, like our states, differ considerably in size and population...

...CCF's Broad Appeal There are several current explanations in Canada for the growth in CCF popularity...

...The Recent Upswing The name chosen for the new party, Cooperative Com-: monwealth Federation, implied that it was to be a federation of groups and classes working together to achieve the cooperative commonwealth, or fully democratic society...

...Its functions will be advisory, not executive...

...It has avoided the stigma of sectarianism and has been able to combine labor and farmer support with an appeal to many ministers, teachers, and others who feel concerned over the frustrations and inequalities that stand out so sharply in periods of economic depression...

...Only in two of the Maritime Provinces, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, can it be considered an altogether negligible political force at the present time...

...Family Farms To Stay The CCF program is no collection of vague generalities...

...Industries that are of national scope and importance will be nationally administered...

...As their votes showed, they believe that the CCF has more to offer than the old parties in the way of a constructive postwar program of full employment and full utilization of plant facilities and natural resources...

...As recently as the last Canadian federal election, in 1940, only a scattered handful of eight CCF members were elected to the House...

...The big upswing of popular sentiment in favor of the CCF has taken place during the last two or three years...

...Canada, like the United States, went through its period of postwar reactionary hysteria and Woodsworth was charged with seditious libel because of quotations from the prophet Isaiah...

...Small business, in the main, will be left untouched and the CCF emphasizes the point that there is no intention to do away with the private ownership of land, except perhaps where this goes far beyond the proportions of the normal family farm...

...Woodsworth edited the Strike Bulletin after the arrest of its first editor during the Winnipeg general strike of 1919...