This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on May 20, 1939.
The dreamy air of summer, with the drowsy hum of bees. That sounds like the beginning of a poem.
Indeed, on a morning like this, with hummingbirds sitting on the air without visible means of support, martins skimming in long circles on their way to and from their nests, skylarks singing above the tulip beds, it would be easy to grow lyrical. But my mind is set in another world.
The contrast between nature’s abundance and man’s parsimony grows more intolerable every day. God has made generous provisions for every creature, but they are not getting it. The world is divided three ways. At the two extremes are the over-stuffed and the underfed.
I am not concerned with those who have too much. I do not begrudge it to them. I hope they find pleasure in their abundance, and are able to share it joyfully with others, as many of them do. But the underfed — the outcasts, the people who are denied work, especially the young and eager, should be so constantly in our thoughts that, in self-defence, we would find a solution for unemployment.
For there is one. Unemployment is not a calamity — an act of God about which we can do nothing. It is not an earthquake, flood or famine. I see the remedy all about me.
Canada is a great, beautiful, but unfinished country. There are roads to be built, parks to be laid out, forests to be replanted, tourists to be attracted, and then fed and cared for.
We have a situation of unparalleled advantage. We have beside us a great people who love to travel. Americans are not great linguists so they prefer to travel in a country where their own language is spoken.
When summer comes down with its blistering heat, their thoughts turn northward. We have the cool shade, the piney odours, the deep blue lakes they love, and the cool and quiet nights.
They do come to us even as we are, and when we think of the perfect highways they leave when they cross the border, and the narrow, rutty roads they find in Canada, we know they have grounds for complaint.
Tourists bring real money, and they bring more than money, they bring prospective settlers, businessmen, industries. Every satisfied tourist becomes an advance agent for more tourists.
We all know this, and have billboards spread over the United States from the Mexican border, urging the travellers to “Follow the birds to Canada,” and see the Canadian Rockies, but we do very little in comparison with what we might do to get them to come again.
The United States has made highways so beautiful with trees and flowers that travellers want to return, and all this was done as a relief from unemployment. The men were paid wages, too, not merely a sustenance allowance. We could do the same, and so have something to show for the huge amounts we have spent and are spending to relieve unemployment.
In 1937, the state of Wyoming, which has just half the population of British Columbia, received $14 million from tourists. Wyoming is not a state of outstanding or varied beauty. But there is excellent tourist accommodation.
Putting men on a dole works a great injury to them. It makes them into inflammable material, ready to be kindled by the arguments of the agitator. The man who has a job that pays him a living wage and gives him hope for the future does not listen to subversive doctrine.
There is only one remedy for Communism, and that is it. Work and wages. Not padlocks, prisons, deportation. These are lazy, selfish, shortsighted answers, which feed the thing they are intended to destroy.
Canada has another field in which many people could be put to work, and this is the preservation of our forests. We are allowing this valuable asset to be destroyed by fire, and by a ruinous type of lumbering, which destroys the young timber. Already, we have great denuded sections, stripped of trees, pathetic examples of our carelessness.
“High-lead” logging should never have been allowed. Everyone denounces it, but it goes on. It is like the exporting of war materials to Japan. No one can defend it — but it goes on.
It is not enough to say we have plenty of timber lands — more than we will every use in our time. That may be so, but we hold these possessions in trust for the future.
The destruction of our forests has disastrous effects beyond the loss of timber. The denuded hillsides cannot hold the moisture that feeds the rivers, and streams go dry in the summer. I have travelled through the blackened country and seen the dead fish lying in the dry river channels, mute evidence of man’s carelessness.
A burnt forest offers no sanctuary for beast or bird, and offends the eyes of the traveller. Flood hazard caused by the rapid runoff in the spring, or following a heavy rain, is another aspect of the destruction of the timberlands.
Prosperity is not just around the corner. It will not suddenly burst in on us, nor fall upon us like manna from heaven. But if we can look far enough ahead, and it should not strain anyone’s eyes to do this, we can see what could happen if we had a definite program of roadbuilding, reforestation, tree-planting on the highways, preservation of wildlife, water conservation, such as has been going on in the dried-out parts of Western Canada, establishment of more youth camps where education and work and recreation are combined, a co-operative housing plan such as may be seen in Nova Scotia under the direction of Father Tompkins — the list is almost endless.
We can inspire confidence by putting our people joyfully to work. Make Canada a land of beauty and prosperity. We need a new spirit, where people, municipalities and governments will take responsibility, instead of spending their energy and cleverness in dodging it.
These things I have mentioned are not vapourous dreams. They are real and practical, and have been demonstrated here and elsewhere.
If our people were happily employed and loosed from the fear of want, they would soon feel better physically, as well as mentally. Canada spends $300 million a year on ill health, which is a staggering sum, and might be materially reduced by better living conditions, better food, more fresh air and constructive thinking.
