Canada: America's Problem

THE war is making Americans more conscious of Canada. It is about time. For years the ignorance about our great neighbor to the north has been abysmal. We think of the Canadians as British, of Canada as merely a Dominion of the British Commonwealth (only we say ‘Empire’), and of their problems vis-à-vis ourselves as nonexistent. Ignorance isn’t the monopoly of the adult, either. It is rampant in our schools, judging from a survey quoted in John MacCormac’s book. No wonder the Canadians—a nation on their own now, united to Britain only by a personal union through the King — are irritated by our lack of understanding. The fact is that Canada is the penultimate line in the scheme of American defense. Suppose that Canada does become the new centre of the British Commonwealth, as Erskine Childers forecast in his prophetic Riddle of the Sands. What will that mean for the United States? Under a common-sense view of our home defense, the United States must take up arms against any attack on Canada, as President Roosevelt made clear two years ago. Is it not elementary that we should know more than the outline of a country which might drag us into war?

John MacCormac has packed an encyclopædia of information into this volume, political, economic, demographic; and there’s plenty of juice to make the meat digestible. One could wish that he had added a chapter on the defense problem. That, no doubt, will come in time. For this is the kind of book which, since the high-school record is typical of our fogginess about Canada, is bound to be on call as the question mark over Canada gets bigger.