CANADA AND THE SOUTH
By JOHN A.. STEVENSON Ottawa.
N recommending Congress, on May 26th, to legislate for fuller
military co-operation with the Latin American countries in the interest of hemispheric defence, President Truman laid stress on the fact that similar collaboration could be extended to Canada. The issue of Canada's adhesion to the Pan-American Union had already been brought into the foreground of public discussion in Canada by a speech recently delivered by Senator Vandenberg of Michigan at a Pan-American conference. His position as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Senate of the United States gives special authority to Mr. Vandenberg's words, and considerable notice has been taken of his declaration that the chair which had been reserved for Canada at the council-table of the Pan-American Union had now stood empty long enough and that her occupation of it would complete "our continental brotherhood from the Arctic Circle to Cape Horn." But the most significant part of his speech was his suggestion that Canada should be associated "on some appropriate basis" with the Pan-American Union in order to ensure "final and total unity of the new world," and he obviously contemplated the inclusion of Canada as a link in a system of regional security planned for the preservation of world peace under the aegis of the Charter of the United Nations. Senator Vandenberg's exhortation to Canada, moreover, has been seconded by Mr. -Sumner Welles, formerly under-Secretary of State at Washington in the Roosevelt regime, who saw fit to express his belief that Canadian opposition to member- ship in the union was confined "to Ontario and perhaps to Toronto."
It is indeed noteworthy that this sudden proffer of advice to Canada by important leaders of public opinion in the United States should coincide with a marked weakening of the faith of many Americans in the ability of the United Nations- Organisation to pre- vent another world war (in which Russia and the United States would be the protagonists) and with evidence of an increasing em- phasis upon the need for tightening and strengthening arrangements for the effective defence of the Western Hemisphere. There may be no connection between these developments ; President Truman, indeed, was careful to emphasise that his own proposal would be entirely consistent with the United Nations Charter, but the suspicion cannot be dismissed that the United States is now anxious to enlist Canada in the Pan-American Union, and that the speeches of Senator Vandenberg and Mr. Welles were opening guns in a campaign to bring pressure upon her to apply for admission at-an early date.
One very good reason for Canada's aloofness from the Pan- American Union is, as Mr. L. B. Pearson, Canadian Under-Secretary for External Affairs, pointed out in a recent speech, that she has never received a formal invitation to join it. But undoubtedly an invitation would be forthcoming as soon as Canada manifested any desire for it, and it need not wait for the next conference of American States, due to be held at Bogota in Columbia next December, since the governing body of the Union, which is in permanent session at Wash- ington, could give it. There is, however, no assurance of unanimity about such an invitation. A certain number of Latin-American Re-
e-
publics, feeling that the Union is too much dominated by the United States, would favour the adhesion of Canada as a possible check against the menace of "Yankee imperialism." But other members are apt to take a contrary view and hold that, since Canada today shows a disposition to march in line with the United States in international affairs, her admission would simply increase the weight of Anglo- Saxon influence in the councils of the Union.
Membership would not involve Canada in any fresh obligations, but it would pave the way for her subscription to the existing Pan- American agreements such as the Pact of Chapultepec, which pro- vides for mutual assistance by the member nations if any of them becomes the victim of aggression by an outside country or another member. In its present form this pact is temporary and provisional, and the intention is to replace it by a permanent pact, but the con- ference planned to meet at Rio de Janeiro for this purpose has been postponed repeatedly owing to fundamental disagreements between the United States and Argentina. Since the pact was drawn up at a separate Pan-American conference, Canada, if she joined the Union, would not be obliged to subscribe to its terms, and it could, as far as her security is concerned, add nothing to the value of her agree- ment with the United States for close co-operation in the defence of the North American continent.
Business elements in Canada, interested in the enlargement of Canadian trade with the Latin-American countries, think that Canada's membership in the Union would promote it. But there are distinct limits to the possibilities of expanding Canada's trade with the Latin American countries, because most of them are not ready to buy large quantities of Canada's staple exports, and, apart from coffee and hides, Canada does not need many of their products. So it is the political aspects of membership which bulk largest in the Canadian mind and raise the most controversial issue. From both legal and con- stitutional standpoints membership in the Union is not incompatible with Canada's retention of her active partnership in the British Com- monwealth of Nations. But it is difficult to believe that a nation which accepted membership in a regional bloc like the Union would not thereby have its relations with a world-wide bloc like the Common- wealth affected in some degree and gradually weakened. Canadians who value their partnership in the Commonwealth and accept its obligations cheerfully cannot forget that, when at the outbreak of the second world war their country immediately made common cause with Britain, the Republics of the Americas took the radically different course of neutrality. So they feel that, while membership in the Union might not necessarily debar Canada from taking the same path again, it might seriously hamper her freedom of action.
A study of the comments of the Canadian Press on the question reveals a considerable diversity of opinion. But the volume of adverse sentiment, typified by the hostile pronouncements of influen- tial papers like The Montreal Gazette and The Toronto Globe and Mail, sustains the position of Mr. Vincent Massey, who, as Canadian Ambassador at Washington before he was High Commissioner in London, has an informed knowledge of the workings of the Pan- American Union. Challenging the 'theory of Mr. Welles that Cana- dian opposition was confined to Ontario, he has declared that in a recent tour of the whole country he found evidence of widespread antagonism, to the project. But The Winnipeg Free Press, the most powerful paper in Western Canada, sees much to commend in Senator Vandenberg's proposals, and declares that they must receive increasing consideration as problems of foreign policy and national defence acquire larger prominence in discussions about Canada's future policy. More surprising is the support for acceptance of membership forthcoming from The Montreal Star, which a few years ago showed greater ardour than any other Canadian paper for closer relations between the nations of the Commonwealth.
Inevitably the project makes the strongest appeal to the school of extreme Canadian nationalists, who, if not outright opponents of any political solidarity for the Commonwealth, are very lukewarm about it. Obsessed with the illusion that Canada's foreign policy is still secretly dictated by Downing Street, they think that membership in the Union would at least serve notice to the rest of the world that Canada was moving to escape from antiquated shackles of subordina- tion to Britain. It is also intelligible that the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada, which wields considerable political influence, should favour the creation of a special political tie between Canada and such strongholds of the Roman Catholic faith as all the Latin-American countries, except perhaps Mexico, are today. But on the other hand the Leftist parties of Canada, who detest the Fascist-minded Peron administration in Argentina and see little merit in some other dictatorial regimes in Latin- America, want no closer connection with them than that the U.N.O. supplies. The Canadian Government will quite certainly, be pressed by the Opposition to declare its attitude on the question.
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