THE CANADIAN FLAG [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Your
correspondents, Mr. Harry Baldwin and Col. J. B. Mitchell, are each of them both right and wrong. It is true, as Mr. Baldwin says, that the Red Ensign, charged with the Canadian Arms on the fly, is the authorized flag for use afloat by the Canadian Mercantile Marine, as the Blue Ensign, similarly charged, is duly warranted for use in the Naval Service ; but he is wrong in saying that Canada has no national flag. Col. Mitchell corrects him in showing that the national flag of Canada, for use ashore, is the Union Jack, universally flown throughout the Empire and the Overseas Dominions as the national flag. It is good enough for him, and me, and the great majority of our fellow-countrymen, but he is wrong in thinking that there is little demand for another more dis- tinctively Canadian flag.
A couple of years ago, the Canadian Government, recog- nizing this demand, appointed a committee to look into the matter and procure designs, but Parliament, not having been consulted, refused assent and the mandate was withdrawn.
Last year, La Presse, a French newspaper of large circulation, published in this city, instituted a Competition, open to all, offering a prize of $500 for the best design, and another prize of 8500 should the prize-winning design be accepted by the Canadian people as their new flag. Some 1,800 designs were submitted by about 700 competitors, and at our first meeting to consider them it was unanimously decided that the Union Jack must be an important feature of any design to be con- sidered. This at once eliminated a mass of more or less interesting designs and from this small residue a design sub- mitted by four competitors was chosen as the best, and the prize was awarded to all four in equal portions of $125.
The design is a white ensign with the Union Jack in the first quarter and a large green maple leaf in the centre of the
fly. T.I. Jack symbolizes the British connexion ; the white fly is reminiscent of the French regime and colours ; the maple leaf is generally accepted as the distinctively Canadian emblem, as may be noted in the Canadian Arms, the cap badge of the Canadian Overseas Forces, and elsewhere. My colleagues went further in endorsement and recommendation of this design, but I held that if we needed a flag at all, I preferred my own design—submitted hors dc coneours—the Union Jack with a white disc in the centre charged with a green maple
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