THE ENGLISHMAN IN CANADA.
T4AST autumn we published some letters on the alleged dislike for Englishmen in Canada. By the term "Englishman" was meant strictly an Englishman as dis- tinguished from a Scotsman, Welshman, or Irishman; and the letters were written to challenge or amplify comments of our own on an article in the National Review by Mr. C. F. Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton had turned his mind to the subject after reading discussions on the shortcomings of Englishmen in the Canadian newspapers, and his own opinion was that the Englishman fails because he expects to find in Canada a replica of England. The Englishman can never think of Canada except as a kind of annexe; the word " colony " is the only description which comes naturally to his lips, and the Canadians, who are acutely conscious of nationality, resent the word and all its implications. We ourselves ventured to think that Mr. Hamilton had not paid enough attention to what may be summarised as the silence of the Englishman in explaining his unpopularity. He mentioned it, indeed, in the very true remark that the English- man "assumes that nothing about himself is of interest to his new acquaintances "; but be did not seize upon the fact, as we believe it to be, that reticence and shyness are often mistaken for wilful intolerance and superciliousness. In Canada a man who is habitually silent may be thought to be "putting on side," whereas in England silence is always taken to be the very negation of "side."
A correspondent who Lad read our remarks wrote to us to say that we were mistaken in general about the silence of Englishmen. Silence, he said, is characteristic only of the best-educated Englishmen, and the ordinary English immigrant is more talkative than the average Scotsman. In his opinion, the whole cause of the English- man's unpopularity is his ignorance. The Englishman, unlike the Scotsman, Irishman, or Welshman, does not interest himself in anything outside his immediate range of knowledge. The Canadian, intensely concerned in the many and various expressions of national feeling, finds him there- fore a narrow and uncongenial element in the body politic,— at least until the Englishman has become regenerate by a sufficiently long contact with Canadian life. Another corre- spondent allowed our hopes and self-respect to rise a little from the low degree to which they had been depressed by telling us that the unpopularity of Englishmen in Canada is a figment and convention. The Englishman had become the whipping-boy and villain of the piece at the time of the War of American Independence, and his stage-property character had followed him all over the continent. The label of ridicule was still fastened on him in Canada, but conventionally, and not with conviction. Thus en- corn-aged, we wrote some words in defence of the kind of man we are said to produce in England. He has his faults, as we know only too well; but he likes responsibility, and hardly over shirks it ; he is a grumbler and a fabricator of grievances, yet he is a law-abiding man, and a moderating influence in reckless and critical times ; he may be reserved and unimaginative, but he is not petty or mean.
A new and interesting contribution to the controversy reaches us now in an article called "The English Character and Canadian Conditions," which appears in the April number
of the Canadian University Magazine. The writer explores the English character from its ethnical origins downwards, and says consoling things and disquieting things. But we are rather in the dark as to whether the " Englishman " is meant to share the credit and discredit with Scotsmen, Welshmen, and Irishmen, or whether both are for himself alone. Certainly most of what the writer says of the circumstances in which the Englishman is trained would apply to any Briton. To begin with, the writer confesses that the Englishman has character; by character alone can he explain the success that comes to him ultimately in most things,—even in Canada. In Britain, the writer tells us, the political system, the Army, the Church, and commerce are all illogical, and their persistent existence can be explained only by the character of the persons who compose or manage them. This is not only a pleasant judgment, but relevant and, we think, truthful. But how does English character act when brought into touch with the changed British character across the seas ? The writer of the article considers that it cannot easily adapt itself, because it is so deep-rooted and tenacious ; it descends directly from the conservative spirit which preserved " snobbery " intact after the downfall of feudalism, and a genuine religious faith intact after the spoliation of the monasteries. The writer analyses what he kindly calls the Englishman's "generosity of appre- ciation" as a derivative of the faculty for snobbery. The Englishman readily and openly admires any one whom be conceives to be better than himself. This quality is said to be "rather lacking" in both Canada and the United States. We hope that the writer does both his own country and the United States some injustice. Surely the refusal to acknow- ledge that any man can be better than onself would be a dismal symptom in any country, and one to be contemplated with alarm. The writer relates that once after a football match be saw the son of a Lord clap a butcher on the back and say : "By Jove, old man, that was a d—d fine kick of yours." This incident would not perhaps have remained so vividly in the memory of an Englishman who is inured to snobbery ; but still we are glad the writer cherishes it, as it has caused him to say in comment that "this spirit is in sharp contrast with the real hostility and bitterness which seems to animate, all too frequently, the contestants in any team rivalry in Canada or the United States, and particu- larly with the common tendency to belittle the prowess of the adversary by ascribing their success to luck or unfairness." The writer picks out the principle of "playing the game" as most characteristic of Englishmen—we really must conclude that he refers to all Britons, even though this gives quite a different turn to the original controversy—and reproduces the remark of an American Rhodes Scholar that the strangest thing to him in Oxford life was the realisation that he lived among three thousand men every one of whom would rather lose a game than win it unfairly. "It is, of course," says the writer, "a question whether this scrupulousness, this anxiety about methods rather than results, is not a positive disadvan- tage in any form of international competition." Of course "it is a question," but a question, we should hope, to be answered in only one way.
The writer, after treating of the conservative influende of history, goes on to say that, "apart from history, the second really great factor" in the production of English character is "atmosphere." But " atmosphere " is surely the product of history, or tradition, and cannot be considered as a different fact. And as though to prove this, the writer repeats the spirit of several of his earlier arguments. We cannot accept what he says of the immobility of English life. Of course, it is a pretty explanation of inadaptability abroad, but is it true ? "His father," we read of the typical English countryman, ." is a labourer, so was his grandfather, and his grandfather. The boy will be one too. He does not ever dream of holding land of his own. How could be? The squire and Lord Black own all of it as far as you can see." This is, indeed, a short way of dealing with the "rush to the towns" and the numerous expedients for establishing a peasant proprietary. When the victim of the circumstances thus described reaches a country like Canada, it seems that he despises the wooden shanties and uncleared land, comparing them unfavourably with such things as an ivy-clad church and neat English flower-gardens. The British reader of this article will not, we fancy, get very far before perceiving that the writer exhibits on his own
part and on that of his Gountrymen an almost morbid sensi- tiveness. We are anxious that the Englishman should cut a better figure in Canadian eyes ; for his failure, even tempo- rarily, is a serious enough matter ; and we are quite ready to believe that he has even more awkwardness and stupidity than the indulgent writer of the article attributes to him. But really we are not sure whether the Englishman can ever hope to conciliate a sensitiveness quite so keen as that Implied here. The writer tells us that when he first landed in the Maritime Provinces and discovered that city people lived in wooden houses he expressed his surprise. "Pure ignorance, of course," he adds, "but even to this day, I retain an uneasy suspicion that I may have displayed a want of tact in blurting out my astonishment." This is a very curious frame of mind. Wood is the obvious material for the houses, and to be offended at the ignorance of a newcomer is, in effect, to suggest to him that the Maritime Provinces have done something to be ashamed of. We cannot imagine an Englishman being offended if a Canadian were surprised at the first sight of, say, our small fields, or anything else that is proper to this country. Not only in this article, but in other Canadian criticisms of Englishmen, we have noticed that it is a serious offence fOr the newcomer to wear any but the correct clothes. One of our correspondents mentioned the offence of wearing knickerbockers and a cap. The writer of this article mentions "puttees, or a golf cap, or a red waistcoat." These things, it is arguable, are inherently wrong, or are only wrong in the wrong circumstances ; but, frankly, when we invert the case, and put ourselves in the position of the offended, we cannot summon up any indig- nation. We have noticed visitors to London in a sort of "Buffalo Bill" hats, and, so far as we can be sure now of what our sentiments, were at the moment, we thought they added a pleasantly exotic touch to the streets. The writer, however, who is evidently as anxious as we are to be reason- able, and to excuse all by explaining all, does admit that there is extreme sensitiveness in Canada. It is a symptom of the growing consciousness of nationality. ,In face of that consciousness, the Englishman is certainly stupid in his free use of the word "colony," which suggests British ownership and Canadian subordination. Cannot we put our heads together after this controversy, and invent a word, or circumlocution, which will suggest, not that Canada belongs to Britain, but that we belong to one another? The author in a general sense acquits Englishmen of the charge of ignorance brought by one of our corre- spondents, but he considers their particular ignorance of Canada and Canadian history colossal. The Englishman fails further in not having "that single-minded respect for the dollar, as a dollar, which the Canadian exhibits" ; in his liking for "privacy," which to the Canadian appears as " arrogance " ; in his failure to judge people by "clothes rather than manners " ; and in his shrinking from "noisy patriotism." Perhaps these very plain hints will help some Englishmen to understand what is required of them.
Of course the writer may not always be right, and in several respects we hope and believe he is not. But Englishmen, we are sure, are anxious to do better, and his suggestion that books should be written for their guidance may ultimately put in their way a means of deciding whether they feel equal or not to the task of conciliating Canadian opinion. He concludes : "Tell the Englishman the truth, the solemn, sober truth, without frills or exaggeration, that Canada is not a colony but a nation ; that he is coining practically to a foreign country where he must be prepared to learn, not to teach, to admire, not to find fault, and to sympathise, not criticise; that it is a-new land where he will have to look out for himself, to follow different ways and, probably, work harder than before ; that he will be without many of the interests and alleviations to which he has been accustomed all his life ; but that, in return, his children shall have the opportunity to grow up independent instead of dependent, citizens not servants. . . . . . Tell him these things, loud, insistently, and often, for he is slow to accept a new truth Perhaps he will come in smaller numbers : but he will come in a different spirit."
And when the Canadian has taught the Englishman these things, let him learn for himself one or two facts which it now appears_he is ignorant cf. A man is by no means necessarily
"dependent" because he has a particular set of manners. Next, it must not be assumed that he retains those manners unwillingly, and because he is afraid to abandon them. Again, let the Canadian learn that there are plenty of people who do not think service degrading per se, but, strange as it may seem to him, hold it as honourable to serve as to be served. There are others, too, to whom privacy is a form of inde- pendence to which many people attach a very special value.
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