Canada's Claims
Since he has become Minister of External Affairs in Canada Mr. Lester Pearson has been conspicuous for the sanity and cogency of his public speeches. Nothing could have been more salutary and, in the best sense, provocative than the address he gave to the Canadian Club at Toronto on Tuesday on the relations between Canada and the United States, and Canada and Great Britain. The latter, fortunately, are of the happiest. The " daughter am I in my mother's house but mistress in my own " phase has passed. No one here fails to realise to the full that Canada has come of age, and London and Ottawa, as Mr. Pearson said, now deal with one another on a basis of confidence and friendship. Between Canada and the United States, a nation with a small population and an adjacent nation with a great, things are inevitably a little different. There may be small faults on both sides. Canada may be a little unduly sensitive, the United States a little unduly dominant. If so, it is all to the good that someone on the Canadian side should use language so well calculated to impress and so little calcu- lated to offend as Mr. Pearson employed on Tuesday. Canada is much under the influence of her southern neighbour. She reads American papers, listens to American radio .and there is much personal traffic to and fro across the frontier. That can be all to the good so long as Canada preserves to the full the individuality she has so noticeably developed in recent years, to the great benefit of other nations as well as herself. It would be well, said Mr. Pearson, if the United States realised that Canada was not prepared to be anybody's echo, and if " the United States took more notice of what we do, and indeed, occasionally, of what we say." There is much here to con- sider, and nothing to resent. In her double relationship to Britain and to the United States Canada has a unique service to render to both, and it is incumbent on both to avoid any word or action, however inadvertent, that might lessen her influence or diminish her prestige.
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