Careful planning needed in postwar reconstruction

This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on April 19, 1941.

Everything must be better after the war, or all this wealth of heroism and sacrifice of life will be wasted. The old ways are not good enough for the brave new world that must come. But it won’t come by chance.

I am thinking particularly now about Abyssinia. (It is best to begin a long way from home.) The British have no desire to rule Abyssinia: They will certainly give it back to Haile Selassie, but it is not worth all the trouble and bloodshed if the conditions that obtained in Abyssinia are perpetuated.

There must be some sort of protectorate, some system of guidance given to these heroic but primitive people; there must come a more civilized rule, softened by humanitarian instincts. That rule is being foreshadowed now in the appeal of the British forces to Haile Selassie to restrain his people from taking revenge on the Italian civilians for the cruelties their leaders practised at the time of the conquest.

It is easy to get a unanimous vote on this. Not even our most revengeful Canadian would wish to see the Italian women and children suffer pain or indignity. We know they have been betrayed by “that wicked man.” The Italians who were sent to Ethiopia after the conquest had no more voice in their fate than the cattle that are driven into boxcars from the whitewashed sidings.

The oppressed people in all countries have only one hope for deliverance, and this is in a British victory. Britain, Greece, America are holding aloft the torch of freedom, and that high destiny involves much more than battles and bombings. We have to be prepared ourselves for the days to come.

Surely the hearts of all our people are comforted since the Day of Prayer and the swift developments that came in the week that followed — the bloodless revolution in Yugoslavia and the great victory in the Ionian Sea when all the British and Greek ships came safely into their harbour. We are fighting for humanity and we have every reason to believe that God is with us.

In this great struggle in which the forces of right are surely winning, we must prepare ourselves for the most glorious task ever given to any people. We must get ready for a great work of reconstruction.

I have always been interested in bees, since I read Maeterlinck’s book, The Life of the Bee. They do everything on schedule, with changes of shifts and rotation of duties. There are defenders, workers, scouts, scavengers, sanitation engineers, flight squadrons, reconnaissance flyers, home guards, policemen … and to judge from the gay humming and achievement that is going on in the cherry trees this morning, their lives are full of happiness and achievement, and they are serving a great human need, whether they know it or not. I sat under the tree heavy with blossoms this morning and found delight in listening to them.

I am not one of the bee-minded people who can pick up a handful of bees, so I sat very still with my hands in my pockets and wished I had put a veil on my hat, but the honey in the blossoms was, I was pretty sure, a good enough protection. They were not apt to desert a honey-filled blossom to take a bite at me.

Then I went over to see our ant hill, which is growing bigger every year, and there I saw ants hauling grass and straws down into the lower regions of their house, working together in gangs — and they are happy, too. I do not know how the slaves feel, no one interviews them, but the work goes on. The state is all, the individuals nothing.

This system works well for ants and bees, but man has another dimension in his soul. He is more than a machine, and it is that other dimension that the dictators are trying to destroy, and that we are endeavouring to maintain and restore.

I have just finished reading a story about a woman who was a great cook, and therefore had a sure place in the life of the family she served. She lived to herself and for herself. But she had one great passion. She wanted to be sure of immortal bliss. So she educated her nephew for the priesthood. When he was 11, his mother had brought him to Aunt Teta begging her to do this. Aunt Teta looked at the snub-nosed, narroweyed little boy with disfavour but suddenly decided to do it, and for 30 years she sent him money.

He sent her a picture of himself in his ordination robes, and this became to her a sacred picture. Having given a priest to the church, she would be sure of an abundant entrance.

She had no desire to see him, nor did she care anything for him. Even after his ordination he had many financial needs. Aunt Teta responded. He was her one interest. She gave nothing to anyone else. Her wages were always good and she felt that every shilling she spent on him, or his plans, counted to her for righteousness. Besides, his letters were beautiful.

He was 41 years old when she went to see him unexpectedly. Then she discovered he had deceived her all these years. He was not a priest at all. He had lived evilly, and by his wits. He lived in a dirty house that smelled of burnt fat. He eyes were still narrower, his nose had spread over his face. And he denounced her for being the cause of his troubles. Why hadn’t she left him a simple peasant? He hadn’t asked to be educated.

The story is called Embezzled Heaven and is written by Franz Werfel, who now lives in New York — another one of the writers thrown out of Germany.

It is a strange story, this tale of the hard, “religious” woman, her hopes and disillusionment. She was a complete isolationist, selfish even in her religion. It is almost an allegory. There is no substitute for love and kindness in life. No one can travel the road of life selfishly and find happiness in one great blinding flash at the end.

What we must learn today is that humanity is one family, and we have to learn to live together. Hitler’s plan must fail, for it considers the welfare of only one nation at the expense of all others, and the only supporters he can find in other nations are the people who are ready to sell out their country for their own safety and advancement, and that cuts down the number.

I began by saying that everything must be better in the new world after the war. We must not have strikes and lockouts; some of the people overfed and some underfed. We must have peace and plenty for all, which is an easy thing to write, but what can you and I do here and now to bring it about?

One thing we can do is to step out of the safe shelter in which we find ourselves. In the letter to the Hebrews, the Apostle told his workers to “go outside of the camp.” And the advice is good. How many of us have made a real effort to understand the viewpoint of those who do not agree with us? How many can listen patiently to someone who belongs to another religious faith?

Oh, there’s plenty to be done here in Canada to mend the tapestry of Empire. We need a little bit of imagination to understand how it feels to be a loyal Canadian of German, Japanese or Italian blood these days. They get many a stab from the unthinking and overzealous.

We should take extra care of such citizens at this time and bind them to us in a deeper fellowship. People can be coerced into a semblance of loyalty, but true loyalty is a byproduct. It is incidental to something else. It must spring from a feeling of security and understanding and justice.

I knew a woman once who had just one remedy for her children’s quarrels. Instead of teaching them to respect each other’s property and showing them to get along peaceably, they had to “kiss and forgive.” They kissed all right, she saw to that, but the forgiveness is still in doubt.

In the same manner, saluting the flag is in itself an outward sign of the feeling of loyalty, but no one should be forced to do it. Especially children. That sort of coercion does not belong to a democracy.

We older Canadians can all serve our country by reaching out friendly hands to the strangers who have made Canada their home. We “can go out of the camp” and bring them in. Some of McClung’s columns from the 1930s and 1940s have been collected in a book, The Valiant Nellie McClung: Selected Writings by Canada’s Most Famous Suffragist, by Barbara Smith.