ALLAN

SMITH

Metaphor andNationality in

North America

THE NATIONALIST USES LANOUAOE to define the nation's character and ex-

perience in a way that will provide a rationale for its continued existence. Lacking such a rationale andthemental picture of itself whichthat rationale helps to provide, no society canstaytogether. Language thusbecomes an instrument to be employed in the fashioning of a nationalist ideology which itselfbecomes a tooldesigned for a particular purpose, the integrating of the humanelements in a givengeographical areainto a coherent, self-conscious whole.In thecourse of fulfilling that purpose, nationalist ideology, likeideologies generally, often does violence totruthandmasks reality. xYet rhetoric of thissort,however muchit deals in distortion, may stillreflectsomething fundamental in the character of the society to whose mystique it attempts to give expression. Often it does thisinadvertently by revealing a certaincharacter trait in theactof focussing onsomething quitedifferent. Thusthenationalist, in talkingabouthisnation's accomplishments, may reveal. pride,superiority, or arrogance. In dilatinguponhiscountry's prospects for the future,he may reveal optimism, excessive self-confidence, or a will to power.In thisway he may,in spite of himself, make anunintended gesture in thedirection of reality. Less inflated rhetoric maymakethissame gesture in other ways, intentionally, andnot asa result of erroror oversight. Depending on howgood or conscientious an historian he is,thenationalist mayfindhimself limitedin whathecan makeof hisnation's history andcharacter by thecircumstances of that history and the natureof that character. He may try to dramatizehisnation'sexperience by employing striking andmemorable language, or by emphasizing those elements in it that makeit (in hisview) uniqueandsuperior. He will
An earlier version o thispaperwasreadat the Canadian-American Seminar, University
of Windsor,NovemberI968.

x Cf. Karl Mannhelm, Ideology and Utopia (New York x936 )

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not, however, departfrom realityentirely, he will not indulgein unlimited flights of fancy,for heknows that history will notsustain him on such a journey.And sohehovers onlya littledistance above theearth,thetemptation to useforcefuland dramatic language havingyielded to a prosaic and even homely way of speaking abouthiscountry's experience. Nationalist rhetoric, then,mayunintentionally or by design deferto reality. Two rhetorical devices commonly employed in CanadaandtheUnited States suggest thetruthof these observations. The term"melting pot,"in widespread useto delineate the character of Americansociety, doesreflectsomething fundamental in that society, althoughin a mannerits enthusiasts havenot perhaps fullyintended. The metaphor of themosaic represents an attempt by Canadian nationalism to cometo gripswith a difficult, possibly intractable,
fact of Canadian life.

Describing an homogeneous, coherent community, andattempting to communicatethe sense and meaningof its experience, is easier than doingthe samethingfor a community whichis not homogeneous and whichlackscoherence. Canadians have known this truth for some time; Americans are

beginning to discover it astheyrewritetheirhistory to takeaccount of the role black Americans haveplayedin its making.Generally, however, American nationalists haveseen theirnationasa vessd containing a single, virtually unblemished way of life, and their language has,accordingly, beenconfident and assured. They haveknownwho theywereand in what theybelieved, and their vocabulary has reflected the pride and security that this knowledge brought. Canadian nationalism, in contrast, has been less exuberant andmore diffidentbecause it recognizes how fragile and uncertainis the structure it triesto celebrate, and how delicatemustbe the touchof he who would work all itsparts intoa cohesive whole.

Canadaandthe United States havebeenpeopled by immigrants. The experiencethat these immigrants haveundergone, and the character of the society theyhavehelped to form,has been described metaphorically in bothcountries.

Onespeaks of theAmerican melting potandthe Canadian mosaic? Eachof these metaphors carries a double burden. Eachis supposed to symbolize the actual nature of thesociety to whichit isapplied, andeach isheldto represent
the idealform whichthat society isattempting to realize.

The melting-pot metaphor conjures up a picture of peoples of diverse origins being fused in thecrucible of a newenvironment intoa group of wholly
The history andmeaning of the firstterm hasbeenexplored by Philip Gleason, "The Melting-Pot:Symbol of Fusion or Confusion?" American Quarterly,xvx,, spring x964,20-46.There isno comparable examination of the mosaic concept.

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newbeings. Eachof these beings hassevered histieswith the Old World, and each has been regenerated by his new environment. Each has become,in Crvecmur's classic phrase, a new man. This themehasbeenoneof endless fascination for Americans. They haveexpended muchtime and energy daboratingthe imageof Americaasa New World, a garden,a virginland, free from thecorrupt andcorrupting influences of the Old World,andcapable of regenerating mam a The American, and all men who cometo America,are
transformed.

In Canadathe ideaof creating a newman hasgained nothing like the currencyit hasin the UnitedStates. Here thecontrolling metaphor hasbeenthe mosaic, a granddesign consisting of many differentelements, eachof which retains itsowncharacter and qualitywhilesimultaneously contributing to the realization of the design asa whole.The objective is the rendering of a composite figure, notthecreation of onethatiswholly new.The elements of which thiscomposite figure, thisnewnation, consist will bejuxtaposed in such a way asto createa new nationality, onewhichrests not upona common cukure, but uponitscapacity to serve andprotect theinterests, cultural andotherwise, of itscomponent parts.The essence of thisnew nationality will be foundin the natureof the relationship these different elements bear to oneanother,
and not in the fact that there will cease to be different elements. There will

need to be a consensus in this national state.It will, however,be a consensus

which derives not so much from a shared culture or shared values as from the

belief by all itspeoples thattheirbest interests arebeing served by continuing association in a common political framework. Each of thesemetaphors idealizes the society to which it refers,and it idealizes theexperience of theimmigrant whohas come to thatsociety. Immigrants to the United States haveoftenretained, and haveoftenbeenencouraged to retain,some measure of theirethnic consciousness. The existence of ethnic communities, especially in thecities of the industrial northeast, is a
well knownfact of Americanlife. It indicates clearlythat Cr[veceeur's new man hasoftenfailedto materialize, or if he has,that he hasnot beenwholly

forgetful ofhistransatlantic past. Indeed, cultural pluralism, which isanother wayof talking about themosaic, hasbeen an important element in American social life. A classic defense of it issued from the pen of HoraceKallen, a Harvardphilosopher, in x9x5 .5 Kallenargued that eachethnic group had something of valueto contribute to the totalityof American culture, and it
3 R. W. B. Lewis, TheAmerican Adam(Chicago 955); HenryNashSmith, Virgin Land (Cambridge, Mass.95o); Charles L. Stanford, The Quest [or Paradise: Europe andtheAmerican Moral Imagination (Urbana,Ill. 96 ) 4 NathanGlazerandDanielPatrick Moyrdhan, Beyond theMeltingPot (Cambridge,
Mass.963)

5 "Democracy versus theMeltingPot,"The Nation,8 and 25 Feb. 95

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ought to be allowed to makethat contribution. The immigrant should retain something of hisOld World cultureand, morethan that, he should useit to
enrich the life of his new homeland.

To the extentthat the immigrantto Americahas,however, beenrequired to divest himself of hisethnicidentity,he hasnot become a whollynewman. He and hisfellowshavenot beenmelteddown and then recast in an entirely new mold. They have become,instead,Americanized Englishmen. The dominantsocial type in the United States is an Anglo-Saxon type, and it is to thistypethat immigrants havebeenexpected to assimilate. The American becomes, then, not a new man, but a modificationof one who is old and familiar.And sothe term "anglo-conformity" hasbeenheldto describe more accurately than does the melting-pot metaphor what happens to the immigrantwhocomes to theUnitedStates. Finally,whilethe immigrant to the United States mightbe assimilated to the prevailing cultureand valuesystem, he is not always assimilated intothe agencies and institutions that operate society. His assimilation isbehavioural, but not structural. It is not total, and here too, the melting-pot metaphor
breaks downy

The mosaic concept is alsoan idealization of reality.A greaterdegree of behavioural assimilation hastakenplacein Canadathan that concept would appear to allowfor. The majority of second generation German-Canadians, Icdandic-Canadians, and evenUkrainian-Canadians speak English and not theirparents' nativetongue. Their Old World culture, whenit isretained, is regarded as something to be brought out and dusted off, ratherself-consciously, on special nationaloccasions. It doesnot form a centralpart of Canada'sculturallife, and when it is broughtto the attentionof Canadians at large, thetendency istoregard it asanimported exotic. 7 The mosaic furtherimplies a social situation in whichmembers of different ethniccommunities areableto retaintheirethnicidentity,andyetparticipate to the full in the national life. Here, also, the metaphor failsto represent the reality. Positions of power,influence, and prestige have tendedto go to Canadians of Britishdescent, and continuing emphasis on ethnicorigins has

been judged likdytoperpetuate this state of aftaim s Finally, a state dedicated to theproposition thatall cultural groups within it have an inalienable right to flourish wouldbe a statein which,ideally, brokerage politics wouldhaveno place. Representatives of eachcultural
6 Milton M. Gordon,"Assimilation in America: Theory and Reality," Daedalus, xe, springi96x, 63-85

7 Elizabeth Wangenheim, "TheUkrainians: A Case Study o the'ThirdForce'," in

Peter Russell, ed., Nationalism in Canada(Toronto I966), p. 85 8 JohnPorter, The VerticalMosaic(TorontoI965). Seeespecially "Ethnicity and SocialClass," pp. 6o-o3

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groupwouldknowthat theirspecial interests wouldbelooked after,and they wouldnot, therefore, find it necessary to solicit special favours. The national interest wouldnot demand constant adjustment of the claims of rival groups. And precisely because the interests of eachgroupwould,automatically asit were,be served, politicians wouldhavenothingto gain by manoeuvring for the support of these groups. But thisclearly is not the situation. Politicians who,asAndr Siegfried wroteat thebeginning of thecentury, foundit necessaryto "exertthemselves ... to prevent the formation of homogeneous parties, dividedaccording to creedor raceor class" havenoticedno changes in what isrequired of them. The different groups stillfeelit necessary topromote their interests, and thoseinterests must still be reconciled with one another.It remains an essential partof politics in Canada to adjust theclaims of different groups and interests and to insure asnearlyaspossible that noneshallhave undueinfluence and that the stateshallnot fragmentalongethniclines.The

existence of thepolitician asbroker indicates, notthepresence of a fullyfunctioning cultural mosaic, butitsabsence.

III

Notwithstanding thisfailureto correspond with reality,thereare goodhistoricalreasons which explainwhy eachof these termscameinto use.The Puritans of New England came to see themselves asrejecting theOld World andtheoldways, andtheirabhorrence of these things wasconfirmed by the
American Revolution.To be an American,however,involvedmore than a

rejection of Europe. It involved embracing a newidealof life andsociety, which found expression in a peculiarly American political andsocial economic faith. He who wouldbe an American mustprofess that faith. Thus John Quincy Adams could write in 8 8:9 They(immigrants toAmerica) come toa lifeofindependence, buttoa lifeof
labor- and, if theycannot accommodate themselves to the character; moral,

political andphysical, ofthis country withallitscompensating balances ofgood andevil,theAtlantic isalways open tothemtoreturntothelandof theirnativity andtheirfathers. To one thing they must make uptheirminds, or they willbe disappointed in every expectation ofhappiness asAmericans. Theymust east off theEuropean skin, never toresume it. Theymust look forward toposterity
ratherthanbackward to theirancestors; theymust besure thatwhatever their

ownfeelings may be,those of theirchildren willcling totheprejudices of this

country.

It waspossible forAmericans to create theideaof a newmanandto elaborate a national faith becauseAmerica for the first two centuries of its exist-

9 Niles'Weekly Register, xvm (8o), 57-8, citedin Gordon, "Assimilation in

America," 268

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ence was, broadly speaking, ideologically andculturally homogeneous. A consensus onfundamentals was possible, andthatconsensus emerged. It made the revolution and characterized American life and thought afterit. At itscore werethemainclements of English liberalthought andthechief tendencies of enlightenment thought, elements whose impactin Americawasheightened by theinfluences of theAmerican environment. x A belief in theequality of all men; a brief in progress, in individualism, in a fundamental law; and a beliefthat Americahad a special mission to showmen how to ordertheir affairs - all contained in a mindwhose bentwasessentially pragmatic: these weretheleading elements of theAmerican faith,andthiswasthequality of
the mind that professed it. Theseliberaland egalitarian values wereformalizedandmadepart of the national identity. It washisadherence to them,his life in a society that wasshaped by its reverence for them,that defined the American. Indeed, asSeymour Martin Lipset writes, theybecame partof the definition of nationhood itsdf. n Eventhe South,that mostserf-conscious of American regions, hasbeen denied anyclaimto thestatus of a separate civilization with a faith and ritual all its own. Differences which obtained there

were at mostsectional variations within a commonculturepattern.The South, likethe North, oweditspolitical theory moreto Locke thanBurke.Its economy maynothavebeen industrial, butit was characterized bya capitalist and entrepreneurial spirit;cotton may havebeenking,but it wentto market. And, on the otherside,if the Southparticipated in modes of thought often associated with the North, it is likewise true that the process wassometimes reversed. Even racismwas not exclusively a Southern property, although slavery deafly was.D. M. Potterargues that it isnecessary to recognize "how very thin the historical evidences of a separate southern culturereallyare," and C. Vann Woodward,who affirmsthe reality of a special Southern experience, asserts thattheSouth "remains moreAmerican byfar thananything else, andhasall along. "2 Therewas,then,something that could be called an
o For the consensus viewof American history, seeLouisHartz, ed., The Founding o[ New Societies (New York 964), especially chap.4, "United States Historyin a New Perspective," pp. 69- , and alsohis Liberal Traditionin America(New York 955); Ralph HenryGabriel,The Course o[ American Democratic Thought(New York 956); Daniel Boorstin, The Americans (2 vols.,New York 958, 965); and D. M. Potter,Peopleo[ Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character (Chicago 954). For a criticism of thisimportanttrendin American historical writing,see JohnHigham,"The Cult of the 'American Consensus': Homogenizing Our History," Commentary, xvn, Feb. 959, 93-mo The First New Nation: The United States in Historicaland Comparative Perspective {GardenCity, .Y. 967) , p. o I D. M. Potter, "The Historian'sUse of Nationalismand Vice-Versa,"American HistoricalReview,.xvn,4, July 96, 944. C. Vann Woodward,"The Searchfor Southern Identity," The Virginia QuarterlyReview,xxxtv, 958, 338

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American faith, whichhaditsbeing in thecountry asa whole.The newcomer wasexpected to adoptthat faith ashisown. Nor was this all. Influenced by nineteenth-century racist ideas, some Americans supported theircrusade for ideological puritywith arguments for the exclusion of thoseimmigrants whose racial background did not equip them with the wit or the moral fibrenecessary to enablethem to conformto the American Way. And sonot onlythose who arrivedwith theirownideas aboutmen and society, like the Germansocialists of the late nineteenth cen-

tury,butalso those whose social habits andethnic background caused themto

be deemed inferior to the men who had made America found themselves

treated with scorn and contempt. xa"Americanism," however, wasat root always moreideological than ethnic, morea matterof culture than of race,
sothat the twentieth-century overthrow of the racistassumptions uponwhich
American nativismwas basedleft the force of that idea, and the idea that all

menwho cameto Americamustbe "Americanized," unimpaired. Americanismbecame once again whatit hadbeen in thelateeighteenth andearlynineteenthcenturies, essentially an ideology, a setof values, a culture,whichanyonemightmakehisown. Blackmen,however, wereto bedenied therightto makeit theirown.They wereto be denied the rightto participate in thiscentralprocess of American

history. And to denythemthisrightwas,perversely, to actin a manner consistent with the liberal idea itself.That idea, to which gradations in society

were foreign, could provide onlyfor each man's inclusion in society ona basis of absolute equality withall other men.If hewere notequal hewas nottruly a man,andmustperforce be excluded. The black,patently, wasnot equal. His exclusion wastherefore naturalandinevitable. Butonce hebecame equal, the same idearequired that he be incorporated into the life of the society fullyandcompletely. He must become anAmerican likeall other Americans. The central thrust of thecivilrights movement hasbeen, then,assimilationist. The discovery thattheblack manisequal hasmeant that hemust become a whiteAmerican in all respects save the colour of hisskin.He, too,mustprolessthe national faith. He alsomust be broughtwithin the Lockeanconsensus. 14

3 Oscar Handlin, RaceandNationality in American Life (Boston 957); John

Higham,Strangers in theLand:Patterns o[ American Nativism, x86o-x9 5 (New Brunswick, N.I. 955). In an articlepublished in 958 Highamsuggested that it is necessary to looknot onlyto ideology for an explanation of nativism, but alsoto the dynamics of American society itself,specifically to thestatus rivalries that tookplace withinit asnewgroups challenged, or seemed to challenge, the powerand status of the old; see"AnotherLook at Nativism,"The CatholicHistoricalReview,xzsv, 2,
July 958, 47-58

4 Hartz,ed.,The Founding o[ NewSocieties, pp. 6-o, 53-8; also Hartz's article, "A Comparative Study of Fragment Cultures," in Violence in America: Historical and

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Canada,by contrast, washeldfromthebeginning to consist of twosocieties. Eachof these two societies had its own values, traditions, life style, and language.One wasFrench-speaking, Catholic,and, with some qualifications, agrarianand feudal; the other was English-speaking, Protestant, commercially-minded, and conservatively liberalin itsviewof society? Agreement onfundamentals wasdifficult. The creation of an idealnational typein which all Canadians couldseesomething of themselves, and whichtheycouldall strive to emulate, wasimpossible. The national preoccupation came to bewith differences, not similarities, with creating a nationout of culturally disparate groups, not with establishing cultural uniformity. The absence of a national type(therewasno Canadian Crb. vecceur because therecould benoCanadian newman) and the absence of a dear andspecific national faith whichall Canadians couldprofess, meantthat therewasnothing to whichan immigrantcouldbe required to assimilate. The onlyelement in theirexperience
which the two communities had in common was the link each of them re-

tainedwith a transatlantic culture,that of imperialBritainin the onecase, Catholic Europe in theother. Ironically, then,theoneelement thetwoshared couldnot result in a commitment by newcomers to a whollynewway of life. Insteadit served only to encourage them to maintaintheir tieswith their parent societies. Confederation created a political entitywhichowed itsbirthto theconcern of its people, both French-speaking and English-speaking, to preserve a
Britishcivilizationin North America, one which would, in time, assume the

status and dignityof a greatstate.There wouldbe a consensus in thisnew society, astheremust bein anysociety, butit would notderive froma particular cultureor a setof valuesnarrowlyconceived. It would be a consensus whichdid notlimit but ratherencouraged diversity andfreedom, andthisnot merely of individuals butof groups. It would bea consensus builtuponwhat Cartiersuggested werethe "kindred interests and sympathies" of the British North Americans, but centralto those interests and sympathies wasthe conviction that conformity to a national typewasnotpossible. It would bea consensus in support of the British and monarchical system of government, as Tach madedear, but that system of government wasto be supported precisely because the kind of political society it maintained in beingwasnot
monolithic. Even Macdonald, whoseideal remained a centralizedstate in
Comparative Perspectives. A Report to the NationalCommission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, Iune 1969 (New York t969), pp. oo- 7 t5 SeeA. R. M. Lower,"Two Waysof Life: The PrimaryAntithesis of Canadian History,"Canadian Historical Association, Report, 943, 5- 8, andKennethD. McRae, "The Structure of Canadian History,"in Hartz, ed., The Founding of New Societies, pp. et9-74

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which,ultimately, theassimilation of all lawsin theprovinces except Quebec wouldtakeplace,thereby showing that not merelythe unionbut the fusion of the British North American provinces hadcome to pass, wascompelled to yieldto the plural[st imperative. A legislative union,he proclaimed, wasimpossible, in the forseeable futureat least.It wasimpossible not merelybecause it wouldfail to satisfy the French-speaking Canadians, but also because it wouldtakeinsufficient account of Maritimeparticularism. And so,irresistibly, pluralism made necessary the construction of a politicalsystem that
would accommodate it? 6

The new politicalnationality wouldembrace not simply the Frenchand English, but the Scots and Irishaswell.The Irishman, Scotsman, or Englishman who had emerged on the BritishNorth Americanshorefollowinghis voyage across theAtlanticfoundnoparticular setof values, nospecial wayof life, whichhe wasexpected to adopt,nothing in favourof whichhe wasexpected to abandon the culturalbaggage he brought with him. He wasperceived as the representative of a particular Old World culture,and not as someone whose principal business it wasto adopta whollynewway of life. His way of life wouldof course change; he wouldbecome a BritishNorth American; but thechange wouldbeowingto theimperatives of circumstance,
not those of a nationalcreed.The Canadianstatewould not, because it could

not, requireconformity to a single type,or evento one of two types.It was founded,in the estimation of thosewho made it, on diversity.In Cartier's words: "... therecouldbe no dangerto the rightsand privileges of either FrenchCanadians, Scotchmen, Englishmen, or Irishmen...no onecouldap-

prehend that anything could beenacted whichwouldharmor doinjustice to persons of anynationaiRy. "7
But while therewas to be culturalpluralism,it was not conceived of as embracing all ethnicgroups. Underthe influence of nineteenth-century racist ideas,Canadians elaborated a concept of nationality that did not explicitly require assimilation to a common cultural type,but whichwasto belimited in other ways.Canadians like Sir John G. Bourinotconcluded that the northern peoples of Europewerethe firstamong men. They had developed the highest formof civilization theworldhadyetseen, and,of equalimportance, modern self-government hadevolved fromtheirprimitive tribalinstitutions.Canadians stood in thisgreattraditionin two ways: Canadawasitself a northernnation, and thereforeits environment, like the environment of northern Europe, called intoplaythose qualities mostto be desired in mankind,those qualities whichhadproduced thebeginning of modern civilization in theGermanic forests. Canadians werenot,norcouldtheybe,slothful Medi6 Parliamentary Debates on the Con[ederation o! the BritishNorth American Provinces (Queen's Printer 1865), pp. 6o, 6, 29
17 Ibid., p. 55

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tcrrancantypes.Secondly, Canadians couldclaim descent from thesesame northernpeoples. Even the FrenchCanadians couldbc included underthis dispensation, for their ancestors were the Normans,and they had bccnas virile,upright, andNorthern a people astheworldhadeverseen. Indeed, the possibilities opened up by thisview of things wcrcalmost unlimited. Justas theNormanFrenchhadcontributed, after I o66,to themakingof themodern Britishnation,somighttheir descendants in modernCanadacometogether with that country's Anglo-Saxon clements to form a greatnewBritain,a new northernBritain, which might, ultimately,replacethe old Britain at the

centre of the empire. In thisscheme of things therewas,of course, no place for the inferiorraces. Not onlywerethe non-white races and the peoples of southern and castera Europeincluded in thislattercategory, but even,occasionally, those of the United States itself.Its people, afterall, livedin a more southerly climate, onethat conduced to decay andeffeminacy. Moreover, they
sccmcd determined to allow themselves to bc overrun with aliens who could

not possibly strengthen the race.Canada,in contrast, as Sir George Parkin emphasized, couldhaveno cities "like New York, St. Louis,Cincinnati, or New Orleans whichattractcvcnthe vagrantpopulation of Italy and other countries of Southern Europe."It wouldnot therefore slipdownwards in the scale of nations asthe United States soobviously wasdoing. s This kind of nationalism, then, allowedthe FrenchCanadians, alongwith any group
which could claim descent from the ancient inhabitants of the northern

forests, to be integrated into the nationalcharacter and yet retaintheir own special culture. It wasa clever andimaginative construction, for it sccmcd to satisfy boththe pressing nccdfor a coherent nationalism and the equally insistent demand that such a nationalism accommodate the obvious differences

within Canadian society. Yet it wasableto accomplish thisfeat onlyat the priceof conceding, at onelevel of meaning at least, thatCanada wasa pluralistsociety.

The anxiety aroused bytheYellowPerilrevealed in a stark andunpleasant way the limitswhichracism andfear couldimpose on the pluralist idea;but racism in thiscontext did not denythat idea altogether, asit had not denied
it for Bourinot and Parkin. How, indeed, could it? For the same sanctions

that requiredthe nationalists of casteraCanada to adjusttheir integral nationalism if it wasto havemeaning beyond English Canadaprevented those who wereconcerned with Orientalimmigration from bolstcring their arguments with appeals to a conventional cultural nationalism. The narrow Anglo-Saxonism which pervaded the BritishColumbiaargument for exclusioncouldnot provide the rationale for actionat the national level.There,
8 Carl Berger, "'Race andLiberty': The Historical Ideaso Sir JohnGeorge Bourinot," Canadian Historical Association, Report, 965,87- o};Berger, "The True North Strong andFree,"in Russell, ed.,Nationalism in Canada, pp. 3-26

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the argument had to be a broader and morelatitudinarian one.How else could Lemieux begotto goto Japan? Surely he wouldnotgoin defence of a narrowly Anglo-Saxon Canada. The argument for restricted entry, likethat for nationalist theory, had to rest on grounds of race,notculture. For if the nation,and notjusta part thereof, wasto be mobilized in its support, that argument, like the one on which anynationally acceptable nationalist theory would have to rest, must allowfor culturaldiversity. And soLemieux wentto Tokyo,not in support of cultural uniformity, but ratherto negotiate an agreement that wouldreduce racial tension. For him, the issue had to be based on the broadgroundof race.He went,ashe explained uponhisreturn,to resolve a problem endemic wherever"thetworaces, Mongolian andCaucasian, havecome intocontact ...,,9 He went, although he himself did not sharethe fearsof those who sawit in imminentdanger, to upholdthe integrity of a branchof western civilization nowendangered by theexpanding hordes of the East.That civilization, seen from a worldperspective, washomogeneous; but the broadhomogeneity of a civilization is not the morenarrowand restrictive homogeneity of a particular nation or culturewithin it. Nothing seems clearerthan that it was the
former and not the latter that was held to be at stake.

Two sets of events, onepolitical andtheother intellectual, worked together

in the twentieth century to overthrow the assumptions uponwhichthisracist

concept of nationality was based. Thefateof Germany raised questions about the validityof arguments based on the notionthat oneracewasinherently superior, whileadvances in anthropology showed thatthere wasnoscientific basis for racism? Colour, however, remained an obstacle. At firstonlya part of the message wasreceived. The overthrow of racism mighthavedestroyed the barriers dividing whitemenfrom eachother,but those whichseparated whitefromyellowand bothfrom black,remained. And soonlysome of the limits on pluralism in Canada wereremoved. In x936,thegovernor general,
Lord Tweedsmuir, wasableto tell a groupof Ukrainian-Canadians that by being better Ukrainians, by remaining conscious of theirethnic heritage, they wouldbe betterCanadians. But when,two years later, JohnMurray Gibbon

published hisprofile of Canadian society, Canadian Mosaic, therewasno

room in it for Orientals and blacks. The book's subtitle revealed its racist

heritage, for it wasto be the story of "The Makingof a Northern Nation." Not until afterthe Second World War, whose enormities madeplainthe consequences which might flowfromracism, didthepluralist ideabecome inclusive.Not until then were the non-whiteracesawarded,in principle,a full place in thefabric ofCanadian society.
x9 Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 9o7-8,585 2o SeeBoyd C. Sharer, "Delusions about Man andHis Groupings," in hisNationalism: Myth andReality (New York 955), PP. 3-37

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Bourinot had recognized that a coherent Canadian nationalist doctrine could not reston culture,and ater a fascinating and complicated search he had locatedits basein the nineteenth-century idea of race,and the link provided amongthe peoples of Canadaby their common descent from the Northern peoples of Europe. Therewerethose, however, who continued to seein cultural uniformity the keyto nationalstrength. For them,indeed, all the signs suggested that by a kind of historical necessity culturaluniformity wasexacfiy what the futurewouldbring,and theybentthemselves to the taskof hasteningitsarrival.The nationalism of theMcCarthyires, momentarily triumphant in the Manitoba School legislation of 89o, was,however, transformed into the pluralist setfiement of 897, the necessity for whichgrewdirectly out of the absence of a nationally acceptable type to which assimilation couldbe urgedand the reluctance of the Manitobans to accept the bicultural idea.A single culturenationalism showed itselfto be impossible, for FrenchCanadianscouldnot accept it, and it wasreplaced by its opposite, the onlything acceptable to Westerners, who had by now come to regardall minorities as coequal in status. But multiculturalism, in the eyes of some bad enough, was to showitsallintolerable when accompanied by multilingualism. The drive for nationalschools wasaccordingly renewed earlyin the twentieth century.

It wassuccessful, however, onlyin thelimited sense thatit created a populationunilingual in English in most of Canada outside Quebec. It didnotprovidethatpopulation witha culture. That population was not"Canadianized." RalphConnor's proposition, that in the Canadian Westa nation wasbeing created, that "out of breeds diverse in tradition, in ideals, in speech, and in manner of life,Saxon andSlav, Teuton, Celt,andGaul,onepeople isbeing made "x remained essentially a prophecy untilled.WhereCravecoeur could
definehisnew man, Connorwroteonlyin vaguegeneralities. Where Israd Zangwill in his 9o8playThe Melting-Pot could explain clearly andin a way that couldappealto him as well asto the established members of hisnew society whatwasto happen to theimmigrant in America, Connor argued for a kind of domestic imperialism in which the immigrantwasnot so much transformed by hisnewenvironment asupliftedby hiscontact with the Protestant Anglo-Saxons he foundin it. HIS bookdemonstrates nothing more

dearlythan the impossibility of articulating a Canadian national typein which all elements of Canadiansociety couldseesomething of themselves. HIS attemptto forgewith hisprose the device whose existence in the United States Zangwillhad dramatized the yearbefore showed itselfto be a failure. What emerged in the 192OS Was not a drift towards integral nationalism or in
RalphConnor [Charles William Gordon], The Foreigner (Torontox9o 9), Preface

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the direction of a firmideaof whoandwhatthe Canadian was(despite the persistence of arguments that thisindeedoughtto be the goal), but the first dear andexplicit articulations of themosaic concept. The termwasfirstused by Victoria Hayward, who in I9 described the CanadianWest with its peculiar architecture anditspolyglot population as"a mosaic of vastdimensions andgreatbreadth ..."' The introduction to hervolume tooknoteof the wayitsauthorviewedCanadian society, and,in a gratuitous aside, contrasted
that society with itsneighbour to the south. The book,it said,records those
uniqueandbeautifulracialtraditions whichhavesurvived in Canadaand flourished, whilethepassion for conformity to a provincial process of standardizationhascrushed themin the United States. In Canada,the Scottish Highlander,theAcadian,and theDoukhobor, for example, havenot beencompelledto abandon theirmemories. The life of their forefathers hasflourished whentransplanted to a newsoil. That wise tolerance andappreciative catholicity whichisnotalways foundin a newlandhaspreserved oldloveliness here...'a

Fouryears laterKateA. Foster of Toronto published a study of theforeign

born in Canada entitled Our Canadian Mosaic?

If Bourinot and Parkin met the difficultiescreated for Canadian national-

ismby cukuraldiversity with the assertion that at the mostfundamental level theydisappeared, D. G. Creighton met them by asserting that at the most

fundamental leveltheycould be ignored. The Laurentian hypothesis 5 not only showed how environmentalist modes ofthought, hitherto used toemphasize whatwas heldtobeCanada's essentially NorthAmerican character, could be employed in the construction of an argument for the independence of
Canada in North America; it also revealed how fruitlessthe searchfor the

unityandcohesion of Canada wasnowheldto beif thatsearch wasnotcarried

beyond its people. The forces whichunified the Canadian experience, it asserted, were tobefound in geography. TheStLawrence River andthesystems tributary to it hadnotonlymade thenation possible; theyhadcalled it
into being. It was upon this great natural phenomenon that the modern Canadianstaterested. It linkedthe regions of Canadafrom eastto west.Its existence meantthat therewasnothingartificialor fragmented aboutthat state.Canadapossessed the mostsolid,natural,and unifiedof bases. More

thanthat,thecontours of Canadian history itself hadbeen given theirvery

Victoria Hayward andEdith S.Watson, Romantic Canada (Toronto x9), P. x87;
the introduction wasby EdwardJ. O'Brien. 3 Ibid., p. xm

4 Mentioned in J. M. Gibbon, Canadian Mosaic: The Makingo! a Northern Nation

(Toronto x938), Preface, p. ix

5 See D. G. Creighton, TheCommercial Empire of theSt.Lawrence, z76o-z85o

(Torontox939)

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shape andsubstance bythemanifold events acted outin thecourse of exploiting the greattranscontinental empireto whichthe St Lawrence system gave
access.

The Laurentianhypothesis gave Canadianhistorya sophistication and depthit hadnotpreviously possessed. It wasa dazzling achievement on other grounds aswall,for it supplied strength andunitywhere theyhadnotexisted before. It camedose to duplicating Frederick Jackson Turner's greatworkin American historiography. Butwhere thefrontier thesis hadseemed to explain all the centralquestions of Americanhistory- expansion, conflict, and the special character of theAmerican people - where it was, for itstime,truly a unifyingvision, the Laurentian hypothesis couldexplainonlysome of the central questions of Canadian history. It comprehended the dynamics of expansion and conflict, but the results obtained fromit wereless satisfactory whenwhat it impliedaboutthenational character wasexamined. It explained whymenhadbeendrawnintothe northern interior of North Americaand across its vastexpanse. It explained the riseof the Canadian state. It explained thecentral conflicts of Canadian history. It explained why government andorderpreceded settlement in the west. As an historical construct, it explained muchindeed. But asa nationalist vision it could do only partof thejob.It explained Canadian independence in NorthAmerica, and it conferred unityandcohesion on the country. But thepriceit required to be paid for these considerable accomplishments washigh.For the hypothesis involved thedearlyimplied assertion thatthose whodidnotfindit possible to maketheproper responses to theimperatives of thegreat riversystem wereto be considered Canadians onlymarginally and in the most formalsense. They had failed to attunethemselves to the major chords of the Canadianexperience. They wereoutof harmony with itsverycoreandessence. They denied'., or wereunableto appreciate, the forces whichgavetheir society itslife and being. And so,regrettably but necessarily, theywereplaced beyond thepale. They had failedto discern and movewithin the parameters of Canadian
nationhood.

The hegemony of the greatriversystem mightexplain muchin Canadian history, it mightindeed bethecentral factof Canadian history, buta nationalist theory based on it wouldhavedifficulty gaining national acceptance on othergrounds as well. Sucha theorycouldnot take with greatseriousness sectionalism and the genuine if not insurmountable barrierswhich divided the sections and gavethe people in thema self-consciousness and a sense of theirowninterests. In itscosmology therelationship of the outlying parts to the vital centre wasto be oneof subordination. That relationship wasto be, in fact,franklyimperial. How onewouldreactto thisarrangement, asW. L. Mortonwrote,depended, like one's appreciation of a club,on the endfrom which one contemplated it. Thosewho had not contemplated it from the

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proper endremained unconvinced that an argument whichdepended on the assertion that unityandcoherence wereto be purchased at theprice,notof subordination of the partsto the whole,but of what theyregarded as the subordination of some partsto another part couldeverbe acceptable asthe
basis for a healthynationalism.

Nine yearsafter the Laurentian hypothesis received its firstformulation, Morton questioned itsadequacy asa nationalist device although he appeared to accept the main thrustof itsargument ashistory. He foundthe dominance of the centrewhich it asserted and the culturalhomogeneity it implied objectionable. "The Canadianstate,"he wrote,"cannotbe devoted to absolute nationalism, the focus of an homogeneous popular will. The two nationalities
and the four sections of Canada forbid it." Rather, he concluded,it must

respond to theinterests of the communities, regional and otherwise, of which it consists. "The statein Canadamustpromotelibertyof persons and communities ...,,6

In 196o Morton, by then clearlyrecognizing the value of the LaurentJan hypothesis for the nationalist argument yet still firmly convinced that Canadian society mustbe understood in pluralistterms,attempted to synthesize a modifiedversion of that concept with the pluralistidea. His objectwas to articulate an ideaof Canada whichwouldon theonehandprovide cohesion

andontheotherallowfor diversity, onewhich wouldpromote liberty of persons and communities withoutat the sametime invitingfragmentation of the polity. Therewas,hewrotein an argument of near-metaphysical subtlety, one Canadianway of life, givenits character by the northernclime.Within that broadpattern,it wastrue, wereto be foundmanyothers. They were,however,onlyvariants of the one.All Canadians werenortherners and therefore

in essence the same. But whiletherewasabove all a common response to a commonnorthernenvironment, it did not enjoin a rigid and absolute conformity.Canadiansociety, then,wascharacterized, not by unity in diversity but diversity in unity. In this way Morton advanced his I946 argumenta stage and attempted to reconcile the culturaland regional diversity whichso clearlycharacterized Canadawith the homogeneity whichit now seemed to himanysociety must have if itslifewere to besustained? 7
v

The fact that the Canadian statehasnot beenthe ultimateexpression of a particular culture andthatit isnotcoterminous with a single region explains much aboutthe failure of Canadianintellectuals to articulatea classically
26 "Clio in Canada: The Interpretation of CanadianHistory," Universityof Toronto Quarterly,xv, 3, April I946, ee7-34

e7 The Canadian Identity (TorontoI96t ) pp. 89, IIt-X2

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nationMist explanation of their nationand its experience, oneto whichall Canadians in all partsof the country mightrespond. But if cultural uniformity cannotbe saidto existin the country as a whole,neitherhasit been possible to arguethat it can be foundwithin the linguistic community with
which most Canadiansassociate themselves. When the immigrant learns English, he acquires a mediumof communication, but he does not acquire a culture.This situation arose, and hasbeensustained, partly by design and partlyby accident. The English-speaking community wasnot at Confederation conceived of

asculturally homogeneous. Not onlythe newnationality asa whole, but also the English-speaking part of it, wasthoughtof as beingculturally diverse, involvingScots and Irish as well as Englishelements. This concept, like so manyothers in Canadian history, couldenterintotheservice bothof Frenchand English-speaking Canadians because eachof themcouldemphasize different elements in it. For the French,concentrating on the principleat its centre,it meantthat their position in confederation, as onenationality in a
statededicatedto the serviceof different nationalities, was unassailable. For

the English, concentrating onthereality whichseemed soclear, it meant that English Canada wasnoless a unitythanwasBritainherself, for herdifferent parts, asdidthose of theUnitedKingdom, participated in a common cukure
and civilization,onethat wasmostoften described as BritishNorth America.

But the essential pointis that the assertion of the pluralist idea not onlyreflectedthe present absence of, but alsoprevented the future creation of, an English-Canadian type.A commitment had beenmadeon the levelof principlenotto duality butto pluralism. Thisdidnotseem soelear at thetime,for the diversity whichexisted in English-speaking Canadain 1867wasobscured by the fact that the elements of whichEnglish-Canadian society wascomposed werebound together by theircommon language, theirBritish heritage, andtheirparticipation in the British North American experience. The pluralistideawasthusrendered at oncenecessary and harmless, for whileit grew naturally out of the absence of a normative type,it wasnot reallytaken,exceptin Cartier's rhetoric, to indicate the presence of any verymeaningful degree of cultural diversity in English Canada.

The migrations of the Laurierperiod at last caused English-speaking Canadians to confront the implications of the pluralist idea.They were brought faceto facewith cukural diversity not mitigated by similarity of
background and the useof a common language. The confrontation caused themto think that pluralism carriedtoofar wasundesirable, but it alsoreyealedhow powerless theywereto overcome it. The absence of a normative

English-speaking Canadian type to which assimilation might beurged meant thattheonlydevice which could beused to bindthesociety together was its
British character on theonehandanditsparticipation in theNew-Worldex-

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perience on the other.The firstof these the immigrant regarded with suspicion.He missed thenationalism at therootof muchof the English Canadian's attachment to the empire.For thishe couldnot reallybe blamed, for many English Canadians missed it too.To him, a remarklike Stephen Leacock's that if things wentastheyshould, "prettysoon the Ukranians (sic) will think theywon the Battleof Trafalgar"- meantonlythat he wasbeinginvitedto submerge hisethnicidentityin someone else's. It did notsuggest the existence
of a "Canadianism,"or even an "English Canadianism,"with which he couldwithouthesitation seek to identifyhimself. The monarchy, it wastrue, arousedthe enthusiasm of someof the newcomers, but their reverence for it recalled theFrench-speaking Canadian's attachment to an institution that did

not compel his assimilation ratherthan the English Canadian's celebration of an agency hisallegiance to whichinvolved him, if onlyvicariously, in one of thegreatepics of human history. The role playedby Britainin the nineteenth century wasassumed by the UnitedStates in thetwentieth. Canada came to bedefined more byitsparticipationin the New-Worldexperience thanitsplacein theimperial. The two, in fact,werenowheldin some quarters to bemutually exclusive. Thisprocess wasintensified andmade easier byCanada's absorption ofAmerican popular culturewhich oozedirresistibly northwards, steadilyincreasing in volume until it assumed theproportions of a flood.Its presence exaggerated Englishspeaking Canada's essentially North American character, for it suggested absolute identity wherein fact therewasonlyclose similarity. And soasthat

partof thedefinition of theEnglish-speaking Canadian character which centreduponitsparticipation in British culture andcivilization wasdeprived of itsrelevancy andreceded in importance, it wasreplaced, not by a compact, commonly acceptable definition of Canadianism, but by theideaof Canada asan American nation.Whilethisturn of events wasagreeable to, andin fact had beenparflyengineered by, Canadian nationalists of the Liberalpersuasion, others foundit wanting. To themthisappreciation of the Canadian character seemed incomplete at thepointat which it wasmost important to nationalists thatit becomplete, for by focussing on the undeniable similarities between the two societies it ignored theways in which theydiffered andin consequence hadlittleto say aboutthat in Canadawhichwaspeculiar to it. If, therefore, the nationalism of the Canadianimperialists couldbe easily discredited, the nationalism of the continentalists couldalso,and for muchthe same reasons. It seemed, as Canadian imperialism had seemed to its detractors, to be a definition of the national character framed in terms of Canada's affinity tosome other country. It therefore left Canada conceptually defenceless against thatcountry. All of this- Britain's declining relevance to a definition of the EnglishCanadiancharacter, the incompleteness of a definition of that character

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based on itssimilarity to the society to thesouth, andthe continuing impossibility of creating an English-speaking Canadian counterpart of Crvecoeur's American - left the pluralist ideaexposed and alone. Of the threeelements that had defined English-speaking Canada's character at Confederation, only it retained itsmeaning. English-speaking Canadacouldno longer be British, it wasnotmerely American; the absence of an English-Canadian typemeant thatit was, necessarily andasbefore, pluralist. Thisresurgence of thepluralist
ideain the twentieth century hasbeenaccelerated by the immigrant's reaction to hisnew society's orientation firsttowards Britishcultureand then Ameri-

can,for it suggested to himthat English-speaking Canada wasindeed otherdirected, that it contained no verystrong indigenous culture,and sobecame to himan argument for retaining hisown. It would,of course, be erroneous to denythat behavioural assimilation has takenplacein English Canada.It has,and at a rapid pace.The language, the culture patterns, andthevalues of hisnewsociety all actupontheimmigrantand makeof him, in some sense, a newman. But asa sociologist teaching in Canadahasrecently written,thisprocess "hasnot removed the negative stereotypes that haveidentified members of different ethnic groups" in English-speaking Canada.The reason is not hard to find. Assimilation in English Canadahasbeenopen-ended. The absence of an English-speaking Canadiantype has meant that there is nothingidentification with which woulddeprive the ethnic stereotype the immigrant carried around with him of its meaning. There is nothingwhichcancels it out and deprives it of its potency. The persistence of ethnicidentification in both a negative and positive sense hasled to the argument that the Canadianmosaic be deprived of its verticality, not by obliterating it altogether (that would be impossible, sincethat which produced it prevents its overthrow)but by emphasizing structural assimilation on the part of those who retaintheir groupor ethnic identification. "It wouldappear,"Professor Isajiwwrites,"that the problem of ethnicstatus can be dealtwith ... by means of ethnicpluralism itself. "8 The creation of a society of undifferentiated atomicindividuals, all of whom conform to the same typeand same setof values, is not now,asit neverhas been, a tenable ideal,either in Canada itself or in theEnglish-speaking part
of it.

There are,ofcourse, other factors which have played a partin theemergence of themosaic concept. Certain ethnic groups havebeen motivated asmuch by thehistory of theirnation or culture outside Canada asby circumstances
withinit to retaintheirethnic consciousness. The Ukrainians, the Doukho28 Wsevolod W. Isajiw, "TheProcess of Social Integration: TheCanadian Example,"
Dalhousie Review, xI.vm, 4, winter968-9,pp. 54-5

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bors,and the Hutteriteshaveall beenconcerned, for reasons whichlie essen-

tiallyoutside theirCanadian experience, to retain theirspecial character. Immigration authorities have,asa matterof policy,encouraged immigrants to retainsome measure of theirethnic identity to ease theprocess of acculturation and reduce the intensity of culture shock. An explanation for the absence of a consensus in bothculture andpolitics hasbeen foundin thekindof political system Canadapossesses. A democratic republicrequires all its citizens to
sharecertainfundamentalbeliefs. The rule of citizenover citizen,the rule of

a majorityover a minorityis not acceptable unless thereis a consensus on fundamentals. A monarchy, unlike a republic, demands allegiance of itssubjects, andthat isall. No conformity of views isrequired. As Mortonhassaid: "... the society of allegiance admits of a diversity the society of compact does not,andoneof theblessings of Canadian life isthat thereisno Canadian way of life, muchless two, but a unityunderthe crown,admitting of a thousand
diversities.'

Finally,the Canadianvaluesystem, it hasbeensuggested, encourages Canadians to see theirsociety asonethat consists of differentiated groups, rather than an homogeneous mass, all of whose members conform, or in principle ought to conform, to a single normative type:
The verystrength of hierarchical status, traditional religion, andgovernmental authority in Canadahasmeantthat in a varietyof ways...Canadian values fall somewhere between those ofBritain andtheUnitedStates ...Oneconsequence of therelative conservatism of Canadian society hasbeen thatgreater emphasis isplaced onparticularist group identifications, especially ethnic andregional but also to some limiteddegree, class andstatus. s

Not surprisingly, the French-Canadian conception of Canada has been shapedby French Canada'sspecialand overridingconcernfor survival. Cartiermusthaveseen themultinational ideaasespecially attractive because it provided the argument for French-Canadian rightswith a forceand cogency whichit seemed no reasonable man coulddeny.If Canadawereto be
29 Morton, The CanadianIdentity, p. 3 S. M. Lipset,"Introduction," AgrarianSocialism: The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan. A Studyin PoliticalSociology (GardenCity, N.Y. 968), p. xvii. For an extended treatment o thissubject, seeLipset's The First New Nation: The United Statesin Historicaland Comparative Perspective (Garden City, N.Y. 967), especially chap.7, "Value Differences, Absolute or Relative: The English-Speaking Democracies," pp. 284-3 2; and his "Canadaand the United States - a Comparative View," Canadian Reviewo[ Sociology andAnthropology, , 6, Nov. 964, 73 ff

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a statefounded on the principle that no harm couldbe doneto persons of any nationality, then clearlythe French-speaking Canadians wouldnot be alone in asking for, andreceiving, special treatment. Theywouldin factbe asking for nothing to whichothergroups werenot onlyentitled, but which theywerereceiving. If the wholesociety waspredicated on the assumption that the interests of differentgroups wouldbe served, what couldbe more reasonable, moreentirely in order,than that those of the FrenchCanadians should beserved aswell.The pluralist ideaalso lentextraweight to theargumentfor FrenchCanada's linguistic rights. For if these othernationalities the English, the Irish, and the Scots - wereto enjoythe rightto usetheir language, and nothing couldbe clearer than that theywere,then,since the Frenchwouldpossess the samerightsin the new state,it wasequallyclear thattheytoowould besecured in theuse of theirlanguage. French-Canadian rightswouldthusbecome imbedded in the natureof things.If not one,or even two, but three "nationalities" were to enjoy full culturalrightsin Canada,it wastherefore entirelyconsistent with the way society wasordered, and in no sense a demand for special privileges, that the FrenchCanadians be giventhe rightsof their "nationality" aswell.But why, then,if thisexplanationexplains somuch,why,if thepluralist ideaprovided sosolid a base for the assertion of FrenchCanada's collective rights, wasit overshadowed and indeed replaced in French-Canadian thinking by the bicultural ideaand the principle of duality? Cartier'spluralistargument wasas much a rhetorical deviceas it wasa description of what he tookto be the realities of Canadian society. It was valuable because it allowed a forceful andconvincing argument to be made in supportof French-Canadian rights.If the time camewhen k couldno longer serve that purpose, it wouldhavelostitsutilityand the search would beginfor something wkh whichto replace it. By the beginning of the twentiethcentury it wasclearthat it had indeed lostwhatever usefulness it may have oncepossessed, and so, withoutfanfareand almostas if it had never existed, it waslaid to rest.But the matterdid not quiteendthere,for by a strange paradox thatwhichdeprived it of itsvalueasan argument for FrenchCanadian rights confirmed itsworthasa description of theobjective realities
of Canadiansociety.

Carrier's argument had impliedthe right of eachof the several cultures of whichCanadawascomposed to its ownlanguage, a righttheyall in fact exercised at Confederation, andfromthiscircumstance hededuced therightof FrenchCanadians to theirlanguage. The pluralist ideahad to involve an argument that all groups possessed language rights if it wasto secure theFrench Canadians in theirs.Multiculturalism had to implymultilingualism. If the
variouscultures sharedonly oneor, aswasthe case in Canada at Confedera-

tion,two languages, themultilingual implications of multiculturalism would

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be nullified, but - andherewasthecrucial point- nullified not by logicbut by circumstance. Shouldthosecircumstances change,shouldCanada come to be composed of cultural groups whichshared morethantwolanguages, the logic of Cartier's argument wouldrequire it to be applied in support of multilingualism. And, at century's end,circumstances did change. The migrations of the Laurieryears brought to Canadaa substantial numberof immigrants whoselanguage wasneitherEnglishnor French.If those migrations caused English Canadians to confront the implications of the pluralist idea with a vigourthat madethat idea's reassertion of itsprimacy all themoreimpressive, theirimpact on French-speaking Canada waseven moredramatic. Forwhere English Canadians ultimately foundit impossible to revolutionize their conception of Canada,wheretheywereunableto respond to the newpluralism in theway manyof themwouldhaveliked,wherein the endtheyhad to concedeits existence, FrenchCanadians were able to alter fundamentally their concept of thenewnationality. For them to havefollowedCartier after 896 wouldhavebeento argue that eachof thesenew groups was entitledto the useof its language. But multilingualism was unacceptable to the English-speaking majority. That majoritywassometimes compelled to accept it, asit did in Manitobain x897, but it did sogrudgingly. It arguedconsistently and with vehemence that, in the Westat least,theimmigrants should become fluentin thelanguage of the majorityin orderto builda strong and vital nation.In soarguing, it did not trouble,as Connorhad not troubled,to distinguish between recentlyarrived immigrants and the French-speaking Canadians whose ancestors had opened the West. In thesecircumstances, the argumentbasedon pluralismcould onlyencourage those who werealreadyanxious to put FrenchCanadians on an equalfooting with the newcomers to do so.They woulddo so,however, not for the purpose of securing all of themin the useof theirlanguages, but rather of denying them their use.The morestrenuously the pluralistargumentwasput, themoreconvinced wouldbecome themajority that assimilation of all minorities,linguisticand cultural, must take place in order to prevent social andlinguistic chaos. It wasprecisely to thisidentification of the French-speaking with the otherminorities, undertaken for the purpose of assimilating them all, that the Frenchtook strongexception. As Armand Lavergne wrote: "In constituting the FrenchCanadian, who haslivedin the country since itsdiscovery, theequal in rights andprivileges to theDoukhobor or the Galicianwho hasjust disembarked, we have opened between the Eastern and Western sections of Canadaa gulf that nothingwill be ableto dose. "ax An argument thattookthemin thisdirection wasvalueless to French Canadians. It was now necessary for them to distinguish themselves from,
3x LesEcoles du Nord-Ouest (Montreal 9o7), p. 8, citedin Ramsay Cook,Canada and the French-Canadian Question(Toronto x966), p. 35

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not identifythemselves with, the otherminorities. In the new circumstances, then,the multicultural argument couldonlyaccelerate, not retard,the uni-

lingual process. It wouldbecome an example of precisdy thesortof particularist outlook that,in theviewofthemajority, must beovercome.
All of this had been obscured from Cartier's view. He could construe the

new politicalnationality in a broadand expansive way because, far from endangering theposition of the French language andthe integrity of FrenchCanadian culture, to do so seemedto make them more secure.But after

896 thiswouldclearlynot be the case. Multiculturalism would now resolve

itselfinto unilingualism, and that mustnot be allowed to happen. For the FrenchCanadians, language andculture wereintimatdyrelated. If therights of the onewereeroded, the otherwouldsurely collapse. "The conservation of the language", wroteFrenchCanada's leadingnationalist in x9x3, "is absolutelynecessary for theconservation of therace,itsgenius, itscharacter andits temperament. "a2What wouldconserve thelanguage, whatwoulddeny unilingualism, what would distinguish the French-speaking minorityfrom the otherminorities, wasa rejection of the pluralist ideain favourof a clearand unambiguous doctrine of biculturalism. The homogeneous, indeed monolithic, character of English-Canadian society had to be asserted sothat the special claims of anyminoritywithinit (saveof course the French) couldbe denied. The cultures of which Canadawas composed musthave the right to their respective languages, but the argument for that right mustnot derivefrom too latitudinarian a concept of Canadiannationality, or else,as the fate of Cartier's argument had plainlydemonstrated, it wouldlose itsutility. And so,by a peculiar twist,Cartier's plan for multiculturalism had to be retiredfrom service, owing,not to the riseof a monolithic English Canada, but to itsopposite. The vigorous reaction of manyEnglish Canadians to that opposite raised the spectre of a culturally homogeneous English Canadaand thereality of a unilingual one.Cartier's argument for multiculturalism providedno defence against the second of these, and therefore, in the viewof the French-speaking Canadians, none against thefirst. It would in factonlyhasten theircoming, forto employ it nowwould beto convince theEnglish thatthey mustindeedact expeditiously, or Canadawouldbecome a Tower of Babel. It therefore became necessary to assert theprinciple of duality. That principle wouldnot command universal assent but it seemed more susceptible of defence thanthe pluralist idea.The prophet of Canadaasa bilingual, multicultural society became, then,thepartisan of Canada asa bilingual, bicultural society. The changing character of English Canadahad metamorphosed
Cartier into Bourassa.

What Bourassa fearedand opposed, the riseof a virtuallyunilingual Can3 H. Bourassa, La Langue [rancaise et l'avenir denotre race(Quebec 93), P. 4, cited in M. Wade,The FrenchCanadians (Toronto956) p. 6ee

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adaoutside of Quebec, explains whytheargument for biculturalism became an argument for binationalism. The refusal of themajority in English-speakingCanada to uphold thelinguistic rights andtherefore thecultural integrity of theminority ledthatminority to assert thatit should have, indisputably and where it could exercise it, thepolitical power necessary to insure itssurvival. If Cartier became Bourassa, Bourassa, owing in partto thefateof thebiculturalideain English Canada, became MichelBrunet. For himthehistory of French Canada has become thehistory of a people searching for a fatherland, a state which will serve andprotect theirpeculiar traditions andculture. And with thistransformation something whichhadbeen central to thethought of bothCartier andBourassa disappeared? SomeFrench-speaking Canadianintellectuals havetried in recent years to dissolve the equation manynationalists havebeenanxious to makebetween culture andthe state. Their approach to thetheory of the state in general and that of theCanadian state in particular hasbeen functional andpragmatic. In their politicaltheory,and especially in the politicaltheoryof PierreElliott Trudeau,the wisdom of and the necessity for thisequation hasbeenannihilated.In 962 Trudeau,takinghistext from JulienBenda,wrotea scathing attackon the nationalist intdlectuals of FrenchCanada.His objectwasto show howpernicious wouldbe the consequences and howself-destroying in
fact wasthe substance of their nationalism. No state,he argued,washomo-

geneous. Nationalism, overweening reverence for a particularway of life, therefore lead inexorably to exclusivism and ethnocentricity. This wasespeciallytrue of a statelike Canada, and of a province like Quebec, wherethe consequences of cultural nationalism could beall tooplainly seen. It produced injustice for theminorities, butmorethanthat,it narrowed theminds of the majorityand subjected themto spiritual and intellectual asphyxia. It was therefore necessary to recognize, in principle and in fact, that the statein Canadacotfid notbecome theinstrument of a particular culture. It wasnecessary to recognize thatthere could benonational ideain Canada, seeking like some sort of Hegelian geist to actualize itself in all of society. If there was, the Canadian state wouldcollapse undera weight it could notbear."We must", hewrote, "separate once andforalltheconcepts ofstate andnation, andmake

Canada a trulypluralistic andpolyethnic society. "a4Threeyears laterhe

madethe grounds of hisopposition to classical nationalism evenrearer. "I
33 Fora critical assessment ofBrunet andhiswork, see Ramsay Cook, "TheHistorian
andNationalism," in Cook's Canada and the French-Canadian Question (Toronto

966) pp. 9-42.Brunet speaks forhimself in hisessay "TheFrench-Canadians'

Search for a Fatherland" in Russell, ed., Nationalism in Canada,pp. 47-6o

34 "La nouvelle trahison des dercs," CitdLibre,April 962.Reprinted as"TheNew

Treasonof the Intellectuals" in Trudeau,Federalism and the FrenchCanadians (Toronto968) p. 77

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believe," he wrote,"that a definition of the state that is based essentially on ethnicattributes is philosophically erroneous and wouldinevitably lead to
intolerance. "3

For mostFrenchCanadians, however, pluralism hasyieldedto dualism,

which hasbecome, in turn, the basis for somevariationof the binationalidea.

The pluralist ideahashadmorecurrency byfar in English-speaking Canada, for English-speaking Canadiam havebeenstruck not onlyby the country's linguistic duality but by thedisparate character of thatpartof it in whichthey
live. In recentyearsthey have givenrenewedvoiceto their conviction that although Canadamay be a nationin whichdualityfigures prominently, it is

replaced by pluralism beyond the level of language, and sometimes even

there? 6

Crvecmur's newmanwasdistinguished notonlybyhispeculiar lineage: he wasan ideologue of sorts, rendered unique by theviews thatheheld.He was, Cr?:vecmur hadwritten, notsimply a newman,buta newmanwhoacts upon newprinciples. He possessed a setof social, political, and economic values, and it wasthese, asmuchasthe singularity of hisdescent and familystructure,that sethim apart.These principles werenot,of course, entirely new. They seemed so,however, because of the degree to whichthey had become characteristic of the American mind. Subsequent generations of Americans
made them as much their own as had those of Crvecmur's time. The Ameri-

canpolitical tradition hasbeen almost uniformly Lockean, anda competitive individualist, entrepreneurial spirit has characterized the Americanin his
economic relations.s?

Less rigorous hasbeenthe American's emulation of hiseighteenth-century prototype in otherrespects. He hasnot beenuniversally interested in losing hisethnic consciomness. Yet it wasnotasif the prevailing mores of American society did not impel him in this direction. The meltingpot hasbeenthe ideal;thepointof a restrictive immigration policy wasto getimmigrants who couldsuccessfully adaptto American waysand exclude those whocouldnot; Kallenwroteto criticize theconventional modeof thinking about whatought to happen to immigrants upontheirarrivalin the UnitedStates; Moynihan
35 "Quebec andthe Constitutional Problem," ibid.,p. 9 36 See,for example, Morton,The Canadian Identity;KennethMeNaught,"The NationalOutlookof English-Speaking Canadians," in Russell, ed., Nationalism in Canada, pp. 6t-7 t; andJ. M. S. Careless, "LimitedIdentities in Canada," Canadian HistoricalReview,L, , March 969, x-o 37 Besides Hartz'sThe LiberalTraditionin America andPotter's People o[ Plenty, seeRichard Horstadler, The American PoliticalTradition(New York 96 ), especially Introduction, pp. v-xi

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and Glazerfoundit necessary to show that assimilation wasnotoccurring in New York City. The existence of culturalplurali.m in the United States becomesthen the measureof an ideal's failure; and the failure of that ideal

should not be takento meanthat its opposite waseverpart of the national

ethic.

Tocqueville perceived longagowhat modern social science hasnot found it necessary to deny,the basic impulse of Americansociety towards confor-

mity. as That impulse has notcaused ethnicity to disappear; whatit hasproducedis a largemeasure of social conformity and an almost irresistible tendencyto conform to the essentials of the Americanfaith, and that tendency hasdeprived whatever culturaldiversity may existof muchof itssignificance. For, in the language of the social scientists, "Newcomers to America faced heavysocial pressure to conform, the instruments of conformity becoming evermoreefficient with thegrowthof industrialization, mass communication and publiceducation. Somein-group normsand residual subcultural patternshavesarvived, but immigrant cultures asself-contained systemic entities began to disintegrate soon aftertheinitialsettlement." Eventhough theymay haveretained some partof theirethnic consciousness, "theethnics internalized

a loyalty to thecore political symbols, values, andinstitutions of theAmerican polity. "aTheir ethnic identity wasthus subsumed in something larger, more inclusive, andultimately far moreinfluential thanthe diluted imperatives of a culture far fromtheirsource. "Byevery realistic criterion," Will Herberg writes,"the AmericanWay of Life is the operative faith of the American
38 Tocqueville's assessment of theAmerican character has,of course, beensubjected to
intensive scrutiny, and somewritershavewantedto qualify certainof its central propositions. David Reisman, with NathanGlazerand ReuelDenny,The Lonely Crowd: A Studyo! theChanging American Character (New Havenx95o) argued that what Tocquevillecalledthe "courtierspirit" hasbeenmore a featureof twentieth-

thannineteenth-century America. Their conclusions, in turn,weresharply challenged by Carl N. Degler,"The Sociologist as Historian: Reisman's The Lonely Crowd," AmericanQuarterly,xv, 4, winter 963,483-97, who saw,"otherdirection" as "the dominant element in ournational character through mostof our history"(p. 497). Cushing Strout,"A Note on Degler, Reismanand Tocqueville,"American Quarterly,xvI, , spring964, oo-, defended Reisman by arguingthat other direction is a subtle psychological phenomenon "quite different"from Tocqueville's tyrannyof the majority,whichhadits effects chiefly in religionand politics. He also, however, suggested that therewereno inconsistencies betweenthe two writers.For a generaldiscussion of thispart of Tocqueville's work, seeMax Lerner,"Freedomin a MassSociety," in hisTocqueville andAmericanCivilization(New York 969) pp. 67-79 39 Michael Parenti,"Immigrationand PoliticalLife," in FredericCopleJaher,ed., The Age o! Industrialism in America: Essays in SocialStructure and CulturalValues (New York 968), pp. 83, 9, 94

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people ... Sociologically, anthropologically, ff onepleases, it is the characteristic American religion, undergirding American life andoverarching American societydespiteall indubitabledifferences of region,section, culture, and
class."40

Canada doesnot Possess this basicimpulse toward conformity because therehasbccnnothing in Canadato whichconformity couldbc urged. There is no ovcrarching CanadianWay of Life, nor can therebe an ideological Canadianism. The Canadian political traditionhasno single setof transcendent values immancntin all its partsbindingthem to one anotherand to itself.The mostrigid application of HartzJan categories to Canadianpolitics yields, asit must,a dual political tradition,a "double fragment," to uscthe HartzJanterminology, and cvcnit provides only a limited insightinto the natureof the Canadianpolitical tradition.To arguethat English-Canadian society is one-dimensional in the same sense that American is,to arguethat it is merelya fragment of thc liberalsociety of America,suffused by the samc principles, its radicalPolitics rendered impotent in the same way,is to miss the nuances of its Politicaldevelopment. For while that development has beenfundamentally North American, its course hasbeeninfluenced by nonliberalidcologics, the ground for whichwasprepared by the toryism of the Loyalists. Their coming introduced a Tory "touch"into the Canadian political tradition,which not onlyendured itselfbut alsoequipped thc Canadian mindwiththecapacity to respond to organic, collccrivist principles andto the idea of class in the form in which they wcrc broughtto Canada by British socialists. The CanadianPolitical traditionhas,then,beenampleenough to accommodate viablemovements based uponconservativc andsocialist aswell

asliberalprinciples. It has,unlikethe American, embraced Political parties whichrange through theideological spectrum, andin thiswayCanada's cultural and sccrional diversity hasfounditselfcomplemented by ideological diversity? If JohnLockehasbecome, in Merle Curti'sphrase, "America's Philosopher, " Lord Actonhasbecome Canada's. If the American consensus was formed around Lockean principles, the circumstances contributing to theformarionof the much broaderCanadianconsensus suggest the point at which Actoh's thought hasbecome relevant to Canadians. If the American state is the instrument of, indeed the ultimateexpression of, a particular way of life,
Canadianshave viewed their federal state in ActonJanterms, as one that
4o Will Herberg, Protestant-Catholic-Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology
(New York 955), PP. 88, 9o 4 G. Horowitz,"Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism in Canada:An Interpretation," Canadian Journalof Economics and PoliticalScience, May 966, pp. 42 "The GreatMr. Locke, America's Philosopher, 783-862,"in hisProbing Our Past
(New York 955), PP. 69-8

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oughtnot,andindeed cannot, identify itselfwith a single culture or ideology. For themnecessarily, asfor Actonin principle, the beststatebecomes that
statewhich containsseveralcommunities, and strivesto servethe interests of

all of them.They havetakenastheirsthe idealthat Acton defined in 1861:

"... The coexistence of several nations under the same state is the test as well

asthe bestsecurity of its freedom... we mustconclude that thosestates are

substantially the mostperfect which... include various distinct nationalities without oppressing them...,,as
IX

The ideaof Canadaas a pluralist society hashad, then,a lengthy history. That history, however, hasbeena complicated one.Circumstances haveimposed the pluralistidea, and manynationalists have bitterlyresented those circumstances. They havebeenmadesupremely unhappyby the fact that their nationalist conceptualizations, if they are to have meaningin all of Canada,mustbe framedin terms that takeaccount, somehow, of itspluralism.They haveknownthat nationalist imagery mustnot onlybe emotionally satisfying, but that it mustalso appearto be true,at leastto those the essence of whose society it issupposed to represent. Theyhavethusbeen caused much distress, for that imagerywhichis credible is not alwaysemotionally satisfying, while that which is emotionally satisfying is not alwayscredible. Many of them,in consequence, havewanted, nota pluralist society withitsproblems
of identity and its lack of coherence, but a society that has a clear sense of

itselfand is unitedand strong. And so,while acknowledging the disparate character of their society on the one hand, they have tried to minimizethe importance of these traitsontheother. Theyhaveconceded theheterogeneous character of their society onlywith reluctance, or they havecleverly worked its differentpartsup into something meantto resemble a coherent whole. Onlyin therecent pasthas thespirit withwhichmanyCanadians haveinfused the pluralist view of their society undergone a change. Only recently have Canadiannationalists shownthemselves willing to accept,and sometimes evencelebrate, the paradox that liesat the heartof their nationalism. Two things explain whythishashappened. The social sciences haveshown that the life of society is to be foundin its experience. The Canadianexperience, as nationalists likeeveryone else mustrecognize, hashadat itscentre accommodation, compromise, andadjustment. An understanding of Canadian society, how it works,what is its nature,and any attemptto realizeand defineits
character,must take thesefactsinto account.But there is evidentmore than

simply a newwillingness to bring a functional perspective to bearonthestudy

43 LordActon,"Nationality," in hisEssays onFreedom andPower,selected by GertrudeHimmelfarb (London956), p. 68

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of Canadian society, morethana newenthusiasm for theresults of emphasizingthefunctional method. In some quarters theabsence of a monolithic Canadianism hasproduced positive satisfaction. It hasbecome, in fact, the basis
for a new Canadian nationalism. The reason is not hard to find. Classical

nationalism, the nationalism of race,culture, unity,coherence, and strength hasmadeitself repugnant in thetwentieth century. The Canadian nationalist, therefore, hashadless andless difficulty adjusting to thefactthat hisstateif it is to survive can neverbe nationalist in that special, impoverishing, and abhorrent way.Nowhere isthistension, anditsfinalresolution, moreobvious thanin thethinking of VincentMassey. In hispanegyric On Being Canadian he madeit clearthat he wasprepared to concede the pluralist character of Canadian society onlywith reluctance. HISacceptance of themosaic concept
was tentative and uncertain. His ideal remained a bicultural nationalism and

hewasat pains to show that Canadawasfirmlyunitedundera common politicalnationality. "We maybe," he wrote,"a mosaic composed of manydifferentsizes and shapes and colours, and sometimes the cement between the bitshasseemed to wear thin, but for all that the mosaic hasa nationalpattern... Thereisa continuity of principle ...,,44 Butif in 948 Massey's emphasis hadbeen asmuch onunityaspluralism, bytheearly 96os heshowed himselfmuchmore willing to definethe nation's character in termsof its experience andto recognize matter-of-factly andwithout hesitation itspluralist character. In writingof immigrants to Canada since 945 heobserved simply that "we try to fit in the new-comers much as they are, as pieces in the
Canadian mosaic.'

The spiritinforming thepluralist viewof Canada hasclearly altered in the recent past.In the absence of a nationally acceptable common standard, it retains, as muchas any abstraction can retain,its credibility. But now,if it stillis not asdeeply satisfying asthe primitiveand emotional sense of exaltationwhichcomes fromknowledge of the unityandperfection of one's society andculture, it is at least moreclearly acceptable. As Massey's worksuggests, the tension that formerly existed between its credibility on the onehandand itsappeal asan object of nationalist veneration on theotherhasshown itself tobecapable ofresolution. Americannationalism approximates the classical type. The American nation-state is the American people organized. It is co-extensive with a particular culture whose interest it isitsprimary responsibility toserve andprotect. One way it hasof doingthisis by requiring conformity by onemeans or
another,to those values it sees asits business to preserve and strengthen. The

rhetoric of themelting pot,thecreation of a national faith,isbut onemanifestation ofthis impulse toward conformity.
44 Toronto x948, pp. x2-x3

45 Canadians andTheirCommonwealth (Oxford96x), p. 6

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Canadiannationalism is clearlyat variance with thistype. It is in fact a

non-nationalism,as Canada is non-nation. American nationalism demands

the assimilation of all to a common way; Canadiannationalism, because it hasno choice, is predicated uponthe toleration of differences. Canadacannot exaltoneculture, or setof values, or way of life, overall others andrequire
conformityto it. Canadian nationalism cannot be exclusivist or narrow; it cannot be conformistor totalitarian; if it is, the state it seeks to servewill

perish. Canadamustbe founded on diversity, and the concept of the mosaic is one attemptto cometo gripswith that mostfundamental of Canadian
truths.

Eachmetaphor, then,is relevant to the national experience it is meantto represent; eachhasbeencreated by the history of the country it attempts to describe, although eachfailsto describe with complete precision andaccuracy that history; eachis graphic, its meaning easily grasped; neitherexaltsone ethnic groupoverthe others; each, finallyis the inevitable by-product of the kind of nationalism foundin eachcountry. The impulse towards conformity in the United States hascreated the melting-pot metaphor;Canada's characterasa heterogeneous society hasgivenriseto the mosaic concept; solong aseachcountry retains these among its distinguishing characteristics, images of conformity in the oneinstance and diversity in the otherwill continue to haveforce andrelevance asdescriptions of thenational character.