Stephen Leacock: High Tory

Let us, as they say, begin at the beginning of this journey. The 18th and 19th centuries was a period of time in the West in which the economics of ‘laissez-faire’ was being hotly debated and disputed. There were many within Canada and abroad that argued, convincingly and powerfully, that an open market and hands off approach to trade would produce a just and equitable society. The role of the State was to be minimal, and the rights of the individual to barter and trade their way to wealth and prosperity was held high. The unseen hand, so it was thought, would guide and shape things in such a way that one and all would benefit. The State, it was argued, should not interfere in the economy. If and when it did so, hurt and harm would visit many. This was, for many liberals, the doctrine and creed of the time. There were, of course, many social liberals in the 19th century, that argued that the State needed to be more interventionist to assist those who were not as kindly and graciously treated by the unseen hand. There emerged, therefore, by the end of the 19th century, a rather heated debate within the liberal camp between the role of the State and ‘laissez-faire’.

I mentioned above that most Canadians (and those outside Canada) know Leacock only as a writer of humorous short stories. Most fail to realize that Leacock taught political economy most of his adult life at McGill University (1900-1936), his best selling book, The Elements of Political Science (1906) was not a work of literary humour, and he was chair of the political economy department at McGill for many a decade, also. In fact, Leacock’s doctoral dissertation was on The Doctrine of Laissez-Faire (1903). Leacock’s dissertation has recently been republished, and he makes it quite clear in his thesis, that he has many a problem with an unqualified notion (as did many social liberals) of ‘laissez-faire’. The dual idea that hands off in the market place is the best and brightest way to go, and the companion idea to this that the USA is the best place to turn to for such a wise economic way, was as foreign to Canadian High Tories as it is commendable to modern conservatives and neoliberals.

The publication of Leacock’s The Elements of Political Science (1906) and Baldwin,Lafontaine, Hincks: Responsible Government (1907) catapulted Leacock to the front stage of Canadian political, historic and economic life. We must remember, at this point in Leacock’s life, he had published nothing of either a literary or humorous bent. He was known primarily as a political economist with a nationalist bent and flavour. Many was the crowd that gathered to hear Leacock, and his reputation as an up and coming commentator of the times was in the ascendent. Massey Hall was packed between 1905-1906 whenever Leacock gave a lecture. Such attention would not go unheeded by the shapers and makers of the Canadian leadership. The principal of McGill asked Leacock if he would be able and willing to take some of his emerging ideas to England and try them out for size.

The trip across the water was not without many a controversy. Leacock did not play the good and dutiful British colonial boy. The lectures series went from April 1907-March 1908, and Leacock visited England, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. Leacock compared England, in his article, John Bull, Farmer to an ailing farmer that refuses to let the young sons run the farm. Needless to say, this did not appeal to the English and their sense of being the most civilized and developed of nations. Principal Peterson of McGill told Leacock, ‘your friends here feel that you have gone far enough on that tack and much of your offense consists in rushing in where, by tacit compact, the genuine Canadian is afraid to tread’. Winston Churchill called the John Bull, Farmer ‘offensive twaddle’. Leacock’s eagerness and willingness to raise hard nationalist questions did not bode well for him. Leacock, at the time, also published Greater Canada: An Appeal (1907). This small tract for the times argued that Canada should be an equal member with England, and that we, as Canadians, should be most wary of the USA.

The Liberal party of Laurier had been in power for more than a decade (1896-1911), and when Laurier called a federal election in 1911, he staked out his future on the free trade issue. Laurier, like most liberals, felt and argued that the future of Canada could best be realized by greater integration and annexation with the USA. The High Tory tradition within Canada, Leacock and Robert Borden could not have differed more. Leacock campaigned in a variety of places, crisscrossing the country, and he stood firm and faithful behind Borden in the 1911 election. Laurier was defeated, Robert Borden became the new Prime Minister of Canada (1911-1920). Needless to say, the brand of High Toryism that Borden, the Conservative party and Leacock supported in opposition to Laurier’s liberalism is quite different from the pro-market, pro-American mentality and ethos of our present Conservative party in Canada. Leacock would hear the word, conservative, but he certainly would not understand its present use and meaning.

WW I (1914-1919) faced Canadians with many a challenge and dilemma. Leacock was forty-five when the war began, and he was fifty when it ended. It was during the decade of WW I that Leacock emerged as the leading humorist in Canada, and his two-fold personality (political theorist/activist and literary critic/ humorist) began to take flight. The return of many soldiers from the war meant that there was a growing need for jobs, jobs and more jobs on the domestic front. Those who had made much money from the war thought they had the right to continue to bulge their coffers while paying cheap wages to the returning soldiers and laborers. Most were only too alert to the transition in Russia with the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and many a Canadian was asking about the rights of labour, the need for unions, and a more interventionist State to deal with many a rising social problem. Leacock was only too aware of these issues, and he did not flinch from facing the hard and pressing questions of the time. William Lyon McKenzie King had published Industry and Humanity in 1917. King argued, like most social liberals of the time, that the State needed to be more involved in the economy. King turned to the USA as his model for such a way to go (he was a liberal we must remember). The Winnipeg Strike of 1919 brought much to the fore. Workers, labourers and unions were set in opposition to management and those in economic power. Those who supported the former were seen as communist, whereas those who supported the latter as good and faithful citizens (upholding law and order). Many was the conservative who was a booster and fan of the latter position, and many was the liberal (in a hurry) who sided with the strikers in Winnipeg.

Leacock was only too well aware of what was at stake. He was no fan of laissez-faire liberalism. He argued that if the State could get involved (and did) in WW I to inject money into the economy, it could do so in peace time. Leacock wrote his compelling, and perennially relevant, The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice (1920) to face and confront such a challenge. Leacock made it quite clear in The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice that Canada must find a middle way between both capitalism and communism, between liberty and order, between individualism and the socialism. Each of the compelling and challenging chapters in The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice highlights what happens to a people and nation when one or the other extreme is bowed and genuflected before. Leacock refused to be the apologist of one extreme by holding high yet another extreme. This, in essence, is the moderate and middle way of Canadian High Tory tradition. This position, needless to say, is quite at odds with our modern Conservative party.

The Unsolved Riddle Of Social Justice walked the extra mile to place Leacock in a unique place and position on the Canadian political landscape. It is important to remember, by 1920, WW I was over, the 1917 Revolution in Russia was well under way, many was the laborer and intellectual in Canada that was casting eyes about for other political options, and Leacock was well poised and positioned both at McGill and Canada to think and write about these issues in a timely and thoughtful way and manner.

McGill University, in many important ways, had become a radical centre of both literary and political thought in the 1920s and 1930s, and Leacock was in the eye of the storm. The books of humour, of course, were ever being secreted and rolling off the eager press. Leacock’s work in literary criticism and serious political and economic theory and activism was running neck and neck with his works of humour. There was, of course, much political commentary and gentle satire in his many short stories.

Leacock did much to initiate and support, from 1925-1927, the modernist literary magazine, The McGill Fortnightly Review. This magazine was started by such Canadian worthies, while in their younger years, as Frank Scott, A.J.M.Smith and Leon Edel. The magazine was considered by many to lean too close to radicalism, socialism and Bolshevism. Sir Arthur Currie (president of McGill and a close friend of Leacock) and Colonel Bovey kept a close watch on these student radicals. The point to be made here, though, is that Leacock, as a High Tory conservative was both willing to support The McGill Fortnightly Review, and he also came to the aid of Scott, Edel and Smith when Bovey and Currie sought to curtail their activities. Is this the form of conservatism that dominates our contemporary mind and imagination?

The prosperity of the 1920s soon gave way to the depression of the 1930s. This was a period of time in which farmers, labourers and wages dropped and dipped. Many were on the streets, jobs were scarce and lineups for food were aplenty. Such a dark time is well recounted and accurately told in Waste Heritage (1939), by Irene Baird, and Right Hand Left Hand (1977) by Dorothy Livesay. The 1930s did much to bring into being both the CCF and the Social Credit parties in Canada as a way of dealing with poverty, lack of jobs and homelessness of many. McGill University was, again, front and centre in much of this. Many of the students at McGill in political science started the League for Social Reconstruction (LSR) which became the think tank for the CCF. Many of Leacock’s students such as Frank Scott and Eugene Forsey gave leadership to the CCF. David Lewis (future leader of the NDP) and King Gordon were also part of this circle. The fact that many of Leacock’s students were so involved in the CCF speaks much about a brand of conservatism that looks quite different than the modern Conservative party.

The Conservative party was in power from 1930-1935, and there is no doubt that Prime Minister Bennett made many a blunder. The election of 1935 was a heated and hotly contested one. The depression was at its worst, and there was a great need for the State to intervene in a more broad ranging manner. Bennett had failed to do this in much of his time in office, and this had worried and concerned Leacock. But, when election time came near, Bennett proposed a series of sweeping changes in the government that would make it more responsive to the times. Bennett presented his new policy and direction to the nation in a series of addresses called, The Premier Speaks to the People. These talks by Bennett were given in Jan./1935, and they outlined how and why the Conservative party, if and when elected, would be more responsive and responsible to the people. The changes in direction pleased Leacock, he was asked to write a ‘forward’ to Bennett’s talks, he did, and in doing so, he highlighted his support for a High Tory perspective that was truly concerned for the common good, and the role of the State in protecting such a good. In many ways, Leacock’s ‘forward’ and Bennett’s public lectures, reflect and embody the arguments Leacock had made in The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice (1920).

Bennett was being assaulted from the Social Credit and CCF, on the one hand, and the Liberal party of King, on the other hand. Leacock had his worries about the CCF, but he had even deeper frets about the Social Credit party. So, he took a trip to Western Canada, in the 1930s, to take a harder and closer look at both the philosophy and policies of the Social Credit party. Leacock’s book, My Discovery of the West (1937), in a detailed and meticulous way, made it quite clear why he differed and disagreed with the so called conservatism of the Social Credit party. The debates about the meaning of Canadian conservatism goes back many a decade into Canadian political history. The High Tory form of conservatism that Leacock stood for was and is quite different from the American and republican form of conservatism found in the Social Credit party and the thinking of Aberhart and the Manning dynasty.

Bennett lost the 1935 election to King and the Liberal party. Leacock was coming to the end of his academic career. McGill forced him to retire in 1936, but Leacock would not be still or silent. The pressing issues of the time had to be addressed. WW II worked its way into the life and psyche of most, but Leacock was only too well aware that after the war, much serious thought and action would need to be taken by the Canadian State in an interventionist manner to make for a better country. The years leading up to the war and throughout the war years Leacock remained ever active and alert, but his time was drawing to a close. The years at McGill were now over, age was weakening and wearing him thin and low, but he continued to write and ever write.

Leacock cobbled many of his thoughts together in the final few years of his life, but the big political questions remained front and centre for him until the end. In the winter of 1944, Leacock became quite ill with cancer of the throat. He was operated on in March 16th, but the cancer had worked its way too far and deep into him. The last few months of his life, Leacock had prepared four new books for the press and publishers. The Leacock Roundabout brought together some of the best of Leacock’s writings in a single anthology. The Boy I Left Behind Me told the tale of his early years. Last Leaves and While There is Time were sustained and passionate pleas for the Canadian people and State to rebuild, after the war, a just and compassionate country. Leacock went after both capitalism and communism, and in his predictable way and style, he argued for a moderate and sane middle way that held together both the role of the State and of Society in, an organic and cooperative way, working together for the common good of all Canadians. This was Leacock’s last word and message, as a Canadian High Tory, to the Canadian people.

Last Leaves is divided into six sections. Section 1 walks the reader into a deeper, more leisured, more contemplative way of knowing and being. Leacock does come as a firm critic of the demands, hurly burly and frenetic nature of the modern world, and section 1 offers another way to be and live. Section 2, after slowing the reader to a more meditative pace, turns to science and politics, and, in particular, the relationship between Canada and England. This relationship is probed and prodded for its potential and perils. We must remember that Leacock had many a post colonial bent to him, although he was still English enough not to cut the umbilical cord. Section 3 looks towards the future, suggests ways that Canada should go in a variety of economic and social directions in the post war period. The compassion of Leacock is most obvious and evident in this compelling section. Section 4 hovers, like a windhover, on the pressing economic questions. We must remember that Leacock was a political economist, and he realized, only too keenly, that economics was at the base and source of much. Leacock refused to ignore such things. Section 5, true to form, deals with the Canada’s relationship to the USA. Our relationship, as Canadians, to both Britain and the USA are the big questions that we must face and not flinch from, and Leacock, in Last Leaves made sure Canadians would not forget this. Section 6 turns to culture and literature, and in this section, some of Leacock’s literary reflections emerge. Last Leaves is, indeed, some of the final and last leaves that hang from the tree of Leacock’s thought and life, but more was left to ponder.

If Last Leaves meanders in a variety of inviting and needful directions, While There is Time: The Case Against Social Catastrophe is more focussed and narrow. Leacock was concerned, as WW II ended, and Canadians had to think towards the future that social catastrophe might be looming on the horizon. He feared what might come if reactionaries dominated the day, and he saw reactionaries on both the political left and the political right. While There is Time points the way to a better way and world that honors the best in the right and left while pointing out the shadow and dark sides of both traditions. While There is Time, true to Leacock’s accessible style, is divided into eight chapters: 1) The Gathering Crisis, 2) Private Enterprise, 3) The Utopia of Socialism, 4) Socialism in the Concrete, 5) Escape, 6) To Develop Canada, 7) Provinces and Races and 8) Canada and the Outside World. The book moves nimbly, and in a sound and sure footed manner, from political theory to the practice of public policy both within Canada and on the larger international stage. An elementary read through While There is Time makes it abundantly clear that Leacock’s brand of High Tory conservatism is quite different from the republican form of conservatism that has charmed and mesmerized many in our time. This is a form of conservatism that is profoundly compassionate and concerned about justice and does not fear the role of the State in ensuring that one and all have access to many basic and fundamental cultural, social and economic rights. This did not mean that Leacock did not see the role of society in playing a substantive role in contributing to the betterment and common good of Canada. The opposition that so dogs many modern conservatives between State and Society is foreign to the more organic and cooperative model of Canadian High Tory conservatism. Leacock embodied, both in thought and deed, such a balanced approach, and, as such, he offers a fine model to us for what historic High Tory Canadian conservatism looks like in thought and practice.

Leacock died on March 28th, 1944 (60 years ago this month). The Archbishop of the Canadian Anglican church (Derwyn Owen) made the trip up to Sibbald Point to take Leacock’s funeral. Leacock was buried in St. George’s graveyard, overlooking Lake Simcoe. Mazo de la Roche (another great Canadian High Tory novelist) is buried in the same place. My grandmother lived with Archbishop Derwyn Owen and the Owen family the last few years of his life (1943-1947). My grandmother was living with the Owen family when Archbishop Owen took Leacock’s funeral. I have spent many a fond summer, when young, in the Sibbald Point area where Leacock, when young, spent many a charming summer. Needless, to say, the connections go deep into my soul and pysche.

Leacock, the High Tory, wrote much in his prolific life about Canadian politics and what a just and meaningful conservatism might look like. He would have had little affinity or interest in what passes for conservatism today. In fact, in his time, he wrote against republican conservatism and argued that it was not worthy of a civilized and sane Canadian. Last Leaves and While There is Time draw together, in an exquisite and judicious manner, the white heat of Leacock’s mature High Toryism. The many paths and directions, the many trails hiked, the many openings and clearings sighted and sounded all find their beginnings and endings in these summary texts by Leacock. Such a summing up, when read, meditated upon and pondered, takes us in very different direction than our modern conservatives.

It is important to note, by way of conclusion, that there was a close connection between the High Tory conservatism of Stephen Leacock and George Grant. Both George Grant’s mother and sister studied with Leacock at McGill, and Grant, himself, was a student with Leacock’s son, Stevie. When George Grant’s father died, it was Leacock who walked the extra mile to assist Grant’s mother in sorting out some difficult issues. It does not take much reflection or a connecting of the dots, to see many points of affinity, on a variety of levels, between both Leacock and Grant. Both represent an indigenous form of High Tory Canadian conservatism that is much under siege these days, and it was this form of conservatism that distinguishes us from American style republican conservatism. It is also this form of High Tory conservatism that we are in danger of forgetting, and, if we do so, we will suffer as a people, nation and country.

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Ron Dart teaches in the department of political science/philosophy/religious studies at the University College of the Fraser Valley (Abbotsford, BC). He is the political science advisor to the Stephen Leacock Museum in Orillia, Ontario.