January 17, 2009

Churchill and Canada

by JOHN PLUMPTON
Finest Hour 44, Summer 1984

When Winston Churchill first arrived in Canada, a visit that coincided with the advent of the Century, it was the senior dominion in a far-flung Empire. His final visit, more than a half-century later, was to an independent and friendly ally in a unique political concept, the British Commonwealth of Nations. He came both as a private citizen and as Prime Minister. He often visited almost as an after-thought in a journey to the United States, the land of his mother. Certainly each time he disembarked on the Dominion’s soil it was enroute to or from the United States or to host an encounter with the American President. Yet he saw Canada as a vital link -the “linchpin” he called it – between Britain and the United States. This may be difficult to conceive at a time when relations between the US and UK are so cordial and so direct. But in Churchill’s day, Britain was still perceived by many Americans, including President Roosevelt, as an imperial power, and was thus viewed with some suspicion.

Churchill also had fond personal feelings about Canada and, on one visit, he wrote his wife that if political events went against him he would consider retiring to the business world in Canada. Fortunately for the democracies, he remained in the political world in Britain.

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His first encounter with Canadians was a lecture tour of North America, concerning his adventures in South Africa. He spent Christmas 1900 in Ottawa with the family of Lord Mint, the governor-general. Simultaneously, the Mints were hosting Pamela Plowmen, with whom Winston had once enjoyed a romantic attachment. All went well, as he wrote his mother:

“We had no painful discussions, but there is no doubt in my mind that she is the only woman I could ever live happily with.”

This happy interlude was a respite from a generally unhappy tour. His audiences in the United States were small and either unenthusiastic or hostile. More importantly, his income was disappointing; for that he blamed his promoter, Major J. B. Pond. Although the Canadian audiences were quite enthusiastic, he had an ongoing dispute with Pond, who Churchill called a “vulgar Yankee impresario.” The problem was that he disagreed with the financial arrangements. He felt that Pond sold his services too cheaply and he found it demeaning to have to speak to private dinner parties, “like a conjurer.” The blow-up came in Toronto, where the Toronto Star gave the issue front-page treatment: “Winston Churchill Thinks He is Not Getting Enough Money. He Draws at the Box Office. May Strike After Toronto Lecture.” The ‘strike’ occurred shortly after and the dispute even reached New York, where The Times reported the refusal of Churchill to lecture at Brantford, Ontario. Three days later, however, he reported to his mother that “peace has been patched up on my terms and I propose to go through with the tour.”

His feelings about the tour remained negative, however, and he wrote his mother again: “I have only eighteen more lectures so that the worst is over. I have got to hate the tour very much indeed In Winnipeg, he heard the news of the death of Queen Victoria: ” . . . so the Queen is dead. The news reached us at Winnipeg and this city far away among the snows-fourteen hundred miles from any British town of importance-began to hang its head and hoist half-masted flags.” On the day Europe’s royalty formed Queen Victoria’s funeral procession, Winston Churchill sailed home from New York, ready to resume a political career that would last as long as the dead Queen had ruled.

During one of his stops in Canada, Churchill was introduced to another rising political star, William Lyon Mackenzie King destined, like Churchill, to become his nation’s Prime Minister. Neither was impressed at the initial meeting. For his part, King considered Churchill an arrogant young pup. In 1908, King was told he must meet Churchill, the glamour boy of English politics, on his visit to Britain. “Anybody but Churchill,” said King. “I’ve met him and he’s the last man in England I want to see.” Nevertheless, when he received a handwritten luncheon invitation from Churchill he could not refuse it.

Churchill greeted King with a boyish grin. “We met in Canada four years ago, I think. I did make a frightful ass of myself on that trip, didn’t I?” King gave his host a hard look: “Well, Mr. Churchill, there were many Canadians who thought so. I was one of them.” There is no record as to whether Winston took offense at that remark. Probably not! In any event, he had the year wrong! In 1904 he had crossed the floor of the House of Commons, not the ocean.

In 1908 a friend and colleague of Churchill’s, Lord Northcliffe, proprietor of The Times, saw the potential Canada had for promoting Churchill’s career. “You could immensely increase your reputation and force both there and at home,” he wrote, “if you were to embrace the opportunity of taking Mrs. Churchill to Canada and of speaking before the wonderfully organized chain of Canadian Clubs, one of which exists in every city of any importance; keeping clear, however, of your damnable Free Trade, which most of the people there loathe. During the fifteen years that I have known Canada it has developed much more rapidly than you can imagine, but so far as its connection with the Old Country is concerned, it is, owing to our great neglect (as Lord Milner remarked to me the other day in Toronto, and as I have heard everyone say) a matter of ‘touch and go’ in the next thirty years. I wish you could urge some of your colleagues to go there.”

The ambitions of many Canadians were fulfilled in the Mother Country. Some emigrated as children, others as successful adults. Two became successful British politicians, well-known to Winston Churchill. In 1911, he met Max Aitken, a Canadian millionaire who was to become Lord Beaverbrook and a sometime friend and political colleague. In 1912, Aitken outwardly encouraged Churchill to go to Canada to sell the idea of a Canadian contribution of three dreadnoughts to the Royal Navy. He offered to arrange the tour, but insisted that it be behind the scenes: ‘There is an objection to me you must know about. I created all the big trusts in Canada. . . . My relation to Canada was in a small way the same as Morgan’s relation to America.”

But unknown to Churchill, there may have been some collusion to subvert the planned visit to Canada. Aitken’s dearest friend was Andrew Bonar Law, the Unionist leader and another

Canadian expatriate. Aitken was not likely to do anything to advance the political fortunes of the Liberal Churchill at the expense of Bonar Law’s Unionist Party. If a Churchill tour of Canada could secure three dreadnoughts, that was fine, but if too much glory came to the Liberals because of it, Aitken was prepared to scuttle it.

Bonar Law was informed by an official of Aitken’s Royal Securities Corporation that he had received the following cable from Sir Max: Write Rt. Hon. A. Bonar Law. I will make Churchill’s visit to Canada impossible unless I hear from him to the contrary.” Later, R. B. Bennett. A friend of Aitken’s and a future Prime Minister of Canada, wrote Bonar Law that he and Aitken had discussed the proposed Churchill visit and concluded that it was part of a movement to improve Mr. Churchill’s present position and benefit the Government he serves at the expense of your party.” Bennett promised to do his best to prevent any invitation being extended to Churchill. Sir Robert Borden, the Canadian Prime Minister, did eventually invite both Churchill and Asquith to visit Canada but the war intervened.

In the years during and after the Great War, Churchill’s contacts with Canada and Canadians were in the context of battles and geopolitical conflicts. In 1908, in a discussion of the movement of peoples and the possibilities of war, Churchill had told Mackenzie King: On large questions of this kind, I have a true instinct and seldom err.” This confidence was put to the test in 1922, when King was Prime Minister of Canada and Churchill was Secretary for the Colonies in the Government of Lloyd George. The issue was Empire support for Britain against Turkey in the Chance Crisis. King, like most Dominion Premiers, read about Britain’s need for aid in the newspapers before officially receiving it. When Britain nearly found herself at war, Canada’s response was to request further information. In this case, Churchill’s “true instinct” had erred.

In August 1929, Churchill, now in the political wilderness, embarked on a three-month visit to Canada and the United States to see the West Coast, to help promote sales of The Aftermath to lecture, and to gather material for a series of articles for the Daily Telegraph. The Canadian Pacific Railway provided him with a private railway car to cross the continent and the President of Bethlehem Steel offered the same for his journey through the United States. With him was his son, Randolph, and the father approvingly commented that he was “conducting himself in a dutiful manner” and “is an admirable companion.” Together with WSC’s brother Jack, they visited most of the principal Canadian cities. Winston enthusiastically enquired about local politics. “What fun they have in these rising towns and fast developing provinces,” he wrote. “All the buoyancy of an expanding world and all the keenness of the political game played out with fine Eighteenth Century rigour.”

Churchill genuinely fell in love with Canada during this trip. “Darling,” he wrote his wife, “I am greatly attracted to this country. While on the transcontinental tour he reflected on his place within the Conservative Party should Neville Chamberlain succeed Baldwin as leader. He told Clementine that he had made up his mind that if Chamberlain was made leader of the Conservative Party,” or anyone else of that kind, I clear out of politics and see if I cannot make you and the kittens a little more comfortable before I die. Only one goal still attracts me, and if that were barred I shd quit the dreary field for pastures new.” The pastures new were Canada and the world of business.

Happily, the “one goal” was not barred forever, and it was as Prime Minister that Churchill next returned to Canada. Immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he visited Washington and Ottawa. After addressing the Canadian Parliament he was guest at a small, informal dinner party given by Prime Minister Mackenzie King. The highlight of the evening was the opportunity to swap stories with Air Vice-Marshal Billy Bishop, V. C., who’d shot down 72 enemy aircraft while serving with the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War.

An important factor in the viability of the Anglo-American alliance was the personal relationship between Churchill and President Roosevelt, and WSC took every opportunity to meet with his American friend. Twice they met on Canadian soil, both times at Quebec City. The Queen Mary delivered Churchill to a large, enthusiastic crowd at Halifax in July, 1943. They had arrived at Quebec early, so the President invited the Churchill family to his home at Hyde Park, New York.

Mrs. Churchill remained in Quebec because of what her daughter, Mary, calls “profound physical and nervous exhaustion,” but the Prime Minister and Mary accepted an offer of the President of Canadian National Railways to use his private railway car. En route to the Roosevelt home they visited Niagara Falls. Returning to Quebec the British and American leaders agreed on the invasion of Normandy, codenamed “Overlord,” and established a South-east Asia command under Mountbatten. At the conclusion of the Conference, Churchill spent a few days fishing in a secluded lake 60 miles north of Quebec City. He was not the expert angler that his military chiefs, Brooke and Portal were, but he had a most enjoyable time.

Churchill’s doctors expressed grave concern about his health on his next departure for Canada in September, 1944. Illness and tension made him cranky and exacting and on his arrival at Halifax, again aboard the Queen Mary; everyone was in his bad books. He was particularly vexed because it appeared that FDR would arrive at Quebec before him, and he insisted on flying from Halifax to prevent that from happening. The Queen Mary was required to maintain radio silence, and they had been unable to make prior arrangements for the flight.

On the final day at Quebec, the Senate of McGill University, having made a special journey from Montreal, conferred Honorary Degrees on the Prime Minister and President at an impressive ceremony on the terrace of the historic Citadel. Churchill returned home having agreed to provide more naval and aerial aid in the war against Japan because it was anticipated that that war would last 18 months after the defeat of Germany.

On his postwar visit to the United States in 1946, Churchill planned to speak at Westminster College, in Missouri. Fretting over this speech, he called Mackenzie King from the British Embassy because he respected King’s judgment of the reaction of American public opinion to outsiders. He asked King to come to Washington or, if this were impossible, could Churchill send the text to Ottawa for comment? King feared and distrusted speeches from the “Empire” to Americans and declined to get involved, but he recommended the Canadian Ambassador to Washington, Lester Pearson.

Pearson appeared in Washington before a half-clad Churchill, who was lying in bed behind a breakfast tray, working on his speech. Churchill suggested that he read the speech to Pearson but acquiesced in the latter’s request to take the text to another room for quiet consideration. Pearson corrected a factual error concerning the position of Missouri in the American Civil War but, more importantly, he doubted the wisdom of referring to the recent conflict as “The Unnecessary War.” He feared that it would provide justification for American isolationists to avoid foreign entanglements in the future. Churchill accepted both suggestions.

Pearson met Churchill again in 1951 when Pearson visited London as Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs. Accepting an invitation for Sunday luncheon, the Pearsons arrived to find a still-sleepy Churchill, who had to be reminded by Clementine of Pearson’s identity. According to Pearson’s account: “Just then the pre-lunch drinks arrived and things looked up; our host came to life. He got even livelier as the lunch went on, with its accompanying wines. Over coffee and brandy, Sir Winston continued to get brighter and brighter-and I got droopier and droopier.”

When Churchill visited Ottawa in 1952, he discussed the appointment of a new Governor-General with Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent. The incumbent Governor-General, Lord Alexander, was returning to London as Churchill’s Minister of Defence. Both Churchill and King George VI agreed with St. Laurent’s recommendation that the new Governor-General should be Canadian-born, and they were delighted with the nomination, Vincent Massey, whom they had both known as Canadian High Commissioner to London.

When St. Laurent stopped off at London on his world tour in 1954, he received invaluable personal advice from a seasoned traveler, Winston Churchill. He had made several such trips, the old man confided, and he found that the schedule was almost invariably overcrowded and exhausting. Consequently, he made it a practice when traveling never to stand when he could sit; never to sit when he could lie down; and never to miss an opportunity to visit a washroom as there was no knowing when the next opportunity would occur!

Canadian Prime Ministers did not always take the advice of his senior Commonwealth colleague. Despite his veneration for his exploits, sometimes their lifestyles were too disparate from his. During the Prime Ministers’ Conference in London in 1957, Lady Churchill invited Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and his wife to luncheon. When Churchill offered a brandy to Diefenbaker, it was declined with the comment: “I’m a teetotaller.” WSC did not seem to understand. Diefenbaker explained that he did not drink liquor. Sir Winston asked: “Are you a prohibitionist?” When Diefenbaker replied “no ” his host commented, “Ah, I see, you hurt only yourself.”

The stories of Winston Churchill and his encounters with Canadians are endless. He loved Canada for herself; because she was part of the Empire and Commonwealth; because she twice came, without question, to the aid of Britain; and because she was such a close link with the United States. He once told the American Congress that if his father had been American and his mother British, he liked to think that he could have made it to Congress on his own. It is fun to speculate that if he had responded to his feelings in 1929 and moved to Canada, he might have made it to the Canadian House of Commons on his own, too.

Indeed, it was to the Canadian Parliament that he made one of his most famous and defiant speeches. On 30 December 1941, he said: “When I warned France that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, the French generals told their Prime Minster and his divided Cabinet: ‘In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken’ . . .

SOME CHICKEN! SOME NECK!”

The chicken and neck were metaphors for the grit, fortitude and strength of the British Empire and Commonwealth. Winston Churchill never doubted Canada’s role as a vital partner in the alliance.