Book Review: Canada: Arthur Meighen
| Published date | 01 September 1966 |
| Author | J. L. Granatstein |
| Date | 01 September 1966 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206602100324 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REviEws
387
burg
as
President
Roosevelt's
loyal
lieutenant
in
manning
the
arsenal
for
a
Holy
War.
If
Professor
Eayrs
had
enjoyed
access
to
the
archives
of
the Department
of
External
Affairs,
the
figure
of
Mackenzie
King
might
not have
bulked
quite
so
large
in
his
narrative.
As
it
is,
the
volume
is
very
largely
a study
based
on his
private
papers,
of
Mr.
King's
personality
and
policies.
A
man
who
believed
that
international
affairs
would
lead
to
the
techniques
of
industrial
conciliation
in
which
his
own
reputation
had
been
made,
at
the
heart
of whose
thinking
"was
the
notion
that
force
and
coercion
rarely
if
ever
play
constructive
roles,
was
badly
equipped
to
be
a
national leader
in
the
1930's.
He
contemplated German expansion
eastwards with
total
equanimity
He
was
an enthusiast
for
Munich;
and
even
after
1939
he
hoped
for
a
settlement
and
would
not
have
been
averse to
mediating
one.
Under
his
leadership,
Professor
Eayrs
comments
not
unfairly
"Canada's re-
sponse
to the
menace
of
the
Axis
was to
voice
with
unaccustomed
fer-
vour
her
approval
of
appeasement
while
resisting
improvements
in
imperial
defence.
On
learning
in
1936
of
the
extent
of
Canadian
mili-
tary
unpreparedness
King
reflected only
that
"we
have
been
wise
in
placing our
reliance
mainly
on
policies
which
make
for
peace.
And
when
Britain
attempted,
from
1938
onwards, to
organize
the
economic
and
military
resources
of
the
Commonwealth,
"the
Canadian
Govern-
ment's
primary
concern"
as
Professor
Eayrs
shows,
"was
not
to
become
involved"
If
Professor
Eayrs
has
suffered
the
drawbacks
of
the
private
scholar
and
failed
to
get
at
all
the
relevant
official
sources,
he has
enjoyed
the
liberties
as
well.
His
comments
on
the
events
he
describes
are
caustic.
They
are
none
the
less likely
to
be
definitive.
University
of
London
MICHAEL
HowAiw
ARTHUR
MEIGHEN.
A
Biography
By
Roger
Graham.
Volume
III.
No
Sur
render.
1965.
(Toronto:
Clarke,
Irwin.
viii,
202pp.
$5.00)
After
many
vicissitudes,
Professor Graham's
last
volume
in
his
biography
of
Arthur
Meighen finally
has
been
published.
Like
its
two
predecessors,
No
Surrender
is
an
excellently
written
apologia, defend-
ing
Meighen
and
his
actions
with
a
vigour
that
the
Conservative leader
himself
would
have
envied.
But
this slender
volume,
covering
the
least
admirable
period
of
Meighen's long
public
career,
does
not,
in
this
reviewer's
opinion,
present
a full
or accurate
picture
of
Meighen's
political role
from
1932
to
1942.
Professor
Graham
says
that
the
railway
problem
"was
one
of
the
few
important
subjects
on
which
Meighen
ever
changed
his mind, but
he does
not
discuss
the
effect
this
changed
attitude
had
on
the
Con-
servative
Party
after
1938.
The
party's
stated
policy
reiterated
many
times
by
Dr.
Manion,
was one
of
opposition
to
the
unification
schemes
so
dear
to
Sir Edward
Beatty
and
now
to
Meighen.
Surely
it
is
extra-
ordinary perhaps
even
unprecedented,
that
Meighen,
the
Conservative
leader
in
the Senate,
should
so
flatly
oppose
the
policy
of
his
party
as
to
be
instrumental
in
having
the
Senate
Railway
Committee
bring
down
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