Review: A Peculiar Kind of Politics
| Author | Donald M. Schurman |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070208403900113 |
| Published date | 01 March 1984 |
| Date | 01 March 1984 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
223
In
sum,
this
book
is
testimony
to
close
Soviet
attention
to
Canada-
United
States
relations
and
to
the
issues
which have
recently
exacer-
bated
them.
It
reveals
that
these
difficulties
are
not
regarded
as
tran-
sitory,
and
that
leading
Soviet
specialists
on
Canada
have
concluded
that
'trends
towards
the
Canadianization
of
economics
and
politics
are
of
a
firm
and
long-term
character.'
Carl
H.
McMillan/Carleton
University
A
PECULIAR
KIND
OF
POLITICS
Canada's
Overseas
Ministry
in
the
First
World
War
Desmond
Morton
Toronto:
University
of
Toronto
Press,
1983,
xii,
267pp,
$22.50
Professor
Morton
states
in
his
preface
that
wars
'involve
more
than
fighting'
in
order
to
justify
a
book
about
wartime
Canadian
bureau-
cracy
in
London.
However
he
admits
that
it
was
the
fighting
and
the
death
toll
in
France
that
provided
the
ground
on
which
the
move
toward
Canadian autonomy
went
forward.
It
has
hithterto
been
less
than
easy
to
understand
how
this
change
actually
came
about.
Mor-
ton's
book
makes
the
connection
between
sacrifice
and
political activ-
ity
much
clearer.
He
shows,
indeed,
that
political
control
was
not
a
mere
game
played
by
unsavory actors
in
the
midst
of
higher
sacrificial
activity,
but
a
response
that
exactly,
if
almost
inadvertently,
matched
the
needs
of
the
moment.
The
title
describes
the
book
well
enough,
but
only
hints at
the
accomplishment.
Morton
writes,
on
page
169,
as
follows:
'By
creating
the
Overseas
Ministry
and
the
Canadian
Section
at
GHQ,
the
Canadian
government
had
established means
to
control
all
but
the
tactical
dis-
position
of
its
expeditionary
force.
A
force
which
had
entered
the
war
as
virtually
an
integral
part
of
the
British
army
had
developed
in
three
years
virtually
to
the
status
of
an
allied
army.
It
was
both
a
para-
digm
and
a
precedent
for
Canada's
own
transformation
from
self-
governing
colony
to
sovereign
nation.'
Both
Sir
George
Perley
and
Sir
Edward
Kemp
emerge
from
these
pages
as
understandable
figures.
The
author
found
Robert
Borden
a
much
less
sympathetic individual,
yet
it
is
an
attractive
feature
of
Mor-
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