by Greg Malone
The following delegates were elected to constitute, with the Chairman, the delegation that will proceed in due course to Ottawa: G.F. Higgins, T.G.W. Ashbourne, J.R. Smallwood, R.B. Job, Reverend Lester Burry and C.H. Ballam.36
The fundamental problems presented by a Newfoundland delegation to Ottawa—the same issues that had so bedevilled Clutterbuck and Pearson—were immediately the subject of great concern in St. John’s as well. Analyzing press reaction to Canada’s acceptance of a Newfoundland delegation, Scott Macdonald noted with some discomfort:
The Daily News … says that … it is evident from the terms of the reply that the Canadian government is prepared to treat the delegation as a body authorized to discuss in detail all questions arising out of a possible political relationship between Newfoundland and Canada. This, it says, is an astonishing position.
It expresses surprise that Canada, unlike the United Kingdom in its reply to the Convention, “sets no restrictions on the subjects to be discussed, asks for no specific topics and requests no explanatory memoranda.”37
The Evening Telegram was in favour of Confederation, and its opinion carried more weight but provided no more comfort for the Department of External Affairs. While it endorsed the idea of a delegation to Ottawa, it stated:
“The terms of such a union would have eventually to be determined by negotiation between the constituted governments of the two countries.…
The Canadian authorities must be credited with the elementary knowledge that any such issue as Confederation could only be discussed with a duly constituted Government of Newfoundland.”38
Although Gordon Bradley had already ruled the motion for a US delegation out of order on May 22, 1947, D.I. Jackman, the president of the Wabana Mines Union, proposed to the Convention “that this National Convention appoint a delegation of some six members, or less, forthwith to proceed to Washington—if and when arrangements can be made—for general trade discussions and other relevant matters affecting the future economy of Newfoundland with the Government of the United States of America.”39 The Convention passed the Jackman resolution unanimously. But as Paul Bridle, now attached to the Canadian High Commissioner’s Office in St. John’s, noted with unease:
The Commission of Government has subsequently informed the Convention that it regards the conduct of trade discussions as beyond the scope of the Convention.
The High Commissioner feels that the attitude of the Commission of Government in this matter, while altogether correct, will be regarded in many quarters as further evidence that there is a conspiracy afoot to shepherd Newfoundland into the Dominion of Canada.40
Jim Halley relates:
I was the one who wrote up the proposal with Jackman at the Newfoundland Hotel where most of the delegates were staying. Jackman, although a powerful and influential Union leader, was not literate. So I was there to draft it with him. We wanted the Convention to put Union with America on the ballot and if not that, then at least to keep Confederation off. Jackman’s resolution was passed unanimously by the Convention. Joey supported it heartily, knowing that the Governor, on orders from Whitehall, would say no and that our request to talk to the U.S. was “beyond the scope of the Convention,” but not the one to Ottawa.41
When the UK government set up the National Convention, it sent Kenneth Wheare out to St. John’s as the constitutional expert to assist the delegates. Wheare took exception to Governor Macdonald’s ruling and advised that the Convention did have the authority and jurisdiction to talk to the Americans. He was immediately recalled to London.
Once it was determined that a delegation could go to London before the second delegation was sent to Ottawa, the Canadian officials had one lingering concern—that London should offer no hope of any financial or economic assistance at all to Newfoundland. There was much heated debate on this topic, especially in St. John’s between Canadian High Commissioner Scott Macdonald and British Governor Gordon Macdonald.
6
COLD SHOULDER:
THE NEWFOUNDLAND DELEGATION TO LONDON
In January 1946 Humphrey Walwyn had completed his term as governor of Newfoundland. A large crowd waved him and Lady Walwyn off to the strains of “Auld Lang Syne.” He had arrived in 1936 on a passenger liner out of Liverpool, and he departed aboard an American bomber from Harmon Air Force Base in Stephenville after a leisurely train ride across the Island in the comfort of the vice-regal carriage, the “Terra Nova,” attached to the Newfoundland Railway Express. The new governor, the recently knighted Welsh MP Sir Gordon Macdonald, was Clement Attlee’s friend. Sir Gordon’s arrival, like that of his counterpart Scott Macdonald, the Canadian high commissioner, signalled a more aggressive approach to getting the planned job done in Newfoundland.
Attlee had been prime minister in Britain for six months, and it was time for a new team in Newfoundland. There seemed little likelihood now of Newfoundland’s getting that “drop in the ocean” Winston Churchill had mentioned. Churchill, Beaverbrook and now Walwyn were gone. There was a new wind blowing into Newfoundland from England, and it had even less warmth than the last one. Despite criticism of the Commission of Government, Sir Humphrey Walwyn had been a popular governor. Sir Gordon was not. In St. John’s it was widely and rightly believed that he had been sent by Attlee specifically to put the Island into confederation with Canada. The mission shared by the two Macdonalds now in charge of Newfoundland should have fostered a close working relationship between them, but it did not. The Canadian high commissioner, Scott Macdonald, was a hard-drinking, hard-talking pragmatist, while the equally strong-minded new governor was a teetotalling, self-righteous evangelist who even took to the pulpit in local churches to deliver fiery speeches. They did not get along. The Canadian was suspicious of the British appointee and believed that he wanted the Commission to hang on in Newfoundland for his own purposes. On March 22, 1947, he wrote to Louis St. Laurent:
Secret.… The Governor may be planning to try to induce the Dominions Office to agree to extend its present commitments with respect to guaranteeing the service of the national debt and to meet any deficits that may occur.… For some months past, as I have already indicated, I have sensed the development of some such general idea in the Governor’s mind. I am inclined to believe that his views are now crystallized and that, as appetite comes with eating, he has persuaded himself that if he were given control of Newfoundland for five years he could revivify the Commission and could promise, by using the surplus, to avoid any cost to the Treasury of the United Kingdom and at the same time give the country a more progressive government.
In this connection I think I should report that [Gordon Bradley,] the Chairman of the [London] delegation and Mr. Smallwood came to my room in the hotel and stressed the danger that would arise if the United Kingdom authorities should listen to advice of this kind. They strongly urged me to bring the situation to the attention of the Government in Ottawa in the hope that they would take steps to prevent it developing unfavourably.
… I feel convinced in my own mind … that if the Government of the United Kingdom extends financial aid to Newfoundland there would be no point in considering further the question of encouraging the country to enter the Dominion or even of permitting the question of federation to appear on the ballot.1
It is clear from the tone of this ultimatum just how tenuous the Canadians considered their position in Newfoundland to be. As much as they downplayed their desire to annex the Island, it would be a serious blow to their national pride if Confederation with Canada were to be rejected in a referendum. Clearly, from Macdonald’s comments, Smallwood and Bradley were aware of the ongoing communication between Canada and Great Britain on the subject of Newfoundland. For some time, in fact, Smallwood had been Macdonald’s chief lieutenant and the de facto leader of the Confederation movement. He now felt it necessary to write directly to St. Laurent himself with this extraordinary plea: “The fairest thing they [Great Britain] could do would be to say frankly that even under a continued
Commission Government they could not give us any financial help.”2
With the exception of Bradley, Smallwood was almost certainly the only delegate from the Newfoundland Convention to demand that Newfoundland “alone of the dependent Empire … be promised no assistance for reconstruction and development.” His political reasons were clear enough. If Newfoundland was financially isolated, Confederation would become a more attractive alternative. The absence of the promised British backing would reduce Newfoundland’s options and perhaps even its stability. Smallwood had persuaded himself that his own political needs and the needs of the country were one and the same. It was a dangerous game: if the Canadians got cold feet again and pulled out, as they had in 1933, Newfoundland would be stranded. In the end, not even the British could support such drastic positions as Smallwood and Scott Macdonald demanded.
On April 16, 1947, Major Peter Cashin presented the long-awaited Report of the Finance Committee on the Economic Position of Newfoundland to the Convention. It was a detailed and comprehensive analysis of Newfoundland’s financial history in the first half of the twentieth century. Among the highlights, Cashin noted that in 1909 Newfoundland’s budget was balanced and the total public debt only $27 million. The First World War imposed a public debt of $45 million on the Island, and it was that debt, combined with the cost of veterans’ pensions, the building of the railway, and the Great Depression, not mismanagement, that was the real cause of Newfoundland’s financial troubles in the late 1920s and ’30s. Cashin further emphasized that while the United Kingdom appeared to be helping Newfoundland in 1933, it was doing little more than helping itself, and that the grants-in-aid, as well as allocations from the Colonial Development Fund, were just sufficient to pay the interest on the debt to the United Kingdom bondholders.
At the end of the fiscal year of March 31, 1946, however, the report showed that “the total revenue collected amounted to $37,247,132, the highest ever collected in the history of Newfoundland.… Expenditure during the year amounted to $37,141,138, leaving a surplus of revenue over expenditure of $105,994…. The total accumulated cash surplus … amounted to $32,000,000.”3 By April 1947 Newfoundland stood in the strongest financial position in its history. In short, the report concluded, the main condition for the return of responsible government had been met.
After the financial report was unanimously accepted by the Convention, the delegation to London—consisting of Gordon Bradley, Peter Cashin, Ches Crosbie, A.B. Butt, Malcolm Hollett, W.J. Keough and Pierce Fudge—was free to leave. In the meantime the Dominions Office had presented yet more conditions. It now wanted Governor Macdonald and Albert Walsh, the commissioner of justice, to come along to help Lord Addison answer any awkward questions from the delegation and to keep the members within certain limits.
The defensive, almost hostile British attitude towards any demands from the Newfoundland National Convention was becoming a cause of indignant comment in both the Convention and the press. Albert Perlin wrote in the Daily News:
The British government is the government of Newfoundland.… The curious thing is that it is necessary to send a delegation to obtain information that ought to have been proffered to the convention when it first assembled.… The generous Cranborne plan [of $100,000,000 for reconstruction] has been consigned to oblivion. We ask no favours in its place. But the people of the island do want to know if Commission Government would be continued at their request and under what conditions, they want to know what commitments have been made in their name and how these may affect their future, and they require information on a number of other matters that are highly pertinent to the determination of our true situation.4
On the eve of the delegation’s departure for London and after long discussions, passionate dispatches and top-secret memos between the Canadians and the British on exactly what Newfoundland’s true situation would be, Scott Macdonald reported in a secret memo on a more satisfactory meeting he had with the new governor, Gordon Macdonald:
The Governor reaffirmed the view that both he and the Commissioners consider it is “almost indecent” for the Convention to make any request to the United Kingdom, either for the cancellation of the sterling debt or for the payment of interest on the monies Newfoundland loaned to the United Kingdom during the war. They will also take a strong stand against the view of the delegation that tariff or other concessions should be sought from the United States in return for the grant of the bases.… In all these matters, therefore, the Governor and the Commission are taking a stand, very favourable from our point of view, against the United Kingdom being asked to grant further assistance to Newfoundland.5
High Commissioner Alexander Clutterbuck in Ottawa even passed over to Lester Pearson a copy of the list of questions that the Newfoundland delegation had for Lord Addison, the dominions secretary, in London. The Canadians also wanted the United Kingdom to discontinue guaranteeing the principal and interest on the Newfoundland debt, but the British government refused, fearing a general loss of face along with support in Parliament. Canada obviously felt it had to isolate and even punish Newfoundland before Confederation would be found palatable on the Island.
Hemmed in by their friends in the Canadian dominion and the British empire, the luckless Newfoundland delegation left from Gander for London on April 25. They had been asked by the British to bring their own towels, but there was a mix-up when they arrived and no accommodation was available. A hotel was finally found and, after a three-day wait, they were received with chilly formality by Lord Addison and his battery of advisers—including, to their surprise, Governor Macdonald and Albert Walsh. Lord Addison assured the delegates that the UK government had “no pre-conceived ideas” as to the future government of Newfoundland. That was a deliberate lie to both the delegates and the Convention, as he had already decided on Confederation for Newfoundland as the official Dominions Office policy. Because this policy was secret, however, and carried Lord Addison’s personal warning that “no hint that this [Confederation] is the solution envisaged should be allowed to come out here or in Newfoundland,” the delegates were reassured with carefully worded deceptions and indignant denials.
After four very stiff meetings with Lord Addison, where written answers were proffered for the written questions requested, the delegation returned to St. John’s largely dissatisfied, except for Gordon Bradley and Malcolm Hollett. A.A. Butt, a staunch imperialist, was traumatized by the event: “to be treated with a coldness I had never experienced in my life, that is, an individual coldness … it was unbelievable!”6 The London Daily Express was equally indignant:
How cold, graceless, ungenerous and chuckleheaded is the attitude of the Government towards Newfoundlanders.… It tells the Newfoundlanders harshly that, if they vote away the present Commission, Britain will no longer guarantee the interest on Newfoundland’s loan of $71 million. Is this the way to talk to kith and kin? When Newfoundland made Britain an interest free loan of £2.5 million for the war effort, she did not extract a promise in return. Newfoundland sent her young men to fight alongside us, sent her sailors to defy the U-boats, she provided bases, she begrudged nothing. The statement made to the Newfoundland delegation by a Government which has poured out millions in dollars to succor strangers from China to Czechoslovakia in the last two years is contemptible.”7
Having already given away the shop, the British were understandably frightened and angry at being asked for an accounting of their fourteen-year occupation. They had little left to offer—no hospitality and not even fair play. However, the disgraceful reception by their hosts at the Dominions Office was all good news to the Confederates, as Smallwood’s biographer Harold Horwood remembers. “This is what Joey had expected and hoped for—bare justice and a cold shoulder.”8 Lord Beaverbrook, observing the delegation’s progress in London, was moved to charge that “our rulers spoke for Britain with the voice of a shark lawyer.”9
Shortly before his departure for London, Gordon Bradley, who was chairman of the delegation,
had a long and confidential conversation with his friend Charles Granger in which he declared passionately: “Over my dead body will we go into Confederation without having responsible government first.” While in England Bradley had a secret nighttime meeting with Prime Minister Clement Attlee, which was discovered by another delegate, Ches Crosbie. Bradley refused to disclose the substance of his discussions with Attlee; however, after the private audience, he ceased to demand the return of responsible government as a precondition for Confederation and returned to St. John’s a committed Confederate partner with Smallwood on Scott Macdonald’s “team” in the National Convention.10
Standing again before the National Convention in St. John’s on May 19, Major Peter Cashin presented his report on the London talks. He had seen clearly through Addison’s denials and was in no doubt about the British government’s secret agenda. As usual with Cashin, it was plain talk and high drama:
I say to you there is in operation at the present time a conspiracy to sell, and I use the word “sell” advisedly, this country to the Dominion of Canada.… Some people may think I am talking wildly, but I would ask them to remember that long before this I made statements in this House which were regarded at the time as wild prophesies, but time proved that I was right.
At present our country is nothing more than an international pawn, and is being used by the U.K. government for the purpose of making international deals both with the U.S. and Canada.… This visit [has] shown that they had long ago finalized their plans concerning us.