Don't Tell the Newfoundlanders
Page 18
Newfoundland would certainly be a “source of trouble” under the terms proposed. Nevertheless, and despite their penurious offering, King was beginning to style Canada as the “Saviour” of the island, though not from poverty but from the threat of American prosperity.
On May 21, less than two weeks before the vote, the Western Star in Corner Brook published a “Report on the Proposed Arrangements for the Entry of Newfoundland into Confederation,” prepared by McDonald, Currie and Co. of Montreal. It was commissioned by Crosbie and the Economic Union Party and represented the first expert, outside appraisal of the terms offered by Canada. The local press was quick to advertise its conclusions, as Bridle wrote to External Affairs:
The St. John’s Daily News and speakers on the radio favouring Responsible Government have played up the Report’s prediction of a $4,468,000 provincial deficit and have emphasized its statements regarding more people having to pay income taxes and per capita debt being vastly increased.… The Report confirms its own view that “too little is known about the impact of union to permit a valid decision of a final nature.”12
Given these misgivings about Confederation, it was becoming clear that any decision about Confederation in a referendum was not only inappropriate but potentially damaging to Newfoundland.
The referendum campaign was vigorously waged by all parties with the exception of the Commission of Government, which had no one to speak for it save the governor. The Responsible Government League campaigned across the country. Peter Cashin began to talk about economic union with the United States, but not until late in the game. The Confederates had strong, well-organized teams, and the ubiquitous Joe Smallwood—the St. Paul of Confederation—waged a tireless, relentless, and inspired campaign as he walked across the island to preach the new gospel.
Smallwood even tried to convert the new leader of the Union With America Party. According to Harold Horwood: “He went to see Crosbie, a thing easily arranged since they were old acquaintances who had shared many small business ventures in the past, and offered to make him Premier of Newfoundland if he would discover that the U.S. wasn’t interested in Economic Union with Newfoundland after all, and if, following this discovery, he’d swear allegiance to Confederation instead.”13 Crosbie wasn’t interested in Smallwood’s offer, but they parted on good terms, according to Jim Halley:
The Economic Union Party put on a strong campaign. Geoff Stirling had article after article in the Sunday Herald and produced 50 Senators who were sympathetic to Newfoundland joining up with the U.S., including Senators Taft and Wagner and other powerful figures. The Christian Science Monitor said that the U.S. could do worse than cultivate Newfoundland for Statehood. Jamieson was a good speaker, and T.I. Jackman and myself, but we were no match for the Confederate Campaign or their Canadian money.”14
Horwood provides a colourful, inside account of the financing of the Confederate campaign in his biography of Smallwood:
C.D. Howe [minister of reconstruction and supply in King’s government] supplied Ray Petten with a letter of introduction to be used among his friends in the Canadian business community, and sent him off to Senator Gordon Fogo, who was head bag man for the Liberal Party of Canada. Joey, fearing a wire tap, would never mention those names in phone conversations. Talking by phone to Bradley, for instance, Howe became “the man who knows how it’s done.” The senator was simply “the man from Fogo.”
Gordon Fogo gave Petten a copy of the Liberal party’s hit list: corporations that could be readily tapped for funds at election time. Many of those corporations turned out to be one branch or another of the liquor business. They were merchandisers, brewers, vintners and distillers. With a little prodding by way of Howe’s letter, they coughed up surprising amounts of cash. No one knows just how much, since no records were kept.… For example, I myself received a single donation of $3000 in cash, and spent it in cash: half the amount on printing bills and half on travelling expenses.
… Altogether the Confederate campaign must have cost about a quarter of a million dollars … so we got the money, and Mr. Petten got his senatorship and a profitable string of liquor agencies as a sort of bonus.
With seemingly limitless funds now at his disposal, Joey put on the most dazzling campaign in Newfoundland history: flags, music, guns, bands marching, blizzards of campaign literature—it seemed less like an election campaign than a national triumph.
It was perfectly obvious to everyone that we were outspending the Responsible Government League by a factor of at least two or three to one, and there were loud demands from our opponents to know where the money was coming from.… Obviously, they said, Joey must be a patsy of powerful foreign interests that had designs on Newfoundland, probably just a puppet playing out a script hatched in London and Ottawa.
… We were forced to invent fictitious sources of funds, and that’s how the story got around that scores of fishermen were sending in their one-dollar bills and two-dollar bills (and even a few four-dollar bills saved from the nineteenth century when there really were such things in Newfoundland), each with a little note pinned on, saying something like, “God bless you, Mr. Smallwood, for what you’re doing for we poor people. We’re praying for you.”15
The referendum was held on June 3, 1948. In the early hours of the vote, with responsible government leading, Mackenzie King confessed once again: “Personally I would prefer to see responsible government carry and then an agreement made between a [Newfoundland] government that was responsible with the Canadian Government.”16 The Responsible Government League and the Economic Union with America parties wished for no less, as did Major Cashin and Albert Perlin. But, in the struggle between principles and politics, King’s politics ultimately proved to be more powerful.
On June 8, Paul Bridle reported the results of the referendum to the Department of External Affairs:
Returns are now virtually complete, only Labrador remaining to report its final count.… Subject to confirmation in writing of returns received by telegraph, the present totals may be taken as substantially representing the final standing of the three forms of government. These totals are:
Commission of Government for a period of five years … 21,944
Confederation with Canada ……………………63,110
Responsible Government as it existed in 1933…………………… 69,230.17
Responsible government had come first in the referendum by more than 6,000 votes, but without a sufficient overall majority to carry the election. The third-place group, the Commission of Government, would therefore be eliminated, and a second referendum was scheduled for July 22. As the British had calculated, Confederation would now have a good second chance at winning. The referendum results nevertheless proved that Newfoundlanders were eager to take back control of their country’s political affairs.
It was a disappointing result for the Economic Union Party, which had hoped for a responsible government victory on the first ballot. Members feared that the Commission of Government supporters, who had chosen the security of British backing and fair play, would now choose Canadian backing and fair play instead of independence.
Bridle’s assessment of this first referendum result was sober. As he reported back to Ottawa:
The blunt fact remains, of course, that Confederation received fewer votes than Responsible Government did; moreover, it appears unlikely on the face of it that either Confederation or Responsible Government will obtain a really large numerical majority at the second poll.
The … special factor which contributed to the success of Responsible Government at the polls was, of course, the appeal of the proposal that a responsible government should endeavour to negotiate economic union with the United States. As you know, the advocates of this plan ran a rather theatrical campaign replete with advertising-agency techniques which certainly must have impressed not an inconsiderable number of voters. Nor should one overlook the political force of Mr. Chesley A. Crosbie, whose sincerity appears to be so ta
ken for granted that a substantial body of people are prepared, as he puts it, “to give him a chance.”18
Jim Halley had his own explanatory postscript to the referendum results:
Crosbie became discouraged before the final vote and after he read the results he quietly disbanded the Party and let everyone go their own way. Joey and the Governor had been working on Crosbie, and Joe told him that the Commission of Government or a new Provincial Government could call in the loans that Crosbie’s businesses had from the Government and force him into bankruptcy. On the other hand if Crosbie would go along and not fight the second Referendum he would be eligible for contracts from the new Government on a cost-plus basis. So Crosbie and his construction company built the new wing of the Waterford Hospital and the new Memorial University buildings and he became a wealthy man.19
With the second referendum at hand and the possibility of a Confederate victory, J.B. McEvoy sent a letter to R.A. MacKay at External Affairs, setting out the political manoeuvrings afoot on the Island. MacKay in turn passed it on to Paul Bridle in St. John’s:
(a) Attached are copies of personal letters from Mr. J.B. McEvoy, formerly Chairman of the National Convention and a prominent member of the Newfoundland Bar. As the letters indicate, Mr. McEvoy has been asked to take the leadership of the Confederate Party, I gather by Mr. Smallwood and others who have been disappointed by Mr. Bradley’s lack of aggressiveness. Mr. McEvoy would certainly bring the Confederate Party considerable prestige and would undoubtedly make a dynamic leader. He has advised me by telephone that two of the Commission of Government (presumably Mr. Walsh, Commissioner of Justice and Defence, and Mr. Quinton, Commissioner of Education and Home Affairs) and Mr. W.S. Monroe, the only surviving prime minister of Newfoundland and a prominent businessman on Water Street, will come out publicly if he (McEvoy) assumes the leadership. I think Mr. McEvoy has already decided to accept but he said he has business to clear up before any public announcement is made.20
Halley had this to say about these negotiations: “Joey asked McEvoy, probably with Bradley’s approval, to become Party leader, as a sop to his vanity and to keep him out of the running for the premiership of the new province.”21
Smallwood wanted several other things from McEvoy as well. Lester Pearson, who was extremely nervous that the extent of the Canadian involvement in the Newfoundland referendum process would become known, was stonewalling Smallwood’s constant requests for more detailed information about federal departments. Smallwood hoped that McEvoy’s close personal friendship with MacKay would, however, open up a channel for this information at External Affairs—and he was right. McEvoy was also on close personal terms with the governor, Sir Gordon Macdonald, and the members of the Commission of Government—all of whom could prove useful to Smallwood. As the lawyer and confidante of the Water Street merchants, McEvoy was in a unique position to persuade some of those eminent gentlemen to come over to the Confederate cause and give it an air of respectability. In due time, Smallwood’s calculations proved fruitful on all counts.
Up to that point, McEvoy had managed to appear more or less neutral. As Don Jamieson records: “McEvoy had never publically disclosed his political leanings and, given his mercurial temperament and massive ego, it was in character for him to play both ends against the middle.”22 Before he took the plunge, however, McEvoy sought reassurances from MacKay. As MacKay reported to Bridle:
Mr. McEvoy asks for information or opinions on a number of points, among them the following:
(a) Whether the existing Canadian terms are final and unalterable, especially in financial matters;
(b) Whether the Canadian Government is merely luke warm or indifferent to unity;
(c) Whether the present Newfoundland system of controlling fish exports would be wrecked by Confederation;
(d) Clarification of the statement in the Prime Minister’s letter to Governor: “Should the people of Newfoundland indicate clearly and beyond all possibility of misunderstanding their will that Newfoundland should become a Province of Canada.…” —Mr. McEvoy asks whether a bare majority would be considered sufficient.23
These same questions were vital not only to McEvoy, as the new leader of the Confederation Campaign, but also to most Newfoundlanders as they pondered the option of Confederation in the forthcoming second referendum. The Canadians and the British did not want to answer them, however. Instead, they would set the rules of the game to their own advantage for as long as they could.
A young Winston Churchill, secretary of state for air, presents John Alcock and Arthur Brown with their prize money for completing the first transatlantic flight from Lester’s Field in St. John’s to Ireland in 1919. The British government was keenly aware of the importance of the Air Race.
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On August 14, 1941, Roosevelt and Churchill staged a dramatic wartime rendezvous in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, to proclaim the Atlantic Charter and the right of all people to self-determination … except for the Newfoundlanders. Their democracy had been suspended before the war, and would not be returned during or after it.
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The Big Three. William Lyon Mackenzie King, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference in 1943. Roosevelt told King, “Canada ought to possess Newfoundland.”
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Prime Minister Mackenzie King welcomes Prime Minister Clement Attlee to Canada in November 1945, just a month after Clutterbuck had successfully completed the deal in Ottawa on Newfoundland.
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Lester B. Pearson at the San Francisco Conference in 1945, where the Canadians and the British first got together to discuss the “problem child.” The dapper under-secretary of state for external affairs was persuaded to set aside his scruples about the Newfoundland confederation process.
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Sir Alexander Clutterbuck, the model civil servant who wrote the Amulree Royal Commission Report on Newfoundland in 1933. The Dominions Office expert on Newfoundland, he was promoted to British High Commissioner in Ottawa in 1946 to see Confederation completed.
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C. J. Burchell, the first Canadian high commissioner, arrives in Gander. By 1941, with the Second World War accelerating, Canada finally felt the need for official representation in neighbouring Newfoundland.
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J. Scott Macdonald, Canadian high commissioner to Newfoundland. His tenure in St. John’s marked an aggressive campaign by the Department of External Affairs “to take over Newfoundland.
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Jack Pickersgill in 1948. The personal secretary to Mackenzie King was very active behind the scenes promoting Newfoundland Confederation. Later he was elected a federal member of Parliament and appointed minister for Newfoundland in the Pearson government.
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Governor Sir Gordon Macdonald speaking to a reporter outside Government House in St. John’s. He was sent to Newfoundland by Prime Minister Attlee to “get the job done.” His handling of the referendum process caused both resentment and suspicion.
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The last Commission of Government (1947–1949) at Government House. From left: Herman Quinton, R.L.M. James, Albert J. Walsh, Governor Sir Gordon Macdonald, William H. Flinn, James S. Neill, Herbert L. Pottle, and (standing) William J. Carew, the secretary of the commission. All three Newfoundland commissioners, Walsh, Quinton and Pottle, would come out publically in support of Confederation.
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The Newfoundland National Convention. In setting the terms of reference for the National Convention, the British made democracy their pawn in Newfoundland.
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J.R. Smallwood dominated the National Convention with his unruly behaviour and a steady stream of propaganda for Confederation.
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Major Peter Cashin, a powerful orator and spokesman fo
r the return of responsible government in the National Convention. He spoke the shocking truth but lacked the evidence to support his claims at the time.
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On this campaign poster Ches Crosbie as Uncle Sam urges Newfoundlanders to vote Responsible. Fear of Newfoundland joining the United States was the greatest motivating factor behind the Canadian pursuit of Confederation.
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James Halley, circa 1948, junior lawyer and co-founder of the Union with America Party. The dynamic events of the period troubled him for the rest of his life.
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Crowds outside the CLB Armory in St. John’s attending one of the many Responsible Government League demonstrations against the manner in which confederation was being presented to the electorate.
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Smallwood with Bradley (on the back of a truck), preaching the Confederate gospel in outport Newfoundland. His campaign took on increasingly Messianic overtones.
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Counting the votes in the second referendum on July 22, 1948. Everyone is focused, the strain is evident on all faces.
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Smallwood and Bradley getting along with Canadian officials in Ottawa.
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Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent addressing the Newfoundland delegation in the House of Commons on the signing of the Terms of Union between Canada and Newfoundland. Seated facing the camera, from left, are: Albert Walsh, Gordon Bradley, John B. McEvoy, and J.R. Smallwood. Gordon Winter and Philip Gruchy are not shown. Missing from the occasion is Ches Crosbie, who refused to sign.