A wise American once remarked that no man should write about a foreign country or its people if he has lived there less than six weeks or more than six months.

The views expressed in this little book will, it is hoped, evoke some critical comment, from Canadians and from others. The circumstances in which the views were formed should, however, free the writer from the two objections implicit in the dictum quoted. ForCanadians and Foreign Policyis the outcome of a non-statistical survey of Canadian opinion deliberately conducted in such a way as to ensure a reasonable coverage...

There can be no question that economic affairs tend to dominate public discussion in contemporary Canada. As the next chapter will reveal, economic issues confuse and complicate more fundamental considerations in North American strategy. There is also sufficient material basis for the ordinary Canadian’s everyday existence in the second half of the twentieth century to encourage pressmen and politicians to play up particular economic phenomena in confident expectation that these will capture at least passing attention by substantial sections of the general public. Even purely cultural considerations are continually affected by the balancing of special costs against national objectives. More...

The sensitivity of Canadians on strategic questions which so much impresses an overseas investigator is by no means an exclusively postwar phenomenon. Adequate appreciation of current trends of Canadian thought on defence, whether in politico-administrative, Service or unofficial circles, requires some recognition of both prewar and early postwar conditioning factors.

Defence is a field of national activity in which Canadians have long felt the difficulty of revolving at one and the same time on an east-west and a north-south axis. Political leaders from Wilfrid Laurier to Mackenzie King were acutely conscious of the potential threat to their developing trans-Atlantic autonomy...

The implication of the concluding paragraph in the preceding chapter is that, in the view of many Canadians, the government of the United States is unwilling—or unable—to discipline its own defence-production industries to the point of recognising Canadian industry’s ability to make a necessarily limited but more effective contribution to the technical equipment of what has in effect become, in certain respects, a common North American defence organisation.

Perhaps the significant word in this sentence is “unable”. The complaint does at all events provide a convenient starting point for a discussion of political conditions in contemporary Canada in...

The question posed in the concluding section of the preceding chapter produced, as indicated, widely diverging answers from Canadians. On the broader issue of the cultural influence of the United States upon its neighbour, I found at least superficial agreement on the nature, if not also on the degree of the influence. Difficulties in measuring intensity and extent spring not only from differences between the situation in the several provinces but also from the pervasive character of the cultural penetration. On this last fact most Canadians are agreed, however much they may differ in the inferences they draw from it....

In previous attempts to examine trends of thought and opinion affecting attitudes on foreign relations—notably in the United States in 1940 and in South Africa in 1950—I have always given lay and clerical representatives of different religious denominations a prominent place in the occupational and regional cross-section of persons to be interviewed. The obvious combination of religious and racial factors in conditioning the outlook of French-speaking Canadians in the province of Quebec appeared to warrant the general application of this practice to my Canadian investigations. It came, therefore, as something of a shock when I was strongly counselled...

As a fairly close student of Canadian writings and speeches on international and intra-Commonwealth affairs between the two world wars and as a flying visitor to Canada in 1940 and 1950, I had for years been inviting Australian undergraduates to contrast the reluctance of their governments in Canberra—especially before the second world war—to develop distinctively Australian policies, which would show proper regard for geographic situation and resultant strategic requirements, with the aggressive nationalism of Canada during the interwar years and since.

With this background of personal interpretation, I was somewhat bewildered, and a good deal embarrassed, to discover...

Before I began my Canadian investigation proper, in Vancouver, I had attempted to condition myself during a couple of weeks in San Francisco and Los Angeles, by seeking such superficial evidence as a returning visitor might quickly detect of Californian awareness of Canada and Canadians. To what extent, I asked, is there a Pacific Coast consciousness which cuts across the political frontier and links Californians with British Columbians in a sense of common mission? What common interests, if any, are there which tend to separate Californians and British Columbians from their fellow Americans or fellow Canadians as the case might...

A kindly Canadian critic, to whom the argument of the preceding chapters had been submitted in outline, made a pertinent comment. “What you propose to do”, he said in effect, “is to tell your readers a good deal about those aspects of contemporary life and thought in Canada which go to the shaping of our foreign policies. You’ll also have much to say about economic, strategic and cultural relations with our North American neighbour, the United States. But that, after all, comes very close to the domestic affairs of the Dominion. When do you propose to talk about Canadians and...

The central theme which seemed to emerge from this survey of Canadian attitudes on foreign policy before it had been written has already been stated in the Introduction. Such particular inferences as it appeared reasonable to draw from each set of facts examined have been discussed in their several contexts. The following brief concluding comments suggest themselves to me after re-reading the text as a whole for the first time.

The first concerns the question of Commonwealth relations discussed in the preceding chapter. I am again impressed, as I was after a similar inquiry in South Africa eight years earlier,...