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CANADIAN JEWISH REVIEW
5702-Rosh Haafaoofth-1*41
CANADIANS ALL
The Road To Follow Towards Permanent Unification Of All Groups Into One Strong, Resolute Nation
By Professor Watson Kirkconneil, PhJX, FJ&S.C, Of McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario
By permission of the Department of Public Information at Ottawa
On the map, Canada is one of the biggest countries in the world. Washed by three oceans, watered by mighty rivers and countless lakes, dark with forests, green with fertile fields, stretched out in vast prairies and rising into snowy mountain peaks, our country, larger than all Europe in extent, is one of the greatest domains of all time.
All too often, however, our poets and orators are unduly proud of the sheer vastneas of Canada. They forget that the most Important thing about Canada is the Canadian nation itself. It is the people that make any country truly great. Merely to be "spacious in the possession of dirt*' is no sure title to fame. 'It is the character of human beings, and their achievements, that will really command respect. In the world of today. Canada is not primarily a large area on a map but a community of eleven and a half million people living under a common government on the northern half of the North American continent Canada is the Canadians.
But who are the Canadians? Well, at least 98 per cent of us . are transplanted Europeans. The past four hundred years have seen the greatest human migration in all history. Beginning with Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, and England, the countries of Europe sent theiz colonists across the seas; and today 200,000,000 descendants of these European nations inhabit the two Americas, along with a few Indian survivors, a few Asiatic immigrants, and some negroes brought in from Africa. Canada's population reproduces that picture on a small scale. We have 122,000 Indians (mostly in reserves), 6,000 Eskimos, 46,000 Chinese, 23,000 Japanese, and 20,000 negroes (mostly descendants of fugitives from the South who found shelter and freedom here, back in the days of slavery). The remainder of our people (over 96 per cent, as we have noted) are of European origin, and may be subdivided into three great groups, as follows: (i) Three and a heat millions whose ancestors came from France. These were, of course, the first colonists in what is now Most of thsm today re-
"We need to be on guard against the reptilian propaganda by which Hitler's agents would turn us against our Jewish citizens- Many respectable Canadians are inclined to echo anti-Jewish slander stimulated by Nazi agencies. Surrender to such poisonous activity is a big first step towards our national disunity and ruin; and the Nazis know.it. . . . If we can learn the primary lessons of tolerance and co-operation here at home, we shall have taken a long step, not only towards the solution of Canada's own social, economic, cultural, and political problems. Canadian unity � warm, effective, and vital � is the key to our entire future."
present families that have been in Canada for nearly three hundred years.
(di) Five and a half millions whose ancestors came originally from the British Isles. Most of this group represent families that have been in Canada less than one hundred years, although British immigration actually began over 150 years ago, following the English conquest of Canada. The immigration has not been in the same proportions as the original ingredients of the United Kingdom. Whereas the English of England total over' three times the number of the Irish, Scotch, and Welsh combined, the Canadians of English origin are just about equal to the Canadians of Scotch, Welsh, and Irish origin.
Oil) Nearly two and a half millions whose ancestors were of Eu* ropean nationalities other than British and French. Approximately two-thirds of these live in the Prairie provinces, and most of them represent families that have been in Panada less than fifty years. The majority, however, are Canadian-born. Every national group in Europe is found amongst us, the main elements being as follows: 600,000 Germans, 300,000 Ukrainians, 170,000 Jews, 150,000 Poles, 150,000 Netherlander*, 100,-000 Italians, 100,000 Norwegians, 80,000 Swedes, 60,000 Russians, 50,000 Magyars, 50,000 Finns, 35,-000 Danes, 30,000 Belgians, 35,000 Czechs and Slovaks, 20,000 Rumanians, 20�00 Icelanders, 15^000 Jugoslavs, 10,000 Greeks, and a score of other nationalities.
Such are the varied human ingredients that history has poured koto the huge mbong-bowi of
da's national life. Surely no mincemeat in the world could have more spice and flavour than the Canadian people. No one element predominates; even the Anglo-Saxons are now less than one-half of the total; we are all minorities but all Canadians, entering, each with his own capacities, into the richness of the national amalgam.
It Is important to remember, however, that there is a very great deal in common amongst all these groups. It is a mistake to imagine, as some people do, that European nationalites are separated by downright differences of race. The idea that people who speak the same language or live under the same government belong to the same race is one of the most dangerous errors that can delude the human brain. To the scientist, race is simply and solely a matter of physical characteristics, such as skull-shape, colour of fyes, hair, and skin, texture of hair, stature, and blood-group. Just as we classify our cows as Aberdeen* or Guernseys or Holsteins by reason of their bodily types and not because they moo in a certain fashion or inhabit a common pasture-field, so neither language nor political grouping proves anything as to the race of any human being.
In Europe, in spite of aU the languages spoken, there are just three main subspecies of the human race, namely (i) she tall, fair-haired, long-skulled Nordic, (il) the short, dark, long-skulled Mediterranean, and (ih> the stocky, broad-headed Alpine type. No one type has had a monopoly of genius in creating civilization, for all three have attributed abundantly to tfie upbuilding of
the world. Moreover, every nation in Europe has been a mixture of these types and has been actually enriched by the inter-mixture! In France, all three types are found, with the broad-headed Alpine predominating, as in Germany. In Italy, even the casual tourist can distinguish between the swarthy, long-skulled type of the South and the burly, red-haired Alpine types so common in the North. The British Isles show a bewildering racial mixture, for the Southern Irish, the/Welsh, the Cornish, and the "black breed" of the Western Highlands of Scotland are more closely akin to the Spaniard and the South Italian, the red-headed Highlander is most nearly related to the blond Scandinavian, while the Yorksnireman finds his nearest racial cousins in the Netherlands and Northwest Germany. Germany itself is hopelessly mixed. It west-em provinces are racially far closer to the Netherlanders and the Belgians than to the rest of Germany; while the peoples of its eastern provinces pass without any racial frontier Into the population of Poland and of the Danubian countries. The racial type in Danzig, in spite of its fierce Nazi sentiment, Is statistically indistinguishable from the racial type in Poland. For that matter, more than half of modem Germany once spoke Slavic languages, and in the past thousand years has changed its language but not its racial mixture.
K follows from att this that there is no such thing as a French race, an Italian race, an Anglo-Saxon race, or a German race�or, for that matter, a Polish race, a Ukrainian race, or a Russian race. We are all mixtures; and to the historian mixtures are a good thing, for tney encourage new developments m crriUzatkm.
A very important cniirtuaion lor us here in Canada is that none of our national groups from Europe is reafly alien to the rest of us. All, by nature, are just as kind, just as honest, just as capable of serving and suffering; as any of the others. It Is one of the dark-eat crimes of our that some
sought to preach that (ConHmmed on