bout de papier, Vol. 8, No. 4 (1991) — Fall 1991 // Automne 1991, pp. 48–49
Daylight Upon Magic: The Royal Tour of
Canada — 1939 by Tom MacDonell,
Toronto, MacMillan of Canada, 1989,
292 pp., $26.95.
The title of this absorbing book comes from Walter Bagehot who, a century and a quarter ago, was gently warning his mid-Victorian contemporaries, a propos of the reverential mystique of the monarchy, “we must not let in daylight upon magic”.
The Royal Tour of Canada had variable daylight, and a good deal of magic, a more widespread sense of wonderment, and an immense surging of emotion that suffused eight thousand miles of travel within a springtime month by two individuals who rather wanted to be, and who tried during an unremittingly busy four weeks to be, “ordinary people”
An undertaking on this nation-wide scale, never before attempted, raised myriad questions, not all of which were answered. Whose idea was the Royal Tour? Could it be done? Was it really designed to solidify public sentiment behind and around the King and Queen and the Royal Family? Was it envisaged as an antidote to the trailing edge of economic depression? Was one result a clarifying of the somewhat stilted relations between Downing Street and the East Block, and more particularly if less publicly, between Laurier House and Government House?
One short answer to all these questions is that the displays of pageantry (superbly well managed), the sheer momentum of events as day succeeded day and spontaneous outpourings of public goodwill tended to push into the background, at least for the time being, the pettiness, the grumbling, the curmudgeonly attitude of some representatives of the working press. The larger questions of solidarity — the implication that the visit to Canada and to the United States, even for four days, would counteract isolationist attitudes south of the border and would influence American opinion to back Britain in the spectacle of European war which many observers (the King included) by June, 1939 regarded as inevitable — was within a matter of months subsumed into what became a world-wide conflict.
One comes away from reading Tom Mac Donell’s lively account with a feeling that the effort was enormously worthwhile for 1939, for the future, and for the re-evocation, 50 years later, of many stirring occasions.
The Royal Tour may have been the idea of Lord Tweedsmuir, Governor General. He knew when he returned to Ottawa after his vacation in August 1938 that the visit was to take place. It may equally have been the idea of the Prime Minister, who appears to have raised the possibility during the Coronation proceedings in London in 1937.
Lord Tweedsmuir certainly gave sound and necessary advice to Buckingham Palace, and he drafted some of the public addresses which the King was to give in Canada. But his working (and I think correct) answer to the question of what happened when George VI came physically into “His Majesty’s Realm of Canada” was “I shall go into hiding (i.e. go fishing)”, which he did.
The Prime Minister wanted to make the arrangements for the entire visit his particular concern. There was a Cabinet Committee (which I fancy never met by that title), an Interdepartmental Committee of seasoned public servants accustomed to working together, and a small army of anonymous facilitators. The Prime Minister was also to be cast as “Minister-in-Attendance” upon the King of Canada, and (though MacDonell does not mention it), Mr. Mackenzie King himself drafted a veritable pamphlet, ostensibly for the guidance of the press, outlining the constitutional significance of the Royal Visit and of his serving as Minister-in-Attendance. (This went through five revisions, and entered the East Block vocabulary as the “Five Star Finale.”) The Prime Minister persisted in leaving Downing Street out of the picture, even though he resented being “shouldered aside” in Washington by a somewhat insensitive British Ambassador and the Ambassador’s wife. One supposes that the most consistent strand in his Royal Visit behaviour was, as it were, to teach the courtiers a lesson; though perhaps this made only a scant difterence in the public perception of the overall success of the visit and the spontaneous generosity of the public welcome.
The Department of External Affairs entered into the arrangements in particular ways. Mr. Mackenzie King appeared in his role as Secretary of State for External Affairs at the presentation of his Letters of Credence as Minister of the United States by the Hon. Daniel C. Roper, and at the exchange of ratifications of certain Conventions. The assiduous Secretary of the Interdepartmental Committee was H.L. Keenleyside; Howard Measures, Protocol Officer (though he is incorrectly identified at one point) stayed the course with discretion and tact; and a more junior Foreign Service Officer seconded to the Prime Minister’s staff dutifully took notes in advance of public occasions in the Ottawa programs, and was responsible for the personal detail prepared for the Prime Minister (throughout Canada this stood up well; in Washington, in particular, it was riddled with changes). One other senior officer had been heard to remark that if he had been doing it, he would have met the King and Queen at Halifax, armed each of them with a return ticket to Victoria and two compartments on the train, together with a copy of Bruce Hutchison’s The Unknown Country, and waved Their Majesties on their way.
One passage in the narrative perhaps deserves more than a passing reference. Certain strands of opinion in Britain seemed to have supposed that “disloyal” elements were exerting influence in Canada, and that “isolationists” were conditioning an uncertain public opinion. But MacDonell writes,
[The British] … had given too much credence to the comments of O.D. Skelton’s bright young men .. who expressed leftist, pacifist sentiments that were honest reactions to both the rise of the fascists abroad and the scarring experience of the Depression at home … [and suffering] from the habitual condescension of British officers.
The only comment I can usefully make is that I worked (early and late) at the East Block throughout that spring and summer. I do not recollect any difficulties arising from “one-on-one” negotiations. The complications arose if one tried to circumvent (on grounds of common sense) the laboured and rather turgid memoranda dictated by Mr. Mackenzie King with which he intended to inhibit verbal (as distinct from written) communications from “British” sources, especially staff members at Government House. We survived; so, mostly, did they.
A few minor errors may be noted. There are references in 1939 to Ambassadors in Ottawa when, formally, there were none until 1943. E.J. Harding deserves to be styled Sir Edgar Harding, and to have his correct title as Under-Secretary of State, Dominions Office. The reference to “late winter of 1939” evidently means 1938. And having admired the resplendent Royal Train engines — the CPR Royal Hudsons 2850 and 2851 and the massive streamlined CNR 6400 and 6401 — I wonder whether CNR 6057 (which I knew in my train-travelling days) actually hauled the Royal Train. These are really very minor matters.
The major matters are the attractiveness of the personal vignettes in the narrative: the postal clerk from Moose Jaw who travelled throughout; one of the RCMP constables whose journal stopped abruptly; and the sensible housewife who served tea to the Royal party at Doaktown, New Brunswick. I would also add scenes which I was fortunate to witness at first hand: the pageantry of the ceremony of Royal Assent in Parliament; the 6000 voices singing ’God Save the King’ at the Garden Party at Government House; and the unprecedented mingling amongst the throng after the dedication of the National War Memorial.
Daylight Upon Magic is to my eyes and ears, a more attractive and captivating recital of a Royal Progress and of the celebrations nationwide than is any other published account. The lapse of 50 years has taken nothing away from what was then — as it remains now – “The Country of the Larger Air”.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 8, No. 4 (1991) — Fall 1991 // Automne 1991, pp. 48–49. Read the rest of this issue →
