bout de papier, Vol. 27, No. 1 (2012) — Winter 2012 // Hiver 2012, pp. 37–39
Candidates for the Canadian foreign service in 1949 could be forgiven for concluding that the examination process was an elaborate form of torture inflicted on the unwary for the amusement of the examiners, who clearly were a nasty lot. To enable their successors to appreciate the ordeal endured by those who aspired to a diplomatic career in what some have since called the “ golden age” of Canadian diplomacy, we have reproduced below the first two (of three)
papers from the written examination for that year (we will later reprint the final paper).
Civil Service of Canada — Foreign Service Officer, Grades 1 and 2
In format and scope, this test still followed approximately the template of the fiendish quizzes devised by Oscar Douglas Skelton for the first competitive entrance examinations in 1927, though the content reflected more recent events and cultural influences. In fact, the questions posed (and presumably the answers anticipated) reveal a great deal about contemporary social, cultural and political attitudes and assumptions. Moreover, the selection of topics and the expectations of prior knowledge indicate clearly why academic backgrounds in history, political science and/or law were disproportionately represented in the new entrants to the foreign service at the end of this process.
This examination was given to the editor by the late Arthur Blanchette, who was a frequent contributor and a stalwart supporter of bout de papier as well as a successful survivor of this trial. Unlike my distinguished colleague A. Aalto, offer no prizes for correct answers, though more recent entrants may still be grateful that they were not subjected to this distinct form of assessment.
— Hector Mackenzie
FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER, GRADES 1 AND 2 QUESTION 2 (25 marks)
Department of External Affairs Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions based on it as briefly and succinctly WRITTEN EXAMINATION — PAPER ONE as possible. Not more than two or three sentences are expected in answer to any of the questions 1949. Time: 3 hours — except (c), which calls for one or two word Synonyms in each case. This is a test of your ability QUESTION 1 (75 marks”
to analyse a prose passage and determine its Discuss in an essay of not more than two thousand essential points.
words the thesis :
“It may, if anybody likes to have it so, be a good “The necessary balance between the need for distinction that Force is the principle of the State, revolution and the rights of the human person, while the life and principle of a Church is Belief. For between the community and the individual, can that matter both Church and State rest alike upon only be found in a Christian philosophy of life.”
a shifting Tertium Quid of Authority, — say, an You are free to discuss this proposition from any infallible Pope or an impregnable Book: The politpoint of view you wish. The purpose of the essay ical affinities of religious and ecclesiastic creeds is to test your capacity to analyse a theoretical offer to the historic student some of his standing problem lucidly. The examiners will base their puzzles. (How comes it, for example, that the Judgment on the manner in which youpresent your fatalism implied in Calvinistic Protestantism has views, not on the nature of the views themselves.
been the nurse of some of the most strenuous, active, energetic, and independent natures in political history?) There is many another case of national temper and outward circumstance bear-) this distinct form of assessment.
— Hector Mackenzie
QUESTION 2 (25 marks)
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions based on it as briefly and succinctly as possible. Not more than two or three sentences are expected in answer to any of the questions — except (c), which calls for one or two word Synonyms in each case. This is a test of your ability to analyse a prose passage and determine its essential points.
“It may, if anybody likes to have it so, be a good distinction that Force is the principle of the State, while the life and principle of a Church is Belief. For that matter both Church and State rest alike upon a shifting Tertium Quid of Authority, — say, an infallible Pope or an impregnable Book. The political affinities of religious and ecclesiastic creeds offer to the historic student some of his standing puzzles. (How comes it, for example, that the fatalism implied in Calvinistic Protestantism has been the nurse of some of the most strenuous, active, energetic, and independent natures in political history?) There is many another case of national temper and outward circumstance bear- “Our own day offers a singular kaleidoscope. Men thought it a crushing scandal in the sixteenth century when Francis I was suspected of making terms for himself with the arch enemy of Christian mankind, the Khalif of Turkey. Richelieu, one of the half-dozen sovereign names in the European record, systematically worked with English and Dutch against popish Spain for the same reason that made him relentless against his own Huguenots, namely that they were foes of monarchical unity in France. The paradox is not absent in our own time. We see Roman Catholic Austro-Hungary the pledged confederate of what we are assured by her own oracles is Protestant Prussia. One third of Prussia, to be sure, is Catholic, but Catholicism in standing contact with Protestant culture and liberalized institutions, as the American Union and our own Quebec are enough to show, is not like the same communion in Latin systems. Then the Sovereign who is head of the Church of England, is the ally of non-Christian Japan. The King-Emperor of India — the first European ruler who has ever put on the crown in Asia — is neutral and indifferent to the faiths of all the old consecrated practices of the myriads of Hindus, Mahommedans [sic], Parsees. Politics are admittedly as if from the necessity of the thing, or privately for the sake of decency, supreme; and it may be, whether men wish the process well or ill, such events do more to dissolve dogma and sap its hold, than any number of infidel books.
“Sympathy, again, in principles of government and forms of government, is treated as no more to the point in settling the friendship of States, than sympathy in theology. The balance of power is supposed just now in the diplomatic chanceries to be maintained in Europe, by firm co-operation between a secularized Republic in France, and an absolutist Monarchy that is half theocracy in Russia. Ecclesiastical historians themselves have taught us how constantly church machinery has been used as a source of power for the statesman’s objects. They point to the war against the Albigensians as having for its real purpose the strengthening of French monarchy; the persecutions in Bohemia, as designed to fortify German dominion over the Czechs; the Spanish Inquisition, as set up and worked to overcome the disunion of race and history, for the sake of the Spanish monarchy. In these and an untold host of other cases the State was Force, and Belief was not the only point. If we must quantify, it has been said of the long religious wars in France, that in one-fifth of them religion was the cause, in four-fifths it was only the pretext. To search for the secular politician behind an army of spiritual crusaders is no cynicism. The enthusiasm, no doubt, is the more attractive and exciting to reflective minds. Yet policy, hidden or avowed, may be a master-key.
“According to some scientific historians with a right to speak, history does not solve questions; it teaches us to examine. We often hear that our understanding of history is spoiled by knowledge of the event. A great event, they say, is seldom fully understood by those who worked for it. Our vision is surer about the past; there we have the whole; we see the beginning and the end; we distinguish essential form [sic] accessory; time foreshortens. To contemporaries events are confused, obscured by passing accidents, mixed with all sorts of foreign elements. Even men of the compass of Caesar, William the Silent, Cromwell, Chatham, pursued resolute general aims, subject only like all men’s aims to the uncounted traverses of fortune, and to “leadings” that were half out of sight. Both contemporaries and historians, more often than they suppose, miss a vital point, because they do not know the intuitive instinct that often goes farther in the statesman’s mind than deliberate analysis or argument. A visitor of Bismarck’s once reminded him that Schopenhauer used to sit with him at dinner every day in the hotel at Frankfurt. “No, I had no business with him, I had neither time nor inclination for philosophy,” said Bismarck, “and I know nothing of Schopenhauer’s system.” It was summarily explained to him as vesting the primacy of the will in self-consciousness. “I daresay that may be all right,” he said, “ for myself, at least, I have often noticed that my will had decided, before my thinking was finished.” Improvization has far more to do in politics than historians or other people think.”
(a) State in your own words the main proposition
offered in the passage as a whole.
(b) Extract the sentence or part of a sentence which
in your judgment most nearly summaries [sic]
(1) the central thought of paragraph 1; and (2) the central thought of paragraph 2.
(c) Give synonyms for the words in italics.
(d) What is the paradox referred to in paragraph 2?
(e) From internal evidence, about that [sic] time
would you say this passage was written?
WRITTEN EXAMINATION — PAPER TWO
1949. Time: 3 hours
The purpose of this paper is to test both your interest in, and understanding of, fundamental Canadian and International Problems and your ability to discuss them clearly and in a, logical fashion.
PART A — CANADIAN AFFAIRS
(Answer three questions only in Part A)
1. Discuss any one important legal decision or piece of legislation since Confederation in the light of its effect on the constitutional development of Canada.
&. Discuss and trace the major developments in
the Canadian economy between 1900 and 1948.
5. What cultural factors have tended to form the Canadian character in the last fifty years?
4, Discuss briefly one notable measure or policy introduced under the administrations of each of any three Canadian Prime Ministers since 1900. (Three measures or policies in all to be dealt with.)
5. Sketch briefly the development of Canadian government representation abroad from its beginnings and relate it to our national growth.
. Discuss the role played by the teaching of history in the evolution of nationalist sentiment
in Canada.
. Discuss the usefulness to Canada of the
St. Lawrence Waterways project.
. Discuss generally the distribution of the legislative, judicial and executive powers in Canada.
PART B — INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
(Answer three questions only in Part B)
1. What special light does any one of the following throw on the particular issue or personality with which it deals? Winston Churchill: The Gathering Storm. Henry Stimson and Bundy: On Active Service in Peace and War. J. Wheeler-Bennett: Munich. Galeazzo Ciano: The Ciano Diaries 1939 to 1943 (by Hugh Gibson). R. [sic] Orwell: Animal Farm. A. Camus: The Plague. V. A. Kravchenko: I Chose Freedom.
&. What in your view are the historical and
contemporary reasons for the political
instability of France today?
5. Discuss H. G. Wells and Rudyard Kipling or Mauriac and Sartre as representative of English or French thought.
4. How would you estimate the economic consequences to Europe of the destruction of German industry?
. Outline the significant events in Czechoslovakia
since the establishment of the Republic.
. What important economic problems are raised
by an expanding Canadian defence programme?
. Sketch the story of the struggle for liberty
in Russia before the Revolution.
. Discuss the historical significance of events in 1848 in one European country.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 27, No. 1 (2012) — Winter 2012 // Hiver 2012, pp. 37–39. Read the rest of this issue →
