Canada: THE DOMINION: Preventive Medicine

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Canada had fought abroad and produced at home as it had never fought and worked before—and her war record, at home and abroad, had gained her new stature in the world. Canada could no longer be classified simply as a promising young country; she had come of age.

On that March day in 1867 when the British Parliament created a confederated Canada, Britain's Lord Carnarvon had cried: "We are laying the foundation of a great state—perhaps one which at a future date may even overshadow this country." That polite nothing was now a something which, in some senses, had already begun to come true:

¶ The Dominion was now one of the three great trading nations in the world (the others: the U.S. and Britain).

¶ With a population less than that of New York State, Canada was, at war's end, the fourth most potent fighting power among all the United Nations, and had the third largest and strongest Navy.

¶ She went into the war a debtor nation and came out a creditor.

¶ By sole virtue of the fact that she, along with the U.S. and Britain, holds the secret of the atom bomb, she had been accorded a high place in the top councils of the world. Last week, at the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers (see INTERNATIONAL), Canada was invited to join the Big Five in deciding what to do about The Bomb. It meant that the Dominion was virtually assured of a place on the Security Council of the United Nations Organization.

¶ Canada's colonial subservience to the "old country" was all but gone. George VI was, theoretically, still King of Canada, and would remain so. But the ties that long bound the Dominion to Mother England's apron had frayed and snapped, one by one. Of the legal strings, only one remained: in civil lawsuits, Britain's Privy Council is still Canada's court of final appeal. And elimination of that last bond was already in process.

New Awareness. Canada felt a new and vibrant awareness of national identity. It showed itself in the eager popular acceptance of recent proposals for a distinctive Canadian citizenship and for a distinctive Canadian flag (TIME, Nov. 5; Nov. 19). It showed itself in the snap and swagger of veteran Canadian regiments marching up their Main Streets, and in the cheers to which they marched. The new spirit could be seen in the words of Prime Minister King a fortnight ago in the House of Commons: "We do expect and will expect that this country shall be given full recognition [in] matters that affect the future. ... I cannot emphasize [this] too strongly. . . . We shall . . . press for our rights."

Canadians were aware of their new power and prestige; so was the world.

This world recognition was largely due to the facts of the case, but the case had been put, widely and well, by Mackenzie King. He was not a salesman's idea of a salesman, but he was well fitted for this job of worldwide public relations. He had known both Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt as young men, and he moved with ease among the statesmen of the world. And, though he was not a politician's idea of a politician, he had done an even better job of governing his country. He had taken a nation of two cultures, a land often torn by racial strife, and held it together, for its own good.