CANADA: Prairie Lawyer

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On a screened porch in the residence of the U.S. ambassador in green and summery Ottawa, two tall, greying men stood elbow to elbow one evening last week, each intent upon the other. While cocktail-party chatter echoed in other rooms, John George Diefenbaker, the Prime Minister of Canada, talked, gestured, sipped from a glass of orange juice. John Foster Dulles, the U.S. Secretary of State, cradled a rye highball in his hand as he nodded, smiled, listened. Thus casually, top officials of the world's two most neighborly nations began to explore the subtle new relationship that must come about. Reason: Canada, in an upset election, has chosen a Tory government that is worried about the possibility of U.S. economic domination over Canada.

Prime Minister Diefenbaker, 61, is a Saskatchewan lawyer who lost five elections before he finally reached Parliament at the age of 44. An unknown who won leadership of the minority Tory Party last December mostly because his demoralized colleagues thought he could lead the way honorably to inevitable defeat, he instead took the party to victory by an exhausting personal effort. He knows, likes and respects the U.S. But his brow darkens and he grows snappishly critical at even such a small economic friction as last month's unloading of low-priced U.S. turkeys onto the Ontario market. Dulles' talk with Diefenbaker is only the first that the Prime Minister will want to have with U.S. officialdom. The opening moves are under way for the Prime Minister to visit President Eisenhower later this year.

Getting Along. To almost every Canadian, the U.S. is an enveloping fact of life. Most of the population lives within 200 miles of the U.S. border. Collectively, Canadians travel south of the border some 27 million times a year, and get some 27 million visits by U.S. residents in return. Buffalo TV stations regularly draw bigger audiences in Toronto than does the government-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Canadian Novelist Hugh (Two Solitudes) MacLennan complained recently that a Canadian writer has to get his book published in New York before his countrymen will buy it.

Canada and the U.S. want to get along, can get along, and most of the time they do get along. But the closeness of contact makes irritation inevitable. In the last three years Ottawa has sent half a dozen stiff notes to Washington protesting U.S. trade restrictions. The case of Canadian Diplomat Herbert Norman, who killed himself in Cairo after a U.S. Senate subcommittee revealed that he once had Communist connections, inspired bitter diplomatic notes and an outburst of anti-U.S. editorials. Proud that their currency is robustly solid, Canadians are furious when some U.S. shopkeeper or cab driver turns down a Canadian dollar: "It's worth $1.05!" they protest in frustration.