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The Origins of Canada's Department of External Affairs*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
Extract
On June 1, 1959, Canada's Department of External Affairs may look back upon a history of half a century's duration. Even so it is not the oldest foreign ministry in the overseas Commonwealth. That distinction belongs to the Australian Department of External Affairs, which became one of the original departments of the new federation created in 1901. The Canberra innovation seems not to have excited the slightest interest in Canada, despite the appearance during the same year of a book by a Canadian author containing what is probably the earliest written advocacy of separate foreign ministries for the self-governing colonies or dominions. In The Canadian Contingents and Canadian Imperialism, W. Sanford Evans developed at considerable length the case for “the creation in Canada, and in each of the other self-governing Colonies, of a Ministry of Imperial and Foreign Affairs.” It was, however, far from his intention to provide machinery for conducting a foreign policy distinct from and perhaps in defiance of that of the mother country. Evans was a staunch supporter of imperial federation, who looked on his project as a means of strengthening the imperial connection by adding to the power and influence of the centre.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , May 1959 , pp. 109 - 128
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1959
Footnotes
*
I am grateful to Lt.-Gen. Maurice Pope, of Ottawa, for permission to quote from the unpublished correspondence of Sir Joseph Pope. General Pope kindly allowed me to read and copy extracts from the diary of Sir Joseph Pope which are shortly to be published in a book entitled Public Servant: The Memoirs of Sir Joseph Pope; acknowledgment is due to the Oxford University Press, Toronto, its publishers, for permission to reproduce them in this article. I am indebted to the Rockefeller Fund for the Humanities and the Social Sciences at the University of Toronto for financial assistance to carry out part of my research.
References
1 The Act creating a Department of External Affairs was brought into force by a proclamation issued on the evening of June 1, 1909, by authority of Order in Council P.C. 1227 of June 1, 1909.
2 A Manitoba Conservative, a journalist and financier, Mayor of Winnipeg 1909-10.
3 London, 1901, 340. Evans' early advocacy of separate foreign offices for the overseas dominions has been pointed out in Soward, F. H., The Department of External Affairs and Canadian Autonomy, 1899-1939, Canadian Historical Association Booklet no. 7 (Ottawa, 1956), 5.Google Scholar
4 Morgan, Henry James, The Canadian Men and Women of the Time: A Handbook of Canadian Biography of Living Characters (Toronto, 1912), 910.Google Scholar
5 For his services during the Canadian tour of Prince Fushimi, Pope was awarded the Japanese Order of the Sacred Treasure (Second Class). Another prince was both less generous and less gracious; see A King's Story: The Memoirs of the Duke of Windsor (New York, 1947), 140–3.Google Scholar
6 Jan. 14, 1907, Grey Papers (Public Archives of Canada), box 14, folder 12a.
7 Feb. 26, 1907, Laurier Papers (P.A.C.), 120623-4.
8 Nov. 28, 1907, Grey Papers, box 7, folder J.
9 “Memorandum for Consideration of the Civil Service Commissioners, 25 May, 1907,” Civil Service Commission 1908: Minutes of Evidence, I, pp. 48-50, Sessional Papers of Canada, XLII, no. 15, 1907–1908.Google Scholar
10 Courtney to Pope, May 28, 1907, Under Secretary of State: Semi-Official Correspondence (P.A.C.), folder 191.
11 Pope to Courtney, May 28, 1907, ibid.
12 Brodeur to Pope, Oct. 21, 1907, ibid.
13 Pope to Laurier, Nov. 15, 1907, Laurier Papers, 132091-2.
14 Lemieux to Sir Louis Jetté, Dec. 4, 1907, Lemieux Papers (P.A.C.), 397-8.
15 Dec. 13, 1907, ibid., 534.
16 Feb. 11, 1908, ibid., 888.
17 Feb. 24, 1908, ibid., 977.
18 March 5, 1908, ibid., 889-90.
19 Dawson, R. MacGregor, William Lyon Mackenzie King: A Political Biography, I, 1874-1923 (Toronto, 1958), 161.Google Scholar
20 Feb. 10, 1908, Under Secretary of State: Semi-Official Correspondence, folder 191.
21 Feb. 12, 1908, Lemieux Papers, 878.
22 “He was, indeed, a frequent cause of annoyance to the Government. … On one occasion (1909) when Grey's enthusiasm for proportional representation threatened to become embarrassing, Laurier ‘wished Earl Grey would mind his own business,’ and King in his diary added: ‘The truth is His Ex. is getting into too many things.’” Dawson, , William Lyon Mackenzie King, 174–5.Google Scholar This propensity could explain Lauder's refusal, during the latter half of 1908 and early in 1909, to be much moved by Grey's entreaties to act with speed to establish the Department of External Affairs.
23 Grey to Lord Elgin, March 28, 1908, Grey Papers, box 14, folder 25.
24 Some measure of the frustrations Bryce encountered in negotiating with the United States on Canada's behalf is provided by the following episode, related by Bryce in a letter dated June 30, 1908, to Earl Grey: “Your letter of the 22nd June enclosing Minute of P.C. [Privy Council] illustrates admirably the need for an External Affairs Dept. in your Govt. Laurier suggested to me that instead of 3 arbitrators for the Pecuniary Claims Arbitration we should have two Arbitrators with power to appoint an Umpire when they disagreed. I conveyed this suggestion unofficially to [Elihu] Root [the United States Secretary of State]. Root accepted it and redrafted the Convention to meet Laurier's view. Now after all these months [Allen] Aylesworth [the Canadian Minister of Justice] prepares and the P.C. approves a Minute disapproving Root's draft because it embodies Laurier's suggestionl Aylesworth would seem never to have heard of Laurier's view, tho’ I put it into a Memorandum of my talks with Laurier wh. Laurier initialled and approved. Now where are we? Are we to tell Root that the P.C. disapproves Laurier's own suggestion which he adopted?” (Grey Papers, box 8, folder W) A few months later, on January 7, 1909, Bryce complained to Earl Grey: “The letters and Minutes that come from Canadian Ministers sometimes ignore our communications simply because these have been forgotten, or mislaid, or perhaps never seen by the person who writes to us” (ibid., box 9, folder B).
25 May 11, 1908, ibid., box 8, folder U.
26 July 4, 1908, ibid., box 15, folder 29.
27 Grey to Elgin, July 14, 1908, ibid., box 15, folder 30.
28 Aug. 10, 1908, ibid., box 8, folder X. This faint-hearted and grudging response was typical of the character of the Colonial Office at the time, as revealed in a recent and authoritative study: “What … was wrong with the Office? Briefly, it lacked inspiration. … Moreover, it was imprisoned in its environment. The culture of London seemed so polished that it was hard to treat with perfect seriousness the aspirations of Toronto or Auckland, Lagos or Belize. To the men of Whitehall the civilisation of the colonies, whether newly contrived by expatriated Britons or the child of the primordial jungle, was not merely different to their own, it was inferior to it. Colonial peoples were like children and were to be treated with all the kindness and severity of the Victorian parent.” Pugh, R. B., “The Colonial Office, 1801-1925” in Benians, E. A., SirButler, James, and Carrington, C. E., eds., The Cambridge History of the British Empire, III, The Empire-Commonwealth, 1870-1919 (Cambridge, 1959), 768.Google Scholar Nor was the personality of its Minister of a kind to dispel these failings. Lord Elgin's tenure, a critic has cruelly written, was “undistinguished. His part in conferences on Colonial matters was often said to consist in tugging at his beard in silence, and on one occasion when he was expected to sum up he surprised his colleagues by carefully putting the end of it into his mouth.” Pope-Hennessy, John, Lord Crewe: The Likeness of a Liberal (London, 1956), 64.Google Scholar
29 Grey Papers, box 15, folder 30.
30 Pope Diary, entry for Sept. 9, 1909.
31 Under Secretary of State: Semi-Official Correspondence, folder 375.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Pope Diary, entry for March 4, 1909.
35 Canada, , House of Commons Debates, session 1909, I, 03 4, col. 1988.Google Scholar
36 Ibid., col. 2002.
37 Ibid., col. 2003.
38 Jan. 10, 1912, Borden Papers (P.A.C.), OC 552.
39 Sept. 26, 1911, Grey Papers, box 11, folder D.
40 Dec. 30, 1911, Borden Papers, OC 552.
41 George V, c. 22.
42 Dec. 30, 1911, Borden Papers, OC 552.
43 Jan. 10, 1912, ibid.
44 A graduate of the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall, served in the Governor General's office before entering the Department of External Affairs in June, 1909. He became Assistant Under Secretary in 1911, and remained in that post until his death in 1933.
45 Under Secretary of State: Semi-Official Correspondence, folder 375.
46 March 12, 1909, ibid.
47 Pope Diary, entry for March 12, 1909.
48 A reference to Ewart, J. S., whose collected essays, The Kingdom of Canada … and Other Essays (Toronto, 1908)Google Scholar, had appeared the previous year.
49 May 3, 1909, Grey Papers, box 15, folder 36.
50 Grey to Bryce, June 2, 1909, ibid., box 9, folder R.
51 June 10, 1909, ibid.
52 Col. Henry C. Lowther to Eustace Percy, March 13, 1912, Borden Papers, OC 39.
53 Murphy to Laurier, April 22, 1910, Laurier Papers, 170261-2.
54 Pope Diary, entry for June 4, 1909.
55 Pope to W. L. Mackenzie King, Dec. 27, 1922, King Papers (P.A.C.).
56 Pope to Murphy, June 30, 1909, Murphy Papers (P.A.C.).
57 The Foreign Office was at the time scarcely better equipped. Its official historian offers as an explanation rather than an excuse that as “Her Majesty altogether declined to read typewritten documents … there were for some time after 1893 only one or two typists.… When we had deciphered or ciphered our telegrams we made copies for distribution in what was known as ‘blueing ink’ on a ‘jelly’. The first copy was naturally the best, and this was always destined for the Queen.” SirTilley, John, The Foreign Office (London, 1933), 135–6.Google Scholar The young Robert Vansittart, beginning his diplomatic career in 1904 or 1905, “was told off to … copy out telegrams in violet ink and rub them into scores on stacks of decomposing ‘jellyfish’. … Once I sought escape, for under a tarpaulin like the gun at Dover Harbour was a typewriter; but as I sat down to explore it, the Head of the Department burst in exclaiming: ‘Leave that thing alone! Don't you know we're in a hurry.’” The Mist Procession: The Autobiography of Lord Vansittart (London, 1958), 43.Google Scholar
58 June 2, 1909, Grey Papers, box 9, folder R.
59 Canada, , H. of C. Debates, session 1909, I, 03 4, col. 2004.Google Scholar
60 Nov. 3, 1909, Laurier Papers, 206367-9.
61 Walker to Pope, May 13, 1909, Under Secretary of State: Semi-Official Correspondence, folder 375.
62 Canada, , H. of C. Debates, session 1909, I, 03 4, col. 1983.Google Scholar
63 Pope Diary, entry for Jan. 16, 1910.
64 Laurier Papers, 170643-52.
65 Pope to H. P. Biggar, Oct. 25, 1910, Under Secretary of State: Semi-Official Correspondence, box 39.
66 Pope to James White, July 6, 1910, ibid.
67 To H. P. Biggar, Oct. 25, 1910, ibid.
68 Bryce to Grey, July 4, 1910, Grey Papers, box 10, folder Q.
69 Jan. 21, 1918, Borden Papers, OC 169.