By R.B. Bennett Leader of the Conservative Party 1927-38,
Prime Minister of Canada 1930-1935 House of Commons Debates, June 7, 1928, pp. 3925-7.
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. . Read the history of the United States, read what is written in
every magazine in that country by thoughtful men, and you will
find that the principle of the melting pot has failed; and they
are quite apprehensive. Every thoughtful man in the United States,
every keen observer, every man who travels, every author, everyone
who shapes and moulds public opinion in the universities and in
the great foundations-all these are bewailing the fact that
uncontrolled immigration has been permitted into that country, to
such an extent that there is now in the United States a polyglot
population, without any distinctive civilization, and one about
which many of them are in great despair . . . it is because we
desire to profit by the very lessons we learned there that we are
endeavouring to maintain our civilization at that high standard
which has made the British civilization the test by which all
other civilized nations in modern times are measured . . .
. . . These people [continental Europeans] have made excellent
settlers; they have kept the law; they have prospered and they are
proud of Canada, but it cannot be that we must draw upon them to
shape our civilization. We must still maintain that measure of
British civilization which will enable us to assimilate these
people to British institutions, rather than assimilate our
civilization to theirs. That is the point; that is all that may be
said with respect to it, and it is the point I desire to make at
this time. We earnestly and sincerely believe that the
civilization which we call the British civilization is the
standard by which we must measure our own civilization; we desire
to assimilate those whom we bring to this country to that
civilization, that standard of living, that regard for morality
and law and the institutions of the country and to the ordered and
regulated development of this country. That is what we desire,
rather than by the introduction of vast and overwhelming numbers
of people from other countries to assimilate the British
immigrants and the few Canadians who are left to some other
civilization. That is what we are endeavouring to do, and that is
the reason so much stress is laid upon the British settler, not
upon the Englishman as the hon. member for Southeast Grey (Miss
Macphail) said, but upon the British settler as indicating that
standard of civilization on which we build our institutions and to
which we hope to be able to make those who come to us not conform
but assimilate, so that they may play the part in it that we
ourselves play, that they may realize that the same conditions
exist as in days gone by, when the people said "wherever the
king's writ ran, there was freedom and liberty of
conscience." So everyone who lives under British institutions
in that part of the Empire which we call Canada may have freedom
and liberty, regard for law and order and a desire for an ordered
government of which they and we may well be proud. That I say to
my hon. friend is our reason, rather than the reason which he
suggested this afternoon.
As far as I can see it is the purpose of all governments to
maintain that position; that is the intention of all governments,
but we do say that there has been a singular lack of appreciation
of that position during recent years by the present government. In
various sections of western Canada they have planted colonies from
far-off lands, who have settled upon the soil and maintained their
own peculiar civilization rather than become assimilated to that
British civilization which should prevail in this country, because
there has not been a sufficient leavening of it to ensure that
result. That is one of the complaints we make . . .