A Few Quick Notes 373

-Today was another great day in Halifax. Though it was above 10 for the better part of the day it is apparently forecast to drop as low as -2 tonight. I am somewhat curious whether this will actually happen or not. At the moment we need to drop another 10 degrees to get there (and that is on top of the 5 that we have already lost since today's high this afternoon).

-We had another tofu stir-fry for dinner tonight.

-Neil and Rebecca attended a few of the torch ceremonies yesterday evening. I was a little bit confused about when and where things were happening so I didn't participate (though I did get a free pre-torch Coke Zero while I was at Dal). Apparently they saw people like Dexter, Campbell, and maybe Crosby.

I guess I should also note that I am probably not a particularly big fan of the Olympic torch relay. The thing about it that I have been finding particularly frustrating is that every day they have been including a half-page story on page 3 of the Globe and Mail about the torch relay. This wasn't news to begin with and it certainly isn't news now that we are three weeks.

-I spent the afternoon in the Nova Scotia archives. While I wasn't as productive as I might have liked to have been, I think that in the end it should be considered a pretty productive trip. Not only did I find some of the stuff I was looking for, I also found a neat letter about Newfoundland in the 1920s.

-I just got back from the grocery store, where I had gone to buy another 10 pounds of carrots before the store closed for the night and the next week's pricing scheme was implemented. In the past week we have purchased 30 pounds of carrots at $1.99 per 10 pound bag. At the moment we have almost 30 pounds of carrots in our fridge.

-The German Marshall Fund sponsored defence conference is supposed to start tomorrow. According to a website I found a few days ago the protest plan is to picket the hotel's entrance tomorrow afternoon (if I recall correctly) and then hold the full-fledged protest on Saturday. I may or may not be here while the pre-protest is on-going tomorrow, but I will definitely try to grab a few pics of Saturday's events.

-I am in the midst of some marking, which is definitely going more slowly that I would like it to be.

From deep in the archives

Mr. Smith, a representative of the Government of Canada, spend several months in Newfoundland in the early 1920s while he was gathering information on the Labrador boundary dispute. While Smith was in St. John's he met with a number of prominent public figures on a relatively regular basis, providing him with some sense of the political climate of the day. It should be noted that Smith had been in Newfoundland 20 years earlier and seemed familiar with the individuals involved in public life at that time as well.

The following are a few sections of a relatively long and detailed letter Mr. Smith wrote on March 1, 1922 to W.S. Fielding, the Canadian Minister of Finance, about the situation he observed in Newfoundland. (For the real keeners among our readership, the letter in its entirety can be found in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia/NSARM at MG 2 vol. 528, folder 112, item 7370)

When describing the poor quality of parliamentary proceedings Smith notes that

the galleries having been packed by the Opposition, with idlers who had orders to interrupt the proceedings of the Government by heckling and otherwise annoying the ministers and their supporters. The disturbance reached a height that compelled the interposition of the long enduring Speaker, who ordered the Galleries to be cleared. Sir Michael Cashin, the leader of the Opposition, then got up and addressing the Galleries, said “Boys, this is your house, are you going to be ordered out of it”? With one voice the galleries should “No”, and the House itself adjourned.

That the use of the Gallery for the purposes of annoyance, was not a monopoly of the Opposition, I learned a night or two later. At the house of a friend where I was to meet Sir Richard Squires at dinner, Sir Richard came late, and announced exultantly that a Ministerial gallery, had effectually silenced the Opposition that afternoon.

I myself was a witness of a scene of the Government being overawed and overborne by a mob. Some thousand or more strikers gathered in front of the Legislative building, and when the house opened, as many as could find room crowded into the galleries. Three of their leaders addressed the Premier in the chamber, denouncing him for his conduct towards them, and demanding that their requests should be conceded. The Premier, after an attempt to parley, surrendered, and was flayed by the Opposition for the way he had treated the men, amidst applause and hooting of horns from the Gallery. The whole town was in a state of disorder. Many men were out of work, with the usual suffering, and in May, a general strike broke out among the longshore [sic] men. This was regarded as serious, and, to prevent an outbreak, themen [sic] on two British war vessels which were in the harbour, paraded Water Street, the principal business street of the town.

Indeed, the avowed object of these war vessels, was to impose a check on possible riots.

The unemployed continue to besiege the Government Offices, but with an empty treasury, little could be done. The Government endeavored to procure a loan of $150,000. for the City Council from the Royal Bank, and when the Bank intimated that the guarantee, by which the Government proposed to cover the loan should include a large sum already owing the Bank by the City, the Premier, in the House, denounced the management of the Bank as “a bunch of Shylocks”.

I found this description of Richard Squires rather amusing.

Sir Richard Squires, the premier, is perhaps 45 years of age, a lawyer without standing in his profession, and, his enemies say, very unscrupulous. Even his friends do not claim for him any excess of candour. He is said to be, not perhaps anti-British, but pro-American in his tastes, a rather rare thing down there. But he is so given to gasconnade that it is difficult to get at his real sentiments.

If all goes well I will be heading back to the archives tomorrow.