A Chestertonian Critique of Canadian Society (A Somewhat Dated Rant)

A Chestertonian Critique
of Canadian Society Today

Peter Hunt
The Chesterton Review is international in scope, both in

the contributions so far printed and in its executive and
editorial committee. The three main countries involved are
England, Canada and the United States, but we have had
some illuminating commentaries from Poland, and from Russia.
It would be interesting to see some contributions dealing with
the influence and relevance of Chesterton in each of several
countries, preferably ones which relate his orthodox-distribut-
ist vision to the social history and character of the nation
concerned. F o r instance, there are rich veins to be explored in
Australia, Ireland, the United States and Canada. I n Australia, as
Maisie W a r d showed in her biography of Chesterton, the Distri-
butist influence was great. Since she wrote, it has had a chequered
career in that country, being eclipsed by Catholic "liberalism"
on the one hand and negative anti-Communism on the other,
though, as is evident in the writings of B . A . Santamaria and, to
a lesser extent, D r . Colin Clark, the decentralist vision is re-
turning. ^ The Australian story is a complex but fascinating one that
needs to be told. I n Ireland, with whose cause Chesterton was
deeply sympathetic, the peasant proprietor once flourished, and
Padraig Pearse. the poet and revolutionary, shared Chesterton's
admiration of the mediaeval order and his decentralist cultural
ideal, as well as his aversion to Prussianised mass-schooling.2
Ireland should be a home of Distributist ideas, and of deep
insight into the mind of Chesterton and his relevance for the
present troubles. T h e United States is reaching a climax in its
struggle to reconcile the need for public order with the tensions
and conflicts produced by the de-Christianised industrial system,
and "conservatives" need to be awakened to a genuine tradi-
tionalism. Some of the profoundest students of Chesterton are
now influencing A m e r i c a n thought, and many initiatives, con-
43
The Chesterton Review
sonant with Distributist principles, are appearing. In this

article, I propose to indicate but not explore fully, some of
the main elements in a study of Chesterton's relevance for
Canada, the country in which I am writing.
In his tribute to Chesterton in the pages of G.K/s Weekly

shortly after the editor's death, Belloc, answering his own
question: "Will that great effort bear fruit?" said, among other
things:
The effect of Gilbert Chesterton's focussed and exact

appreciation of reality, of his vivid, untiring stream of
exposition, will certainly be great in the United States.3
In his short article, Belloc had no room to say anything of

Canada, Australia or Ireland. But in thinking of North America,
the United States loomed so large in his mind that Canada,
sharing a border with the United States, was probably for-
gotten. It may be, in fact, that Canada has greater significance
in the whole North American milieu than is usually thought,
as this article will indicate in a probing, but more or less
indirect way, in the course of its sketch of some Canadian
impressions.
Fittingly, The Chesterton Review is edited in Canada, and

this may contribute more significantly to solving the dilemmas
of "identity" than many other literary efforts which, too often
today, tend to bask in the warm glow of nationalist euphoria
without offering much profound thought or clear vision to
Canadian readers. Only an enhghtened exploration of Canada's
past, in the light of perennial truth and a sense of the dynamic
of tradition (going back into the European roots in both French
Canada and English-speaking Canada) can provide any true
guide to the future. Communities and nations, as Chesterton
knew, should have a sense of destiny, an understanding of the
past, and with a deeper historical perspective, may see a
special vocation in the unfolding drama of the human ad-
venture.
44
A Chesterton Critique of Canadian Society Today
Father Edmund McCorkelPs account of Chesterton's visits

to Canada threw splendid hght on the more personal associations
between this country and the champion of Orthodoxy and de-
centralism.4 Moreover, the anecdote of Gilson's comments on
Chesterton's St. Thomas Aquinas (the original source of which
most of us had not formerly known) brings the mind of
Chesterton into the spectrum of those Catholic intellectual
traditions which so enriched Canadian thought in the past,
especially in the many colleges and universities which flourished
in true Distributist fashion across this diverse and lovely land.
I refer to the spectrum of thinkers such as Belloc, Maritain,
Gilson, Dawson, and Newman whose books were so well re-
presented, as were those of Chesterton, in the libraries of
numerous scholastic institutions. It is significant that two of
these men devoted so much of their time and energy to Toronto,
thereby not only enriching its scholarship from their great work
within the scholastic tradition, but also providing a link with
French Canada because of their own French background. Chester-
ton's journalism (and that of Belloc) helps to bridge whatever
gaps there may be between academic intellectual life and that
of the "market place," not the money market, but the agora.
In recent years, many smaller denominational colleges

have disappeared. Some have been extinguished, like St. Duns-
tan's on Prince Edward Island, a university renowned not only
for liberal education but also for social concern (like that of
St. Francis Xavier, Antigonish) by mergers engineered by
state-appointed Commissions. Others have been absorbed, re-
taining nominal identity but largely secularised, like St. Thomas
University at Fredericton, while still others have managed to
sustain a Catholic presence as constituent colleges of larger
universities, as in the case of St. Thomas More College, Saskatoon.
For those of us who deplore secularisation of Catholic colleges
or resfhaping of them in the Multiversity mould, with all its accent
on bigness and Flexner-Clark Kerr-type specialism, and decline
in liberal education and teaching mission, there is one conso-
lation. The traditions of the "studium generale" and of the
guild may have declined, but there is also the delightful fact
45
that the libraries of Catholic colleges enrich the collections of

the multiversities, while some Catholic colleges radiate the light
and warmth of true humanism. The libraries of universities
which have received the collections of Catholic colleges are
immeasurably richer in theology, philosophy, history and re-
lated studies; and Chesterton's books are numerous. In a period
of mainly narrow academicism, and loss of wholeness, Chester-
ton is the generalist we need, his influence akin to those
vernacular movements to which Christopher Dawson attributes
so much creative enrichment in the Middle Ages.s But this is
relatively weak consolation for those who agree with George
Grant. Not a Catholic himself, but an incisive thinker who is
heir to the traditions of philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom.
Grant has expressed the view that the new social sciences (which
have come to have a position in academic life which reflects
manipulative patterns and the all-encroaching empiricist dogma)
are dissolvents of Cathohcism, family life and classical educa-
tion.^ Yet these have distorted even theology which, in so
many instances, tends to be little more than relativistic
sociology, especially in its moral aspects. Of the empiricist and
positivist tyranny. Grant has warned:
. . . the distinction between judgements of fact and

judgements of value has been thought to be favourable
to a pluralist society. The common or objective world
would be that of facts known scientifically, leaving men
free to choose their values for themselves. However,
this distinction has worked in exactly the opposite direc-
tion towards the monism of technological values . . . .
As the metaphysical roots of the fact-value distinction
are not evident to those who aifirm the method, they
are generally inculcated in what can best be described
as a religious way; that is, as a doctrine beyond
question. 7
We see the results of this assumption that "knowledge"

is restricted to what is discoverable by the "scientific method"
or by observation; it is enshrined in curricula outlines, permeates
high school social studies courses, reinforces modern scepticism
about absolute values, reduces discussion to mere exchange of
46
opinions, blurs critical appreciation of works of art and liter-

ature, and leaves room for that imposition of fashionable or
estabhshmentarian "norms" which C.S. Lewis rightly saw as
the alternative to recognition of objective, moral norms and
perennial truths. Q Grant sees this as stultifying critique
of industrial and technological fatahsm, features of modern
thought which Chesterton saw as intimately bound up with an
evolutionary notion of "progress." This notion, lacking any
examined idea of the good for man, proved to be nothing more
than circular arguments for "going f o r w a r d " without a human
goal.9 Of course, when businessmen and their political alKes
talked about "progress" they usually thought of "innovations"
which brought them profit or confirmed them in their prosperity.
Moreover, positivist academics aided Capitalists and bureau-
crats to avoid moral and intellectual judgements on the value
of the "progress" they offered, for "value" or "ought" questions
came to be regarded as not open to rational conclusion. To
break out of this bind required a revolution of thought and
of priorities. Relativism was tied to the notion of "adaptation"
to change, and only the tradition of natural law, of God-given
human rights intrinsic to human nature, and Christian Ortho-
doxy could effect any radical change,
Chesterton, like Grant, had a clear grasp of the dynamic

of tradition, seeing the need for restoration of human priorities
and Divine absolutes in every age, but especially in an age
which denied fixed truths and lasting values while, at the
same time, it is enslaved to the fashions and follies of the
hour, and to the habit of adapting to whatever arrangements
the masters of the system happened to favour. »i Grant, the
philosopher, is often called a "conservative" but, like Chesterton,
he differs radically from those "conservatives" who miss the
critique which the great philosophic, human and Christian
tradition inevitably applies to the positivistic, mechanistic.
Capitalist status-quo. Many unschooled people who, unlike
middle-class conformists, have not been conditioned to make
the "fact-value" distinction, recognise in their normal, sturdy
common-sense that there are permanent, basic decencies, and
47
thus criteria for assessment of "progress." People of liberal

education, whose minds can still think philosophically, and are
capable of wonder, can see that this great moral question is
fundamental. The Chestertonian revival comes at a time when
many people have been forced to question "Progress" simply
from experience of ecological disaster, though it is of the utmost
imporance to see that, true to evolutionism, the trend among
some academic and middle-class circles is towards reaffirma-
tion of the myth by readiness to adapt to changes heralded by
"futurologists."'2 Thus, shallow versions of the ecological crisis,
accompanied by naive notions -of "adapt or perish," 13 but
without solid convictions about what constitutes a good human
life, lead people to pin their hopes on movements like "Zero
Population Growth" (as though it is high population which
accounts for the worship of the Gross National Product and
the waste of an "admass" economy). All of this is, of course,
nothing more than a perpetuation of the rootless expectation
of something better emerging from the ruin wrought by the
progressivist myth in the first place. But there are signs in
Canada that many people are looking for alternatives to the
machinery of big government and big business, and those
dominant forces in our economy (increasingly in alliance with
segments of the multiversity world) do enshrine the myth. The
"technocracy" (a term used quite early by Christopher Daw-
soni4) can absorb critique, using it as grist to its mill, as
Clark Kerr applauds it as doing; but economic pressures are
stimulating the search for other and better alternatives, and
for permanent values by which people are freed from depend-
ence on the planners and from slavery to the mindless changes
to which their would-be mentors would have them hasten to
adapt. Talk about alternatives to traditional family-life and
about preparing for the computer age and genetic controls may
help to usher in, with manipulative malice, the "post-industrial"
tyranny, but it also combines with the disorienting effects of
change to shock people into an awareness of a good kind of
order they can make for themselves. When ordinary people see
that the planners are really fatalists and ready to take away
even rights like parenthood, privacy, and communal association
48
(as in schooling), they may react by making bold, human choices.

Opposition to the horrors of abortion, disillusionment with
corporations, big unions and bureaucrats, demands for genuinely
religious schools, the trickle of famihes back to the land, are
all helpful signs. The warnings of a Donald Creighton, who,
just before the cutting-off of Arab oil in 1973, wrote an article,
"Is Canada More Than We Can Hope For?" which probed deep
into the lessons of economic pressures in North America, do
come home to many p e o p l e . C r e i g h t o n sees Canadian survival
as an independent country free from absorption into the "con-
tinental" system, as inseparably bound up with the development
of a different life-style, one that is simpler, closer to the land,
less wasteful, more truly economic, appreciative of the good
things that Canada has to offer without the technological,
super-commercial race for consumer novelties. The thoughtful
reflections of a sensitive journalist like Bruce Hutchison, who,
in one of his splendid articles on socio-economic affairs, referred
to Chesterton's statement that when people "cease to believe
in God, they do not then beheve in nothing—but what is far
more dangerous—in anything at all," are read by a multitude
of readers. 16 And anyone who talks to a variety of Canadian
people, with families they love and memories they cherish,
knows that they want a saner way of life than the one dictated
by the politician, the automobile manufacturer, the developer,
the advertiser, or the bureaucrat. The lessons of inflation, of
the neuroses of big cities and big schools, the ruin of land-
scapes and coastlines, the desire to avoid the crime, the aliena-
tion, the ugliness and insecurity of Los Angeles, New York or
Detroit, are driven home year by year. Every time a demented
boy shoots his classmates at a school or a months-long strike
takes away the livelihood of thousands, or the flood of subhuman
sludge in pornography or demented rock "music" rises notice-
ably higher, people all over this basically decent country, ache
for the true, the good and the beautiful. True, they sometimes
look in vain for guidance to religious leaders, and hope for
that orthodox challenge that good catechetics could provide,
but the vacuum must be filled, and both orthodoxy and Dis-
tributism can fill it.
49
We knew, not so long ago, a better way of life. In some

places, for example, in parts of Cape Breton Island, (with its
Gaelic revival and its folk traditions) and Prince Edward Island
and Newfoundland, genuinely Distributist patterns live on; but
it will not be long before they go the way of similar, though
even deeper, patterns in the Republic of Ireland which, though
still rich in community and Faith, is moving rapidly into the
"homogeneous" age, losing what remains of its valiant and varied
past. If the currents can be reversed, first by a trickle of free-
dom, perhaps much can be saved; perhaps even a renaissance
of diversity, making use of the best in the old and the new,
could emerge. Anti-Americanism in this country may often be
jingoistic and shallow; it may frequently express nothing more
than isolationism, and even mediocrity. But much of it is
imbued with a dream of something better than the mass-
homogeneous, urban existence whose ills are demonstrated
daily. An appreciation of the value of village and town life,
and of the virtues of the true city lingers on, and literature
constantly brings home to the liberally educated what is known
more spontaneously by the humble: we are selling a birthright
for the sake of a fatuous "efficiency."
The condition of Canadian cities must be faced. Some that

have been rich in communal traditional and cultural character
are now either fallen into decay or crumbling and corroding like
the statues of Florence. Quebec, once a passionately Catholic
and vividly alive centre of French-Canadian identity, is now an
awkward combination of two entities: an old, memory-filled, fast-
decaying lower-town in which many churches of haunting beauty
still stand, but are largely deserted, and a modem upper-town.
Large parts of this formerly grand city are merely museums;
often filled with gaping tourists, or crowded with fast-living
cosmopolitans who swarm into the nightclubs. On the board-
walk beneath the Plains of Abraham, a crowd assembles, to
listen to a few half-naked, American "hippies" perform a
"western style" American ditty. No sense of incongruity
appears to move the crowd. The native traditions are gone into
hiding or distorted, or lost, in this setting. The "upper-town"
50
thrives, if one can use that term about another American-type

megalopolis whose bustle and noise, as Chesterton once pointed
out in assessment of modern cities, is essentially non-vital,
commercial. 17 There stands, not far from the railway station
which was once so full of hfe and a sense of community, a
church, built in a style that is original though it gives the
appearance of age, which is actually no more than thirty years
old. On Sunday for Mass, the congregation numbers about 20.
On Saturday night its hall is thronged with a thousand bingo
players, lured there to pay off the cost of the church's con-
struction. T h e parishioners left several years ago, when their
cottages were demolished, razed to make way for "develop-
ment," that is, for banks, insurance companies and government
offices. F o r m e r l y clustering around that church, a true neigh-
bourhood, they were a strong congregation when the church
was built. Such a fate is a symbol of what is happening in
cities everywhere. A n d everyone knows, though some applaud,
that the so-called "quiet revolution" has emptied other Quebec
churches. Speculation, Capitalist consumerism and "liberal"
theology have combined to devastate Quebec. Chesterton's
flaming and visionary orthodoxy and his decentralist love of
freedom, are of the utmost relevance to Quebec. While temples
totter and machines abound, and old, symbolic, simple things
are obliterated by the advancing computer age, Chesterton
reminds us that orthodoxy and freedom go together. Whatever
criticisms may be made of French-Canadian Catholicism, it has
been something that brightly illuminates the present. The
settlement of this country was at first a feat of epic exploration
and missionary effort by the F r e n c h , the peak of whose Chris-
tian valour is immortally celebrated by E . J . Pratt in his great
poem, "Brebeuf and His Brethren." Though not a Catholic,
Pratt was able to respond magnificently (indeed in a Chester-
tonian spirit that glimpsed the "romance of orthodoxy") to his
sources, transcending his liberal Protestantism (in many ways
a noble thing) and his evolutionary preoccupations, to bring
to life "an alphabet of flame." T h e whole Western E u r o p e a n
background, with its Gospel fire, its great Doctors and its
mediaeval mysticism, its cathedrals and altars, its passionate
51
saints and its revival in the Counter-Reformation, is drawn upon

in Pratt's celebration of the Canadian martyrs. The tone and
atmosphere is vibrant with the spirit we see in Chesterton's little
essay, "The Architect of Spears," especially in its peroration.
Is it too much to say that Chesterton's orthodoxy, so essentially
filled with the Tridentine spirit, but also conscious of the per-
ennial renaissance which the Church carries in its very being,
must help to fertilise the new seeds of revival in French
Canada? Surely W.W. Carroll was right when he observed, in
a review of the Image Books reprint of The Everlasting Man
issued in 1975, that the revival of Chesterton is the renaissance
of the Church.IS
Some see praise of the Jesuit missionaries as myopia

towards the Indians whose way of life was cruelly shattered by
the European invasions. But it was not Catholic vision and
orthodox religion which performed this tragic crime; it was
rather the infiuence of a decayed Europe, especially of the
industrialist invasion, a creed that made profit the god, that
worshipped the machine and subordinated man to it, that im-
posed a non-Christian and non-European ethic upon native
peoples; a system that had already enslaved the ragged poor
of festering slums, and, joining Bounderby to Gradgrind, had
built the "dark Satanic mills" the poet Blake abhorred. The
Jerusalem in every Christian masterpiece was, and is, the
antithesis of such a system. It was not the missionaries who
slaughtered the buffalo and stole the Metis land, or scorned
the Indians' own primitive culture. Father Brebeuf's Huron
Christmas hymn, written with ineffable insight into native
traditions, typifies the Catholic spirit. The diverse cultures of
Christian Europe, by no means lacking in indigenous vitality,
flowered from a soil that was prepared, tilled and harrowed
by the Catholic Faith. The traditions of Christian Western
Europe are such as to blend the best in individual communities
with the vast heritage of Christian humanism. Our Lord's com-
mand was to bring the Gospel, not industriahsm, and certainly
not Mammon, to every creature. It was the contradictions in-
herent in a nominally Christian structure which served the
52
go-getting entrepreneur and the worshippers of power which

drove poor Louis Kiel to rebellion, and, perhaps temporarily,
to semi-madness J 9
It is not surprising that Canadian writers who have best

appreciated the European roots of Canadian culture in both
its French and English forms have also been most compassionate
and sensitive in their portrayal of the Indian people. The
humane tradition of philosophy, literature and history, of a
rich awareness of the whole heritage of the arts and humani-
ties, is seen, for instance, in a fine poet like Duncan Campbell
Scott who, sharing as he did the liberal education of Christian
Canadians of his time, wrote poems of lasting merit about the
Indians, French-Canadians and European experiences. He ap-
preciated the problems of commercial European influence as
opposed to the genuine traditions of a Christendom that had
been shattered. Some historians, Belloc amongst them, trace
the catastrophe, not merely to the "Rebellion of the Rich" which
occurred in the English Reformation,20 but to the disease of
money-worship, a disease depicted with allegorical significance
for the whole modern world, in Chaucer's "The Pardoner's
Tale" at the point where the mediaeval order was breaking
down. Chesterton, we are told, saw and admired Quebec. I am
sure that he would have loved those way-side crucifixes and
compact villages, and the marvellous churches in village, town
and city which expressed the Faith of the French-Canadian as
the Gothic cathedrals expressed the Faith of the Middle Ages.
But how he would crusade for a social vision that drew on the
whole Christian heritage of compassion and wisdom in the face
of the Marxism that has been given so much attention among
the disaffected of Quebec, and even among some of our Church
leaders. 21
What has been happening in Quebec is, of course, in vary-

ing degrees, happening in every city of Canada. Old, charming
historic centres are being ravaged. Clotted main streets, con-
stant demolition of old buildings, many of them very fine ones
(in Montreal, many churches for instance), and a creeping
53
decadence that invades every corner of the city street by

street, Yonge Street in Toronto being exemplary of what is
increasingly evident in such cities as Calgary, Halifax, Vancouver
and Edmonton, are typical of the trend. And crime, noise,
alienation, drug-addiction, and disintegration of city cores, goes
on apace. Even relatively small cities such as Charlottetown
and Fredericton show all of these symptoms in a marked and
frightening way; even medium-sized towns share in the results
of decline in moral conviction and the subordination of human
and rehgious values to commercial speculation. In Fredericton,
an old Loyalist centre, a home of Canadian poets, still charming
and poignantly individual to some extent, the Citizens' Bridge
Committee fought in vain to have a system of clover-leaf roads
and super-highways linked with a new bridge rejected by the
City Council and the Government. Speculators and business-
men have even cast covetous eyes on the neighbourhood in
which Christ Church Cathedral stands. All of this centralism,
demohtion and destruction of city communities, arises from the
greed, bureaucracy, and decline in family farming and small
schools which Chesterton and Belloc opposed. The changing of
city cores into places of commerce and the flight to the suburbs
(and to apartment blocks) from both the land, and from the
core, leaves ghettoes of the poor in a sea of commercialism. 2 2
The relevance of the papal principle of "subsidiarity" and

of Chesterton's Distributism to this modern urban malaise is
obvious. This view is not pessimism. But one cannot help
recalling the fate of the cities as foreseen by the Canadian
poet, Archibald Lampman in "The City of the End of Things,"
with the idiot sitting at the gate. We do not know whether
Chesterton ever read the account William Cobbett gave of his
stay in Fredericton and New Brunswick, but it would have
confirmed his view that, in North America, the virtues of a
decentrahsed rural life and a "Cottage Economy" could fiourish,
and European traditions, spiritual, social and cultural, take root
to develop a blend of the old and the new.23 It is not yet
too late for Canadians, especially those in the Maritimes and
Newfoundland, to save enough of their heritage to provide a
54
material base to go with the spiritual and social traditions on

which they must increasingly draw if they are to avoid com-
plete chaos and disaster. One basic taslc is to pioneer a sounder
use of the land, checlcing or ending mere speculation with this
primary source of wealth and well-being, and thus helping to
develop good cities, not megalopoles.
The state of the cities, or "anti-cities" as Mumford calls

them, reflects not only speculative greed, but, as well, naive,
evolutionary optimism. The so-called reforms of environment,
because they proceed from a shallow idea of the nature and
purpose of cities, and because the evidence of decay on the
one hand, and antiseptic sterility on the other is obscured by
"omega point" optimism and "secular city" millenarianism,
often turn out to be mere tinkering with the problem. Neither
the disciples of Teilhard de Chardin nor those gulled by Harvey
Cox are radical critics of the Capitalist-industrial system.24
Chesterton cuts through the nonsense of evolutionism with
vision, logic and sanity. For Socialists, Secularists and "Post-
industrial" prophets, his whole treatment of evolution and
progressivism would be curative reading. His traditionahsm is
inseparable from his attack on the notion that we inevitably
evolve towards something better, if only we "develop" refined
uses of scientific method and technology, on the assumption
that progressivism is truly progressive. He made the point
succinctly in Orthodoxy:
Progress should mean that we are always walking to-

wards the New Jerusalem. It does mean that the New
Jerusalem is always walking away from us. We are
not altering the real to suit the ideal. We are altering
the ideal: it is easier. 2 5
Typical of the academic contribution to myopic evolution is

the Ontario Report on Higher Educaton, Towards 2000, an in-
fluential document that would have evoked Chesterton's ironic
humour for its untroubled prophecy of a post-industrial society
whose "cultural base is supplied by science and technology"
and which is run by scientists, managers and professors, whose
55
decision-making has ^încreasingly such a technological base."26

This evolutionary optimism, with its bland acceptance of Clark
Kerr's idea of an adapting "Multiversity" as an "imperative"
rather than a "reasoned choice,"27 its Club of Rome type
acceptance of totalitarian planning,28 its failure to question or
examine the basic assumptions of technocracy, (and integration
of business interests, politics and elite power) fulfils the worst
prophecies of Belloc and Chesterton who foresaw such a blend
and such an alliance of interests.29 It must be borne in mind
that the planners of a society based on science and technology
rather than on Christian humanism or on the insights of the
humanities, illuminated by the religious experience of mankind,
do not purport to impose their full-scale technocracy upon us;
they claim to implement a mass-consensus. Academics like
Clark Kerr have developed their theories of "industrial plural-
ism" and "managerial pluralism" in which the future society
is said to reflect the "input" of all sectors of society.so But
"post-industrial" society is really a further stage of Capitalist
"progress" anticipated and designed to protect the worship of
profit by appearing to iron out problems arising from it; thus,
forms of socialisation combine with Capitahstic control, an
outcome foreshadowed in The Servile State, with no real demo-
cratic power for the people, and no real dissent based on the
great moral tradition or on Christian humanist grounds taken
into account.3i It is not at all surprising that, having denied
most men productive property rights and depopulated the
countryside, and developed cancerously wasteful industry that
depends on mass-brainwashing in advertising campaigns, our
masters should now want to "solve" the "population" problems
through abortion, contraception and sterilisation. The licentious-
ness that made these acceptable in recent years now gives way
to apparent social necessity, eugenic controls imposed in the
name of survival. Chesterton dealt with this in his book. Eugenics
and Other Evils. 3 2
In both Capitalism and Marxist Socialism Chesterton saw

a slavish fatalism:
56
For what is at the back of all that sort of thing,

Capitalist and Communist, is precisely that spirit which
the writer calls economic determinism, and we should
call fatalistic diabolism. It is the idea that the spirit
of man can really be broken down by brutal materials
or more brutal abstractions. It is the idea that organ-
ised humanity will always be more powerful than free
humanity.3 3
A few months after this editorial, Chesterton addressed

himself to the theme of fatalism in modern thought, rejecting,
in an essay whose eloquence (not uncharacteristic of G.K.'s
Weekly) gives the lie to talk about his Distributist journalism
being dull, the argument that it is impossible to turn back
from the system which scientism and capitalism had together
made:
For God's sake, for our sake, but above all, for your
own sake, do not be in this blind haste to tell them
there is no way out of the trap into which your folly
has led them; that there is no road except the road by
which you have brought them to ruin; that there is no
progress except the progress that has ended here. Do
not be so eager to prove to your hapless victims that
what is hapless is also hopeless. Do not be so anxious
to convince them, now that you are at the end of your
experiment, that you are also at the end of your re-
sources. Do not be so very eloquent, so very elaborate,
so very rational and radiantly convincing in proving
that your own error is even more irrevocable and irre-
mediable than it is. Do not try to minimise the industrial
disease by showing it is an incurable disease . . . . Do
not tell the people there is no way but this; for many
even now will not endure this. Do not say to men that
this alone is possible; for many already think it im-
possible to bear. And at some later time, at some eleventh
hour, when the fates have grown darker and the ends
have grown clearer, the mass of men may suddenly
understand into what a blind alley your progress has
led them . . . . 'What art thou man, and why art thou
despairing?' wrote the poet, 'God shall forgive thee all
but thy despair.' Man may also forgive you for blunder-
ing; and may not forgive you for despairing.34
57
At the time Chesterton wrote this, the evils of starvation

wages, the dole and unemployment, of coketown and coal-pit,
of so-called "over-production," were familiar characteristics of
the economy; though the Depression had not yet arrived. Since
his time, some or all of these have been, at least in part,
apparently reformed. Affluence has come for many wage-earners.
But much of the "affluence" is built on debt, and the double-
wage (from working mothers) has obscured the real lowness
of single wages in relation to price levels.35 As well, despite
Keynesian controls, there is always the threat of a massive
down-swing in demand for labour produced by a severe fluctua-
tion in demand for consumer goods (through the multiplier
and accelerator process of a chain reaction from consumption,
through production, to opportunities for profit on investment)
or by shortages of raw materials or fuels. The point is that
Chesterton's warning still applies as much as it ever did.
Despairing acceptance of the system,3 6 or equation of its latest
stages with going forward or "progress," needs his strictures
now as much as when he wrote them. For the system, though
reformed in some aspects, is still the same system, based on
the same assumptions, and motivated by the same greed and
hunger for power. It has won much of the population to its
materiahsm, the price of their slavery, and it must not be
forgotten that it still leaves about 20% of the populations of
"advanced" industrial countries either on the bread-line or in
misery.3 7 it keeps the poor, not in dignified poverty, but in a
dull round of hopeless insufficiency, with the depressed con-
dition passed on generation after generation. Many people in
Canada are no better off than the poor of Chesterton's time,
though more have "affluence."
Moreover, increasingly, workers are restless, frustrated with

their work, not because of the wages, but because of the
monotony. Few jobs in a modern economy provide creative
challenge; many are robot-like, dispiriting, inhumane. Many
jobs are recognised, even if subconsciously, by their occupants,
as fundamentally devoid of real meaning, for even the service
they render is known to be dubious or dishonest.3 8 There is
58
no romance in waste, but only in thrift, as Chesterton told us.39

But more deeply, the social injustice of the system today can
be seen on the wider world scale, a scale that Chesterton
probably foresaw, but seldom mentioned. Today, distribution
of resources and of population is the central global problem.
Under-populated countries, like Canada, have great affluence;
an affluence which, as our Canadian Bishops never cease to
remind us, is to be shared. While the country has vast, empty
spaces, and swollen cities, and pollutes its natural resources,
millions elsewhere starve.
But the real key to this colossal injustice (repeated in

dozens of other similar economies) is in the way in which the
system uses resources. Some think that we have only to share
abundance (mainly non-essential consumer goods) with other
communities. The real point is that in a decentrahsed economy,
many more people could live in Canada, as they could in other
countries. With a different scale of priorities, one based on
humanity and true economy, the essentials of life could be
provided for all, and without the vicious aspects of a mass-
consumerist, manipulative, centrahst system rooted in greed.ô
Referring to possibhties of social change in Canada in the
context of our need to learn from the conflicts developing in
Latin America, Bishop Remy de Roo said that . . it does seem
that a very profound movement of social change is stirring
in our society."4i in this writer's view, any change that is
a challenge to the present system will not be profound if it
takes a Marxist or State Socialist form.42 Neither big govern-
ment nor secular humanism nor a planned economy will serve
the need. Only when we get back to freedom of human enter-
prise, to closer settlement and thrifty use of the land, to
independent famihes that also co-operate, to the true principles
of co-operation which will avoid like the plague any dealings
with the monopohes, to Christian asceticism and Cathohc
orthodoxy, will we be able to avoid slavery and win through,
not to Utopia or the millenium, but to the beginnings of order;
for true order is what we lack. It is in the vision that sees
that "here we do not have a lasting Kingdom, but one that
59
is to come" that this order is found; for it is the substitution

of Mammon for that goal that has brought us to the present
pass.
"Too slow," some will say. "How can we wait to trans-

form society in the light of Christian prinicples?" The answer
is, as Chesterton saw so clearly, that we do what we can. We
do work for more immediate goals, such as developing com-
munities which offer alternatives; we do demand the break-up
of monopolies and press for anti-trust laws; we do ourselves
refuse to share in waste; we do work for practical projects
such as co-operatives; we do expose big business and big
government to the acid of constant criticism, and, where
possible, resistance. But beyond this we know that we are
engaged in a struggle for Christian values and a cultural
mission that has the Divine destiny of the Church at its heart,
and the dynamic of a tradition that, as James McAuley says
of tradition in another context, "works like radium in the
dark."43 Modernity is a disease; tradition is health. Restore
tradition and you work towards health. Chesterton called it
sanity.44 The fact that we cannot hope to see results in our
own life-times is irrelevant. The truth must be served; sanity
must be asserted and implemented in whatever ways, immedi-
ate or long-range, that are available to us in our own times.
The foregoing exposition of orthodox and Distributist

sanity is necessarily simple; perhaps too simple for those who
realise the enormous complexity and strength of political
power, a power which can promote apparent change but trap
us all, or prevent real change and create the illusion of de-
mocracy through a mass-consensus support. Chesterton would
have agreed with Jacques EUul, not only about the manipulative
nature of "technique" but also about the illusions of change
and of democratic participation in industrial systems. Many
passages in his books, such as The Political Illusion or The
Autopsy of Revolution, with their ideas of how governments
and elites "politicise" every facet of life, constantly encroaching
on the areas of individual and small communal decision-making,
60
the observation of the extent to which the evolution-based

notion of "adjusting the individual" to society limits freedom,
(with sociologists and social psychologists used to manipulate
and adjust people), and awareness of bow technology controls
freedom of choice and destroys a rich humanity, read like
extensions of the Chester-Belloc-Gill critique.^s There were
few, if any, writers more sceptical of modern politics than the
Distributists. And Ellul's ideas on solutions are completely
compatible with theirs. Ellul takes the view that, rather than
opt out of politics, something they have already done to such
an extent that they have permitted the State to arrogate
tremendous power, people must "demythologise" politics, and
put it in its place; that is, limit it.
This means people must take initiatives before all oppor-

tunity for initiatives is lost. Chesterton championed the family's
rights and the need for local, small power units, or sovereign-
ties, and saw both as largely dependent on a wide distribution
of property and a large number of business ventures, many
small ones, and, perhaps, where necessary in modern conditions,
some larger ones, run by co-operatives.ê in this he was
applying exactly that principle of "subsidiarity" that was em-
phasised in Quadragesima Anno and repeated in Mater et
Magistra. His theory was built on principles identical to those
which prevailed in the high Middle Ages (with guild restraints
on greed and monopoly ambitions), and to some of the main
elements in Jeffersonian democracy. It must be emphasised that
Belloc and Chesterton had a healthy awareness of Original
Sin, and of the consequent need for communal and social
restraints built into the social organism. Indeed, it was their
view that the Capitalist system, far from being one which
promoted true order, only provided a semblance of order, the
order of Prussianised so-called efficiency, the order of organised
exploitation. Thus, the disorder of maximum profits and abso-
lute ownership of the means of production was enshrined in
the socio-economic and political organisation, with the State
institutionalising it. Widespread ownership would mean the
opposite of monopoly; hence the key reform they always came
61
back to was this one of distribution of ownership. Associations

like guilds could ensure that distributive justice prevailed.
Chesterton always kept to the forefront of his social teach-

ing the Gospel antithesis of Mammon and the Kingdom of
Heaven, and saw it as constantly illustrated by experience. The
rich could not be trusted; a system built on acquisitiveness
was imbued with the Midas myth and the "Fallacy of Success."47
Both were hnked with the madness of the man who "behoved
in himself," and was heading for Hanwell.ê The Capitalist
ethic, with its monopoly power and its addiction to unlimited
profits and circular notions of Progress, its pomposity and
usury, was the antithesis of Christian dependence on God and
compassion for the humble and poor. It was in conflict with
the family and the cultural tradition; it made the confidence
man, the advertiser and the salesman respectable; in a sense,
institutionalising the seducer and the serpent in the Garden of
Eden.49 This massive distortion of modern life was the result
of negating both Natural Law morahty and Divine Revelation.
Thus, in Chesterton's view, to apply Natural Law and Revela-
tion to the status quo was to see a sane world which only
cppeared insane to those who had come to think of aggregations
of wealth, big corporations and powerful but subservient,
governments, a constant round of getting and spending, as
normal. It was not a matter of condemning the rich (for who
can condemn individual persons?) but of attacking an economic
system that was built on anti-Christian and unnatural premises.
It followed that, as he so often said, in various forms:
These can be called the essentials of the old orthodoxy,

of which its chief merit is that it is the natural fountain
of revolution and reform.so
This idea of moral and Christian traditions being revolu-

tionary runs through all Chesterton's work, and we shall
return to it presently, in refiecting on the dilemmas of the
"Conservative Mind." But let us look at several quotations
which illustrate further his hostihty to government by the rich
62
and to big power units, and go on to relate the thoughts

expressed to the Canadian economy:
A thinking man should always attack the strongest

thing in his own time. For the strongest thing of the
time is always too strong . . . . The great outstanding
fact and feature of our time is Monopoly.si
For the whole modern world is absolutely based on

the assumption, not that the rich are necessary (which
is tenable), but that the rich are trustworthy, which
(for a Christian) is not tenable. You will hear ever-
lastingly, in all discussions about newspapers, companies,
aristocracies, or party politics, that the rich man can-
not be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich
man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why
he is a rich man . . . . It is not quite certainly un-
Christian to rebel against the rich or to submit to the
rich. But it is quite certainly un-Christian to trust the
rich, to regard the rich as more morally trustworthy
than the poor. 52
In the context of the second quotation, Chesterton was relating

these observations to the great fact of Original Sin and such
Gospel illustrations as the camel and the needle, and to the
ways in which wealth is served and flattered.
In a recent interview. Professor Galbraith, a Canadian-born

economist whose writings have had great influence throughout
North America and the world, said in words of the utmost
relevance to present discussion about the Canadian economy
and Prime Minister Trudeau's oft-misreported comments on
the Canadian economy:
I have long accepted the inevitability of big corpora-

tions and big unions. In the United States and to a
lesser extent in Canada there has always been a
romantic view that one could break up the big corpora-
tions, break up the unions and return to the world of
Adam Smith . . . . As long as we have strong unions
and strong corporations—which I accept, being a con-
servative on these matters, not being romantic—we are
going to have the controls. 53
63
Thus, the economist who, in The New Industrial State explored

the "technostructure" in ways which confirmed what disciples
of Belloc knew about aggregations of power (through reading
of The Servile State and The Restoration of Property) as they
operated in our more complex technological society, sees bigness
as inevitable and irreversible. To ensure equity, the "new
Socialism" supports massive controls; and these controls are
resisted by both business corporations and big unions, in the
name of freedom. When Prime Minister Trudeau made a
careful distinction, in a recent speech, between the "free
market" and so-called "free enterprise," pointing out that the
market today is hardly free and that inflation is caused by the
pohcies of big power units, the media almost wholly ignored
the distinctions he made. His stress on the need for restraint
and the encouragement of areas of genuinely free enterprise
were equally ignored. The big financial interests chose to
ignore them, resorting instead to loose talk about the beauties
of "free enterprise," the need for big, "efficient" bargaining
units, and the dire threat of "SodaUsm."
However, Mr. Trudeau had also been very careful to say,

as Galbraith said, that the big corporations are here to stay.
In fact, he said that they are "necessary." Thus, the choice
that Galbraith and Trudeau offer us is one between the rat-race,
inflationary spiral, with all its unrest, anxiety and injustice,
and an ever-increasing control of economic life from the bureau-
cratic top. Such a choice is inhumane. Without radical change
towards widespread ownership, small sovereignties, and question-
ing of the Keynesian economic dogma that profits are inevitably
maximised (a descriptive observation rigidified into an iron law),
it is not a cheerful prospect for Canadians who earn their
living in this highly centralised and under-populated country.
And, as a Canadian economist who specialises in urban studies
has shown, the ever-burgeoning, but decaying cities contribute
most to inflationary pressures.54 The central economic priniciple
is really simple: while you have monopoly you are going to
have inflation, because the powerful controllers of production,
distribution and exchange are in a position to increase prices
64
every time wages are increased, thus ensuring that profit

margins are always preserved intact. It is argued by business
interests and economists that if profits are not allowed to
remain at "desirable" levels, investors and entrepreneurs lose
confidence, and "development" and production are checked.
This is perfectly correct. That is precisely what is wrong with
the system. Why should maximum profits be the sacred cow?
It is so only because monopoly flourishes. The unions, on the
other hand, do not face up to the need for real reform. They
fight for higher wages, but do not work on the broader front
of ownership of industry. Big unions have become a mirror-
image of big corporations. That many Canadians are dissatisfied
with big government and big business is apparent to any
casual observer; but it was fascinating to see big business itself
testifying to its own un-popularity. Here is what a typical
representative recently said; I quote the newspaper report:
"Business is suffering under an 'avalanche of anti-

business attitudes'" because it has failed to talk to
ordinary people in language they understand, Arthur
Mingay, president of Canada Trust Company has
said . . . . Business has to come out of its corporate
shell and drop its defensive attitudes . . . . Our
citizens should understand how jobs are made and how
capital is created." Mr. Mingay said that an entire
generation has been raised to view business as a toler-
able evil at best, or, at worst, as a mammoth machine
in need of over-hauling or even dismantling. 5 5
It is Chestertonian to wish that Canadians would come to see

big business as an intolerable evil. Those of us who reject "the
bluff of the big shops,"56 abhor Prussianised notions of efficiency
which ignore human ends, who regard abortion as a symptom of
the depths to which a mere mass-consensus or an antiseptic Pharisa-
ism can sink, will not let the discussion end here, or shde into
easy acquiescence. We cannot separate support for the guild
spirit (whatever modern forms it may take) from dissent from
what Hollis calls the "impersonality of the gigantic units."57
We do not trust the rich; we do not want big government. Like
Chesterton we say:
65
I do not object to Socialism because it will revolutionise

our commerce, but because it will leave it so horribly
the same. 5 8
It was indicated earlier that the full Christian vision from

which Distributism takes its authenticity precludes sudden and
violent solutions, and that this is supported by the whole
experience of history. This does not minimise, however, the
fractures, flaws and breakdowns, the crises in the system which
will aid towards the restoration of better things. The oil crisis
has illustrated the point, and if the Chestertonian analysis is
correct, then the system does contain the "seeds of its own
destruction." But at the same time, there is the problem of
anarchy and chaos. Eventually, it seems certain. Orthodoxy and
the technocratic State must clash overtly and on fundamental
levels, for the logic of technological determinism is an ultimate
attack on the integrity of the family through genetic totalitar-
ianism. Is there a case for conservatism? Was Chesterton a
conservative? Briefly, the answer seems to be that, yes, he was
a conservative in the sense of wanting to save (or conserve)
such basic institutions as the family, and the Christ-given
authority of the Church; he also wanted to conserve, or save
and renew, the heritage of perennial philosophy, of hterature
and all noble reminders of the past. "All . . . who have done
anything with the future have had their eyes fixed upon the
past."59 For Chesterton a revolution is also a restoration.eo
But what of the status quo? Was he "conservative" in respect
to that? I have already shown how radical he was with refer-
ence to Capitalism and modern government. A Canadian writer
has indicated, in the course of examining the possibility of a
conservatism today, that our society obviously has still much
to conserve, much to protect against "radicals."6i But con-
servatism, even among some Catholic defenders of orthodox
doctrine and moral tradition, has often taken a form which
Chesterton rejected as, in essence, anti-traditional.
I do not refer to those champions of the Magisterium who,

rightly in my view, castigate "leftist" attacks on the status quo
by Cathohc "liberals" who do, in fact, tend to substitute a
66
Kingdom on Earth for the Kingdom of Heaven. To the extent

that they object only to the forms of Marxism or secular
humanism which, as in the case of writers like Gregory Baum,
for instance, are eating away at the fabric of an Apostohc
Church, they are perfectly sound, and, indeed, Chestertonian. 62
But there are some "conservatives," mainly in the United States,
who are wrong-headed about tradition, and, therefore, about
the social mission of the Christian. It is obvious, of course, that
terms like "conservative," "radical," and "liberal" are widely
misused, because the reference points in each case differ. But
if we take "conservative" to refer to a position vis-a-vis the
status quo of Capitalist-industrial society, it is clear that the
term "traditionahst" is preferable to describe Chesterton's
social vision and to avoid the charge of protecting vested
interests. "Traditionahst" brings out the idea of perennial
truths, the fixed principles he emphasised throughout his work,
and the idea of the need for constant restoration and renewal.63
It was on such grounds that Chesterton attacked the "conserva-
tism" of Edmund Burke, criticising Burke, not for his fine and
eloquent defense of honour and his indignation at barbaric
excess in the French Revolution, but for his attack on the
"rights of man" with "the modern argument of scientific rela-
tivity."64 Referring to the Revolution's idea of an "abstract
and eternal justice" and contrasting with it Burke's relativity,65
Chesterton castigated Burke's view as stressing "adaptation,"
a pre-Darwinian version of social Darwinism.ee And elsewhere
he referred to conservative artistocracies as keeping "carefully
on the side of what is called Progress."67 There are Catholic
"conservatives" today who, despite their celebration of cultural
traditions and the Cathohc heritage, do tend, in their writings,
to have a convenient, "adjusting" approach to social questions.es
Some, like ones associated with the National Review, sometimes
speak or write of businessmen as though they were part of
the heritage, as imbued with a potential for conserving cultural
traditions, like some Renaissance patrons of art. Some have
attacked papal encyclicals on grounds that they are too "hberal"
or "radical" in their critique of Capitalist enterprise.es An
influential priest-writer, a tradionahst in doctrine, has gone
67
so fas as to state that our only hope hes in the big corporations
because of their "know-how," productive power, and their
more enlightened approach in contemporary conditions. 7 o in
Chesterton's terms, such sanguine expectations are a form of
progressivism, and an atrophy of the critique provided by going
down to the "radix" or root of our problems. But we must
always remember that some people are "conservative" by
temperament.
With respect to the so-called "Counter-culture," it is clear

that Chesterton, while agreeing with many of the reactions and
criticisms of un-democratic structures, would reject the moral
relativism found even in the best of their writingsî and the
characteristics of those "leftist" rebellions which, as Lewis
Mumford so rightly says, represent a return to barbarism.7 2
Rock music, drug-taking, communal "marriage," the semi-
naked appearance and the cult of ugliness, attacks even on
good teachers and on the valuable features of the academic
tradition, are all really a rejection of the past, a mere neurotic
reaction rather than a move towards profound change. At the
same time, the cult of bigness and impersonality has taken
some healthy blows in the process of even superficial and
confused challenge. The traditionalist conservative would learn
from this the urgency of two tasks: to work for restoration
of the liberal arts tradition, and for decentralism in the
guild spirit.
Chesterton foresaw the dull standardisation of hfe which

some of the better "conservatives" and "radicals" have been
inveighing against, and the need for the renewal of human
initiative or "participatory democracy." But he placed his
emphasis on the sovereignty of the family, and on the capacity
of the ordinary man to rule. It was not fragmented pressure-
groups or elitist ideologues he favoured, but simply the rights of
men which both Big Business and Bolshevism abrogated in the
name of responsible government. He attacked the planners
in the very first editorial of G.K.'s Weekly in which he insisted
on the principle that the ordinary folk ought to "have some-
68
thing to rule."73 Governments wanted to take away the

citizen's right to have his own "kingdom" which meant his own
property and a degree of real independence for his family,
and real power in the State. Mere votes, Chesterton stressed,
need not give the ordinary man any power. Referring to the
independence the family, property and devolution of power
meant for the citizen, Chesterton said:
All modern governments, Prussian or Russian, all

modern movements. Capitalist or Socialist, are taking
away that kingdom from that king. Because they dislike
the independence of that kingdom, they are against
property. Because they dislike the loyalty of that king-
dom, they are against marriage.7 4
And with prophetic insight, he saw the relationship between

the denial of democracy through plutocratic and Socialist
governments and the "wasteland" of a dull, standardised
existence:
That is what we think; and Bolshevism and Capitalism

are absolutely at one in thinking the opposite . . . . Both
use the same argument against us; that a human life
has now become impossible to humanity. We do not
agree; we hold a strange old mystical dogma that what
a man has done, man can do . . . it is a strange con-
clusion of the modern scientific advance that it leaves
us with a choice between the impossible and the intoler-
able. For if we cannot go back it hardly seems possible
to go forward. There is nothing in front but a flat
wilderness of standardisation either by Bolshevism or
Big Business. And it is strange that we at least have
seen sanity, if only in a vision, while they go forward
chained eternally to enlargement without liberty and
progress without hope.7 5
The standardisation of modern life comes from the blend of

greed, evolutionary notions of progress which equate entre-
preneurial "innovation" with advancement, and what Mumford
calls the "Myth of the Machine." Speculation in land, treating
it as a mere commodity, a profitable investment, not in terms
of production, but for resale at a profit, accounts for much of
69
the dulness. Cities are shaped by this evil practice, a negation

of the whole purpose of the land as wealth for the use of
human habitation, human recreation and association, and human
production. "Developers," aided by progressive "civic fathers"
who like to think their towns or cities are "going ahead,"
smash neighbourhoods, build vertically because it means more
money, erect buildings which reflect, in Chesterton's words,
the smallness of their own souls. Buildings become machines;
robot-like environments sap vitaüty, make people act like
robots. But whether we can implement the ideas of Henry
George or not (ideas which would end speculation in land and
restore its integrity and communal value in cities), one thing
is clear.76 We must take the view that "what a man has done,
man can do," even though many attempts at reform appear to
have failed. Writing in the year of his death. Father Martindale
said of Chesterton:
. . . he died in some ways, a broken-hearted man. There

were no signs of the world having learnt anything that
was good, even from its sufferings.77
It must be remembered, of course, that when Chesterton died,

Hitlerism had come to the forefront of European affairs, and
he saw in this the rebirth of Prussianism, lamenting the re-
vival of the evil spirit of Bismarck and the invasion of Austria
with the brutal murder of Dolfuss.78 At the end of his 1917 book,
A Short History of England, Chesterton had expressed the view
that only if the Enghsh restore the distribution of property
and avoid the Servile State would victory in the World War be
worthwhile. He wrote:
If the English really attempt that, the English have

at least shown in the war, to anyone who doubted it,
that they have not lost the courage and capacity of
their fathers, and can carry it through if they will. If
they do not do so, if they continue to move only with
the dead momentum of the social discipline which we
learnt from Germany, there is nothing before us but
what Mr. Belloc, the discoverer of this great socio-
logical drift, has called the Servile Stated ^
70
It is also clear that Chesterton felt that modern States had

continued in a direction which was, in fact, barbaric, Prussian
in their regimentation and devotion to false notions of "effici-
ency," with the prospect, so familiar to us now from Brave
New World and 1984, of a form of totalitarianism which com-
bined plutocracy and worship of bigness. With Hitler's rise,
the post-Darwinian doctrine of the "survival of the fittest" took
on massive, inhuman concrete form, and the cult of machinery
and power was on the march to destroy what little freedom
remained.80 At the same time. Capitalist countries outside
Germany had moved further into the servile condition of
financial and State monopoly, with inroads made deeply into
family hfe, schooling and privacy. Thus, little wonder that
Father Martindale said what he did. But there is httle doubt
that Chesterton lived by his own vision of success. He believed
in fighting on the side of truth and justice and compassion,
even if the effort seemed to make httle impression. But time
will tell. Chesterton knew at first hand the experience he at-
tributed to Alfred:
I tell you naught for your comfort,

Yea, nought for your desire.
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.
In Maisie Ward's biography of Chesterton, there is one

paragraph on the influence of Distributist ideas in Canada.
That paragraph is devoted entirely to Antigonish, and to the
work of co-operatives and the leadership of Father Coady.Q'
She wrote:
Surely it is the authentic voice of Chesterton when Dr.

Tomkins says, "Trust the little fellow," or Dr. Coady
declares, "The people are great and powerful and can
do everything."8 2
But there is little if any evidence that Father Coady was

particularly influenced by Chesterton's ideas. He makes no
reference to Chesterton or Belloc or to Distributism in his
71
published work, and a study of the pages of The Casket, that

vital and venerable Antigonish paper, during the Twenties and
Thirties reveals very slight attention to Chesterton. Even the
report of his death is very brief. Moreover, people who knew
Coady say that he did not speak much of Chesterton. These
sources are confirmed, too, by the contents of the Extension
Bulletin which was later supplanted by the journal The Mari-
time Co-operator. But all three papers reflected a deep social
concern. The Casket had many extensive and enlightened
columns on Catholic social teaching and on education; clearly
reflecting both the social teaching of the Popes and the djmamic
missionary character of the University. The other two journals
were involved in the whole movement of reform through adult
education and co-operatives, the causes to which Father Coady
gave his life. In addition, however, the University library, like
that of other great Catholic foundations, was, and is, rich in
the works of Chesterton and other Catholic thinkers. And
reading Peter Nearing's account of the life of Bishop John R.
MacDonald leaves the strong impression that this Bishop was
imbued with Chestertonian ideals. He spoke out on the need
for saving the fast-declining family farms, related Catholic
cultural vision to the land and to decentralism, and resisted
consolidation of schools.82A
The real point of all this emphasis on social vision is that

Chesterton and the leaders of the Antigonish movement drew
from common sources, rather than that Distributism as a move-
ment influenced them directly. The teaching of St. Thomas,
the social encyclicals (which Coady was fond of quoting), and
the traditions and background of this part of Canada were the
main sources. Father Coady's book. Masters of Their Own
Destiny is full of statements about exploitation, negation of
consumer rights, monopoly controls, and the need for ordinary
men to take initiatives that remind us of G.K.'s Weekly and
of the Chester-Belloc strictures on bigness and commercial
manipulation. But Coady was much more critical of the ordinary
man than Chesterton ever was. He declared that "the victim
is not entirely innocent . . . and . . . is a delinquent and a
72
A Chestertm Critique of Canadian Society Today
defaulter."83 He was often angry that more people would not

wake up and take their economic destiny into their own hands.
And he emphasised co-operatives more than Chesterton did,
and saw them as the real challenge to big business. He called
for social action as a religious duty, quoting Pius Xl.e^ Of
religion and co-operation he wrote:
But if co-operation needs religion, religion also needs

co-operation. It is the expression of religion in the eco-
nomic order. It is an aid to salvation that religious
leaders cannot ignore.8 5
As late as 1956, Father Coady was trying to get people to see

how the great principles of Quadragesimo Anno could be
apphed in the modem miheu. But he looked to co-operatives,
backed by the Church and by multitudes of ordinary people,
to restore the vocational, organic character of a good social
order. 8 6 it is clear that, although co-operatives did grow and
flourish throughout this province and in other parts of the
Maritimes,87 the transformation Coady hoped for did not come.
This was not only a matter of time. The truth is that big
supermarkets, banks, department stores, and all the rest of
the commercial world Chesterton and Coady detested, took hold
here in Antigonish as elsewhere, though, no doubt, many
people had their condition of hfe bettered by the valiant work
of credit unions and co-operatives. And the family farm declined.
The big institutions still control, as Pius X I put it, "the life
blood of the economy."
When you wander around this County, as in so many other

places, and see vast tracts of forest and bush, not original
wilderness, but wilderness that had crept back, empty of farms
and settlements, where formerly there had been many vital
communities, and listen to the voices of the past, not only the
voices of Canadians, but the voices of up-rooted Highland
crofters and the remnants of the clans, you do not wonder that
it was said of Coady, too, that he died a disappointed man.ee
And, contrary to Bishop MacDonald's wishes, schools are con-
sohdated, pornography is ubiquitous, and the decay consequent
73
upon centralism and loss of family independence is obvious.

On Cape Breton Island, the remaining farms, more common
there, are also passing from family hands. But here in Nova
Scotia, as in some other parts of Canada, local identities yet
survive. The revitalisation of Gaelic and of Acadian French
(another story altogether) are signs of hope in a homogeneous
world. The more recent part-time farming fashion may, or may
not, bring healthy change in the broader social patterns. But
it does not mean land for the dispossessed or the poor, but
only for the more leisured and affluent middle class. Hence,
bigness and standardisation still win the day.
The process of centrahsm is in full swing all over Canada.

It is depressing to read of thousands of farmers leaving the
land in Saslcatchewan or Prince Edward Island. It is even more
depressing to fly over the prairies, and obtain a "cosmic" view
of the great emptying of the countryside, with ghost-towns
multiplying. Everywhere, old, melancholy homesteads rot in the
sun and snow, some of them with last year's calendar still
hanging on the kitchen wall. And when we think of the prairies
we think of the marvellous compassionate work of Pere Murray
whose stained-glass window of Chesterton was featured in a
recent issue of the Review; we think of the fate of the Metis,
and we think of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
and its common ground with Distributism. And the work of
St. Thomas More College makes links with another great
Englishman, who has often been compared with Chesterton.
The prairies have significant historical and intellectual associa-
tions with the concerns of Distributism, and the Orthodox
vision behind it.
A strange Canadian and even global connection with the

co-operative Sociahst movement in Saskatchewan is the case
of Marshall McLuhan.s9 It has been said that McLuhan's
theories of the media were at least partially connected with
his interest in agrarian movements which he saw at work on
the prairies, and that this coalesced with his well-known
interest in Chesterton's celebration of mediaeval social patterns.
74
especially his awareness of the living oral traditions.so But

though he may have been inspired by Leavisite and Chester-
tonian ideas, and aware of the rich oral-aural dimensions of
pre-Gutenberg mediaeval education and hterature, it is difficult
to see how McLuhan's ideas on T.V. or his notion of the "global
village" can be reconciled with Chesterton's Thomistic concept
of mind or the obviously detrimental effects of mass-communi-
cations, especially in the deadening of thought and the "admass"
manipulation involved.s' Furthermore, it is clear that, although
Chesterton was sceptical of the fetish of print, and knew its
more mechanistic and "linear" aspects, he could hardly have
been unappreciative of the rich aural qualities of all good prose
and poetry. His own work illustrates the point. It hardly needs
saying that Chesterton, with his celebration of an energetic
hfe and heroic individuahty, would have deplored the decline
in attention-span and the woohness of mind produced by much
T.V. watching. He would not have seen the "global village,"
supposedly a form of community or mass-tribalism, but actually
a form of mass-consensus and passive exposure to commercial
propaganda, as a substitute for real villages with real com-
munities sharing traditions, ideas and a living Faith. Nothing
could be farther from the energy, the fire and the creative
craftsmanship, not to mention the living speech, of a mediaeval
community than the passiveness that turns the "medium" into
the "message." When Yeats and Synge wanted a living speech
for their poetry and plays, they went to the peasant people of
Ireland who had not been affected by the mass-media. Words-
worth's shepherds, as Coleridge showed, developed a noble
speech as much from the heritage of books as from the oral
traditions. The truth is that hterature and the oral traditions
enrich and reinforce each other, and the medium of print,
because it carries the "word," cannot be regarded simply as
another technological medium. But the infiuence of McLuhan
has been deleterious in a major way in Canada, as elsewhere.
The emphasis on McLuhanism in Enghsh curricula and teach-

ing led to a neglect, in some quarters, of the literary heritage;
it meant neglect of the sources of inspiration and of Christian
75
humanism, of the "word."92 In a generation already aUenated

from the masterpieces of literature by commercialism and
"instant" fun, the notion that reading and writing were less
important weakened the effort required to enjoy and understand
the great books, especially when some teachers had come to
regard "classics" as indefinable, and to think of the "new"
generation as transformed by T.V.93 Thus, among other things,
the human inspiration and compassionate insight afforded by
the poets, essayists, playwrights and novelists were to that
extent neglected; once the notion that print was "linear" and
T.V. richly aural and visual became popular, hterary apprecia-
tion was obscured. Yet in literature much of the vision we
associate with Chesterton is central. At the heart of almost
every work of literature is compassion; sensitive appreciation
of, and response to, human suffering and injustice. And such
vision and feeling is inherent in the very music of the language,
as in King Lear:
Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are,

That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm.
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as this? O, I have ta*en
Too little care of this! take physic pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them.
And show the heavens more just.
Our literature is full of such reflections. It inverts the values

of Midas and Mammon; like Pip's experiences in Great Expecta-
tions it can help to convert the sensitive reader to the "larger
heart, the kindlier hand," and it has a dissolvent effect on all
snobbery. What could be closer to Chesterton's social vision?
Compare with the treasures contained in books (riches of
meaning and music which echo in the mind but which can be
read aloud for aural reception by an audience), the often
verbally impoverished and remote images of T.V., and the fallacy
of McLuhan's thesis is obvious. This does not mean, of course,
that we cannot enrich appreciation of the printed word through
interweaving music, pictures (slides and films) with the words
76
of poetry. A multi-sensuous experience should be, and is,

provided by good teachers. Still, "functional hteracy" has
been a great heresy of our times; the oral-aural dimension has
been almost wholly neglected. Humane hteracy is what we
need, and McLuhan's theory, an example of what Chesterton
saw as "heresy," an exaggeration of a truth or aspect of the
whole truth, cannot help, but has seriously hindered, this
cause. And it has aided the manipulators.
Like Bishop MacDonald's, Chesterton's vision today means

a love of the poor, of the Church with its ageless Creed and
its undying Orthodoxy, found in the hving tradition and in
the magisterium. It means a bringing together of the spirit of
Trent and the genuine renewal of Vatican II, not progressivist
fashions or modernist theology which today deny fixed principles
or Eternal truths, not secular humanism or Marxist Utopianism,
not sociological "adjustment" to modern "mores" or Teilhardian
"omega-point" optimism.9^ it means the Christianising and
humanising of academic life which has become somewhat arid
and over-specialised, 9 5 a restoration of parents' rights in
schools, and a relating of economic goals to the "ever-ancient,
and ever-new" mission of the Church. In Canada today, we
have much to learn from Chesterton about catechetics, family-
hfe, local community and the goodness of the land from which
all our material wealth, and much of our joy comes. We need
to see what he called in an essay as fresh as ever today, "The
New Case for Cathohc Schools,"9 6 and the truths in critiques
like those of Ivan Illich without sharing his Rousseauistic roman-
ticism. We can learn gradually from a growing awareness of
how work is related to religion and communal endeavour,
to a living Faith, something of that quahty of creative co-opera-
tion which Sir Arthur Bryant, one of G.K.'s old friends, and
his successor with Illustrated London News, has said is exempli-
fied in the lovely Salisbury Cathedral built in the thirteenth
century.97 We must reject the current prediction of those
who say, Cathohcs amongst them, that the traditional family
is disappearing, and that we must "adjust" to the change (or
prepare for it), as though such a "change" would not be the
77
disintegration of all peace and all freedom.sQ With Chesterton

we can see the true causes of the destruction of the family:
It cannot be too often repeated that what destroyed

the Family in the modern world was Capitalism . . .
what has broken up households, and encouraged di-
vorces, and treated the old domestic virtues with more
and more open contempt, is the epoch and power of
Capitalism. It is Capitalism that has forced a moral
feud and a commercial competition between the sexes;
that has destroyed the influence of the parent in favour
of the influence of the employer; that has driven men
from their homes to look for jobs; that has forced them
to live near their factories or their firms instead of
near their families; and, above all, that has encouraged,
for commercial reasons, a parade of publicity and
garish novelty, which is in its nature the death of all
that was called dignity and modesty by our mothers
and fathers. It is not the Bolshevist, but the Boss, the
publicity man, the salesman and the commercial ad-
vertiser who have, like a rush and riot of barbarians,
thrown down and trampled underfoot the ancient Roman
statue of Verecundia . . . by all the irresponsible tricks
of their foul Suggestion and their filthy Psychology.ss
Chesterton's writings on marriage and on the sources of

authority enable us to say with complete confidence that he
would have greeted Humanae Vitae with ardent enthusiasm,
seeing it as a fulfilment of Christ's promise to His Church,
and as a crusader's challenge to the modem, permissive world.
Similarly, he would have laughed at the notion that Pope Paul's
recent statement on sexual morality was "conservative" in the
sense of merely following a custom. He would have seen it
for what it is: a radical restatement of Christianity's radical
moral code, and a much-needed aid in the struggle for Ortho-
doxy and for the survival of family-life. But the other side of
the coin, freshly-minted every day, is the truth that Natural
Law and Christian teaching are as much negated by unnatural
economics and persuasive advertising, as they are by the evils
with which the two Papal statements so effectively dealt. The
spirit of G . K . C , in contrast with that of Pecksniffian poHtics
and Gadgrind schooling and Midas-like Monopoly, was one
78
that belongs to the prophet, the philosopher, the poet, the

Icnight. But perhaps the real lesson towards which this rambhng
essay has been groping is best summed up in the words with
which Sir Arthur Bryant completed a Preface to a collection of
Chesterton's Illustrated London News essays:
Chesterton followed a master who was born in a

peasant's manger and died on a rough-hewn cross. And
like Him he knew that in those plain and humble instru-
ments of common life, were the chains of Hell and the
keys of Heaven, angels ascending and descending, and
the Son of Man glorified, i oo
1 See, for instance, B.A. Santamaria, "Philosophies in Collision,"

Christian Order, 16, 4 (April, 1975), pp. 229-239. To quote: "The decentral-
ist society is the vision we oppose to the totalitarian, the libertarian, the
monopolist" (p. 234). See also: Colin Clark, "Population and Progress,"
Christian Order, 16, 10, & 16, 11 (October/November, 1975), pp. 643-652, &
pp. 580-590.
2 See, for example, his book, The Murder Machine which deals with
State-imposed schooling.
3 Hilaire Belloc, "Gilbert," G.K/s Weekly, XXIII, 588 (June 18,
1936), p. 218.
4 Edmund J . McCorkell, "Chesterton in Canada," The Chesterton
Review, ii, I (Fall-Winter, 1975-76), pp. 39-54.
5 Christopher Dawson, The Crisis of Western Education (New York:
Sheed and Wârd, 1961), pp. 19-25.
6 George Grant, Lament for a Nation (Toronto/Montreal: McClelland
and Stewart, 1965), p. 79.
^ George Grant, Technology and Empire (Toronto: Anansi, 1969),
p. 119.
8 C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1947).
^ See especially: "The Eternal Revolution" in Orthodoxy (London:
Bodley Head, 1949), pp. 170-210. "The Revival of Philosophy — Why?" in
The Common Man (London: Sheed and Ward, 1950), pp. 173-180. "The New
Groove" in The Common Man, pp. 108-117. "The Insane Necessity" in
Whafs Wrong With the World (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1910), pp. 126-137.
79
10 See "The Empire of the Insect" in Orthodoxy, pp. 323-326. "The

Romance of Orthodoxy," in Orthodoxy, pp. 211-240. Whafs Wrong With
the World, pp. 39-41.
11 This idea runs through most of Chesterton's work, but especially
in Orthodoxy and Whafs Wrong With the World.
12 This was exemplified by the fashionable flurry of concern shown
when Alvin Toffler's book. Future Shock, appeared. See also Daniel Bell,
The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society - A Venture in Social Forecast-
ing (New York: 1973). Chesterton summed up the folly of the "futurologist"
in What's Wrong With the World, pp. 53-36. The "futurologists" analyse
present trends, predict the future in the light of these trends, and then
exhort us to adapt to this mythical future, thus making their prophecies
self-fulfilling.
13 This phrase is taken from J . Huxley and J . Bronowski, Technology,
Man Remakes His World, and it is typical of the "humanist" approach
to change.
14 He uses it, for example, in The Crisis of Western Education (New
York: Sheed and Ward, 1961), p. 197. The chapter "Western Man and the
Technological Order" is a profound interpretation of the liberal-technologi-
cal tyranny, fully alive to the totalitarianism inherent in secularist monism,
and correlative with Chesterton's social philosophy at every point.
15 Donald Creighton, "Is Canada More Than We Can Hope For?"
Maclean's (September, 1973).
16 Bruce Hutchison, "Believing Just Anything, Dangerous" reprinted
in The Lethhridge Herald, (1973).
17 Orthodoxy, pp. 211-212.
18 Triumph (May, 1975), p. 30.
19 See Peter Charlebois, The Life of Louis Riel (Toronto: New Canada
Publications, 1975).
20 The phrase "The Rebellion of the Rich" is used in Chesterton's
Short History of England. It echoes Belloc's thesis in How the Reformation
Happened.
21 See, for example, Remy de Roo, "Socialism on the Horizon - Im-
pressions of Latin America, 1975," Chelsea Journal (January-February,
1976), pp. 29-35. See also Gregory Baum, "The Chelsea Journal - Periodical
of the Fifties," Chelsea Journal (January-February, 1976), pp. 2-3. Baum
often expresses views consonant with Marxism and with secular humanism.
22 This can be seen from common observation, but see, Harvey
Lithwick, "An Economic Interpretation of the Urban Crisis," Journal of
Canadian Studies, 7, 3 (1972), pp. 36-49.
23 Cobbett Selection, ed. A.M.D. Hughes (Oxford, 1961), pp. 50-57.
24 Both groups are spoken of as "radicals," and leftist activists often
express discipleship to the "omega point" theory or the "secular city"
thesis, but the real challenge to the status quo is that which questions,
as Christopher Dawson questions, the assumptions of "progress" through
technological evolutionism. Harvey Cox accepts urban anonymity and
secularism (both products of secularist industrialism) and, as even non-
Catholic critics have pointed out, "Teilhard is especially bitter toward
the critics of industrial civilisation . . . and he is particularly wroth that
so many of his fellow-Christians are to be found in the camp of those
who hang back from progress." This quotation is from Victor C. Ferkiss,
Technological Man (New York: Mentor, 1969), p. 88.
80
25 Orthodoxy, p. 177.
26 John Porter, Bernard Blishen et al, Towards 2000 (Toronto: Mc-
Clelland and Stewart, 1971), p. 3.
27 Clark Kerr, The Uses of The University (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1963), p. 6.
28 D.H. Meadows et al, The Limits to Growth (New York: Universe,
1972).
2''> See The Servile State, Eugenics and Other Evils and Utopia of
Usurers.
30 Clark Kerr, Marshall, Marx and Modern Times: The Multi-Dimen-
sional Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 79. See
also Clark Kerr, Industrialism and Industrial Society (Oxford: 1964), p. 26.
•î This judgement is based on observation of the tyranny of the
"Progress" myth, of moral relativism and logical positivism, and of ordinary
political life. But see Jacques Maritain, True Humanism, and C. Dawson,
The Crisis of Western Education. Chesterton foresaw much of this, as
shown in such books as What's Wrong With the World, The Well and
the Shallows, A Short History of England, and Eugenics and Other Evils.
Belloc and Cecil Chesterton also saw much of it in The Party System.
32 Eugenics and Other Evils (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1927).
See especially the chapters titled, "The Transformation of Socialism,"
pp. 206-218, and "The Eclipse of Liberty," pp. 192-205.
33 "To the Socialists," G.K.'s Weekly, 1, 5 (April 18, 1925), pp. 73-74.
34 "A Warning," G.K.'s Weekly, 1, 18 (July 18, 1925), p. 386.
35A large proportion of families depend on the wages of both mother
and father; this, in turn, puts pressure on prices, especially for housing,
so that in poorer families where the mother does not work outside, the
"standard of living" declines even further. See also John Harp, John R.
Hofley, eds.. Poverty in Canada (Scarborough: Prentice-Hall, 1971). W.E.
Mann, Poverty and Social Policy in Canada (Vancouver: Copp Clark, 1970).
3<5 See Hilaire Belloc, "Monopoly," G.K.'s Weekly, XXHI, 593 (July 23,
1936), pp. 297-298.
This figure is a minimum estimate drawn from materials published
in three countries. The United States, Canada and Australia.
3« This observation is based on recognition of the incredibly shoddy
nature of so many mass-produced goods (for example, cars) and the diffi-
culty of repairing them. See Paul Goodman, Growing Up Absurd - Prob-
lems of Youth in The Organised Society (New York: Vintage, 1960).
3f> See What's Wrong With the World, pp. 169-170.
40 See Colin Clark, "Food Supplies and World Population," Christian
Order (January, 1974), pp. 4-9. See also, "Population and Progress," Chris-
tian Order (October-November, 1975).
41 Chelsea Journal (January-February, 1976), p. 33.
42 So many of the "liberal" theologians and Catholic sociologists are
talking in Marxist terms, that this is a real danger; it's easier than true
freedom.
43 James McAuley, "Reflections on Poetry," Meanjin, xii (Summer,
1953), p. 441.
44 See, The Outline of Sanity. Note also how Chesterton deals with
the error, common in "sociology" of diagnosing the disease without paying
attention to the requirements of social health in "The Medical Mistake"
in What's Wrong With the World. The myth of modernity was one of his
favourite targets.
81
45 We see this particularly in The Party System, in What's Wrong

With the World, and in that most biting of critiques of Capitalistic poli-
tics, Chesterton's Utopia of Usurers. However, Ellul blames "technique"
rather than Capitalism. See his book. La Technique or The Technological
Revolution.
46 In The Outline of Sanity, he advocated many small, guild-controlled
businesses and workshops but said that larger ones could work by "club-
bing their contributions, and dividing their results."
47 See "The Fallacy of Success" in All Things Considered.
48 See Orthodoxy, pp. 9-10.
49 Chesterton scorned persuasive advertising and salesmanship as mak-
ing respectable the arts of the confidence trickster, and said that the
first great confidence trickster was Satan. See The Outline of Sanity and
Utopia of Usurers.
50 Orthodoxy, p. 237.
51 "The Age of Monopoly," G.K.'s Weekly, 1, 6 (April 25, 1925), p. 97.
52 Orthodoxy, pp. 200-201.
53 "Interview with John Kenneth Galbraith," Ma/^lean's (February 9,
1976), p. 6.
54 Harvey Lithwick, "An Economic Interpretation of the Urban Crisis,"
Journal of Canadian Studies (7, 3, 1972), p. 43.
55 The speaker was Arthur Mingay, President of Canada Trust Co.,
The Chronicle Herald (February 26, 1976), p. 29.
56 This is the phrase that Chesterton uses in The Outline of Sanity.
57 Christopher Hollis, The Mind of Chesterton (University of Miami:
Florida, 1970), p. 275.
58 What's Wrong With the World, p. 367.
59 Ibid., p. 34.
60 Ibid., p. 34.
61 See James Daly, "Toward a Philosophic Basis for Canadian Con-
servatism," The Journal of Canadian Studies (November, 1970), pp. 50-57.
62 The Marxist aspects of Father Baum's teaching and writing are
well known, but see the following: Gilbert Roxburgh, "Marxism Points
to Sins of Society, Priest Says," The Globe and Mail (February 3, 1973),
p. 32; The Chelsea Journal (January-February, 1976), pp. 3-4. See also
an article in Christian Order (July, 1974), which reports details of an
address given by Father Baum in England.
63 This idea runs through "The Eternal Revolution" in Orthodoxy,
and "The Fear of the Past" in What's Wrong With the World.
64 What's Wrong With the World, pp. 323-324.
65 ihid., pp. 323-324.
66 Ibid., pp. 324-325.
67 Ibid., p. 87.
68 This, of course, is reminiscent of what Chesterton said of Burke.
See, as an example of how important this kind of conservatism is in the
United States, an article which shows that "certain specimens of con-
temporary American conservatism" dispense with the moral law as basis
for their arguments: John Crosby, "The Odd Couple - Conservatism and
the West," Triumph (April, 1975), pp. 14-17.
82
69 A rather detailed account of this is provided in Charles L . Mark¬

mann, The Buckleys (New York: William Morrow, 1973).
70 See James V. Schall, "Revolution and Conservation in the Christian
Social Perspective," Studies, L X I I I , 250 (Summer, 1974), pp. 153-166.
71 See Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture (New York:
Anchor Books, 1969).
72 See Lewis Mumford, The Pentagon of Power.
73 -The First Principle," G.K.'s Weekly, I, I (March 21, 1925), p. 4.
74 Ibid., p. 4.
75 Ibid., p. 4.
76 See Henry George, Progress and Poverty (New York: The Modern
Library, 1939). This book first appeared in 1879, and was very influential
among socialists and reformers everywhere. Unlike Marx, George was
a Christian, and some of his disciples, of whom there are many in Henry
George Societies around the world, believe that his ideas on land were
derived from St. Thomas Aquinas and the mediaeval conception of property
as a limited, not an absolute right, except for some fruits of labour or
investment.
77 Mark Twain Quarterly, I, 3 (Spring, 1937), p. 8.
7« See "Austria," The Well and the Shallows (London: Sheed and
Ward, 1935), pp. 249-252. Hitlerism also figures in other essays in this
volume.
79 A Short History of England (London: Chatto and Windus, re-
print, 1951), p. 241.
80 The Well and the Shallows, passim.
81 Maisie Ward, Gilbert Keith Chesterton (London: Sheed and Ward,
1949), p. 446.
82 Ibid., p. 446.
82A Peter A. Nearing, He Loved the Church (Antigonish: Casket, 1976).
83 M.M. Coady, Masters of Their Own Destiny (New York: Harper
and Row, n.d.), p. 24. Coady used some very un-Chesertonian language
about the people. For example, he said, "If the world's people could think
straight, we would not have the domestic or international troubles which
beset it today" (p. 33). He also stated that "The people need to be put
through some kind of process by which they would have the kinks ironed
out of their minds . . ." (p. 33). And he wrote of "progress" and "scientific
method" in a way which the Chesterton dialectic would question. Coady
also advocated farmers bringing their produce to central markets rather
than thinking in terms of more immediate, local markets. He was not,
for all his fervour and his references to Aristotle and the Encyclicals, a
consistent or profound social philosopher, though he was a hero of com-
passion and a crusader for justice and co-operation.
84 The Men From Margaree: Writing and Speeches of M.M. Coady,
ed., A.F. Laidlaw (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971), p. 199.
85 Masters of Their Own Destiny, p. 143.
86 The Man From Margaree, pp. 127-129.
87 There is an excellent account of the movement in Priyice Edward
Island. See, for an example of developments on P.E.L, J . Croteau, Cradled
in the Waves (Toronto: Ryerson, 1951).
88 The Man From Margaree, Introduction, p. 19.
89 See Jonathan Miller, McLuhan (London: Fontana/ColHns, 1971),
pp. 24-25.
83
»0 Ibid., pp. 15-37.
91 See The Gutenberg Galaxy (Toronto: U.T.P., 1962) for McLuhan's
historical-analytical treatment of the nature and significance of the printing
"revolution" and its effects. See also his Understanding Media and The
Medium Is the Massage in which he develops his theories of the media.
92 I say this as a teacher of English who has talked to many teachers
and examined many curricula both in Canada and overseas. McLuhanism
is everywhere. The notion that "the medium is the message" promoted
a neglect of reading and writing on the grounds that today, with the T.V.
and related experiences, we have a generation that has grown up with
a radically different experience and, therefore, has developed a radically
different mind or outlook. It seems true to say that this implies that
there is no intrinsic quality in the human mind which does and should
exist and respond, with benefit, to written literature in ways which have
a value independently of any so-called "generation-gap." Some of us
regard the changes wrought by T.V. as, in some ways, harmful to the
mind, and not as simple stages in human evolution. Nor do we accept the
notion that these changes are, therefore, irreversible. F.R. Leavis, who
is said to be one of McLuhan's mentors, would agree with us. Typical
of McLuhan's influence is Stephen Judy, Explorations in the Teaching
of Secondary English (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1974). Judy emphasises
McLuhan's ideas, well after the fashion may seem to have waned. See
also, Neil Postman, Television and the Teaching of English (New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1961).
93 This attitude is exemplified by the numbers of the American
monthly journal, The English Journal for the period from about 1964-1975.
94 See Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (London:
Fontana, 1959). Teilhardism, like McLuhanism, is everywhere, even in
our hymns. Chesterton was too sceptical and scornful of evolutionism
(as distinct from physical evolution about which he was truly "scientific"
in not respecting the "evidence") to remind one of de Chardin.
9'' John of Salisbury long ago knew this experience and discussed
it in his Metalogicon. A good account of academic specialisation is to
be found in Christopher Jencks and David Reisman, The Academic Revo-
lution (New York: Doubleday, 1969).
96 This wise little essay (recently reprinted in Approaches and in
Our Sunday Visitor and seen to be tremendously relevant to schooling
today) is to be found in The Common Man (London: Sheed and Ward,
1950), pp. 165-169.
97 See 'Our Notebook' essay, "A Return to Quality," I.L.N. (January,
1974).
98 For instance, what are we to make of a report of a survey con-
ducted under the auspices of the Canadian Catholic Conference which,
in the context of stating that the survey revealed a "revolution in
personal perceptions and values," went on to quote the Director of Social
Affairs of the C.C.C. (Mr. Grant Maxwell) as saying: "Pastoral pro-
grams to strengthen marriage and the family are imperative . . . and
these should take into account the serious search for viable alternatives
to the traditional family model." See, Western Catholic Reporter
(February 9, 1976), p. 1. What, precisely, is meant by "viable alternatives
to the traditional family model?"
99 The Well and the Shallows, p. 148.
160 The Glass Walking Stick and Other Essays, ed., Dorothy Collins,
with a Preface by Sir Arthur Bryant (London: Methuen, 1955), p. x .
84

A Chestertonian Critique of Canadian Society (A Somewhat Dated Rant)

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A Chestertonian Critique of Canadian Society (A Somewhat Dated Rant)

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A Chestertonian Critique

of Canadian Society Today

The Chesterton Review is international in scope, both in

sonant with Distributist principles, are appearing. In this

In his tribute to Chesterton in the pages of G.K/s Weekly

The effect of Gilbert Chesterton's focussed and exact

In his short article, Belloc had no room to say anything of

Fittingly, The Chesterton Review is edited in Canada, and

Father Edmund McCorkelPs account of Chesterton's visits

In recent years, many smaller denominational colleges

that the libraries of Catholic colleges enrich the collections of

. . . the distinction between judgements of fact and

We see the results of this assumption that "knowledge"

opinions, blurs critical appreciation of works of art and liter-

Chesterton, like Grant, had a clear grasp of the dynamic

thus criteria for assessment of "progress." People of liberal

(as in schooling), they may react by making bold, human choices.

We knew, not so long ago, a better way of life. In some

The condition of Canadian cities must be faced. Some that

thrives, if one can use that term about another American-type

saints and its revival in the Counter-Reformation, is drawn upon

Some see praise of the Jesuit missionaries as myopia

go-getting entrepreneur and the worshippers of power which

It is not surprising that Canadian writers who have best

What has been happening in Quebec is, of course, in vary-

decadence that invades every corner of the city street by

The relevance of the papal principle of "subsidiarity" and

material base to go with the spiritual and social traditions on

The state of the cities, or "anti-cities" as Mumford calls

Progress should mean that we are always walking to-

Typical of the academic contribution to myopic evolution is

decision-making has ^^increasingly such a technological base."26

In both Capitalism and Marxist Socialism Chesterton saw

For what is at the back of all that sort of thing,

A few months after this editorial, Chesterton addressed

At the time Chesterton wrote this, the evils of starvation

Moreover, increasingly, workers are restless, frustrated with

no romance in waste, but only in thrift, as Chesterton told us.39

But the real key to this colossal injustice (repeated in

is to come" that this order is found; for it is the substitution

"Too slow," some will say. "How can we wait to trans-

The foregoing exposition of orthodox and Distributist

the observation of the extent to which the evolution-based

This means people must take initiatives before all oppor-

back to was this one of distribution of ownership. Associations

Chesterton always kept to the forefront of his social teach-

These can be called the essentials of the old orthodoxy,

This idea of moral and Christian traditions being revolu-

and to big power units, and go on to relate the thoughts

A thinking man should always attack the strongest

For the whole modern world is absolutely based on

In the context of the second quotation, Chesterton was relating

In a recent interview. Professor Galbraith, a Canadian-born

I have long accepted the inevitability of big corpora-

Thus, the economist who, in The New Industrial State explored

However, Mr. Trudeau had also been very careful to say,

every time wages are increased, thus ensuring that profit

"Business is suffering under an 'avalanche of anti-

It is Chestertonian to wish that Canadians would come to see

I do not object to Socialism because it will revolutionise

It was indicated earlier that the full Christian vision from

I do not refer to those champions of the Magisterium who,

Kingdom on Earth for the Kingdom of Heaven. To the extent