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Introduction
In his seminal 2005 survey of left Canadian history, Rebels, Reds, Radicals, Ian McKay further developed a new theoretical framework for understanding radical, left, and liberal politics in the country. McKay’s book drew from prior work, most notably his influential essay, “The Liberal Order Framework: A Prospectus for a Reconnaissance of Canadian History.” McKay, a current Professor of History at McMaster University and the chair of the L.R. Wilson Institute for Canadian History wears his influences on his sleeve. The thought of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci permeates much of McKay’s writing, adding to his work a distinctly theoretical hue. Specifically, McKay often utilizes the theory of hegemony, a key term adopted from Gramsci, which supposes that specific ideas, ideologies, and ways of thinking tend to originate from the material formation of social classes. Thus, knowledge is power, and power is knowledge. McKay and Gramsci might argue that such forms of common sense always serve the interests of the class to which they organically belong.
Hegemony can be condensed into a relatively simple equation: hegemony equals coercion plus consent. As a political tool, hegemony refers to the ways in which both civil and political society manage, mediate, and coerce provincial, regional, national, and international working populations. Subtle forms of social and cultural assemblage - buttressed by instances of outright coercion - maintain control of the economic structures that those societies use as their base. Therefore, the internal logics of hegemony constantly act to reinforce feelings of “naturalness” within everyday life – we erect human structures and later perceive them to be natural, transcendent, and unchangeable.
Using both McKay and Gramsci as theoretical springboards, this article investigates the development of labour politics in early 20th century New Brunswick, Canada. Specifically, it analyzes the life of prominent socialist educator, writer, editor, and publisher Henry Harvey Stuart alongside the published materials of Newcastle’s The Union Advocate, a newspaper for which Stuart occupied the role of editor in chief between 1906 - 1909, and 1916 - 1918. Using McKay’s definition of “living otherwise,” I argue that the Advocate and much of New Brunswick’s burgeoning labour movement failed to provide a future vision of society outside the liberal-capitalist norm. Instead, labour activism in the province, sometimes radical but most often times reformist, chronically argued in favour of the reincorporation of labour back into the normal functioning of Canadian liberal hegemony.
Gramscian Hegemony and the Reconnaissance of Canadian History
What does hegemony have to do with Canadian history, and why do I consider the work of Ian McKay to be especially eminent? McKay’s overarching thesis is quite simple: much of traditional Canadian historiography fails to consider the impacts that ideology and hegemony have on the writing of history. McKay sees in the ‘old guard’ of Canadian historians a profound inability or disinterest in questioning, critiquing, and honestly appraising the formation of the Canadian state, seeing it instead as uniquely natural or preordained. In 2000, McKay released an article titled “The Liberal Order Framework” in the Canadian Historical Review. McKay’s article – by first defining the state of Canadian historiography as being “at once proliferous and exhilarating, deprived and crisis-ridden” – argued in favour of a reformulation of how we as scholars and students think about Canada as a political category. Rather than assume that Canada has a static essence or predestined raison d'être, McKay’s articulation of Canadian history sees Canada’s development through the lens of a constantly shifting politico-economic project. Such a project has not matured without resistance. Indeed, Canada-as-project, McKay argues, has been most readily defined by its penchant ability to route, reroute, and navigate through and against roadblocks erected by socialists, dissidents, rebels, reds, and radicals.
In the context of Canadian history, then, radicalism and resistance have not been peripheral but integral. By investigating pressure points, moments of fissure, and points of resistance in the formation of the Canadian state, McKay has sought to reenergize the Canadian left by offering a “reconnaissance” of its own history. Prior to the 1980s – an era which saw the rise to prominence of several Marxist Canadian historians, including UNB’s own Dr. Gregory S. Kealey – Canadian historians tended to analyze left history in very sectarian ways. Rather than document the trajectories of Canadian leftism more broadly, activist historians largely analyzed specific sects or traditions within radical thought. Canadian intellectuals rarely wrote histories about the left. Instead, they wrote histories about disparate political parties and denominations: socialist, anarchist, communist, Marxist, and feminist histories proliferated. By focusing only on one type of Canadian left history and presenting that strand as uniquely “true” or “central” to Canadian leftism, many historians delegitimized a number of prominent working-class movements, leaving them unanalyzed if not flatly condemned.
McKay did away with such an approach. Instead, his definition of the Canadian left focused more prominently on its unabated will to “live otherwise.” McKay’s concept of “living otherwise” is counter-hegemonic in nature; left projects, by presenting themselves as outside of the general functioning of the status-quo, offer to the labouring masses radical alternative to currently established social relations. In doing so, leftist projects position themselves as potential “concrete Utopias,” futures that remain ready to be enacted by classes of people who “share the conviction” that alternative worlds may one day exist.
The Union Advocate and Labour Radicalism in New Brunswick, 1910-1920
Between 1917 and 1920, New Brunswick’s premiere ostensibly “left” newspaper, the Union Advocate, failed to envisage such possibilities to “live otherwise.” If McKay’s definition holds, which I believe it does, then it would be unsuitable to define the Advocate, a newspaper catered towards New Brunswick’s labouring class, as directly left-wing. Rather, it was one voice in a larger mass of worker’s parties, councils, and organizations, each vying for a spot within New Brunswick’s burgeoning labourist movement, a broad coalition of industrial workers, farmers, miners, and a vocal minority of socialists. The labourist movement was contradictory and composed of several different factions, many of whom identified as either liberal or conservative, not radical or left.
H.H. Stuart was an incredibly prominent figure within the history of New Brunswick labour. As a Christian preacher, printer, part-time reporter, and often-controversial educator, Stuart, especially as he aged, came to dominate the sphere of radical New Brunswick politics. His ideology was tinged with both socialism and Christianity; it embodied many of the common sensibilities associated with the province’s social gospel movement. Canadian social gospel sought to practically apply Christian ideology to the world of the living, alleviating social maladies including poverty, alcoholism, crime, and poor schooling in the process. Stuart’s unique blend of the social gospel combined the will of Christ with a broader call to socialism and the riddance of the capitalist mode of production. Stuart would pay dearly for his political affiliations – in 1889, Stuart was dismissed from his teaching position at Fredericton Junction for “talking Socialism in public places.”
Between 1906 and 1909, and again between 1916 and 1918, H.H Stuart served as the editor in chief of Newcastle’s The Union Advocate. Articles published by Stuart during these periods included discussions of “Socialism in Canada”, “independent political action”, a labour party devoted to “political industrial and social freedom”, and the associations of “Socialism and Christianity.” Stuart left the paper in 1909, and according to Nicholas Fillmore, “it became hostile to his ideas,” reverting back toward a politics of moderacy and reform. By responding to growing fears of socialism and revolution abroad, the Advocate sought to reincorporate the province’s labour movement back into the daily functioning of liberal hegemony.
In 1917, the Russian Revolution erupted from the bedrock of Imperial society, and Stuart was once again given the position of the Union Advocate’s Editor in Chief. Still, the paper struggled to promote radical ideas. By 1917, socialism was barely discussed within the Advocate’s pages. One of the last explicit mentions of the topic came in 1917 when in Miramichi, Reverend Dr. Wyllie made a familiar call using the ideology of social gospel. Still, in its reporting, the Advocate devalued the economic and social benefits of socialism, and instead, favoured Christian religion as the driving force for change. “Socialism without Christianity will not Solve Problems,” the report’s title read.
By July 1918, the Advocate had almost entirely rejected the benefits of socialist economy. Labour projects in the province were being celebrated only in the most roundabout of ways. For example, when citizens in Newcastle put together $10,000 for the funding of socialistic cooperative farms, the Advocate republished a posting from the Boston Transcript, in which the American paper applauded the project for having been implemented “without any touch of communism.” The cooperatives and Newcastle’s residents had been “relieved of the suspicion of ‘socialism’” since they had “the frank purpose of making money for the stockholders.” Socialist and left-wing ideas were essentially being abstracted away from any broader appeals to “live otherwise.”
Ideology, Socialism, and the Will to “Live Otherwise”
In New Brunswick, left-wing, socialist, and labour gatherings and seminars were prominent during the 1917 to 1925 period. In September of 1919, speakers H.H. Stuart, J.E Tighe, J.L. Sugrue, and Joseph Manderson met to discuss the province’s labour situation. The event attracted quite the crowd; still, the meeting’s narrow goals were telling. During the conference, Manderson argued that “[Liberal] Democracy was the lord of the world today and not capital,” and Stuart argued that if socialists “elect[ed] their own representatives to government,” great changes might be made to the economic system in Canada. Federal elections, the speakers posited, held the key to unlocking a world beyond capitalism. In time, Manderson and Stuart’s theories would be proven incorrect. The men overemphasized the longevity, strength, and radical character of the province’s “union’s [and] cooperatives.”
Other stressors arose during the time period. In part, H.H. Stuart’s and the radical movement’s difficulties were a byproduct of the New Brunswick labour movement’s inability to form a cemented socialist party in the province during the 1910s. The outbreak of the First World War had devastating impacts on the workability of the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) in the province of New Brunswick. Prior to the war, New Brunswick party membership was already slightly lower than the national average. A total of fifteen SPC locals in 1909 dwindled to four in 1914 and just two in 1916. Similarly, personal divisions hampered the efforts of SPC locals in Saint John and Glace Bay. By 1917, confidence in the SPC had dwindled, leaving radicals to cut their losses; they soon reconstituted themselves as part of the “more moderate elements in the labour movement.” Thus, rising union membership and reformist action in the political sphere coincided with a concurrent exodus of members from the SPC itself.
Conclusion
Using McKay’s reconnaissance framework, we might argue that labourist action in the Maritimes between 1917 and 1920 served as a “consolidation of a working-class consciousness.” However, I contend that it was a consciousness isolated from any broader will to “live otherwise.” New Brunswick’s base of farmers and small proprietors were content to subsist under the assumption that their labour-power and its product was their own. They feared that socialists themselves would challenge such a dynamic by seizing property, and in the words of Roscoe Fillmore, forward it “into a pool from which the lazy ne’er-do-well could live at ease.” Thus, New Brunswick farmers were content to establish their own minor foothold in provincial politics rather than engage with any sort of direct, radical action. Radical internationalist calls for global revolution existed in the Maritimes but were more akin to sudden breaks in labourist sentiment rather than direct displays of mass workers’ consciousness. While MacKay denotes the labourists’ and radicals’ “abstractly internationalist approach,” it seems that New Brunswick’s figureheads were more easily swayed by a nationalist and federalist sensibility. By 1925, economic turmoil, labour disunity, and a lofty overconfidence in electoral politics had primed the province for a conservative takeover. The takeover all but decimated the New Brunswick labouring population’s gains accrued within the prior decade.
Footnotes
1 Ian McKay, Rebels, Reds, Radicals: Rethinking Canada's Left History (Toronto, Ontario: Between the Lines, 2015).
2 Consent is not being used here in relation to interpersonal, social, sexual, or romantic relationships; Gramsci’s argument is that consent is manufactured, squeezed and reshaped from working and state populations. Coercion and force are used only when manufactured consent begins to crack.
3 James K Chapman, “Henry Harvey Stuart (1873-1952): New Brunswick Reformer,” Acadiensis 5, no. 2 (1976): pp. 91.
4 Ian McKay, “The Liberal Order Framework: A Prospectus for a Reconnaissance of Canadian History,” The Canadian Historical Review 81, no. 4 (December 2000): pp. 616-645.
5 Ibid, pp. 617.
6 Ian McKay and Suzanne Morton, “The Maritimes: Expanding the Circle of Resistance,” in The Workers' Revolt in Canada: 1917-1925, ed. Craig Heron (Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press, 1998), pp. 46-51.
7 “A Matter of Principle,” The Union Advocate (Newcastle), October 5, 1920.
8 Chapman, “Henry Harvey Stuart,” pp. 80.
9 Ibid, pp. 90
10 Nicholas Fillmore, Maritime Radical: The Life & Times of Roscoe Fillmore (Toronto, Ontario: Between the Lines, 1992), pp. 48.
11 Chapman, “Henry Harvey Stuart,” pp. 91.
12 “Socialism Without Christianity will not Solve Problems,” The Union Advocate (Newcastle), March 15, 1917.
13 “An Idea from the Provinces,” The Union Advocate (Newcastle), July 4, 1918.
14 Ibid.
15 “Enthusiastic Labour Meeting Held in Opera House Sunday Evening,” The Union Advocate (Newcastle), September 13, 1919.
16 Ibid.
17 David Frank and Nolan Reilly, “The Emergence of the Socialist Movement in the Maritimes, 1899-1916,” Labour / Le Travail 4 (1979): pp. 85-86.
18 Ibid, pp. 92, 110.
19 Fillmore, Maritime Radical, pp. 98.
20 Frank and Reilly, “The Emergence of a Socialist Movement,” pp. 111.
21 Ian McKay and Suzanne Morton, “The Maritimes: Expanding the Circle of Resistance,” pp. 46.
22 Fillmore, Maritime Radical, pp. 84.
23 Ibid, pp. 107, 109.
24 Ian McKay and Suzanne Morton, “The Maritimes: Expanding the Circle of Resistance,” pp. 70.
Authors
References:
Works Cited
Secondary
Chapman, James K. “Henry Harvey Stuart (1873-1952): New Brunswick Reformer.” Acadiensis 5, no. 2 (1976): 79–104.
Fillmore, Nicholas. Maritime Radical: The Life & Times of Roscoe Fillmore. Toronto, Ontario: Between the Lines, 1992.
Frank, David, and Nolan Reilly. “The Emergence of the Socialist Movement in the Maritimes, 1899-1916.” Labour / Le Travail 4 (1979): 85–113.
McKay, Ian, and Suzanne Morton. “The Maritimes: Expanding the Circle of Resistance.” Essay. In The Workers' Revolt in Canada: 1917-1925, edited by Craig Heron, 43–86. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press, 1998.
McKay, Ian. Rebels, Reds, Radicals: Rethinking Canada's Left History. Toronto, Ontario: Between the Lines, 2015.
McKay, Ian. “The Liberal Order Framework: A Prospectus for a Reconnaissance of Canadian History.” The Canadian Historical Review 81, no. 4 (December 2000): 616–45.
Primary
“An Idea from the Provinces.” The Union Advocate (Newcastle). July 4, 1918.
“A Matter of Principle.” The Union Advocate (Newcastle). October 5, 1920.
“Socialism Without Christianity will not Solve Problems.” The Union Advocate (Newcastle). March 15, 1917.
“Enthusiastic Labour Meeting Held in Opera House Sunday Evening.” The Union Advocate (Newcastle). September 13, 1919.
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