SOURCE: "The Inquisition of Nationalism," in Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d'études canadiennes, Vol. 12, No. 5, Winter, 1977, pp. 62-71.

Twenty-five years after his death Harold Innis's reputation is slowly regaining the heights that it held during his lifetime. It may be, as Marshall McLuhan suggests, that Innis is more admired than read; but nonetheless he is now generally esteemed as a great scholar, and perhaps held in even higher regard as an early and perceptive Canadian nationalist. Concerning his greatness as a scholar I take it that there is little controversy; later economic historians may challenge the details or the conclusions of his studies, but I doubt that there are many who would seriously deny that he was a commanding figure, not just in Canada, but throughout the English-speaking world.

Innis's supposed nationalism, however, is a quite different question. Shortly after Innis's death his friend J.B. Brebner wrote in a review of Changing Concepts of Time that: "It may be concluded that in spite of some anti-nationalistic comments . . . , Innis here exposed a nationalism that he had hitherto for the most part masked with irony and wit."¹ And in this Journal in 1969 Daniel Drache developed an interpretation of Innis along the lines that "To understand Harold Innis, there are two basic characteristics of him that should be stressed. He was a nationalist because of his liberalism. He was a liberal."² His biographer, Donald Creighton, also painted a picture of Innis's life compatible with the views advanced by Brebner and Drache. The reader of that work carries away the unmistakable impression of Innis as a determined, almost dedicated, nationalist, though the characterization is never made explicit.

Yet these readings of Innis sit strangely with some of the most sriking passages in his published work. In "Industrialism and Cultural Values," for example, Innis shows himself sympathetic neither to the concept nor the phenomenon of nationalism. In one of his most brilliant passages, his rhetoric is obscure but the conclusion that nationalism is associated with great dangers is not.

Von Eicken's thesis that the master key to history lies in the conclusion that human movements provoke violent reactions has much to support it. Roman imperialism created by intense nationalism ended by destroying the nationality of rulers and subjects. The nationalism of the Jews left them without a country. The Catholic church renounced the world and became the heir of the defunct Roman empire. Universal suffrage heralded the end of parliamentary government. The more successful a democracy in levelling population the less the resistance to despotism. The interest of the French Revolution in humanity kindled the fire of patriotism and nationalism in Spain, Germany, and Russia.³

If there are some who might think this passage enigmatic, they must come to terms with the note Innis made in his Idea File about 1946 or 1947⁴: "Warm fetid smell of nationalism the breeding ground of the pestilences of the west, the worship of which kills its millions where the worship of the church in the inquisition killed its thousands."⁵ There is, then, a paradox which it is important to resolve: how is it that Harold Innis, who wrote so vigorously against nationalism, has been widely understood to have been a nationalist? In an attempt to steer a way through this problem I shall first look at the factors which might have given rise to a belief in Innis's nationalism. That done, I shall examine Innis's own treatment of nationalism to see whether there is not an alternative reading of his ideas that points in another direction.

The case for a nationalistic Innis is, on the surface, a strong one. A number of facts about his intellectual and professional life lend credence to the interpretation of his career in such tones, as Donald Creighton has so skillfully shown. A nationalist spirit appears, in this version, to have been at work, guiding his intellectual destiny. When choosing a thesis topic at the University of Chicago Innis was, Creighton suggests, "moved by a strong inner compulsion, which the war had no doubt strengthened, to take up a theme in Canadian economic development."⁶ Later, when his thesis was completed and published, and he had taken a permanent teaching position at the University of Toronto which he was not to relinquish until his death, he needed to determine the direction of his future researches. Although his request for a Canadian topic had been "perhaps made instinctively and without too much consideration," subsequently "he began to realize that this impulse had been prompted by some very potent influences. He was conscious of a great and compelling affection for Canada." As a consequence, Creighton assures us, Innis "felt obscurely that he must work for Canada. Canadians must explain their new nation to the outside world. Above all, Canadians must understand themselves. They must realize whence they had come and where they were probably going."⁷ In choosing the fur trade in Canada as his topic of investigation the "great creative decision had been taken. He had settled upon his general plan of operations as a teacher-scholar for the future."⁸

Although Creighton presents no evidence for these strong inner compulsions, potent influences and obscure feelings, it is possible to find doctrines that are apparently their manifestations in the teachings of The Fur Trade in Canada. This work, in several ways Innis's masterpiece, has been the inspiration for many of the new wave of Canadian nationalists in the 1960s and 1970s, especially the new political economists and some of the believers in a distinctively Canadian school of political science. From it they have drawn intimations of Innis's own nationalism. Two considerations are central here. The first is methodological. Innis was genuinely dissatisfied with the results of the application of neo-classical economic analysis, drawn as he thought from the experience of more advanced industrial countries, when applied to the solution of contemporary Canadian economic difficulties, or to the explanation of the pattern of Canadian economic development. As he wrote in 1929:

... the textbooks of the United States and England pay little attention to the problems of conservation and of government ownership which are of foremost importance in a new country such as Canada. Canadians are obliged to teach the economic theory of old countries and to attempt to fit their analysis of new economic facts into an old background. The handicaps of this process are obvious, and there is evidence to show that the application of economic theories of old countries to the problems of new countries results in a new form of exploitation with dangerous consequences. The only escape can come from an intensive study of Canadian economic problems and from the development of a philosophy of economic history or an economic theory suited to Canadian needs.⁹

This escape Innis sought in a detailed historical analysis which paid particular attention to the institutions and practices associated with the exploitation of a staple product (beaver and other furs) for a European market. In this way he could draw attention to the changes in both pattern and structure which had occurred throughout the development of the fur trade and which the Newtonian timelessness of the neo-classical model both concealed and ignored. Although he drew on the writings of Thorstein Veblen and on the lectures of C. S. Duncan at Chicago¹⁰ he was attempting to create a mode of understanding that was singularly appropriate to the Canadian case.

The second consideration that makes Innis's Fur Trade attractive to nationalist thinkers can be discovered in some of the conclusions he drew in the course of his narrative. For example, he made an eloquent case that it was "no mere accident that the present Dominion coincides roughly with the fur-trading areas of northern North America. The bases of supply for the fur trade in Quebec, in western Ontario, and in British Columbia represent the agricultural areas of the present Dominion. The Northwest Company was the forerunner of the present confederation."¹¹ In opposition to the continentalist school of which Goldwin Smith was a leading member, Innis held that the present Canadian state was not an eccentric abberation, put together by politicians for sentimental reasons, flying in the face of geographic reason and economic sense. Moreover, the Northwest Company had drawn its strength from roots which were sunk deeply into the very nature of the country, and had been all the more effective for that reason. It was "built on the work of the French voyageur, the contributions of the Indian, especially the canoe, Indian corn, and pemmican, and the organizing ability of Anglo-American merchants."¹² The general, but as we shall see precarious, conclusion that a casual reader can carry away from The Fur Trade is that Innis had shown the economic naturalness of the Canadian political community, and had provided a convincing account of the inherent conflict between the two states that had been created out of the great land mass of continental North America.

Those who had been persuaded that Innis's early career and writings bore witness to his nationalism could not help but be confirmed in this conclusion by considering his activities during the 1930s. During that decade he was not only active in establishing and promoting the learned societies which were to play such a vital role in creating a mature Canadian academic community, but he was also to be found fiercely insisting on the essential autonomy of Canadian scholarship in his terms for accepting an editorial role in The Relations of Canada and the United States series. Moreover, his second major work, The Cod Fisheries, published in 1940, was a further attack on the schools of history and economics which saw Canada decisively as a nation whose history and destiny were pre-eminently North American. The message that Creighton drew from that work was "that Canada in particular had been deeply dependent upon the markets, political power, and military assistance of Europe, precisely because Canada had been determined to maintain, as the real essence of its being, a separate and competitive position in North America.""

According to those who have mediated his thought to a later generation, the pace of this nationalism intensified during the Second World War, and especially after his visit to the Soviet Union in 1945. Already, before the end of the war, he had turned down a very generous offer from the University of Chicago, because, in his biographer's words: "He was a Canadian. He had struck deep roots in the Canadian scene. His previous research had lain chiefly in Canadian history. His friends, his interests, his influence, his authority, were all Canadian. Could he give them up?"¹⁴ To the intense love of his own country, it has been suggested Innis added an equally powerful dislike of the United States.¹⁵ This feature of his writings was thought to have become more and more important to the point where Brebner could write of the essays collected in his last published work: "All are polemical, partial, and provocative rather than balanced or hypothetical in intention, their common theme being almost absolute hostility to American influence on Canada and the world."¹⁶

There is, then, a case to be answered about Innis's alleged nationalism, and the testimony concerning it is all the more formidable since it comes from two men who were respected scholars as well as friends of Innis. It might be possible to prepare an appeal on the grounds that the charge is necessarily too vague to be answered, nationalism being such a procrustean doctrine; but I don't think that it is necessary to take this tack. I hope to show, by examining Innis's own treatment of nationalism, both in general and in a Canadian context, that he opposed that doctrine, and more especially, opposed the spirit which it incarnated, and that, moreover, such opposition was fundamental to his thought.

To begin, it is necessary to sketch, however briefly, the main lines of Innis's argument as he developed it in the 1940s, since this was the period during which he began to make explicit the thoughts and the principles that were embedded in the more limited studies in economic history that he had previously undertaken. It was then that he began to work toward a philosophy of history which might be summarized as follows.

Throughout history Innis had noted what appeared to be a powerful tendency for what he called monopolies of knowledge to develop in every society. These took on many shapes and forms, but they could be recognized in various establishments, hierarchies or authorized versions, and they were to be found in churches, empires, armies. The restrictiveness of such closed elite groups was the besetting weakness of the organization they maintained. Large organizations, such as empires, had to be constantly ready to make adjustments in relation to two factors. First they had to be constantly alive to their territorial space, expanding and contracting it according to changing circumstances. Equally they needed to be aware of the factors which contributed to preservation over time, particularly those factors which allowed the peaceful transition of power.

Most empires and civilizations eventually came to grief because the mental alertness and creative energy needed for adaptation had been allowed to atrophy. The ruling group, or groups, anxious to maintain its dominant position during times of stability, gradually built up increasingly complex barriers to entry into the inner circle. These monopolies of knowledge became closed, suspicious, intolerant and isolated. They discouraged creativity and they feared innovation. In short they sowed the seeds of their own destruction. Any number of factors—economic, political, religious, technological—could create a rift between the established methods of control and the society in which the organization was to be maintained. To compensate for this weakening of their control the ruling group was likely to resort to increasingly repressive measures, relying on armed force to substitute for the decay of its authority. In turn this would place progressively heavy burdens on the society that would bring it even closer to the brink. What was required to administer the coup de grace was a creative breakthrough—in commerce, in industry, in communication, in war—that would finally sweep away the encrusted old order. Given the ossification of the society in question, this thrust would most likely originate in some group that had been marginal to the society and had therefore escaped the full force of its stultification. A new dawn would then be born, but it would, alas, prefigure its own dusk.

This argument was not deterministic, only probabilistic. A creative breakthrough of sufficient power to sweep away the old oppressive order could not be generated at will, nor could it be relied upon. Moribund empires, staggering from crisis to crisis, could last an interminable time. But in the past the essential greatness of the human spirit, questing for freedom and self-realization, was the factor which, for Innis, had always been decisive.

This brief sketch of Innis's complex and subtle analysis¹⁷ will, I think, be adequate to allow us to see his treatment of nationalism in perspective. The factors which ushered in, and gave their character to, the modern era were many. In one passage Innis mentions the increased use of paper, the growth of trade, the rise of cities, the prominence of monarchies, the rise of lawyers and the increased use of the vernacular.¹⁸ Elsewhere he draws attention to changes in military technology, of which the use of gunpowder in war was perhaps the most important; to religious controversy, involving changing doctrine and forms of ecclesiastical organization; and to the development of new commercia and manufacturing practices. None of these factors was in itself decisive, but together they worked in co-operation to destroy the monopoly of knowledge that had developed in relation to the church in the Middle Ages. The process by which this change could be recognized—paper replacing parchment as the principal means of communication, and printers replacing copyists as the chief method of reproduction—were complex and are beyond the scope of this present analysis.

Nonetheless a decisive challenge to the church's authority had been mounted across a wide front. This confict turned out to be dialectical, rather than direct. The nature of the monopoly of knowledge that had developed in relation to the church had been predominantly concerned with control over time, and the concept of time that it had emphasized had been linear. Space, on the other hand, had been fragmentized, and it was the need to create more rational territorial units in economic, military and political terms that provided the impetus for the attack on the universal church.

The success of the rising nation states of Europe involved both gains and losses. For all its flaws mediaeval Christendom had been an international community and the interchange of ideas had been facilitated by the shared use of Latin as a language of learned discourse. Moreover the difficulties and expense of producing large numbers of copies of books using copyists and parchment had restricted the amount that could be published. The effect of this restriction was that there was a manageable amount of knowledge available in written form, and the dedicated scholar could aspire to master this corpus. As a corollary the mediaeval mind showed a tendency to synthesis as well as to the continual adaption of the material to new ideas and new circumstances. These appealing features of the Middle Ages were subsequently lost. "The printing press destroyed internationalism, and accentuated the importance of differences in language."¹⁹

The spread of paper from the Mohammedan areas in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, combined with the technical improvements in the quality of paper that the Europeans subsequently introduced, opened the way for the expression of new ideas and for the rise of new institutions. Innis noted these developments in his customary cryptic manner:

A monopoly over time stimulated competitive elements in the organization of space. The introduction of paper from China to Baghdad and to Cordova and to Italy and France contributed to the development of cursive writing and to the organization of space in relation to the vernaculars.²⁰

Although paper had facilitated the escape of those men and organizations whose aim it was to foster the spread of ideas that weakened the control of the church, the religious character of the opponent had a contaminating effect on the subsequent character of printing.

Greek scriptures following the translations of Erasmus and a concern with the possibility of translation into the vernaculars destroyed the monopoly of the church expressed in Latin. . . . Translations into the vernaculars gave them a sacred character and gave a powerful drive to nationalism. Milton was concerned with the production of an epic in English which would combine nationalism with Christianity.²¹

These two developments—the contribution of paper and printing to the organization of space, and the sacral aura that surrounded the printed page—were formidable both in destruction and creation. Forged together they found expression in nationalism. "The paper and printing industries supported the development of monopolies of space in nationalism and the state. Printing emphasized vernaculars, reduced the speed of movement of ideas, and divided the European mind."²²

The speed with which the vernacular gained an ascendancy varied from country to country, but by "the end of the sixteenth century the flexibility of the alphabet and printing had contributed to the growth of diverse vernacular literatures and had produced a basis for divisive nationalism in Europe."²³ This process was exacerbated as the "application of power to communication industries hastened the consolidation of vernaculars, the rise of nationalism, revolution, and new outbreaks of savagery in the twentieth century."²⁴

By the twentieth century the new means of communication, principally printing and photography, "had developed a monopoly which threatened to destroy Western civilization first in war and then in peace."²⁵ The resolution contained in the peace settlement after the First World War had been, Innis argued, in accord with "the impact of printing." However the monopoly which had arisen around printing gave rise to competition, this time in the form of appeals to the ear—the loud speaker and radio. In North America the new invention of radio was used to great effect by Franklin Roosevelt. But it proved much more disruptive in Europe, especially Germany. "Political boundaries related to the demands of the printing industry disappeared with the new instrument of communication. The spoken language provided a new base for the exploitation of nationalism and a far more effective device for appealing to large numbers. Illiteracy was no longer a serious barrier."²⁶ The appalling waste of the Second World War was further evidence, if such were needed, of the terrible costs involved in uncontrolled cultural change.

As well as inducing political leaders to try to redraw political boundaries along the lines of language, radio had one further corrupting effect. It lowered even further the possible level of political discussion. "The influence of mechanization on the printing industry had been evident in the increasing importance of the ephemeral. Superficiality became essential to meet the various demands of larger numbers of people and was developed as an art by those compelled to meet the demands. The radio accentuated the importance of the ephemeral and the superficial."²⁷ The power of the new journalism and of radio had been bought "at [the] expense of [a] universal approach."²⁸

The printing press had fostered a nationalism which had fractured the unity of civilization. Now nationalism turned back and wrought havoc by means of the device that had given it birth. Not the least of its damage was to create economic disruptions, culminating in the Great Depression. As Innis speculated in his Idea File: "Extent to which depression result of nationalism built up on accentuated emphasis on vernacular and consequent growth of tariffs."²⁹ A "concern with monetary management" and the consequent "manipulation of currencies on a national basis"³⁰ were related phenomena. As well, nationalism had contributed to an exaggerated concern for the collection of statistics along national lines, "aggregates, estimates and averages" which have "accentuated a narrowing interest in mathematical abstractions and a neglect of the limitations of precision."³¹

These developments were serious enough. An even more dangerous consequence of the nationalism which had grown up in harness with printing was its tendency to place increasingly stringent restrictions on thought and speculation. In a long but unusually clear note in the Idea File Innis outlined this whole development.

Significance of architecture—restriction of parchment emphasized need of expression especially with prosperity in buildings—these in turn favoured oral expression in cathedral schools and universities and rise of scholasticism—emphasis on large books—St. Thomas Aquinas Summae—cathedrals of thought—In this printing destroyed possibilities of architecture as expression except with wearing down of words by advertising and rise of skyscrapers to reinforce words. Use of language or vernacular as basis of force in development of state of absolute character of Hegel—But force transcends language and necessity of appeal to ideology cutting across language. Law still important as against history or romanticism. Printing means destruction of hierarchical values, reliance on force and mobilization of vernacular as force—Romanticism of 19th century—breakdown of rule of law—appeal to nationalism and history. Political myth revived when printing first developed—also compulsory education and rise of historicism and nationalism. Printing weakened initiative—opened way to totalitarian state.³²

This rich and subtle note draws stark attention to the increasingly sinister alliance between nationalism and force. The dark hint of totalitarianism with which the passage ends is no mere rhetorical flourish, but follows naturally once the corrosive effects of nationalism had eroded the rule of law and replaced rational attachment to the political community by an irrationalist political myth, assiduously fostered by compulsory and universal education.

International sharing of learning and culture which might have served as a retardant or preventative were rendered impossible, and the sciences and social sciences, instead of serving as agents of enlightenment and toleration, were increasingly pressed into the service of the militarist and nationalist state. Under the influence of the state communication among scientists had become impossible because scientific discoveries often have implied military application.³³ This led to inefficiency and bigotry in science,³⁴ as well as to the general softening of science.³⁵ Nationalist science in turn ran a renewed danger of arrogance or immodesty because it is cut off from the healthy competition of ideas that breeds uncertainty or at least a salutary scepticism.³⁶

The case of the social sciences was, if anything, worse. It was obvious to Innis that economics and political science had been pressed into the service of the state, during times of peace, and even more clearly when the state was imperilled by war. Innis contributed a particularly trenchant critique of geography to the Geographical Review in 1945 which was all the more telling since he thought geography to be in the strongest position of all the social sciences.³⁷ There he pointed out, with obvious scorn, that "even in peacetime, atlases have been published in Canada and the United States that show wind, rain, and temperature stopping at the 49th parallel. Scientific interest has been distorted to fit the mold of nationalism, and national boundaries have become cultural facts with the permanence of the features of geological phenomena."³⁸ The atmosphere of the war, combined with the increasing specialization of knowledge that Innis so dreaded, had fostered an aggressive and dogmatic cast of mind that was inimical to free inquiry. "Skepticism has been weakened by specialization, to the detriment of all concerned."³⁹ There was worse to come as nationalism drew strength from these developments. "Nationalism imposes tremendous burdens on democratic societies. Machine industry and, especially, inventions in transportation and communication have increased the possibilities of an international society, but they have also increased the defences of nationalism by enormously strengthening vested interests in language. The impact of propaganda has reached its most absurd limits in geopolitics—the social scientist and the natural scientist can take warning. It is the search for truth, not 'truth', that makes men free."⁴⁰

Nationalism hammered the civilization from which it had grown. There was throughout the West a continual problem of the "adaptability of political machinery to shifting economic centres of production incidental to technological change especially in transportation—location of industry problem—significance of coal as a determinant—conflict with technological change in communications—i.e. nationalism based on vernaculars—radio, etc. with little relation to results of industrial revolution."⁴¹ In Europe the great disruptions and irrationalities in the aftermath of the Treaty of Versailles were manifestations of this phenomenon.

The English-speaking world had by no means escaped the baleful influences of nationalism. In the British Empire the centrifugal forces of language had begun to tear that organization apart.

The British Empire, which gained from a fusion of Roman law traditions and common-law traditions, has been exposed to the effects of increasing nationalization based to an important extent on language under the influence of mechanization of the printed word and the spoken word as in the case of the French in Canada, the Dutch in South America, the languages of India and Pakistan, and the attempt to revive the Irish language in Eire.⁴²

In the United States the situation was just as serious, perhaps even more so. There "with systems of mechanized communication and organized force" that country "has sponsored a new type of imperialism imposed on common law in which sovereignty is preserved de jure and used to expand imperialism de facto."⁴³ Developments in the United States had become more dangerous because of the "disastrous effect of [the] common law in making politics part of law and emphasizing [the] position of [the] state. . . ."⁴⁴ With the complete destruction of the church's monopoly over time, mechanized communications and mechanized industry had filled the void and had created a sense of time preoccupied with the present and oblivious of the past and future. New and vicious substitutes had arisen to lend support to temporal continuity. "The disappearance of time monopolies facilitated the rapid extension of control by the state and the development of new religions evident in fascism, communism, and our way of life."⁴⁵

Responding to these destructive pressures was by no means easy since the complete triumph of machine industry had carried with it a weakening of the powers of understanding its impact. It was supremely difficult to attempt a "universal approach in [the] face of nationalism, communication, etc. Machine industry emphasized regional civilization and [the] difficulties of [a] broad understanding. [The] Emphasis on [the] vernacular of [the] printing press accentuates [the] problem of [the] university in maintaining [a] bridge between world view and a shifting base of vernacular—Universities [have been] overwhelmed by [the] vernacular and common interest with little prospect of maintaining [an] interest in [the] problems of civilization."⁴⁶

The problem which faced every civilization, and which was becoming a critical one for our own, was the one of creating cultured men. Culture is "designed to train the individual to decide how much information he needs and how little he needs, to give him a sense of balance and proportion, and to protect him from the fanatic who tells him that Canada will be lost to the Russians unless he knows more geography or more history or more economics or more science."⁴⁷ It was as part of this general deterioration of western civilization that Innis analyzed the Canadian predicament.

In spite of the apparent naturalness of the Canadian Confederation seen in the light of previous developments in the fur trade, Innis was ruthless in repudiating any suggestion that these political and economic coincidences were necessary relations. As he noted in his biography of Peter Pond, published in the same year as the Fur Trade:

Like the other traders from the colonies... he felt no strong allegiance to any government but allegiance to Great Britain was a prerequisite to a supply of manufactured goods essential to the fur trade. .. . If lessons were to be drawn from his life, nothing would be more obvious than the fruitlessness of sentimental lamentations over the weakening ties of the British Empire. The Empire has grown and been maintained on stronger bonds than political bonds and it has grown in spite of its builders as well as because of them.⁴⁸

Eighteen years later he made a similar observation in his introduction to the Diary of Simion Perkins. "In spite of strong family ties and business connections, Nova Scotia remained within the Empire. Because of these family ties and business connections the political bonds were of less importance."⁴⁹ Whatever Innis's fascination for the late George Ferguson's tittle-tattle and gossip about Canadian politics, it is fair to say that deep down there is some foundation for an observation that he was an unpolitical, or even an anti-political, man.

It is true that he deeply feared the influence of the United States which he thought had absorbed many of the worst and most dangerous features associated with mechanized industry and mechanized communications. He thought that Canadian cultural life was undergoing a constant battering from American commercialism, and that this had a dangerous impact in separating English and French-Canadian cultural life.⁵⁰ What was more Canada as an immature society was likely to prove unable to resist the influences of American imperialism.⁵¹ Already there were grounds for fearing that Mackenzie King had "found Canada a nation and left it a colony in relation to [the] U.S.—particularly result of radio. . . ."⁵² Towards the end of his life he drew particular and vigorous attention to the distorting effects of American industrialism and advertising on Canadian culture,⁵³ and advocated the need for an energetic programme to offset them.⁵⁴

None of these fears or hopes led Innis to welcome nationalism as a contribution to the solution of Canada's problems, or to resolving the difficulties of Western civilization. Indeed, he dreaded it. As he wrote in 1946:

States are destroyed by ignorance of the most important things in human life, by a profound lack of culture—which, following Plato, is the inability to secure a proper agreement between desire and intellect. The state of the arts in Canada is threatened by a fanatical interest in nationalism reflecting our inability to grapple with the problems of Western Civilization. The drain of nationalism on our energies all but exhausts efforts to appreciate our position in the West.⁵⁵

In practice Canadian nationalism had had a consistently debilitating effect. It has turned Canada into the Trojan horse of American penetration into the British Commonwealth,⁵⁶ and it had been systematically fostered by American branch plants who used nationalist appeals as an indirect means of weakening the central government and of encouraging regionalism. The consequence had been the accentuation of "back scratching small groups—Maritimes, Western Canada, Quebec. . . "⁵⁸ In alliance, the "jackals of communications systems are constantly on the alert to destroy every vestige of sentiment towards Great Britain holding it no advantage if it threatens the omnipotence of American commercialism."⁵⁹

Hangers-on were quick to take advantage wherever they could. "Nationalism in Canada [is] exploited by publishers"⁶⁰ though the ironic consequence of their attempts to promote their own interests had been that "except in French Canada nationalism prevents the growth of a large publishing industry."⁶¹ The tourist trade and publicity departments exaggerated Canadian distinctiveness "through the necessity of appearing different from countries from which we hope to attract tourists."⁶² University scholars themselves had been by no means slow to reap a personal harvest if they could. "On all sides the social scientist can be seen carrying fuel to Ottawa to make the flames of nationalism burn more brightly."⁶³

Nationalism struck deep at the heart of the Canadian community, and it is, I think, fair to say that, for Innis, nationalism was precisely the spirit that had to be avoided if Canadians were to have any hope of overcoming their difficulties.

Nationalism becomes more intense. The influence of the radio is canalized through the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and interest in national culture is intensified. The intensification of nationalism increases the burden of tariffs and fixed charges, precipitates regionalism, and enhances the importance of the provinces. Particularism leads to the decline of national loyalties and to increase in imperial loyalties. 64

It would have been surprising if Canadian politicians had been free from the attempt to take the advantage where it lay, and as Innis saw them, they were "quick to seize upon the possibility of capitalizing hostility to either the United States or Great Britain, and Canadian nationalism flourishes under these conditions, but it is nationalism in the interest of the short run rather than the long run."⁶⁵ Only in French Canada was nationalism a more wholesome endeavour, since there it stems from an interest in "culture, language and tradition" and represents a "reflection of the continual interest in time—i.e. influence of religion and church."⁶⁶ But even French-Canadian nationalism was harmful because it led them "to withdraw from interest in wider sphere."⁶⁷ In sum, the best that can be said of Canadian nationalism is that when it is not doing active harm, it is engaged in irrelevancies. "Emphasis on symbols of British sovereignty—use of Crown on highways—an indication of the penetration of American life—the greater the emphasis on form the greater the indication that the substance is inadequate—danger of intense interest in symbols—obscuring of basic factors."⁶⁸

The United States was only the enemy in the sense that it represented the condition of crisis in the most acute form. "In the Anglo-Saxon world we have a new mobilization of force in the United States, with new perils, and all the resources of culture and language of the Englishspeaking peoples, including those of the United States, will be necessary to resist it."⁶⁹ It was rather mass production and standardization which were "the enemies of the West,"⁷⁰ and the "future of the West depends on the cultural tenacity of Europe. . . ."⁷¹ And, as he had noted in his Idea File in 1948, the "Future of Europe [is] largely dependent on France with possible support from England—possibility of evading strangulation by Anglo-Saxon barbarism—especially North America—and by communism. Threat of mass production of North America to French culture and taste. . . ."⁷² In this hope, Innis had returned to an old theme. After all, had he not begun his conclusion to The Fur Trade in Canada by noting: "Fundamentally the civilization of North America is the civilization of Europe and the interest of this volume is primarily in the effects of a vast new land area on European civilization."⁷³

Was Harold Innis a nationalist? In the absence of any settled meaning for this term, it is obviously impossible to give an answer that will satisfy everyone. It is possible, for example, that for some a Canadian nationalist is someone who (1) loves his country; (2) dislikes or distrusts the United States; and (3) reveres some vague sort of British Imperial connection. In this case Innis might just qualify, though it is clear that he would never have described his own position as nationalist. This, however, is an unusually weak sense of nationalism, and its application to Innis, even if apt, is quite likely to generate a seriously misleading understanding of his overall position. The unmistakable conclusion that must be drawn from his writings is that in any sense stronger than the above usage, Innis was not a nationalist. It would be much fairer to say that he was opposed to nationalism as a programme or an ideology, and even more strongly opposed to the exclusivist and intolerant spirit which that doctrine usually incorporated. It is true that in his books and articles as in his life he revealed a deep dedication to his native land, but it drew that reaction from him because he saw in it the incarnation of a culture that represented much that was valuable in Western civilization from the age of Pericles on down the generations.

As for the future of his country and his civilization, Innis spoke only vaguely, and then in despairing tones. What was wrong was clearer than what ought to be done. A balanced perspective and a universal approach were clearly necessary. So was an awareness of the problems of time, or continuity, and of the dangers of an unreflective concern for the affairs of the moment. Reason had to be harmonized with the passions and a respect for individuality and creativity needed to be fostered. Such was the programme of a great and humane man who taught the "necessity of [a] university making available [the] standards of western civilization."⁷⁴

As creative and original a thinker as Harold Innis was, he was not a Saint Augustine, and Innis's friend, Charles Cochrane, had shown in his Christianity and Classical Culture that it took a thinker of that power to resuscitate a dying civilization. But Innis could at least warn that fanaticism and intolerance were enemies and not friends. His beloved universities were becoming increasingly "small islands in [a] rising sea of barbarism"; and great care needed to be taken if the "inquisition of religion" were not to be "followed by [the] inquisition of nationalism."⁷⁵

NOTES

¹ J.B. Brebner, "Review of Changing Concepts of Time" in The Canadian Historical Review, 34 (1953), p. 171. Carl Berger, whose chapters on Innis in The Writing of Canadian History (Toronto, 1976) I read only after this article was already in proof, echoes these sentiments. There he writes: "His was a passionate nationalism that had for long been masked by irony, humour, and cynical comments on the clichés of his day" (p. 111). I would also take strong exception to the emphasis Berger places on Innis's alleged determinism.

² Daniel Drache, "Harold Innis: A Canadian Nationalist," Journal of Canadian Studies, IV, No. 2 (1969), p. 7.

³ Harold Innis, The Bias of Communication (Toronto, 1951, 1971), pp. 140-1.

⁴ Sometime in the early 1940s Innis began to jot down his ideas, reading notes and the like on file cards. Subsequently he had these cards (now apparently lost) typed up to provide a typescript of 339 pages, now known as his Idea File. It was originally published on microfilm after his death. The edition was supervised by a committee consisting of Mrs. Innis, his son Donald, and some of his former colleagues; but it was published in an edition in which his ideas were reorganized according to alphabetical entries. The original version, that is, the one that was known to Innis, is in the University of Toronto Archives, and it is this version from which I have worked. It is, obviously, even more difficult to interpret these notes of about a decade than it is Innis's published work because of their (often) fragmentary nature. I have used the material from the Idea File with great care, and I trust that I have not produced an unrepresentative selection of entries in this paper. For a longer discussion of the Idea File, see William Christian, "Harold Innis's Idea File," Queen's Quarterly, forthcoming.

⁵ Harold Innis, Idea File (unedited version, University of Toronto Archives), p. 213.

⁶ Donald Creighton, Harold Adams Innis: Portrait of a Scholar (Toronto, 1957), p. 43.

⁷Ibid., pp. 56-7.

⁸Ibid., p. 60.

⁹ Harold Innis, "The Teaching of Economic History in Canada," in Essays in Canadian Economic History, ed. M.Q. Innis (Toronto, 1958), p. 3.

¹⁰ See Creighton, pp. 59-60.

¹¹ Harold Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada, revised edition (Toronto, 1962), p. 392.

¹²Ibid., p. 262.

¹³ Creighton, p. 105.

¹⁴Ibid., p. 118.

¹⁵Ibid., p. 125.

¹⁶ Brebner, p. 171.

¹⁷ For a fuller discussion see William Christian, "Harold Innis as Political Theorist," Canadian Journal of Political Science, X, No. 1 (March 1977), pp. 21-42.

¹⁸ Innis, Bias, pp. 52-3.

¹⁹ Harold Innis, "A Plea for the University Tradition," Dalhousie Review, vol. 24 (1944), p. 299.

²⁰ Innis, Bias, p. 124.

²¹Ibid., p. 128.

²²Ibid., p. 129.

²³Ibid., p. 55.

²⁴Ibid., p. 29.

²⁵Ibid., p. 80.

²⁶Ibid., p. 81.

²⁷Ibid., p. 82.

²⁸ Innis, Idea File, p. 331.

²⁹Ibid., p. 223.

³⁰Ibid., p. 331.

³¹ Harold Innis, Changing Concepts of Time (Toronto, 1952), p. 107.

³² Innis, Idea File, p. 240.

³³ Innis, Bias, p. 193.

³⁴ Harold Innis, "Comments on Russia," International Journal, Vol. 1, no. 1 (1945), p. 35.

³⁵ Innis, Idea File, p. 230.

³⁶Ibid., p. 211.

³⁷ Harold Innis, "Geography and Nationalism: A Discussion," Geographical Review, vol. 35 (1945), p. 310.

³⁸Ibid., p. 302.

³⁹Ibid., p. 305.

⁴⁰Ibid.

⁴¹ Innis, Idea File, p. 326.

⁴² Harold Innis, Empire and Communications (Toronto, 1950, 1972), p. 169.

⁴³Ibid.

⁴⁴ Innis, Idea File, p. 142.

⁴⁵ Innis, Bias, p. 88.

⁴⁶ Innis, Idea File, p. 223.

⁴⁷ Innis, Bias, p. 85.

⁴⁸ Harold Innis, Peter Pond: Fur Trader and Adventurer (Toronto, 1930), pp. 141-2. Innis was a complex thinker, and his mind was often working on several problems at the same time. As well as pointing to the disjunction of economic and political trends mentioned in the text, it is quite possible that Innis was here also dealing with contemporary political controversy relating to the political and economic programmes of R.B. Bennett, who took office in 1930. It is also possible that he had in mind the earlier programme of the Imperial federationists. I owe this observation to Dr. Ian Drummond of the University of Toronto who was kind enough to give me his comments on the text as a whole.

⁴⁹ Simion Perkins, The Diary of Simion Perkins, 1766-1780, ed. H.A. Innis (Toronto, 1948), p. xxxiii.

⁵⁰ Innis, Changing Concepts of Time, p. 18.

⁵¹ Harold Innis, "In the Tradition of Dissent," University of Toronto Quarterly, vol. 13 (1943), p. 131.

⁵² Innis, Idea File, p. 139.

⁵³ Innis, Changing Concepts of Time, p. 14.

⁵⁴Ibid., p. 19.

⁵⁵ Harold Innis, Political Economy in the Modern State (Toronto, 1946), p. x.

⁵⁶ Innis, Empire, p. 169; see also, Essays in Canadian Economic History, p. 405.

⁵⁷ Innis, Idea File, p. 210.

⁵⁸Ibid., p. 213.

⁵⁹ Innis, Changing Concepts of Time, p. 19.

⁶⁰ Innis, Idea File, p. 150.

⁶¹ Innis, Political Economy, p. xi.

⁶²Ibid.

⁶³Ibid., p. xii.

⁶⁴ Innis, Essays, p. 236.

⁶⁵Ibid., p. 238.

⁶⁶ Innis, Idea File, p. 91.

⁶⁷Ibid., p. 88.

⁶⁸Ibid., p. 85.

⁶⁹ Innis, Essays, p. 412, my emphasis.

⁷⁰ Innis, Empire, p. 169.

⁷¹ Innis, Essays, p. 412.

⁷² Innis, Idea File, p. 141.

⁷³ Innis, Fur Trade, p. 383.

⁷⁴ Innis, Idea File, p. 213.

⁷⁵Ibid., p. 310.