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Several months ago I received a letter from an anonymous correspondent asking me to stop running round the country making speeches: and settle down to work. You may wonder that a man with so sensible a suggestion should have chosen to conceal his identity. Wait a moment. The work, my correspondent had in mind for me was nothing less than lifting the great depression. Now you will at once conclude my correspondent was either indulging in humour or that the letter was post marked Port Whitby. But there was a touch of pathos about the letter. My correspondent had been out of work and out of buying power for more than two years, and expressed the faith that I could think of something that would put him back to work and all the other unemployed as well.

Probably I should have put the letter in the waste-paper basket and thought little more about it, but I confess I was both flattered and touched by the man’s simple faith. Besides the impossible is always intriguing. So it came about that I tried; and, if nothing else was accomplished, I stopped making speeches.

Who is responsible for the lifting of the great depression? If you are a staid member of Society, I expect you will immediately disclaim all personal responsibility, and rest content to criticise those who try. Criticism is valuable. It may well be you will say the responsibility belongs to the League of Nations, a Conference of Nations, the President of the United States or the Prime Minister of Canada. But you will recall that they have all tried, they have all done their best, and if they have not entirely failed, they have not wholly succeeded.

Of course it is too much to expect that I have succeeded. You will judge for yourself the value of the views I present. Personally I believe I have fallen upon the safe way out of our difficulties but it may well be I am a bit prejudiced. When a man has lived with an idea for awhile, he naturally loses the perspective of its value. I once knew a man who gave so many lectures about white mice and their service to laboratories that he fell into thinking that without white mice Society would fall into decay and perish. Most people thought he ought to be locked up.

I shall say this for what I have tried to do, it is an attempt to introduce the doctrine of realism into the realm of politics; and that is an unusual proceeding, in fact almost a novel one. The matters of our common concern are usually decided in an atmosphere of political passion. The politicians will have it that we are not ready to pass an intelligent opinion upon the issues of the day until we have been heated up for the occasion. When the thermometer registers the given point, we are naturally prepared to accept one of two or three sets of tenets that have been recommended. As a matter of fact there is nothing else to do. My thought is to see things as they really are and the consequences. It may be I have not quite succeeded and at times have allowed my judgment to be affected by personal prejudice. Possibly you will not be altogether free from prejudices.

The Great Depression of 1930—is not an isolated crisis. At least, I have treated it as one of a series of crises which we have had from time to time, but quite unusual in that it is affected by special forces which, in process of development over a period of years, have come into maturity since the Great War. Formerly we went down together and came up together; but now we are down and have tried and tried and have not managed to get up. I do believe there is a “better feeling” and visible signs of recovery, but I also believe that there is need for over-hauling our whole economic system. You will find that for some years I have been of the opinion that we were headed for disaster. Thus it is, I sought to give double service to my unknown correspondent. I have tried not merely to get him out of trouble, but to keep him out by suggesting a re-formation of the social and economic structures that will work for those that are willing to work for themselves. It will even stand the technocratic strain.

Needless to say I have not written for the technicians of Political Science. You may be quite sure my correspondent was not a political scientist and I have had him directly in mind, as well as all others who have been left on the road-side by the overloaded, creaking, industrial omnibus. I have tried to brush the technicalities out of whatever I know about Political Science and still preserve exactness. Those who know most about the subject will have most sympathy with the undertaking.

When you come to what I have proposed for the reconstruction of our national life I shall not be at all surprised if you think of a number of obstacles in the way of its realisation and here I shall enter a plea for patience. Of course, there are real difficulties but a great national objective is not to be attained without courageous effort. Several of the apparent difficulties will yield to reflection. It was impossible to enter into details and still present a picture fairly representative of the whole situation within reading range. After all that is one of the main difficulties of the life we live together. We will not devote to our common matters the thought they deserve. If you doubt my statement, become a research bureau and conduct a survey for yourself, by asking your friends: “have you read Moore’s new book: The Definite National Purpose?” The answer may be: “no, I have already read one or two of Moore’s books and am not inclined to read another.” But the chances are the answer will be: “what with stocks going up one day and down the next, I have not time to read anything.” It may even be: “I don’t give a hang about politics, I just mind my own affairs.” A man once told me he had never taken an interest in politics because he couldn’t shoot straight enough. But he was a Mexican.

Now all that is very wrong. People should take much more interest in public matters now than ever before, because more and more of the things of life are being transferred from the individual field to the collective. That interest should be taken and decisions made, under the doctrine of realism. You apply it to your daily life; you try to see the things that are, while you buy and sell and do all those other things that make up the day’s routine. That interest should be immediate. I am not an alarmist and have little disposition to find fault with the Governments of the day; they carry a heavy burden and they are not composed of supermen, they need your studied opinion.

Frankly, this little book is intended to be provocative of thought. Great changes in national economy are in store for us; even if we were to emerge immediately into prosperity through any one of the several plans that are proposed we should be living in the shadow of another calamity and a greater one would prove fatal. If you come to the conclusion that what I propose will accomplish a substantial something, then let us put it into effect and go on to greater successes. Great changes in the political and social organisations do not come about over-night, save by revolution, and the changes I have proposed are with the deliberate intention of “relaying the rails while the traffic is kept open.”

It remains but to mention those with whom I have been in consultation and that is a difficult duty as I have talked about this subject with everyone I have met for the past six months. My colleague W. A. Fraser, M.P. has been a spur. A. E. Padbury has been always at my right hand while Frank Chapman and E. M. Henry have also contributed valuable suggestions. I am grateful to Dr. J. Roy Van Wyck for assistance with proofs. I have drawn liberally upon the work of my old friend Dr. Coats of the Bureau of Statistics, and upon the figures of Sanford Evans and Horace Brittain, prepared respectively for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Citizens Research Bureau. Nor should I pass on without expressing my thanks to the members of the Oshawa Forum, The Montreal Reform Club, and the several Canadian Clubs, Chambers of Commerce and Social Service Clubs that have with heroic patience listened while I plodded my way to a definite objective for the Nation.

And so to business.

WILLIAM H. MOORE.

Moorlands

Pickering

August, 1933