Читать книгу The Message of the Carillon And Other Addresses - William Lyon Mackenzie King - Страница 6

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In the main entrance to our Houses of Parliament there are carved on the central column, which supports the entire structure, words commemorative of two epoch-marking events in the history of Canada. The one is Confederation, the Diamond Jubilee of which we celebrate to-day; the other, Canada’s participation in the Great War. The main tower of our parliament buildings is a memorial of the Peace born of Victory. In this tower a carillon of fifty-three bells has been installed by authority of Parliament. At twelve o’clock noon, His Excellency the Governor General, Viscount Willingdon, the representative in our Dominion of His Majesty the King, will inaugurate the carillon. Both Confederation and the Peace are immediately associated with to-day’s ceremony. In the anthem, which will peal forth at midday, will be sounded the notes of “O Canada”, notes which will be heard far beyond the bounds of our Dominion, in proclamation of its sixtieth birthday anniversary; notes that will carry an even greater proclamation—the message of peace and good-will, to all men, in all lands.

Of Confederation much will be said throughout our country to-day. This morning’s ceremony is concerned more particularly with the inauguration of the carillon which has been installed in the Memorial Tower.

Before inviting His Excellency to perform the ceremony which will make the carillon a part of our national life, it will, I trust, accord with your wishes, if, on behalf of the Government, I attempt briefly to make mention of a few features, incidental to its installation, which, I believe, on this occasion, all present will wish to have in mind, and which our country will desire to have on record.

It is necessary for me, in referring to the circumstances which led to the installation of the carillon, to recall the disastrous fire which, on the night of February 3, 1916, occasioned the destruction of the parliament buildings. The buildings were not totally destroyed, but the extent of the irreparable loss was such as to appear to warrant their complete reconstruction. This work was entered upon immediately. On September 1, 1916, His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, Governor General of Canada at the time, laid the corner stone of the present buildings, exactly where fifty-six years before, his brother, King Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, had laid the corner stone of the original Houses of Parliament. At the north-east corner of the buildings is to be seen the inscriptions descriptive of both ceremonies.

The work of reconstruction was well under way when the Great War was ended. The Government of the day decided that in no way could the Peace be more appropriately commemorated than by dedicating, as a memorial to the Peace, the main tower which was still to be erected. As the Tower of Victory, it was to mark the completion, and to be the crowning feature of the newly constructed Houses of Parliament. The idea was one alike of beauty and of vision. On September 1, 1919, on the occasion of his first visit to Canada, the corner stone of the tower was laid by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.

In keeping with the commemorative character of the tower it was decided to reserve the space immediately above the entrance to the Houses of Parliament, as a Memorial Chamber. There will be recorded the names of all who served with the Canadian Forces in the Great War. In the centre of the Memorial Chamber there has been erected an Altar, on which is to be placed The Book of Remembrance, and, within its covers, constituting a national roll of honour, will be inscribed on illuminated parchment sixty thousand names, the names of those who, in the hour of the world’s greatest need, made the supreme sacrifice.

O valiant hearts, who to your glory came

Through dust of conflict and through battle-flame;

Tranquil you lie, your knightly virtue proved,

Your memory hallowed in the Land you loved.

The stone of the Altar, on which will be placed The Book of Remembrance, was laid by His Excellency Lord Byng, before his departure from Canada, as a last official act. The Memorial Chamber itself, the work on which is now nearing completion, will, it is hoped, be formally dedicated by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales on the occasion of his visit to our country in the course of the next few weeks.

It is in the space immediately above the Memorial Chamber that the carillon has been installed. Above the carillon is the Tower Clock, with its dials, each fifteen feet nine inches in diameter, visible from the east, south, west, and north. Surmounting the pinnacle of the Tower, and over all, is the Union Jack, caressed, at their caprice, by the four winds of heaven.

So far as I am aware, the proposal to install a carillon in the tower was first made in Parliament by the late Senator George Bradbury. The suggestion was favourably received by members of both Houses, and in all parts of Canada. The project came before the Government for consideration when the Administration in 1923 was being called upon to decide what chimes, if any, should accompany the striking of the hours of the Tower Clock.

May I pause for a moment to say a word about the Tower Clock. In the great fire of 1916, the bell in the old tower which sounded the hours continued to the very last to perform its duty. The base of the tower was on fire when the hour of ten was struck. Through its apertures the flames were flashing when the bell sounded the hour of eleven. As the hour of midnight approached most of the tower was already a ruin, its base was a smouldering mass, its pinnacle had been devoured by the flames. Still the old sentinel stood on guard. At midnight the crash came. In an endeavour to strike the final hour, it fell, its belfry demolished, its voice silenced. That sacrifice, however, has not been in vain. Out of the ashes of the tower which was destroyed, a destruction which at the time seemed to symbolize the devastation of the Great War, has risen a more beautiful tower, the tower which we at this moment behold, a Peace Tower, which stands to the world as a symbol of the spirit of this nation, bearing in its breast the record of the sacrifice made by our country for the world’s peace. In a few moments it will be our privilege to bear witness to the immortality of that spirit. When the clock which is now installed begins to sound forth the hours of the day, it will take the flaming torch, thrown to it over a space of years by the old sentinel at midnight, and holding it aloft will strike at high noon the hour of twelve in commemoration alike of birth and of resurrection.

The present clock will have yet another association of even vaster scope and dream. The completion of our reconstructed Houses of Parliament seemed to the Administration an opportune moment in which to give renewed expression to our near relationship to England, the Mother of Parliaments. Accordingly, in arranging for the new clock which was to be placed in the tower, an effort was made to reproduce, as accurately as sound would permit, the notes of Big Ben and the Westminster Chimes. When, therefore, from time to time, we hear the striking of the hours and the quarters, we shall be reminded of the heritage of freedom which has come to us through the establishment in Canada of British parliamentary institutions, the like establishment of which in other dominions beyond the seas is the surest bond of union between the community of free nations which comprise the British Commonwealth.

Having decided to reproduce at Ottawa the chimes at Westminster, the Government next gave careful consideration to the larger project of installing a carillon. Mr. Frederick C. Mayer, who had completed a survey of the carillons of the world, was invited to come to Ottawa to advise on the project. When Mr. Mayer saw the Peace Tower, viewed its commanding position, and the wide open spaces by which it is surrounded, he grew enthusiastic over its possibilities and became emphatic in his statement that with such a campanile, in such a setting, the Government had it within its power to secure for the people of Canada what would prove to be the finest carillon in the world.

Again, having regard to the commemorative character of the tower, and more particularly to the sixty thousand names upon the roll of honour in The Book of Remembrance, it was felt by the Administration that the more worthily the service and sacrifice of Canada in the Great War could be commemorated, the more would the commemoration accord with the will and wish of the Canadian people. It was thereupon decided to install the carillon as the crowning feature of the Memorial Tower and as the most fitting symbol of the Peace.

To the firm of Gillett and Johnson, of Croydon, England, was entrusted the work of installing the carillon. This work is now practically complete, and Mr. Cyril Johnson, who has given to it throughout the closest personal attention, is here to-day to witness the supreme triumph of his art. To him and to Mr. Mayer, for their invaluable services, I should like publicly to extend the thanks of the Government.

To indicate to the country the degree to which Mr. Mayer’s prediction has been fulfilled, I cannot perhaps do better than to read the concluding paragraph of the latest report he has made to the Government, written upon the completion of a test of the bells, made at Croydon, just prior to their shipment to Canada. In a communication dated May 1, 1927, addressed to Mr. J. B. Hunter, the Deputy Minister of Public Works, of which Mr. Mayer at the time was kind enough to send me a copy, he says:

With the beauty of quality and perfection of tuning that all of your bells will have, with the high spacious tower for position, with the beautiful architectural setting, with the surroundings combining open space and quiet, and with an unprecedented total weight of bell metal contributing unrivalled richness and sonority of artistic effect, I feel confident that you are going to have the greatest carillon in the world.

Time forbids more than a passing reference to the carillon itself. As already mentioned, it numbers in all fifty-three bells, of which the smallest is fifteen pounds in weight and the largest, the Bourdon bell, ten tons. The total of bell metal for the carillon approximates sixty tons; to this must be added, in estimating the weight which the tower supports, an additional thirty tons, that being the weight of the steel work of the chamber in which the carillon is installed. Such is the avoirdupois of the instrument, as sensitive to the touch of a musician as the chord of a harp, upon which our carillonneur, Mr. Percival Price, will play.

In conclusion, there is one feature of which I desire to make special mention. It is the inscription which appears on the largest bell. In the fewest possible words, the inscription seeks to epitomize the purpose of the carillon as a national memorial, commemorative of the Peace, and of the service and sacrifice which contributed to that great end. It appears in both English and French, doubly significant when one recalls the association of the two peoples in the great War and in our country’s story.

The inscription reads:

This carillon was installed

by authority of Parliament

to commemorate

the Peace of 1918

and

to keep in remembrance

the service and sacrifice

of Canada

in the Great War

“By authority of Parliament”, there is something splendidly impressive in those words! There is no comparable authority in the affairs of state. “To commemorate” and “to keep in remembrance”, what words more full of meaning will be found in our language! To Leonardo da Vinci we owe much for the portrayal of the sacrament with which these words will ever be associated. How full of kindred meaning they are when applied to the service and sacrifice of our young country, and to a peace which relates itself to the entire world! Around the rim of the bell which carries the inscription, are the words: “Glory to God in the Highest and on Earth Peace, Good-will toward men”.

Such is the message of the carillon—a message of rejoicing and thanksgiving known in biblical lore as “The Angels’ Song”. It was heard from the skies nearly twenty centuries ago by a few shepherds who were watching their flocks by night. Back to the skies it returns at noon to-day, not the echo of a mystical strain heard on a Judean moor, but the voice of a nation in thanksgiving and praise which will sound over land and sea to the uttermost parts of the earth, and which, from the place where we are now assembled, may yet, in the course of time, be borne down the centuries to come.