William Lyon Mackenzie King

“ Capital can do nothing without Labor. Labor can do nothing without Capital. Neither Labor nor Capital can co-operate effectively in industry save under the guiding genius of Management, and Management, however great its genius, can do nothing apart from the opportunities and privileges the Community affords.
If all four parties are necessary to industry, and equally necessary to one another, then, surely, all four should have some voice in the control of industry, and with regard to the conditions under which their services to industry are rendered. ”

“ Long- fellow has no thought of discouraging ambition. Far from it. He simply wants to emphasize the folly of hoping for fame which is undeserved, and, as he points out, the way to deserve it is by doing well what is to be done. But as you are not fame hunting, it is not the fame part of it that I wish to dwell upon here, so much as the parallel thought, that it is the inner life, the inner strength - which comes from resolute effort and familiarity with the best thought, which tells, and which makes for true happiness. ”

“ To a life given over to the pursuit of the beautiful and true, the immortal hour only comes when conduct at last rises to the level of aim, and the ideal finds its fulfilment in the realm of the actual. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Few lives have been more earnest or constant in the pursuit of an ultimate perfection than was Henry Albert Harper’s; few have sought more conscientiously than he to live out existence under the guidance of lofty aspirations, and in the light of pure ideals. ”

“ It is the acceptance by each of the parties to industry of the spirit which has saved not only Britain, but the world, in the overthrow of Prussian arrogance and ambition. It was through a love of liberty and a hatred of domination that men by millions sacrificed their lives that freedom might not perish from the earth. The overthrow of Prussian despotism is only part of the vast undertaking which the free nations of the world have still before them if Freedom worthy of the name is to be maintained. ”

“ In love for others human nature manifests its highest expression. It is the quality of soul by which, in his relations with his fellows, a man’s capacity for service is determined; it is the fount at which all the finer springs of action are fed. Generosity, mercy, pity, friendship, devotion, sacrifice, flow from this one source, which conscious effort may help to replenish, but which conscious or unconscious borrowing can never exhaust.
In his love for others lay the absorbing passion of Harper’s life. ”

“ I have had no cause to regret my choice of a profession. I begin to feel the tremendous power wielded by the press in formulating public opinion, and am in a position to build up, by reflection upon what it is, a conception of what a newspaper should be, all of which I trust will enable me, when the time comes, to do my share in furthering the highest interests of the State and mankind in general. I have come to see where the dangers which surround the young newspaper man lie, and am endeavouring to keep myself free from their influence. ”

“ Let us be assured of this: the unrest in the world of industry to-day is no ephemeral and transitory affair; no mere aftermath of the hideous convulsion which has shaken existing society to its very foundations. It is the voice of a grief-stricken humanity crying for justice in the relations of industry. Let us be equally assured that the sword is not the instrument, and repression not the method, to stay this unrest. ”

“ There is no death. Life is eternal and makes towards perfection. When those whom we love pass, we are the more linked to that greater, larger, deeper spiritual life which is within us and about us, but which passes our human comprehension. The very air in which I write is filled with a thousand associations which bring me into the closest sympathy with those who have passed through the Valley of the Shadow. Were you here to-night, I might make myself intelligible in a way which I cannot hope to in a letter. ”

“ Harper's act of heroism will ever be an example and a lesson to us all. The stranger to our city will pause as he passes this monument and wonder what deed called forth its erection. He will be told of the noble act of self-sacrifice- of a life given in an effort to save another. The citizens of Ottawa will ever be proud to honour the memory of Harper, and to look, as the government shall look, upon this memorial as a national monument in every sense of the word. ”

“ What we need quite as much as a League of Nations is a League of the Parties to Industry to see to the enforcement of this great principle, and the moulding of public opinion to that end. Such a league, I believe, would lead, even more quickly than a league of nations, to the maintenance of international, as well as of industrial, peace. Accustom men to the adoption of fundamental principles in adjusting their industrial relations, something which immediately concerns their everyday life, and the application of like principles to international affairs will take care of itself. ”

“ This afternoon, Harry, Laschinger and I took a long walk in the frosty air,—for winter has gripped Ottawa hard, ice covers the ground, ponds are frozen and the sky is stern and gray, and I found myself driven to turn conversation along this line. Is it because the church has so far drifted from truth that it succeeds so little in making the life of Christ a reality among men? I thoroughly hold that once convince a man of a truth, and that truth, even despite him, will become an active potent factor in his life. How are men to be convinced? ”

“ Moreover, there is much on which men can be agreed, broken arcs visible to all, though the perfect round is seen by none. There are right and wrong, truth and falsehood, honesty and dishonesty, love and hate, purity and vice, honour and dishonour, and the difference between them is as apparent and real as the difference 'twixt day and night, albeit, now and again, a twilight of uncertainty may render doubtful the confines of separation. ”

“ No longer must industry be thought of as a mere revenue-producing process, in which Capital, Labor, Management, and the Community meet like so many rival and contending factions, each to appropriate to itself by force or might the largest possible share of the fruits of industry. Industry must be thought of, as in reality it is, as in the nature of social service, and participation in industry, whether in the form of labor or capital investment, as social service of the highest kind, since upon its successful accomplishment rest all other forms of human service. ”

“ The love, the truth and the beauty of Harper’s nature have nowhere found better expression than in his last letters to his closest friend. His heart is revealed there, as, only in such a relationship, it is possible for hearts to reveal themselves. In the sanctuary of Friendship, everything is holy; there abideth the love that “thinketh no evil,” the confidence that is never betrayed; at its threshold, semblances disappear; having entered beneath its portals, there is no longer anything to conceal. ”

“ It is, perhaps, impossible to convey, save to those who have known the experience, any conception of what a constant association of this kind with Nature really means. It proves, to use Harper's own words, "how beauty, grandeur, sublimity and purity in God's world, find a ready response in the human heart unfettered." Yet it is this perception of God, this communion of soul between the creature and the Creator as He is revealed in Nature, that is the conscious or unconscious secret of all the refreshment and joy which comes from a contact of this kind. ”

“ The Wisdom and Justice of Joint Control And is not joint control by all the parties to industry in every way eminently wise, as well as fundamentally just? Is it not in every way, in the long run, to the interests of industry, and to the interests of each of the parties to industry ? Continuance of the system of monopoly of control by Capital is no longer possible. ”

“ If you look about you, you will see men who are wearing life away in feverish anxiety of fame, and the last we shall ever hear of them will be the funeral bell which tolls them to their early graves! Unhappy men and unsuccessful! because their purpose is, not to accomplish well their task, but to clutch the “fantasy and trick of fame”; and they go to their graves with purposes unaccomplished, and wishes unfulfilled. Better for them, and for the world in their example, had they known how to wait! Believe me, the talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well ”

“ War ridden, hungry, and penniless, men and women have witnessed the wanton extravagance of many of those possessed of luxury. They have become bewildered with a condition which enables an idle investor to reap a fortune while the masses toil excessive hours for a bare subsistence. They have lost sight altogether of the services of Capital and Management in witnessing the debauchery of indolence combined with riches, and the unearned millions of profiteers. ”

“ And the vital importance of improving the individual morally, and encouraging him to elevate his ideals! What a splendid thing it would be if every labour agitator, every demagogue, every member of parliament, every professor, teacher and minister, and, in fact, every one who exerts an influence upon the public mind, could realize and act upon the truth which came to Alton Locke after his life of bitter trial: ‘My only ground was now the bare realities of life and duty. The problem of society—self-sacrifice, the one solution.’ ”

“ The thought of the past week has caused me to look up for a moment to take another glance at the capital, which stands out clearly in the bright sunshine, though the lines of the buildings are softened by a blue white summer haze, sufficiently marked to give the effect of distance. If men could only get to a mountain occasionally and look down upon the world in which they live and move and have their being, there would be less dilettantism, less worship of forms, institutions, baubles and lath and plaster. ”

“ But let the service that Capital and Management are capable of rendering industry once be lost to sight, and industry itself will be ruined, and with it the well-being of Labor and the Community as well. What is needed is, not the ruination of Capital and Management, but that each be given its rightful place in a system of the government of industry which will make for the good of all the parties to production. ”

“ Misunderstanding, bitterness and passion have much sway in each. But your strength lies in the fact that what you seek is fairness, truth and justice, as well as the promotion of industrial peace and the country’s welfare. ‘Speak to his heart,’ says Emerson, ‘and the man becomes suddenly virtuous.’ My dear Rex, I assure you it is not the prejudice of a friendship, which makes me miss you more than I care to confess, that tells me that it is not the strong arm of a commission, nor yet the power of public opinion, that is your strongest weapon in this important crisis ”

“ It is reasonable to expect that he who claims to be engaged in the pursuit of truth should not give countenance to what makes for social disorder and national decay.
“Men are as much open to reason, as liable to accept truth, when they have been convinced of it, as when Arnold Toynbee studied, lectured and wrote. They are as prone to prefer what is genuine to what is pretense and dissimulation. Surely a peculiar obligation to see that men think rightly and act sanely, devolves upon those whose vantage ground should enable them to distinguish what is genuine. ”

“ I have chosen as a subject "The Four Parties to Industry," in order to emphasize a truth which seems to be fundamental in any attempt to cope with the industrial unrest which has followed so closely, and, one might add, so inevitably, in the wake of war. If there is to be release from the thraldom of fear in which men's minds are everywhere held, it is the Truth that shall set us free, and the enforcement of that Social Justice which the Truth demands. ”

“ Tell men to do right because it is right to do right; because it is consonant with the law of their natures; because only by so doing will they realize themselves. And here we come to the great beauty, justice and potency of the appeal to the rule of law. Show a man that it is only by putting forth his best efforts towards what his best consciousness tells him to be right that he will make any progress satisfactory to his own nature, or in harmony with the eternal realities, and the shackles of petty ambitions fall from him. He becomes stronger and stronger. ”