During the war this nation had many commissions. Their very names are mostly forgotten. Most of them committed themselves to nothing. This commission to investigate railroad bankruptcy was fated to be very different. Much of the difference was in Sir Henry Drayton who, had he been asked the question, might have saved the country the cost of the Commission.
But of course he was prejudiced, and against the roads. He knew those roads. The minority report of the chief of the New York Central made no difference to the grim bulldog judgment of the Chief Railway Commissioner—that the two secondary systems of Canadian railways were alike and for much the same causes constitutionally bankrupt, and should therefore be given the nationalizing cure.
What more disagreeable qualification could a man have for being made Minister of Finance? The air holes that White had skated around, Drayton proposed to go right over and to take the people with him. What the common stock of these roads might be worth was for Sir Thomas to find out. By the time Sir Henry went to the national ledger that matter was all adjusted and the thing left was to raise the money.
There's a divinity that shapes our ends even when they do not meet. The little Houdini of calculations was at last into a predicament where it seemed that he never could figure himself out. One fancies him gazing intently over the Finance Department of whose precise technique he knew nothing as yet, and saying to himself:
"Well, White did a wonderful turn. I don't believe the audience will like mine half as well—at first. No audiences ever do. I'm bound to be more or less unpopular because I don't know how to act a bit like Tetrazzini."
The great organized orgy was over, when the dollars followed the drum and the drum thumped at every crossroad; when a Victory Bond in every top commode drawer was more necessary than a bottle in every cellar. The whole nation, four times tagged for Victory, was once more tagged for reconstruction. Done with credits to England for purchase of war material in Canada, we were invited to extend credits to war-swept nations in Europe who would be sure to want things made in Canada to help put them on President Wilson's new map of self-determination. Even profiteers now admitted everything to be abnormal. The whole country was like a milkfed pumpkin at the fair. War wages inclined every man to become a profiteer. The land was teeming with war money and denuded of necessary goods. People who used to be content with good wages, a plain rented home and a bottle of beer, went out after short hours, high wages, French heels, $300 coats and motor-cars. It was part of the emancipation of people for which soldiers had not died.
"Er—if you need me, telephone, old chap," one fancies Sir Thomas saying as he carried Sir Henry's luggage to his room. "But I'm sure you are the man for the job. I really have to go back to private finance. However, the super-tariff on imports of luxuries is one thing with which you will feel at home, I am sure. Quite suited to your temperament, Sir Henry."
In one of Scott's novels a gentleman named Front de Boeuf pulls out a Jew's tooth every time he wants more money. Both our national dentists knew that a super-tariff on anything is the very thing that makes a large number of well-to-do people want it. People bought luxuries in this country and growled at the high cost of necessities. Most folk feel rather proud of a big price for a coat or a gown or a Chesterfield, if they can get even by skimping on the price of butter and potatoes. Low-value money and visions of Utopia had played far worse havoc with the people than legalized liquor had ever done. And one of the worst features of the situation was that the bulk of our luxury buying was done in the country which had the only remaining standard of value on the exchanges. Canada had convenient access to the country which alone had a surplus of factory goods. Our tremendous buying average in the American market was even used as propaganda in the interest of keeping the peace with Britain.
Hence the devil of exchange and Drayton's dilemma. The things Drayton said to this country even before he presented his first budget were as comfortable as what the doctor prescribes when you are overfed. On went the unpopular luxury tax and sales tax. The general principle was that the more people bought, the more they got out of living, and the more they should pay for the privilege. It was not merely a tax on improvements, but an impost on being alive. Accustomed as we had been to war taxes which never came off, this was a sanctioned way of "passing the buck" such as we had never known. The advantage is that when we pay 14 cents for a box of matches that used to cost five cents, we can read "5 cents War Excise Tax Paid" on the wrapper.
Sir Henry Drayton had no superb suavity with which to beguile those who made complaints. He heard the howlings of all the babies in the national dormitory and went ahead. He did not impress us as a financier, but as a plain doctor of homely common sense. He said in public many things which threw much instructive light upon our buying and selling. He spoke some blunt but kindly truths even in the United States at whose supremacy in our markets his policy was aimed.