Canada and the Cost of World War II: The International Operations of Canada's Department of Finance 1939-1947 (review)

The historical record on Canada and the Second World War ranges from the home front to battle fronts, considers Canada's treatment of its citizens as well as Canada's treatment by its wartime allies, spans the personal to the political, and includes travesties and triumphs. Robert Bryce's account of how Canada financed its war effort is a new contribution to the corpus. The topic might seem somewhat dry, but financing a long and costly war is a remarkably complex challenge and fundamental to any successful war effort. Bryce's account explains how a small group of exceptional civil servants, mostly in the Department of Finance, but also at the Bank of Canada, Trade and Commerce, and External Affairs, met the task. Bryce was himself one of the famed 'Ottawa Men.' After studying economics at Cambridge, he joined the Department of Finance in 1938. Bryce rose through the ranks, becoming the clerk of the Privy Council (the top civil servant position in Ottawa) from 1954 to 1963. He finished out his career in Finance. In his retirement he turned to history. He wrote Maturing in Hard Times (1986), which explained how the Department of Finance dealt with the challenge of the Great Depression. Canada and the Cost of World War II is the logical follow-up. Unfortunately, it is not of the same standard as the earlier volume, for some understandable reasons.

First, the book reads like a highly polished draft, not a finished product. Bryce completed the manuscript in 1990 but does not seem to have revised the manuscript subsequently. His death in 1997 turned the draft into the final iteration. The book lacks context; the significance of the issues and events under consideration is rarely drawn out; the prose is leaden; the organization is awkward; there is no conclusion. Second, the work contains little that is new. In the fifteen years between its completion and publication, other historians have examined and explained Mutual Aid to Britain, the Hyde Park agreement with the United States, the financing of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, and the 1946 loan to Britain – to mention only a few issues. Indeed, Bryce made use of many historical works published up to the late 1980s in writing his account. The archival sources that Bryce consulted – some of which he wrote in the 1940s – have long been available to historians. Because of the way that Bryce conceived of this project – as a work of history, not a memoir – he rarely uses his advantage of having been an active participant in the story he tells.

Matthew Bellamy, who teaches in the history department at Carleton University, edited the Bryce manuscript. It is difficult to gauge his contribution to the volume for his editorial role is not clearly explained, beyond selecting some pictures and writing brief introductory remarks to each chapter. His editorial mandate might have been narrowly defined, which is a shame because the book would have benefited from a stronger editorial impress. The afterword by Jack Granatstein helpfully provides analysis, judgment, and context, although it unintentionally highlights the volume's shortcomings.

Probably the most compelling reason to pick up this book is that it was written by Robert Bryce. Bryce was a remarkable person who served the country with great distinction. However, it is Maturing in Hard Times rather than Canada and the Cost of World War II that does justice to his skills as a historian.