John Buchan: Model Governor General by J. William Galbraith (review)

J. William Galbraith has written a masterful biography of one of the most successful governors general to have filled the office. John Buchan, Baron Tweedsmuir (1875–1940), had a remarkable career before coming to Canada in 1935, and Galbraith’s own varied background in such fields as intelligence and national security policy enables him to offer special insight into lesser-known aspects of Buchan’s life. Buchan is renowned as the author of more than one hundred books, and was already a household name in Canada. He also served as a British MP and was a lawyer, the former director of Reuters news agency and head of Britain’s information and intelligence departments during the Great War. Galbraith’s opening chapters supply important context, both with respect to Buchan’s own life and the state of Canada in the 1930s.

Among the interesting features of the book is the light it sheds on the character of Canada’s Liberal Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King. In opposition at the time of Buchan’s appointment, but back in office by his installation, King frustrated Conservative Prime Minister R.B. Bennett’s well-meaning attempt to consult the Liberal leader on a successor to Lord Bessborough. Mackenzie King churlishly said he would oppose any choice made by the Conservatives, and insisted that an election should be held before the appointment. At last, caught between King’s intransigence and the urgent promptings of George V and his secretary, Bennett escaped the embarrassment by allowing the opposition leader complete freedom to name an appointee. Galbraith describes King’s characteristically fanciful notions of the intimate friendship and candid chats he might enjoy with the accomplished and lofty-minded Buchan. Only Buchan’s exquisite tact and willingness to flatter King kept the two on good terms, but managing this relationship clearly took considerable energy.

Buchan’s background in intelligence and his wide social network became an invaluable asset with the outbreak of the Second World War. The governor general cultivated a warm bond with President Roosevelt and, with a decades-long tie to the head of Britain’s Ministry of Information, could offer unofficial insights into American public opinion and political realities to inform Britain’s overtures to the still-isolationist USA. He also performed a valuable service as buffer between Britain’s wartime government and Canada’s prickly prime minister.

Few of Buchan’s activities as governor general were entirely unique to him – most incumbents travelled, gave inspirational speeches to various organisations, promoted Canadian arts, literature and culture, and took to heart the Crown’s traditional advocacy of First Nations. But Buchan arguably did more of all these things. Galbraith creates a vivid sense of the punishing travel and speaking schedule Tweedsmuir set for himself amid worsening health. The accompanying photographs show a gaunt and drawn, but impeccably dressed, viceroy. His fatal stroke as his term of office waned had an air of inevitability.

The book is so thoroughly researched and impeccably documented that I risk appearing petty in citing one small point on which Galbraith misleads. In discussing Buchan’s 1911 candidacy as a Unionist for a Scottish constituency, he writes, ‘The Unionists were Scottish conservatives who wanted to preserve the union with England’ (p. 25). Scotland’s Unionist party took for granted their partnership with England. The party’s name indicated their determination to preserve Ireland’s connection with the Empire. Galbraith has made a strong contribution to a growing climate of interest in John Buchan.