Labour and Capital in Canada, 1650–1860 by H. Clare Pentland (review)

REVIEWS 227 religious pressures intoa publicly supported denominational school system, a process notwithoutparallelsin Manitobaafter 1897. DOVaLAS COLE Simon FraserUniversity Labour andCapital in Canada, 1650-1860. •. CLARE VENTLAND, editedwith an introduction byPAUL PHILLIPS. Toronto, JamesLorimer,•98•. Pp.xlvii,a8o. $12.50. In theyears ofthelate194os and195os, withtheColdWarfreezing intellectual discourse intoa rigidconformity, fewvoices of dissent couldbeheardwithin Canadianhistorical inquiry.A rare exception wasthe workof economic historian-labour economist H. ClarePentland, whoexploredthe social relations oflabourandcapital intheperiodofcommercial hegemony before•86o. AlongwithFrankWatt,a student of radicalism in post-confederation literature , Pentlandhelpedto insertthe studyof class and cultureashistorical processes of relationship andreciprocity, opposition andalternative, intoan historiography devoid ofsuch aperspective. Forthescholarship ofthese years turnedonclasslessness (thelegacy ofanInnisianconcentration onthestaple as thingratherthan product)or tacitlyproclaimed theexistence of a one-class society (Creighton-type studies ofthemerchants andpolitical biography). But Watt'sand Pentland's theses remainedunpublishedand were,for the most part, ignoredin the contests between contending factions of the historical establishment in the •95osandearly•96os. WattandPentland, of course, begantobereadandrereadthroughout the late 196os and 197os asnewconcerns emergedamonga youngergroupof historians, whichsawin this refreshinglyidiosyncratic duo its intellectual ancestry. It isthussomething of aneventto haveaccess toa slightly revised version of Pentland's original thesis, 'LabourandtheDevelopment of Industrial Capitalism,' introduced by an informative essay by PaulPhillips. The event, given Pentland's 1978 death, isnotwithout itstragic undertones, forone senses thatPentland wasneversufficiently acknowledged duringhislifetime anditisunfortunate thatthemany recognitions ofhiscontributions, aswellas theappearance ofthisbook, came posthumously. Phillips claims thatPentland, awareof gapsin research andanalytic deficiencies, heldbackhisstudyfrom publication. Thisisundoubtedly true,butsuch astress onpersonal responsibilityobscures acollective experience. Fortheyears whenPentland completed his studywereatimeof rabidattack onalldissidents; theydestroyed manyradicals , pushed others throughthedoorofapostasy, andmusthaveconditioned a cautiousness anddoubting in those, likePentland, whoundertookprojects of radicalrevision in thisclimateof repression. That Pentland requiredfifteen yearsto complete the V•D workleadingto the acceptance of the thesis that wouldbecome, twofull decades later,Labour andCapital in Canada, maywell 228 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW havebeena consequence of the isolation and despondency withinwhicha resilientradicalismsurvivedthe Cold War years.Even if Pentlandnever articulated hisdiscontents, wecannotassume thatthe politicalclimateof the •95osdid not take its toll: suchexperiences often handcuffedintellectual accomplishment inanunconscious way, orwererepressed withinthememofids of thosewholivedthroughthem. Pentland's bookhasendured,however,in spiteof hisownreservations and its long gestation.It hassurvivedbecauseof its interpretiveboldness and synthetic sweep.Like all truly greatworksof historicalanalysis, Labour and Capital in Canada probeda widerangeof sources, marshalled empiricalevidence inaninnovative argument, andprovided ageneralized andtheoretically poised account thatretainsmuchof itsanalyticforceinspiteof anoutpouring of recentbooks andarticles thatexpanduponpointsraised byPentland, prove himwrongin specific particulars, or establish thatcertainevents or developments demanded more research than Pentland could devote to them. It is possible toopenLabour andCapital inCanada toalmost anypageandlocate some pointof disagreement. Recentwork,for instance, hasdemonstrated thatmarketandwagerelations penetrated FrenchCanadaintheyears•76o-•84 omore fullythanPentland suggested, andsurelynohistorian canaccept uncritically the often disturbingvaluejudgments imposedupon 'child-like'FrenchCanadianand Indian labour,or 'anarchical' Irishmenand'tribal'Connaught peasants describedas'the leasttaughtwild men of the west'(55, •o6, •97). My own studyof Kingstonmechanics and their oppositionto the penitentiary pointstooneeventthatPentlandmisdated bymorethana decade-and-a-half, while PaulAppleton'sunpublishedstudyof the insurrectionof labour in •853-5 arguesthat Pentlandhasoverstated theextenttowhichIrish Catholics werelockedintounskilledoccupations 06, •98). It isclearthatPentland too easilypainted the skilledworker into a corner of accommodation, and his depictionof theyears•825-5ø as'aquartercenturyduringwhichskilledworkersseldomfound reasonto strike'is nothingshortof incrediblegiventhe significance of earlyunionismandthe majorstrikesof the •83os(9•, •87). Pentland's conclusion thatthe next generationof labourers,in the post-•85o age of capitalistexpansion,'becameindistinguishable from anyoneelse,' acclimatizing themselves 'totheconformity thatseems tobethepriceofprogress ,' islittlemorethananahistorical repudiationofclass thatneglects some of the crucial momentsof nineteenth-centurylabour history:the nine-hour struggle of •872, thepoliticization of workers,andtheupsurge of theKnights of Laborin the •88os(•99). Part of an explanationfor theseand other flawsliesin gapsin evidence. Broadlyconceived,Pentland's studywasan adventuresome and ambitious attempt to provide an overview,and he misseddetail that historianshave inevitably beenfillingin overthecourse of thelastfifteenyears. Butanother part of someof the problematicinterpretationsin thisstudyisrootedin a REVIEWS 229 conceptual eclecticism. As Phillipsargues,Pentlandwasan iconoclast, and while he borrowedsympathetically from Marxist thought, his humanistic radicalism wasnotMarxistinanyconsistently rigorous way.I, andothers,have beenmistaken indescribing himasaMarxist,perhaps because, unlikesomany ofhisgeneration, heresisted embracing anti-Marxism. Butif Pentland's study revolves around an apparentcommitmentto an essentially structuralist and materialiststress on the labour market asthe criticaldeterminingfactor in Canadianhistoricaldevelopment,his eclecticism allowedhim to lapseinto idealistexplanations of socialphenomenon.This flowedout of a failure to probe, at times,the determinedconstraints imposedby economicrealities whichextendedbeyondthe labourmarket,part of a structuredtotalitythat Pentlandtendsto fracturebyisolating it from colonialrelations,availability of resources, internationaleconomiccontexts,and the nature of politicalrule. Nowhereisthismoreapparentthan in hisfailure to exploremateriallythe contextof...