For a Working-Class Culture in Canada: A Selection of Colin McKay's Writings on Sociology and Political Economy, 1897–1939 ed. by Ian McKay (review)

272 LETTERS IN CANADA 1996 more rigorously. He is said to '[indulge] in art for art's sake quite recklessly ' (making Whistler seem /a bigoted missionary' in comparison). He is also accused of affecting ignorance in scientific matters to the point of contending that 'Marconi is a bookmaker with whom certainpoliticians had shady dealings/and that 'Evolution is a silly and blasphemous attempt to discredit the Garden of Eden,' Though he was consistent to the point of obstinacy on some issues, Shaw's main consistencywas an ever-agile mind. Tyson gives us the multisided Shaw, every facet atwinkle. (KATHLEEN MC DOUGALL) Ian McKay, editor. For a Working-Class Culture in Canada: A Selection of Colin McKay's Writings on Sociology and Political Economy, 1897-1939 Canadian Committee on Labour History. Iii, 616. $29.95 Colin McKay 'must be the only person on the planet who analyzed both "The Artificial Propagation ofFish and Lobsters" and the supposed pitfalls of Kantian dualism,' suggests Ian McKay in this collection of the writings of an important, yet almost forgotten, journalist and labour activist. Yet such catholic interests were common among working-class intellectuals - 'brainworkers,' as the Knights ofLabour called them - ofthe late nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies. Athomein the workplace and the library, the union hall and the boarding house, their field ofvision was wide. From the Shelburne Coast Guard and the Montreal Herald, to Le Monde Ouvrier/Labor World and the One Big Union Bulletin, Colin McKay's legacy of over 900 articles (135 are excerpted here) reflect an extraordinary drive to understand and explain his world and a deep confidence in history, reason, working-class ideals, and the future. Why resurrect Colin McKay? He was a working-class intellectual; an 'autodidact.' IanMcKay notes the air ofsuperiority with which academically trained intellectuals have dismissed this tradition, but there are years of wide reading, sharp debate, and thoughtful reflection in these articles. Working-class intellectuals could return the insults, for, tmlike so many· professional academics, theirs was an engaged discourse. In 1899 his denunciation of sweated and child labour bought McKay a three-month jail term for defamatory libel. Here, and in his articles on the church, on Goldwin Smith, on corporate welfarism, on joint-stock companies and a dozen other topics, we watch Colin McKay strain at the limits ofrus liberal Protestant assumptions as his ideological restraints frayed and progressively broke. By 1907 he was a socialist, but as Ian McKay carefully explains, one who continued to make critical use of the corpus of knowledge he had inherited. HUMANlTIES 273 Hailing from Shelburne, Nova Scotia, Colin McKay's insights are most deeply rooted when he turns his attention to the Maritimes. He carefully explored the uneven capitalist development ofthe region, wroteknowingly about the changing character of the fish~ries, and analysed the contradictory nature of working-class politics in Saint John. The same broad knowledge of politics and political economy was reflected in his Depression-era writings, particularly his measured response to the new questions of fascism, of social credit, and of Keynesianism. Some parts of this collection are far more interesting than others. Giventhe constraints ofhis journalistic medium, there is considerable repetition and some superficiality. Yet Colin McKay and others like him made important contributions to Canadian intellectual history, often a more Significant one than the hegemonic voices we are used to studying. As the title suggests, Colin McKay was most interested in creating a working-class culture within which these ideas and values could gain resonance and the weight of a dominant ideology be lifted. For Ian McKay, the parallels with Antonio Gramsci's struggle to understand and challenge bourgeoishegemony are apparent, althoughColinMcKay's understanding of the task was not easily translated into action. Neither the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation nor the Communist Party attracted him as a congenial base from which to carry out this crucial yet ill-defined project. He was hardly alone in this respect; the inter-war Left was far more diverse than the simple CCF/CP dichotomy suggests. Colin McKay's example demonstrates that important contributions co~ld be made from a position of relative political isolation, even though the frustrations must have been great. Two McKays...