During the First World War, while Canadian soldiers overseas were
fighting valiantly for their country, the men and women at home,
who furnished them with machines, vehicles, clothing and food, were
doing the same. These workers expected their sacrifice to bring about
a better world — not just overseas but in Canada as well, and
they were desperately disappointed when the situation at home
remained unchanged. Their frustration found expression in a series
of strikes held across the country between 1917 and 1920.
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"If this European war does not dislocate the spine of
capitalism ... it will certainly give it a jolt. It is
beyond reason that ... men ... will return to civil life
without first having many of their previous ideas knocked
out of them by ... the war. It is inconceivable that they
should return to their previous walks of life and find
conditions ... far worse than before the war, and expect them
to tamely submit to those harsher circumstances of life."
B.C. Federationist, March 13, 1917
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Motor buses/railway
strike 1917 |
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Save and
Serve
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| "God did not
work wonders to feed and clothe a few worthless
parasites with the riches of an empire, to fill up their cups out
of the tears of orphans and widows, or of mothers robbed of their
sons. God did not intend that so universal a blessing big enough
for us all should be directed underground in to the obscure,
narrow channel of a few private purses, leaving so many loyal,
suffering people to sigh and mourn over this destitute condition
in the day of public joy."
Labor News, 6 December 1918
(Excerpts from: "The English Canadian Labour Press
and the Great War," Vincent Rendell Porter (M.A. thesis, Memorial
University, 1981)).
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