Graduation Address

"The Address to the Graduating Class by Right Honorable Lord Beaverbrook" (UA Case 67, Box 1)

The custom here and everywhere is to give advice to graduating students. You needn't take it - but we are compelled to give it. Advice is a passion with us; we can't help it. You have an option to accept that advice; we have an obligation to give it. Old people are spilling over with advice to the new generation. So here we go.

You will become scientists and engineers, economists, doctors, and ministers of the Gospel. Many will take part in politics and some will plan to make money. These will be lawyers.

I say to you study the philosophy of John Calvin. You need not accept his faith in the damnation of unbaptized infants, and you may doubt his belief in "one for heaven and ten for hell" – though I admit he was a brilliant mathematician.

It is John Calvin’s commercial philosophy that I recommend to you. It is the basis of our business structure. It was the foundation of our system of commerce; it was the origin of our form of international trade; and it is all summed up in the shorter catechism – it is forbidden "whatsoever doth or may unjustly hinder our own or our neighbor’s wealth or outward estate". In other words, to do your duty by the community, you must be good doctors, engineers, lawyers, and good money makers too, if you adopt that vocation. Some teachers tell us that it would be a terribly lonely business to know how to do something well, if we are advancing a personal interest. They are the critics of individualism, the exponents of economic planning, and the advocates of the principle of equal misery.

John Calvin gave us a stouter lesson and it was the custom of this good man, John Calvin, to hold a weekly meeting of the just – and all the citizens of his Kingdom of Geneva were looked on as just men. Everybody was summoned to appear before him. The righteous were permitted to point out the faults of each other. The meeting always lasted all day long and well into the night. There never was any absenteeism. Thus Calvin taught his disciples: "Do not fear criticism; stand up for your beliefs".

Now, just like my master, Calvin, I have a few words of counsel to offer too. I would say to you – do not rely too much on experience, yours or mine. Rather trust to the gift of improvisation which is the gift of invention in its most primitive form. It is the art of dealing with the unexpected and snatching some advantage from it. The unexpected often happens. Plans go awry. The planners must not put too much faith in their plans. Many plans are born to be scrapped. The man who relies purely on plans runs into disaster sooner or later. The man who can improvise snatches triumph from catastrophe.

It is in war that we have learned the full value of improvisation, and in war we get lessons that are rude and violent, as more than half the audience know only too well.

Now, war shows us that we must trust to improvisation and also to individualism. Study, I ask you, the life of Churchill in war. Churchill, the individualist, who shows us how to improvise.

It was in 1940 – the Autumn – while invasion still threatened the coast of Britain, that Churchill sent his one and only armored division to the Middle East to defend the Suez Canal, and the Canal was held against Germans, Italians, Bulgarians, Roumanians. That triumph of defence was a great individual decision; that was an act of improvisation of a daring character.

Britain’s struggle against foreign invasion under Churchill is in truth an epic of improvisation and individualism. The defence of England turned upon opportunities seized, on chances taken, on individual decisions and improvised situations. How to meet the virtual certainty of invasion from the French coast? Everything depended upon British domination of the air over England. And domination depended upon a supply of fighter planes. The Battle of Britain – won by scrapping plans and improvising planes. The plans would have lead to certain defeat; the planes gave Britain victory.

There was, of course, a severe shortage of aluminium. Said Churchill, "Wood is plentiful, and furniture makers. Very well. A wooden airplane". Hence the improvisation of the Mosquito – nearly first among war planes.

His journeys abroad all over the Allied world. Five times in war I traveled with Churchill. There was no provision for those expeditions in the book of the rules. The first journey was in 1940 in the month of June. The French Army was beaten and in disorderly retreat. The book of rules won’t help now. Important members of the French Cabinet had gathered at Tours. They were debating a plan for an armistice. Churchill was warned of pending disaster by his own ambassador. Instantly, he decided to make an appearance at the French Cabinet. He left for Tours at once and arrived there in the morning. The airfield had been heavily bombed. There was difficulty in making a landing, particularly as he was escorted by sixteen fighter aircraft to protect him against enemy airplanes. After landing, he was confronted by blocked roads filled with refugees. Progress in the direction of Tours was almost impossible, but expedients brought us at last to a restaurant. The cupboard was bare. The refugees had eaten up everything, and not a morsel of food was to be found. Churchill insisted on having something to eat before he went to the French Cabinet meeting. An officer provided a few scraps – not much.

When he reached the Mayoralty, Mandel was in the room of the Mayor and he was talking on telephones and picking chicken bones. Renaud, the Prime Minister, did not appear for some time. When he did come, Churchill was seated opposite him in an armchair, gripping the arms and speaking with such passion as to move all those who heard him to the deepest emotion. What did Churchill ask? That the French fleet should be safe and free; that the French Cabinet should be set up on French colonial soil in Africa.

One Under Minister who was present in that room did not sit at table with those of Cabinet rank. He stood by the door as if he were an interloper. Tall, gloomy, determined, and undaunted in disaster, that Under Minister was General De Gaulle.

It was a story of individualism that Churchill unfolded when he went to Tours in that day of June, 1940!

Newfoundland in the month of August, 1941. A meeting with the President of the United States – the first meeting between these two leaders of men. The United States was not at war in August, 1941. Churchill improvised to some purpose on that occasion. He prepared the draft of the Atlantic Charter, and the President of the United States accepted the Churchill text. It was for Churchill "a day’s march nearer home".

By December 1941 – Churchill wanted more "tools to finish the job". – Did he wait upon the organization? Did he trust to the machine? Not at all! Churchill, the individualist, set out for Washington in search of weapons for British soldiers and ships for British sailors. That first war trip to America was the maiden journey of the warship "Duke of York". She was really a submarine masquerading as a battleship and running practically all the way under the sea. She had plenty of guns but her gunners had not been trained. Her crew was new – many of them had not been to sea before. The escort of British destroyers could not keep up with us on account of bad weather. We left that escort in our wake when we were hardly out of sight of the shores of England. We sailed down the French coast within easy reach of any German airplanes, for at that time France was occupied. If we had been spotted, the battle would have been an unequal one – no destroyers, no aircraft carriers, just a lonely battleship. But in the fact of all danger, Churchill’s holiday spirit prevailed.

The return journey by airplane. Mr. Churchill flew to Bermuda where he arrived at noon. He had just endured three exhausting weeks of vital economic and strategic discussions with the President and his advisers. He had spoken to the combined session of the American Congress and to the Canadian Parliament. He had never rested. He left Bermuda the next morning on an arduous and dangerous flight direct from Bermuda to Britain. The airplane had a ceiling of only 6,000 feet; 25,000 feet would have been more suitable. Icing conditions certainly would prevail – and certainly did prevail. Never before had such a type of airplane flown so long a distance. He was accompanied by the Chief of the Navy, the Chief of the Army, and the Chief of the Airforce, and me.

There were other journeys too. They formed no part of the system of war organization, which I often thought was growing bigger than the war. Over organization, which takes the punch out of war.

But in peace, as in war, do not read too long the way which paralyzes individualism or the power to act will be atrophied. Minds will be hedged about with fears and indecisions. The art of dealing with the unexpected is lost when a man is waiting on a machine, an organization, or a committee. And the lamps of passion and conviction burn low when we do not seek by every instrument of persuasion or education to maintain the individual’s judgment and conscience. There is not substitute for the individual.

Now, some advice to the students who have been selected for overseas scholarships. You will see something of the weather that made the British Empire, for of course it was the British summer that drove the Scots to Canada, the Irish to Australia, and English to New Zealand. Only the Welsh were left and they went into politics.

As the years passed by, some of the hardier spirits from the Empire began to drift back to the Mother Country. I, myself, went over there thirty-seven years ago. It was a fine summer. I was completely deceived. I stayed on. But every time I see rain in June, I plan to go back to the Empire – to Jamaica, or even to Fiji – perhaps to New Brunswick.

And now it is the turn of the overseas students to go and have a look at England. Some of them may be tempted to stay – I hope so. For the Empire people living in Great Britain are a small minority. We need all the support that we can get. Not that we are oppressed. The British people are very tolerant. They put up with a good deal from us, but they don’t pay much attention to what we say.

For instance, I have been trying to tell the British public about the Empire. They were kind about it and quite polite. Nobody ever said, that is in public, "Well, why don’t you go back to the Empire?" Although I have the impression that it was occasionally said behind closed doors.

I tried this Empire society on the Conservatives. Sometimes they thought it would lose the election, and sometimes they thought it would win the election. They blew hot, and they blew very cold, but always when it came to action, they ran away from the Empire Policy. I tried it on the Labor Party, but that was no good at all. I even tried it on the Liberals, but in Great Britain, the Liberals at present are in the shadows. And finally, when the parties were united in the one grand ragbag of a government, I put the Empire Policy to all of them and at that moment the Government broke into pieces. Not one of the pieces adopted the Policy, but when the "Tories" – that’s what the Conservatives are called over in England – lost the election, some of them turned around and blamed it on me, and my Empire propaganda.

But there it is – the British have not been too harsh with us from over the seas. They put me in the House of Lords where I have no power. So, if any of you decide to stay there, you know what to expect. At the very worst, it will be the House of Lords.

To those of you who have not had overseas service during the war. If you are to know Britain, then you must know the life of Britain in 1940. The blackout. The trenches in the public parks and squares. The sandbags piled up for the protection of the doors of public buildings. The ghostly scene in the moonlit streets. A London that had never been known before, and which we hope will never be known again. The drone of engines as enemy planes passed over the city spying out the targets in preparation for the raids to come – flights undertaken with the deliberate purpose of making an onslaught on the nerves and endurance of the British people.

The long cloudless days of one of the finest summers England has ever known. The short nights that brought relief to those having tempermental dispositions towards the war. And as summer bloomed – the crash. The defences of Europe in ruins. The British Army on the beaches of Dunkirk. Britain almost defenceless. When suddenly with a wave of spirit comparable only to a tidal bore, the British people rose up in their determination. They would not yield. They would make no terms with the enemy. The fight would be carried on even to the final destruction of the race.

Then the factory wheels began to turn – to turn with a speed and direction that spoke well for the reconstruction of the defences which none doubted in those months of June and July, 1940, must soon be put to shattering and conclusive test.

Gone were all thoughts of a 40 hour week – of a 50 hour week even. For weeks on end, some men and many women worked 70 hours in their grim determination that the country should be provided with the weapons without which Britain must assuredly perish.

It was to America that we turned in that hour of peril, and we found a people willing to receive us, ready to help us, all of them filled with hope, some of them with high confidence too. We placed our orders.

At the same time, let it be said that the orders placed in the States for aircraft, for engines, for guns, for ammunition, far exceeded the cash resources of Britain. The barrel was emptied and even the bottom was scraped. Out of all this expenditure of British gold, of British dollars, of American securities owned by Britain, out of the liquidation of vast British enterprises situated in the United States, Britain not only supplemented her own aircraft production in the most effective manner, but also laid the foundations, set up the machinery, provided the trained personnel and established the system on which the American Airforce was expanded and equipped for the battlefront when the United States was challenged by Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Thus it was that the resources of Britain were dissipated; thus a wealthy nation with a mighty exchequer and vast credit was stripped in a matter of a few months of much of its wealth.

I remember the occasion when the Chancellor of the Exchequer told Mr. Churchill and his colleagues that the vast resources of Britain were exhausted, the bank balances dissipated. No more money available for the payment of current accounts. That was the position of Britain in the early months of 1941.

Meanwhile, a merciless onslaught was taking terrible toll of the productions facilities up and down the country. Coventry, nerve centre of the aircraft industry, was bombed and production damaged. Essential aircraft engines were delayed in delivery, machine tools wrecked, and the rhythm of production interfered with to a distressing extent.

Southampton was attacked, the home of the Spitfires. Weybridge, where the Wellington bombers were built. One after another – a long list and every night a growing list. Then it was that men and women, too, worked through the night, worked through the day, and yet another night so that production might begin again. There was little opportunity for them to grieve over the dead. There was not much chance for the restoration of conditions in their homes where the windows had been blasted, the water supply cut off, and the sewage destroyed.

It was at this time that the Canadian Armies guarded the shores of Britain. But it is not of Canada that I would speak. Let others tell of the achievements, of the valiant deeds of the Dominion. For in birth, in upbringing, in education, in tradition, I am a Canadian, and it is as a Canadian that I now speak of the British people – that brave people – always foremost in the fight, ready to give the best that was in them.

Of the British effort in war, undertaken, let it be said, against my advice, for the protection of freedom, for the liberty of enslaved peoples, for the rescue of Jews imprisoned in ghettos, for the relief of Republicans and Democrats oppressed by Dictators – a war entered into by the British people so that freedom and liberty and justice might live there and here and in all the world.

This race who sacrificed manpower, comfort, wealth, and risked freedom and liberty, thus giving an example to humanity, have become the subject of criticism and abuse leveled at them by certain sections of opinion.

Two attacks in particular on the British people are constantly repeated in narrow and prejudiced circles in foreign countries. It is pretended that Britain is the oppressor of countless populations of black people and brown people. For that reason above any other, some foreigners condemn what they call British Imperialism. What are the facts?

The British have conferred upon the colored populations of the Empire the supreme benefit of the rule of Justice. The black men in Africa, the brown men in Malaya, all know that British justice is undefiled. And of all the principles of human liberty, the first principle must always be the certainty of justice. Where else can you find justice for black men? Where else can you depend upon law and order in human relations where race and color are an issue?

What is the second attack, which some unjust persons make upon the British? It relates of course to the Jews. Harsh, bitter, and false things are said even in the United States about British actions in Palestine. Faced by the violent activities of Jewish terrorists who learned too well the technique of their German oppressors, the British people have been forced to take stern measures. And on this account, shrill voices cry out that the British are tyrants who make war on all Jewry. What nonsense!

It is forgotten that it was Hitler and the Germans who attacked the Jews in Europe, who sacked the Ghettos and destroyed countless Jewish citizens in every country they invaded?

Is it forgotten that it was the British and the British Empire who first took up arms in defence of the Jews?

Is it forgotten that in those days The United States recognized to the furthest extent the struggle of the British Empire to resist persecution and to establish security and to sustain freedom?

Let it be remembered by those who mingle dispraise of Britain’s war effort with harsh criticism of her present policies that but for Britain’s stand in 1940, the Jewish populations of London, Leeds, and Manchester would have suffered the same fate as the wretched inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Maybe it is natural that some persons in the States should be critical of the British Empire. Certainly the vast majority of the citizens of the American Republic think differently and act differently, for they are a kindly and generous people.

But you are Canadians. You have borne a share, a full and more than a full part in the struggle of the Empire. It is right that you should ponder on the truth and that you should make it known.

As a Canadian, you have had bestowed upon you all the benefits and advantages of the atmosphere of optimism in which Canadians are brought up. You have before you the certainty of equal opportunity. No class prejudices bar your way.

But all these educational opportunities impose upon you a duty, and it is this: You should join in the leadership of the Empire to which you belong – a leadership which will insure for Britain and the British people the opportunity for reconstruction. It is the same measure of justice and the same opportunity which Britain conferred on our own country of Canada over the last century.