Union Now?

Would Canadians like to see their country unite with the U.S.? In a poll of 17 prominent persons by Toronto's Financial Post, the answer was a decisive no.

Two men said they thought political union a fine idea, but "not yet." Quebec's free-thinking Senator Telesphore Damien Bouchard believed in "closer and closer relations." John L. McDougall, Queen's University economist, neatly sidestepped: "Weight of isolationist opinion in the United States is [such] that I think the question inopportune. . . ." AILothers replied with a flat negative.

The most thoughtful answer came from Percy J. Philip, who covers Ottawa for the New York Times. Said he: "Union of the same kind as exists in normal times between the nations of the British Commonwealth existed between the Commonwealth and the United States during the war. There was no compact or elaborate treaty between them. They were bound only in loyalty to a common idea of liberty. . . . That union still exists and will have to be maintained. But ... if we try to write it down we will destroy the spirit. . . .

"The national sovereignty and independence of all must remain intact as it did even when men from all the British countries fought under Americans and Americans fought under British and Canadian commanders. It must be a spiritual union; nothing else is possible."

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