Westward with the Prince of WalesNewton, W. Douglas (Wilfrid Douglas)
History
Westward with the Prince of Wales
Newton, W. Douglas (Wilfrid Douglas)
Canada -- Description and travel; Windsor, Edward, Duke of, 1894-1972
It was the day when the whole of Labour in Canada--and indeed in
America--gave itself over to demonstrations. Labour held street
parades, field sports, and, I daresay, made speeches. It was the day
of days for the workers.
There were some who thought that the program of Labour would clash with
the program of the Prince. That, to put it at its mildest, Labour on a
holiday would ignore the Royal ceremonials and emasculate them as
functions. The men who put forward these opinions were Canadians, but
they did not know Canada. It was Labour Day, and Labour made the day
for the Prince.
When the Prince had learnt that it was the People's day, and that there
was to be a big sports meeting and gala in one of the Ottawa parks, he
had specially added another item to his full list of events, and made
it known that he would visit the park.
Labour promptly returned the courtesy, and of its own free will turned
its parade into a guard of honour, which lined the fine Rideau and
Wellington streets for his progress between Government House and
Parliament Square.
As far as I could gather Labour decided upon and carried this out
without consulting anybody. Streets were taken over without any
warning, and certainly without any fuss. There seemed to be few police
about, and there was no need for them. Labour took command of the show
in the interest of its friend the Prince, and would not permit the
slightest disorderliness.
It was a remarkable sight. Early in the morning the Labour Parade
appeared along Rideau Street, mounting the hill to the Parliament
House. The processionists, each group in the costume of its calling,
walked in long, thin files on each side of the road, the line broken at
intervals by the trade floats. Floats are an essential part of every
American parade; they are what British people call "set-pieces,"
tableaux built up on wagons or on automobiles; all of them are
ingenious and most of them are beautiful.
These floats represented the various trades, a boiler-maker's shop in
full (and noisy) action; a stone-worker's bench in operation; the
framework of a wooden house on an auto, to show Ottawa what its
carpenters and joiners could do, and so on. With these marched the
workers, distinctively clothed, as though the old guilds had never
ceased.
When the head of the procession reached the entrance of Parliament
Square it halted, and the line, turning left and right, walked towards
the curb, pressing back the thousands of sightseers to the pavement in
a most effective manner. They lined and kept the route in this fashion
until the Prince had passed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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