“Political Memories, Are, I Am Aware, Very Short”: Frank J.D. Barnjum, from Party Loyalist to Expendable, Ephemeral Kingmaker, 1899–1927

The interwar years were tumultuous for the Canadian political economy. This period witnessed the end of the Liberal-Conservative polity, the rise of new parties, and the demise of the “old political economy.” This latter development undermined the central place that many wealthy businesspeople had occupied in Canadian politics, a dynamic that is convincingly illustrated by tracing Frank J.D. Barnjum’s experiences during the first quarter of the twentieth century. Heretofore, historians have focused on his zealous lobby in support of an embargo on exporting pulpwood from Canada and have paid little attention to his deep engagement in Canadian politics from the 1890s through the mid-1920s. For nearly this entire period, Barnjum was an avowed Liberal who steadfastly supported the party. In exchange, it showered him in largesse that allowed him to establish a major forest industry in Nova Scotia, his base of operations. In the wake of the First World War, even though Barnjum launched a highly successful campaign in support of implementing an embargo on exporting pulpwood, his political importance and influence waned considerably. In fact, during the early to mid-1920s, first the Liberals and then the Conservatives exploited Barnjum’s popularity for their own ends and cast him adrift once he had outlived his usefulness. Barnjum’s involvement in Canadian politics thus highlights how he was much more than a forest conservationist, particularly during the immediate wake of the First World War when relations between many leading Canadian businesspersons and the country’s two traditional parties underwent a fundamental realignment.