The growth of industrial capitalism provoked radical responses among the emerging working class. Wherever workers were sufficiently concentrated, branches of the Socialist Party of Canada were established; by 1909 the Maritimes had sixteen branches. Socialists in the Maritimes, as elsewhere, however, seldom could find common strategies in their attack on capitalism and the existing state of affairs.
Like their counterparts in other areas of Canada, Maritime socialists tended to be "social gospellers" or labour activists. The former were often disaffected clergymen or educators convinced that the Christian balance of society was being horribly distorted by industrialization. Angered by the apparent inflexibility of capitalists and governments, they committed themselves to social revolution. New Brunswickers H.H. Stuart and Roscoe Filmore were typical of this band of dedicated idealists who sought to "break the galling chains of wage servitude" to set the workers free. Labour leaders disseminated socialist ideas as well, but they also had to deal with workers' day to day problems within the existing system. United Mine Workers of America activist James B. McLachlan was the most articulate of this group espousing the inevitability of the socialist revolution. A political failure, except where it joined hands with labour to form a strong coalition, the socialist movement was largely a spent force by the end of the 1920s.
Courtesy: Harriet Irving Library, University of New Brunswick (MG H25 H.H. Stuart Collection)
