In High Places Read Online Free Page A

one side or the other.
    He decided this was a moment to be blunt. 'Your department has been getting a bad press, Harvey, and I think a good deal of it is your own fault. I want you to take a tighter hold of things and stop letting your officials have so much of their own way. Replace a few if you have to, even the top; we can't fire civil servants but we've plenty of shelves to put them on. And for God's sake keep those controversial immigration cases out of the papers! The one last month, for example - the woman and child.'
    'That woman had been running a brothel in Hong Kong,' Harvey Warrender said. 'And she had VD.'
    'Perhaps that isn't a good example. But there've been plenty of others, and when these sensitive cases come up you make the Government look like some heartless ogre, which harms us all.'
    The Prime Minister had spoken quietly but intensely, his strong eyes riveting the other man.
    'Obviously,' Warrender said, 'my question is answered. Praise is not the order of the day.'
    James Howden said sharply, 'It isn't a question of praise or blame. It's a matter of good political judgement.'
    'And your political judgement has always been better than mine, Jim. Isn't that so?' Warrender's eyes squinted upward. 'Otherwise I might be leader of the party instead of you.'
    Howden made no reply. The liquor in the other man was obviously taking hold. Now Warrender said, 'What my officials are doing is administering the law as it stands. I happen to think they're performing a good job. If you don't like it, why don't we get together and amend the Immigration Act?'
    He had made a mistake, the Prime Minister decided, in choosing this time and place to talk. Seeking to end the conversation, he said, 'We can't do that. There's too much else in our legislative programme.'
    'Balls!'
    It was like a whipcrack in the room. There was a second's silence. Heads turned. The Prime Minister saw the Governor General glance in their direction. Then conversation resumed, but Howden could sense that others were listening.
    'You're afraid of immigration,' Warrender said. 'We're all afraid - the way every other Government has been. That's why we won't admit a few things honestly, even among ourselves.'
    Stuart Cawston, who had finished his conjuring tricks a moment or two earlier, strolled with seeming casualness to join them. 'Harvey,' the Finance Minister said cheerfully, 'you're making an ass of yourself.'
    'Take care of him, Stu,' the Prime Minister said. He could feel his anger growing; if he continued to handle this himself there was a danger he would lose his temper, always volatile, which could only make the situation worse. Moving away, he joined Margaret and another group.
    But he could still hear Warrender, this time addressing Cawston.
    'When it comes to immigration I tell you we Canadians are a bunch of hypocrites. Our immigration policy - the policy that I administer, my friends - has to say one thing and mean another.'
    'Tell me later,' Stuart Cawston said. He was still trying to smile, but barely succeeding.
    'I'll tell you now!' Harvey Warrender had gripped the Finance Minister's arm firmly. 'There are two things this country needs if it's to go on expanding and everybody in this room knows it. One is a good big pool of unemployed for industry to draw on, and the other is a continued Anglo-Saxon majority. But do we ever admit it in public? No!'
    The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration paused, glared around him, then ploughed on. 'Both those things need carefully balanced immigration. We have to let immigrants come in, because when industry expands the manpower should be ready and waiting - not next week, or next month, or next year, but at the moment the factories need it. But open the gates of immigration too wide or too often, or both, and what happens? The population goes-out of balance. And it wouldn't take too many generations of those kind of mistakes before you'd have the House of Commons debating in Italian and a