One hundred and forty years later all most of us remember of the original version of our constitution is these few words: "peace, order and good government." They were plucked from the obscure preamble of a section of the British North America Act dealing with the minutiae of the division of powers between Ottawa and the provinces. The reason they have stuck with us is that, as a nation, we obviously needed something to inspire us. After all, Canada's official motto, the one that's inscribed on our coat of arms, "A mari usque ad mare," from sea to sea, just tells us that we are mostly surrounded by salt water, not what we are all about.

It's hard, though, to imagine "peace, order and good government" as a cry its defenders would have on their lips as they defied death, storming barricades. It doesn't have a patch in that department on the French revolutionary cry of "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité," liberty, equality, brotherhood. Or, for that matter, on the American notion of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," to say nothing of the blood-curdling slogans of some Latin American countries such as Uruguay's "Libertad o Muerte," liberty or death, or Cuba's "Patria o Muerte," homeland or death.

But if you take a closer look you realize there is something out of whack here. Both Uruguay and Cuba have had a history of their "libertad" being severely curtailed under dictatorships both of the left and the right.

As for the French cry for liberty etc., it, too, has had a checkered history. Its most prominent advocate during the French Revolution was Robespierre, who put the lie to it by becoming the father of the Reign of Terror. (If it's any consolation to lovers of freedom, he had his head chopped off for his pains.)

In any case, Napoleon quickly knocked any nonsense of democratic freedom out of his subjects' heads. It wasn't until the middle of the 20^th century that the old revolutionary slogan was resuscitated and enshrined in the French constitution. After that, it suffered the indignity of being so ubiquitous that it even appeared on packages of cigarettes. The greatest setback, though, came last year with the riots by Muslim youths in France's suburbs protesting the lack of equality, to say nothing of brotherhood. "Liberté" the French may still have, but "Egalité et Fraternité" have been exposed as a myth.

Other mottos are a downright fraud. Zimbabwe's — "Unity, Freedom, Work" — is the best example. Under Robert Mugabe's gangster regime, the country has lost any semblance of unity and freedom. As for work, the jobless rate has hit 80 per cent.

Still, slogans can play an important role in setting goals and exhorting nations, especially newly emerging ones, to achieve them. The most fitting and concise one is Botswana's. It is one word: "Pula," which in Tswana, the local language, means rain. That says it all because most of the African country is desert, and no rain would quickly mean no Botswana.

As useful as such slogans are they must adapt to changes in the country's condition and status. The Soviet Union's "Workers of the World, Unite," a delusion at the best of times, obviously does not fit contemporary Russia at all. Just as clearly, Russians cannot go back to the pre-communist battle cry of "Za Veru, Tsara i Otechestvo," for faith, the czar and the fatherland. Wisely, they have decided just to skip it until they figure out what the new Russia is really all about.

Americans, too, have been fiddling with their slogans. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is not really their national motto. It's taken from the wish list of good intentions in the Declaration of Independence rather than from the constitution. The official motto in the early days of the republic was "E Pluribus Unum," from many, one. But as the country veered from its Enlightenment roots of separation of state and church toward religiosity, "E Pluribus Unum" was supplanted by "In God We Trust."

In Canada, we have done well by "peace, order and good government." It's a goal that challenges us still. "From Sea to Sea," though, does need changing; particularly now that global warming is melting the Arctic ice cap, threatening to bring us more sea water than we may care for.

I have a suggestion for a replacement. It's cribbed from the motto of Aruba in the Caribbean Sea: "One Happy Island." "Happy" may not quite suit us; we grumble and fuss too much about how the country is run. But there is a solution. It comes in the language of mottos, Latin. It's the word "felix," which means lucky, fortunate and happy. Canada has certainly been fortunate. If we can ever get that call for "peace, order and good government" right to our satisfaction, we could even be the happiest of nations.

So for March 29, the 140^th birthday of our constitutional catch-phrase, I propose a toast to "Felix Canada."

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LETTERS:

There can be no doubt that our national motto should be this: "keep you stick on the ice". It works on so many levels. Good to again read some of your thoughts, Joe.

—Colin McAuley | Amherstview, Ont.

Although I am no historian and have great respect for Joe Schlesinger, it occured to me that the Canadian motto from "sea to sea" may have absolutely nothing to do with the sea or salt water, per Joe's tongue-in-cheek remark in his article, "Peace, order and good national slogans".

I thought it came from Psalm 72:8: "He shall have dominion also from sea to sea"; an attempt perhaps to ask for God's rule and blessing on Canadians through what Christians regard as a messianic passage.

—Alex Fryer | Pickering, Ont.

What a pleasure to read something by you again; a rare treat to be sure.

Nonetheless, surely that would be not "Felix Canada" but "Canada Felix" - cf "Arabia Felix" of Roman times, indicating that in those days the area was not the blood-stained battleground the rest of the world took to be the normal condition of mankind.

Linguistic shifts have, I suspect, rather trivialised the Yanks "pursuit of happiness", but insofar as I can tell, the 18th century of happiness is not ice cream every day, but rather peace (which pre-supposes order) and prosperity (which pre-supposes, if not "good", at least effective administration).

At this point you could do a lot worse than "Live long and prosper"

—Brian Allardice | Shenzhen

Thanks Joe. It's always a pleasure to come across a thoughtful and constructive column, that is to say one that is NOT wordy carping or self-pitying irony. Felix to you too.

—Tom Masters | Chemainus, B.C.