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 Chinaman running Government House.'

This time there were several comments of disapproval from the other guests to whom Warrender's voice had become increasingly audible. Moreover the Governor General had quite plainly heard the last remark and the Prime Minister saw him beckon an aide. Harvey Warrender's wife, a pale, fragile woman, had moved uncertainly towards her husband and taken his arm. But he ignored her.

Dr Borden Tayne, the Health and Welfare Minister and a former college boxing champion who towered above them all, said in a stage whisper, 'For Christ's sake, knock it off!' He had joined Cawston at Warrender's side.