England, Canada and the Great War Part 13

War is productive of untold material losses. As a general rule, it cannot make the nations of the world richer. Many successive generations have for a long time to bear the crus.h.i.+ng burden which they inherit from guilty ambitious Rulers as the only result of their thirst of vain glory. Materially, a nation may profit by an unjust war, resulting in the defeat of a weaker rival, but the riches thus acquired by the one, either by territorial acquisitions, or by the payment to her of war contributions and indemnities, or both, from the other, are merely transferred from the vanquished to the victor. The great society of nations, instead of gaining anything by it, is only losing, as a whole, the total amount of the financial cost of the military operations, of the squandering of hard earned savings, of diminished labour and production, of the waste of productive capital, of the loss of so many long days which could have been so much better employed. But most deplorable is the loss entailed by the warring nations, and the universe at large, by the sacrifice of the younger generations, of early youth and of strongly developed manhood, for the success of tyrannical and criminal purposes.

There can be but one justification--and it is a n.o.ble, a glorious one--of the sacrifice of so many valuable lives and so much material wealth: the sacredness, the sanct.i.ty of the cause for which a nation, or a group of peoples, take up arms against an enemy, or enemies, only intent on crus.h.i.+ng weaker rival, or rivals, by all the illegitimate means at his, or their command, for self-aggrandizement, for unjust domination. Such is the present war: sacred and just on the Allied side; abominable, brutal, barbarous on the German side, enhanced in its guilt by the ferocious Turks and the shameful submission of the enslaved Austrians to the overpowering will of their teutonic masters. It will not have cost too much if it has the result of freeing Mankind from the horrors of German militarism, a.s.suring to the world a long reign of justice and moral grandeur.

England can rightly claim a very large part of the merit accruing to all those who have contributed to the immense material progress of the world during the last century. She has actively and most intelligently worked for it by her vigorous industrial and commercial development, by the very numerous billions of dollars she has contributed, all over the world, to railway building and oceanic navigation. She has contributed to it by her extraordinary amount of savings which allowed her to supply the capital required for so many varied enterprises over all the continents. She has played the very important part of universal banker, distributing her immense treasures to foster production of all kinds everywhere. She has most largely contributed to the economic phenomenon of the gradual diminution of the universal rate of interest.

If, according to Mr. Boura.s.sa's strange notion, all this is to be considered as equivalent to economical domination, the more the whole world will enjoy it the better, more prosperous it will be, and future generations will have so much more cause for rejoicing at its increased development, and to be grateful to England for it.

The witnesses who, for the last sixty years, have lived with their eyes opened, preferring the full s.h.i.+ning light of the bright days of universal economical development to the darkness obscuring fanatical minds only intent on stirring up local, sectional and national prejudices, and miserable petty ambitions, have rejoiced at the greatly varied advantages Humanity has derived from the gifts of Providence favouring her with the great scientific discoveries which have worked, are still, and will for all times, work wonders for her material prosperity. The regular tendency of those natural forces recently applied to production is an increased movement towards the unification of the industrial, commercial and financial interests of the world. The vital energies of all peoples have more or less been stimulated by the same causes, operating everywhere, reaching until lately unknown and undeveloped regions. Engineering genius, broadened by the new scientific resources at its command, has triumphed over all difficulties. The gigantic locomotive, drawing palatial pa.s.senger coaches, and sometimes as much as a hundred heavily loaded freight cars, run by thousands and thousands daily through luxurious prairies. They cross giant rivers, ascend with alertness the highest mountains, or rush through tunnels which the skill and hard work of man has pierced through them, backed by the financial power of millions of money. Automobilism covers the whole universe, multiplying intercourse and human relations, and making possible, in a few days of marvellous organization, a glorious military victory like that almost miraculously carried at the Marne.

Giant steamers, of fifty to sixty thousand tons--of a hundred thousand in the near future--ply, day and night, over the high seas. In mid-ocean they scatter human thoughts through the air to very distant points. They carry within their large skulls immense quant.i.ties of the most varied products.

Means of transportation have become so numerous, so improved, so rapid, that the surplus agricultural production of the most fertile regions do reach, in a few short days, the countries which, on account of their numerous industrial and commercial population, have to import a large quant.i.ty of food products. The equilibrium between production and consumption becomes yearly more easily obtainable. Famine by the inequality of agricultural production is very much less to be apprehended. Millions of human beings are no longer, as. .h.i.therto, threatened to die by starvation at the same time that more favoured regions had a surplus of food products which they could not use, sell, or export.

Without a most powerful capitalization of savings--totaling, in some cases, billions of dollars--without the marvellous development of the great transportation industry by land and sea, could the Canadian and American western grain crops be delivered, within a few days' time, with an astonis.h.i.+ng rapidity and at very small cost, on all the markets where they are absolutely required for daily consumption.

Every country on earth is multiplying her efforts to develop her manufacturing interests by an active and intelligent use of the raw materials with which her territory has been favoured by Nature.

To this intense economical development of the world, all the peoples are contributing their shares in various proportions, of course:--In Europe, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Austria, Italy, Belgium, &c.; in the two Americas, the United States, Canada--Canada with the sure prospects of such a grand future--the Argentine Republic, Brazil, &c.; in Asia, j.a.pan, China, and the so very large Asiatic regions of Russia; in Africa, the British colonies, Egypt, Algeria, &c.; and Australia, so recently opened to the glories of Christian Civilization, blooming in the Pacific ocean was.h.i.+ng her sh.o.r.es, fertilizing her lands nearer to its refres.h.i.+ng breeze.

Who does not see that all this development tends naturally to the economical unity of the world. If Humanity is ever effectively delivered from the dangers of wars like the one actually desolating her so cruelly, she will have to be grateful for this great boon to the unification, on a larger scale, of the general interests of all the nations requiring permanent peace for their regular and harmonious growth.

To the wonderful material prosperity achieved as above explained, England has contributed her legitimate share, without trying to dominate economically the universe which derived all the great advantages which her business genius has so largely developed.

It must not be supposed that I lose sight of the inconveniences which material prosperity may entail. One of them is the tendency to bend the national aspirations to materialism. This can be counteracted by the national will to apply material development to the more important intellectual, moral and religious progress of the people at large.

Any nation aspiring to dominate the world by brute force or by the power of wealth, would be guilty of attempting an achievement just as vain as it would be criminal in its conception.

Any nation is within her undoubted right and duty in aspiring to the legitimate influence of her material progress, of her intellectual culture, of her moral development, of her religious increased perfection. Happy indeed would be the future of Humanity if all the Nations and their Rulers understood well, and did their best efforts to practice Christian precepts in the true spirit of their Divine teaching.

CHAPTER XVIII.

IMPERIALISM.

Mr. Boura.s.sa is apparently so frightened by what he calls _Imperialism_ that the horrible phantom being always present to his imagination, he shudders at it in day time, and wildly dreams of it at night. Judging by what he has said and written, he seems to have worried a great deal, for many years past, about the dire misfortunes which, he believed, were more and more threatening the future of the world by the strong movement of imperialist views he detected everywhere. It is the great hobby which saddens his life, the terrible bugbear with which he is ever trying to arouse the feelings of his French Canadian countrymen against England.

The deceased British statesman, called Joseph Chamberlain, by his efforts to promote the unity of the Empire, inspired Mr. Boura.s.sa with a profound fear which he wanted his compatriots to share by all the means at his command:--public speeches, newspaper editorials, pamphlets. He charged him with the responsibility of the _infamous crime_ he brought England to commit in accepting the challenge of President Kruger and the then South African Republic, and fighting for the defence of her Sovereign rights in South Africa. According to the Nationalist leader, a vigorous impulse was given by the South African war to the political evolution which he termed _British Imperialism_. Nothing was further from the true meaning of this important event.

In refuting Mr. Boura.s.sa's a.s.sertion, I showed that the South African war was not the outgrowth of Imperialist ideas, and that it has in no way resulted in a dangerous advance of the kind of Imperialism which so much frightens him and all those who experience his baneful influence.

As I have previously proved, the South African campaign was imposed upon England by the then aspiration of a section only of Boer opinion, led by the unscrupulous and haughty President Kruger, imprudently relying on the support of the German Kaiser who had hastened to congratulate him for his success in the Jameson Raid. It resulted not in favor of Imperialism of the type so violently denounced by Mr. Boura.s.sa, but in a most beneficent expansion of Political Freedom by the granting of the free British inst.i.tutions to the new great South African overseas Dominion. It is only the other day that ex-Premier Asquith, on the occasion of a great public function, has declared that Premier Botha, the former most prominent Boer General, was now one of the strongest pillars of the British Empire.

It being so important to set the opinion of the French Canadians right respecting that question of Imperialism, so much discussed of late, and by many with so little political sense and historical knowledge, I would not rest satisfied with a refutation of the special Boura.s.sist appreciation of the causes and results of the South African conflict. I summarized, in a condensed review, the divers phases of the political movement which can properly be called _Imperialism_, tracing its origin as far back as the organization of the first great political Powers known to History: the Persian, the Egyptian, the Greek Empires, &c. More than ever before, Imperialism was triumphant during the long Roman domination of almost all the then known world. Every student of History is impressed by the grandeur of the part played by the Roman Empire in the world's drama. Constantine struck the first blow at Roman Imperialism--unwillingly we can rest a.s.sured--in laying the foundations of Constantinople, and dividing the Roman Empire into the Western and Eastern Empires. At last, after repeated invasions, the Northern barbarians succeeded in smas.h.i.+ng the Roman Colossus.

After many long years during which European political society pa.s.sed through the incessant turmoil of rival ambitions, Charlemagne sets up anew the Western Empire, being coronated Emperor in Rome. Ever since, amidst multiplied ups and downs, Imperialism has swayed to and fro by the successive edification and overthrow of the Holy Roman Empire, the short lived Napoleonic European domination, the recently organized North German Empire.

So far as Imperialism is concerned, all those great historical facts considered, how best can it be defined? Is it not evident that from the very birth of political societies for the government of Mankind, a double current of political thoughts and aspirations has been concurrently at work, with alternate successes and retrocessions: one tending towards large political organizations, uniting a variety of ethnical groups; the other operating the reverse way to bring about their dissolution in favour of multiplied small sovereignties. Each of the two opposing political systems has had its ebb and flow tides; the waves of the one, in their flowing days, was.h.i.+ng the sh.o.r.es of the other until they had to recede before the pressure caused by the exhaustion of their own strength and the increased resistance of internal opposition.

Viewed from this elevated standpoint, Imperialism is not new under the sun. It is as ancient as the world itself. Mr. Boura.s.sa has been uselessly spending his energy in breaking his head against a movement which is in the very nature of things, developing the same way under the same favourable conditions and circ.u.mstances.

Are the days we live so fraught with the dangers of Imperialism as to justify the fears of the alarmist? The answer would be in the affirmative, the question being considered from the point of view of Germany's autocratic Imperialism, if the free nations of the world had not joined in a holy union to put an end to its extravagant and tyrannical ambition. But how is it that Mr. Boura.s.sa, the heaven-born anti-imperialist, so frightened at the supposed progress of British Imperialism, is so lenient towards Teutonic Imperialism? How is it that from the very first days of the gigantic struggle calling for the most heroic efforts of the human race to emerge safe and free from the furious waves powerfully set in motion by the most daring absolutism that ever existed, he has not thought proper to chastise as it deserved the worst kind of Imperialism that he could, or any one else, imagine?

Taking for granted that the present economical conditions of the universe, likely to intensify, are working for great political organisations, from the causes previously explained, any intelligent observer could not fail to see that for the last century four great imperialist evolutions have been concurrently--or rather simultaneously--developing themselves; they were the British, the Teutonic, the Russian, the Republican in the United States. Let no one be astonished at seeing the two words _Imperialism_ and _Republicanism_ coupled together. In their true sense, they are easily conciliated.

The Roman Republic, by the grandeur of its part, was Imperialist as much as the Empire to which she gave birth. Caesar, without the imperial crown was Emperor as much as August. He was more so by his genius, and by the eminent position he had acquired by one of the most brilliant careers in History.

Bonaparte, General and First Consul, in the closing days of the first French Republic, was Emperor as much as he became on the day of his Coronation, at Paris, by the Sovereign Pontiff.

Imperialism being a great historical fact through all the ages, and most certainly destined to further developments, is it to be judged favourably or alarmingly?

No doubt the problem is of the greatest possible political importance.

The question can, I consider, be at the outset simplified as follows:--Would the prosperity, the freedom, the happiness of the world be better served by great political Powers, or by the multiplication of small sovereignties? It is just as well, and even better, to admit at once that a unique, a dogmatic, answer cannot be given to that question.

Independent nations, sovereign societies, are not created at will by men, merely according to their fancy, to their variable and very often undefined wishes. History teaches that they are the outgrowth of various circ.u.mstances, of many divergent causes,--the most important, the one inscrutable, being always the action of Divine Providence directing the destinies of peoples as well as those of every human being. Different causes produce, of course, different results. Large and small political communities can surely be productive of much good for their populations. Much depends upon the intelligence, the wisdom, the devotion, the patriotism of the rulers and the governed. They can also do much harm. Unfortunately, the readers of past events have too much reason to deplore that both large and small political organizations have been equally guilty of maladministration, of ambitious cupidity of their neighbours' possessions, of unjust wars. As an uncontrovertible example, can I not point to the present German Empire, whose origin dates back to the days of the very small Prussia of two centuries ago, fighting her way up to her actual greatness by successive, unfair, and often criminal aggressions.

After reading much of the history of past ages, I have not been able to come to the conclusion--and the more I read, the less inclined I am to do so--that the days when England, France, Central Europe, Italy, &c., were subdivided into numerous small political organizations, almost always warring, were preferable to ours, even darkened and saddened as they are by the present trials and sufferings.

If, on the other hand, the causes which at all times have tended to the creation of large political sovereignties are gradually acquiring an increased momentum of strength and activity, from the changed conditions brought about by the great scientific discoveries so wonderfully developing the commercial relations of the nations, is it not more advisable to study the true nature of the evolution and the good it can produce, rather than to s.h.i.+ver at the supposed prospects of an Imperialist cataclysm so certainly to be averted if public opinion is sound and Rulers wise. Crying on the sh.o.r.es of the St. Lawrence, against the advance of the rolling waves, would not prevent the tide from running up. The mad man who would try it, and persist in remaining on the spot, displaying his indignant and extravagant protest, would surely be submerged and drowned.

Political developments, like many others, obey natural laws which no true statesman can ignore nor overlook. Because the limits of a political organization are extended, does it necessarily follow that only deplorable consequences can be expected from their enlargement?

Surely not. One might as well pretend that unity, cohesion, strength, grandeur, are only productive of baneful results. Is it not a certainty that they can be equally beneficial or harmful, according to the intellectual and moral qualities of those who are called upon to apply them to the best interests of those they govern.

German Imperialism, for instance, was not _per se_ a public misfortune.

It became such because instead of using its instrumentality for the general good of the world as well as that of Germany, it was applied to a barbarous and criminal purpose to satisfy unjust and senseless aspirations.

In the same years, all the resources of British Imperialism,--so abhorrent to Mr. Boura.s.sa and his Nationalist adepts who view with such meekness the Teutonic type--have been brought into play for the freedom of the world and the protection of the small nationalities--notably Belgium.

Bulgaria was a small State. Was it on this account less ambitious and troublesome for its neighbours? Any one conversant with the recent Balkan history knows that Bulgaria has from the start aspired to dominate the Balkan States. When the Berlin Government struck the hour which was to throw not only Europe, but three-fourths of the universe into the worst horrors of war, has Bulgaria rallied to the defence of her weak neighbour, Servia? Has she proved any sympathy for treacherously crushed Belgium?

I emphatically declare that I would oppose Imperialism with all my might, if I thought that it is by nature a necessary producer of absolutism, of autocratic tyranny. But, the British precedent considered through all its beneficial developments, I must recognize that true Imperialism is not incompatible with the just and wise exercise of political liberty, with respectful protection of the rights and conditions of the divers national elements under its aegis.

I pray to remain to my last day a faithful friend of the political liberties of the people. Knowing, as I do, how hard it is to apply them to the government of nations--great or small--I am not bewildered by vain illusions. But I cannot conceive--and never will--that the justice of the real principles of Political Liberty is to be denied on account of the difficulties of their satisfactory working, certainly obtainable when applied in conformity with the dictates of moral laws owing all their power to their Divine origin.

The best political inst.i.tutions which can work out such great advantages for the populations enjoying them, are too often diverted from their beneficient course by the vicious pa.s.sions of those who are charged with, and responsible for, their administration. It would be most illogical to draw the inference that good inst.i.tutions become bad by their guilty management.

Free and autocratic governments are essentially different in their natural structure. Though liable to mismanagement by unscrupulous politicians, free inst.i.tutions can, under ordinary favourable conditions, be trusted to be productive of much good for the peoples living under their protection. Autocracy--the whole human history proves it--by nature engenders absolutism. Crowned or revolutionary despots as a rule are not imbued with the patriotism nor purified by the virtues required for the good government of a country. Kaiserism, Terrorism and Bolshevikism are equally despicable and unfit to contribute to the sound progress which liberty, practiced by sensible and wise men, can develop.

Reverting to the Nationalist bugbear, which does not in the least move me to despair of Canada's future, I consider that Imperialism, sensibly appreciated, is of two kinds: Autocratic Imperialism; Democratic Imperialism:--Absolutism is the foundation stone of the former; Political Liberty that of the latter. I am energetically opposed to the first. I sincerely believe that the second can do a great deal for the prosperity of the countries where it has regularly and justifiably been developed according to the natural laws of its growth.

Autocratic Imperialism, in contemporaneous history, is almost exclusively typified by its Teutonic production. A general review of the world shows that for the last century, and more, with one sad exception, all the nations have been moving along the path leading to a greater freedom of their inst.i.tutions. Even j.a.pan and China have joined in the race. Russia had deliberately done so. Much was expected from her first efforts, and much would certainly have been reaped in due course had not the calamitous war still raging at first opened an opportunity for the reactionary Russian element, strongly influenced by German intrigues, spies and money, to check, through the Petrograd Court, the forward movement of Russian political liberty, and to impede, for Germany's sake, the success of the Russian military operations. Under those circ.u.mstances--as was also to be expected--the advancing wave of the aspirations of the great Russian people for more political freedom, was bound either to recede before the autocratic outburst, or to rush impetuously against the wall Germany was to her best helping to raise against it. The latter prevision happened, history once more repeating itself.

Even barbarous Turkey, in recent years, had been somewhat shaken by a sudden desire to remove some of her secular shackles. The young Turks movement might have had some desirable results had the Ottoman Empire, as every national and political considerations should have induced her to do, sided with France and England.

Germany is actually the only country in the world where Autocratic Imperialism has been flouris.h.i.+ng during the last century. We all know the extent and the grievousness of the calamity it has wrought on the universe.

During the same last century, Democratic Imperialism--using the term in its broadest and most reasonable meaning--has had two distinct beneficial developments:--the Monarchical Democratic Imperialism, and the Republican Democratic Imperialism.