England, Canada and the Great War Part 15

On the contrary, the DEFENSIVE Imperialist effort, having for its only object the protection of an Empire, the maintenance of her standing in the society of nations, and of peace so essential to the general prosperity of the world, is meritorious, beneficient and laudable. Such has been the British Monarchical democratic Imperialism.

It is from this elevated standpoint that I will consider the negotiations which, for the last few years, have taken place between the Metropolis and her autonomous Colonies, respecting Imperial defence.

While admitting the right of all the free citizens of Canada to appreciate them, and entertaining a real respect for the sincerity of opinions which I cannot conscientiously share, I cannot help considering that many amongst us have fallen into a serious error in judging the nature of these negotiations.

Is it truly, as has been a.s.serted, in obedience to a powerful wave of "OFFENSIVE IMPERIALISM" that Great Britain has of late convened representatives of her free Colonies to meet, in London, to confer about the best means to adopt for the general security of the whole British Empire?

Is it, as also a.s.serted, with the unworthy design to entrap the Colonies that their self-appointed delegates have been called in secret conclaves where the political leaders of England would, by unfair and foul means, prevail upon them to agree to unjust sacrifices on the part of the peoples they represented?

I am absolutely unable to share such erroneous views. I must admit with all candor that I have not yet been brought to the conclusion that British Statesmen are all contaminated with "Machiavellism". A free country like the United Kingdom is not a land where such deplorable principles are likely to blossom.

What are then the extraordinary events which have recently taken place to justify the a.s.sertion of the "Nationalist" leader that, in the course of the last few years, a complete REVOLUTION has been wrought in the relations of the autonomous Colonies with their Metropolis? Of such a Revolution, cunningly promoted to bring the colonies against their will to partic.i.p.ate in the Imperial wars--_les guerres de l'empire_--I do not perceive the smallest shadow of traces.

As everybody else, living with their eyes not closed to the light of day, I clearly saw, princ.i.p.ally during the last twenty years, that important developments were taking place under the sun; that European equilibrium upon the maintenance of which universal peace so much depended, was rapidly breaking asunder; that the German Empire was more and more unmasking her guilty ambition to dominate an enslaved universe; that, to reach that goal, she was organizing an army formidable by its millions of warriors, their superior training, their ironed discipline and their unrivalled armament. I knew that the sadly famous Kaiser Wilhelm II. was determined, at all cost, to increase the power of his Empire by the addition of a military fleet in such proportions as to be able, in a successful naval battle, to conquer the supremacy of the seas.

Under such circ.u.mstances, was it to be supposed that the Statesmen responsible for the government of Great Britain would be so careless and so blind as not to see the dark spots crowding on the horizon!

The problem of Imperial defence was then once more raised, not by a mere caprice of vain glory on the part of England, but by the inevitable outcome of the initiative of would-be opponents, if not actually declared enemies. The overseas colonies being more and more likely to be attacked, in a general conflict, was it surprising that the British Government was induced to confer with them for their common defence under the new conditions which were surely not of their own metropolitan or colonial creation.

All the representatives of Great Britain, of Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, at the London conferences, took part in those solemn deliberations with the full sense of their responsibility. None of them was so mistaken as to consider the question, of paramount importance, of the DEFENSIVE organization of the Empire, as futile, merely to be used by the astuteness of some and the guilty complicity of others, joining together to sacrifice the future of their common country. The odious imputation, the shameless charge, were equally unjust and calumnious for the British ministers and the colonial public men who, in their turn, went to London to deliberate on subjects so vitally interesting all the component parts of the Empire.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE SITUATIONS OF 1865 AND 1900-14 COMPARED.

Our "Nationalist" opponents of all colonial partic.i.p.ation in the Imperial wars, affirm that Canada should have abided with the convention of 1865. Are they not aware that, since that year, a great deal of water has run along the rivers; that the world, although perhaps not wiser, has at least grown half a century older; that so many ancient conditions have radically changed; that nations, like individuals, to be progressive, cannot go on marking time on the same small hardened spot?

Any man sincerely desirous to form for himself an enlightened opinion on the question of Imperial defence, must first admit that two national and general situations, totally different, create widely different duties.

Let us compare for a moment, 1865 and 1900-14--_yesterday and to-day_--as the "Nationalist" leader says.

Fifty years ago, the German Empire was non-existent. Nothing pointed to the early birth of this terrible child destined to grow so rapidly to such colossal proportions.

The French Empire was the leading continental Power; Great Britain, then as now, the leading naval Power, both military and mercantile.

Those two nations, without a formal alliance, had been united ever since the days when Lord Palmerston favoured the advent of Napoleon III.

The Union of England and France was doing much to maintain the peace of the world.

The United States were just emerging from the trials of their great Civil War. They had to solve the very difficult problem of their national reconstruction. Their population did not exceed thirty-five millions.

How different was the situation of 1900-14!

The German Empire had become formidable with her population of 68,000,000, her soldiers numbering more than 7,000,000, with 1,000,000 of men permanently under arms, ever ready for an offensive campaign, with her fleet much enlarged yearly at the cost of enormous financial sacrifices; allied to Austria-Hungary, with her population of 50,000,000, to Italy, with her 36,000,000--then being one of the Triple Alliance--supported by Turkey and Bulgaria,--in all a combined strength of 150,000,000 bodies and souls; with the Germans exalted to the utmost by persistent appeals to their feelings and to their ambitious dreams.

The American Republic grown to the rank of a first cla.s.s Power, with a population of 100,000,000 and a magnificent military fleet.

Was it even sensible to pretend that such altered worldly conditions did not make the revision of the understanding arrived at in 1865 an imperious necessity.

They are living in an imaginary world those of us who a.s.sert that Canada could remain a British Colony under a permanent agreement--never to be amended--by which the Mother Country would be bound to defend her, at all costs and all hazards, whenever and by whomsoever attacked, Canada in the meantime refusing, whatever the perils of England might be, to spend a dollar and to send one man for her defence. There could be but one issue to the consideration of such propositions: the dissolution of the British Empire. I regret to say that Mr. Boura.s.sa has audaciously declared that such has been the objective of his oppositionist campaign to the Canadian partic.i.p.ation in Imperial wars.

If Canada, through its const.i.tutional organ, the Ottawa Parliament, had signified to England, in 1914, that she would not take the least part in the war imposed upon her by Germany, nor do anything to help her Allies, France and Belgium, could she, without blus.h.i.+ng with shame, have claimed the protection of the British flag, if her territory had been attacked.

Would not England have been fully justified in taking the initiative to break the bond which could henceforth but be disastrous to her, our shameless att.i.tude towards her, at the hour of her peril, being most favourable to her mortal enemy.

Have I not every sound reason to conclude that Canadian partic.i.p.ation in the present war was in no way whatever the outcome of an Imperialist attempt to drag her, against her will, in the conflict into which she so n.o.bly hastened to enter with the determination to fight to the last, and to deserve her fair share of the glory which will be but one of the rewards that will accrue to all those who will have united together to save Liberty and Civilization from the German barbarous onslaught.

CHAPTER XXII.

BRITISH IMPERIALISM NATURALLY PACIFIST.

According to its "Nationalist" opponents, British Imperialism has always been of a conquering nature, like that of the Roman type and those of ancient history.

This opinion is formally contradicted by a long succession of undeniable historical facts. Undoubtedly the splendid structure of the British Empire was not erected without armed support. The creation, without an army organization, of a Sovereign State comprising a fourth of the Globe, which component parts, themselves of colossal proportions, situated in all the continents, separated by the immensity of the seas, would have been more than marvellous.

I will not pretend that always and everywhere the expansion of British Sovereignty has taken place according to the dictates of strict justice.

Still I do not hesitate to say that, on the whole, it has developed under conditions which were never the outcome of a mere conquering ambition.

With much reason, English citizens are proud of the fact that their Empire is the result of a NATURAL GROWTH. When the call to arms had to be made, it was oftener for DEFENSIVE WARS.

The British Empire, outside the United Kingdom, comprise, for the most important part, Canada, Australia, the South African Dominion, and India. It is easy to explain, in a few lines, under what general circ.u.mstances those immense regions were brought under the British flag.

I shall, of course, begin this short historical review by the acquisition of Canada by England.

The great event of the discovery of the New World, at the end of the fifteenth century, tempted the western European nations to acquire vast colonies in the new continent. Spain, France, Portugal, Holland, were the first in the field. If the craving for large colonies in the new Hemisphere was of Imperialist inspiration, England does not appear to have been one of the first Powers infested with the disease so dreaded by our "Nationalists". She was rather late to catch it. Hollanders settled in New York before the British.

As all ought to know, Spain took hold of the whole of Southern America.

France displayed her flag on the larger part of Northern America, commanding the St. Lawrence and Mississippi Rivers, and the Great Lakes.

Those immense regions, extending from the cold north to flowery Louisiana, were called NEW FRANCE. Later on, that part of North America bordering on the Atlantic, from Maine to Virginia, became British, and was subdivided into thirteen provinces, or separate colonies. For such a dominating Imperialist, as some pretend she has ever been, it must be admitted that England was rather in a modest frame of mind with regard to her colonial enterprises. The British Government itself was slow in moving towards the Imperialist goal which was stirring up Spain and France to a much greater activity. The first British emigrants were Puritans looking for that religious liberty, under a new s.h.i.+ning sun, which was denied to them by their native land in those days when fanaticism was unfortunately too much triumphant in many countries.

As it was inevitable, the European Colonies in America, all satellites of their metropolis, fell victims to the political rivalries of the nations who settled them. Not satisfied with fighting in Europe, those Powers also decided to gratify the New World with a specimen of what they could do on the battlefields. The Seven Years War did not originate in America, as it was the outcome of secular European international difficulties.

If the European nations, in taking possession of America, were making a conquest, it was that of the white race over the yellow one of the New World. Spain and France, in raising their flags over four-fifths of the American continent, were surely strengthening Imperialism. Will our "Nationalists" accuse them of having unduly saved the New World from the secular Indian barbarism?

More especially, Spanish Imperialism in America was most despotic. By a very false political conception, Spain undertook a great settlement work in America with the sole object of bleeding her colonies to her only profit. It failed disastrously as it deserved to. It is because she persevered in her fatal error that, in 1898, she was forced out of Cuba.

The last stone of her immense colonial edifice was cast away.

England shared Spain's error, but much less heavily. Like Spain, she reaped what she had sowed. The thirteen British American colonies revolted and conquered their Independence. Alone French Canada remained loyal to England.

If the French Canadians had sided with the British Colonies to the South in the contest for their Independence, the Canada of those days would certainly have been included in the American Republic when England was forced, by the fate of war, to acknowledge the new Sovereign nation. Her offspring then violently broke away from the parental home, but has recently hastened to her defence, at the hour of danger, only remembering the first happy years of her childhood.

Following the loyal advice of their spiritual leaders, and of their most trusted civil chieftains, the French Canadians remained true to England, refusing to desert her, thus maintaining her Sovereign rights over the Northern half of the Continent destined, a century later, to develop into the present Dominion, enjoying the free inst.i.tutions of the Mother Country.