England, Canada and the Great War Part 10

As such consequences of British neutrality were as sure as the daily rising of the sun, was I not right when I drew the conclusion that if a shield there was, it was rather that of Great Britain covering France, all her allies and even the neutral nations, with the protection of her mighty sea power. With such a conviction, the soundness of which I felt sure, I told my French Canadian countrymen that, for one, I would, to my last day, be heartily grateful to England to have saved France from the crushing defeat which once more would have been her lot, had she been left alone to fight the Central Empires. Heroic, without doubt France would have been. But with deficient supplies, with much curtailed resources, with no helpful friends, heroism alone, however admirable and prolonged, was sure to be of no avail against an unmatched materially organized power, used to its most efficiency by the severest military discipline, by national fanaticism worked to fury, and by soldierly enthusiasm carried to wildness.

In a single handed struggle with Germany, in 1914, France would have been in a far worse position than in 1870. The extraordinary development of the new German Empire--the outcome of the great war so disastrous to France--in population, in commerce, in manufacturing industry, in financial resources, in military organization, made her fighting power still more disproportionate. To her wonderful territorial army, she added her recently built military fleet, then much superior, in the number of vessels carrying thousands and thousands of skilled seamen, to the French one. Moreover Austria, with another fifty millions of people, Bulgaria and Turkey, with more than thirty millions, were backing Germany, whilst, in 1870, France had only Prussia to contend with.

All those facts staring him like any one else, how could Mr. Boura.s.sa reasonably charge Great Britain with using France merely as a tool for her own safety. Under the circ.u.mstances of the case, such a preposterous a.s.sertion is beyond human comprehension. I, for one, cannot understand how he failed to see that, had England been actuated by the selfish and unworthy motives to which he ascribes her intervention in the war, she could have then, and at least for several years, wrought from Germany almost all the concessions she would have wished for. Could it not, by an alliance with the Central Empires, have attained the goal of that dominating ambition which the "Nationalist" leader a.s.serts to be her most cherished aim.

But such a dishonourable policy England would not consider for a single moment. She indignantly refused Germany's outrageous proposals, stood by her treaty obligations, and resolutely threw all the immense resources of her power in the conflict which, at the very beginning, developed into a struggle for life and death between human freedom and absolutist tyranny.

I am sure, and I do not hesitate to vouch for them, all the truly loyal French-Canadians--they are almost unanimously so--are like myself profoundly grateful to Great Britain for her n.o.ble decision to rush to the defense of Belgium and France in their hour of need. Comparing what took place with what might have been, moved by all the ties of affection that will ever bind them to the great and ill.u.s.trious nation from which they sprung, they fully appreciate the inestimable value of the support given by their second mother-country to that of their national origin.

They ardently pray that both of them will emerge victorious from the great conflict to remain, for the good of Mankind, indissolubly united in peace as they are in war.

A "NATIONALIST" ILLOGICAL CHARGE AGAINST ENGLAND.

Our Nationalists, after charging England with using France merely as a shield against Germany, have been illogical to the point of reproaching her for not having intervened in favour of her close neighbour, in 1870.

It is most likely that, had she done so, they would have pretended that she would have been actuated by the same selfish sentiment that prompted her, for the only sake of her own protection, to enter into the present conflict.

How is it that Mr. Boura.s.sa, so fond of charging England with ambitious views of constant self-agrandizement, of worldly domination, can suddenly turn about and accuse her of having shamefully sacrificed France, in 1870, to the overpowering German blow?

The circ.u.mstances of the two cases--1870 and 1914--were very different.

The conflict of 1870 had, apparently at least, a dynastic cause. The House of Hohenzollern had been intriguing to have a Prussian prince of her own elevated to the Spanish Throne. The Imperial Government of Napoleon III strongly objected to such a policy. The diplomatic correspondence which ensued did not settle the difficulty. France declared war against Prussia. Many years later it was discovered that by a falsified diplomatic despatch, Bismark had succeeded in his satanic design to bring the government of Napoleon III to attack Prussia, thus shamefully throwing upon France the responsibility of the war.

In 1870, England was at peace with all the European Powers, as she had ever been since 1815, with the only exception of the Crimean War. During the diplomatic correspondence that led to the hostilities, what reason would have justified England to break her neutrality? What would the present critics of her course have said if she had sided with Prussia?

Would they have pretended that she would have used Prussia as a shield against France?

I personally remember very well the tragic events of the terrible year, 1870. The crushing military power of Prussia as proved by the triumphant march of her victorious armies, was a revelation for all, for France still more than for others. True Prussia had beaten Austria in the short campaign ended at Sadowa. The Prussia France was then fighting was not the giant Empire against which she is battling with such heroism for the last four years. France was at the time the leading continental Power.

The general opinion was, when war was suddenly declared, that France would easily triumph over her enemy.

It must not be forgotten that, in 1870, England was even less ready than in 1914 to engage in a continental conflict. Her standing army was not large, and then partly garrisoned in the colonies. Some of her best regiments were stationed in Canada. She could have been a really important ally of France only as a strong support of another continental power joining with her against Prussia, for instance Russia or Austria, or both of them.

If England had been able to send 500,000 men in a few days to the very heart of France, incessantly followed by another half million, it is almost certain that the Prussian army would not have entered Paris. But England had not that million of trained men. It would have taken at least a year to organize such a large army.

I will speak my mind openly. After Sedan, any attempt at saving France by force would have been vain and useless. Even Russia and Austria were unprepared for such a task. Their intervention, coming too late, would most likely have given Prussia a chance to win a much greater victory.

France out of the struggle, Prussia would then have had the opportunity to achieve, as early as 1870, what she has ever since prepared for, and tried to accomplish by the war she has brought on in 1914.

What then becomes of the "Nationalist" pretention that Great Britain has ever been aiming at dominating the world, when it is so easy to understand that without a very large territorial army, which she persistingly refused to organize, she was unable to take an important part in any continental war. The days were pa.s.sed, after the extraordinary development of Prussian militarism, when she could brilliantly hold her own on the continent with a small standing army backed by generous subsidies to the European powers. The present war is surely proof evident of it, since England, instead of the two hundred thousand men she was expected to send over to France, as her man-power contribution, has had to raise a total army, with all the auxiliary services, of 6,000,000 officers and men, exclusive of the 2,000,000 contributed by the whole British Colonial Empire.

The Nationalists accusing England to have abandoned France to her sad fate, in 1870, was only another instance of their campaign to arouse the feelings of the French Canadians against Great Britain.

OTHER "NATIONALIST" ERRONEOUS a.s.sERTIONS.

Mr. Boura.s.sa has had his own peculiar way of explaining the real determining cause of the war. Some men are--by nature it is to be supposed--always disposed to judge great historical events from considerations inspired by the lowest sentiments of the human heart. In the "Nationalist" leader's view, the great war was brought about by the treacherous alliance of British and German capitalists speculating together, in actual partnership or otherwise, in the production of war material: cannons, rifles, munitions, war shipbuilding, &c.

In my humble opinion, such views are lowering to a very vulgar and lamentably repulsive cause--if it could be true--events of immense significance, the result, on the one side, of criminal aspirations which, however guilty they may be, have not yet been degraded to the profound depth of abjection they suppose; on the other, by the most n.o.ble sentiments which can inspire nations to make the greatest sacrifices to avenge outraged Justice and Right.

Autocratic German ambition, such as it has proved to be, is bad enough.

Still the cause of the war, such as a.s.serted by Mr. Boura.s.sa, would have been far worse. National aspirations, however wrongly diverted from their legitimate conception, will never be as contemptible as the nasty greed of individual speculators treacherously sucking the very life blood of their countrymen for the sake of squeezing millions of dollars at the cost of their country's honour and future.

Unfortunately, illegitimate "profiteering" has taken place in the course of every war. Of course it must be severely condemned and firmly prevented, to the utmost, by governmental authority strongly supported by public opinion which must, however, be cautious not to be unduly influenced and carried away by the wild charges of some who denounce others with so much apparent indignation for the only reason that they themselves are not succeeding as they would like to do in their speculative attempts.

Illegitimate "profiteering" is one of the deplorable effects of a war; it is never its real cause.

What are the true causes, humanly speaking, of the cataclysm so violently shaking the world? They were of two kinds. The first was the disordered ambition of a nation having reached, by prodigious efforts, such a power that she fatally determined to dominate everywhere, militarily and politically. To this first cause was added that of secular race rivalry.

The two causes of the first kind--which can properly be called _offensive_, were followed by the n.o.ble one of the resistance to oppression, of the defence of the honour of threatened nations, of the energetic determination to avenge violated international treaties, and to save the civilized world from a new barbarous invasion.

If the Allies had humbly bowed to the odious German claims, there would have been no war.

Consequently, the two evident causes of the war are, on the one hand, German ambition to universal domination; on the other, the absolute necessity on the part of the Allies to prevent by all possible means the success of such a tyrannical enterprise.

However much guilty they have been in bringing on the most terrible war of all times, it is still injurious for the Berlin Government to suppose that in a.s.suming this weighty responsibility, they were playing the part of an unconscious instrument of the most diabolical thirst of money making by shameless "profiteers."

But such a charge is absolutely inexplicable when one accuses France, England and Belgium to be, in their admirable and heroic campaign for the world's deliverance and freedom, the pliant tools of contemptible speculators in the production of war materials.

Governments and nations are, as a rule, far from having dropped to such a low state of incurable corruption. For many of them, there yet exists bright summits, shining with the clear light of Justice, Right and Honour, which in those times of sufferings and burning tears, are the pledge of better days and the promise of the world's resurrection.

INCREDIBLE "NATIONALIST" NOTIONS.

Can it be possibly believed that the "Nationalist" leader has a.s.serted that when the British capitalists and bankers invested the savings entrusted to their safe keeping, they were princ.i.p.ally actuated by the desire to create in Canada a financial influence which would, in due course, a.s.sist with force in dragging the Dominion to partic.i.p.ate in the Imperial wars against her better judgment? Yet, so he has positively written and developed the wild argument.

Any man, with the slightest business experience, knows that, in all cases, would-be borrowers go where money is to be lent. I have not yet learned that one of them ever went to the North Pole in search of millions for railway building and all kinds of industrial and commercial enterprises. Daring explorers who ventured thither, facing so many risks, were stimulated by a laudable thirst of fame and the desire of scientific progress. They did not imagine, for a moment, that they were likely to discover, in these far away regions, great financial markets amply provided with millions of acc.u.mulated capital waiting for safe and profitable investments.

Canada, a young country, as large as all Europe in territorial extent, with wonderful undeveloped resources of the agricultural soil, of the mines, of immense forests, of mighty rivers, of large and breezy lakes, could not progress without labour and capital. The large natural increase of the population, supplemented by immigration, was sure to supply the labour. Capital, to the amount of hundreds of millions, could not be provided by the only savings of our people. Immigration of capital was even more pressingly required than that of men. The Governments of Canada, federal and provincial, city corporations, railway companies, industrial concerns, wanting money, all went where it could be found. It happened that London, the capital of the British Empire, was by far the largest financial market of the world. No wonder then that instead of going to Lapland, Canadian borrowers crowded in London, where they met with those of nearly all the nations of the world, gathering in the same city for the same purpose.

Two incontrovertible economical truisms are, without the shadow of a doubt, the following:--

1. That a would-be borrower wishes to get the money he wants in the easiest way at the lowest interest charge;

2. That a wise lender wishes to secure for his money the safest investment carrying the highest possible rate of interest; the rate of interest being however subordinated, in his mind, to the safety of the investment.

Such were the sound economical considerations which settled for the Canadian borrowers of all sorts, and the British investors, the conditions of all the loans made on Canadian account.

Any one merely hinting to the British saving public that the money invested in Canada was sent over to our sh.o.r.es for the object of creating a financial influence which would force the Dominion into costly wars, could not have adopted a more unwise course to destroy the best chances of the success of a loan. Canadian credit was of first cla.s.s order, because the British investors knew our grand possibilities; because they were aware that Canada had always been a safe debtor, honouring with clock regularity her interest charges and the payment of maturing loans; because also, and in a very large measure, they realized that we were not in the same position of so many nations of the Old World, exposed to frequent warring necessities likely to exhaust our means and to jeopardize our bright prospects.

Confidence being the sound basis of good credit, we got all the money we wanted for all the purposes of our national economical development, the true interest of Canada and of Great Britain being equally well served by the financial intercourse between the wealthy mother-country and her progressive colony.

CANADIAN FINANCIAL OPERATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES.

Our "Nationalists," so eager to discourage Canadian effort in the war, and, with this object, always p.r.o.ne to magnify German warlike achievements and the difficulties confronting the Allies, were rather nervous at the increasing prospects of the United States joining the _Entente_ Nations. Their leader seized every opportunity to argue that they would be mistaken in doing so. During the weary months when the President of the neighbouring Republic was prudently feeling his way before taking the bold stand which he has ever since so brilliantly and bravely upheld, the "Nationalists", through successive ups and downs in their expectations, could scarcely help hiding their desire that the United States would not intervene in the struggle. Those of us who had not been moved by the horrors of the Belgian invasion, by the murder of so many innocent victims of teutonic savageness, by the brutal killing of Edith Cavell, by the Armenian ma.s.sacres, by the wanton destruction of admirable works of Art, could not be expected to thrill at the barbarous sinking of the Lusitania, sending to the bottom of the ocean hundreds of American citizens of the neutral American Northern Republic.

They were anxious that the Washington Government should condone the outrageous offence and all the subsequent ones perpetrated by the German submarines against our neighbours. How much they were dismayed at the sudden close of Mr. Wilson's apparent hesitation, and at the proud declaration of war from Washington to Berlin. Though rejoicing at it, they did not consider that the Russian bolsheviki's collapse could compensate for the additional military and financial resources the Allies were sure to derive from the United States partic.i.p.ation in the war.

Canada having to borrow many millions to sustain her warlike effort, and the British money market being closed to further outside investments, had two sources left for her successful financial operations: her own market and that of the United States. The Washington Authorities had generously decided to help financially the European Allies in pressing need of money. The Ottawa Government, before making a grand appeal to the Canadian public, applied to Washington for a loan. Mr. Wilson's cabinet, however much they would have liked to meet the wishes of the Canadian Government, had to answer that, having such a large war expenditure to incur, and such big sums to collect to a.s.sist their less wealthy European a.s.sociates in the struggle, they could not see their way to grant Canada's demand.

Acknowledging the value of the reasons given for not complying with their request, the Canadian Ministers then applied to Washington for the permission to negotiate a loan in the open American market. This was readily granted.

It was, of course, well understood that going in the open market, Canada, to secure the required sum of money, would have to pay the then current rate of interest increasing, as usual, in proportion to the increased pressure of the demand of funds.