Problems of the Pacific Part 8

While Congress is opposed to involving the country in war, or to any action which will lead to hostilities with Mexico, it will support the President if war is the only alternative, and the large amount of British and other foreign capital invested in Mexico makes it inc.u.mbent upon the United States, in view of the Monroe doctrine, to protect the lives and property of foreigners in the Republic. Otherwise, the duty of protection must be undertaken by the Governments whose nationals are in jeopardy, which would be an admission on the part of the United States that the Monroe doctrine exists for the benefit of the United States, but imposes no obligations. That is an admission Congress will not make so long as there is an Army ready to take the field.

CHAPTER XI

CANADA AND THE PACIFIC

The existence, side by side, of two races and two languages in Canada makes it a matter of some doubt as to what the future Canadian nation will be. The French race, so far proving more stubborn in its characteristics than the British race in Canada, has been the predominant influence up to recently, though its influence has sought the impossible aim of a French-Canadian nation rather than a Canadian nation. Thus it was at once a bulwark of national spirit and yet an obstacle to a genuinely progressive nationalism. Patriotic in its resistance to all external influences which threatened Canadian independence, it yet failed in its duty to promote an internal progress towards a h.o.m.ogeneous people.

Canada, it is perhaps needless to recall to mind, was originally a French colony. In the sixteenth century, when the British settlements in America were scattered along the Atlantic seaboard of what is now the United States, the French colonised in the valley of the Mississippi and along the course of the great river known as the St Lawrence. Their design of founding an Empire in America, a "New France," took the bold form of isolating the seaboard colonies of the British, and effectively occupying all of what is now the Middle-West of the United States, together with Canada and the country bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. It is not possible to imagine greater courage, more patient endurance, more strenuous enterprise, than was shown by the early founders of New France. If they did not achieve, they at least fully deserved an Empire.

French colonists in Canada occupied at first the province of Acadia, now known as Nova Scotia, and the province of Quebec on the River St Lawrence. Jacques Cartier, a sailor of St Malo, was the first explorer of the St Lawrence. Acadia was colonised in 1604 by an expedition from the Huguenot town of La Roch.e.l.le, under the command of Champlain, De Monts, and Poutrincourt. Then a tardy English rivalry was aroused. In 1614 the Governor of Virginia, Sir Thomas Dale, sent an expedition to Acadia, and took possession of the French fort. That was the first blow in a long struggle between English and French for supremacy in North America. In 1629, the date of Richelieu's supremacy in France, an incident of a somewhat irregular war between England and France was the capture, by David Kirk, an English Admiral, of Quebec, the newly-founded capital of "New France"; and the English Flag floated over Fort St Louis. But it was discovered that this capture had been effected after peace had been declared between the two European Powers, and, by the treaty of St Germain-en-Laye, Quebec was restored to France.

But the French colonies in America were still inconsiderable and were always threatened by the Red Indians, until Colbert, the great Minister of Louis XIV., made them a royal province, and, with Jean Baptiste Talon as Governor, Monseigneur Laval as Bishop, and the Marquis de Tracy as soldier, French Canada was organised under a system of theocratic despotism. The new regime was strictly paternal. The colonists were allowed no self-governing rights; a feudal system was set up, and the land divided into seignories, whose va.s.sals were known as "habitants," a name which still survives. In all things the Governor and the Bishop exercised a sway. Wives were brought from France for the habitants, early marriages and large families encouraged, and religious orthodoxy carefully safeguarded.

The French Canada of to-day shows the enduring nature of the lessons which Talon and Laval then inculcated. With the growth of modern thought the feudal system has pa.s.sed away, and the habitants are independent farmers instead of va.s.sals to a seigneur. But in most other things they are the same as their forefathers of the seventeenth century. When Canada pa.s.sed into the hands of the English, it had to be recognised that there was no hope of holding the country on any terms antagonistic to the habitants and their firmly fixed principles of life. In regard to religion, to education, to marriage and many other things, the old Roman Catholic ecclesiastical influence was preserved, and continues almost undiminished to this day.

The French-Canadian is a Frenchman of the era before the Revolution--a Frenchman without scepticism, and with a belief in large families. He is the Breton peasant of a century ago, who has come to a new land, increased and multiplied. He is devoutly attached to the Roman Catholic Church, and follows its guidance in all things.

A somewhat frigid and calculating "loyalty" to Great Britain; a deep sentimental attachment to France as "the Mother Country"; a rooted dislike to the United States, founded on the conviction that if Canada joined the great Republic he would lose his language and religious privileges--these are the elements which go to the making of the French-Canadian's national character.

Very jealously the French-Canadian priesthood preserves the ideas of the ancient order. Marriage of French-Canadians with Protestants, or even with Roman Catholics of other than French-Canadian blood, is discouraged. The education of the children--the numerous children of this race which counts a family not of respectable size until it has reached a dozen--is kept in the hands of the Church in schools where the French tongue alone is taught. Thus the French-Canadian influence, instead of permeating through the whole nation, aims at a people within a people. The aim cannot be realised; and already the theocratic idea, on which French-Canadian nationalism is largely based, shows signs of weakening. There are to be found French-Canadians who are confessedly "anti-clerical." That marks the beginning of the end. One may foresee in the near future the French-Canadian element merging in the general ma.s.s of the community to the great benefit of all--of the French-Canadian, who needs to be somewhat modernised; of the British-Canadian, who will be all the better for a mingling of a measure of the exalted idealism and spiritual strength of the French element; and of the nation at large, for a complete merging of the two races, French and British, in Canada would produce a people from which might be expected any degree of greatness.

Canada, facing to-day both the Atlantic and the Pacific, has the possibilities of greatness on either ocean, or indeed on both; I do not think it a wild forecast to say that ultimately her Pacific provinces may be greater than those bordering the Atlantic, and may draw to their port a large share of the trade of the Middle-West. Entering Canada by her Pacific gate, and pa.s.sing through the coastal region over the Selkirks and Rockies to the prairie, one sees all the material for the making of a mighty nation. The coastal waters, and the rivers flowing into them, teem with fish, and here are the possibilities of a huge fishing population. At present those possibilities are, in the main, neglected, or allowed to be exploited by Asiatics. But a movement is already afoot to organise their control for the benefit of a British population. The coastal strip and the valleys running into the ranges are mild of climate and rich of soil. An agricultural population of 10,000,000 could here find sustenance, first levying toll on the great forests, and later growing grain and fruit. Within the ranges are great stores of minerals, from gold down to coal and iron. Everywhere are rushing rivers and rapids to provide electrical power. Fishermen, lumbermen, farmers, mountain graziers, miners, manufacturers--for all these there is golden opportunity. The rigours of the Eastern Canadian climate are missing: but there is no enervating heat. The somewhat old-fashioned traditions of the Eastern provinces are also missing, and the people facing the Pacific have the l.u.s.ty confidence of youth.

At present the balance of political power in Canada is with the east.

But each year sees it move farther west. The Pacific provinces count for more and more, partly from their increasing population, partly from their increasing influence over the prairie farmers and ranchers. The last General Election in Canada showed clearly this tendency. In every part of the nation there was a revulsion from the political ideals represented by Sir Wilfrid Laurier: and that revulsion was most complete in the west, where as a movement it had had its birth.

It would be outside of the scope of this book to discuss the domestic politics of Canada, but the Canadian General Election of 1911 was so significant in its bearing on the future of the Pacific, that some reference to its issues and decisions is necessary. Sir Wilfrid Laurier up to 1911 had held the balance even between the British and the French elements in Canada without working for their amalgamation. His aim always was to pursue a programme of peaceful material development. With the ideals of British Imperialism he had but little real sympathy, and his conception of the duty of the Canadian nation was that it should grow prosperous quickly, push forward with its railways, and avoid entangling partic.i.p.ation in matters outside the boundaries of Canada. He was not blind to the existence of the United States Monroe doctrine as a safeguard to Canadian territory against European invasion, and was not disposed to waste money on armaments which, to his mind, were unnecessary. The Canadian militia, which from the character of the people might have been the finest in the world, was allowed to become a mostly ornamental inst.i.tution.[6]

At the Imperial Defence Conference in 1909, Sir Wilfrid refused to follow the lead of other self-governing Dominions in organising Fleet units, and the Canadian att.i.tude was recorded officially as this:

"As regards Canada, it was recognised that while on naval strategical considerations a Fleet unit on the Pacific might in the future form an acceptable system of naval defence, Canada's double seaboard rendered the provision of such a Fleet unit unsuitable for the present. Two alternative plans, based upon annual expenditures respectively of 600,000 and 400,000, were considered, the former contemplating the provision of four cruisers of the 'Bristol' cla.s.s, one cruiser of the 'Boadicea' cla.s.s, and six destroyers of the improved 'River' cla.s.s, the 'Boadicea' and destroyers to be placed on the Atlantic side and the 'Bristol' cruisers to be divided between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans." Yet it had been expected that Canada would at least have followed the Australian offer of a Pacific Fleet unit at a cost of 3,000,000 a year.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier's fall came when, in the natural development of his ideals of a peaceful and prosperous Canada, sharing none of the responsibilities of the British Empire, but reckoning for her safety partly on its power, partly on the power of the United States, he proposed to enter into a Trade Reciprocity Treaty with the United States. The proposal was fiercely attacked, not only on the ground that it represented a partial surrender of Canadian nationalist ideals, but also on the charge that it was against the interests of British Imperialism. At the General Election which followed, Sir Wilfrid Laurier was decisively defeated. As an indication of the issues affecting the result, there is the anecdote that one of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's supporters ascribed the defeat chiefly to "the chap who wrote 'Rule Britannia.'"

Canada to-day faces the future with a purpose made clear, of cherishing her separate nationalism and her partnership in the British Empire. She will cultivate friendship with the United States, but she will not tolerate anything leading to absorption with the great Republic: and she will take a more active part in the defence of the Empire. The Laurier naval policy, which was to spend a little money uselessly, has been set aside, and Canada's share in the naval defence of the Empire is to be discussed afresh with the British Admiralty. A military reorganisation, of which the full details are not available yet, is also projected. It is known that the Defence Minister, Colonel Hughes, intends to strengthen the rural regiments, to establish local in addition to central armouries, and to stimulate recruiting by increasing the pay of the volunteers. He also contemplates a vigorous movement for the organisation of cadet corps throughout the whole country. It is a reasonable forecast that Canada, in the near future, will contribute to the defence of the Pacific a Fleet unit based on a "Dreadnought" cruiser and a militia force capable of holding her western coast against any but a most powerful invader. Her ultimate power in the Pacific can hardly be over-estimated. The wheat lands of the Middle-West and the cattle lands of the West will probably find an outlet west as well as east, when the growing industrial populations of Asia begin to come as customers into the world's food markets. Electric power developed in the great mountain ranges will make her also a great manufacturing nation: and she will suffer less in the future than in the past from the draining away of the most ambitious of her young men to the United States. The tide of migration has turned, and it is Canada now which draws away young blood from the Southern Republic.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] It can be at least said on behalf of the Canadian militia that their condition was no worse than that of the militia of the United States. In 1906 Mr President Taft (then Secretary for War) contributed a preface to a pamphlet by Mr Huidekoper on the United States Army. Mr Taft then wrote:--

"Our confidence in ourselves and in our power of quickly adapting circ.u.mstances to meet any national emergency so far has carried away some of our public men so that they have been deliberately blind to the commonest and most generally accepted military principles, and they have been misled by the general success or good luck which has attended us in most of our wars. The awful sacrifice of life and money which we had to undergo during the four years in order to train our civil war veterans and to produce that army is entirely forgotten, and the country is lulled into the utterly unfounded a.s.surance that a volunteer enlisted to-day, or a militiaman enrolled to-morrow, can in a week or month be made an effective soldier. The people of this country and the Government of this country, down to the time of the Spanish War, had pursued a policy which seemed utterly to ignore the lessons of the past."

Mr Huidekoper (an acknowledged expert) maintained:--

"Judged by purely military standards, the invasion of Cuba was a trivial affair; but never in modern times has there been an expedition which contained so many elements of weakness; that it succeeded at all is, indeed, a marvel. The disorders of demoralisation and incapacity which attended the opening operations were nothing but the logical outcome of the unwillingness of Congress to prepare for war until the last possible moment, and merely demonstrated once again the utterly vicious system to which our legislators have persistently bound us, by neglecting to provide a force of thoroughly trained soldiers either large enough or elastic enough to meet the requirements of war as well as peace, supported by a militia which has previously had sufficient training to make it, when called out as volunteers, fairly dependable against the regular forces of other nations."

Then in 1911, Mr d.i.c.kinson, U.S. Secretary for War, in an official report, condemned absolutely the U.S. militia on the grounds that: "It is lacking in proper proportions of cavalry, field artillery, engineer, signal corps and sanitary troops; it is not fully or properly organised into the higher units, brigades and divisions; it has no reserve supplies of arms and field equipment to raise its units from a peace to a war footing; it is so widely scattered throughout the country as to make its prompt concentration impossible; its personnel is deficient in training; it is to a degree deficient in physical stamina, and has upon its rolls a large number of men who by reason of their family relations and business responsibilities cannot be counted upon for service during any long period of war."

It will thus be seen that not only in Canada, but also in the United States, the militia has become "mostly ornamental." But the United States is now awakening to the possibility of having to defend the Pacific coast against an Asiatic Power or combination of Powers holding command of the ocean, and promises to reorganise her militia. It is perhaps interesting to note that whilst to-day the British Imperial Defence authorities discourage Canada from any militia dispositions or manoeuvres founded on the idea of an invasion from the United States, the militia of the Republic, when it takes the field for mimic warfare, often presumes "an invasion by the British forces."

CHAPTER XII

THE NAVIES OF THE PACIFIC

The present year (1912) is not a good one for an estimate of the naval forces of the Pacific. The Powers interested in the destiny of that ocean have but recently awakened to a sense of the importance of speedy naval preparation to avert, or to face with confidence, the struggle that they deem to be impending. By 1915 the naval forces in the Pacific will be vastly greater, and the opening of the Panama Ca.n.a.l will have materially altered the land frontiers of the ocean. A statement of the naval forces of to-day, to be useful, must be combined with a reasonable forecast of their strength in 1915.

Following, for convenience' sake, geographical order, the Pacific Powers have naval strength as follows:--

_Russia._--Russia is spending some 12,000,000 a year on her navy, and is said to contemplate a force of sixteen "Dreadnoughts." Of these, four are now in hand, but the date of their completion is uncertain. At present Russia has no effective naval force in the Pacific, and but little elsewhere. The "Dreadnoughts" building--which are of a much-criticised type--are intended for use in European waters. The naval force of Russia in the Pacific for the present and the near future may be set down as negligible.

_j.a.pan._--j.a.pan has two battleships of the "Dreadnought" cla.s.s, the _Satsuma_ and the _Aki_, in actual commission. By the time that this book is in print there should be two more in commission. They were launched in November 1910. According to modern methods of computation, a navy can be best judged by its "Dreadnought" strength, always presuming that the subsidiary vessels of a Fleet unit--cruisers, destroyers and submarines--are maintained in proper proportion of strength. j.a.pan's naval programme aims at a combination of fortress ships ("Dreadnoughts"), speed ships (destroyers) and submarines, in practically the same proportion as that ruling in the British navy. The full programme, at first dated for completion in 1915, now in 1920, provides for twenty modern battleships, twenty modern armoured cruisers, one hundred destroyers, fifty submarines and various other boats. But it is likely that financial need will prevent that programme from being realised. For the current year the j.a.panese naval estimates amount to 8,800,000. At present the j.a.panese navy includes some two hundred ships, of which thirty-eight are practically useless. The possibly useful Fleet comprises seventeen battleships and battleship cruisers, nine armoured cruisers, fifty-seven destroyers, twelve submarines, four torpedo gunboats and forty-nine torpedo boats.

The j.a.panese navy is by far the strongest force in the Pacific, and is the only navy in the world with actual experience of up-to-date warfare, though its experience, recent as it is, has not tested the value of the "Dreadnought" type, which theoretically is the only effective type of battleship.

_China._--At present China has twenty-six small boats in commission and five building. Her biggest fighting ship is a protected cruiser carrying six-inch guns. The naval strength of China is thus negligible.

_The United States._--The United States cannot be considered as a serious Pacific naval Power until the Panama Ca.n.a.l has been completed.[7] Then under certain circ.u.mstances the greater part of her Fleet would be available for service in the Pacific. She spends some 26,000,000 yearly on her navy. She has at present four "Dreadnoughts"

in commission, and by the time that this book is in print should have six. Her building programme provides for two new "Dreadnoughts," and the proper complement of smaller craft, each year.

In the last annual report on the United States navy (December 1911), Secretary Meyer stated that a total of forty battleships, with a proportional number of other fighting and auxiliary vessels, was the least that would place the United States on a safe basis in its relations with the other world Powers, and "while at least two other Powers have more ambitious building plans, it is believed that if we maintain an efficient Fleet of the size mentioned, we shall be secure from attack, and our country will be free to work out its destiny in peace and without hindrance. The history of all times, including the present, shows the futility and danger of trusting to good-will and fair dealing, or even to the most solemnly binding treaties between nations, for the protection of a nation's sovereign rights and interests, and without doubt the time is remote when a comparatively unarmed and helpless nation may be reasonably safe from attack by ambitious well-armed Powers, especially in a commercial age such as the present."

Battleships 36 and 37, at the time in course of construction, were, he claimed, a distinct advance on any vessels in existence. These vessels would be oil-burners, and would carry no coal. They were to be of about the same size as the _Delaware_, but their machinery would weigh 3000 tons less, or a saving of 30 per cent., and the fire-room force would be reduced by 50 per cent. Concluding his report, Mr. Meyer said: "The Panama Ca.n.a.l is destined to become the most important strategical point in the Western Hemisphere, and makes a Caribbean base absolutely necessary. The best base is Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which Cuba has ceded to the United States for naval purposes. This base will enable the United States to control the Caribbean with all its lines of approach to the ca.n.a.l, and, with a torpedo base at Key West, will render the Gulf of Mexico immune from attack."

A new type of war machine, which is a combination of a submarine and a torpedo boat, is now being prepared for use in the United States navy.

She is known as the "sub-surface torpedo boat." There is a submarine hull with machinery and torpedo armaments, and a surface hull--said to be unsinkable--divided into compartments. The whole vessel weighs six tons, can be carried on the deck of a battleship, travels eighteen knots an hour for a radius of two hundred miles, and needs a crew of two men.

She carries a thousand pounds of gun-cotton. The sub-surface boat may be used as an ordinary torpedo boat, or she may be bodily directed at a hostile ship after her crew of two have left. It is estimated that the sub-surface boat will cost about 5000, all told, and it seems possible that it will be a serious weapon of naval warfare.

_Great Britain._--Great Britain spent last year nearly 45,000,000 on her navy, which is the supreme naval force of the world. But its weight in a Pacific combat at present would be felt chiefly in regard to keeping the ring clear. No European Power hostile to Great Britain could send a Fleet into the Pacific. The United States could not despatch its Atlantic Fleet for service in the Pacific without a foreknowledge of benevolent neutrality on the part of Great Britain.

At the Imperial Defence Conference of 1909, it was decided to re-create the British Pacific Fleet, which, after the alliance with j.a.pan, had been allowed to dwindle to insignificance. The future Pacific naval strength of Great Britain may be set down, estimating most conservatively, at a unit on the China station consisting of one "Dreadnought" cruiser, three swift unarmoured cruisers, six destroyers and three submarines. This would match the Australian unit of the same strength. But it is probable that a far greater strength will shortly be reached. It may be accepted as an axiom that the British--_i.e._ the Home Country--Fleet in Pacific waters will be at least kept up to the strength of the Australian unit. The future growth of that unit is indicated in the report on naval defence presented to the Commonwealth Government by Admiral Sir Reginald Henderson, a report which has been accepted in substance.

He proposes a completed Fleet to be composed as follows:--

8 Armoured Cruisers, 10 Protected Cruisers, 18 Destroyers, 12 Submarines, 3 Depot Ships for Flotillas, 1 Fleet Repair Ship, -- 52.

This Fleet would, when fully manned, require a personnel of approximately 15,000 officers and men.

The Fleet to be divided into two divisions as follows:--

EASTERN DIVISION.

+---------------------------+--------------------------+ Number. +-----------+-------+------+ Cla.s.s of Vessel. In Full With Total. Commission. Reduced Crew. +---------------------------+-----------+-------+------+ Armoured cruiser 3 1 4 Protected cruiser 3 2 5 Torpedo-boat destroyer 8 4 12 Submarine 3 ... 3 Depot ship for torpedo-boat destroyers 2 ... 2 Fleet repair ship ... ... ... +-----------+-------+------+ Total 19 7 26 +---------------------------+-----------+-------+------+ WESTERN DIVISION. +---------------------------+-----------+-------+------+ Armoured cruiser 3 1 4 Protected cruiser 3 2 5 Torpedo-boat destroyer 4 2 6 Submarine 9 ... 9 Depot ship for torpedo-boat destroyers 1 ... 1 Fleet repair ship 1 ... 1 +-----------+-------+------+ Total 21 5 26 +---------------------------+-----------+-------+------+ Grand total of both divisions 40 12 52 +---------------------------+-----------+-------+------+