"CANADA IN FLANDERS"
Conclusion—Canada will meet new necessities with fresh exertions—The Military co-operation of all parts of the Empire to lead to closer Political Union—Significance of the title "Canada in Flanders"—French General's views—British Infantry have never had to protect their own soil—Devotion of Australians and Canadians for an ideal—They felt the Empire was in danger—Lack of foresight in England—Prevision of Mr. Hughes, General Botha, and Sir Robert Borden—Recrimination in War-time useless, but the feeling for closer union and more responsibility growing overseas—Difficulty of organising this sentiment in a constitutional form without imperilling the liberty of the Dominions—Perils of refusing to do so—Controversy between Captain Papineau and Mr. Bourassa—Risk of reaction after the War—"Admit us to your Councils"—Reorganisation of Imperial resources the first constructive task for the Statesmen of the Empire.
It is more than a year ago since, in the last chapter of the first volume of "Canada in Flanders," these words were written:—
"After incredible hardships patiently supported, after desperate battles stubbornly contested, the work of the Canadians is still incomplete. But they will complete it, meeting new necessities with fresh exertions, for it is the work of civilisation and of liberty." These words still contain some truth in relation to the conditions of to-day. The work is still incomplete. But in the interval which has passed the dimensions of the task have wholly altered. In this war success depended, as Mr. Churchill once pointed out, not upon episodes, but upon tendencies. And in the last ten months the tendencies have all marched with the terrible inevitableness of a Greek tragedy towards the doom of the Central Powers.
In that development the Canadians have played their part. They will continue to play it, "meeting new necessities with fresh exertions," until the happy day when peace is dictated upon the terms which the Allies require. And then they will return to the farm, the bank, the university, the shop, and the ranch, as the seven thousand returned who fought in our South African quarrel. But is it possible that they should return without having stamped upon the loose constitution of the Empire articles at once more formal and more mutual than those with which until this war we have on the whole been content?
It does not seem possible, and it is certainly not desirable, that this remarkable military co-operation should be so unfruitful in constitutional result. In this final chapter of the second volume—the last volume in which it is likely that the present writer will be able to undertake the responsibility of authorship—he may perhaps be forgiven if he allows himself the intrusion of a more personal note than has been consistent with the scope of that part of the work which has preceded it.
"Canada in Flanders" suggests many reflections to a mind either acquainted with the past or imaginative in relation to the future. It speaks of achievement; and it also speaks of the agony of lingering death; it recalls Ypres, which will perhaps be in the history of Young Canada what Verdun is in the history of Old France; it recalls, too, the truncated bodies of the maimed who have offered the sacrifice of radiant youth and health upon a shrine the reality of which to them may perhaps sometimes have seemed a little remote. "Canada in Flanders," if confined to the military activities of Canadians in that unlovable country, would awake these and many other tragic and glorious memories. The pages which precede these words are a contribution and an effort to do justice to this branch of the subject.
But to the title "Canada in Flanders" must be conceded the relevance of some other observations which as a Canadian I think ought to be made, because it is plain that the Empire is still in an evolutionary stage; because plans and policies involving great changes are being boldly canvassed; because I myself am in favour of great changes; and, finally, because to see the facts as they really are is a condition precedent to fruitful development.
The first step in such a consideration is to examine shortly the nature, the significance, and the inevitable consequences of the Dominion's contribution to the necessities of this gigantic struggle.
The degree of heroism which has been constantly displayed by Canadians of all ranks will be admitted by all who have read these pages. The moral grandeur of their deeds can only receive justice from those who keep in mind considerations which are sometimes overlooked, but which are nevertheless of immense importance.
A very distinguished French General—a General than whom none more distinguished has been discovered by France in this war—and very few by any country in any war—was good enough once to discuss with me the respective qualities of the French and British infantry. Our conversation took place under circumstances which invited and won from him both sympathy and candour. He spoke of the soldiers of France in words so eloquent, so full of personal reminiscence, so charged with emotion, so vibrant with a wholly attractive pride, that for the first time I fully understood how deep and how pure are the wells from which the patriotism of this immortal nation is distilled. Then he began to speak of the British forces. Of these he made this penetrating observation: "To the British of all nations this singular tribute must be paid: that their infantry has never been engaged in any protracted war without a universal admission that it was the equal of any infantry in the world; and yet that it has never been afforded the supreme incentive to soldiers, that of fighting on their own soil, and for their own women and children at the moment and on the scene of their instant peril.
"In Flanders, under Marlborough, in the Peninsula and at Waterloo, under Wellington, your infantry have compelled the admiration of the world. And yet, my friend, they have never responded, as we have, to this appeal:—
"'Soldiers! facing you are the men who still occupy the sacred soil of France: who have ravished your women: and murdered old men, your compatriots. Soldiers, advance to avenge your country and those of your blood and race whom a savage enemy has done to death!'"
Deeply moved by a tribute made with so much feeling, tact, and sympathy, I ventured to ask,
"Do not these remarks of yours, General, apply with even more force to the troops of the great self-governing Dominions who from so far have come to sustain with their lives the fortunes of the Allies upon soil so remote?"
His reply stated so clearly and with such insight the view on which I desire to insist that I venture to reproduce it. "Nothing," he said, "in the history of the world has ever been known quite like it. My countrymen are fighting within fifty miles of Paris to push back and chastise the vile and leprous race which has violated the chastity of our beautiful France. But the Australians at the Dardanelles and the Canadians at Ypres fought with supreme and absolute devotion for what to many of them must have seemed simple abstractions, and that nation which will support for an abstraction the horror of this war of all wars, will ever hold the highest place in the records of human valour."
I recall this conversation because it illustrates my point.
In a sense it is true that the majority of Australian and Canadian soldiers understand generally that they are fighting for the existence of the Empire, and in particular for the independence of that part of the Empire to which each respectively belongs; but the conclusion can only be a general one, the outcome rather of intuition than of exact knowledge. Australia is far, far remote from European quarrels. Canada has no neighbour but the United States. The shearer from Australia and the lumberman from Canada have come to help the Empire; but they would, I suspect, rather fight for six months than spend six minutes in attempting a lucid exposition of the motives which proved decisive to each individual volunteer. And, indeed, how could they—simple men far away from the heart of the Empire—be expected to have grasped the nature of the German menace when the whole of a great historic party in England was blind to it six months before the war broke out? Was a bank clerk in Toronto, or a book-keeper in Sydney, or a squatter in Rhodesia, to appreciate the ultimate tendency of German policy when the Chairman of the National Union of Liberal Federations, himself a Privy Councillor, was declaring that as a business man he preferred the sanctions of International Law to the protection of the British Fleet; when members of Parliament were forming each year a powerful committee to fight the Naval Estimates; when official invitations to suspend shipbuilding programmes gave annual indulgence to the Teuton sense of humour; when German editors and professors in yearly deputations exploited the simplicity of their silly hosts; and when, finally, statesmen in high places paid periodic and public tribute to the sincerity and humanity of German Kultur?
To ask these questions is to answer them. The majority of those who stood to the Colours did so because they saw that at that moment the Empire was in peril. The circumstance that neither they nor their leaders were responsible for the policy which brought us, wholly unprepared on the military side, to the most gigantic struggle in history, seemed to them no sufficient reason for refusing to fight while the fight lasted. But it may be pointed out that many of their leaders had a very clear vision of the dangers in our path. They saw the European situation from a distance, and perhaps for that reason in truer perspective. Mr. Hughes, the Prime Minister of Australia, who unites with profound knowledge of affairs dauntless courage and the analytical power of a trained mind, has always believed this struggle must come. General Botha—in many ways the most romantic figure in the Empire to-day—adroit politician, skilful general, chivalrous soldier, faithful friend—returned from a visit to the German Army manoeuvres some years ago with the same apprehension branded upon his mind. Sir Robert Borden, only four years ago, in introducing his naval proposals in the Canadian Parliament, used these prophetic words:—
"But to-day while the clouds are heavy, and we hear the booming of the distant thunder, and see the lightning flash above the horizon, we cannot and we will not wait and deliberate until the impending storm has burst upon us in fury and with disaster."
The leaders, then, of political thought in the Dominions had arrived at sound conclusions by observation and inference from known facts. And having formed these conclusions, they decided, when war came, to throw their whole strength into the scale, though they were well aware of the errors of judgment that had paralysed preparation in England. The rank and file volunteered in hundreds of thousands, and then in more hundreds of thousands, because they saw that recrimination as to past responsibility was at that moment futile, and that there and then the Empire was in mortal peril. From thousands of miles the flower of the youth of the Empire have come and trained, and fought and died, or have drifted back broken after the war to the Dominions whence they set out. And the men who have done these things, uncompelled and uncompellable, have accepted our military and diplomatic direction of the war, even when they disagreed with it, without question and without complaint. Nothing nobler has been uttered in the war than the answer, made in the Australian Parliament, by the Prime Minister to a Member who gave expression to the bitter grief with which Australia learned of the definite abandonment of the Dardanelles adventure.
"Not upon us," said he, "have these great burdens and responsibilities been cast. Not by one word or even one doubt will I add to the anxieties of those from whom decisions have been required."
It is a commonplace that no such phenomenon as the great rally of the Dominions has ever been witnessed in history. None of the Great Empires of the world has ever conceded so much freedom to its constituent parts or been rewarded by so much devotion. And it is well known that the whole world—our friends and our enemies alike—have been amazed at the spectacle of Imperial solidarity which the war has exhibited. "For the purposes of a European war," wrote one of Germany's many military philosophers, "the British Colonies, even if they remain faithful, may be ignored." To-day this gallant theorist—the nursling of Treitschke—is, one may presume, somewhat better informed.
It may perhaps be urged that, after all, the very co-operation of which so much has been said has become possible under the undefined, impalpable, and sentimental Union which has hitherto prevailed throughout the Empire; that the task of translating in the twin fields of Defence and Diplomacy informal into formal representations of the Dominions is very hard to reconcile with the complete domestic independence of each unit; and that all our most valuable constitutional doctrines have been the fruit of an evolutionary and not of a conscious or studied process. This is true. But it ignores a real peril to the Empire. In all things physical, mental, and moral, great activities are followed by great reactions. And the violence of the reaction is generally determined by the violence of the activity. The efforts made by all parties in this War have been stupendous. It is certain that these exertions will be followed in every belligerent country by violent reactions. The Dominions will not escape the influence of these currents of opinion. "The captains and the kings depart," but there remain the memory of the dead, the presence everywhere of the maimed, and perhaps to many of the bereaved the anxiety of financial pressure. Canada has been and is overwhelmingly loyal, but none the less a student of Imperial affairs should give attention to the recent correspondence between Mr. Bourassa and Capt. Papineau. Similar problems survive even the immense influence and prestige of General Botha in South Africa. In Australia and New Zealand the loyalty which is endemic in these stubborn and homogeneous peoples is reinforced by obvious local inducements to a centripetal policy. But even here there are forces which at a time of reaction are certain to become both articulate and critical. In measuring the probable extent and seriousness of such a reaction the student of politics will not forget the lessons of the South African War. The glamour of war is dissipated: material gains are forgotten: there survive commercial and industrial dislocations, the stale but strident advertisement of war scandals, and the abiding, grinding pressure of war taxation. The khaki election in England was followed by the débâcle of 1906, and by the accession to power of a Parliament which consisted to a greater extent than any House of Commons which had ever existed in England of pacifists, idealists, and demagogues to whom not only the thought of war, but even of preparation for war, was abhorrent.
But the country in which this reaction against the South African War took place was, after all, the country whose Government, elected by themselves, was responsible for the diplomacy which led up to that war and for the conduct of the war when once it was declared. The danger in the case of the self-governing Dominions is that the reaction is certain to be supported by opponents of the War with the argument that those who have made contributions relatively so immense were never consulted as to the policy, and have merely been called in to support the consequences of other men's bungling. It is sufficient to say that such a campaign might become formidable.
There is only one remedy. It is not attempted here to work out the details; and, indeed, their elaboration might most usefully engage the exclusive work of the twelve ablest statesmen in the united Empire. But without making any such attempt, it may be broadly claimed that both in the interests of the Mother Country and of the Dominions, and of that Empire of which they are equally the legatees, the close of the War will mark the moment when the claim of Sir Robert Borden, "Admit us to your councils," will become irresistible. It is important that this claim should be recognised now. With every year that passes it will become more important. The Dominions have played a great part in this War and one which will never be forgotten. But they are still in their infancy. Their adult strength has yet to be tested. There may never be another world struggle. Should such an occasion unhappily arise, it is at least likely to be remote in time. And the more remote it be, the more decisive is the part which our kinsmen in the Outer Empire may hope to play.
Do not, at least, let us fail in the attempt to keep our friends for want of imagination.
Burke, in a splendid and memorable passage, dealing with those Colonies which the folly of our ancestors lost, spoke to a deaf audience of the swift development of our old American Colonies:—
"Whether I put the present numbers too high or too low is a matter of little moment. Such is the strength with which population shoots in that part of the world that, state the numbers as high as we will, whilst the dispute continues, the exaggeration ends. Whilst we are discussing any given magnitude they are grown to it. Whilst we spend our time in deliberating on the mode of governing 2,000,000 we shall find we have millions more to manage. Your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations."
Such will be the growth of these great communities which have given us their lives in this War. Let us welcome, and, if it be possible, let us increase their proven attachment. Nor let us for one moment forget, among the great tasks with which peace will confront us, that the reorganisation of our Imperial resources is the first constructive task which awaits the statesmen of the Empire. If this indeed be realised, the work will not have been done in vain which has been done by "Canada in Flanders."