The Ontario High School Reader

by Aletta E. Marty

And that which is the supreme dignity of manhood is even more essential in the case of a nation.

What do we mean when we speak of the independence of the country? We mean something beyond price, something that is the indispensable condition of true manhood in any country, something without which a country is poor in the present and a butt for the world's scorn in the future. There are men, or things that look like men, who say that as long as we put money in our purse, nothing else counts. How that class of men must have laughed some centuries ago at a fool called William Wallace! How clearly they could point out that it was much better to be part of the richer country to the south. When they heard of the fate of the patriot, did they not serenely say: "We told you so?" Did they not in their hearts envy the false Menteath the price he got for betraying the man who acted as true sentiment bade? But, give it time, and the judgment of the world is just. Even the blind can now see whether the patriot or the so-called "practical man" did most for Scotland's advantage. Now

At Wallace' name, what Scottish blood But boils up in a springtime flood! Oft have our fearless fathers strode By Wallace' side, Still pressing onward, red-wat shod, Or glorious died.

What has his memory been worth to Scotland! Would you estimate it in millions? Superior persons will tell me that Wallace is an anachronism. In form, yes; in spirit, never. It may be said that in the end Scotland did unite with England. Yes, but first, what a curse the union would have been if unaccompanied, as in the case of Ireland, with national self-respect! And, secondly, Canada is ready for union with the States any day on the same terms as those which Scotland got: (1) That the States accept our Queen or King as their head. (2) That we keep our own civil and criminal law and parliamentary constitution, as Scotland did. (3) That the whole Empire be included in the arrangement, as the whole of Scotland was in the union. Surely the men who are never tired of citing the case of Scotland and England as parallel to ours must admit that this is fair.

But, here comes a question that must be faced. Is it worth while preserving the independence, the unity, and dignity of Canada? There are men who, for one reason or another, doubt whether it is. They have lost faith in the country, or rather they never had any faith to lose. It is this absence of faith that is at the bottom of all their arguments and all their unrest. Now, I do not wonder that there should be men who do not share our faith. Men who were brought up in England, and who have seen and tasted the best of it; who are proud of that "dear, dear land", as Shakespeare called it, proud of its history, its roll of saints, statesmen, heroes; of its cathedrals, colleges, castles; of its present might as well as its ancient renown; and who have then come to live in Canada,—well, they naturally look with amused contempt at our raw, rough ways, our homespun legislators and log colleges, combined with lofty ambitions expressed sometimes—it must be admitted—in bunkum. I do not wonder, either, that men who have been citizens of the United States, who exult in its vast population, its vast wealth, and its boundless energy, should think it madness on our part that we are not knocking untiringly at their door for admission, and that the only explanation of our attitude that they can give is that we are "swelled heads", or "the rank and file of jingoism." But, after all, they must know that this question is not to be settled by them. It must be settled by genuine Canadians. We, like Cartier, are Canadians avant tout. Most of us have been born in the land, have buried our fathers and mothers, and some of us our children, too, in the natal soil, and above the sacred dust we have pledged ourselves to be true to their memories and to the country they loved, and to those principles of honour that are eternal! God helping, we will do so, whether strangers help or hinder! We do not think so meanly of our country that we are willing to sell it for a mess of pottage. I know Canada well, from ocean to ocean; from the rich sea pastures on the Atlantic all the way across to Vancouver and Victoria. Every province and every territory of it, I know well. I know the people, too, a people thoroughly democratic and honest to the core. I would now plainly warn those who think that there is no such thing as Canadian sentiment that they are completely mistaken. They had better not reckon without their host. The silent vote is that which tells, and though it will not talk, it will vote solid all the time for those who represent national sentiment when the national life is threatened. I am not a party man. In my day, I have voted about evenly on both sides, for when I do vote, it is after consideration of the actual issues involved at the time. Both sides therefore rightly consider me unreliable, but, perhaps, both will listen when I point out that the independent vote is increasing, and that it is the only vote worth cultivating. The true Grit or Tory will vote with his party, right or wrong. No time, therefore, need be given to him. Let the wise candidate win the men who believe that the country is higher than party, and there is, I think, only one thing that these men will not forgive—lack of faith in the country. They have no doubt that it is worth while to preserve the unity, dignity, and independence of Canada.

We are quite sure of this. Are we as sure that it is our duty to pay the price? The United States are paying three or four times our whole revenue in pensions to those who fought to keep the country united. They do not grudge this enormous price. They have besides a respectable army, and a fleet that will soon be formidable. What means do we find it necessary to use? In any trouble we simply call on the Mother Country. The present system is cheap. No! it is dear and nasty, and cannot last.

What should we do? First, let us remember what Britain has dared for us within the last two or three years. Britain would fight the rest of the world rather than the United States,—not because the Republic could hurt her seriously, not because her trade with it is five times as much as with us, but because she is proud of her own eldest child and knows that a war between mother and daughter would be a blow struck at the world's heart. Yet, for us she spoke the decisive word from which there was no drawing back. For us, once and again, because we were in the right, she dared a risk which she hated with her whole soul.

Let us show that we appreciate her attitude. Let us, at any rate, do what Australia has done—enter into a treaty, according to which we shall pay so much a year for a certain number of ships, to be on our own coasts in peace, and in war at the disposal of the Empire. That would be tantamount to saying: "You have shared our risks, we will share yours; we will pay part of the insurance that is necessary to guarantee peace; we are educating officers for the army, and we are willing to give a much needed addition to the fleet". That would be a first step toward the attainment of full citizenship. What would be the next? We could ask that our voice should be heard in some constitutional way before any war was decided on. And we would have the right standing ground from which to urge a wise system of preferential trade in the common interest. These three things are, in my opinion, connected, and I have ventured to indicate the order in which they should be taken.

Would it pay? The experience of the world proves that nothing pays in the long run but duty-doing. How can a country grow great men if it is content to be in leading-strings, and to give plausible excuses to show that that state of things is quite satisfactory?