We shall not sleep though poppies grow
In Flanders’ fields.
XVII.
In Canada as in Great Britain we enrolled a great army under the voluntary system. If it had been said a few years ago that the Dominion could secure 400,000 men for a war in Europe the statement would have been treated with derision. But the fact that voluntary enlistment has been so satisfactory is an argument for, not against, a compulsory draft. The need for selection is more imperative. Such great sacrifices demand our last effort to ensure that they shall not be in vain. The magnitude of the enlistment emphasizes the danger and the vital interest of Canada in the issue. It is admitted by the authorities that in a few months all available reinforcements will be exhausted. Appeal and persuasion have ceased to bring any considerable response, although not wholly without effect. There is no prospect of peace in the near future. We must, therefore, gradually withdraw from the war as our regiments become ineffective fighting units or supply such fresh troops as will meet the loss and wastage. There is no suggestion that fresh troops should be withheld. Even those who oppose the draft declare that adequate reinforcements must be provided. It may be that compulsion would not have been applied in Canada if voluntary recruiting could have been maintained, but with comparative failure of voluntary recruiting and little prospect of revival it is curious that the draft should be opposed if the necessity for reinforcements is admitted.
XVIII.
In 1863 Lincoln prepared an opinion on the draft for the Civil War in which he said, “At the beginning of the war, and ever since, a variety of motives, pressing some in one direction and some in the other, would be presented to the mind of each man physically fit for a soldier upon the combined effect of which motives he would, or would not, voluntarily enter the service. Among these motives would be patriotism, political bias, ambition, personal courage, love of adventure, want of employment and convenience or the opposites of some of these. We already have, and have had in the service, substantially all that can be obtained upon this voluntary weighing of motives. And yet we must somehow obtain more or relinquish the original object of the contest, together with all the blood and treasure already expended in the effort to secure it. To meet this necessity the law for the draft has been enacted. You who do not wish to be soldiers do not like the law. This is natural, nor does it imply want of patriotism. Nothing can be so just and necessary as to make us like it if it be disagreeable to us. We are prone, too, to find false arguments with which to excuse ourselves for opposing such disagreeable things. In this case, those who desire the rebellion to succeed, and others who seek reward in a different way, are very active in accommodating us with this class of arguments.” He added, “The republican institutions and territorial integrity of our country cannot be maintained without the further raising and supporting of armies. There can be no army without men. Men can be had only voluntarily or involuntarily. We have ceased to obtain them voluntarily, and to obtain them involuntarily is the draft—is conscription. If you dispute the fact, and declare that men can still be had voluntarily in sufficient numbers, prove the assertion by yourselves volunteering in such numbers and I shall gladly give up the draft. Or if any one of you will volunteer he for his single self will escape all the horrors of the draft and will thereby do only what each one of at least a million of his manly brothers have already done. Their toil and blood has been given as much for you as for themselves. Shall it all be lost rather than that you, too, will bear your part? I do not say that all who would avoid serving in the war are unpatriotic, but I do think every patriot should willingly take his chance under a law made with great care in order to secure entire fairness.”
XIX.
The situation that Lincoln describes is very much the situation in Canada. The blood that was shed by valiant Canadians at Ypres, and Givenchy and Festubert and on the Somme, at Vimy Ridge and before Lens, will have been shed in vain if an inglorious peace is imposed upon Britain and her Allies and the German people strengthened in allegiance to a dynasty which will vex mankind with its pretentions, conspiracies and infamies until it is destroyed. Moreover, as long as Germany has power to fill the earth with apprehension Governments will continue their eager competition in armaments and high expenditures for defence. The war is for safety as well as for freedom, and upon its result the free institutions of Canada depend. If it was the unanimous judgment of Parliament that Canada should enter the war, and if among the people there was universal approval of the action of Parliament, how can we withdraw until victory is achieved? How can we continue in the war unless we can maintain and reinforce the regiments in the field? How can we get men except by command of the State when the persuasion of the State has ceased to be effective? There are those who talk wildly about “driving men to slaughter.” But more than 400,000 of the sons of Canada have driven themselves to “slaughter,” and because they have done so our homes and institutions have been secure.
XX.
The Military Service Act only requires that those among us who can best be released from the occupations in which they are now engaged shall serve in the field under conditions as honorable as surround their fellow Canadians in uniform and under regulations no more onerous or exacting. The Militia Act as amended in 1906 provided that the Government could place the militia “on active service anywhere in Canada and also beyond Canada for the defence thereof at any time when it appears advisable so to do by reason of emergency.” Enough has been said to reveal an emergency in which nothing less fundamental is at stake than the existence of Canada as a free country. If Germany should triumph we would not have a choice between Independence and British Connection. We would pass under German sovereignty. There would be no protection under the Monroe Doctrine. If Germany should not be conquered the United States, in arms against the Germanic alliance, would be involved in the common defeat of the Allies. Washington would be as powerless as London or Ottawa to determine the future political status of the Canadian people. Recalling the desperate valor of Canadian soldiers in many battles with the best troops of Germany, is it likely that Ontario or Quebec or any other Canadian province would escape the hard fate of Alsace and Lorraine or receive a greater portion of mercy than the harassed Polish subjects of the Kaiser? Clearly, therefore, the Canadian regiments are as surely defending Canada in France and Flanders as though they were actually resisting invasion along the St. Lawrence.