What had become of Great Britain's imperialism, of the All-British idea, for the sake of which Australia, Canada, and New Zealand had sent their sons to South Africa? England, whose grand mission it was to protect the palladium of Anglo-Saxon dominion, stood aloof in this conflict.
The cabinet of St. James had sent a warning to Ottawa not to permit Canadian volunteers to enter the United States, and similar instructions had been forwarded to Melbourne and Wellington.
But when England, at Japan's instigation, tried to persuade the European powers to compel Mexico to prevent American volunteer regiments from crossing the frontier by concentrating her army opposite El Paso, Germany frustrated this plan by declaring that the acknowledgment of the Monroe Doctrine as a political principle in 1903 rendered it impossible for her to meddle in America's political affairs. In spite of this failure, the cabinet of St. James continued to play the rôle of international watchman, and employed the influence secured by ententes in previous years to carefully prevent other European governments from violating the laws of neutrality towards Japan. It was, of course, the worry over India which made the English government, generally very elastic in its views regarding neutrality, all at once so extremely virtuous.
London felt very uncomfortable when, in July, a Canadian paper published an alleged conversation between a Japanese and an English diplomatist. "What will Great Britain do in case of war?" the Japanese is said to have asked, whereupon he received the ambiguous answer: "Her duty." Then, with the daring candor assumed by these people when they feel that they are masters of the situation, the Japanese had declared: "The London government must bear in mind that the continuation of British rule in India depends absolutely on the wishes of Japan; that England, in other words, can support the United States only at the price of an Indian insurrection."
This conversation, which was published by a curious act of indiscretion, and of course at once denied in London, nevertheless threw a flood of light on England's political situation. Japan did not directly ask for military aid, which, as a matter of fact, she had no right to expect under the terms of the second Anglo-Japanese agreement, but she did demand favorable neutrality on the part of Great Britain as the guardian of the mobile forces of the Anglo-Saxon world-empire; in other words, Japan insisted that England should betray her own race for the sake of India.
This political trick of the Japanese government was the yellow man's revenge for the half promises with which England had driven Japan into the conflict with Russia, and then; after the outbreak of the war, had offered only meager messages of sympathy instead of furnishing the expected military assistance.
England's destiny now hung in the balance; the threads reaching from Ottawa, Cape Town, Melbourne, and Wellington to Downing Street were becoming severed, not by a sword-cut, but by England's own policy.
If imperialism should leave no room for a "white" policy, then Australia and Canada must throw off the burdensome fetters which threatened to hand over the white man under the Union Jack, bound hand and foot, to the Mongolians.
It was not easy to come to such a decision, and it was months before it was finally reached. But one day, towards the end of August, the entire Australian press advertised for volunteers for the American army. Thousands responded, and no one asked where the large sums of money came from with which these men were provided with arms and uniforms.
A vehement Japanese protest, sent by way of London, only elicited the reply that the Australian government had received no official notification of the enlistment of volunteers for the United States, and was therefore not in a position to interfere in any such movement.