Is it unfair to say, for instance, after the event as it developed, that Roumania was prematurely brought into the war in consequence of the dark German machinations at Petrograd, with the evident understanding that the military operations, both on the Teutonic and Moscovite sides, were to be so conducted as to rush poor Roumania into a most disastrous defeat, in order to feed the Central Empires with the products of the fertile Roumanian soil?
No representative man of any consequence has pretended that the unfortunate Czar was himself a party to that treason of the Allied cause. He has likely been the victim of his own weakness in not using what was left to him of his personal autocratic power to silence the sympathies of the friends of Germany at his Imperial Court, and even in his most intimate circle, rather than exhausting it in a supreme, but doomed, attempt at checking the rising tide of popular aspirations sure, as always, to overflow to frightful excesses, if unwisely compressed.
Almost daily witnessing the successive miscarriages of so many of the Russian military operations, too often by the failure of the ammunitions, supplied to such a large extent by the Allies, to reach the Russian soldiers, or by other inexplicable causes, it is not surprising that the people at large became suspicious of their government which they soon believed to be under German tutorage.
The rapid, almost sudden, overthrow of the Russian autocratic Empire can be accepted as evidence that the movement in favour of a change which would more efficiently conduct Russia's share of the conflict, was widespread. The goal it aimed at, once reached, and Russia proclaimed a Republic, with a regular de facto government under the leadership of abler men, whose patriotism was proved by their words, but more surely by their deeds, France, England, Italy and the United States cannot be reasonably reproached with having unduly opened diplomatic relations with the new Moscovite authorities.
Unfortunately, once successful in her intrigues at the Petrograd Court, soon to fall under the weight of popular exasperation, Germany tried her hand in a triumphant, but shameful, way with the fiery sanguinary and treasonable element always to be found operating in the darkest corners for their own criminal purposes. The calamitous outcome has been "bolchevikism" betraying their country in the light of day, without blushing, without hiding their faces in eternal shame, and signing, with their hands stained with the blood of their own kin, the infamous treaty of Brest-Litovsk dismembering poor Russia, scattering to the winds her fond hopes of a grand future at the very dawn of the better days promised by a free constitution, and plunging her in the throes of German autocratic domination.
With regard to the Nationalist leader's rash denunciation of public men, I have only a few more words to say. My personal recollections going back to the early sixties of the last century, for several years free from all party affiliations, unbiassed by any sympathies or prejudices, I consider it my duty to say that, on the whole, Canadian public life, as well as British public life, is honourable and entitled to the respect of public opinion. Out of hundreds and thousands of politicians, both in the Motherland and in our own Dominion, there may have been failings. It would be useless, even pernicious, to point at them. The revulsion of public feeling towards the fallen for cause, and the severe judgment of misdeeds by the impartial historian, has been the deserved punishment of the few who have prevaricated. I prefer by far to take my lofty inspiration from the galaxy of faithful public servants who, from all parties, and from various standpoints, have given the fruits of their intelligence, of their learning, of their hard work—and in many cases—of their private wealth, for the good of their country. In the course of the last fifty-five years, I have known hundreds of our public men who lived through, and came out of, a long political life getting poorer every day without being disheartened and retiring from the public service to which they were devoted to the last. Need I point, as examples, to the cases of several men who, departed for a better world, Parliament, irrespective of all party considerations, united to a man to vote a yearly allowance of a few hundred dollars to save their surviving widows and children from actual want and destitution!
Just as well as the Canadians of the three British races, and the gallant volunteers of our heroic army, Canadian and British public men can rest assured that from the high position they occupy in the world's estimation, they are far above the fanatical aspersions of the Nationalist leader blinded by the wild suggestions of an inexhaustible thirst of rash condemnation.