"England has violently destroyed more national rights than all the other European countries united together. By force or deceit, she has swallowed up a fourth of the earthly globe; by conquest, and more especially by corruption and the purchase of consciences, she has subjugated more peoples than there were, in the whole human history, ever brought under the same sceptre."
Thus, in Mr. Bourassa's impartial estimation, the depredations and slaughters of the hordes commanded by Attila, the savagery of the Turks of old and present days, the crimes of Germany in this great war, are only insignificant trifles compared with the horrors of British history. Shame on such outrageous misrepresentation of historical truth.
Mr. Bourassa accuses England to have by force or deceit swallowed up a fourth of the earthly globe. Considering the happy and flourishing condition of the vast British Empire, the Nationalist leader, as every one else, must admit that England is endowed with great digestive powers, as she does not show the least sign that she suffers from national dyspepsia from having swallowed up a fourth of the universe. Her national digestion is evidently sound and healthy, for instead of weakening and decaying, she grows every day in strength, in stature, in freedom, in prestige, and, above all, in WISDOM.
The Nationalist leader has thought proper to express his formal hatred of militarism. One would naturally suppose that, in so doing, he should have pointed at the worst kind of militarism ever devised—the German type of our own days. Let no one be mistaken about it. At page 58 of his pamphlet, Mr. Bourassa bursts out as follows in the top paragraph:—
"As a matter of fact, of all kinds of militarism, of all the instruments of brutal domination, the naval supremacy of England is the most redoubtable, the most execrable for the whole world; for it rules over all the continents, hindering the free relations of all the peoples."
Was I really deluded when I felt sure that in peaceful times, British naval supremacy on the seas was not interfering in the least with the freest commercial intercourse of all the nations, whose mercantile ships can, by British laws, enter freely into all the ports of Great Britain? Mr. Bourassa's assertion to the contrary, I shall not, by the least shadow, alter my opinion which is positively sound.
From the above last quotation, I have the right to infer that Mr. Bourassa is very sorry that, in war times like those we have seen since July 1914, British naval supremacy is sufficiently paramount to protect the United Kingdom from starvation, to keep the coasts of France opened to the mercantile ships of the Allies and of all the neutral nations, to "rule the waves" against both the German military and mercantile fleets, chased away from the oceans by the British guns thundering at the Teutonic pirates on land and sea. If he is, he can be sure that he is alone to cry and weep at a fact which rejoices all the true and loyal friends of freedom and justice.
Mr. Bourassa cherishes a wish that will certainly not be granted. He will not be happy unless England agrees to give up her naval supremacy to please Germany. Let him rest quietly on his two ears; the dawn of such a calamitous day is yet very far distant.
At the end of page 12, Mr. Bourassa asserts that the Germans proclaim their RIGHT to "Germanize" Europe and the world, and that the English imperiously affirm their RIGHT to maintain their Imperial power over the seas and to oppose "Anglo-Saxonism" to "pan-Germanism."—
I have already refuted the Nationalist leader's pretention, and informed him that England, no more than any other country, has no "Sovereign rights" on the seas outside the coastal limits as prescribed by International Law. He appears totally unable to understand the simple truth that Great Britain's sea supremacy is nothing more nor less than the superiority of her naval strength created, at an immense cost, out of sheer necessity, to protect the United Kingdom from the domination of a great continental power.