England, Canada and the Great War

by L. G. Desjardins

I explained, conclusively, I believe, that the case would be very different if Germany succeeded in her efforts to supplant England's supremacy on the seas. When the Berlin Government undertook to build a huge military fleet, Germany was the greatest continental military Power. What were her expectations when she adopted that threatening naval policy? The Berlin authorities were very confident that when they would decide to bring on the great war for which they had been strenuously preparing for half a century, they would in a few months have continental Europe at their feet and under their sway. Triumphant over Europe they would have at once dominated Asia and a great part of Africa. The next surest way for the German Empire to reach universal domination was to break England's power on the seas. What is impossible for England to accomplish, on account of her insular position, Germany, being a continental Empire, could achieve if she became mistress of the seas.

The present war is the proof evident that the mighty power of England on the seas has been the salvation of her national existence and, almost equally, that of France and Italy. It kept the oceans open for the trade of all the Allied and neutral nations. He is willingly blind, intellectually, the man who does not see that deprived of the matchless protection of her naval forces, Great Britain could be starved and subdued in a few months by an enemy ruling the waves against her.

Is it possible to suppose that any man aspiring to help moulding the public opinion of his countrymen, ignores that with the relatively small extent of the territory it can devote to agricultural production, Great Britain can never feed her actual population of over forty-five millions, most likely to reach sixty millions in the not very distant future. Consequently how unjust, how extravagant, is it to accuse England of any aspiration to dominate the world by means of the sacrifices she is absolutely bound to make for the only sake of her self-defence, her self-protection.

If he does not know, I will no doubt cordially oblige the "Nationalist" leader by informing him that Great Britain, usually importing food products to the amount of seven to eight hundred millions of dollars, for many years past, required as much as a billion dollars worth of them in the war year of 1915. It is so easy to foresee that the continual increase of the population of the United Kingdom, by the new large developments which will surely follow the war in all industrial, commercial and financial pursuits, will cause a relative increase in the importations of food products likely to reach, and even exceed before long, an average total annual value of a billion and a quarter dollars.

None of the European continental Powers has the same imperious reasons as England to take the proper means to guarantee her control of the seas. How is it then that Germany is the only Power to object to England's policy, if it is not for the ultimate object to attain universal domination by the overthrow of Great Britain's ascendency on the wide oceans, which would permit her to realize her long cherished aim by the combined powerful effort of her gigantic military forces both on land and sea.

With regard to England's naval supremacy, the "Nationalist" leader is also committed to other opinions which I strongly contradicted. He entirely forgets that beyond the sea coast limits, well defined by International Law, no Sovereign rights can be claimed on the high seas. The navigation of the ocean is free to all nations by nature itself. Has any Government ever entertained the foolish idea that the broad Atlantic could, for instance, be divided into so many parts as the European, Asiatic, or American continents, over which several States could exercise Sovereign powers? No Chinese Wall can be built on the seas.

My own view of the case, which I believe to be the correct one, is that England's naval supremacy means nothing more nor less than the police of the seas, and the protection of the flags of all the Nations navigating them, besides being, of course and necessarily, the guarantee of her National existence.

Blind also, intellectually, is the British subject not sufficiently inspired by the true sense of the duties of Loyalty, who does not understand that once Great Britain's maritime power would be crushed and the United Kingdom either conquered or obliged to an humiliating peace which would ruin all her future prospects, the Colonial Empire would equally be at the mercy of the victorious enemy of the Mother Country.

With the most earnest conviction, I have tried, to the best of my ability, to persuade my French-Canadian compatriots of the inevitable dangers ahead if the false views which were so persistingly impressed upon their minds were ever to prevail, and the aim they undoubtedly favour to be realized.

Another argument widely used by our "Nationalist" School to influence the opinion of the French Canadians against Canada's participation in the war, was that Great Britain herself was not doing what she ought to win the victory. I have personally heard this false objection repeated by many—unconsciously of course—who were influenced in so saying by the "Nationalist" press.