England, Canada and the Great War

by L. G. Desjardins

To this absurd assertion—not using the word offensively, being always determined to be courteous in any discussion I engage—I answered by quoting the figures of the reciprocal relative external British and German trade. In 1913, Great Britain sold to Germany goods to the amount of $203,385,150, and bought German products for a total value of $402,055,285. Great Britain's exports to Germany were then only about fifty per cent of her imports from the same market. It is indeed difficult to detect in such trade relations between two nations any sign of the intent, on the part of the country buying from the other double the value of her sales to her, to dominate her people commercially.

Any one knowing all the circumstances and the causes that imposed upon Great Britain the duty of taking part in the European struggle, cannot help being shocked at Mr. Bourassa's accusation that England has incidentally been brought into the conflict only through the frantic desire of her business men to use it to crush the commercial competition of Germany. No serious men could have entertained such strange notions. And the "Nationalist" leader certainly charged the political leaders and the business community of England with sheer madness.

With all right minded men, the world over, I have long ago reached the sound conclusion that universal economical domination is only a chimerical idea absolutely outside of all possible realization. England does not indulge in any such extravagant dream, being too well aware how vain it would be.

May I ask my readers—and Mr. Bourassa has been one of them,—to join with me in a short general review of the economical progress of the world, in its broadest lines, rising, for this purpose, as should be done in all cases, superior to all national and local prejudices. A grand natural scenery is always better appreciated from the mountain top. Equally so, questions of universal import must be considered from the heights of the noblest principles inspiring the Christian desire to promote the general good of Mankind. Considered from this elevated standpoint, very short-sighted indeed is the man who fails to see that the economical progress of the world, agriculturally, industrially, commercially, is bound up with intelligent, energetic and persevering Labour; that it is the outcome of the improvements of all the means of production, to the constant increased perfection of the agricultural and industrial arts, to the enlargement of the resources of capital, accumulated by judicious savings. It is bound with the improvement of means of transportation by land and sea; with the much enlarged facilities of the exchange of all kinds of products; with the superior management,—the result of a much wider experience—of all the institutions distributing credit; with the energetic development of all the resources which generous Providence has profusely provided the earth for the good of Humanity. It is more than useless to expect economical progress from disastrous armed conflicts which, in the course of a few years, nay, only a few months, destroy the accumulated wealth of many years of incessant labour.

War is productive of untold material losses. As a general rule, it cannot make the nations of the world richer. Many successive generations have for a long time to bear the crushing burden which they inherit from guilty ambitious Rulers as the only result of their thirst of vain glory. Materially, a nation may profit by an unjust war, resulting in the defeat of a weaker rival, but the riches thus acquired by the one, either by territorial acquisitions, or by the payment to her of war contributions and indemnities, or both, from the other, are merely transferred from the vanquished to the victor. The great society of nations, instead of gaining anything by it, is only losing, as a whole, the total amount of the financial cost of the military operations, of the squandering of hard earned savings, of diminished labour and production, of the waste of productive capital, of the loss of so many long days which could have been so much better employed. But most deplorable is the loss entailed by the warring nations, and the universe at large, by the sacrifice of the younger generations, of early youth and of strongly developed manhood, for the success of tyrannical and criminal purposes.

There can be but one justification—and it is a noble, a glorious one—of the sacrifice of so many valuable lives and so much material wealth: the sacredness, the sanctity of the cause for which a nation, or a group of peoples, take up arms against an enemy, or enemies, only intent on crushing weaker rival, or rivals, by all the illegitimate means at his, or their command, for self-aggrandizement, for unjust domination. Such is the present war: sacred and just on the Allied side; abominable, brutal, barbarous on the German side, enhanced in its guilt by the ferocious Turks and the shameful submission of the enslaved Austrians to the overpowering will of their teutonic masters. It will not have cost too much if it has the result of freeing Mankind from the horrors of German militarism, assuring to the world a long reign of justice and moral grandeur.

England can rightly claim a very large part of the merit accruing to all those who have contributed to the immense material progress of the world during the last century. She has actively and most intelligently worked for it by her vigorous industrial and commercial development, by the very numerous billions of dollars she has contributed, all over the world, to railway building and oceanic navigation. She has contributed to it by her extraordinary amount of savings which allowed her to supply the capital required for so many varied enterprises over all the continents. She has played the very important part of universal banker, distributing her immense treasures to foster production of all kinds everywhere. She has most largely contributed to the economic phenomenon of the gradual diminution of the universal rate of interest.

If, according to Mr. Bourassa's strange notion, all this is to be considered as equivalent to economical domination, the more the whole world will enjoy it the better, more prosperous it will be, and future generations will have so much more cause for rejoicing at its increased development, and to be grateful to England for it.

The witnesses who, for the last sixty years, have lived with their eyes opened, preferring the full shining light of the bright days of universal economical development to the darkness obscuring fanatical minds only intent on stirring up local, sectional and national prejudices, and miserable petty ambitions, have rejoiced at the greatly varied advantages Humanity has derived from the gifts of Providence favouring her with the great scientific discoveries which have worked, are still, and will for all times, work wonders for her material prosperity. The regular tendency of those natural forces recently applied to production is an increased movement towards the unification of the industrial, commercial and financial interests of the world. The vital energies of all peoples have more or less been stimulated by the same causes, operating everywhere, reaching until lately unknown and undeveloped regions. Engineering genius, broadened by the new scientific resources at its command, has triumphed over all difficulties. The gigantic locomotive, drawing palatial passenger coaches, and sometimes as much as a hundred heavily loaded freight cars, run by thousands and thousands daily through luxurious prairies. They cross giant rivers, ascend with alertness the highest mountains, or rush through tunnels which the skill and hard work of man has pierced through them, backed by the financial power of millions of money. Automobilism covers the whole universe, multiplying intercourse and human relations, and making possible, in a few days of marvellous organization, a glorious military victory like that almost miraculously carried at the Marne.

Giant steamers, of fifty to sixty thousand tons—of a hundred thousand in the near future—ply, day and night, over the high seas. In mid-ocean they scatter human thoughts through the air to very distant points. They carry within their large skulls immense quantities of the most varied products.