German Imperialism, for instance, was not per se a public misfortune. It became such because instead of using its instrumentality for the general good of the world as well as that of Germany, it was applied to a barbarous and criminal purpose to satisfy unjust and senseless aspirations.
In the same years, all the resources of British Imperialism,—so abhorrent to Mr. Bourassa and his Nationalist adepts who view with such meekness the Teutonic type—have been brought into play for the freedom of the world and the protection of the small nationalities—notably Belgium.
Bulgaria was a small State. Was it on this account less ambitious and troublesome for its neighbours? Any one conversant with the recent Balkan history knows that Bulgaria has from the start aspired to dominate the Balkan States. When the Berlin Government struck the hour which was to throw not only Europe, but three-fourths of the universe into the worst horrors of war, has Bulgaria rallied to the defence of her weak neighbour, Servia? Has she proved any sympathy for treacherously crushed Belgium?
I emphatically declare that I would oppose Imperialism with all my might, if I thought that it is by nature a necessary producer of absolutism, of autocratic tyranny. But, the British precedent considered through all its beneficial developments, I must recognize that true Imperialism is not incompatible with the just and wise exercise of political liberty, with respectful protection of the rights and conditions of the divers national elements under its ægis.
I pray to remain to my last day a faithful friend of the political liberties of the people. Knowing, as I do, how hard it is to apply them to the government of nations—great or small—I am not bewildered by vain illusions. But I cannot conceive—and never will—that the justice of the real principles of Political Liberty is to be denied on account of the difficulties of their satisfactory working, certainly obtainable when applied in conformity with the dictates of moral laws owing all their power to their Divine origin.
The best political institutions which can work out such great advantages for the populations enjoying them, are too often diverted from their beneficient course by the vicious passions of those who are charged with, and responsible for, their administration. It would be most illogical to draw the inference that good institutions become bad by their guilty management.
Free and autocratic governments are essentially different in their natural structure. Though liable to mismanagement by unscrupulous politicians, free institutions can, under ordinary favourable conditions, be trusted to be productive of much good for the peoples living under their protection. Autocracy—the whole human history proves it—by nature engenders absolutism. Crowned or revolutionary despots as a rule are not imbued with the patriotism nor purified by the virtues required for the good government of a country. Kaiserism, Terrorism and Bolshevikism are equally despicable and unfit to contribute to the sound progress which liberty, practiced by sensible and wise men, can develop.
Reverting to the Nationalist bugbear, which does not in the least move me to despair of Canada's future, I consider that Imperialism, sensibly appreciated, is of two kinds: Autocratic Imperialism; Democratic Imperialism:—Absolutism is the foundation stone of the former; Political Liberty that of the latter. I am energetically opposed to the first. I sincerely believe that the second can do a great deal for the prosperity of the countries where it has regularly and justifiably been developed according to the natural laws of its growth.
Autocratic Imperialism, in contemporaneous history, is almost exclusively typified by its Teutonic production. A general review of the world shows that for the last century, and more, with one sad exception, all the nations have been moving along the path leading to a greater freedom of their institutions. Even Japan and China have joined in the race. Russia had deliberately done so. Much was expected from her first efforts, and much would certainly have been reaped in due course had not the calamitous war still raging at first opened an opportunity for the reactionary Russian element, strongly influenced by German intrigues, spies and money, to check, through the Petrograd Court, the forward movement of Russian political liberty, and to impede, for Germany's sake, the success of the Russian military operations. Under those circumstances—as was also to be expected—the advancing wave of the aspirations of the great Russian people for more political freedom, was bound either to recede before the autocratic outburst, or to rush impetuously against the wall Germany was to her best helping to raise against it. The latter prevision happened, history once more repeating itself.
Even barbarous Turkey, in recent years, had been somewhat shaken by a sudden desire to remove some of her secular shackles. The young Turks movement might have had some desirable results had the Ottoman Empire, as every national and political considerations should have induced her to do, sided with France and England.