When the intervention of the United Kingdom was made inevitable and practically unanimous by the brutal attack on Belgium, Canada never hesitated for a moment as to her attitude. The rights of the immediate issue were clear; the whole world's liberty was plainly at stake; the struggle promised to task, if not to overtask, every resource of the mother country. Sir Robert Borden acted promptly and effectively, and parliament when called in special session unanimously backed his actions. In a few weeks the largest force that had ever crossed the Atlantic sailed to England, and throughout the war ten thousand upon ten thousand followed. The Dominions surprised the world, and not least themselves, by the greatness and effectiveness of the efforts made in the common cause. At first, distance or over-confidence prevented a full grasp of the crisis by the general public, and even by the leaders of opinion; but, as time went on, the sense of the greatness of the issue deepened, resolution hardened, and the only measures of effort were what the crisis called for and what Canada could give.
The country was united as on few occasions. Here and there undigested groups of immigrants from the enemy lands stood out from the common enthusiasm, but gave little overt trouble. In Quebec some, but not all, of the Nationalists opposed Canada's participation in the war, taking either the belated colonial view that it was Britain's part to fight the Empire's wars, or the more logical but inopportune view that Canada should not fight in a war when she had had no part in shaping the policy that went before it. They claimed to stand where practically all Canadians had stood a generation before. They forgot that meanwhile the world, and Canada, had moved forward.
The ordeal of battle put to the test the facts and the theories of empire which had been shaping in the years which have been reviewed. The splendid response of the whole Empire to the call of need proved that it was not the weak and crumbling structure that enemies had hoped and zealous friends had feared. Of their own free will the Dominions and even India poured out their treasures of men and money in measure far beyond what any central authority could have ordained. Freedom was justified of her children, and the British Empire proved its right to exist by its very difference from the Prussian Empire. When General Botha and General Smuts, after crushing with ease a rebellion which under a different imperial policy would have been triumphant, led the army of the Crown in triumph against the German dominions to which it had once been proposed to banish them, they gave a most dramatic proof of the power of the unseen bonds of confidence and liberty.
Yet, as the war proved, the Empire had not yet reached its final stage. Now that the Dominions helped to pay the piper, henceforth they would insist on a share in calling the tune. That the decision as to peace and war must no longer rest solely with the government of Great Britain, however wisely that power had been used in this instance, became the conviction of the many instead of the few. It was still matter for serious debate how that greater voice could be attained, and the conflict between the policy of consultation between existing governments and the policy of creating a new central over-government, which had marked the years before, bade fair to mark the years after the war as well.
The subsidiary question of naval defence had also its after-lights. Those in Canada who had urged the contribution policy had the gloomy satisfaction of seeing their prophecy of speedy war with Germany fulfilled. Those who had urged the policy of a Canadian navy had the more cheerful satisfaction of seeing that the only 'emergency' was that which faced the Kaiser's fleet, bottled up by the vastly superior allied forces. The battle of the Falkland Islands, redeeming the defeat at Coronel, proved the wide range of action of fast cruisers based on European waters, while on the other hand the raids of the Emden proved the need of cruisers for defence on every sea; and the exploits of the Sydney, sister ship of Canada's unbuilt Bristols, ended all talk of tin-pot navies. The lessons of the war as to ships and weapons and strategy were all important for the reconsideration of the question. Still more vital for the decision as to this and weightier matters were the secrets the future held as to the outcome of the war, as to the future alignment of nations, and, above all, as to the possibility of building up some barrier against the madness, the unspeakable sufferings, and the blind, chaotic wastes of war, more adequate than the secret diplomacy, the competitive armaments, and the shifting alliances of the past.
[[1]] Report of Annual Meeting, Canadian Manufacturers' Association, in Industrial Canada, 1912, p. 334.