JUST AND UNJUST WARS.
In one of his pamphlets Mr. Bourassa favoured his readers with his views
on the justice and injustice of war. He affirmed that a Government could
rightly declare war only for the three following objects:--
1.--For the defence of their own country.
2.--To fulfill the obligations to which they are
in honour bound towards other nations.
3.--To defend a weak nation unjustly attacked.
I have no hesitation to acknowledge the soundness of those principles,
as theoretically laid down. I took the "Nationalist" leader at his own
word, wondering more than ever how he could refuse to admit the justice
of the cause of the Allies.
Looking at the case from the British standpoint, was it not clear as the
brightest shining of the sun that England had gone to war against
Germany for the three reasons assigned by Mr. Bourassa as those which
alone can justify a Government entering a military struggle.
Great Britain was by solemn treaties in honour bound to the defence of
Belgium whose territory had been violated by Germany, the other party
to those treaties which she threw to the winds contemptuously calling
them "_scraps of paper_."
Even outside of all treaty obligations, it was England's duty, according
to the third principle enunciated by Mr. Bourassa as authorizing a just
declaration of war, to rush to the defense of Belgium, a _"weak nation"
most dastardly attacked by the then strongest military Power on earth_.
The British Government, being responsible for the safety of the British
Empire, would have been recreant to their most sacred duty, had they
failed to see that if the German armies were freely allowed to overrun
Belgium, to crush France and vanquish Russia, Great Britain and her
Colonies, unprepared for any effective resistance as they would have
been, had they remained the passive onlookers of the teutonic conquest
of continental Europe, would have been the easy prey of the barbarous
conquerors. Consequently, in accepting the bold challenge of the Berlin
Government, that of England also did their duty for the defence of Great
Britain and the British Empire.
But the whole British Empire being at war with Germany for the three
above enumerated causes combined, were the free autonomous Colonies of
England not also in duty bound to help her in vindicating her honour and
theirs, and to do their utmost to support the Mother Country in her
efforts to oblige the Berlin Authorities to respect their treaty
obligations! Were they not also in duty bound to participate with
England in the defence of invaded weak, but heroic, Belgium! Were they
not in duty bound to at once organize for their own defence, sending
their heroic sons to fight their enemy on the soil of France, instead of
waiting the direct attack upon their own territories!
The British Parliament dealing exclusively with the Foreign Affairs of
the Empire, the international treaties which they ratify are binding on
the whole Empire. If such a treaty is violated by the other party or
parties who signed it, violently obliging England to stand by her
obligations, are not the Colonies also bound to uphold the Mother land
in the vindication of her treaty rights?!
Looking at the same question, in the full light of the sound principles
of the justice of any war, from the German standpoint, what are the only
true conclusions to be drawn? To satisfy Austria's unjust demands and
maintain peace, Servia had, in 1914, at the urgent request of England,
France and Russia, gone as far as any independent nation could go
without dishonour. Not only backed, but no doubt inspired, by the Berlin
Government, Austria would not consent to reduce by an iota her unfair
pretentions against Servia.
It was plainly a case of a great Power unjustly threatening a weak
nation. Consequently, according to the "Nationalist" leader's
principle, Russia was right and doing her duty in intervening to
protect the menaced weak State. Instead of hypocritically resenting
Russia's intervention in favour of Servia, it was equally Germany's duty
to join with her to save this weak nation from Austrian unjust
challenge. Had it done so, Austria would certainly have refrained from
exacting from Servia concessions to which she could not agree without
sacrificing her independent Sovereignty. The Vienna Authorities backing
down from their unjust stand, there would have been no war. And Germany,
together with Russia, would have deserved the gratitude of the world for
their timely intervention, prompted by a clear sense of their duty and a
sound conception of their international right.
It is well known how the very opposite took place. Russia, to be ready
for the emergency of the declaration of war by Austria against Servia,
ordered the mobilization of that part of her army bordering on the
Austrian frontier, answering to the Berlin request for explanations that
she had no inimical intention whatever against the German Empire, that
her only object was to protect weak Servia against Austria's most unjust
attack. The Kaiser's government replied by requesting Russia to cancel
her order for the mobilization of part of her army. And in the very
thick of this diplomatic exchange of despatches, whilst England and
France were sparing no effort, by day and night, to maintain peace and
protect Mankind from the threatening calamity, Germany suddenly threw
the gauntlet and declared war against Russia.
Foreseeing clearly that France was consequently in honour bound to
support Russia, in accordance with her international obligations towards
that great Eastern Power--in strict conformity with the second principle
enunciated by Mr. Bourassa and previously quoted--, Germany took the
initiative of a second unjust declaration of war, and this one against
France.
The military operations against France being very difficult, and
certainly to be very costly in a fearful loss of man-power, before the
strongly fortified French frontier could be successfully overrun,
Germany, after a most shameful attempt to bribe England into neutrality,
decided to take the easy route and ordered her army to invade Belgium's
neutral territory, in violation of her solemn treaty obligations. That
treacherous act filled the cup of teutonic infamy, and brought Great
Britain, and the whole British Empire, into the conflict.
So Germany was guilty of the most outrageous violation of the three
sound principles laid down by the "Nationalist" leader qualifying a just
war against an iniquitous one, whilst England and France won the
admiration of the world by their noble determination to stand by them at
all cost.
Still Mr. Bourassa, by an incomprehensible perversion of mind in judging
the application of his own loudly proclaimed principles, has not to
this day uttered one word openly condemning Germany's war policy and
eulogizing that of England and France. On the contrary, he has tried to
persuade his readers that both groups of belligerents were equally
responsible for the war, more especially giving vent to his, at the
least, very strange hostility to England and scarcely dissimulating his
teutonic evident sympathies. He never positively expressed his
disapproval of Austria's unjust attack against Servia, but condemned
Russia for her intervention to protect that weak country, concluding
that the Petrograd Government was the real guilty party which had thrown
the world into the vortex of the most deadly conflict of all times.
One of the most damaging and unfair arguments of Mr. Bourassa was that
in intervening in the struggle, England was not actuated by a real
sentiment of justice, honour and duty, but was merely using France as a
shield for her own selfish protection. And when he deliberately
expressed such astounding views, he knew, or ought to have known, that
by her so commendable decision to avenge outraged weak Belgium, Great
Britain had at once, by her command of the seas, guaranteed France
against the superior strength of the German fleet, kept widely opened
the great commercial avenues of oceanic trade, the closing of which by
the combined sea power of the Central Empires, would have infallibly
caused the crushing defeat of France by cutting off all the supplies
she absolutely required to meet the terrible onslaught of her cruel
enemy. He knew, or ought to have known, that the navigation of the seas
being closed to her rivals by Germany, Russia would have been very
easily put out of the fight, her only available ocean ports,
Vladivostock and Arkhangel, through which supplies of many kinds,
especially munitions, could reach her eastern coast, at once becoming of
no service to her.
He knew, or ought to have known, that if Great Britain had remained
neutral, Japan, Italy, Portugal, would not have declared war against
either Germany or Austria.
As such consequences of British neutrality were as sure as the daily
rising of the sun, was I not right when I drew the conclusion that if a
shield there was, it was rather that of Great Britain covering France,
all her allies and even the neutral nations, with the protection of her
mighty sea power. With such a conviction, the soundness of which I felt
sure, I told my French Canadian countrymen that, for one, I would, to my
last day, be heartily grateful to England to have saved France from the
crushing defeat which once more would have been her lot, had she been
left alone to fight the Central Empires. Heroic, without doubt France
would have been. But with deficient supplies, with much curtailed
resources, with no helpful friends, heroism alone, however admirable and
prolonged, was sure to be of no avail against an unmatched materially
organized power, used to its most efficiency by the severest military
discipline, by national fanaticism worked to fury, and by soldierly
enthusiasm carried to wildness.
In a single handed struggle with Germany, in 1914, France would have
been in a far worse position than in 1870. The extraordinary development
of the new German Empire--the outcome of the great war so disastrous to
France--in population, in commerce, in manufacturing industry, in
financial resources, in military organization, made her fighting power
still more disproportionate. To her wonderful territorial army, she
added her recently built military fleet, then much superior, in the
number of vessels carrying thousands and thousands of skilled seamen, to
the French one. Moreover Austria, with another fifty millions of people,
Bulgaria and Turkey, with more than thirty millions, were backing
Germany, whilst, in 1870, France had only Prussia to contend with.
All those facts staring him like any one else, how could Mr. Bourassa
reasonably charge Great Britain with using France merely as a tool for
her own safety. Under the circumstances of the case, such a preposterous
assertion is beyond human comprehension. I, for one, cannot understand
how he failed to see that, had England been actuated by the selfish and
unworthy motives to which he ascribes her intervention in the war, she
could have then, and at least for several years, wrought from Germany
almost all the concessions she would have wished for. Could it not, by
an alliance with the Central Empires, have attained the goal of that
dominating ambition which the "Nationalist" leader asserts to be her
most cherished aim.
But such a dishonourable policy England would not consider for a single
moment. She indignantly refused Germany's outrageous proposals, stood by
her treaty obligations, and resolutely threw all the immense resources
of her power in the conflict which, at the very beginning, developed
into a struggle for life and death between human freedom and absolutist
tyranny.
I am sure, and I do not hesitate to vouch for them, all the truly loyal
French-Canadians--they are almost unanimously so--are like myself
profoundly grateful to Great Britain for her noble decision to rush to
the defense of Belgium and France in their hour of need. Comparing what
took place with what might have been, moved by all the ties of affection
that will ever bind them to the great and illustrious nation from which
they sprung, they fully appreciate the inestimable value of the support
given by their second mother-country to that of their national origin.
They ardently pray that both of them will emerge victorious from the
great conflict to remain, for the good of Mankind, indissolubly united
in peace as they are in war.
A "NATIONALIST" ILLOGICAL CHARGE AGAINST ENGLAND.
Our Nationalists, after charging England with using France merely as a
shield against Germany, have been illogical to the point of reproaching
her for not having intervened in favour of her close neighbour, in 1870.
It is most likely that, had she done so, they would have pretended that
she would have been actuated by the same selfish sentiment that prompted
her, for the only sake of her own protection, to enter into the present
conflict.
How is it that Mr. Bourassa, so fond of charging England with ambitious
views of constant self-agrandizement, of worldly domination, can
suddenly turn about and accuse her of having shamefully sacrificed
France, in 1870, to the overpowering German blow?
The circumstances of the two cases--1870 and 1914--were very different.
The conflict of 1870 had, apparently at least, a dynastic cause. The
House of Hohenzollern had been intriguing to have a Prussian prince of
her own elevated to the Spanish Throne. The Imperial Government of
Napoleon III strongly objected to such a policy. The diplomatic
correspondence which ensued did not settle the difficulty. France
declared war against Prussia. Many years later it was discovered that by
a falsified diplomatic despatch, Bismark had succeeded in his satanic
design to bring the government of Napoleon III to attack Prussia, thus
shamefully throwing upon France the responsibility of the war.
In 1870, England was at peace with all the European Powers, as she had
ever been since 1815, with the only exception of the Crimean War. During
the diplomatic correspondence that led to the hostilities, what reason
would have justified England to break her neutrality? What would the
present critics of her course have said if she had sided with Prussia?
Would they have pretended that she would have used Prussia as a shield
against France?
I personally remember very well the tragic events of the terrible year,
1870. The crushing military power of Prussia as proved by the triumphant
march of her victorious armies, was a revelation for all, for France
still more than for others. True Prussia had beaten Austria in the short
campaign ended at Sadowa. The Prussia France was then fighting was not
the giant Empire against which she is battling with such heroism for the
last four years. France was at the time the leading continental Power.
The general opinion was, when war was suddenly declared, that France
would easily triumph over her enemy.
It must not be forgotten that, in 1870, England was even less ready than
in 1914 to engage in a continental conflict. Her standing army was not
large, and then partly garrisoned in the colonies. Some of her best
regiments were stationed in Canada. She could have been a really
important ally of France only as a strong support of another continental
power joining with her against Prussia, for instance Russia or Austria,
or both of them.
If England had been able to send 500,000 men in a few days to the very
heart of France, incessantly followed by another half million, it is
almost certain that the Prussian army would not have entered Paris. But
England had not that million of trained men. It would have taken at
least a year to organize such a large army.
I will speak my mind openly. After Sedan, any attempt at saving France
by force would have been vain and useless. Even Russia and Austria were
unprepared for such a task. Their intervention, coming too late, would
most likely have given Prussia a chance to win a much greater victory.
France out of the struggle, Prussia would then have had the opportunity
to achieve, as early as 1870, what she has ever since prepared for, and
tried to accomplish by the war she has brought on in 1914.
What then becomes of the "Nationalist" pretention that Great Britain has
ever been aiming at dominating the world, when it is so easy to
understand that without a very large territorial army, which she
persistingly refused to organize, she was unable to take an important
part in any continental war. The days were passed, after the
extraordinary development of Prussian militarism, when she could
brilliantly hold her own on the continent with a small standing army
backed by generous subsidies to the European powers. The present war is
surely proof evident of it, since England, instead of the two hundred
thousand men she was expected to send over to France, as her man-power
contribution, has had to raise a total army, with all the auxiliary
services, of 6,000,000 officers and men, exclusive of the 2,000,000
contributed by the whole British Colonial Empire.
The Nationalists accusing England to have abandoned France to her sad
fate, in 1870, was only another instance of their campaign to arouse the
feelings of the French Canadians against Great Britain.
OTHER "NATIONALIST" ERRONEOUS ASSERTIONS.
Mr. Bourassa has had his own peculiar way of explaining the real
determining cause of the war. Some men are--by nature it is to be
supposed--always disposed to judge great historical events from
considerations inspired by the lowest sentiments of the human heart. In
the "Nationalist" leader's view, the great war was brought about by the
treacherous alliance of British and German capitalists speculating
together, in actual partnership or otherwise, in the production of war
material: cannons, rifles, munitions, war shipbuilding, &c.
In my humble opinion, such views are lowering to a very vulgar and
lamentably repulsive cause--if it could be true--events of immense
significance, the result, on the one side, of criminal aspirations
which, however guilty they may be, have not yet been degraded to the
profound depth of abjection they suppose; on the other, by the most
noble sentiments which can inspire nations to make the greatest
sacrifices to avenge outraged Justice and Right.
Autocratic German ambition, such as it has proved to be, is bad enough.
Still the cause of the war, such as asserted by Mr. Bourassa, would have
been far worse. National aspirations, however wrongly diverted from
their legitimate conception, will never be as contemptible as the nasty
greed of individual speculators treacherously sucking the very life
blood of their countrymen for the sake of squeezing millions of dollars
at the cost of their country's honour and future.
Unfortunately, illegitimate "profiteering" has taken place in the course
of every war. Of course it must be severely condemned and firmly
prevented, to the utmost, by governmental authority strongly supported
by public opinion which must, however, be cautious not to be unduly
influenced and carried away by the wild charges of some who denounce
others with so much apparent indignation for the only reason that they
themselves are not succeeding as they would like to do in their
speculative attempts.
Illegitimate "profiteering" is one of the deplorable effects of a war;
it is never its real cause.
What are the true causes, humanly speaking, of the cataclysm so
violently shaking the world? They were of two kinds. The first was the
disordered ambition of a nation having reached, by prodigious efforts,
such a power that she fatally determined to dominate everywhere,
militarily and politically. To this first cause was added that of
secular race rivalry.
The two causes of the first kind--which can properly be called
_offensive_, were followed by the noble one of the resistance to
oppression, of the defence of the honour of threatened nations, of the
energetic determination to avenge violated international treaties, and
to save the civilized world from a new barbarous invasion.
If the Allies had humbly bowed to the odious German claims, there would
have been no war.
Consequently, the two evident causes of the war are, on the one hand,
German ambition to universal domination; on the other, the absolute
necessity on the part of the Allies to prevent by all possible means the
success of such a tyrannical enterprise.
However much guilty they have been in bringing on the most terrible war
of all times, it is still injurious for the Berlin Government to suppose
that in assuming this weighty responsibility, they were playing the part
of an unconscious instrument of the most diabolical thirst of money
making by shameless "profiteers."
But such a charge is absolutely inexplicable when one accuses France,
England and Belgium to be, in their admirable and heroic campaign for
the world's deliverance and freedom, the pliant tools of contemptible
speculators in the production of war materials.
Governments and nations are, as a rule, far from having dropped to such
a low state of incurable corruption. For many of them, there yet exists
bright summits, shining with the clear light of Justice, Right and
Honour, which in those times of sufferings and burning tears, are the
pledge of better days and the promise of the world's resurrection.
INCREDIBLE "NATIONALIST" NOTIONS.
Can it be possibly believed that the "Nationalist" leader has asserted
that when the British capitalists and bankers invested the savings
entrusted to their safe keeping, they were principally actuated by the
desire to create in Canada a financial influence which would, in due
course, assist with force in dragging the Dominion to participate in the
Imperial wars against her better judgment? Yet, so he has positively
written and developed the wild argument.
Any man, with the slightest business experience, knows that, in all
cases, would-be borrowers go where money is to be lent. I have not yet
learned that one of them ever went to the North Pole in search of
millions for railway building and all kinds of industrial and commercial
enterprises. Daring explorers who ventured thither, facing so many
risks, were stimulated by a laudable thirst of fame and the desire of
scientific progress. They did not imagine, for a moment, that they were
likely to discover, in these far away regions, great financial markets
amply provided with millions of accumulated capital waiting for safe and
profitable investments.
Canada, a young country, as large as all Europe in territorial extent,
with wonderful undeveloped resources of the agricultural soil, of the
mines, of immense forests, of mighty rivers, of large and breezy lakes,
could not progress without labour and capital. The large natural
increase of the population, supplemented by immigration, was sure to
supply the labour. Capital, to the amount of hundreds of millions, could
not be provided by the only savings of our people. Immigration of
capital was even more pressingly required than that of men. The
Governments of Canada, federal and provincial, city corporations,
railway companies, industrial concerns, wanting money, all went where it
could be found. It happened that London, the capital of the British
Empire, was by far the largest financial market of the world. No wonder
then that instead of going to Lapland, Canadian borrowers crowded in
London, where they met with those of nearly all the nations of the
world, gathering in the same city for the same purpose.
Two incontrovertible economical truisms are, without the shadow of a
doubt, the following:--
1. That a would-be borrower wishes to get the money he wants in the
easiest way at the lowest interest charge;
2. That a wise lender wishes to secure for his money the safest
investment carrying the highest possible rate of interest; the rate of
interest being however subordinated, in his mind, to the safety of the
investment.
Such were the sound economical considerations which settled for the
Canadian borrowers of all sorts, and the British investors, the
conditions of all the loans made on Canadian account.
Any one merely hinting to the British saving public that the money
invested in Canada was sent over to our shores for the object of
creating a financial influence which would force the Dominion into
costly wars, could not have adopted a more unwise course to destroy the
best chances of the success of a loan. Canadian credit was of first
class order, because the British investors knew our grand possibilities;
because they were aware that Canada had always been a safe debtor,
honouring with clock regularity her interest charges and the payment of
maturing loans; because also, and in a very large measure, they realized
that we were not in the same position of so many nations of the Old
World, exposed to frequent warring necessities likely to exhaust our
means and to jeopardize our bright prospects.
Confidence being the sound basis of good credit, we got all the money we
wanted for all the purposes of our national economical development, the
true interest of Canada and of Great Britain being equally well served
by the financial intercourse between the wealthy mother-country and her
progressive colony.
CANADIAN FINANCIAL OPERATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES.
Our "Nationalists," so eager to discourage Canadian effort in the war,
and, with this object, always prone to magnify German warlike
achievements and the difficulties confronting the Allies, were rather
nervous at the increasing prospects of the United States joining the
_Entente_ Nations. Their leader seized every opportunity to argue that
they would be mistaken in doing so. During the weary months when the
President of the neighbouring Republic was prudently feeling his way
before taking the bold stand which he has ever since so brilliantly and
bravely upheld, the "Nationalists", through successive ups and downs in
their expectations, could scarcely help hiding their desire that the
United States would not intervene in the struggle. Those of us who had
not been moved by the horrors of the Belgian invasion, by the murder of
so many innocent victims of teutonic savageness, by the brutal killing
of Edith Cavell, by the Armenian massacres, by the wanton destruction
of admirable works of Art, could not be expected to thrill at the
barbarous sinking of the Lusitania, sending to the bottom of the ocean
hundreds of American citizens of the neutral American Northern Republic.
They were anxious that the Washington Government should condone the
outrageous offence and all the subsequent ones perpetrated by the German
submarines against our neighbours. How much they were dismayed at the
sudden close of Mr. Wilson's apparent hesitation, and at the proud
declaration of war from Washington to Berlin. Though rejoicing at it,
they did not consider that the Russian bolsheviki's collapse could
compensate for the additional military and financial resources the
Allies were sure to derive from the United States participation in the
war.
Canada having to borrow many millions to sustain her warlike effort, and
the British money market being closed to further outside investments,
had two sources left for her successful financial operations: her own
market and that of the United States. The Washington Authorities had
generously decided to help financially the European Allies in pressing
need of money. The Ottawa Government, before making a grand appeal to
the Canadian public, applied to Washington for a loan. Mr. Wilson's
cabinet, however much they would have liked to meet the wishes of the
Canadian Government, had to answer that, having such a large war
expenditure to incur, and such big sums to collect to assist their less
wealthy European associates in the struggle, they could not see their
way to grant Canada's demand.
Acknowledging the value of the reasons given for not complying with
their request, the Canadian Ministers then applied to Washington for the
permission to negotiate a loan in the open American market. This was
readily granted.
It was, of course, well understood that going in the open market,
Canada, to secure the required sum of money, would have to pay the then
current rate of interest increasing, as usual, in proportion to the
increased pressure of the demand of funds.
It is utterly incredible--but still it is true--that Mr. Bourassa did
denounce in his newspaper _Le Devoir_, the Ottawa Cabinet's action in
borrowing money from the American saving public. In severe terms he
blamed the Washington Authorities for not having lent millions to Canada
at the low rate of interest they had agreed to accept from France and
Italy. He asserted that this refusal on their part was a testimony of
ill-will against the Dominion. And in the most violent terms he charged
all those who favoured Canadian borrowings in the American market with
being traitors selling their country to the United States.
It is hard to say whether the charge is not more ridiculous than
contemptible. It is the repetition, in an aggravated form of absurdity,
of the argument accusing the British investing capitalists to have had
for their only object in lending us their money to help coercing Canada
into the Imperial wars.
Was Mr. Bourassa ignorant of the fact that the building of the
magnificent railway system of the United States, that their great
industrial development, were due to the billions of British capital
which for the last eighty years have flowed, in rolling waves, towards
the shores of the Republic, invading, in the most peaceful and friendly
way, her large territory, and drawing from its immense resources the
greatest immeasurable accumulation of wealth ever created by the labour
of man? I am not aware that any American writer ever ran the risk of
being crushed by ridicule in accusing all the United States borrowers in
the English market, governmental and others, of the hideous crime of
selling their country to Great Britain. It would have been sheer madness
to say so in the broad light of the marvellous economical progress of
our neighbours. They knew very well that the billions of dollars
invested by the British saving public for the development of their
territorial riches, were producing returns much larger than the rate of
interest paid to their British creditors.
No one in the United States ever apprehended, for a single moment, that
because the Republic had borrowed enormous sums from Great Britain, she
was likely to lose her State independence through the financial
influence of the holders of her securities of all sorts.
Such "Nationalist" notions, as above exposed and contradicted, can only
create very wrong and deplorable conclusions in the public mind, were
they allowed to follow their course without challenge and without the
refutation proving their complete absurdity.