DEFENSE
Having spent a hundred years working out a system of government almost
perfect in its democracy, and having spent fifty more years working out
a system of trade and transportation that gives Canada sixth rank in
the gross foreign trade of the world nations--one would think the
Dominion entitled to lie back resting on her laurels reaping the reward
that is undoubtedly hers.
But nations can no more rest in their development than men. To stop
means to go back. To rest means to rust, and Canada to-day must face
one of the most serious problems in her national history. What is
worth having is worth holding, and what is worth holding must always be
defended. The strong man does not go out challenging a fight. The
very fact that he is strong prevents other men challenging him to a
fight, and Canada must face the need of national defense.
So remote did the need of national defense seem to Canada that as late
as May of 1913 the Senate rejected Premier Borden's plan for Canada to
contribute her quota in cost to the British navy. The Laurier
government had proposed building a small navy for the Dominion. This
was hooted by the French Nationalists, and when the Borden government
came into power, the policy was modified from building a small navy to
bearing a quota of the cost of a navy built and equipped by Imperial
power. In the rejection of this policy, the composition of the Senate
and Commons should be observed. The Commons were Conservative, or
supporters of Premier Borden, and the Government Navy Bill passed the
Commons by one hundred and one to sixty-eight. The Nationalists voted
with the opposition or the Liberals. The Nationalists are the small
French party pledged against Canada's intervention in European affairs.
Laurier having been in power for almost two decades, the Senate was, of
course, tinged with the Liberal policy. They could not completely
reject a naval policy without repudiating Laurier's former policy; so
they rejected the Borden Naval Bill on the ground that it ought to have
been submitted to the electorate. The vote in the Senate was fifty-one
to twenty-seven. In the Senate were fifty-four Liberals--or supporters
of Laurier--and thirty-two Conservatives, or supporters of Borden. In
other words, so remote did the possible need of defense seem that both
parties played politics with it.
For a hundred years Canada had been at peace. The Rebellion of 1837
can hardly be called a war. In 1870 the Indian unrest known as the
First Riel Rebellion had occurred, but this amounted to little more
than a joy jaunt for the troops under Lord Wolseley to Red River. The
Riel Uprising of 1885 was more serious; but every Canadian who gave the
matter any thought at all knew there had been genuine cause for
grievance among the half-breeds; and fewer lives were lost in this
rebellion than in many a train or mine accident. Canada sent to the
South African War troops who distinguished themselves to such an extent
as to give a feeling of almost false security to the Dominion. On
every frontier are men born to the rifle and the saddle--ready-made
troopers; but as the frontier shrinks, this class deteriorates and
softens.
For a hundred years Canada has been at peace with the outside world.
For three thousand miles along her southern border dwells a neighbor
who has often been a rival in trade and with whom Canada has had many a
dispute as to fisheries and boundaries and tariff, but along this
borderland of three thousand miles exists not a single fort, points not
a single gun, watches not a single soldier. It is a question if
another such example of international friendship without international
pact exists in the history of the world. Where international
boundaries in Europe bristle with forts and cannon, international
boundaries in America are a shuttle of traffic back and forth of great
migrations of population, of great waves of friendship and good feeling
which all the trade rivalries and hostile tariffs of a half century
have failed to stem. The pot shot of some fishery patrol across the
nets of a poacher on the wrong side of the international line fails to
excite anybody. Even if some flag lunatic full of whisky climbs a
flagstaff and tears down the other country's national emblem--the
boundary does not go on fire. The authorities cool such alcoholic
patriotism with a water hose, or ten days in the lock-up. The papers
run a half column, and that is all there is about it.
So why should Canada become excited over national defense? On the
south is a boundary without a fort, without a gun, guarded by a
powerful nation with a Monroe Doctrine challenging the world neither to
seize nor colonize in the Western Hemisphere. On the east for three
thousand miles washes the Atlantic, on the west for five thousand miles
the Pacific--what has Canada to fear? "Why," asked the Conservatives,
"should we support the Laurier policy of building a tin-pot navy?"
"Why," retorted the Liberals when Laurier went out and Borden went in,
"should we support the Borden Navy Bill to contribute good Canadian
cash to a British navy?"
Besides, in the back of Canada's collective head--as it were--in a sort
of unspoken consciousness was the almost religious conviction that the
Dominion had contributed her share toward Imperial defense in her
transportation system. Had she not granted fifty-five million acres of
land for the different transcontinentals and spent far over a billion
in loans and subsidies and guarantees? Value that land at ten dollars
an acre. That was tantamount to an expenditure of two hundred dollars
per capita for a transportation system of use to the empire in Imperial
defense. Seventy trainloads of Hindu troops were rushed across Canada
in cars with drawn blinds and transported to Europe before the enemy
knew such a movement was contemplated. Should Turkey ever cut off
Suez, Canada and Panama would be England's route to India. In
addition, Canada considers herself the granary of the empire. Should
Suez ever cut off the path to India and Australia, what colony could
feed England but Canada?
You will note that Canada's thought concerned the empire, not herself.
The reason for the navy bills proposed by both parties has been
Imperial defense. That Canada might some day be compelled to fight for
her own existence--and fight to the death for it--never dawned on her
legislators; and their unconsciousness of national peril is the
profoundest testimony to the pacific intentions of the United States
that could be given. It seems almost treason at this era of world war
to call Canada's attention to the fact that the greatest danger is not
to Imperial defense. It is to Canada's national defense. Uncle Sam
has been Canada's big brother, but what if when the danger came, his
arms were tied in a conflict of his own? Whatever comes to menace the
United States will menace the safety of Canada; and with swift
cruisers, Europe and Asia are nearer Canada to-day than Halifax is near
Vancouver. Either city could be attacked by foreign powers before
military aid could be transported across the width of Canada. We are
nearer Europe to-day than the North was near the South in the Civil
War. It takes a shorter time to transport troops across Atlantic or
Pacific than it formerly took to send a Minnesota regiment to Maryland.
Including Quebec, Montreal, old Port Royal, Annapolis, Louisburg and
the forts on Hudson Bay, Canada's chief strongholds of defense have
been taken and retaken seven times by European enemies in one hundred
and sixty years--between 1629 and 1789. Day was when Quebec
fortifications cost so much that the King of France wanted to know if
they were laid in gold. Before the fall of Quebec in 1759,
Louisburg--a forgotten fortress of Cape Breton--was considered one of
France's strongholds. Have Canadians forgotten the frightful wreck of
the British fleet in the St. Lawrence in 1711 under Sir Havender
Walker; or the defeat of the admiralty ships manned by the Hudson's Bay
fur-traders up off Port Nelson in 1697 by Lemoyne d' Iberville? Before
La Pérouse reduced Churchill it was regarded as a second Gibraltar.
Yet Churchill and Nelson and Quebec and Louisburg all fell before a
foreign foe, and Europe is nearer to-day than she was in those eras of
terrible defeat. What additional fortifications or defenses has Canada
to be so cocksure that history can never repeat itself? She is not
resting under the Monroe Doctrine. It is a safe wager that many
Canadians have never heard of the Monroe Doctrine. Besides, the minute
Canada voluntarily enters a European war, does she forfeit American
"protection" under that Monroe Doctrine? The idea of being "protected"
by any power but her own--and Britain's--right arm Canada would scout
to derision. Yet what are her own national defenses?
Her regular forces ordinarily consist of less than three thousand men;
her volunteer forces of forty-five to sixty thousand. By law it is
provided that the Dominion militia consist of all male inhabitants of
the age of eighteen and under sixty, divided into four classes: from
eighteen to thirty years of age unmarried or widowers; from thirty to
forty-five unmarried or widowers; from eighteen to forty-five married
or widowers; men of all classes between forty-five and sixty. In
emergency, those liable to service would be called in this order. The
period of service is three years. Up to the present service has been
voluntary, and the period of drill lasts sixteen days. Except for
fishing patrols and insignificant cruisers, Canada has no marine force,
absolutely none, though she can requisition the big merchant liners
which she subsidizes. Canada has an excellent military school in
Kingston and a course of instruction at Quebec, but the majority of
graduates from these centers go into service in the British army simply
because there is no scope for them in their own land. At Esquimalt off
Victoria, British Columbia, and at Halifax, Nova Scotia, before the
outbreak of the present war, were Imperial naval stations; but these
were being reduced to a minimum. Perhaps to these defenders should be
added some thirty thousand juvenile cadets trained in the public
schools, but if one is to set down facts not fictions, much of the
training of the volunteers resolves itself into a yearly picnic. One
wonders on what Canada is pinning her faith in security from attack in
case disaster should come to the British navy. Whether Canada is
conscious of it or not, her greatest defense is in the virility of her
manhood. Her men are neither professorial nor an office type. They
are big outdoor men who shoot well because they have shot from boyhood
and lived a life in the open. All this, however, is not national
defense. It is unused but splendid material for national defense.
Up to the outbreak of the present war Canada has not spent ten million
a year on national defense. That is--for the security of peace for a
century, she has spent less than one dollar and fifty cents per head a
year. A year ago naval bills were rejected. To-day there are few
people in Canada who would not acknowledge that Canada is spending too
little on defense. Stirred profoundly but, as is the British way,
saying little, the Dominion is setting herself in earnest to the big
new problem. To the European War, Canada has sent sixty thousand men;
and she has promised one hundred thousand more. A nation that can
unpreparedly deliver on such promises to the drop of the hat can take
care of her defense, and that may be Canada's next national job.
Would any power have an object in crippling Canada? The question is
answered best by another. If Suez were cut off and Canada were cut
off, where would England look for her food supply? And if it were to
the advantage of a hostile power to cripple Canada, could she be
conquered? Any one familiar with Canada will answer without a moment's
hesitation. She could be attacked. Her coastal cities could be laid
waste as the cities of Belgium. To reach the interior of Canada, an
enemy must do one of three things, all next to impossible: penetrate
the St. Lawrence--a treacherous current--for a thousand miles exposed
to submarine and mine and attack from each side; cross the United
States and so violate American sovereignty, cross the Rockies to reach
inland. Any one of these feats is as impossible as the conquest of
Switzerland or the Scottish Highlands. Canada could be attacked and
laid waste; she could be financially ruined by attack and set back
fifty years in her progress; but she could no more be conquered than
Napoleon conquered Russia. The conquest would be at a cost to destroy
the conqueror, and the conqueror could no more stay than Napoleon
stayed in Moscow. Canada has a vast, an illimitable back country--the
area of all Russia; and to the lakes and wild rivers and mountain
passes of that country her people are born and bred. To her climate
her people are born and bred. The climate would take care of the rest.
You can't exactly despatch motors and motor guns down swamps for a
hundred miles and over cataracts and through mountain passes on the
perpendicular. Canada's back country is her perpetual city of refuge.
Nevertheless, the day of dependence on false security is past.
National status implies national defense, and at time of writing the
indications are that the whole military system of the Dominion will be
put on a new basis, training to patriotism and defense and service from
the public school up through the university.
"Then what becomes of your co-eds and woman movement?" a militarist
asked.
The question can be answered in the words of a great doctor--more men
die on the field of battle from lack of women nurses than ever die from
the bullet of the enemy. The time seems to have come for woman's place
on the firing line. That womanhood which gives of life to create life
now claims the right to go out on the field of danger to conserve and
protect life; and in the embodiment of military training in public
education that, too, may be part of Canada's new national defense.
When an admiral's fleet is sunk within ten days' sail of Victoria and
Vancouver, Laurier's naval policy to build war vessels, and Borden's to
contribute to their purchase for service in the British Navy take on
different aspect to Canada; and the Dominion enters a new era in her
development, as one of the dominant powers in the North Atlantic and
the North Pacific. That is--she must prepare to enter; or sit back the
helpless Korea of America. A country with a billion dollars of
commerce a year to defend cuts economy down to the danger line when she
spends not one per cent. of the value of her foreign commerce to
protect it. Like the United States, Canada has been inclined to sit
back detached from world entanglements and perplexities. That day has
passed for Canada. She must take her place and defend her place or
lose her identity as a nation. The awakening has gone over Canada in a
wave. One awaits to see what will come of it.
Much, of course, depends upon the outcome of the great war. If Britain
and her allies triumph--and particularly if peace brings partial
disarmament--the urgency of preparation on Canada's part will be
lessened. But should Germany win or the duel be a draw, then may
Canada well gird up her loins and look to her safety.