standing friendship between the two peoples. This feeling of her own weakness, and the real or supposed danger of being overshadowed and finally absorbed by her great neighbor, drove Canada all the more closely to Great Britain. S. E. Moffett, concludes his book, "The Americanization of Canada," with the words: "The Englishspeaking Canadians protest that they will never become Americans—they are already Americans without knowing it." While this may be true of such external things as dress and customs in general, it must not be applied to Canadian patriotism. In national sentiment Canadians are British to the core, and view with alarm anything which seems to encroach upon the ties which bind them to Great Britain.

This became apparent on two important occasions. In the discussions about Confederation the proposed union of the provinces was presented as the only alternative to union with the States. The words of G. E. Cartier are typical: "The matter resolves itself into this: either we must obtain British North American Confederation or be absorbed in an American Confederation."* The Canadian people chose the former. Fifty years later, they thought the same issue was presented again, only in a different garbthe reciprocity compact with the United States. Here again they showed a decided preference for Britain. The national election of 1911 was fought out on this one issue; and a more heated election perhaps never took place in Canada. There can be no doubt that what tipped the scale so decidedly against reciprocity was the fact that Canadian national pride was touched, and they feared a severance of their British relations. Among various utterances by the American press and American public men, the most fatal *"Parliamentary Debates on Confederaion," p. 55.

was that of Speaker Champ Clark:

"I am in favor of the reciprocity treaty because I hope to see the day when the American flag will float over every square foot of the British North American possessions clear to the North Pole."

Canadians will readily grant that many worse things might befall them, but the fact remains that this is decidedly what they do not want. Their historical connections, their sympathies, their ideals are British, not American. The result was that a storm was raised on the Canadian side of the border. Among several reasons against reciprocity issued by the Canadian National League* is Article 8: “Because the agreement as proposed, would weaken the ties which bind Canada to the Empire. At a non-party mass-meeting held in Massey Hall, Toronto, March 9, 1911, presided over by Sir William Mortimer Clark, the chairman said: "We are at the parting of the ways. We must either choose the way to Washington or the way to the great Empire beyond the sea." The opinion of the majority of Canadians was briefly expressed in these sentences. In the election, life-long party affiliations were broken; and many men, setting their patriotism above their financial interests, cast their vote, as they believed, for the Empire. The net result was a political landslide in which the Liberal party, which advocated reciprocity, was defeated by an overwhelming majority. Thousands of Liberals helped to block "the road to Washington."

Let the people of Great Britain have no misgivings; our center of gravity However lies within the Empire. strong the feeling of friendship with any other nation may become, that deeper love which grips the heart is reserved for only one-our Mother. For this, other nations must not *Reciprocity Pamphlets, 1911.

blame us, for Great Britain has been immeasurably more to us than all others combined. On the other hand, the message of the reciprocity campaign is not that Canadians had any ill-will toward the. United States. But it did show conclusively, that, if in time of peace the Canadian people could become so alarmed over a commercial treaty with a kindred people with whom they enjoyed an unbroken friendship of a hundred years, simply because in the dim future it might sever their British relations, then henceforth the imperial tie was so strong that any danger threatening the Empire would call the Dominion to the support of Britain. The reciprocity campaign of 1911 was a forerunner of Canada's action in 1914.

The direct result, therefore, of the close attachment to Great Britain, ever since the days of Wolfe's victory at Quebec, and of Canada's dependence on the Mother-Country for protection during the formative period of her national life, has been to produce in Canada a British loyalty which can scarcely be excelled in the United Kingdom itself. A recent statement by one not himself a Canadian is significant:

Everyone who has known Canada must have been struck with the fact that Canadians are almost more British than the British themselves. The Canadian love for the British Empire has for years burned like a slow fire, making little heat and smoke to be sure, but only awaiting the draft of war to cause it to blaze into a fusing flame.*

There are in Canada, of course, different groups with varying patriotic sentiments. There is a small Annexation group, whose voice is no longer heeded, and which is destined to an early death. Those who emphasize the weakness of the bond between Great

*Julian Street in "Collier's Magazine," Jan. 16, 1915.

Britain and Canada make capital out of the utterances of this group, which in reality does not express Canadian opinion at all. There is also a growing Nationalist group, especially strong among the French-Canadians. The watchword of this group is the development of Canada along Canadian lines. What needs emphasizing in this connection is that one may be a Nationalist and yet be intensely loyal to Great Britain and the Empire. There is, thirdly, a considerable body of newcomers not yet fully Canadianized; but we have faith that they will make good loyal Canadian citizens, as millions of immigrants have been Americanized across the border. Finally, there is the main body of the population, which is British-Canadian through and through. Contrary to a widespread opinion that this group is composed almost exclusively of Englishspeaking Canadians, it is a fact that it contains a large number of FrenchCanadians. Too many writers forget that they too can appreciate and respond to the privileges granted them under British rule. The words of the Hon. Rodolphe Lemieux, himself a French-Canadian, ought to refute all insinuations that they are not loyal Britishers:

"You ask me why I am a British subject and why I wish to remain one. I reply that I honor the flag that honors its obligations; that I prize most those institutions that secure me most strongly in my rights and liberties; that I am proud to be a sharer in the great work of advancing peace and progress throughout the world, for which the British Empire stands. Gratitude for what has been done for them (i.e. for the French-Canadians) in the past, contentment in the liberties which they today enjoy, pride in the future greatness of England and her Dominions scattered throughout the whole of the globe-this, and much more, warms the hearts of French-Canadians to the

Motherland and makes of them loyal subjects, second to none under the British crown.*

On the whole, therefore, there is in Canada today, and has been for years, a filial love for the Mother-Country, an admiration of all things British, a glory in the Empire, and a devoted loyalty, all of which are being embodied in Canada's present contributions to the war. This devotion to the British cause may not always be apparent on the surface. Only those who know the inner Canadian spirit can truly appreciate it. To the German it is almost incomprehensible. The American, or the Englishman even, who merely tours Canada for a year can have little conception of it. We Canadians are often misjudged by both Americans and Englishmen, for the simple reason that the visitor may see only externals and base his judgments upon them, while he fails to study the more essential thing-the spirit which lies more deeply hidden.t Canadians, however, are willing to be misunderstood occasionally, so long as they themselves are sure of their own inner spirit; and this spirit, which they will persistently maintain, in spite of statements to the contrary from the outside, is one of consecrated devotion to the British cause.

Great Britain has handed over to us full control of our own internal affairs, even the disposition of our military forces a thing Germany certainly would not have done. She has allowed us to develop our own institutions according to our natural inclinations, without forcing upon us the English stamp. To the German charges that Britain is avaricious and guided by sordid mercenary motives, all we Canadians can answer is that we know nothing about it. Our country has *"Canadian Annual Review for 1912," p.

44.

A conspicuous example is J. F. Fraser, "Canada as it is." A more appropriate title would be, "Canada as it is not.

The Quarterly Review.

vast stores of great undeveloped natural resources awaiting captains of industry to turn them into money, yet our rich farms, mines, forests and fisheries have never been exploited by the English. Our preferential tariffs have been made by ourselves without English solicitation. During all these years. while we have gone our own way politically and commercially, the British navy protected our commerce to the ends of the earth, and for that protection we paid not one dollar.

After a century and a half of British rule, after our bitter experience with English avarice in trade and landgrabbing in general, we silently point to the Canadian graves in Flanders. Surely we are not hypnotized fools! No, but as an expression of our appreciation of the goodness of a Mother who has erred, if at all, on the side of leniency, and at the same time as a guarantee of the future continuance of the liberty and happiness which we have enjoyed under British democracy, greater we believe than we could have enjoyed as an independent nation or under another foreign power-for these reasons Canadians are going to the front and they will continue to go. They go not because Great Britain says they must, nor because they have any special hatred for the Germans, nor because the adventures of war have carried them off their feet. They go because it is the only honorable course to take in view of their present happy position in the Empire. But above all, they go because their filial love is so strong that they would regard it as a monstrous neglect of duty to stand aside and complacently look on while the Mother-Country fights for her life. They go for ideal and sentiment combined, both of which are grounded in their British loyalty. In the last analysis they go because Britain is at war, and because their interests are one with those of the Empire.

A Canadian.

The mention of Persia conjures up in the minds of political students a repellent picture of psychological misconceptions and diplomatic blunders. It may well be doubted whether in any other department of our international relations so many false starts have been made and so many golden opportunities thrown away, in consequence of our constitutional incapacity to understand the workings of the Oriental mind. For all the evils, not only of corrupt government, but of racial degeneration and national decay, our political leaders have but one mode of treatment which they regard as a sure panacea―a parliamentary régime. They fancy that if representative government be introduced into any country, whatever its social and moral condition, forthwith a supply of ichor is poured into its veins which will bestow upon it, if not eternal youth, moral health and strength to take its place among the progressive nations of the world. Good laws will then be framed, checks instituted against mischievous drifts in the restless sections of the community, and a sound scheme of liberty realized. For Parliamentarism has a sacramental virtue. Such would seem to be the theory in accordance with which our policy towards weak and demoralized peoples has been uniformly shaped, irrespective of their idiosyncrasies and varying degrees of fitness to apply it. And yet a cursory glance at the examples that confront us every day ought to have sufficed to explode this crude final notion.

Portugal is a case in point respecting which in the near future we may be called upon for a decision, perhaps at the moment when we are least prepared to deliver a helpful one. Democratic Government has been tried there for some years now without let or

hindrance from without, and the outcome of it all is anarchy. Under the Monarchy people complained of abuses, of injustice, of ignorance; but under the Republic it is felt that complaint would be wasted breath. There is no one to appeal to now, there seems nothing to hope from any mere modification of the existing régime. Yet Portugal is a much better subject for the Parliamentary experiment than Persia. It is a European State, it once played a prominent part among the civilizing forces of the world, and today it has secular traditions and glorious memories to cherish. The population is homogeneous, their religion is one, their language is the same. Persia, on the other hand, stands for plurality without unity, a number of various kinds of ethnic twigs without the string that ties them in a bundle. Racially the Shah's subjects are an amalgam of various branches of the Aryan, Iranian, Tartar, and Semitic peoples, the lineal descendants of the ancient Persian being probably represented by the Bakhtiari.

None of those elements in its present state makes for humanity or progress. The essential factors of improvement are lacking, and even the need of them is nowhere felt. Passion still sways the various sections of the people to such an extent that even interest is but a secondary motive power among the most. Ages of despotism of the worst type have left an indelible mark on the souls of the tribes who were exposed to its corrosive action, while freebooting, murder, highway robbery, and immunity from all restraints have unfitted the remainder for peaceful pursuits. And as human nature shows a marked tendency to remain true to itself, irrespective of forms of government, it was fair to argue that a par

liamentary régime would assume in such a country as Persia the destructive character of those by whom it was adopted. That inference should have guided those who undertook the task of thinking and acting for the population of Iran* and supplying them with a stimulus to constructive effort. But they preferred to work on the theory that a Government by the people is a remedy for most social and political ills. And the result is confusion worse confounded.

The Russians and the British, after having long been rivals in Iran, had the good sense to split their differences and agree upon a common line of action there in the year 1907. The inspirer of that salutary policy was the late King Edward, and the man who had the courage to formulate, champion, and execute it was Izvolsky, then Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, whose services to the cause of what, for lack of a better term, I should call Europeanism, have not yet been fully recognized. It was my good fortune to be in St. Petersburg at that time and to follow the progress of the conversations at fairly close quarters, and I venture to state that M. Izvolsky deserved well of his country and the Entente. His moral courage, severely tested by a powerful Opposition and other influences never faltered.

One of the objects of the AngloRussian Agreement was to keep Persia from being submerged, and the means adopted were the introduction of Parliamentary Government, elections, a responsible Cabinet, and all the other devices of democratic countries, the recognition of Persia's integrity, and independence, the advance to her of money, and the creation of British and Russian "spheres of influence." It

was a curious project even on paper, and it was a hundredfold more incongruous when it came to be worked out. For it is clear that Parliamentary government, which brings the ruling classes into continual contact with the masses, must of necessity lead to the formation of a Nationalist party. And this party would at once be faced by two alternatives: either fierce opposition to the protecting Powers whose spheres of influence are incompatible with a Nationalist policy, or the sacrifice of moral sincerity which would be sapped by acquiescence in that arrangement. Each of the two creations, Parliamentary régime and spheres of foreign influence, was as incompatible with the other as were Ahriman and Ormuzd in the ancient Persian religion.

From the viewpoint of British interests two other capital errors were perpetrated: a neutral zone dividing the Russian from the British sphere was established, and the territory earmarked by our Government was insufficient. During the negotiations between the two Cabinets, the Russian Minister proposed a really large slice of land to his colleague, which would have had the effect of equalizing the shares and leaving no neutral zone. This reasonable offer was declined on two inadequate grounds. Great Britain had always in her dealings with Russia upheld the principle of a buffer in some shape or form between the two Empires. But as in this case a buffer State was out of the question, the only other way of keeping the two Empires from becoming neighbors was to divide them by a No-man's land, as though there was no pirate nation on the lookout for unclaimed territory.

A further motive which went far to strengthen that was the unwillingness of the Indian Government to be hampered by a bigger strip of territory than it could efficaciously defend with the slender resources at its disposal against