Burt A. The Evolution of the British Empire and Commonwealth From the American Revolution
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Dominion
Nationalism
625
constructed
and
operated
as a
government
enterprise.
It
never
paid;
it
could
not
pay;
it
was
not
intended
to
pay.
It was
a
great
public
work
designed
to
bind
the
Maritime
Provinces
to
central
Canada,
and
it
achieved
this
purpose.
Similarly,
the Canadian Pacific
Railway
was
undertaken
in
1871
to rivet
the
newly acquired
West to
the East.
The
original
plan
was
to build
this
too as
a
public
work,
and
for
some
years
this
plan
was
followed
without
making
much
progress.
Times
were
hard,
and the
magnitude
of the
task
eclipsed
that of the Intercolonial.
Finally
the
government
made
a
contract with
a
private
corporation
under
which the
latter
completed
the
railway
and became
its
owner.
In
addition to
the
sections
already
built and
being
built at
public
ex-
pense,
the
government
gave
the
company
huge
subsidies
in
cash and
land,
and
extensive
exemption
from
taxation. This was
the
price
paid
for
persuading
private
capital
to invest
in the road.
The
opposition
cried
out
that
the
price
was
exorbitant,
but the men
who
formed
the
company
added little to
their
fortunes
by
this venture.
With the
driving
of
the
last
spike
on the
line across the
Rocky
Mountains
in
1885,
the
steel rivet
ran
right through
Canada
from
the
Atlantic
to
the Pacific.
Something
more than
political
federation
and
the
building
of
these
two vital
railways
was
necessary
for
the
people
of Canada
to
become
a
nation.
Provincial
loyalties
were old and
strong.
Federation had met
with
rejection
in
each of
the
Maritime Provinces.
Nova
Scotia
even
talked
of annexation
to
the
United
States as a means of
escaping
from
thraldom to
Canada.
Since the
beginning
of the
century
French
Canadian
nationalism had
asserted itself
loudly
and sometimes
very
angrily.
Its
emphasis
on
race,
language,
and
religion
made
it the
most
formidable
obstacle
to
the cultivation
of an all-Canadian nationalism.
Protestant
and
English-speaking
Ontario
had
grown up
in
opposition
to
Quebec;
and
the
legacy
of
mutual
suspicion
between
these
two
provinces
was
liable
at
any
time to set
them
by
the ears.
The
dominion
had
to
develop
a
life
and a
spirit
of
its own
if it was to
be
more
than an
artificial
body
that local
loyalties might pull
apart
and
deliver
piecemeal
to
the
United
States.
This
danger
was
so
obvious
that it evoked
a
conscious
and
wide-
spread
effort to
make
the
different
people
of
the
country
think and
feel
as
one
nation.
The effort
found
its
most
interesting
and
probably
its
most
effective
expression
in
an
organization
that
was
formed
not
long
after
the dominion
was born.
It
adopted
the
motto
Canada First
not
the
old
but
the
new Canada
and
it attracted
such
support
that it
seemed
about
to
become
a
regular political
party.
The
challenge
in-
626
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO:
duced the
two historic
parties,
Liberal
and
Conservative,
to
espouse
the
principles
advocated
by
the Canada
First
movement
which,
as
a
consequence,
began
to break
up
in
1875.
Already
other
influences
were
advancing
the same cause.
The
Washington
Treaty
of
1871,
coinciding
with
the recall
of
the
British
garrisons,
did
much
to
rally
the
Canadians
as a nation.
By
this
treaty
the
United States
agreed
to arbitrate
its Alabama claims
against
Britain
in
return
for
the
opening
of Canadian
inshore
fisheries
to
Americans. The
prime
minister of
Canada,
Sir
John
A.
Macdonald,
was
one
of
five British commissioners
sent to
negotiate
the
treaty.
His
appointment
to
the
commission
is
memorable
as
that
of
the first
repre-
sentative of
any
dominion
or
colony
to
participate
in the
conduct of
foreign
affairs.
But the
honor sat
heavily
upon
him
because,
under
combined
British and American
pressure,
he
had
to
yield
the
fisheries
without
getting
what
Canada demanded for
them,
which
was a
renewal
of
the 1854
reciprocity
arrangement.
The
Alabama claims were a
big
stick
in
the
hands
of the American
government,
and until these
claims
were settled
it
could
use them
as an excuse for war.
Macdonald knew
full
well
that
the brunt of
the
war
would fall on his
country
and that
he dare not withhold
his
signature
from the
treaty.
Throughout
the
dominion there was
bitter resentment
against
Britain for
buying peace
at
Canadian
expense,
and still
bitterer resentment
against
the
United
States for
playing
this
game
of
power
politics.
It
was
a
ticklish
time for
Canada because
the
feud
between
Ontario
and
Quebec
had
just
flared
up
over
the
solitary
execution
that
marred
the Manitoba
rebellion
early
in 1870.
The
victim
was an
Ontario lad
and
an
Orangeman.
At once
Ontario
began
to
howl for
the
blood of
the
fugitive
Kiel,
who
had
ordered the
execution,
and
Quebec
as
pas-
sionately
sprang
to his
defense.
While
the
two
major
provinces
were
thus
raging
at
each
other,
the
Washington
Treaty
struck
them
a
sober-
ing
blow
that
greatly helped
to
consolidate
the
country.
It
was
not the
last time that the
United
States
unwittingly
came
to
the
rescue
of a
divided
Canada.
Canadians
still
hankered after
the
lost
American
market,
and the
hankering
increased with
the
onset
of
the
long
depression
in
1873. A
change
of
government
then
occurred in
Ottawa,
and
the
new
Liberal
administration
spied
a
gleam
of
hope
that a
revival
of
reciprocity
in
natural
products
was
not
impossible.
Thereupon
Britain,
at
the
request
of
Canada,
commissioned
another
Canadian,
this
time with
only
the
British
ambassador as
an
associate,
to
negotiate
the
desired
Dominion
Nationalism
627
treat}'.
The
business
being wholly
Canadian,
the
ambassador
left
its
management
to
the
Canadian,
who
actually
worked
out
a
treaty
with
the American
secretary
of state in 1874. It
was
promptly,
but
without
any
official
recommendation,
submitted
to
the United
States
Senate,
and there it
died
without
being
even considered.
Too
many
American
interests were
opposed
to
it,
and
too
many
American
politicians
be-
lieved that the
refusal of commercial concessions
would
reduce
Canada
to such a
desperate plight
that it would
beg
to
become
part
of
the
United
States.
This
belief,
the
product
of
a
blind
nationalism,
was
to
persist
for
many
years
and
to
contribute
more
than
a little
to the
hardening
of
Canadian
nationalism,
as
it did
in
1874
through
the
rebuff
administered
to
Canada.
This
rebuff
and
the
deepening
depression
drove
the
dominion
along
the
road
of economic
nationalism
in
company
with almost
all
other
western
countries
except
Great
Britain.
In
1878
Macdonald
was
returned to
power
on
the
issue
of
a
self-sufficient
economy,
and in
the
following
year
his
government
passed
a
thoroughgoing
protectionist
measure. The Liberals
fought
stoutly
against
it,
arguing
that it
was
better
to
export
what
Canada
could
raise
most
cheaply,
natural
prod-
uce,
and
purchase
from other
countries
what
they
could
make more
cheaply
than
Canada.
But
the
opposition
might
as well
have tried
to
prove
diat
black
was white.
The
people
of
Canada
had
awakened
as
a
nation;
and
whether
protection
would
be
financially profitable
or
not,
they
felt
that
it
would be
nationally
profitable
because
it would
make
them more
independent
economically
and
knit
them
together
more
securely.
The
change
to
protection
coincided
with the
recovery
of
prices
that
continued
for
a
few
years,
and
the
prosperous
interlude con-
firmed
the
public
faith in
what
Macdonald
had
shrewdly
labeled
the
National
Policy.
It
was soon
commonly
known
by
the initials
N.P.,
and
it was
so
popular
that
a
smart
manufacturer
appropriated
this
abbreviation
as the
name
of
his
product
that
became
a
perennial
favor-
ite
with Canadian
housewives
N.P.
Soap.
The
national
unity
of Canada
was
again
shaken
in
1885,
when
another
execution
in
the West
touched
off
an
explosion
in the East.
This time
the
victim
was
Kiel
himself.
Having
returned to lead
a
rising
of
half-breeds
living
on the
Saskatchewan,
he was
caught,
tried,
and
condemned
to death.
The
sentence
split
the
country.
French
Canada
raised
an
almost
hysterical
cry
for
the
government
to
save him
from
the
gallows,
while
Ontario
grimly
insisted
that
the
noose
be
put
arotind
his
neck.
Macdonald
and
his
cabinet
colleagues,
who
were
628
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO:
much to
blame for
the
rebellion
because
they
had
paid
no
attention
to
the
just
grievances
of
the
half-breeds,
could
not
squirm
out of the
dilemma.
They
had to choose
between
pleasing
Ontario
or
Quebec.
After
long
and
painful
hesitation
they
chose
Ontario;
thus
began
the
estrangement,
which still
persists,
of
Quebec
from
their
party.
When
Riel
mounted
the
gibbet,
he
became
a
French
Canadian
martyr
whose
life was sacrificed
to
appease
an
English
Canadian
demand for
vengeance.
Very shortly
another
question
arose
that
distracted
public
attention
from this
internal strife
and tended
to
pull
the
country
together
again.
The
brief
sun of
prosperity
had
disappeared,
and
Canada
was
plunged
into
deeper
economic
gloom.
As
the Children
of
Israel
had
longed
for
the
fleshpots
of
Egypt,
so
now
did
Canadians
yearn
for
the American
market. Once
more Ottawa
approached
Washington,
where tie
Canadian
extremity
seemed
an American
opportunity.
The
United
States
would
not
open
its doors
to Canadian
raw materials unless
Canada
opened
its doors
to
American
manufactures.
The Conserva-
tives,
who
were still
in
office,
would
not listen
to such
a
bargain.
Many
prominent
Liberals,
however,
were convinced
that Canada
would have
to
pay
this
American
price.
They
talked
of free
trade
between
the
two
countries,
and of
having
one tariff
wall around
both.
The Conservatives
damned
this
suggestion
of
commercial
annexation
as
the
beginning
of
political
annexation.
"A British
subject
I
was
born,
and
a
British
subject
I
will
die/'
cried
Macdonald
in
the
general
election
of 1891.
He won.
The Conservative
victory,
the last
until
twenty years
after-
ward,
is
a
nice
illustration of
how
nationalism
and
imperialism,
though
commonly opposed
throughout
the
British
dominions,
have
frequently
been
allies
in
Canada,
thanks
to the
near
presence
of the
United
States.
The
Liberals,
learning
their
lesson,
met
in convention
and
formally
repudiated
the
policy
of
unrestricted
reciprocity.
To
preserve
the
rhythm
of Canadian
nationalism,
the
family quarrel
broke
out
again
while
the
people
of
the
country
were
demonstrating
that
they
would not
sell
their
national
birthright
for
a
mess of com-
mercial
pottage.
Manitoba
had
early copied
the
dual
public
school
system
of
Quebec,
with Roman
Catholic
and
French schools for
one
part
of
the
population,
and
Protestant
and
English
for the other. In
1890,
immigration
having
made
the
new
province
mainly
Protestant
and
English-speaking,
the
legislature
abolished
the
separate
schools of
the
minority
and
prescribed
one
uniform
system
of
secular,
and
Eng-
lish,
public
schools.
Quebec
raged
and
Ontario
rejoiced,
and for six
Dominion
Nationalism
629
years
the
Manitoba school
question
was
the
storm
center
of
Canadian
politics.
According
to
the
constitution,
education
was a
provincial
matter
but
the federal cabinet could
intervene
to
protect
the
rights
of
an
aggrieved
minority
in a
case
of
this kind.
The
responsibility
for
settling
the
ugly
dispute,
which
turned
on
race,
language,
and
religion,
thus
rested
upon
the dominion
government,
which
did
not
know
how
to
handle
it.
Old
Macdonald died
in
1891,
worn out
by
the strenuous
campaign,
and
the
advantage
of
leadership passed
to
the
Liberals
under
the
young
Laurier.
He
pleaded
for
a reasonable
compromise
with Mani-
toba,
while
the
Conservative
government
blundered
into
ordering
that
province
to restore
its
separate
schools,
hoping
thereby
to recover
the
strength
it had
lost
in
Quebec
through
the execution
of Kiel.
By
this
maneuver,
which
antagonized
Protestant
Ontario,
the Conservatives
won
the
open
backing
of
the Roman
Catholic
hierarchy.
But
this did
neither of
them
any good,
for
in the
next
general
election,
in
1896,
the
majority
of French
Canadian
voters
defied
their
bishops'
political
dictation.
In that election
Canadian
national
unity
took
a
great
stride forward
without
any
aid from
the United
States.
Laurier,
now
prime
minister,
quickly
restored
the
national
harmony by
applying
persuasion
instead
of
coercion to
the
province
of
Manitoba,
which
kept
its unified school
system
but
modified
its
regulations
by allowing
voluntary
religious
in-
struction
of
Roman Catholic
and Protestant
children
separately during
school
hours
and
by abandoning
the
requirement
that all
teaching
must
be
in the
English tongue.
This amicable
settlement
of an
angry
ques-
tion
was
typical
of
Laurier's
more
general
achievement
in
drawing
English
Canada
and French
Canada
together.
In
addition
to
being
almost
worshipped
by
his own
people
as
their
greatest
son,
he
gained
a
personal
ascendancy
in
English
Canada
which no
English
Canadian
leader
has ever
paralleled
in French Canada.
For all his
great
charm
and
understanding,
Laurier could not
have done
this
had
it
not
been
for
the fact
that,
though
he was
always
a
devout
Roman
Catholic,
he
would
never tolerate
the interference of
his
own church
in the
political
field.
He
had
openly
fought
it
from
the
beginning
of his
public
career.
The climax
came
in
1896,
when
the
bishops
issued mandaments to
be
read
from
every pulpit
directing
the
people
to vote
Conservative.
On
emerging
victorious
against
such
odds,
Laurier and several
other
promi-
nent
Roman
Catholics,
irrespective
of
race,
joined
in
an
appeal
to
Rome
against
the
political
activity
of
the
local
hierarchy;
the
papal
court
sent
out
a
prince
of
the
church
to
investigate;
and
thenceforth
630
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO:
the
Roman
Catholic
clergy
in Canada
eschewed
politics.
All
this,
of
course,
saved Laurier
from
falling
under
English
Canadian
and
Protes-
tant
suspicions
as a
possible
tool
of
his
church,
and
thereby
enabled
him
to
bridge
the
national
gap.
Also in
1896
the
Canadian
nation commenced
to
grow
in
size,
in
strength,
and in
self-confidence
at
an
amazing
rate,
for
then
the
empty
West
began
to
fill with a rush and the dominion
as
a
whole
entered
upon
a
period
of
abounding
prosperity.
The
Liberals
gleefully
claimed
all the
credit for this
great
turn
in
the
country's
fortune,
but
these
politicians
had little to
do
with the
splendid
tide
except
to
ride
high
upon
it.
What
produced
it was
an
astonishing
combination of influ-
ences
outside Canada.
The
great
westward
flow
of
population
in the United
States,
having
at
last
occupied
all
the free American
homestead land that was
good
for
ordinary
fanning,
began
to
spill
over into
the
Canadian
prairie
at
the
very
time when the
long
depression
came to
an
end. Then
manu-
factured
goods
lagged
behind
raw
materials
in the
general
recovery,
causing
the
price
of wheat in
the world market
of
Liverpool
to
rise
faster than
Canadian
production
costs.
Ocean
freight
rates
continued
their
downward course
for another
dozen
years,
which meant a
corre-
sponding
reduction
of
transportation
charges
on
Canadian
export
and
import
trade across
the
Atlantic. To
complete
the
tale of how
blind
forces
cooperated
in
Canada's
favor at the
commencement
of
the
Laurier
regime,
interest
rates
reached an
all-time
low,
and
capital
was
as
plentiful
as it
was
cheap.
Britain
was
bursting
with
it,
and
found
in
Canada
a
preferred
field
for investment.
When these
fortuitous
factors
are
added
together,
it is
small
wonder that
immigrants
flocked to
Canada
and
the
whole
country
filled
out in a
way
that
recalled the
phenomenal
growth
of the
United States
in
the
nineteenth
century.
Before
the
First
World War
Canada
was
exporting
more
wheat
than
any
other
country except
the
United
States
and
Russia;
and
the
Canadian
population,
which
had
ceased to
grow by
1891,
when
it
was
about
4,800,000,
increased to
nearly
eight
million.
Such
vigorous
growth gave
a
corresponding
stimulus to
Canadian
national
pride.
It also
exorcised
a
spell
that
had
bewitched
Canada for
half a
century
the
spell
cast
by
reciprocity
with
the
United
States
for the
Canadian
economy
was
now
firmly
oriented
upon
the
interna-
tional market of the
Old
World.
At
the
same
time
the
absorption
of
a
large immigration
was
a
healthy
challenge
to
Canadian
nationalism.
There was
some
concern
over the
size of
the
influx
from
the
United
Dominion Nationalism
631
States;
but much
of
this
was
the
re-emergence
of
a
British
stream
that
had
flowed
into the
United States from the old
country
and
from
Canada,
and as a
general
rule
the
Americans
were
more
quickly
assimi-
lated
than
the
newcomers from the
British Isles.
More
difficult
was
the
considerable
body
of
immigrants
from
the
European
continent.
Inevitably
many
of the older ones
remained
foreign,
but
Canadian
society
digested
the
younger generation
and
the task
made
Canadians
more
consciously
Canadian.
A
more
important
and most
healthy
influence
in
solidifying
the
nation was
the internal
migration
set
in motion
by
the
rapid
develop-
ment
of
the
country.
It scattered sons
and
daughters
of the
Maritime
Provinces all
the
way
out
to
the Pacific
coast
and it
spread
large
num-
bers of
people
from the old Canada
all
over the
West,
thereby
multiply-
ing
the
human bonds that
held the
dominion
together.
In
addition,
by
mixing
these
migrants together
in new
surroundings,
it
gave
them
a
broader national
outlook,
which
they
in turn
imparted
to
the
friends
and relatives
they
had left behind.
When this
dynamic
development
of the dominion
was
just
getting
nicely
under
way,
the outbreak
of the
Boer War
in 1899
imposed
a new
strain
upon
the
growing
national
unity.
The immediate
and
instinctive
reaction
in
English
Canada
was
an insistent
demand
that the
govern-
ment
send
a
contingent
to
fight
in South
Africa,
while French Canada
just
as
naturally
held back
and
was inclined
to be
apprehensive
of
this
outburst
of British
imperialism
in the rest of
the
country.
The
prime
minister,
who
was
thus
pulled
in
opposite
directions,
had to
yield
to
the
majority
cry,
but
at the same
time
he announced
that
the
dispatch
of
troops
from Canada
was not
to be
a
precedent.
His disclaimer
reassured
most
of
his own
race,
but
not
Henri
Bourassa,
one
of his
ablest
supporters,
who
turned
on
him and
publicly
accused
him of
betraying
Canada
by
committing
it to
fight
in
a British war
that
was
none
of
Canada's
business.
This
was
the
beginning
of
a
small
political
party
and
a
large
political
movement
known
as Nationalist
in
Quebec
and
French
Canadian
Nationalist
elsewhere.
English
Canada de-
nounced
Bourassa
and
his crowd
as
disloyal
to
the
empire,
and
they
retorted
with
charges
of
disloyalty
to Canada.
The issue was funda-
mental
and
the conflict
confused
it
by making
each
side
identify
Canada
with
itself,
French
or
British,
which of
course
emphasized
the
racial schism.
Again
the
United
States
came
to the
rescue
by
administering
a
shock
to
the
schizophrenic
nationalism
of Canada.
The
way
the American
632
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO:
government
got
the
Alaska
Boundary
Award
of 1903
rankled
so
bitterly
that
it
blinded
Canadians
of that
generation
to
the
fact,
now
generally
accepted,
that
the
award itself was
substantially
just.
The
dispute
was
over
the
width,
not the
length,
of
the Alaskan
panhandle.
President
Theodore
Roosevelt
determined
to
use force
if
necessary,
and
in
March
1902
he
sent
troops
to the
disputed region.
He
would not listen
to the
Canadian
request
that the
matter be
referred
to
the
Hague
Court
or
to
arbitration
by
a
neutral.
A virtual
ultimatum
from
Washington
forced
Ottawa
to
agree
to
a
settlement
of
the
boundary
by
a
joint
commission
of
"impartial
jurists
of
repute,"
three American
and
three
British.
Roosevelt
flouted
this
agreement by
picking
men
who
were
notoriously
anything
but
"impartial,"
and
Canada
urged
Britain
to
delay
ratification
as
a
protest.
But
London was
anxious
to
avoid
trouble
with
Washington,
and Canadian fears
were
not
allayed
by
a
British
refusal
to let
Canada
name
all the British
panel.
It was
composed
of
two
Canadians and
the
Lord Chief
Justice
of
England.
He
sided
with
the
United States
commissioners
to
complete
the
award.
Canada
was
at
once
convinced
that
the
British
government,
under
American
influ-
ence,
had
"tipped
the
wink"
to
him,
to
quote
the
words of
"Teddy"
Roosevelt
when he
later
declared that this
was what
had
happened;
and
a
storm of
indignation
against
both the
United States
and
Great
Britain
swept
through
the
dominion,
giving
another
clear
demonstra-
tion
of how
nationalism
feeds on
wounds,
real or
supposed,
inflicted
from
without.
The
naval
scare
of
1909
had
the
opposite
effect,
repeating
the
experience
of ten
years
before.
The
revelation that
German
naval
power
was
creeping up
on
the
British
left
French
Canada
cold,
for
its
history
made it
more
isolationist
than
any
part
of the
United
States;
but
in the rest
of the
country
there
was
warm
concern
over
the
danger
looming
in
the Old
World.
This
reaction
was
not
just
a
blind
expres-
sion
of British
imperialism,
like
that
of 1899.
It
was
more
national
and more
responsible.
Many
English
Canadians
suddenly
felt
that
Canada
was not
playing
the
part
of
a
self-respecting
nation,
that
their
country
was
sponging
on the
mother
country
by
enjoying
the
protection
of
the
Royal
Navy
without
paying
a
penny
for
it,
and
that
it
was time
for
this to
stop.
In 1
9
10
Laurier's
government
introduced
a
bill
for the
construction
of
a
Canadian
navy
that,
if
need
be,
might
serve
as
part
of
the
British fleet.
The
measure
was
attacked in
French
Canada
because
it
went
too
far,
and in
English
Canada
because
it
did
not
go
far
enough.
Bourassa and his
followers
cried
out
that
the
administration
in
Ottawa
Dominion
Nationalism
633
had
become
the
tool of
London;
while
many
English
Canadians
insisted
on an
outright
gift
of
money
to
Britain,
some
because
they
were
outright
imperialists,
more
because the
crisis seemed
very
urgent
and
this
the
quickest
way
to meet
it.
As
might
be
expected,
the
crossfire
between
these
extreme
opinions,
French on the
one
hand
and
English
on
the
other,
mutually
exasperated
those
who
held
them.
The
national
confusion,
which
stalled
the
naval
bill,
became
worse
confounded
when
the
government
sprang
a
surprise
by
announcing
the
conclusion
of
an
agreement
with the
United
States
to
give
Canada
the
reciprocity
it
had
long
desired.
Farmers in the
West,
and also
in
the
East,
had
revived the
old
demand;
but the main
pressure
came
from
American
publishers,
who
sought
the free
import
of Canadian
news-
print.
Time,
however,
had
brought
changes
in
Canada
too.
The
Con-
servatives
discovered that
they
no
longer
wanted
reciprocity,
and
not a
few
Liberals
agreed
with
them
that it
would
be the
undoing
of
the
country.
They
declared
that
Canada would become so
dependent
on
the
American
market
for the sale of its
natural
produce
that it would
be
at
the
mercy
of
the
United
States. On the
other
side of
the
line,
President
Taft
urged
his
people
to seize this
opportunity
of
establishing
closer
commercial
relations
with
Canada
because
if
they
did
not
they
might
miss it
forever
through
the
tightening
of
imperial preference.
When
he
summed
up
the
situation
by
saying,
"Canada
is
at
the
parting
of the
ways,"
he
little
realized how his
words would
reverberate
in
Canada
as a
powerful
argument
for
choosing
the British
way.
Likewise,
when
Speaker-designate
Champ
Clark
blatantly
advocated
reciprocity
as
a
step
toward
annexation,
he dealt it a mortal
blow
in
Canada.
From the
Atlantic to the
Pacific an
outburst of
patriotic
sentiment
such as had never
been
witnessed in
the dominion came to a
head in
the
general
election of 191 1.
In
Quebec
the
chief
issue was the
navy,
and
the
Nationalists
put up
such
a
fight
that
Laurier
lost
many
seats
in
his own
province.
But he
still had
a
majority'
there,
and he
would
have
remained
in
office had he not
suffered a much
greater
loss
throughout
the rest
of
the
country,
where the
naval
question
was
almost
forgotten
in
the
excited
feeling
over
reciprocity
and its
danger
to
Canada,
both
as
a nation and as a
member
of the
empire.
Again imperialism
rein-
forced
nationalism in
Canada. It is
doubtful if this
time the
action was
reciprocal;
for
while Canadian
experience
had
bred distrust of the
United
States,
it
had also
bred distrust
of Britain in her
dealings
with
the United States. Canadian
nationalism
was
a
reaction
against
both
powers,
and it was still
lacking
in
maturity.
634 CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO:
Superficially
Canadian nationalism
had
reached
maturity
in
one
section
of the
population,
and
that
only:
the Nationalists
of
Quebec,
who
loudly
preached
that Canada
should
command the
undivided
loyalty
of
all its own
people
and
sever all but
nominal
ties
with
Britain.
But
if
maturity
means
responsibility,
the
nationalism
of Bourassa
and
his
fellows
was far
from
maturity.
By flaunting
their
anti-British
bias,
they
accentuated the
divided
loyalty
that
they deplored;
and
by
insist-
ing
that
Canada
should stand
alone
on its own
feet,
they
were
behaving
like
children who would
eat
their cake and have
it too. Most
Canadi-
ans,
even
the
French,
had
a
sounder
instinct
that
inhibited
them
from
casting
off
the
light
imperial
rein
lest
they
fall
under
a heavier
Ameri-
can
yoke.
Tlie
nationalism of
the
majority, though
sensibly qualified
in
this
particular,
was
likewise
lacking
in
responsibility,
as
appears
clearly
in
the
political paralysis
that
left
the
naval
question up
in
the
air.
Lau-
rier's
measure,
which
had
just
become
law,
fell
with
him;
and the
Conservatives
substituted
a
bill to
give
"immediate
and effective
aid"
by
appropriating
money
for three
dreadnoughts
to
be
built
in
Britain
and
added to the
Royal Navy.
It
passed
the
Commons but
was
rejected
by
the
large
Liberal
majority
in the
Senate
inherited from
the
previous
regime,
and
the
government
decided
against appealing
to the
country
on
he
issue. The result was
that when war
came
in
19 14
the
dominion
had
only
a
"tin
pot
navy"
two obsolete
cruisers
that Laurier
had
got
from
Britain as
training
vessels. Canada was
to
reach
maturity
through
the
ordeal
of the
First World War.
Turning
from
the
conditions
that
governed
the
growth
of
Canadian
nationalism
down
to
1914,
we should examine
its
constitutional
effect
in the evolution of
what later became known as
"dominion
status."
It
was
an
enlargement
of colonial
self-government,
which
was
originally
limited
to
purely
domestic affairs
interpreted
quite
narrowly.
The
stretching
of
this
interpretation began
before
federation,
in
the
old
Canada
which could not be treated as
an
ordinary
colony
because it
far
surpassed
all
others
in
population
and
wealth
and
it
lay
too
close to
the
United
States.
When
it was
merged
in the
dominion and
the latter
expanded
from
sea
to
sea,
the
new
Canada stood out more
prominently
still in
the
imperial
family
and,
as
a
consequence,
blazed
the trail
toward
constitutional
equality'
with
the mother
country.
A sea
change
came over the
office of
governor
general,
making
it
more
and
more resemble
that
of
the
Crown in
Britain.
No
governor
general
ever
ventured to veto
a
bill
passed by
the
dominion
parliament,