POLITICAL ISSUE IN CANADA

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 58, 6 September 1917, Page 6

POLITICAL ISSUE IN CANADA

Dominion Day for the people of New Zealand commemorates little more than a change of name which excited little enthusiasm at the time and none at all in the restiospect, but for the people of Canada it is a very different thing. The Confederation of Canada was a great event in the history not merely of Canada but of the Empire. It united under a single representative Government provinces stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from . the Great Lakes, to the Arctic Ocean.) and covering an area about thirty times as large as the British Isles, and it checked the racial feuds and local jealousies which, had they been allowed to develop, might have become an insuperable obstacle to union. . In the present year the-, great event .has beenj celebrated with a special solemnity because this, is its jubilee year, and because the Empire is now at the very crisis of a life-and-death struggle in which the soldiers of the great Dominion "are playing their part nobly in the firing-line. London joined with Ottawa in the celebration on this occasion. The King and Queen attended an impressive service held in Westminster Abbey "in com : memoration," as the King said in his telegram to the Governor-General, "of the 50th anniversary of the Confederation and in honour of her sons who. have fallen in the war."' Both aspects of the celebration were touched by the British ;Prime Minister with his usual felicity in his own message to the Governor-Gen-eral. ■ " Confederation," he said, " has done much for Canada. It has enabled the Canadian people to attain to internal unity and self-government, and to achieve the beneficent development of the resources of their country. It has done not less for the Empire. It has made Canada the pioneer of that autonomous nationhood which is the unique characteristic of our commonwealth of nations, and it has had its 1 logical outcome in the imperishable record which the Army of Canada has made on the "battlefields, of Flanders in the cause of human freedom.". '

In Ottawa the' commemoration of the jubilee of national unity was unfortunately marred by the knowledge of the deep-seated differences with regard to the most urgent of Canada's national obligations. Both Sir Robert Borden and Sir Wilfrid Laurier spoke admirably at the historic ceremony, but their glowing periods could not efface from their own minds or from the minds of their hearers the haunting consciousness of the' dangerous dissensions lurking beneath this splendid display of unity.- "It was "hardly within the dream of the men of fifty years ago," said Sir Robert Borden, " that Canada should assume among the nations the prpud position she occupies to-day. It^may be beyond'our imagination to realise the Canada thai shall be during the'lifetime of^our children. The dauntless spirit that conceived the Dominion is still strong. It sorrows for those who have fallen. It assures those on the battle-line that their country will sustain them to the final issue." Sir Wilfrid Laurier was equally apt and still more eloquent when - he. said: "What seemed a dream in 1867 has been more than realised in 1917. The wilderness has been conquered, distance, has been vanquished, and a nation built and united by the intangible bond of the Crown which is stronger than any other. The noble nations; of the free men of Africa, Australia, and the other parts of the Empire" have risen, and all this can be traced back to. the work of the far-sighted men of 1867."

The facts of the political situation in Canada make a sad commentary on the patriotic eloquence of the two leaders. Day by day the Canadian troops are brightening the lustre of the laurels previously won, and confirming the suspicion that the Prussian Guards are not really the finest troops in the world; yet day 'by day Canadian politics have been drifting towards dissolution and deadlock, and the possible paralysis of the»military energies of the Dominion, at the very time when the call has become most urgent for redoubled effort. Dining the year ended on the. Ist May last, 85,000 men had enlisted in Canada and the casualties numbered 73,000. During April and May the enlistments were 8000 and the casualties 24,000. These facts were announced by Sir Robert Borden in tfie Dominion Parliament when he introduced the Military Service Bill, and they doubtless included little that was not already'wall known to-Si* Wilfrid JJEuirier.. Bui ih^dii not iodjjc&&i»Ji> ;

relax his opposition to the substitution j of compulsion for the voluntary system which had demonstraiily failed.- He had declined to co-operate in the introduction of compulsion because the policy had been announced by the Government be- j fore its coalition proposals had been made, and he has continued to oppose compulsion for reasons which fortunately have not been approved by his party as a whole. The Military Service Bill has been carried by overwhelming majorities with the aid of Liberal votes, but thp coalition scheme still hangs fire. ' ' The Liberals who have broken away from Sir Wilfrid Laurier are reported to have stipulated as a condition of coalition that Sir Robert Borden shall retire from the leadership. With an admirable patriotism he consented to help the labouring ship of State by playing the part of Jonah, but his own party refused to accept the sacrifice. The negotiations are presumably still proceeding, and the Government, according to a cablegram published yesterday, is preparing for the General Election that appears to be inevitable by the partial enfranchisement of women and the disfranchisement of citizens of enemy alien origin and conscientious objectors. Retrospective legislation of a sweeping character is always a thing to be regarded with suspicion, but we should not like to say that in the circumstances it is not justified. There are 500,000 Germans and austroHungarians in Canada, nearly 10 per cent, of the population, and' it is obvious how their votes would mostly go at such a, crisis as the present one.