The two great parliamentary parties agreed on the general proposition that Canada ought to do something for her own defence at sea, and that, within the British Empire, she enjoyed naval advantages which were unobtainable elsewhere. But they differed radically on the vexed question of ways and means. The Conservatives said there was a naval emergency and proposed to give three Dreadnoughts to the Imperial government on certain conditions. The principal condition was that Canada could take them back at any time if she wished to use them for a navy of her own. The Liberals objected that there was no naval emergency, and that it was wrong to let any force of any kind pass out of the control of the Canadian government. Nothing, of course, could be done without the consent of parliament; and the consent of parliament means the consent of both Houses, the Senate and the Commons of Canada. There was a Conservative majority in the Commons and a Liberal majority in the Senate. The voting went by parties, and a complete deadlock ensued. {189} BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ALL AFLOAT seems to be the only book of its kind. Not only this, but no other book seems to have been written on the special subject of any one of its eleven chapters. There are many books in which canoes figure largely, but none which gives the history of the canoe in Canada. Books on sailing craft, on steamers, on fisheries, on every aspect of maritime administration, and, most of all, on navies, are very abundant. But, so far, none of them seems to have been devoted exclusively to the Canadian part of these various themes, with the single exception of a purely naval work, _The Logs of the Conquest of Canada_, by the present author, who has consequently been obliged to write a good deal from his own experience with paddle, sail, and steam. Of course there are many excellent articles, some of considerable length, in the Transactions of several learned societies, like the Royal Society of Canada, the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, the Nova Scotia Historical Society, the Ontario Historical Society, and so on. There are also a certain number of pamphlets and official bluebooks--like those of the department of {190} Marine and Fisheries; and there is an immense mass of original evidence stored away in the Dominion Archives and elsewhere. But books for the public do not seem to exist; and the suggestion might be hazarded that this whole subject offers one of the best unworked or little-worked fields remaining open to the pioneer in Canadian historical research. Under these circumstances all that can be done here is to name a few of the many books which either cover some part of the subject incidentally or deal with what is most closely allied to it.