England, Canada and the Great WarDesjardins, L. G. (Louis Georges)
History
England, Canada and the Great War
Desjardins, L. G. (Louis Georges)
Great Britain -- Colonies -- Canada; Imperialism; World War, 1914-1918; World War, 1914-1918 -- Canada
If he does not know, I will no doubt cordially oblige the "Nationalist"
leader by informing him that Great Britain, usually importing food
products to the amount of seven to eight hundred millions of dollars,
for many years past, required as much as a billion dollars worth of them
in the war year of 1915. It is so easy to foresee that the continual
increase of the population of the United Kingdom, by the new large
developments which will surely follow the war in all industrial,
commercial and financial pursuits, will cause a relative increase in the
importations of food products likely to reach, and even exceed before
long, an average total annual value of a billion and a quarter dollars.
None of the European continental Powers has the same imperious reasons
as England to take the proper means to guarantee her control of the
seas. How is it then that Germany is the only Power to object to
England's policy, if it is not for the ultimate object to attain
universal domination by the overthrow of Great Britain's ascendency on
the wide oceans, which would permit her to realize her long cherished
aim by the combined powerful effort of her gigantic military forces both
on land and sea.
With regard to England's naval supremacy, the "Nationalist" leader is
also committed to other opinions which I strongly contradicted. He
entirely forgets that beyond the sea coast limits, well defined by
International Law, no Sovereign rights can be claimed on the high seas.
The navigation of the ocean is free to all nations by nature itself. Has
any Government ever entertained the foolish idea that the broad Atlantic
could, for instance, be divided into so many parts as the European,
Asiatic, or American continents, over which several States could
exercise Sovereign powers? No Chinese Wall can be built on the seas.
My own view of the case, which I believe to be the correct one, is that
England's naval supremacy means nothing more nor less than the police of
the seas, and the protection of the flags of all the Nations navigating
them, besides being, of course and necessarily, the guarantee of her
National existence.
Blind also, intellectually, is the British subject not sufficiently
inspired by the true sense of the duties of Loyalty, who does not
understand that once Great Britain's maritime power would be crushed and
the United Kingdom either conquered or obliged to an humiliating peace
which would ruin all her future prospects, the Colonial Empire would
equally be at the mercy of the victorious enemy of the Mother Country.
With the most earnest conviction, I have tried, to the best of my
ability, to persuade my French-Canadian compatriots of the inevitable
dangers ahead if the false views which were so persistingly impressed
upon their minds were ever to prevail, and the aim they undoubtedly
favour to be realized.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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