Was Mr. Bourassa ignorant of the fact that the building of the magnificent railway system of the United States, that their great industrial development, were due to the billions of British capital which for the last eighty years have flowed, in rolling waves, towards the shores of the Republic, invading, in the most peaceful and friendly way, her large territory, and drawing from its immense resources the greatest immeasurable accumulation of wealth ever created by the labour of man? I am not aware that any American writer ever ran the risk of being crushed by ridicule in accusing all the United States borrowers in the English market, governmental and others, of the hideous crime of selling their country to Great Britain. It would have been sheer madness to say so in the broad light of the marvellous economical progress of our neighbours. They knew very well that the billions of dollars invested by the British saving public for the development of their territorial riches, were producing returns much larger than the rate of interest paid to their British creditors. No one in the United States ever apprehended, for a single moment, that because the Republic had borrowed enormous sums from Great Britain, she was likely to lose her State independence through the financial influence of the holders of her securities of all sorts. Such "Nationalist" notions, as above exposed and contradicted, can only create very wrong and deplorable conclusions in the public mind, were they allowed to follow their course without challenge and without the refutation proving their complete absurdity. CHAPTER XVI. "NATIONALIST" VIEWS CONDENSED. After refuting at length the "Nationalist" theories, I thought proper to condense them in a concrete proposition, and challenge their propagandist to call a public meeting in any city, town, or locality, in the Dominion,--Montreal for instance--and to find a dozen of citizens of standing in the community, to consent to move and second a "_Resolution_" embodying their doctrines. This condensed proposition, I translate as follows:-- "Whereas England has unjustly declared war against Germany; "Whereas Great Britain has done nothing to maintain the peace of the world; "Considering that His Majesty King George V. _had not the right to declare the state of war for Canada without the assent of the Canadian Cabinet_; "Considering that Canada, as an autonomous colony, _is a Sovereign State_; "Considering that British Sovereignty over Canada _is only a fiction_; "Considering that Canada, interfering in the present war, _should have done so as a Nation_; "Whereas Canada should only have fought on her own account, like _Belgium, Servia, Italy or Bulgaria_. "Whereas _the maintenance of a compact British Empire is the most permanent provocation against the peace of the world_; "Considering that the supremacy of England on the seas is unjust;