raising and supporting of armies. There can be no army without men. Men can be had only voluntarily or involuntarily. We have ceased to obtain them voluntarily, and to obtain them involuntarily is the draft--is conscription. If you dispute the fact, and declare that men can still be had voluntarily in sufficient numbers, prove the assertion by yourselves volunteering in such numbers and I shall gladly give up the draft. Or if any one of you will volunteer he for his single self will escape all the horrors of the draft and will thereby do only what each one of at least a million of his manly brothers have already done. Their toil and blood has been given as much for you as for themselves. Shall it all be lost rather than that you, too, will bear your part? I do not say that all who would avoid serving in the war are unpatriotic, but I do think every patriot should willingly take his chance under a law made with great care in order to secure entire fairness.” XIX. The situation that Lincoln describes is very much the situation in Canada. The blood that was shed by valiant Canadians at Ypres, and Givenchy and Festubert and on the Somme, at Vimy Ridge and before Lens, will have been shed in vain if an inglorious peace is imposed upon Britain and her Allies and the German people strengthened in allegiance to a dynasty which will vex mankind with its pretentions, conspiracies and infamies until it is destroyed. Moreover, as long as Germany has power to fill the earth with apprehension Governments will continue their eager competition in armaments and high expenditures for defence. The war is for safety as well as for freedom, and upon its result the free institutions of Canada depend. If it was the unanimous judgment of Parliament that Canada should enter the war, and if among the people there was universal approval of the action of Parliament, how can we withdraw until victory is achieved? How can we continue in the war unless we can maintain and reinforce the regiments in the field? How can we get men except by command of the State when the persuasion of the State has ceased to be effective? There are those who talk wildly about “driving men to slaughter.” But more than 400,000 of the sons of Canada have driven themselves to “slaughter,” and because they have done so our homes and institutions have been secure. XX.