One other consideration beyond that of commercial advantage has often been thrust upon Canadians as a reason why they should seek annexation. They are told that so long as they remain politically connected with Britain they will be exposed to the chances of war with the United States, since the Dominion would naturally be made the first point of attack should differences arise between the two countries. It is urged that resistance to such an attack would be useless and absurd, and that Canada's only guarantee of safety from future subjugation and the military occupation of the country is to form as quickly as she can and on the best terms she can, a civil union with the power that thus threatens her. If the appeal to mere commercial advantage seemed mercenary, this appeal to cowardice seems base. Certainly it is one which has never made any impression on the Canadian mind. Perhaps this is mere recklessness. It might be argued, however, that 4000 miles of frontier are as perplexing for attack as for defence. Canadians remember that in 1812 they successfully faced a corresponding danger when the odds were as {138} much against them, and numbers as disproportionate, as they are today. They remember that to crush the Southern States, fighting without outside help, required the most expensive and destructive war of modern times, prolonged over renewed campaigns. They know at any rate that the task of subduing them is one which would not be lightly undertaken. But picture the worst that such a war could bring: defeat, military occupation, complete subjugation. If war between Britain and the United States be, as is claimed, a possibility of the future, would not each and all of these be for Canadians infinitely preferable to placing themselves in such a position that; having abandoned a country which they loved and joined themselves to a country which they feared, they would by that act be pledged to use their arms, their means, their collective forces as a people, against the land that gave them birth, that had extended over them the strong shield of her protection through a hundred years of struggling infancy, and had freely given them the best she had to give of perfect freedom and noble institutions?