President Taft and Secretary Knox held a long conference this morning on the state of affairs in Mexico, which, it is believed, are worse than is officially admitted. Reluctant as the President is to take any steps that might compel intervention or the military occupation of Mexico, he is forced to view both as ultimate possibilities, and to make preparations accordingly. Thus the Army on the border is being strengthened, although thus far no important military movements have taken place, but the plans are complete for mobilisation. While Congress is opposed to involving the country in war, or to any action which will lead to hostilities with Mexico, it will support the President if war is the only alternative, and the large amount of British and other foreign capital invested in Mexico makes it incumbent upon the United States, in view of the Monroe doctrine, to protect the lives and property of foreigners in the Republic. Otherwise, the duty of protection must be undertaken by the Governments whose nationals are in jeopardy, which would be an admission on the part of the United States that the Monroe doctrine exists for the benefit of the United States, but imposes no obligations. That is an admission Congress will not make so long as there is an Army ready to take the field. CHAPTER XI CANADA AND THE PACIFIC The existence, side by side, of two races and two languages in Canada makes it a matter of some doubt as to what the future Canadian nation will be. The French race, so far proving more stubborn in its characteristics than the British race in Canada, has been the predominant influence up to recently, though its influence has sought the impossible aim of a French-Canadian nation rather than a Canadian nation. Thus it was at once a bulwark of national spirit and yet an obstacle to a genuinely progressive nationalism. Patriotic in its resistance to all external influences which threatened Canadian independence, it yet failed in its duty to promote an internal progress towards a homogeneous people. Canada, it is perhaps needless to recall to mind, was originally a French colony. In the sixteenth century, when the British settlements in America were scattered along the Atlantic seaboard of what is now the United States, the French colonised in the valley of the Mississippi and along the course of the great river known as the St Lawrence. Their design of founding an Empire in America, a "New France," took the bold form of isolating the seaboard colonies of the British, and effectively occupying all of what is now the Middle-West of the United States, together with Canada and the country bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. It is not possible to imagine greater courage, more patient endurance, more strenuous enterprise, than was shown by the early founders of New France. If they did not achieve, they at least fully deserved an Empire.