This has now been changed and Kitchener insists that both officers and men shall regard themselves as property of the Empire, that the exposure of a single life to unnecessary hazard is a breach of discipline. For this reason Victoria Crosses are not numerous, less than two dozen having been conferred thus far; and it has been quietly announced that no Victoria Crosses will be conferred for single acts of bravery or where only one life is involved. It must be team work and results affecting many. For this reason also it has been decreed that the 33,000 Canadians in training at Salisbury Plain shall not be put in the front until they have learned discipline in place of the American initiative. These Canadian boys receive their home pay of four shillings, or $1 per day, while the English Tommy gets one quarter of this amount. The Canadians are fine fellows, feeling their independence and anxious to be on the firing line, but the War Office recognizes that soldierly independence cannot be allowed in this war. It is not improbable that the Canadian troops will eventually be dispersed that their strong individual initiative may be thoroughly harnessed under the organization before they are trusted in the trenches. They are not to be permitted to go there to be shot at, but to use their splendid physiques, fighting abilities, and patriotism--more British than the English themselves--in strict organization. This is not to be an audacious war on the part of the Allies. It is first a defensive war in which the Germans are the heaviest losers. On the part of the Germans it is an audacious war and its very audacity has astounded the whole world. But Germany never meant to war against the world collectively. That was the accident of her bad diplomacy. The audaciousness of Prussian war conceptions began in the latter part of the last century. They did not grow out of the war with the French in 1870, for Bismarck's legacy to the German nation was a warning against any war with Russia. The German scheme was concocted by the successor of Bismarck himself, none other than Kaiser William II. He planned a steady growth of German power that would first vanquish the Slav of southeastern Europe and give Germany control through Constantinople and Asia Minor to the Persian gulf; then, as opportunity arose, a crushing of France and repression of Russia; and the overthrow of the British empire; and then the end of the Monroe Doctrine, to be followed by American tariffs dictated from Germany. This seems so audacious a program as to be almost beyond comprehension in America. Yet it will be made clear in the next chapter. CHAPTER II TARIFFS AND COMMERCE THE WAR CAUSES War with Russia was Inevitable--Finance and Tariffs made Germany great--Commercial War--How Germany loses in the United States--The Tariff Danger.