The question is sometimes asked by Americans: Why does Canada concern herself about foreign problems and dangers? Why does she not rest secure under the aegis of the Monroe Doctrine, which forever forfends foreign conquest of America by an alien power? And Canada answers--because the Monroe Doctrine is not worth the ink in which it was penned without the bayonet to enforce the pen. Belgium's neutrality did not protect her. The peace that is not a victory is only an armed truce--a let-live by some other nation's permission. Without power to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, that doctrine is to Canada but a tissue-paper rampart. To add to the complication involving British Columbia comes the opening of Panama, turning the Pacific Ocean into a parade ground for the world's fleets both merchantmen and war. Commercially Panama simply turns British Columbia into a front door, instead of a back door. What does this mean? The Atlantic has hitherto been the Dominion's front door, and the Canadian section of the Atlantic has four harbors of first rank with an aggregate population of nearly a million. Canada has, besides, three lake harbors subsidiary to ocean traffic with an aggregate population of half a million. One may infer when the Pacific becomes a front door, that Vancouver and Victoria and Port Mann and Westminster and Prince Rupert will soon have an aggregate population of a million. Behind the Atlantic ports, supplied by them with traffic, supplying them with traffic, is a provincial population of five millions. Behind the Pacific ports in British Columbia and Alberta, one would be justified in expecting to find--Strathcona said a hundred million people, but for this generation put it at twelve million. Through the Atlantic ports annually come two hundred and fifty thousand or more immigrants, not counting the one hundred and fifty thousand from the United States. What if something happened to bring as many to the Pacific, as well as those now coming to the Atlantic?