In Admirals' dispatches their names are seldom heard; They justify their being by more than written word; In battle, toil, and tempest, and dangers manifold The doughty deeds of small craft will never all be told. Scant ease, and scantier leisure--they take no heed of these, For men lie hard in small craft when storm is on the seas; A long watch and a weary, from dawn to set of sun-- The men who serve in small craft, their work is never done. And if, as chance may have it, some bitter day they lie Out-classed, out-gunned, out-numbered, with naught to do but die, When the last gun's out of action, good-bye to ship and crew, But men die hard in small craft, as they will always do. Oh, death comes once to each man, and the game it pays for all, And duty is but duty in great ship and in small, And it will not vex their slumbers or make less sweet their rest, Though there's never a big black headline for small craft going west. Great ships and mighty captains--to these their meed of praise For patience, skill, and daring, and loud victorious days; To every man his portion, as is both right and fair, But oh! forget not small craft, for they have done their share. Small craft--small craft, from Scapa Flow to Dover, Small craft--small craft, all the wide world over, At risk of war and shipwreck, torpedo, mine, and shell, All honour be to small craft, for oh, they've earned it well! C. FOX-SMITH _Reprinted by special permission of London "Punch"_ EXTRACT FROM SPEECH OF RT. HON. A. J. BALFOUR IN TORONTO (_May, 1917_) I come into Canada to a great free country, composed not only of friends, but of countrymen. We think the same thoughts, we live in the same civilization, we belong to the same Empire, and if anything could have cemented more closely the bonds of Empire, if anything could have made us feel that we were indeed of one flesh and one blood, with one common history behind us, if anything could have cemented these feelings, it is the consciousness that now for two years and a half we have been engaged in this great struggle, in which, I thank God, all North America is now at one. We have been engaged in this great struggle through these two years and a half, fighting together, when necessary making all our sacrifices in common, working together toward a common and victorious end, which I doubt not will crown our efforts. May I, as a countryman of yours, though not a citizen of Toronto, may I say how profoundly the whole Empire feels the magnitude of the effort you have made, and how we value it for itself and for an example to all posterity, an evidence to the whole world of what the British Empire really means, not only for the whole of that civilized body of nations of which we form no inconsiderable part.