Читать книгу England, Canada and the Great War - Louis Georges Desjardins - Страница 13

Having affirmed that Canada had no right to interfere in the war, the "Nationalist" leaders at once concluded that she was not in duty bound to do so. That most discreditable inference was, of course, the natural sequence of the wrong principle aforesaid. They further drew the conclusion that it was no part of the duty of Canadians to join the Colors to help winning the war.

It was in flat contradiction of those erroneous notions that I positively declared, in my letter dedicating my book to my French Canadian compatriots, that "in defending with the most sincere conviction the sacred cause of the Allies, I am doing my duty as a free subject of the British Empire, as a citizen of Canada and of the Province of Quebec, as a son of France, as a devoted servant of Justice and Right."

Very narrow minded indeed is the man who has no higher conception of his duty than the one limiting him to the observance of positive and negative laws enacted by the legitimate authority to protect society and every one of its members.

When England, together with the other leading nations, was brutally challenged by Germany, and threatened in her very national existence, it is beyond comprehension that Canada, and all the British colonial possessions overseas, could so mistake their bounden duty as to refuse rushing to help the Mother Country in such a trying occurrence. Moreover, have we not, merely as men, duties to perform to protect Civilization against the deadly attack of barbarism, to have Justice and Right triumphant in international relations?

It is a matter of deep wonder to me that any one could have been so blind as not to perceive that in joining with Great Britain to defend the cause of the Allies, we were surely defending our own territory, our own soil, our own homes. How incredible was the "Nationalist" contention that we should have waited for the actual German attack of our land before mustering our resources of resistance. Who could not see, at a glance, that if Germany had, as it fully expected, easily triumphed over the combined forces of France, England and Russia, it would have been sheer madness to attempt resisting the victorious onslaught of a few hundred thousands of her veteran soldiers, whose valour would have been doubled by the enthusiasm of their European conquest.

After mature consideration of the possible results of the disastrous defeat of the combined efforts of the Allies, both on land and sea, the conclusion was forced upon my mind that Germany, ferociously elated by such a wonderful success, would no doubt have exacted from England the cession of Canada to her Empire. So that without even firing a gun against our territory, our wide Dominion would have been instantly transferred from the British to the German Sovereignty. I shuddered at such a vision, and still more deeply realized how much we, Canadians, were all in duty bound to help the Allies in crushing Prussian militarism.