The Prose and Poetry, Reality and Spirit of Canadian Imperial Service

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN, -I need not say that I feel perfectly at home; I would be recreant to my duty and privilege as a member of the Club if I did not feel at home. Like Lord Rosebery, when he came to Edinburgh after a long absence, I can say that "I am come to mine own ancient city, mine own fellowcitizens, mine own neighbours, and mine own friends." The best ten years of my life-of course, some in Belleville excepted-were those spent at Upper Canada College, the University, and Osgoode Hall. One hundred and eighty-nine of the old Upper Canada -College boys are now doing their duty in France and Belgium, and two Victoria Crosses have been won by them is the past. At the University of Toronto Parade the Duke of Connaught said that never in all his experience had he at any educational centre inspected 1590 men and 26 officers of the physique, stamina, and spirit which the Officers' Training Corps of the University of Toronto presented. If I feel at home by reason of being in old Toronto and by being a member of the Club, I certainly do so the more when I see my old comrade Colonel Brock here, and Major Pope, with whom I served for twentyfive years. It is wonderful what that comradeship is doing; it is wonderful, the unity of the community, the brotherhood of solidarity, which comradeship in arms and the "will to be one" is producing. It has wiped out all politics, all sectarianism, all denominationalism; we are all exuberant in united strength and proud of our common citizenship. We hear so often of the sacrifice of service of those boys at the front. Any one that reads their letters, any one in contact with them, any one that has worn the King's uniform, and has had the privilege of translating the spirit that animates them into action, knows it is no sacrifice of service, it is the glory of service to the boys who are privileged to serve and who are doing their duty at the front. The sacrifice of service comes home to the mothers and the wives and the sisters and the sweethearts, but the glory of service is theirs, and the glory of it is in doing things together, the glory of co-operative comradeship. It seems to me that is the very essence of it. There is something more than even the fraternity of your Oddfellows and Masonic Lodges; there is something better:

" To count the life of battle good,
And dear the land that gave you birth;
But dearer still the brotherhood
That binds the brave of all the earth."

Read those boys' letters and you will find that they realise that which binds the brave of all the earth. Two young Canadian officers conceived the idea in the last days fat Valcartier, on Citadel Hill, of lighting a bonfire and having the officers come up. It was not till after the last post was sounded, and the officers went up on the top of that hill looking down on the tented 30,000 men below and exchanged stories and sang a few songs by the embers of the fire; and then suddenly out from the sky flashed the northern lights, " fearful lights that never beckon, save when kings and heroes die," the grandest display that has ever been seen down in Quebec, they say; and something came over them, they rose up and clasped hands around that -bonfire and they felt the thrill of comradeship going through them, and they felt that they were now really on Imperial Service. Speaking of little incidents that come out in correspondence, one incident struck me when we were singing " God Save the King," and I would like if we might sing " Rule, Britannia," before we go home, because it has been sung under circumstances in which it was never sung before. Thirty-one transports gathered at Gaspe, having come down the river under small convoy. When the boys were on the decks wondering where was the fleet they had expected, they saw seven streaks of smoke on the broad expanse of ocean, and gradually the streaks of smoke assumed form and they saw that they were battleships and battle-cruisers of the Old Mother's navy, coming over to convoy them across the ocean. Gradually as they approached, they saw the Admiral's ship was leading, with the Admiral's flag flying. One of the captains of one of our Ontario battalions said " What about 'Rule, Britannia'? " No sooner suggested than done, and with greater volume than ever before the grand old song rang out from the Cassandra and spread to the other troopships, and the moment it reached the Admiral's ship the signal was given and the engines stopped, and the great fleet of battleships glided by instead of steaming by, so that they might take in every word and note of that welcome from the lusty sons of the Grand Old Mother, accorded in that great Imperial spectacle to the fleet that was to guide and guard them over. And when they came up to these Canadian men singing as they never did before, the Admiral's flag dipped, and the sailors manned the yards; and the letter-writer says, "We suddenly stopped singing and something came up in our throats, and we think it was our hearts." They never had such a greeting from any of the sons or colonies or sister nations as they had on that memorable occasion when 31,000 vibrant, virile young Canadians welcomed them in song.

We hear and utter many things in these days of suspense; we say " Business as usual "; we have heard it at the Associated Boards of Trade this morning at least ten times. Don't we think there is something more than that? It is all right to keep the wheels moving, and keeping business and commerce as usual-to do our best. But should there not be a little more of the citizenship, patriotism, loyalty, fellowship, a little more of that feeling that knits us together as a British unit, fruitful and faithful--a little more than us"? We have all felt loyalty and thrilled with patriotism. I believe the English language was given to us at this time of storm and stress and crisis, to express our thoughts. I believe we should be demonstrative in our sane yet strenuous patriotism and loyalty. Twenty millions only spoke the grand old English language a hundred and ten years ago, and now, the miracle of history, 18o,ooo,ooo speak it. The Roman Empire never saw anything like that in the development of language. I was taught philology in the old days by Professor van de Smissen, whom I am glad to see present, but I never dreamed of the national and imperial power of a mother-tongue. After all, the Empire is not bounded by geographical dominions or frontier boundaries, but the. Empire is the empire of living thought, and there is no greater weapon ever given to a race to be thankful for than the language we have to express those thoughts. Where is the British Empire? We cannot bound it; I defy surveyor, architect, or engineer, or any one else to draw an accurate map of the British Empire, because it is just wherever the Union Jack flies; no, it is more, it is wherever a loyal British heart beats. This is only one ganglion, as it were, one nerve centre, one redoubt, of the British Empire that is spread all round the world. You know the flag that floats in the beams of a ceaseless morning; it is that wonderful wonder-working flag, but after all it is only symbolic. It took centuries to blend those crosses, but they are blended; the colours don't run, and they will never be unblended. There is something in a mother-tongue, yes, and a motherland, I would not exchange that expression for all the fatherlands in the world. Yes, but just that word Motherland and mother-tongue; it is under that sign that the British Empire has conquered. " Remember your nearest and your dearest," said Wellington, " what will they say of you in England? " That was the note. And Nelson said, " Remember, boys, that the girls at home have hold of your tow-ropes," and they believed it implicitly, that the spirit of the girls at home and the dear ones at home had hold of the tow-ropes. There is where the chivalry comes in; it is not mass and multitude that have brought victory to the British army. A lawyer in Montreal met an obstinate but respectable German fellow before internment, and got into a discussion with him about the relative merits of their respective empires, and the German said " I think, you call your land the Motherland, and I think you call your language the mother-tongue?" "Yes, we do," said the other. " Well, there is something effeminate a about that, something womanish, that is just what I would expect," the German said to the Montreal lawyer. " We prefer the Fatherland; we sing 'Die Wacht am Rhein,' and there is something manly there that gives us a stiff backbone, and we go right ahead. " Yes, right ahead, did you say? Do you know the difference just now between your Fatherland and my Motherland? " " I don't know anything particular," the Teuton replied, " except that we are going to beat you." " Oh, no, the difference is just this: I can go to my Motherland but you cannot go to your Fatherland." The discussion, I fancy, was ended there, but after all, verbal victories do not count for much; you know it was said of the Duke of Wellington that he never spoke against a foe, he fought him

" Whose life was work, whose language rife With rugged maxims hewn from life."

He never spoke against a foe, never in hate, and yet there was no one that could administer a castigation in a few sentences more effectively than the Duke of Wellington. You remember when he went to Europe on one occasion representing the power of Britain, some of the young French officers, still smarting under the defeats he had administered to Napoleon's marshals, turned their backs on him; and when some one came and apologised for their behaviour he said, " Never mind, I am more accustomed to see their backs than I am their faces." He never spoke against a foe, and we perhaps should not spend our energies in speaking against the Germans, though there is a unanimity of adverse public opinion condemning them. Our men fight buoyantly, gallantly, in the trenches, and they are fighting men with foam-flecked lips of hate. But our men are fighting more earnestly now because they are fighting as avengers to expiate the wrongs done to civilisation, to expiate the inhuman wrongs to the little nations. They are fighting against the bully, as Britishers have always fought, the bully of Europe. They are fighting now, not exactly at a white heat, but in living earnest, and while we cannot hate--we do not want to hate-yet we can speak with wrath when we think of the atrocities that the Huns have perpetrated. Never mind the dozens of mutilated children spoken of; take the two cases verified. Suppose there were no more than that little one that came to our own famous Canadian doctor and said, " Doctor, don't you think the good God will let them grow again? " The wealth of England would buy back those little arms if it could, but it cannot. The crime must be expiated; nothing else can do it. Our mutilated wounded, too, must be expiated. Nothing else but blood can do it. And the violation and sacrilege of the temple of the living God, those great temples expressing in arch and altar and pillar;

Unity, mystery, majesty, grace; Stone upon stone and each stone in its place."

Nothing but expiation will do. While we must not speak against a foe in the sense of speaking only, let us try to be like the Irishman; let it be words translated into action, let there be " fulfilment in our tongue." What else have they done? They have invited the condemnation handed down the centuries in Holy Writ; " Cursed be he who removeth his neighbour's landmarks." That is only part of what they have done. Little devoted, dissevered Belgium; that is the answer to all their professorial sophistries. Treaties are the currency of international statesmanship and international exchange. Woe to the nation that debases that currency! Germany has attempted to debase that currency. A scrap of paper. They forgot the seal was there; that when Palmerston signed he did not merely sign, but the Great Seal of Britain went on it, just as the Great Seal of Prussia was affixed with the signature of Bulow. We have our own scrap of paper; this old parchment [showing) represents the title of 40o acres in the old United Empire Loyalist district of the Bay of Quinte, but that scrap of paper has Brock's signature on it-"Isaac Brock, President of Canada "; that gives validity to it. It is not President of the Committee of Council, but simply plain President; a wonderful piece of history is exemplified there: That would be enough, because Brock was the man who more than a hundred years ago said that in his belief-and we can take it home now--" I know that a nation of freemen, enthusiastically devoted to King and constitution, can never be conquered." The old seal was there, with the grand old Royal Arms on it, and the insignia of the navy on the other side. The wax there implies the cohesion of the Empire, and the wax is just coloured to a nice gunpowder tint, with British gunpowder, because what we have we hold; in other words the army, the right hand of Empire, stands behind it and we guarantee possession of those rights and that title by the Great Seal and the army that is ready to support the treaty and the seal.

I am speaking of the poetry and prose of service, the realities and verities of service. We speak nearly altogether of our boys, and how often we forget our girls. How often we forget to mention those gentle Red Cross nurses, those effecient nursing sisters at the front. And added to the ministry of personal service, don't let us forget what women have done in all the thoughtful planning and all the practical efforts that have gone out to those boys of ours. They are not merely comforts, they are life savers. They can get the government supplies sometimes, but they are not as comfortable or as cheering as those that come from the dear old home. Into the web and warp and woof of the wool and yarn that comes from the dear old home is woven far more than the mere heat or the mere knitting; it means infinitely more to them. See to it that the supply is kept up continuously. See to it that wherever goes the British stamp, a chain of good gifts and good greetings goes to the army in the field, His Majesty's Post Office will find them; in the trenches and everywhere the post office will penetrate, and nothing can stop any parcel or any letter that we may send; the boy will be found. Keep the supply up because there is where the cheer goes.

" God gives all men all earth to love,

But since our hearts are small,

Ordained for each one place should prove Beloved over all."

That place is home. We are lengthening the cords, but we are strengthening the stakes. We have sent them out in expansion and cohesion both. Long is the way, far-reaching the touch, but we have strengthened the stakes because we have sent them out for a worthy cause and with faith in us. Do you know that our Ontario Brigade have got out two or three issues of a publication, well-edited, among the noncommissioned officers, and it is partly filled with cracking jokes, just as Baden-Powell in Mafeking published a daily paper " shells permitting " to keep up the spirits of the people committed to his care. But it ends up with this, " On no account allow the enemy to cut the lines of communication with the dear old home." That is the boys' message to us, too, and I am sure we won't let a line of cleavage have a place in our daily touch. That is one thing we may do, keep the spirit here, keep a radiating centre. Let them realise that here in the Canadian home, the British home, wherever it is, there is something to rely on, a basis of confidence that works reciprocally. We have confidence in them, but we will have still more when they know they can have confidence and trust in us, and we are radiating it to them. This was sent from the School by John Henry Newbolt:

.. . Oh, captains unforgot," they cried,
'Come you again or come no morel
Across the world you keep the pride,
Across the world we mark the score."'

Let them know that we are marking the score, following them with vital interest, every one of them, not my boy and your boy, but all our boys, because we merge our common parentage, all of us are parents to our boys, our boys at the front. That is the bit of service that links us all- in this wonderful brotherhood of solidarity. We cannot forget that there are trenches and trenches. We cannot forget the navy, and away down in our hearts there is a belief that though we may have our reverses and discouragements, though we feel that it is an almost hopeless task to get over those terrestrial trenches, there is a hope and an optimistic belief that some morning we shall find some real news that the cork has been drawn from the bottle and the rats driven out, and our navy has struck home for the King as they have struck before! Trenches? Yes.

" Across the trenches of the deep,
Unflinching faces shine,
And Britain's stalwart sailors keep
The bastions of the brine.
Ocean herself from strand to strand
Our citadel shall be; And though the foes together band,
Not all the forces of the land
Shall ever wrest from Britain's hand
The sceptre of the sea."

Service! We boasted before of our immigration. We boasted perhaps too much; we were the grandest country on the face of the earth. Over at the Imperial Chambers of Commerce in 19x2 we were rapped a little over the knuckles for thinking apparently that Canada was about the only place in the whole Empire that the sun ever shone on. It was only the spirit of the west expressing itself, the desire of the young plastic nation to show its lusty power. But it is emigration now we are boasting about, and I hope we shall have some more to boast about. Instead of drawing them in from the east and the west and the north and the south, we are sending our boys out. When they came over here with Cabot, those Gloucestershire and Devonshire sailors four centuries ago, this was the song they sang:

" The same goal before us, the same home behind us, England, our mother, ringed round with the sea! "

Now, 450 years afterwards, the converse is taking place; it is still England, our mother, ringed round with the sea; but she is the goal and not the centre. It is emigration. It . is wonderful the change that has taken place, but are we Canadian born doing our whole duty? Are we really? Is there leavening work for the Empire Clubs to do, and the Canadian Clubs to do still, with the young Canadians? I am not speaking of Toronto. Toronto is the Queen City of the province, and we honour you as one that has led us, led the whole of Ontario, the whole of the Dominion, in the magnificent spirit of service. Four thousand three hundred men with the first contingent is a record that no other city can show, no other city in this broad Dominion. I do not speak of Toronto, but just outside let us face realities? Have our Canadian-born boys responded and kindled just in the way that we might have expected? The boys of light and leading have. But there is some little inspiring work to be done. That is why I began by saying that the English language was given to us to express our thoughts. We have still a public opinion to animate, still some constant mainspring of action to supply-(not in Toronto perhaps)-so that the Canadian born will realise the call and respond in greater numbers than they have in the past. They axe responding; they are coming to it. The Drama stag 3000 miles away is gradually ceasing to be a spectacle. It is gripping us. You know when the rally to the colours comes is when the lists come in, when our lists will come in; and they are coming. In Toronto two wellknown names already. I do not say that all names are not well known, but the names of Nelles and Pepler appeal to all the old boyhood associations. The lists are coming home

" Common graves make common cause, A common grief together draws Both high and low. A common sorrow Links us to face our foes tomorrow."

That common sorrow and glowing sympathy in action will come. Let us face the verities, let us face the realities. It is the glory of service, but we have said good-bye to some of our boys for the last time. We won't even all know where our boys lie, because carnage is sometimes so dreadful and the explosives so terrible that often they are just "in one red burial blent." "Brothers in arms, brothers in glory, brothers in death, we buried them in one grave," is the motto of the Coldstream Guards in St. Paul's Cathedral. We know the spirit that animates our Canadian brothers there at the front, the far-flung battle line, the spirit of responsibility that has come over them on Imperial service. That greatest, I think, of all English modern epitaphs, written over two great soldiers, as truly fighting Britain's cause as though against human foe, stands under the Southern Cross, down in the Antarctic, where Scott or Oates lies, with this chivalrous epitaph: "SOMEWHERE HEREABOUT LIES A VERY GALLANT GENTLEMAN." That epitaph may be written over many a Canadian boy in sunny but ravaged France, and in the martyred fields of Belgium; God help them to deserve it too. It is not the first time they have been on Imperial service; at Paardeberg the white stones mark the Canadian boys. Many a traveller asks, How are the stones kept white? The women of Natal, and Cape Town, and Bloemfontein-God bless themcome three or four tunes a year and keep them white, and they can read this inscription on the monument over our Canadians there: " TELL ENGLAND, YE WHO PASS THIS MONUMENT, THAT WE WHO DIED SERVING HER, REST HERE CONTENT." What is the motto of our Ontario Brigade?" Glad to live, but not afraid to die." That is their daily prayer and daily invocation. Glad to live and to do good effective work in living, but not afraid to die-" Non omnis moriar." They have passed their vigil at Valcartier and Salisbury Plain; now they go out with their spurs and arms-and we have faith in them. They too have faith and will. That faith that in the good old times nerved the heart, gave strength to the weak, and made them conquerors over the armies of the aliens. May we not say to each and all of them as Newbolt has said, after the vigil of the knights:

" So shalt thou when morning comes Rise to conquer or to fall, joyful hear the rolling drums, Joyful hear the trumpet call; Then let memory tell thy heart, Britain, what thou wast thou art; Gird thee in thine ancient might; Forth, and God defend the right!

The meeting closed with the singing of " Rule, Britannia."