The Present Outlook and a Parallel

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN,--I think this is no time for pessimism. I heard a good story the other day, of a soldier who had been telling how he and a number of his comrades were in rather an exposed place in the trenches, when a sergeant-major came up and said to them, "What are you doing here? This is a very dangerous place. Get to cover, or a shell will be coming any minute that will blow you all to pieces!"-and a shell came in a minute and blew him all to pieces-the bloody pessimist!

Well, I, am not a pessimist. I am not going to say I am beaten until I am. There is no doubt that at this moment the outlook has become more serious than at any time since the battle of the Marne. When you come to think of it, the Germans, by intrigue and treachery, dishonesty of all sorts, and treason in their enemies' councils, have succeeded in getting control of almost the whole of the eastern part of Europe. We have only recently learned the secret of the intrigues that led to the breaking down of Rumania and Russia. The Rumanian business was awful in its treachery and rascality, Emissaries

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The Russian collapse and the Italian Retreat, with the accumulating evidence of Germany's preparations for the 1918 offensive on the Western Front created one of the most unique situations in History. It required the keen insight of the student of history as well as the sound judgment of the man of military experience to give the events of these months their true perspective. No man in Canada was better fitted than Colonel Denison to present the situation in all its possibilities and to give the events of those few weeks their proper significance.

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of the German Government, of whom Prime Minister Sturmer of Russia was one, induced the Rumanians to go into the War. Germany wanted Rumania to break into war. They had it all planned ahead; they wanted to get the oil wells of Rumania, and their large stores of grain and provisions, and they got Sturmer from St. Petersburg, apparently as a friend of Rumania, to urge them to go into the War, telling them, "If you ever want to do it now is your time, and we will help you." They led them into this War, but they did not help them, and now we know, though I could not understand at the time the War broke out, why the Rumanian troops struck across into Transylvania and made an attack there. Mackensen came immediately after with a large army of Germans, came around the flank of the army that had practically got into his rear, and burst into Bucharest, took possession of the centre of Rumania, and compelled the retreat of their army from Transylvania, captured a good many of them, and drove the Rumanians up to Jassy, and they had to change their seat of government; and only recently they have been obliged to give up the only little piece of country that they held. A more awful and deliberate piece of treachery you can hardly find in history.

In Russia it has been very much the same thing. German emissaries have played the game right in among the leaders of Russia. They have betrayed them. They succeeded in getting the Emperor driven out and obliged to abdicate, and now what is the result? The Bolsheviki have got control, and Russia for the time being is out of the War. It will be that way for some months.

Today Germany has the most of Belgium; she has a good piece of France; a little of Italy-got by the same kind of treachery and intrigue as I have been speaking of, not by fair fighting, but by officers and men in the Italian army betraying their trust. That has been checked now, as British and French troops have gone into Italy and have headed off that treachery-I hope for good.

We have been rather unfortunate in other things. We had a wretched mess made of the movement of our sailors at Antwerp at the beginning of the War, thanks to that fussy politician, Winston Churchill; and, thanks to his influence, to a great extent, we got into that terrible campaign at Gallipoli which went so seriously against us. I think that was one of the most complete defeats we have had; I think it is on a par with that of the Walcheren Expedition in 1809. That Gallipoli business is a matter that would probably throw doubt and hesitation among our own people. We lost a great deal in that; we lost a great deal in the Mesopotamian business when our first army was taken; and some 6,000 or 7,000 of our finest sailors were thrown away in the stupid move into Antwerp, and the stupidity with which they failed to get out of it.

Now, all this makes you think that the Germans have been more successful than they should have been, and it makes some people feel anxious as to the future. But, admitting that, let us consider and take a parallel with the days of Napoleon, and you will find that there is a great deal to give us courage and confidence in the comparison. The war against Napoleon lasted for about eleven years, though it had really been going on for ten years before. Napoleon was a man who, like the Kaiser Wilhelm, had made up his mind he was going to have world-power; that is what he planned for, and that is what he was determined to get, and by all kinds of trickery and intrigue and bribery and treachery and tyranny he succeeded in getting control over most of the countries of Europe. The time when things looked probably the worst was in 1811 or 1812; and when you think and compare our condition then with our condition now you will see we have an immense deal to give us courage and confidence. In 1811, speaking generally-for these events did not occur simultaneously-Napoleon had practically the control of Europe. His orders carried from the North Cape on the top of Norway clear down through to Gibraltar, and from France clear away to Turkey. The whole of the country, in a sense, obeyed his orders, because after the battle of Eylav in 1807which was almost a drawn battle but still served his purpose-he had the Emperor of Russia driven to the borders of his Empire and there he had met him and made peace with him. He was very cunning about trying to make peace when it suited his purpose. This Wilhelm, this Kaiser, is just as dangerous a man from the same point of view; he will make peace at any time if he can get it. That peace which Napoleon made with Russia put the whole of that country also under his control to such an extent that from 1807 till 1812 British goods were not allowed into Russia under orders from the Emperor of France.

What a power that man Napoleon had then, when you think of it! By treachery, by tyranny and oppression of the worst kind, he forced the abdication of Charles the Fourth of Spain, and shortly after he appointed his brother Joseph as the King of that country, Portugal was also practically taken into his hands. His brother-in-law, Murat, about that time was King of Naples. His stepson, Prince Eugene Beauharnois, was Viceroy of Italy under his orders. A brother was King of Westphalia. Another brother was King of Holland, and the Federation of the Rhine was a creature of his influence and under his orders. Denmark was also under his control, and was fighting against Great Britain at that time. Austria and Prussia shortly afterwards were conquered and were obliged to put themselves under his control. So that Napoleon had practically every country from the Atlantic clear away to Turkey, with all those great nations, under his command. That was pretty nearly world-power.

Napoleon quarrelled with Russia, and when he went to attack that country in 1812, he had succeeded in securing the assistance of our neighbours to the south, and the United States government entered the War on Napoleon's side-I cannot say on behalf of freedom, but they did it on behalf of something, I suppose-and we had to fight them for three long years on this frontier, with the assistance of the few British troops that England could send to us, and they made no less than thirteen distinct invasions of our country, and at the end of the War they did not hold an inch of British territory.

Now, just think of the position that England was in then, with every nation in Europe against her; with the greatest soldier and general this world has ever seen, in command to handle the troops; and in addition to that he had all the money and contributions that he forced out of all those nations to carry on his government. What was the state of affairs in England at that time? She looked across the ocean and found one-half of this continent arrayed in hostility against her. The United States then had 8,000,000 people, to our 700,000 or 800,000 in all Canada. England sat on the other side of the English Channel, and looking over the continent of Europe she found Holland against her, Belgium against her, and every other country against her. I want to ask you if Napoleon was not in an infinitely more dangerous and threatening position than the Kaiser is, or I hope ever will be? In 1811 and 1812 England was in terrible straits for want of food and a great many other things. A great many of their people were not satisfied, and wanted to make peace; that was the greatest danger England had. Grenville, Ponsonby and Whitbread were the leaders of the Opposition in Parliament, who lost no chance to attack Lord Wellington, to find fault with himbecause we must remember that the Peninsular war threw great losses on the British army; that in 1809 Sir John Moore was driven to Corunna, and had to get away on the ships to save his skin, and that Wellington had to fall back to the line of Torres Vedras, and was held along that little line from Lisbon, and then he had to fall back to the retreat of Busaco, and another time to the frontier of Portugal, and all that time he was trying to fight against Napoleon's hordes with the assistance of Spanish guerillas and a pretty poor Spanish army.

What did those politicians do then in England-Grenville and Ponsonby and Whitbread? In debates in the House they found the greatest fault with Lord Wellington, took every chance to do so, and spread doubt and hesitation among the people. The poorer classes of the people were in great straits, and that developed into riots and outrages all over the country, serious risings of the poorer people, risings in the night, destroying and stealing property, and all that kind of thing. This became so serious that the House of Commons appointed a secret committee to enquire into it all, and a very severe and drastic law was passed dealing with those things, the law to expire in 1814. The government then set to work to try to punish those people who were making this trouble in England, and to put things to rights, and it strikes me they must have done this with pretty strong measures; they did not beat around the bush and treat them gently, but they just stopped it. In one day they hanged seventeen of those rioters in the castle at York. We do not think of that now-a-days; people do not bring it up; people do not think of the retreats of our army in Spain, and the ill-feeling that was occasioned in England on account of it, but it was there.

But what did the English do? They kept right on. They fought right well. The very fact that they took such drastic steps to pass such a tremendously drastic law was proof that they grasped the seriousness of the situation and that they were determined to put themselves under the heel of no tyrant power.

Now I want to impress upon you the comparison between these two wars-the tremendous difference in the difficulties and in the odds that were against the Mother country at that time; and I want to draw your attention to the pluck and energy with which they stood up against the difficulties, with which they took every necessary step to try to win the war before they gave up. A lot of men in the House of Commons were getting up every now and then to advocate terms of peace. Nothing could have been more foolish than that; but in the long run Britain succeeded.

Now, I think, in the face of that parallel, that experience, and that example that was set to us by our forefathers, we ought to set our teeth and face any odds there may be against us, any difficulties there may be, and make up our minds unanimously to take any steps that may be necessary to put us through.

The people of the United States, at the time of their Civil War, saw that it was necessary to fight it out to the end, no matter what the treason was in the northern states--and at the time of McLellan's election in 1864 those disloyal elements were very numerous, very powerful, very well organized. In a book of reminiscences sent me by a friend in the South who knew about these things, I learned that Clement Vallandingham, a very prominent politician who was banished from their country, was the head of a great organization formed for the purpose of forcing peace upon the northern government. The writer of that book says there were 175,000 enrolled members in that organization, to make trouble for Abraham Lincoln. This shows that all men and all nations that have ever come through great trials, have always had things to annoy and bother them, and make their work much more difficult. Vallandingham was driven away; a great many of his followers were put in prison; Fort Lafayette, Fort Henry, the Fortress Monroe and other fortresses were filled with political prisoners, and Lincoln went right on until he won the war. Now, that is an example that we ought to remember; it has teachings for us that we ought to remember.

Now the question comes to us, what ought we to do? I have been more pleased than enough at the result of the late election-not politically, because I do not belong to either political party; I have always been a "Canada First" man, and at last, after fifty years, I have seen my party get into power; don't let us forget that we have a government now composed of the best men of both parties, all the loyal ones-the disloyal men that have hung around the skirts of the Opposition ought not to be counted. But we have a government now backed by the Canadian people. No government in Canada ever had such a tremendous majority, such a united party, such united strength to do the will of the Canadian people. They can do it without any hesitation; they need not be afraid of trouble; they have five years before there will have to be another election, and I hope they will play their cards so well that by that time everybody will be on the side of the Canada First Government. We have given this government power to do almost anything that they like that is fair and honest and. in the interests of Canada; they can pass legislation of any degree of severity, if necessary in the interests of this country. Now, what I say is that those men owe it as a duty to all those who voted for them, not to be weak and wobbly while there is a war on. We can win a great war only by strong and determined measures; by not being afraid of results, and by doing what is the right thing, drastically and seriously and sternly, to carry the War to a successful issue. I think if we do that, if our government do that, there is every opportunity now in the next couple of years to be able to overturn the power of this monster that is riding roughshod over all Europe.

I do not believe that the Canadian people yet properly and thoroughly appreciate the serious character of this War. You are not thinking that the time might come when, if we are not careful, if we do not do everything possible, we might be defeated; but such a thing might happen if we have not brains enough to take advantage of our efforts and resources and of everything that is in our favour to try to win this War. That ought to be the supreme object of the Canadian people as well as the people in Great Britain.

I regret very much to have seen from my older friend, Lord Lansdowne, a couple of letters talking in favor of peace. A man who talks in favor of peace now is not loyal; he is not true to the Empire; he is a danger and a menace to the Empire. There is no use beating about the bush, we have got to decide that we won't talk to those Germans, that we won't sit down to a table to discuss, terms, that we will go on until they are thrashed, and then tell them what our terms are. If we do that we will come out all right. If we wobble about and make terms, and have discussions, and have propositions, and exchange them, and all that sort of thing, of course the Germans will get the advantage of us. Why? Because we would be bound to carry out any arrangement whatever that we make with'them, while they would be as free as air. Don't shut your eyes to that fact. You are dealing with men who would bind you, but who would be free themselves. Now that is no position for us to be in. We have to thrash them, to drive them out of France, and out of Belgium, and across the Rhine, and as far as Berlin -and if we get them once on the run, we shall never stop till we get to Berlin, and I think that can be done. I have been watching very closely the stories of the fighting that has been going on, and I find that we have been more than a match for them ever since the battle of the Marne. The French have thrashed them at Verdun, in spite of all the efforts they made; we have beaten them in difficult places. They have never yet been able to put any of our Allied troops into a condition of panic, or anything of that kind. The only place where anything like that happened was in Italy, and that was done by intrigue and treachery, and by traitors in the troops of Italy at that point; but in the rest they have not been able to do it, and my belief is that the Canadians and French and Belgians and the British have all got what you might call "the bulge" over those Germans. We have got the morale, the esprit de corps, the confidence, the spirit that carries men through great wars; and while we have that, they can never thrash us; it is impossible. Therefore I say there is no reason why we should talk terms, or ask for terms of peace or bother our heads about what they would offer us, because no matter what they would offer, they could not be trusted to hold to their offer.

We should go on, and on, and fight until we thrash them--thrash them so thoroughly, that traditions would go down from generation to generation of their people, so that never again would they attempt to get control of the world.

Our present government have a great responsibility cast on them, but they have the people and the parliament at their back in any steps they may take. I do not care what steps they take if they are only strong enough, if they only show enough courage and vigour and determination. The more they show of that, the more will the people of Canada stand by them.

As for England, I hope that she will fight on as she has done in the past. I hope that those men who are time and again talking there, discussing peace and one thing or another, will quietly be put aside. I hope all England will show the spirit that she has shown in the past. We all remember the words Shakespeare puts in the mouth of one of the characters in King John

"This England never did (nor never shall) Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, But when it first did help to wound itself. Now these her princes are come home again, Come the three corners of the world in arms, And we shall shock them: nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true."