Page:The empire and the century.djvu/219

 Canada is a question of principle and of national self-respect, rather than of immediate danger. It is the very touchstone of Imperialism. Unless we are prepared to defend Canada to the utmost, to put our last man into the field, and spend our last shilling, all our professions of belief in a united Empire are mere verbiage. That our existing military system, or Mr. Arnold-Forster's modification of it, meets the demands of the Canadian problem even less than it does those of the Indian problem, is obvious; for Canada, even more than for India, a large Imperial reserve is a necessity. But even more essential than the creation of a reserve in this country for the defence of Canada is the creation of such a force in Canada itself. To build up a population in Canada is the only effective means of securing the defence of that portion of the Empire. As long as we have only five or six millions on our side of those 4,000 miles of frontier, and the United States have seventy millions on the other, so long our Empire exists only on sufferance, and so long our relations with the United States can never be thoroughly friendly or thoroughly satisfactory. To build up the population of Canada to at least twenty or thirty millions is the most pressing need of Imperial Defence; to that every other consideration must give way.

The defence of the United Kingdom is a matter which requires but little consideration. Its solution is included in the solution of the greater and more vital problems already dealt with. With a supreme navy capable of maintaining the connection between the different parts of the Empire, with a military system which provides a reserve force sufficient to cope with the demands of the Indian or Canadian portion, the security of the heart of the Empire will be almost impregnable. The very essence of any military system such as our Imperial necessities demand must be absolute elasticity, a capacity for almost unlimited expansion. With such a system there will always be a surplus available for local defence, even if we lose 500,000 men in India and the whole of the navy in the Mediterranean.