Kitabı oku: «England, Canada and the Great War», sayfa 16

CHAPTER XXX.
Rash Denunciation of Public Men

A long experience of public life, whether by daily observation, begun in my early youth, when the Union of the Provinces was finally discussed, carried and established, or, subsequently, during many years of active political life as a journalist and member of the Quebec and Ottawa representative Houses, has taught me to judge the actions of responsible men, whether ministerialists or oppositionists, with great fairness and respectful regard. At all times the government of a large progressive country peopled by several races, of different religious creeds, is a difficult problem. It should not be necessary to say that in days of warlike crisis, of previously unknown proportions, like the present one, the task becomes almost superhuman. Anyone taking into serious consideration the very trying ordeal through which, for instance, the rulers of Great Britain and France have been, and are still passing, since early in 1914, cannot help being indulgent for those who have the weighty and often crushing burden of the cares of State. Let so much be said without in the least contesting the right of free men to their own opinion about what is best to be done. But it was never more opportune to remember that the honourable privilege of constitutional criticism must have for its only superior object the good of the country by improved methods.

We have reason to congratulate ourselves that this sound view has widely prevailed rallying almost as units great nations, – our own one of them – previously much divided in political thoughts and aspirations, for the noble and patriotic purpose of winning a disastrous war they were forced to wage, in spite of their most determined efforts to prevent it.

Public men, nations rulers, like all others are human and liable to fail or to be found wanting. Unconscious inefficiency, however desirable to remove, cannot be fairly classed on the same footing as guilty failures. The first may, more or less, injure the bright prospects of a country; the second stains her honour which an exemplary punishment can alone redeem.

But it is said with much truth that there are always exceptions to a general rule. That of the human heart to be fallible in public life, as well as in other callings, has met with only one solitary exception in Canada: the saintly Nationalist leader who will never have his equal, "nature having destroyed the mould when she cast him."

Considering the outrageous language he thrusted at the Canadians of the three British races and at our heroic volunteers, it is not to be supposed that he was so tender-hearted as to spare the public men, not only of Canada, but of all the Allied Nations.

When he affirmed that the real and only cause of the war had been, and was still, the voracious greed of capitalist speculators, especially of the two leading belligerents, Great Britain and Germany, united together to profit to the tune of hundreds of millions out of the production of warship building and materials of all sorts, was he not charging all the statesmen and leading politicians of all the peoples at war, of having bowed either consciously to the dictates of traitors to their countries, or of having been stupidly blind to the guilty manipulations of financial banditti?

It would take many pages only to make a summary of the injurious words he has addressed to the Canadian public men of all shades of opinion – with the only exception of the Nationalist – on account of the support they have given, in one way or another, to the Dominion's participation in the war. He qualified as a Revolution the policy by which we willingly decided to take part in the wars of the Empire whenever we came to the conclusion that England was fighting for a just cause.

On the 23rd of April, 1917, he wrote as follows: —

"Very often we have shown the evident revolutionary character of the Canadian intervention in the European conflict."

After repeating his absolutely absurd pretention, according to the sound principles of Constitutional Law, that Canada could have intervened in the war as a "nation" he found fault with all and every one because "we are fighting to defend the Empire." He went on and said with his natural sweetness of language: —

"The politicians of the two parties and the whole servile and mercenary press have applied themselves to this revolutionary work… For a long time past the party leaders are the tools of British Imperialism and of British high finance."

And not satisfied with having thus slashed all the party leaders, all the chiefs of the State, he turns round, in an access of passionate indignation, and charges not only all the leading social classes, but even the Bishops, the worthy leaders of the Church, as the accomplices of the Imperialist revolution. He thrusts the terrible blow as follows: —

"But what the war has produced of entirely new and most disconcerting, is the moral support and complicity which the "Imperialist revolution" has found in all the leading social classes. Bishops, financiers, publicists and professionals went into the movement with a unity, an ardour, a zeal which reveal the effective strength of the laborious propaganda of which Lord Grey has been the most powerful worker prior to the war."

So that there should be no mistake about its true meaning, he favoured his readers with a very clear explanation indeed of what, in his opinion, has transformed our meritorious and loyal intervention in the war into a guilty revolutionary movement. He wrote as follows: —

"But what the Imperialists wanted, and what they have succeeded in obtaining, was to bind Canada to the fate of England, in the name of the principle of Imperial solidarity and – as we shall see in a moment – to the cause of 'UNIVERSAL DEMOCRACY'."

Thus, in the Nationalist leader's opinion, it is a great crime to help England and her Allies to win a war the loss of which would most likely have destroyed the British Empire, involving our own ruin in the downfall of the mighty political edifice to be replaced, in the glorious shelter it gives to human freedom, by the triumphant German autocratic rule and its universal domination. It is, to say the least, an extravagant notion to pretend that the war has afforded the Imperialists the opportunity – eagerly seized – "to tie Canada" hand and foot, "to the fate of England."

If I am not mistaken – and I am positively sure I am right in so saying – Canada was bound to the fate of England the very day when – by Providential decree, in that instance as well as with regard to everything earthly – she passed under British Sovereignty. The worthy leaders of our Church so considered – and have since unanimously considered – at once taking the sound Christian stand that the French Canadians were, in duty bound, to accept their new political status in good faith, and to loyally support their new mother country whenever circumstances would require their devoted help, whilst revering the old as every child must do, if he is blessed with a good heart, when separated by unforeseen events from the home of his happy youth.

I must acknowledge that with some of our French Canadians of the first class and standing, the word "Democracy" savours with soreness. Well read in all that pertains to the great epoch of the first French tremendous Revolution, they abhor, with much reason, the extravagant and false principles of the BOLSHEVIKISM of those days, which culminated in the frightful period of the "terrorism" which, for three long years and more, kept its strong knee on France's throat, her fair soil flooded with the innocent blood of her children. They are apt to be laid to the confusion that democratic government is in almost every case, if not always, synonymous of revolutionary institutions, in as much as it cannot, they believe and say, be otherwise than destructive of the principle of "Authority," certainly as essential as that of "Liberty," both as the necessary fundamental basis of all good governments.

Knowing this, the Nationalist leader, who has evidently abjured his liberalism of former days, which he was wont to parade in such resounding sentences, multiplies his efforts to capture the support of the few members of our most venerable Clergy whom he supposes labouring under the aforesaid delusion. He would not lose the chance of trading on their feelings and sincere conviction, in boldly declaring that his good friends, the cursed Imperialists, had managed to drag the Dominion through the mire of the European war by blandishing before the eyes of the Canadian people, so enamoured of their constitutional liberties, the supposed dangerous spectre of "universal democracy."

If, in reality, democratic government could not help being either the "French revolutionary terrorism," of 1792-95, – which even frightened such a staunch friend of Political Liberty as Burke – or the Russian criminal bolshevikism of our own trying days, we would be forced, in dire sadness, to despair of the world's future, as Humanity would be forever doomed to ebb and flow between the sanguinary "absolutism" either of "autocratic" or "terrorist" tyrants.

Happily, we can, in all sincerity, affirm that such is not the case. Is it not sufficient, as a most reassuring proof, to point at the wonderful achievements of free institutions, first, under the monarchical democratic system of Great Britain and her autonomous Dominions; second, under the republican regime of the United States.

After many long years of earnest study and serious thinking, I cannot draw the very depressing conclusion that the two basic principles of sound government – Authority and Liberty – cannot be brought to work harmoniously together for the happiness and prosperity of nations, as far as they can be achieved in this world of sufferings and sacrifices. Such a conclusion would also be contrary to true Christian teachings, the Almighty having created man a free being with a responsible and immortal soul.

Nations who, forgetful of the obligations of moral laws, indulge in guilty abuse of their liberties, are, sooner or later, as individuals doing alike, sure to meet with the due Providential punishment they have deserved. But, also like individuals, they can redeem themselves in repenting for their past errors, due to uncontrolled passions, and by resolutely and "FREELY" returning to the path of their sacred duty.

The Nationalist leader also deplores, as one of their guilty achievements, the fact that the "war had ended all equivocals and consummated the complete alliance of the two parties," to favour, as he asserts, of course, the enterprises of the dreaded Imperialism.

True to the kind appreciation he has pledged himself to make of the inspiring dark motives actuating the conduct of public men, he sweetly added: —

"The truce arrived at in 1914 could not, it is true, resist the thirst for power. "Blues" and "Reds" have recommenced tearing themselves about patronage, places, planturous contracts and "boodle." But with regard to the substantial question itself, and to the Imperialist revolution brought on and sanctioned by the war, they have remained in accord."

It could not strike such a prejudiced mind as that of the Nationalist leader, that political chieftains, and their respective supporters, could conscientiously unite to save their country, their Empire and the world from an impending terrible disaster, and yet freely and conscientiously differ as to the best means to achieve the sacred object to the success of which they have pledged, and they continue to make, their best and most patriotic efforts.

The public men, and even the private citizens, who, not believing that he speaks and writes with Divine inspiration, dare to differ from the Nationalist leader, cannot, in his opinion, do so unless influenced by unworthy corrupt motives. And he further draws the awful conclusion "that it is his duty to note the ever increasing revolutionary character that the European war, as a whole, is assuming on the side of the Allies."

To support this last and absolutely unfounded charge, he positively asserts that the joint "policy of the statesmen, politicians and journalists, has much less for its object to liberate oppressed nations like Belgium, Servia, Ireland, Poland and Finland, from a foreign yoke, than to overthrow in all the countries, allies or enemies, the monarchical form of government."

And then follows a most virulent diatribe by which he points, in support of his wild conclusion aforesaid, to the Russian revolution, charging "the officious and reptile press of the Allied countries to have joined in spreading the legend that it had been precipitated by German intrigues at the Court of the Czar, and to have accused the ill-fated Emperor to have been the spy and the accomplice of the enemies of his country."

At this hour of the day, in the turmoil of flashing events perhaps never before equalled in suddenness, pregnant with such alarming, or comforting, prospective consequences, it is much too early to attempt passing a reliable judgment on the true causes which produced the Moscovite revolution so soon and so dastardly developed into criminal "bolshevikism." The question must be left for History to settle when peace is restored and the sources of truth are wide opened to the impartial investigations of high class historians.

However, enough is known to prove that Mr. Bourassa's charge is altogether unfounded. Anyone conversant with Russian history for the two last centuries, is aware that German influences and intrigues have always played a great part in the Capital of that fallen Empire. From the very beginning of the war, it became evident that they were actively at work at the Petrograd Court, thwarting the Emperor's efforts and those of his advisers, military and civil, he could trust, to be true to the cause he had sworn to defend with France and England.

The Nationalist leader, I hope, is the only man still to wonder at this, after all that has been discovered proving what Germany has tried to bribe the political leaders and the press of the Allies, with too much success in France, England and the United States.

Russia has been for too many years the favourite soil where Germany was sowing her corrupt intrigues, to let any sensible man suppose that she would kindly withdraw from the preferred field of her infamous operations, at the very time she was exerting herself with such energy, and at the cost of so many millions, to extend her vast spy system almost all over the earth, – Canada included – debauching consciences right and left.

Is it unfair to say, for instance, after the event as it developed, that Roumania was prematurely brought into the war in consequence of the dark German machinations at Petrograd, with the evident understanding that the military operations, both on the Teutonic and Moscovite sides, were to be so conducted as to rush poor Roumania into a most disastrous defeat, in order to feed the Central Empires with the products of the fertile Roumanian soil?

No representative man of any consequence has pretended that the unfortunate Czar was himself a party to that treason of the Allied cause. He has likely been the victim of his own weakness in not using what was left to him of his personal autocratic power to silence the sympathies of the friends of Germany at his Imperial Court, and even in his most intimate circle, rather than exhausting it in a supreme, but doomed, attempt at checking the rising tide of popular aspirations sure, as always, to overflow to frightful excesses, if unwisely compressed.

Almost daily witnessing the successive miscarriages of so many of the Russian military operations, too often by the failure of the ammunitions, supplied to such a large extent by the Allies, to reach the Russian soldiers, or by other inexplicable causes, it is not surprising that the people at large became suspicious of their government which they soon believed to be under German tutorage.

The rapid, almost sudden, overthrow of the Russian autocratic Empire can be accepted as evidence that the movement in favour of a change which would more efficiently conduct Russia's share of the conflict, was widespread. The goal it aimed at, once reached, and Russia proclaimed a Republic, with a regular de facto government under the leadership of abler men, whose patriotism was proved by their words, but more surely by their deeds, France, England, Italy and the United States cannot be reasonably reproached with having unduly opened diplomatic relations with the new Moscovite authorities.

Unfortunately, once successful in her intrigues at the Petrograd Court, soon to fall under the weight of popular exasperation, Germany tried her hand in a triumphant, but shameful, way with the fiery sanguinary and treasonable element always to be found operating in the darkest corners for their own criminal purposes. The calamitous outcome has been "bolchevikism" betraying their country in the light of day, without blushing, without hiding their faces in eternal shame, and signing, with their hands stained with the blood of their own kin, the infamous treaty of Brest-Litovsk dismembering poor Russia, scattering to the winds her fond hopes of a grand future at the very dawn of the better days promised by a free constitution, and plunging her in the throes of German autocratic domination.

With regard to the Nationalist leader's rash denunciation of public men, I have only a few more words to say. My personal recollections going back to the early sixties of the last century, for several years free from all party affiliations, unbiassed by any sympathies or prejudices, I consider it my duty to say that, on the whole, Canadian public life, as well as British public life, is honourable and entitled to the respect of public opinion. Out of hundreds and thousands of politicians, both in the Motherland and in our own Dominion, there may have been failings. It would be useless, even pernicious, to point at them. The revulsion of public feeling towards the fallen for cause, and the severe judgment of misdeeds by the impartial historian, has been the deserved punishment of the few who have prevaricated. I prefer by far to take my lofty inspiration from the galaxy of faithful public servants who, from all parties, and from various standpoints, have given the fruits of their intelligence, of their learning, of their hard work – and in many cases – of their private wealth, for the good of their country. In the course of the last fifty-five years, I have known hundreds of our public men who lived through, and came out of, a long political life getting poorer every day without being disheartened and retiring from the public service to which they were devoted to the last. Need I point, as examples, to the cases of several men who, departed for a better world, Parliament, irrespective of all party considerations, united to a man to vote a yearly allowance of a few hundred dollars to save their surviving widows and children from actual want and destitution!

Just as well as the Canadians of the three British races, and the gallant volunteers of our heroic army, Canadian and British public men can rest assured that from the high position they occupy in the world's estimation, they are far above the fanatical aspersions of the Nationalist leader blinded by the wild suggestions of an inexhaustible thirst of rash condemnation.

CHAPTER XXXI.
Mr. Bourassa's Dangerous Pacifism

Two historical truths, undeniable, bright as the shining light of the finest summer day, which have triumphantly challenged the innumerable falsehoods to the contrary constantly circulated by Germany, even prior to the outbreak of the hostilities, are: —

First, that all the countries united under the title – the Allies, have been energetically in favour of MAINTAINING THE PEACE OF THE WORLD, when it became evident, for all sensible people, that Germany was eagerly watching her opportunity to strike the blow she had prepared for the previous forty years on such a gigantic scale.

Second, that, once engaged in the conflict against their deliberate will, and in spite of their noble efforts to prevent the war which they clearly foresaw would be most calamitous, they have always remained the staunch supporters of the RESTORATION OF PEACE upon the two sine qua non conditions of Justice and DURABILITY.

To achieve these two objectives, they have been fighting for now more than four years, at tremendous cost of men and treasures, and they are determined to fight until victorious.

They would all lay down their arms to-morrow, if the results so important for the future of Humanity could be secured with certainty.

Like all great causes, Peace with Justice and Durability has had its TRUE and its FALSE friends.

The TRUE friends of Peace were those who realized from the very beginning of the frightful struggle that it was perfectly useless to expect it, if the disastrous Prussian Militarism was to be maintained and allowed to continue threatening Civilization.

The TRUE friends of Peace were those who pledged their honour not to sheathe the sword they had been forced to draw before Germany would acknowledge that she had no right to violate solemn treaties, and would agree to redeem the crime she had committed in invading the neutral territory of Belgium which she trampled under her ironed heels and crucified.

The TRUE friends of Peace were those who determined to bring Germany to renounce the abominable principles she has professed, training the mind of her peoples to believe and proclaim that Might is Right and the only sound basis of International Law.

The TRUE friends of Peace were those who, however anxious they were to have it restored as soon as possible – fervently praying the Almighty to that purpose – , knowing what are the principles of International Law recognized by all truly civilized nations, could not forgive Germany, UNLESS SHE SINCERELY REPENTED, the barbarism she displayed in her murderous submarine campaign, and practised in Belgium, Northern France and in every piece of belligerent territory her armies occupied.

The TRUE friends of Peace were those who clearly understood that to meet the two essential conditions of Justice and Durability, it was PRACTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to secure it by a compromise which could not, by any means, protect the world against further German attempts at universal military domination.

The FALSE friends of Peace were those who said and wrote, in sheer defiance of truth, that the Allies, more especially England and Russia, were as much responsible for the war as Germany herself.

The FALSE friends of Peace were those who falsely alleged that the Allies were preventing it by their repeated declarations that their principal war aim was to destroy, not only the German Empire, but also the German race, thus wilfully and maliciously pretending that to battle for the abolition of Teutonic militarism, weighing so heavily on all the nations, was equal, in guilty knowledge, to fighting for an enemy's race destruction.

The FALSE friends of Peace were those who were ready to sanction, at any time, a compromise between HEROIC and criminal war aims, which would leave future generations to the tender mercies of a Sovereign Power straining every nerve to dominate the world by the foulest means ever devised.

The FALSE friends of Peace were those whose daily effort was to dishearten their countrymen from the noble and patriotic task they had bravely undertaken with the strong will to accomplish it at all costs, knowing, as they did, that it was a question of life or death for human Civilization.

"Defeatists," as they are called, to mean the shameless supporters of Peace negotiations to be opened by the Allies acknowledging their defeat and the victory of Germany, there were, and there are, in all the "Allied" belligerent nations. No one need be too much surprised at the hideous fact. In all countries, at all times, under the direst circumstances, when it is most important, in very distressing hours, that all be of one mind, of one heart, to save the nation's existence, are to be found heartless, low minded, cowardly beings, ready to betray their countrymen rather than stand the strain of their due share of sacrifices, or, which is still far worse, for corrupt motives, to deliver them over to the enemy.

"Defeatists" we have had, we have yet, in Canada, in the Province of Quebec. Most happily, they are few and far between.

Imbued with the false notions he has so tenaciously ventilated respecting Canada's participation in the war, it is no wonder that the Nationalist leader was sure to be found at the head of the small group of pacifists, at almost any cost, mustered amongst the French Canadians. A sower of prejudices, he was bound to watch with eagerness the growing crop of ill-feelings he was fostering.

Those of us who oppose all, and any, participation by the Dominion in the wars of the Empire, be they even so just, so honourable, so necessary, under Mr. Bourassa's deplorable leadership, were naturally supporters of any kind of "PACIFISM."

I will not classify the Nationalist leader and his dupes as "defeatists," who were ready to accept peace as the consequence of defeat. The real "pacifists," so far as it is possible to ascertain their views, unable, consciously or not, to see any difference in the respective responsibilities of the belligerents in opening the war, consider that they are equally guilty in not closing it.

Most happily, such a disordered opinion is shared only by a small minority. It can be positively affirmed that public opinion, the world over, outside the Central Empires and their swayed allies, is almost unanimous that Germany, through her military party and the junkers element, is responsible for the dire calamity she has brought on Humanity. The question of the restoration of "Peace" must be viewed from this starting point – the only true one.

The standpoints of the TRUE and the FALSE friends of Peace being so far apart, the conclusions they draw are naturally widely different.