Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Excerpt from Canada and Her Relations to the Empire
The English press is often used for attacks upon Can ada. A remarkable instance of this appeared in the Con temporary Review of last January, from the pen of Mr. Gold win Smith, in an article on the Ottawa Conference. He says very little about the Conference, but devotes the greater part of the article to harsh criticism of Canada and Can adian interests in general. There are many inaccuracies and unfair conclusions, and the whole tone of the article is so hostile to Canada as to have an injurious effect upon the minds of those Englishmen whose knowledge of Can ada is derived from reading instead of from personal obser vation.
It is hardly necessary to refer to the sneering tone in which the Conference is dealt with, or to the extraordinary objection that the delegates were accredited, not by the Legislatures or by the people of the Colonies at large, but only by the Governments. This is on a par with the sec ond objection, viz., that the Conference dealt with the ques tions they had been called together to discuss, and omitted to discuss other subjects that Mr. Smith thought they should have dealt with. Because they did not consider the question of defence, he concludes, Morally speaking, we may take it as pretty well settled, that the Colonies will not contribute to the defence of the Empire, and yet in a postscript to the same article he refers to a subsequent offer of assistance to England in case of war, from the Canadian Government, of their permanent force, and only does so, to sneer at the fact that the force is not a large one.
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