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The Canadian Naval LapseSource: The Advocate of Peace (1894-1920), Vol. 71, No. 11 (DECEMBER, 1909), pp. 245-246Published by: World Affairs InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20665834 .

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Vbobatei of 3cae. VOL. LXXI. BOSTON, DECEMBER, 1909. No. 11

THE AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, PUBLISHERS,

31 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS.

Cable Address, "Peace, Boston."

MONTHLY, ONE DOLLAR PER YEAR. TEN CENTS PER COPY Entered at the Boston Post Office as Second Class Matter.

Make all checks payable to the American Peace Society. To personal checks on Western and Southern banks add ten cents for collecting.

CONTENTS. PAGE EDITORIALS........................................... - 245-248

The Canadian Naval Lapse-The Supposed Errors of Peace Advocates.

EDITORIAL NOTEs .......... ........... 248-250 Monument to Sir William Randal Cremer - Pan-European

Bureau - Associationof Cosmopolitan Clubs -- Voice of the Missionaries in Japan

- Women's Trade Union League - The

Alsop Claim against Chile. NEws FROM THE FIELD .................. ....................... 250-251 BREVITIES......................... ............................. 251-252 GENERAL ARTICLES:

Notice of a Special Meeting of the American Peace Society .... 252 Special Announcement............................................ 252 Chicago National Peace Congress Report..................... 252 The Churches and the Peace Movement........... ..........252-253 The Conditions of Peace. Senator Leon Bourgeois ... ......... 253-254 The Federation of Europe. Francis W. Fox.................... 255-256 War and Science. Dr. Charles Richet.......................... 256-258 The Annual Meeting of the Peace Bureau at Brussels. Anna B.

Eckstein.............................. .......... 258-259 "

Everyland " - The New Magazine for Boys and Girls .......... 259-260

Autumnal Convention of English Peace Workers................ 260-261 The American School Peace League. Fannie Fern Andrews.... 261-262 The Peace Society of the City of ,New York - Notes. William H . Short......................... .............................. 263-264

NEW BOOKs ......................................................... 264 International Arbitration and Peace Lecture Bureau.............. 265

The Canadian Naval Lapse. An article lies before us, written from Montreal by

a special correspondent of the Boston Herald, in which he declares that the spirit of imperialism is abroad in

Canada, and that naval enthusiasm is sweeping the

country. This is probably an exaggerated newspaper statement, as recent reports declare that the Canadian

Grange has become aroused and is throwing the in fluence of the farmers against the demands for a Cana dian navy, and that organized labor is also taking its stand against the militarising of Canada. But the case is certainly bad enough, if one is to credit the information continually reaching us from over the border. Both the great political parties seem to have been caught in the whirl, and the government has already apparently taken the fatal step, from which there will probably be no retreat until the day of the deadly fruit comes.

This new Canadian naval spirit is a great surprise to nearly everybody. The Dominion has lived so

long, and at the same time so safely and prosperously, without any armament worth mentioning, that one had begun to feel assured that this great promising

region of the earth was to escape the militaristic "

pestilence that walketh in darkness "

and " wasteth at nooday." It was only a year or two ago that dis

tinguished Canadians were boasting loudly, and very justly so, that their country was free from the ex

hausting burdens of militarism ; that their revenues were being devoted to the development of the mani fold resources of the Dominion; and that therefore Canada was an exceptionally attractive land in which to live.

What has come over the Canadians? What has blinded their eyes and deluded their hearts? There is not a single reputable reason why Canada to-day should build a navy, or begin to build one, more than there has been in the past. There is even less rea son, for she has behind her a long unique experience of the value of freedom from armament, the force of which she is deliberately preparing to throw away, if one can call such action deliberation. That is what makes her conduct so surprising and so dis

heartening to those who are seeking to build up a new international order rooted in justice, cooperation, trust and peace, an order in which theoretically every body believes and expects to see some day realized.

The causes, however, of Canada's lapse are not far to seek. The first of them is the pernicious influence of the bloated militarism of our time, which has

already seduced and led astray all the important powers, including the United States, and is throwing its baneful shadow over the whole world. It is the

contagion of this evil which has finally entered and

begun to poison the blood of Canada. For though a colony, she evidently wishes to be great and power ful and to take a hand in the affairs of the world, and she has been deceived by the all too prevalent theory that a people cannot be great and influential with out being heavily armed. Her connection with' the British Empire has, of course, hastened the process, as the naval supremacy of the mother country has been of a character peculiarly to impress her. But the lapse would doubtless have occurred, and possibly even earlier, if she had been entirely independent of Great Britain, as it has occurred with other states, notably Brazil, the Argentine Republic and Chile.

What influence the action of our government, in

putting ships on the lakes for the training of naval militia, has had upon Canada it is not easy to figure out. But this action, though taken with the consent of the Dominion government, has awakened wide spread suspicion over the border. The Canadians

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246 THE ADVOCATE OF PEACE. December,

reason that the seventy guns which our government now has on these naval militia training ships to the one

gun which they have upon a small and insignificant boat, might easily be used, in case of an emergency, for a descent upon Canadian shores. There is little doubt that the suspicion thus awakened, though our

government has given assurance that it has no inten tion of abandoning the Rush-Bagot agreement, has been at least a powerful indirect force in inducing the Dominion government to take the step which it has in creating the nucleus of a navy.

Another of the influences, probably the most potent one, which have led the Canadian government to take this fatal step, is that of the Imperial Defense Confer ence held in London a little while ago. This confer ence was a most adroit move of the British imperialists, and the great self-governing colonies,. dazzled by the

glory of the Empire as it was pictured to them by the imperial big-navy promoters, fell into the trap set

for them. Canada, instead of contributing ships di

rectly to the British navy, has, in order to maintain the form of local independence and self-government, undertaken to create a navy of her own, which shall at her own discretion be at the service of the British

Imperial government in case of emergency. But in

reality the new navy, when built, will henceforth be in fact, if not in form, an integral part of the Impe rial government's naval force, and the alarms and

panics which cause feverish naval increase in Brit

ish waters will have a similar effect in the Cana dian. If the Canadian people, the farmers and work

ing men, who constitute the body of the citizens and have the greatest stake in the future well-being of the Dominion, do not fully realize the situation im

mediately, they will in coming years have to pay a

heavy penalty for the thoughtlessness and unwisdom of the course which their government is now taking. It is probably still within their power to prevent the further progress of the calamity which is befalling them, if they begin at once. Will they do this, and thus maintain their splendid government as a shining example to all the world of what a great people may be and do by keeping itself free from the entangle ments of international suspicion, enmity and rivalry in the instruments of death ? They ought to do it.

These reflections have been awakened by an article in

the Independent of November 4 on "Errors of Peace

Advocates," by Prof. Amos S. Hershey of the Indiana

State University. Professor Hershey is usually a well informed and careful writer, and in the article referred to shows clearly that he means to be fair. But he has fallen into a number of errors in his interpretation of the

positions of peace advocates. It is possible that individ ual peace advocates of extremist tendencies might be

found of whom all that he says is true. But we naturally suppose him to be speaking of the general body of peace

workers, the peace party of the world, who are responsible for the peace programs brought before the public and

before the responsible public officials. Of this peace

party much that he writes is far from exact.

His first criticism is that peace advocates "demand

that our text-books on history be emasculated in the

interest of peace." The development of his thought shows that Professor Hershey means by this emascula

tion the entire removal of wars from the history text

books. The responsible peace advocates have never

asked for any such thing. They have only urged that

the relative space given to wars should be greatly re

duced, and that the details of campaigns, battles and

victories which inflame the child's imagination and per vert his spirit, which inculcate false ideas of patriotism and make fighting and killing seem a manly and glorious

thing, should be eliminated. They do not ignore the fact

that war has played a prominent part in history and must

therefore have a proper share of the historian's attention.

They do insist that war history should not be so taught as to keep alive in the coming generations the savage, brutal, tyrannical instincts of the past, and thus make human society a prey to this dreadful scourge forever.

There is not time here to examine in detail Professor

Hershey's somewhat astonishing theory that because

boys have fighting instincts inherited from the past, their

education must be so directed as to give satisfaction to

these instincts. On that theory all other passions and

instincts would have to be gratified also, and the moral

progress of the race would be impossible. Every true

system of education seeks to enthrone intelligence, reason, conscience and goodwill, and not to keep alive and active whatever animal instincts and selfish propensions may have come up from the past. If the Old Testament

appeals more strongly to the imagination of boys than

the New, which peace advocates are sorry to have to

confess is too often the case, we must train a generation of whom the opposite will be true. A limited amount of

experience - for the experiment has not yet been largely tried - seems to indicate that a generation of children

may be brought up to whom brutal fighting will be

loathsome and practicallylimpossible.

The Supposed Errors of Peace Advocates. One of the peculiar weaknesses of the critics of peace

advocates is their almost universal failure to find out, before they criticise, what are the real positions taken by

peace workers. The ignorance displayed in this regard is most disappointing, and makes it clearly evident that

these critics as a rule have not been much in the com

pany of peace workers, have rarely, if ever, attended the

peace congresses, and have got their information, or

rather their misinformation, largely from the scrappy and

imperfect notices found in the newspapers.

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