PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 1915. 7 



those who have not been affected by the war will expect the world to go 

 back to its pleasures and frivolities; saturated with their past they will 

 fail to apprehend what those who have been through the war are thinking. 

 These latter will have the learning of their experience, which those who 

 have not had the experience will fail to understand. The men with this 

 experience will grow older, and assume a greater and greater position of 

 authority in the world of thought. Their views must in the end prevail, 

 and all may as well accept the fact that there is a new world opening 

 before us to be essentially different from that which is behind us. Old 

 ideas may live till they are eradicated, but eradicated they will be. 



The new world with all its real happiness and prosperity, with all 

 its seriousness and depth of purpose, with all its industry and self- 

 sacrifice will assuredly appear, and the world of shams and failures will 

 vanish away. 



On the subject of national efficiency we already know this for certain, 

 that whereas it has been found out by experience that in the past, whether 

 from the long reign of peace or the enormous prosperity of the country, 

 the means of national efficiency have been utterly neglected, the so 

 called anti-militarism and deceiving pacifism which ruled the public 

 mind not only blinded every one to the necessity for advancing in the 

 application of science to the means for the protection and safety of the 

 country, but stood in the way of necessary preparedness in the matter 

 of munitions and men. It is also certain that the long continued pro- 

 sperity and the commanding position which Great Britain enjoyed in 

 the commerce of the world, bred in the people a false sense of security 

 and a condition of complacency which made them content to plod 

 along in the ways of former generations, accepting from Germany and 

 other countries advanced in the application of the discoveries of science 

 thoee things which such discoveries produced, without a thought that 

 they should produce these things themselves. 



The condition of the people in these respects was apathetic. 



The people of Great Britain have at last been awakened. Experi- 

 ence since the war commenced has taught them that late as it is they 

 cannot hope to succeed in this great contest unless they make part of 

 their fighting force the same efficiency which their opponents have used 

 to prepare their means for the tremendously aggressive campaign 

 which they have waged, and are continuing to wage. 



How have the experiences of the war found the people of Canada? 

 What do they think of the lessons learned by the people of Great Britain? 



The people of Canada have risen to the full height of their manhood 

 and their duty as a British people in the matter of providing soldiers 

 to aid in fighting for and preserving the British Empire. AH praise to 



