ULTIMATE POLITICS. 79 



fashion. It is true, as we are often reminded, that it is the way 

 of our race to work out their constitutional development one step at 

 a time, as concrete issues demand, but it is also obvious that it is 

 of some importance in which direction we are facing when that one 

 step is taken, on what far star our gaze is fixed. I shall be glad to 

 add an editorial last word, as you suggest. 



Both Air. Thomson's letter and yours seem to me most con- 

 vincing on their negative side. ]\Ir. Thomson makes a strong case 

 against any centralized pan-Britannic organization, and )ou succeed 

 in showing that a pan- Anglican union, at this present stage, at least, 

 is even more chimerical, and that it will come the quicker the less 

 we show ourselves eager for it. Perhaps I draw that conclusion 

 because I waxiK to draw it, looking at the matter from the standpoint 

 of those to whom Canada is first if not last, who find their patriotism 

 spreading thin when it is attempted to cover Tasmania and Bechu- 

 analand with it, and becoming almost indistinguishable from cos- 

 mopolitanism when Texas and Georgia are also fenced in from the 

 lesser breeds, the Not-Ourselves that make for Unrighteousness. I 

 am no more eager to see our national individuality swamped in pan- 

 Anglicanism than in pan-Britannicism. My ideal is national develop- 

 ment, in self-respecting friendship with the United States, and in 

 defensive alliance with the others of the Five Free Nations. 



Yet your warning against narrow parochial self-absorption and 

 self-content is a very necessary one. More and more with growth 

 in strength and growth in our international commerce we will have 

 to take our place in the world's councils. And we have many a 

 lesson to learn from England and from the United States, particu- 

 larly in our problems of government. In fact, we stand so badly in 

 need of instruction in common honesty that the Montreal Star, in 

 its recent be-knighted Dreadnought campaign, finds in our inability 

 to build and manage a Canadian navy without graft an argument 

 for handing over the money to Britain to spend. I think you will 

 agree with me that that is not the way we must learn our lessons. 

 Britain has a lesson to teach us and every other nation stumbling 

 up out of sordid politics: the lesson that a nation may work out its 

 own political salvation and rise from Walpole depths to Gladstone 

 heights. It is not that way division of labor within the Empire 

 lies — Britain furnishing the honesty and Canada the cash ; if I read 

 the temper of Canada right, we are not going to hire Britain to be 

 honest for us any more than we are going to hire her to fight for us. 



