war broke out, had passed unanimous resolutions in support of the Imperial policy in South Africa. But the French-Canadians refused to attach any weight to that incident. They maintained—and I think they were right—that the resolutions had been rushed through on the spur of the moment, at the suggestion of a special envoy from Johannesburg, and that Parliament had not realized the possibility of committing the nation to war by its hasty action. Anyway, the result was that the Dominion Government, representing the most populous and wealthy of the younger nations, had to consider the French-Canadian attitude to the extent of not sending nearly so many troops in proportion to capacity as New Zealand and Australia. Surely the situation would have been less difficult if Sir Wilfrid Laurier had been consulted throughout the diplomatic campaign. Then the resolutions proposed by him in Parliament would have had the aspect of a deliberate testing of public opinion. When war ensued, he might have persuaded the French-Canadians that the country was bound in honour to do its utmost in a struggle which its Premier had helped to bring about with the deliberate approval of Parliament
On the other hand, the Dominion Parliament might have given an adverse vote upon the Premier's resolutions, thus expressing its disapproval of the Imperial policy. Then our Government, which possessed by far the greater part of the total fighting strength, would have had to consider whether or not it would stick to the policy so condemned. At worst, to have to face the dilemma would be better than for our Government to persevere with a policy under the erroneous impression that the Colonies would support it. In future, as the consequence of the cooperation of the Colonies in the South African War, it will be much more important to us than hitherto to know how far the Colonies are with us, and how far we may depend on their aid. Likewise it will be more important than hitherto for Canada to know how far Australia and New Zealand, in addition
