Islands placed on precisely the same footing commercially as a Province of the Dominion, so that there should be absolute free trade between us." A. T. Drummond, LL.D., of Montreal, urged the Union of the British West Indies as a preliminary step and pointed to the "large identity of interest in respect of the products of the soil, climatic conditions, trade outlook and connections, character of the people and methods of government. Federation (local) can be viewed from the standpoints of concentration of authority, external trade, internal development, and, to some extent, strategical importance to the Navy, but these standpoints are somewhat interdependent." This view Canada, the London journal of Canadian affairs, also approved. In London the West India Committee, an important body, was re-organized with R. Rutherford as Chairman and H. A. Trotter, Deputy Chairman, while the Royal Colonial Institute decided to prepare a survey of the Islands' resources and conditions. The total area of the West Indies-including British Guiana and Honduras— was 110,249 sq. miles and the population 2,000,000; there was little co-ordination in work and government but much duplication. War contributions were surprisingly generous from these Islands-populated as they largely were by blacks and still in the Crown Colony stage of evolution. Up to the beginning of 1917 Jamaica had given $227,000 in voluntary contributions to various Funds, besides officially undertaking to pay the Imperial Government $300,000 a year for 40 years on War account, and sending 6,000 men for military service; at the date mentioned 450 men of the Island held British commissions and over 200 had died on active service. In February a 5th War Contingent was announced as raised and recruiting was proceeding for another. Trinidad contributed from taxation during the year, for War purposes, over $500,000 besides voluntary gifts and subscriptions totalling $350,000, of which $200,000 was for the purchase of Cocoa for His Majesty's troops, $85,000 for British Red Cross, and $50,000 as a contribution to the Prince of Wales' Fund; on May 21 it was stated that two further contingents of volunteers-three others had previously gone, totalling 22 officers and 840 men—had reached England from Trinidad, while another of 500 men was being recruited. Barbadoes contributed officially $200,000 as a free war gift in addition to a similar sum previously granted and its popular subscriptions to many Funds, including Red Cross, Belgian Relief, etc., totalled $85,000, while the troops sent to join the British West India Regiment numbered 530 officers and men;* British Guiana gave large contributions of sugar (worth $85,000), rum and rice from the beginning of the War, while up to July 29, 1917, $126,000 had been collected for War Funds. Bermuda, with only 21,000 population, sent 493 soldiers to the Front, the Legislature voted $20,000 as a contribution toward the expenses of the War and expended $143,000 locally for War purposes, while the public collected $55,000 for various Funds and the I.O.D.E. branch sent 28,000 articles to the British Red Cross and other contributions to other purposes; St. Vincent contributed altogether $10,000 from the Government, $4,600 from the public and 197 recruits for the Army; Grenada through its Legislative Council, voted $5,000 as a direct contribution and for War purposes $27,500 in 1915 and $55,000 in 1916, supplied 377 recruits to the B.W.I. Regiment and 50 more in 1917, while collecting over $40,000 by public subscription for patriotic purposes; Saint Lucia recruited 1,000 men out of a military population of 5,000, contributed altogether $33,500 to different Funds and in 1917 took up $61,000 in War Loan subscriptions; Montserrat, the smallest of Colonies, gave $3,600 to the War Fund and the Bahamas voted $50,000 for War purposes. It may be added that a strong effort was made to further the joint interests of these countries and Canada by the Canadian-West India League, of which the Hon. President was Lord Shaughnessy, K.C.V.O., the President, T. B. Macaulay, of Montreal, and the Hon. Secretary, Wm. T. Robson, of that city, with an influential Executive representing the Islands and Montreal interests. The Exports of the British West Indies and British Guiana to Canada in 1917 were $21,311,580 and the Imports from the Dominion $7,694,441; in the three years 1915-17 the figures were $48,208,942 and $17,293,357, respectively. Imperial Honours of the Year. The elevation of Sir Hugh Graham of Montreal and Sir Wm. Max Aitken of Montreal and London to the Peerage and the refusal of a Knighthood and Senatorship by John Ross Robertson of Toronto aroused considerable discussion. Sir Maxwell Aitken was a young Canadian *NOTE. For many of these figures I am indebted to the courtesy and efforts of Mr. E. H. 8. Flood, Canadian Trade Commissioner at Bridgetown, Barbadoes. of quite remarkable ability and exceptional political skill and force, who had won a sudden and high place in British public life while devoted to the advancement of Canadian interests abroad. Mr. Ross Robertson had always been radical in view and his paper (The Telegram) sometimes verged upon republicanism in thought; but he himself was so fine a type of citizen and so outstanding a man in strength and virility of character that he could afford to decline national or Imperial compliments if he so desired. The British press described the Montreal honours as eminently fitting-with, in the case of Lord Beaverbrook, some political exceptions; the Canadian press was inclined to view them critically and as part of an institution. The Toronto Globe (Feb. 21) was explicit on this point: "Is it not time to call a halt in this 'New Imperialism'? It is not in consonance with the new-world spirit of democracy." The hereditary side of Lord Atholstan's honour, as with that of Lord Beaverbrook, was the chief element of criticism-though, as a matter of fact, neither of the new Peers had a son. The Kingston Whig, the Woodstock Sentinel-Review, the Toronto Globe and Star, the Hamilton Herald, the Vancouver World, the Halifax Chronicle, the Edmonton Bulletin, the London Advertiser, the Stratford Beacon--these and most of the other protestants were Liberal journals-exceptions being the Guelph Herald, London Free Press and the Prince Albert Herald, the Christian Guardian and Orangeville Sun, with, of course, the Toronto Weekly Sun (Radical), which already refused to acknowledge any Imperial title in Canada and referred to Mr. Laurier and Mr. Borden while believing also in neutrality of War thought. These papers did not regard the honours as a compliment to Canada and rather minimized the services of the men who were honoured. Grain Growers' Guide described titles in general (Mar. 14) as "tin pot appanages." Other Canadians honoured during the year were as follows: K.C.M.G.... Hon. Albert Edward Kemp.. Minister of Militia. The . President of University of Toronto. K.C.M.G....Lieut.-Col.J.Strathearn Hendrie, c. v.o.Lieut.-Governor of Ontario. K.C.M.G....Wm. Peterson, C.M.G., LL.D........ Prin'pal McGill University, Montreal. Rev. Daniel Miner Gordon, D. D., LL. D. Prin'pal Queen's University, Kingston. . Capt. Edward H. Martin. Graham Airdrie Bell.. Wm. Henry Walker, 1.8.0. Hon. Walter G. P. Cassels.. C.M.G C.M.G. . Hon. Ezekiel McLeod Knight. .John Aird. Knight. ..George Bury.. Knight. George Burn.. Knight. Augustus M. Nanton. Baronet. . Superintendent of Halifax Dockyard. General Manager, Bank of Ottawa. Surg.-Gen. Eugene Fiset, c. M. G.,I.S.O.Deputy Minister of Militia. Major-Gen. John W. Carson, c. B. Militia Dept. Representative in England . Pierre Martial Coté, K.C.. .Lieut.-Col. T. G. Johnston Loggie.. Deputy Minister of Lands, N.B. A large number of military honours were also granted during the year. No exception was taken to these but that of Sir J. W. Flavelle added fuel to the fire of criticism. A measure of personal unpopularity, in respect to war prices of the Davies' firm and war orders for bacon, etc., reacted upon an honour bestowed for admitted war services as the controller and manager of immense British Munition interests in Canada. It may be added that the titles chosen during the year by three new Canadian Peers, the first created in 1916, were as follows: Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, K.C.v.o., Baron Shaughnessy of Montreal, Canada, and Ashford, Ireland; Sir Hugh Graham, Baron Atholstan of Huntingdon, Quebec, and Edinburgh, Scotland; Sir Wm. Max Aitken, Bart., M.P., Baron Beaverbrook of Beaverbrook, New Brunswick, and Cherkley, Surrey. A new Order of the British Empire was announced by the King, for services rendered during the War, with divisions for both men and women. A long List of recipients was published and the Classes of the Order stated as follows: MEN 1. Knights Grand Cross (G.B.E.) 2. Knights Commanders (K.B.E.) 3. Commanders (C.B.E.) 4. Officers (O.B.E.) 5. Members (M.B.E.) WOMEN 1. Dames of Grand Cross (G.B.E.) 4. Officers (O.B.E.) 5. Members (M.B.E.) The Honours for the Dominions were postponed but the following Canadians were included: K.B.E., Charles Blair Gordon, Montreal; O.B.E., Prof. John C. McLennan, Toronto. The United the War: THE UNITED STATES AND THE WAR The United States as a Nation did not want to States Enters fight in this War; its leaders, with a few exceptions, Diplomacy were agreed upon the policy of neutrality so long and Decision. as it could be maintained with reasonable honour and dignity; its people were prosperous in fact, pacific in principle, exceedingly proud in theory; its position was one of known unpreparedness for war. The diplomacy of the President, therefore, had been one of excessive difficulty; that of Germany one of mingled bluff and indifference. Toward the close of 1916 the Central Powers had issued their first formal Peace proposal, which the Allies had rejected; immediately following it President Wilson had written his Note, asking the Belligerents to define their war-aims.* To this latter appeal the Allied Governments responded on Jan. 10, 1917, with a declaration of respect for its lofty sentiments and with this statement of their objects: The civilized world knows that they imply, in all necessity and in the first instance, the restoration of Belgium, of Serbia, and of Montenegro, and the indemnities which are due them; the evacuation of the invaded territories of France, of Russia, and of Roumania, with just reparation; the re-organization of Europe, guaranteed by a stable settlement, based alike upon the principle of nationalities, on the right which all peoples, whether small or great, have to the enjoyment of full security and free economic development, and also upon territorial agreements and international arrangements so framed as to guarantee land and sea frontiers against unjustified attacks; the restitution of provinces or territories wrested in the past from the Allies by force or against the will of their populations; the liberation of Italians, of Slavs, of Roumanians, and of Tcheco-Slovaques from foreign domination; the enfranchisement of populations subject to the bloody tyranny of the Turks; the expulsion from Europe of the Ottoman Empire, decidedly alien to Western civilization. On Jan. 17 Sir C. Spring-Rice, British Ambassador, presented to the United States Government a further Note, signed by A. J. Balfour as Foreign Secretary and amplifying the views above expressed. It was a most able document and the writer made special reference to Turkey as being openly used by Germany as an engine of conquest: "Under German officers Turkish soldiers are fighting in lands from which they had long been expelled, and a Turkish Government controlled, subsidized, and supported by Germany has been guilty of massacres in Armenia and Syria more horrible than any recorded in the history even of those unhappy countries." For Militarism as a disease international treaties and laws did not seem a sufficient check or cure. A durable Peace, therefore, was only possible with three conditions: The first is that existing causes of international unrest should be as far as possible removed or weakened; the second is that the aggressive aims and the unscrupulous methods of the Central Powers should fall into disrepute among their own peoples; the third is that behind International law and behind all treaty arrangements for preventing or limiting hostilities some form of International sanction should be devised which would give pause to the hardiest aggressor. *NOTE.-See The Canadian Annual Review for 1916, Pages 42, 232, 234. |