Imperial Defence

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IMPERIAL DEFENCE.Addresses by Captain A. T. Hunter and Mr. T. E. Champion, before the Empire Club of Canada, March 22nd, 1906.CAPT. A. T. HUNTER.

I find myself in a much more exposed position than I had anticipated. I had understood that the Commanding Officer of the 34th was to lead the firing line and I was to be merely in support. Now, Imperial Defence is a subject that has hitherto enjoyed a privilege which it is now losing, it has enjoyed the privilege of being safe ground for the orator and flag-waver; no definite duties being undertaken and no definite money proposition being guaranteed. In this respect it has been safer ground than the question, “How shall Canada defend Canada?” which is a question that no Canadian of public responsibility has as yet given an honest and a complete answer to. It was therefore very unfitting of Colonel Mason to deprive this subject of its vague and theoretic character and to propose so hard and inelastic a piece of collateral as a bit of a battleship, when we are all willing and ready at all times to put up, what we have always put up, a verbal undertaking to give our last man and last dollar. We are, I think, being put in the cold commercial position of having to put up or shut up. (Hear, hear.)

Let us examine our obligations and then let us examine our means of settlement-matters of settlement in matters of defence being divided from time immemorial into three forms, men, money and ships-money being hard to part with and ships taking longer to get than money, and men of the right kind taking still longer than ships. As to our obligations there has been a good deal of confusion because by the use of metaphors we speak of the Mother-country as if she were a widow and we her sons earning ten dollars a week and asked to chip in for her support! Now, as a matter of fact, an Englishman of my own age is not my mother and I am not under filial obligation to him. Ours is not the duty to give, ours is the duty of good comradeship to lend in the hour of necessity even such things as we have or can get ready in the time of the hurly burly. I must therefore strongly oppose the idea of giving a battleship. I feel at the same time that we should start, and start now, a constantly increasing collection of marine police and battleships or cruisers, of whatever type is considered most appropriate and that we should be ready to lend them on short notice and placer them at the Empire’s disposal without reserve. There is no doubt’ that the day will come when we must want police protection for our large mercantile marine and when that day comes we will be heartily ashamed of ourselves. The Maple Leaf as a land emblem is quite appropriate and correct but as a maritime nation at the present time ours should be the ” sponge rampant.” (Laughter.)

Next as to money. Now there is no need of talking of money in this connection because we are always in the English money market. They are always lending and we are always steady borrowers, so we will pass on to the men. There are men to give or lend–it is a figurative speech, it is a metaphor, to speak of giving our last man. We will only lend him. We want him back when J. B. is through with him, even though he be maimed and blind, or eaten up with enteric. We want him back again because he is a Canadian, and in this connection men being practically all we have to offer I think there is considerable room for educating Canadians as to the appropriate and suitable sort of men that we should accumulate for Imperial loaning purposes. I am not referring to home defence but for the purpose of sending abroad. Now I know the proper sort of men, but it is quite unlikely that many Canadians would agree with me. Still I will throw out a few suggestions. It is useless to ask the Imperial War Office what sort of soldiery the gentlemen want when we make a contribution for the reason that they have an unfortunate practice of not explaining their meaning. On the last occasion of a contribution they asked for Infantry and all along they meant mounted troops. The next time they will probably ask for Cavalry meaning Army Service Corps or Engineers.

It is up to the Canadians to decide what will be the best contribution and to send the best. Now it is a matter of considerable difficulty to decide what is the best. Of course the first object is to maintain the just cause of the Empire, for the Empire always has a just cause when it extends its territories and, conversely, if the Empire loses territory it is in the wrong; but the second object is more important and that is to give the other nations a formidable image of the Canadians. Now these erroneous images of nations do a great deal of good or harm. For instance there is the Chinese. The Chinaman has allowed others to think that he is unwarlike and servile with the result that we have fed him with kicks. On the other hand the notion we commonly have of the native of Kentucky is that every man is a Colonel and drinks raw whisky and that notion tends to make us respectful and hospitable. Laughter.) Now if we could only give the nations abroad the idea that it was not wise to have Canadians looking at them over the sights of the rifle that would start the idea that Canada was a lot of bad land for the invader, that it was lean in glory and rich in abusive words, and that the invader would likely come back, as they say on the Scotch borders, “Wi’ a sark fu’ o’ sair banes.”

Well, in selecting our men for the Imperial export trade 1 am afraid we shall have to look outside of our, military organization in the future. The only military organization in Canada is, as you are aware, the Militia–of whom the York Rangers is undoubtedly the best Regiment (hear, hear), and the Militia is, unfortunately for us, in its equipment and weapons, instruction, tactics and discipline, a very servile imitation of the British Regular Army. This involves the danger at any time of deterioration over which our public authorities have no control. Let me illustrate. During the South African war the Boers gave infinite annoyance by the discourteous manner in which they disregarded the rules of tactics laid down by the best European experts and it took six or seven times their number to convince those ignorant farmers of the error in their modes of fighting; and during that period the English officers, from Lord Roberts down, had the feeling that it was wise to adopt what are now called looser movements, more extended formations, and to allow what is known as individual initiative.

Now individual initiative, I may say to you who are not military men, is that degree of human reason which is allowed to a common soldier to enable him to come in out of a rain of bullets. The older class of soldier was mobilized just as a wheelbarrow. The result was that during the South African period the British Army permitted, and consequently the Canadian Militia was allowed, a certain amount of initiative in its training and some of the phases of the instruction have been applied in actual fighting. But the lesson of the South African war has gone the way of the lesson of the American Revolution, and the British Army for the past year and more has been steadily retracing its steps, deliberately doing so, and the photograph of any military imbecility that is introduced in England is faithfully mimicked in Canada. For instance, a Japanese Infantry officer is believed during the occurrence of a night attack to have struck a Russian with a sword-it is not well authenticated, but it is believed–and, accordingly, we Canadian Infantry Officers who during the South African war had been told to leave our swords in the tents–and they ought to be in museums–had them very much in evidence at the last Camp, and we practiced the drawing, carrying, saluting with and returning these lodge emblems and we did it to the rhythmic stamping of our own feet. Such are the horrors of war!

And it is going to be worse in the future. The highest military authority at present in England, the Duke himself, has very recently declared for precise drill as against loose movements. Accordingly it is inevitable that someone in the Militia Department at Ottawa will roar for precise drill. We can almost see the orders on our tables. We get about a pail full per week of Militia orders. We can see the great man struggling to make it clear to us that we must have precise drill and we can see the lines of thought wrinkling the back of his neck (laughter), and next camp will see us not only at’ Niagara-it was inevitable that we should go back to Niagara, we all knew it-but will see us spending the first week learning the science of presenting arms by numbers, just as we did in the old days before DeWet set up a school for the British Army. Gentlemen, we Canadians cannot compete in precise drill with the professional Tommies and we will make a great mistake in selecting our next contribution to the Empire if we consider precise drill any qualification for selection. My proposition is, then, to select or to breed up in, or out, of the Militia say one thousand Canadians with these qualifications

(1) To be able to ride sufficiently well to get from one place to another.(2) What is more important, to shoot with the greatest possible accuracy at long ranges from G00 yards to 1,500 yards, which are the ranges at which the precisely drilled soldier of Europe never hits anything except by accident.(3) That they should know the other use of a sandbag–I mean entrenchment.(4) That they should have enough discipline not to be hung as bandits when taken prisoners.

A thousand Canadians with those qualifications, under an appreciative leader, could stall up a whole division of the best precisely-drilled troops in Europe. Gentlemen, where we are to find those thousand I haven’t the least idea, because they are not in Canada at present; there are not three hundred with these qualifications But I do know that if we had them–and cost what it may, we ought to get them–if we had them and sent them to the field, the next time the nations drew lots to see who should be invaded, Canada would get the “by.”

Mr. T. E. CHAMPION.

– This is a subject in which I take a very great interest and of which I have read a great deal and of which I have also written considerably. Once before in addressing this Club I gave myself the privilege of telling you what I thought about Canadians and Imperial Defence and I had the honour when making my speech of getting one of the best receptions for what I said that has ever been accorded to any member of the Club. I thoroughly agree with what Captain Hunter has said about the selfishness of Canadians and about the vast amount of lip loyalty they have given and the miserable parsimmonious policy of our people. Canada professes herself to be like those people we read about in ” Peter Simple,” Marryat’s novel of the Barbadoes; the only fault that they possessed was that they were a little too brave. If we read what Canadians often say about themselves one would think that Marryat must have had the future Canadians in his mind when he wrote that chapter about the natives of that country being a little too brave. Since the War of 1812, and in that war, gentlemen, what did we do. We furnished our men, but we wouldn’t pay one penny of the expenses, it was paid by Great Britain-and so far from being a loss to us, was a very great benefit. Since then it is the same way. We actually didn’t take the whole cost of our own internal dissensions till 1837. When we sent out troops to South Africa we sent most of them C.O.D., and we grumbled about paying one single half-penny.

We have the full benefit of the British Navy in protecting our commerce and we give nothing in return, and it is the duty of the Empire Club–one of its duties–to teach the people that they must either put up or shut up. It was Colonel George Taylor Denison that coined that phrase when we cried so loudly about the Alaskan dispute, and if it was true then it is still more true now, and Canadians should be required either to say less about their loyalty or to do a great deal more to show it. We spend an enormous amount, comparatively speaking, on our Permanent Force and the Permanent Force is a victim of politics from first to last–I don’t care which party is in power. Our present Government is coming along well and will equal its predecessors. It is not to appoint the best man but the man that has the most pull. We don’t want a permanent corps, at least only to a certain extent, only to be a corps of instruction, and it has lamentably failed in that object for which it was first intended. And then, gentlemen, there is one great thing, to teach the young people that there is a greater duty devolved upon them. At present you ask, what will we do? We will sing, “God Save the King.” You ask, will we do more? Yes, we will sing “Rule Britannia.” But not a thing will our people do substantially. They will sing, but they won’t deprive themselves of a dollar of their money to do anything in the real defence of the Empire. We pride ourselves upon being a component part of the Empire on which the sun never sets, and we give the least possible sum we can, when it is not only our duty but our privilege to help to maintain it.

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