r Canadian Army.

"You Canadians have done it all. We know that. We know that the English are
hanging back and have done nothing."

I am ashamed when people talk to me in such a strain. I am ashamed of their
lack of intelligence, ashamed that they will allow themselves to be so
deceived.

"You Canadians were asked by England to go and help her. When you got there
they put you in front and stayed in safety themselves."

Think of it! Think of the base lie. Think of believing such twaddle. At
first I did not trouble to deny the statement; then, as it was repeated
again and again, I began to deny it.

The British Empire is in this fight. Canada is doing her share of it, and
nothing more than her share. We were not asked to send men over. We
declared war upon Germany ourselves, because we are an independent
dominion. We have had on the battle-field at one time some one hundred and
ten thousand men--that is the greatest number at any one time, though of
course nearly five hundred thousand are in khaki. At Vimy Ridge we held the
longest portion of trenches that we have ever held before or since--five
miles. To right and left of us there were Imperial troops, Anzacs,
Africans, and they held over fifty-five miles of line. We advanced four
miles, and papers on this continent blazed with the news. The English
advanced nine miles on the same day, and there was not so much as a
paragraph about it on this side of the Atlantic.

For every overseas soldier wounded on the western front there are six of
the Imperial troops wounded. This is true except at Lens, where the
overseas casualties were considerably heavier.

All this about Canada being in front is a German "terminological
inexactitude" which is so despicable that we in Canada are ashamed that it
should be said of us. It will injure us after the war; it will injure our
prestige in the empire, which is now higher than ever before. We are not
boasters and egotists, we are fighters. We are fighting men who live
straight and who are proud to fight straight, and who are disgusted at lies
such as this.

The British, the Imperial troops, have done magnificently. They have done
more than their share. The original agreement with France was to place
fifty thousand men in that country should Germany ever attack. The British
have five million troops under arms, of which only one-fifth are overseas.
They have some five hundred thousand more men in France than have the
French themselv