nst the jingoist policy which had culminated in the war. When the
fifth Conference, now termed Imperial instead of Colonial, met in 1907,
there was much impassioned advocacy of preference and protection on the
part of Alfred Deakin of Australia and Sir L.S. Jameson of the Cape;
but the British representatives stuck to their guns and, in Winston
Churchill's phrase, the door remained "banged, barred, and bolted"
against both policies. At this conference Laurier took the ground that,
while Canada would be prepared to bargain preference for preference, the
people of Great Britain must decide what fiscal system would best serve
their own interests. A consistent advocate of home rule, he was willing,
unlike some of his colleagues, from the other Dominions, to let the
United Kingdom control its own affairs.

The defense issue had slumbered since the Boer War. Now the unbounded
ambitions of Germany gave it startling urgency. It was about 1908
that the British public first became seriously alarmed over the danger
involved in the lessening margin of superiority of the British over the
German navy. The alarm was echoed throughout the Dominions. The Kaiser's
challenge threatened the safety not only of the mother country but of
every part of the Empire. Hitherto the Dominions had done little in
the way of naval defense, though they had one by one assumed full
responsibility for their land defense. The feeling had been growing
that they should take a larger share of the common burden. Two factors,
however, had blocked advance in this direction. The British Government
had claimed and exercised full control of the issues of peace and
war, and the Dominions were reluctant to assume responsibility for
the consequences of a foreign policy which they could not direct. The
hostility of the British Admiralty, on strategic and political grounds,
to the plan of local Dominion navies, had prevented progress on the most
feasible lines. The deadlock was a serious one. Now the imminence of
danger compelled a solution. Taking the lead in this instance in the
working out of the policy of colonial nationalism, Australia had already
insisted upon abandoning the barren and inadequate policy of making a
cash contribution for the support of a British squadron in Australasian
waters and had established a local navy, manned, maintained, and
controlled by the Commonwealth. Canada decided to follow her example.
In March, 1909, the Canadian House of Commons un