es to menace the
United States will menace the safety of Canada; and with swift
cruisers, Europe and Asia are nearer Canada to-day than Halifax is near
Vancouver. Either city could be attacked by foreign powers before
military aid could be transported across the width of Canada. We are
nearer Europe to-day than the North was near the South in the Civil
War. It takes a shorter time to transport troops across Atlantic or
Pacific than it formerly took to send a Minnesota regiment to Maryland.
Including Quebec, Montreal, old Port Royal, Annapolis, Louisburg and
the forts on Hudson Bay, Canada's chief strongholds of defense have
been taken and retaken seven times by European enemies in one hundred
and sixty years--between 1629 and 1789. Day was when Quebec
fortifications cost so much that the King of France wanted to know if
they were laid in gold. Before the fall of Quebec in 1759,
Louisburg--a forgotten fortress of Cape Breton--was considered one of
France's strongholds. Have Canadians forgotten the frightful wreck of
the British fleet in the St. Lawrence in 1711 under Sir Havender
Walker; or the defeat of the admiralty ships manned by the Hudson's Bay
fur-traders up off Port Nelson in 1697 by Lemoyne d' Iberville? Before
La Perouse reduced Churchill it was regarded as a second Gibraltar.
Yet Churchill and Nelson and Quebec and Louisburg all fell before a
foreign foe, and Europe is nearer to-day than she was in those eras of
terrible defeat. What additional fortifications or defenses has Canada
to be so cocksure that history can never repeat itself? She is not
resting under the Monroe Doctrine. It is a safe wager that many
Canadians have never heard of the Monroe Doctrine. Besides, the minute
Canada voluntarily enters a European war, does she forfeit American
"protection" under that Monroe Doctrine? The idea of being "protected"
by any power but her own--and Britain's--right arm Canada would scout
to derision. Yet what are her own national defenses?

Her regular forces ordinarily consist of less than three thousand men;
her volunteer forces of forty-five to sixty thousand. By law it is
provided that the Dominion militia consist of all male inhabitants of
the age of eighteen and under sixty, divided into four classes: from
eighteen to thirty years of age unmarried or widowers; from thirty to
forty-five unmarried or widowers; from eighteen to forty-five married
or widowers; men of all classes between forty-five