and sixty. In
emergency, those liable to service would be called in this order. The
period of service is three years. Up to the present service has been
voluntary, and the period of drill lasts sixteen days. Except for
fishing patrols and insignificant cruisers, Canada has no marine force,
absolutely none, though she can requisition the big merchant liners
which she subsidizes. Canada has an excellent military school in
Kingston and a course of instruction at Quebec, but the majority of
graduates from these centers go into service in the British army simply
because there is no scope for them in their own land. At Esquimalt off
Victoria, British Columbia, and at Halifax, Nova Scotia, before the
outbreak of the present war, were Imperial naval stations; but these
were being reduced to a minimum. Perhaps to these defenders should be
added some thirty thousand juvenile cadets trained in the public
schools, but if one is to set down facts not fictions, much of the
training of the volunteers resolves itself into a yearly picnic. One
wonders on what Canada is pinning her faith in security from attack in
case disaster should come to the British navy. Whether Canada is
conscious of it or not, her greatest defense is in the virility of her
manhood. Her men are neither professorial nor an office type. They
are big outdoor men who shoot well because they have shot from boyhood
and lived a life in the open. All this, however, is not national
defense. It is unused but splendid material for national defense.

Up to the outbreak of the present war Canada has not spent ten million
a year on national defense. That is--for the security of peace for a
century, she has spent less than one dollar and fifty cents per head a
year. A year ago naval bills were rejected. To-day there are few
people in Canada who would not acknowledge that Canada is spending too
little on defense. Stirred profoundly but, as is the British way,
saying little, the Dominion is setting herself in earnest to the big
new problem. To the European War, Canada has sent sixty thousand men;
and she has promised one hundred thousand more. A nation that can
unpreparedly deliver on such promises to the drop of the hat can take
care of her defense, and that may be Canada's next national job.

Would any power have an object in crippling Canada? The question is
answered best by another. If Suez were cut off and Canada were cut
off, where would England look f