ostly either
"Jingoes" or Centralizationists, as contra to Nationalists or
Decentralizationists, long-standing opponents.

Each set perceives their notions liable to be profoundly affected by
Canada's fighting in Europe. Each affects belief that their own
political designs cannot but be thereby served; each is afflicted with
qualms of doubt. They alike appreciate the factors that make for their
opponent's cause. Both know the strength of popular attachment to Great
Britain; both know the traditional and inbred loathing of the
industrious masses for the horrible bloodshed and insensate waste of
treasure in war. Both sets balance inwardly the chances that sentiments
seemingly irreconcilable and about equally respectable may, after the
war, urge Canadians either to draw politically closer to their
world-scattered kin, or to cut ligaments that might pull them again and
again, time without end, into the immemorial European shambles.

But is the Canadian public excitedly interested in the discussion? Not
at all. Spokesmen and penmen of the two contentious factions are
victimized by their own perfervid imaginations. The electorate, the
masses, are not so swayed. The Canadian people, essentially British no
matter what their origins, are mainly, like all English-speaking
democracies, of straight, primitive, uncomplicated emotions, and of
essentially conservative mind. They "plug" along. The hour and the day
hold their attention. It is given to the necessary private works of the
moment, as to the necessary public conduct of the time.

They did not, as a public, spin themselves any reasons or excuses for
their hearty approval of Canada's engagement in the war. Her or their
contributions of men and money to its fields of slaughter and waste
appeared and appear to them natural, proper, inevitable. They applauded
seriously the country's being "put in for it" by agreement of the two
sets of party politicians, and without any direct consultation of the
electorate in this, the most important departure Canada ever made,
because prompt action seemed the only way, and time was lacking for
debate about what seemed the next thing that had to be done. In fact,
the Canadian people, regarded collectively, felt and acted in this case
with as much ingenuousness as did those Tyrolese mountaineers, bred,
according to Heine, to know nothing of politics save that they had an
Emperor who wore a white coat and red breeches.

When the patriots