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2015 One King, One Flag, One Empire: Canada, Imperial Defense Politics and Identity, 1900-1918 Daniel Zylberkan

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FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

“ONE KING, ONE FLAG, ONE EMPIRE”

CANADA, IMPERIAL DEFENSE POLITICS AND IDENTITY, 1900-1918

By

DANIEL ZYLBERKAN

A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2015

Daniel Zylberkan defended this thesis on December 8, 2014. The members of the supervisory committee were:

Jonathan Grant Professor Directing Thesis

Charles Upchurch Committee Member

Michael Creswell Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the Thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

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I would like to dedicate this paper to everyone that helped me along the way. My major professor Jonathan Grant and especially my parents Mauricio and Clarisse. Whenever I thought about quitting or had any doubts they encouraged me to not give up and give it my best shot. I also couldn’t have done this without my friends in Tallahassee, if I didn’t have all of you I would have never finished this Thesis.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ...... vi Introduction ...... 1 British Imperial Political Culture in the Edwardian Era: Party Politics, Militarism and Civil Society in an Atlantic Context ...... 5 A Note on Primary Sources ...... 10 Chapter 1 “Her Fleet is Britain’s all in all” DISCOURSES of Britishness, Imperial Unity and Naval Supremacy in Edwardian Britain and Canada ...... 12 Introduction ...... 12 Britishness and Imperial Unity: The and the Ideology of Empire 1850-1914 ...... 13 Discourses of Imperial Unity: Variations on a theme ...... 18 J.R Seeley and Conceiving “Greater Britain” ...... 18 Goldwin Smith: Civilization, Empire and Liberty ...... 20 Imperial Unity and Naval Superiority: The Language of Hegemonic Britishness in Action .. 22 “I Have Striven to be a Devoted Citizen of Greater Britain” Alfred Milner, Imperial Citizenship and Cooperation in Naval Defense ...... 22 “The Foundations of British Greatness Rests in the Creative Power of Industry” Imperial Unity, Naval Supremacy and Commerce ...... 25 “Why is the Naval Supremacy of Britain Vital to Canada?” Anglo-Saxon Exceptionalism and Naval Supremacy in Canadian Politics ...... 27 Conclusion ...... 33 Chapter 2 From the Boer War to THE Western Front. The Politics of National Efficiency, Imperial Unity and Military Defense, 1900-1917 ...... 35 Introduction ...... 35 “Black Week” and Institutional Failure: “The Quest for National Efficiency” in the British Army after the Boer War ...... 36 Sons of Empire: The Scouting Movement, Physical Fitness and Empire ...... 39 Militarism and British Society before the Great War ...... 42 “With Shoulders square and heads held high, down they came, the heroes of the Empire” National Service, Efficiency and Canadian Society before the First World War ...... 45 The 1907 Colonial Conference – Liberal Imperialism and National Efficiency and Military Policy ...... 53 The War Cabinet and the Manpower Issue ...... 55 “However long the path, to final victory, we shall tread it side by side.” The Imperial War Cabinet: Canada, Manpower and the Politics of Imperial Contribution ...... 56

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Conclusion ...... 60 Chapter 3 What do we Owe ? and the Ligue Nationaliste: French Canadian Nationalism and Opposition Imperial Unity ...... 62 Introduction ...... 62 Cobden, Gladstone, and the New Radicals: The Legacy of Nineteenth Century Radical Liberalism...... 64 The Manchester School — Richard Cobden, Free Trade and Internationalism ...... 64 William Gladstone — A Conflicted Radical ...... 66 Socialist, Anti-Imperialist and Anti-Capitalist Opposition to the Boer War ...... 68 Henri Bourassa and the Nationalistes: Anti-Imperialism and Opposition to the War in South Africa ...... 71 Bourassa’s Opposition to Wilfrid Laurier’s Naval Bill and its Imperial Implications ...... 77 What do we Owe England? Henri Bourassa’s Anti-Imperialist Manifesto…………………………………………………………………………………....80 Conclusion ...... 81 Conclusion ...... 83 Bibliography ...... 88 Biographical Sketch ...... 93

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ABSTRACT

During the Edwardian Era British and Canadian society and political circles fought a spirited battle about the nature of Canada’s involvement and contributions to imperial defense. These debates were interconnected to other movements which were important during the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. The movements for imperial preference, tariff reform and were the primary predecessors of the movement for greater defense unity in the period before World War I.

Supporters of greater imperial defense cooperation in both Canada and in Great Britain used a language of “Britishness” to undergird their arguments. “Britishness” was used in various ways to develop an imperial identity that could be used to connect the far flung corners of the Empire. These included citizenship and Anglo-Saxon naval supremacy. Another major feature of this movement was its non-partisan and eclectic membership. One of the main ideologies developed by supporters of imperial defense cooperation was “National Efficiency.” Efficiency was a new mode of organization for the British state that emphasized military preparedness as a reaction to British failures during the Second Boer War (1899-1902)

These ideologies and languages of “Britishness” and “National Efficiency” did not go unchallenged. Henri Bourassa and the French Canadian Ligue Nationaliste Canadienne built their own ideology that opposed these imperialist impulses. French Canadian nationalist was primarily a rejection of centralization and of militarism based on the long history of British radical and liberal politics. Bourassa and the Ligue Nationaliste were squarely within the mainstream of British Liberal opinion in their opposition to the Second Boer War and of a naval buildup in the Edwardian Era.

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INTRODUCTION

The idea of “empire” in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain was not a partisan one, but an ideological one. Varied efforts at more meaningful imperial unity took many forms and had many supporters and many opponents. It was the vibrancy of British civil society that allowed for such a ferocious debate to take place. Canada as an integral part of the was very important to these debates. Debates regarding Imperialism and imperial unity took many forms including initiatives for tariff reform, imperial preference and struggles for closer political ties. Advocates of imperial unity, self-avowed Imperialists, pictured Great Britain and the Dominions as an “Anglo-Saxon political space, a racial polity.”1 The project for imperial unity aimed to create a British “empire of liberty” united by race and British parliamentary institutions.2 Contemporaries saw the drive for imperial unity as a failure. None of the constitutional changes promoted by its leaders were implemented and the movement fizzled out into a disorganized and factionalized shadow of itself.3 One of the factions for imperial unity, championed by Joseph Chamberlain and politicians in the form of tariff reform and Imperial preference, failed because of the strength of Manchester School liberalism in parliament and the reliance of the Dominions on protectionism.4 Although the movement for imperial preference failed, it created a precedent, Chamberlain and the Tories were willing to oppose free trade and the Cobdenite orthodoxy in favor of greater unity between Great Britain and the Dominions’ “ideal prefabricated collaborators” which “accepted the logic of export-led development.”5 In short free trade was too crucial to English Liberals and protection was too crucial for Dominion politicians to ignore. The substantive failure of imperial preference and the Chamberlainite agenda led in a large part to the shift in priorities by advocates of imperial unity after the Boer War. The nature of the opposition to imperial preference both in Westminster and in the Dominions forced a

1 Duncan Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain empire and the future of world order, 1860-1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 10. 2 Bell. Idea of Greater Britain, 10-11 3 Bell, Idea of Greater Britain, p.15 4 Edward Grierson, The Imperial Dream: The British Commonwealth and Empire, 1775-1969 ( : Collins, 1972), 152-55 P.J Cain and A.G Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688-2000 (Harlow: Longman), 185-215. 5 Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 215 1

change in the language used by Imperialists. Instead of a language of reciprocity and preference it shifted to one that focused on Britishness and imperial defense cooperation as the keys to imperial unity. This rhetoric of Britishness and defense cooperation was undergirded by the strength of Imperial civil society represented by leagues, clubs, newspapers, educational, and religious institutions. This was represented by groups all over the Empire such as the Navy League, the National Service League, the Boy Scout Movement and the Canadian Military Institute; as well as the lively British and Canadian press. This thesis argues that during the Edwardian Era, British and Canadian political opinion and civil society engaged in a spirited debate about the nature of Canada’s contributions to the defense of the British Empire. The prevalence and strength of the political establishment and civil society in Canada as well as the other Dominions allowed them to fully participate in the business of decision making. The thickness of imperial ties between Great Britain and Canada transcended party politics and led to the creation of a transatlantic faction of politicians and intellectuals that campaigned for greater Imperial defense cooperation. Advocates of imperial defense cooperation used discourses of hegemonic Britishness and “National Efficiency” to appeal to residents of Canada for greater contributions to military and naval defense. This drive for greater imperial unity was not universally accepted and French Canadian Nationalists were amongst the most fervent opponents of imperial unity. The Ligue Nationaliste Canadienne and Henri Bourassa opposed imperial unity not only focusing on French Canadian nationalist ideology but owed a deep respect and influence to the British radical liberal tradition as well. These endeavors for greater imperial defense cooperation were based on two threats to British military supremacy during the Edwardian era. First, the threat to naval supremacy and the ideologies were used to strengthen the British Empire during this crisis. Second, the failures of the British Army during the Second Boer War showed that British policy makers would have to find a new method of organization to fight wars against Britain’s more powerful continental enemies. This new method was a new ideology of “National Efficiency” and a form of Liberal Imperialism that argued for greater military contributions, organization and cooperation between Britain and Canada. This new mode of Imperial military organization was tested in the spring of 1917, when the British War Cabinet and Imperial War Cabinet were dealing with the manpower crisis caused by the Battle of the Somme and the need for industrial labor. These new identities and methods of Imperial organization were not accepted without challenge. French Canadians

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led by Henri Bourassa and represented by Ligue Nationaliste Canadienne opposed imperial defense cooperation not only on French Canadian nationalist grounds but with a deep respect for the British radical liberal tradition. Britain’s naval supremacy was called into question in the lead up to the First World War by an increasingly robust German naval construction program. The Admiralty and British policy makers saw this as an opportunity to argue for greater contributions by the Dominions into imperial naval defense. Discussions of British naval supremacy is a natural way for me to discuss how identity and ideology entered into the logic of imperial decision making. These forms of belonging including Imperial citizenship, the strength of geostrategy, globalization and civilization as well as a view of naval supremacy and the seafaring tradition as a natural part of the British Empire’s Anglo-Saxon legacy. British and Canadian imperial thinkers, activists and policymakers seized the challenge posed by challenges to naval supremacy as a method of articulating modes of belonging to the British Empire and of promoting imperial unity. The defeats in quick succession to Boer militias at the battles of Colenso, Magersfontein and Stromberg in December 1899 (collectively known as “Black Week”) symbolize British failures during the Second Boer War. These defeats showed, that Britain was not ready for a war against a continental power. The solution to this problem was known as “National Efficiency,” G.R Searle argued that efficiency was a “cohering ideology” that merged militaristic and technocratic language to appeal to different segments of Edwardian society and political opinion.6 During the Edwardian era “efficiency” was associated with a “volunteer adequately qualified for military service” 7 The movement for efficiency was also helped by innovations such as the creation of the Boy Scout Movement by the hero of the South African War, Robert Baden Powell and by the creation of National Service League. Both of these groups aimed to strengthen Britain and the Empire’s “physique” by engaging in physical activity outdoors. The Boer War had made clear that Britain’s men were weak and that military training and an appeal to the virile, adventurous frontier spirit would strengthen them for the next fight. Military groups in Canada such as the Canadian Defence League adopted the language of efficiency and of military readiness in the

6G.R Searle, The Quest for National Efficiency (Berkeley: University of California Press), xx 7 Searle, The Quest for National Efficiency,xix 3

wake of British failures during the Boer War. Canadian civil society adopted the language and advocated for military cooperation within the Empire. The ideology of “National Efficiency” along with a new focus on military readiness created what Anne Summers called British Militarism. It was when the manpower shortage created by grinding deadlock on the Western Front overcame the power of “militarism” is when conscription became necessary. The culmination of these debates about “National Efficiency” and Imperial military cooperation occurred in the wake of the Battle of the Somme and into the spring of 1917. The War Cabinet in desperate need of additional manpower both on the front and for labor concluded that the Dominions would have to be a source for that manpower. The work of the Imperial War Cabinet as a body where members of the British government and Dominion governments worked in conjunction towards creating British military policy was one of the great achievements of the supporters of imperial defense cooperation. The greatest opponents of the Imperial idea were radical Liberals, which came from the same school of thought as Richard Cobden’s Manchester School, William Gladstone as well as the “New Liberalism” of J.A Hobson and L.T Hobhouse. In the Edwardian Era, the decade and half before the First World War, the most vibrant locus of the British radical tradition was actually the unlikeliest of places, Quebec. The Canadian Liberal party and Ligue Nationaliste with its powerful French-Canadian support was the primary exponent of British radical views in the period between the outbreak of the Second Boer War and the end of the First World War. The origins of the French Canadian Nationalistes was solidly within the Liberal party and was characterized by its opposition of Canadian involvement in the Boer War and an opposition to aggressive imperialist expansion and the “Scramble for Africa.” The Nationalistes also opposed plans for the creation of a Canadian Navy which was to be autonomous during peace but subordinated to the wishes of the Admiralty and of British politicians during wartime. The ideology of French Canadian nationalists like Henri Bourassa and other prominent members of the Ligue Nationaliste only serve as a method to prove to what extent supporters of imperial unity counted on Britishness as an ideological pillar. Opposition to imperialism by French Canadians was typified by liberal nationalism that meant to extricate Canada and French Canadians schemes for imperial defense cooperation.

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British Imperial Political Culture in the Edwardian Era: Party Politics, Militarism and Civil Society in an Atlantic Context

Politics and more literally the business of policymaking both within and outside of government was bounded by certain limits. The first significant point was the fluidity of party politics and its association with greater ideological goals. Both in Canada and in Great Britain the term imperialist could easily be applied to politicians from both political parties. Likewise adherents to certain political causes could come from differing political backgrounds as was the case with the “efficiency group” described by G.R Searle. Second, the term militarism, has had a long history in the study of Edwardian Britain and Canada. A brief discussion of what militarism meant in context would be a useful exercise. Various activists, organizations, governments, politicians and even clergy had differing definitions of the value of what is being described as militarism by historians after the fact. A survey of the literature could clear up what militarism entailed in an imperial context in Edwardian political space. The final aspect of British political culture, which is key to understanding how it operated is the concept of a strong civil society. The most common definition of civil society is all forms of organization which lay outside of the scope of the state and of the market. Namely, political clubs, parties, the press, the educational system and religious institutions. It was the vibrancy of these extra-governmental institutions especially of the press and of political pressure groups that defined how the political game was played by Imperial politicians on both sides of the Atlantic in the years leading up to the First World War. British political culture in the fifteen years before the First World War was defined by the strength of various political and ideological movements and how they sought to change the face of the British Empire, its institutions and its people. Political culture itself is a term that is very hard to define but I am influenced by the work of historians of the French Revolution that used the political culture to mean a set of “discourses or symbolic practices by which claims are made” in politics, “has had the advantage of taking scholars out of the important but overfrequented debating chambers of the National Assembly or Jacobin Clubs into the streets, to

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look at the press, pamphlets, prints, songs, and ceremonies that made up the new culture.”8 This view of politics as something that happened outside of the bounds of the state and as a process that happened within civil society is taken from Jürgen Habermas’ concept of a “bourgeois public sphere.” Habermas argued that the development of the public sphere and of civil society was the “very organizational principle of the bourgeois constitutional states that feature parliamentary forms of government” like Great Britain after the 1832 Reform Bill.9 The public sphere had in states like Victorian Britain “the status of an organ for the self-articulation of civil society” with parliaments responding to its needs.10 Civil society, the public sphere, political culture are all distinct systems that worked outside of the state but often collaborated with parliaments to express their interests to the state. In the wake of the disasters of the Second Boer War and facing greater challenges from rising powers both in Europe and outside of it, Britain resorted to certain political programs that would help bolster its position on the world stage. These initiatives included the work of groups such as the Tariff Reform League, National Service League, and Navy League and of informal groups like the Coefficients’ Club. The membership of these organizations was not delimited by partisan affiliation instead it was a manifestation of what causes a political actor chose to support. An interesting example is found in Alfred Lord Milner, the Governor of the Cape Colony and the High Commissioner for South Africa during the Boer War, Milner was the consummate Imperial citizen. Milner cuts a large figure in the push of these groups. Poirier and Adams point out that Milner was a sort of bridge between the work of the National Service League and of the drive for Imperial preference being pushed by Joseph Chamberlain as well as the work of the so- called “efficiency group” associated with the Coefficients’ Club and the work of Sydney and Beatrice Webb11 Milner as a private citizen also went on a tour of Canada in the fall of 1908 giving several speeches on the issue of imperial unity and defense cooperation. Later on during

8 Keith Michael Baker, Inventing the French Revolution: essays on French political culture in the eighteenth century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) 9 Jürgen Habermas, The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society (Boston: MIT press, 1991), 74. 10 Habermas, Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, 74

11Adams and Poirier, The Conscription Controversy in Great Britain, 1900-18 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987)

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World War I, Milner was a minister without portfolio in David Lloyd George’s coalition War Cabinet. Milner’s prominence within so many different groups and organizations that were so prominent during the Edwardian Era and during World War I show how a thoroughly conservative politician can be a supporter of so many interconnected yet distinct political movements. Many of the groups with which Lord Milner associated were primarily concerned with either forging greater imperial unity or preparing Britain’s state and society for what were thought to be inevitable conflicts. In the years after the Second Boer War and the beginning of the First World War there was a shift in the organization of British state and society that may be called militarism. This new mode of organization took many forms through the course of the Edwardian era. It involved the promotion of navalism as a reaction against German naval buildup. It encouraged “National Efficiency” and physical fitness in the wake of the British blunders during the South African War. It is also necessary to keep in mind that these initiatives and groups were working within a limited social and cultural milieu so there must have been a considerable amount of ideological cross-pollination between the navalist, imperialist and efficiency groups. Matthew Johnson in his book Militarism and the British Left, 1902-1914, argued that militarism was not a phenomenon on the political right in Edwardian Britain it was instead embraced by the Liberal Party and other groups on the left such as the Fabians.12 Militarism in this case was a change in the functioning and organization of state and society in order to be better prepared for military eventualities. Johnson argued that the work of the Navy League was a sign of the militarization of the state while the initiatives of the National Service League was seen as an attempt to militarize British society. These changes along with War Secretary Richard Burton Haldane’s push for the creation of a regular home defense force and an Imperial General Staff were also encouraged by a Liberal Imperialist to strengthen the military defense of Great Britain and the Empire. Militarism in this sense was a fusion of the many impulses for strengthening the British Empire in a time of crisis precipitated by the failures in South Africa and increased German naval competition.

12Matthew Johnson,. Militarism and the British Left: 1902-1914. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)

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In the lead-up to the First World War, militarism as a feature of British society was not like “Prussianism” which subordinated the state to the wishes of the military. Anne Summer’s in her article “Militarism in Britain before the Great War” argued that it was not a ruling class ideology, and far more than an ideological instrument of the professional armed forces.” In her view “liberal, popular and independent forms of militarism flourished alongside and indeed in opposition to militarism in its official forms.”13This analysis of British militarism is critically because it shows how it was an integral part of the shift of priorities by British state and society in the wake of the Boer War. “British Militarism” in this sense is just another expression of Searle’s “National Efficiency” or Johnson’s claims about the compatibility of militarism and left- wing politics. British failures in South Africa showed that the mechanisms of state and society were not suitable to fixing the problems of a new century. The ideology of militarism and “National Efficiency” were just two related initiatives which aimed to create a new policy and organizational mechanisms that could fix Britain’s past military failures without stepping outside of the bounds of what was politically acceptable and more vitally possible. The power of these ideas regarding the reorganization of the British state as a more efficient war fighting entity occurred under a Liberal government. Many of the liberal ministers, most notably the War Secretary Richard Haldane, were solidly within both the “efficiency group” and as an advocate of imperial unity. It was these pressures and affiliations that served to create an environment conducive to the transmission of these ideas across the Atlantic to Canada. Carl Berger mentions in The Sense of Power that organizations based on the work of the Navy League, the National Service League and the Boy Scouts Movement showed up soon after they were founded in Britain. By 1912, the membership of the Canadian Defence League was limited to ’s, social, economic and political elites14. These ideas crossed oceans and were politically viable outside of Great Britain but it did not guarantee that they would popular. It was the work within these groups, like the National Service League and the Canadian Defence League, the accomplishments of the Colonial Conferences and the extensiveness and thickness of the ties between Britain and Canada that made issues like “National Efficiency” and military

13 Anne Summers, “Militarism in Britain before the Great War,” History Workshop 2 (1976): 104-123

14 Carl Berger, The Sense of Power studies in the ideas of Canadian imperialism, 1867-1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013)

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defense cooperation an issue in Canadian politics. Anglo-Canadian – Atlantic – ties were strong and were used by elites in Britain’s imperial centers to advance policies that conformed to ideologies of imperial unity, “national efficiency” and “militarism” The third and final feature of British political culture in the Edwardian Era was the extensiveness of civil society. Situating the locus of civil society is particularly relevant methodological concern of mine. Habermas’ “public sphere” and the vision of political culture as a dynamic are relevant in guiding the direction of my research. A further conception of civil society that is very key to this work is Antonio Gramsci’s conception of civil society. The most important factors in understanding Gramsci’s view of civil society is that much like the rest of his political thought cannot be found in a single passage or statement instead it developed over the course of his political and intellectual life. Gramsci spent the final years of his life in prison put there by Benito Mussolini and the Fascists where he wrote his famed Prison Notebooks. A particular passage encapsulates Gramsci’s goal in understanding civil society and hegemony. One must the study “the ideological structure of a ruling class is actually organized: that is, the material organization meant to preserve, defend, and develop the theoretical or ‘ideological' front.”15 Gramsci aimed to do this by deconstructing “with unwavering attention” of the “material particularity and the importance attached to the molecular aspects of civil society.” Gramsci’s view of civil society included the press, political newspapers, reviews of every kind, periodicals, libraries, schools, associations and club, the Catholic Church to architecture and street names. All of these institutions were part and parcel of the “formidable complex of trenches and fortification of the ruling class."16 Gramsci’s vision of civil society was an all- encompassing structure which exercised hegemony. Civil Society and the state together formed the superstructure and constituted the modern bourgeois-liberal state. Gramsci’s definition of civil society as the ideological bastion of the modern liberal state informs my work and is invaluable in understanding how Edwardian society and political culture functioned. Another Gramscian concept which is fundamental to this work is the concept of the “new Prince.” Gramsci claimed that in the “new Prince” in the “modern epoch” could not be an

15 J.A Buttigieg. “Gramsci on Civil Society,” Boundary 2, 22 (1995) 1-32 16 Buttigieg, “Gramsci on Civil Society” 26 9

individual instead it could only be a political party.17 An interesting methodological point made by Gramsci sums up how the studying of a political party is only a gateway to the study of its political, social, cultural and ideological environment. Gramsci wrote about the history of political movements. Clearly it will be necessary to take some account of the social group of which the party in question is the expression and the most advanced element. The history of a party, in other words, can only be the history of a particular social group. But this group is not isolated; it has friends, kindred groups, opponents, enemies. The history of any given party can only emerge from the complex portrayal of the totality of society and State (often with international ramifications too).18 Gramsci also notes that to “write the history of a party means nothing less than to write the general history of a country from a monographic viewpoint.”19 That is exactly my methodological goal in this project, to tell the story of the imperial unity movement and its opponents as a window to describing the socio-political and ideological history of Edwardian Britain and Canada and how it affected and was affected by international relations. Gramsci’s conception of political parties as a “modern Prince” inflected his work by emphasizing their power as the carrier of group consciousness. Gramsci also stressed the value of historical writing about political parties as nothing more than writing about a particular state in miniature. The strength of civil society and of political parties in Edwardian Britain allowed for the efforts of groups like the National Service League and Ligue Nationaliste to impact political discourse as it did.

A Note on Primary Sources As a work of political and ideological history this paper focuses greatly on primary sources that were actually published either concurrently with the events or later by the actors that were taking part in the debates. I rely heavily on newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, polemical books and reprinting of speeches given by political actors. John Darwin calls the “information milieu” of British imperial policy makers which included the “lobbying and counter-lobbying waged through newspapers, 'pamphlet wars' and professional networks to influence domestic

17 Antonio Gramsci, Quintin Hoare, and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. Selection from the Prison Notebook (New York: International publisher, 1972) 353

18 Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, 358 19 Ibid 10

opinion.”20 I was largely able to do much of this research online thanks to the work of archive.org which has a very comprehensive collection of documents from this era readily available. I also used government records from the British National Archives especially in working with British Cabinet Papers. The war diaries and memoirs of Sir Maurice Hankey and Leo S. Amery were also particularly necessary in situating the work of the War Cabinet and the Imperial War Cabinet in its proper context within the British war effort on the Western Front. I was also able to find a surprising amount of Henri Bourassa’s work readily available online both in French and surprisingly translated to English as well. The recounting of Bourassa’s thought would have been impossible without those availability of those primary sources in English. The value of having those sources “straight from the horse’s mouth” instead of transferred through a possibly adversarial third party was immense. The strictures of writing political and intellectual history is limited by the social homogeneity of the historical characters. This being particularly true when writing about a group of self-professed Imperialists who were often from a military background or legal background. By acknowledging the sources’ biases it becomes easier to take a critical look at the document.

20 Darwin, John. 1997. "Imperialism and the Victorians: The Dynamics of Territorial Expansion". The English Historical Review. 112 (447): 614. Firstname Lastname, "Title of Article," Title of Periodical volume number,issue number (Year of publication): Page(s).

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CHAPTER 1 “HER FLEET IS BRITAIN’S ALL IN ALL” DISCOURSES OF BRITISHNESS, IMPERIAL UNITY AND NAVAL SUPREMACY IN EDWARDIAN BRITAIN AND CANADA

Introduction The development of the British Empire and ideologies of imperial unity in the late 1Victorian and Edwardian periods reveals the process of identity creation. British societies, Great Britain and the self-governing Dominions, Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand were separated by great distances and the vagaries of communication in a world still implementing steam power and telegraphy. But these antipodean communities developed ideologies of belonging that ignored or at least minimized the issue of time and space. Being British in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries meant accepting several assumptions about the nature of “Britishness.” These included the superiority of certain British institutions like self-government, strategic establishments, imperial communications, and civil society among others. The British world was kept together by many different forces but the most powerful by 1900 included an ever expanding network of imperial communication that crisscrossed the Empire. These included steamship lines, railroads, telegraphs and subsidized mail service. The British Empire was connected by thick chains of interdependence and these communications were intrinsic to the functioning of the British world system.

Whether through the power of sentiment, political participation, imperial connections, or through its historical and political traditions, differing concepts of British imperial construction highly influenced how the issue of imperial unity and defense was debated by its main advocates. Advocates of imperial unity used three main strains of thought to discuss imperial unity and naval defense. The first focused on imperial citizenship and the responsibilities that were incumbent to imperial citizens. The second stream of thought emphasized imperial communication and geostrategy especially the importance of sea power in securing the future of the empire and in advancing imperial unity. Finally a third strain of thought emphasized the history and traditions of British expansion and how British naval power made it incumbent on the Dominions to contribute to naval defense.

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These different discourses of imperial unity and of belonging were simultaneously inclusive and exclusive. A Canadian subject identifying himself as “British” included him with a worldwide community of other British subjects at the antipodes and perhaps more importantly in London and the Imperial center. But for one to be British one had to fit within certain racial, religious, linguistic and other categories. Britishness was at once a tool used to connect and to separate. This became relevant when British Dominions had significant non-English speaking minorities of European ancestry like in Canada or South Africa. Under these conditions Britishness became a hegemonic construct used by the majority to exclude minorities. Discourses of imperial unity depended on hegemonic Britishness to carve out room for greater cooperation between Great Britain and the Dominions on defense issues. Whatever category of belonging used by the imperialists it was ultimately dependent on Britishness as an exclusionary hegemonic discourse.

Britishness and Imperial Unity: The Dominions and the Ideology of Empire 1850-1914 John Darwin’s The Empire Project is another masterfully thorough work of revision of the British Empire from the Victorian era through to decolonization. The book’s subtitle is informative “The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830-1970,” Darwin argues that the “systemic” nature of the British Empire was shown by four factors. Naval and military power sustained by control of strategic points all over the globe.21 Commercial, both formal and informal colonies had to compete with each other “for investment and credits from London to expand their economies.” The City of London was the center of a global empire that dispensed capital from Cairo, Hong Kong, Toronto and Buenos Aires. Demographic, British migration to the four main settlement areas, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa were seen as key for creating “overseas markets, relieving domestic distress and creating ‘Arcadias’ free from industrialism, turned the emigrant flow into a form of social renewal and the settlement colonies into prospective ‘new Britains.’” Finally, the British Empire was through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries increasingly linked by thicker and faster forms of communication, subsidized mail services, telegraph and undersea cables, a large rail network, fast passenger steamers and later imperial air routes. These four general factors along with four more components, two of

21 John Darwin, “Imperialism and the Victorians: The Dynamic of Territorial Expansion,” The English Historical Review 112, 447 (1997): 614-642 13

which are key to my argument, form the primary bases of British imperial power. Darwin argued that the power of the British world-system stemmed from four elements, first the British Isles, was by far the most essential of the system’s components, its “huge financial resources, vast manufacturing output and enormous coal reserves made Britain a commercial and industrial titan.” Along with economic pre-eminence, Britain was able to maintain its “demographic imperialism” and its ability to stock the settlement colonies and keep their “British complexion” More importantly for this project are what Darwin calls a set of cultural assets whose value is harder to quantify but is of crucial importance. In their institutional form, these were clubs and societies, associations and leagues, patrons, sponsors and churches through whom information and knowledge of the world beyond Europe was collected, collated, digested and diffused to the public at large or to a more privileged few.22 These institutions and the connections they created operated outside of both the state and the market in what is usually called civil society in modern usage 23 Anglo-colonial society in general and Anglo-Canadian politics in particular society operated within the structure of civil society. Among the various leagues, clubs and associations that existed in the late Victorian and Edwardian period many of them had connections on both sides of the Atlantic and worked within the accepted channels of political culture and discourse. The most prominent of these organizations which concentrated on the issue of imperial unity and imperial defense were the British Empire League, The Navy League and The Round Table Society.

Darwin also highlighted the importance of the self-governing settlement colonies, the Dominions, which were comprised of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Newfoundland and the Irish Free State.24 While to the French Canadian minority in Canada and to Irish majority in Ireland loyalty to “British connection” was “at best conditional, at worst non- existent.”25 English elements in the dominions shared “a sense of British identity” which was deeply ingrained. It was the popular view within the dominions that “Empire” was not something that they were dominated by instead it was a “joint enterprise in which they were, or claimed to be, partners.”26 The relationship between nationalists and imperialist within the dominions is one of the main tensions in this paper. Especially through the creation of British

22 Darwin, “Imperialism and The Victorians,” 9 23Gramsci, Prison Notebooks 24 Darwin, “Imperialism and the Victorians,” 11 25 Ibid 26 Ibid 14

and Britishness as a form of identity that distinguished those committed to the empire from those who were ambivalent to it. Darwin argued that after 1850, British policymakers began to take a more positive view of settlement colonies, and from then on the goal of colonization was “to reproduce the likeness of England, thereby contributing to the general happiness of mankind.”27 But what were the reasons for this shift in attitude towards settlement colonies? Darwin argued that there were three main factors in this change of direction. First, was the effect of railway construction and how it proved that colonies could achieve “dense and continuous settlement” creating societies similar to those in the imperial center. Second was the belief starting in mid-century that the high social costs brought on by industrialization could be redeemed by colonial life. Third, the belief that in a world “that was linked by fast and regular movement” by telegraphs, steamships and railroads it began to look like the settlement colonies were links in an “imperial chain” and they should be seen as “organic extension” of Britain.28 By 1900, Darwin argued that the Dominions latched on to the idea of a specific kind of nationalism that rejected subservience to the British government and asserted its equality as part of a or nation. Britannic nationalism according to Darwin was not “unthinking observance of old imperial loyalty, nor an unconsummated passion for an impractical imperial federation.”29 Darwin’s argument is that Britannic nationalism was a deeper connection between Britain and the colonies of white settlement; it was a social and political movement that hinged on the conception that British model as well as British power were the best ways of making new societies and strong viable states in a hostile world.30 Gary Magee and Andrew Thompson in their Empire and Globalisation deploy a definition of Britishness which was shared by migrants from the British Isles outwards to a wider “British World.” As the title suggests theories of globalization are key to their study of the British Empire, Magee and Thompson define globalization as a process, “that compress time and space, and accelerate the 'interdependence' of societies and states. It is also significant to note that they view globalization was as “much about as machines,” and that the current phase of globalization “may be more inclusive than its predecessors yet which is by no means wholly

27 P.146 28 Pp.146-147 29 P.147 30 P.148 15

distinct from them.”31 Globalization coupled with feelings of Britishness created this aforementioned “British World” whose “foundations were cultural as much as political, personal as well as official, and changeable rather than fixed.” and it is indispensable to note that British migrants to the colonies remained British “or at least partly so.”32 Magee and Thompson argue that the creations of links that stemmed from this shared identity of being British created the British World economy and common identification between the British Isles and settler colonies facilitated “trade, investment, and further rounds of migration.” Familiarity and these connections skewed trade, investment and migration towards places perceived as being “British” although barriers to integration “were never eradicated, but continued to exist across locations.”33 Magee and Thompson assert that British World was an “imaginary” as well as a geopolitical entity and it was maintained by “not merely by political and military ties, but by a shared sense of identity.”34 There were three keys to the formation of British identity among migrants in the settler colonies. The first lay in loyalty to the crown and its material manifestations and was reinforced by acts such as “royal tours, ceremonies and celebrations.” The second key lay in language and cultural practices, such as the introduction of British games and entertainment as well with the “material culture of settlers,” the emphasis on objects and other products that reminded them of home. The use of word “home” in itself is problematic as its meaning is uncertain although the authors claim that the “English language denoted a shared history and culture for white settlers, and that, for many non-white subjects an ability to speak it provided a way to “respectability” and “civilization”35 Magee and Thompson emphasized globalization and identity as the pillars of British strength in the world economy generally and in the settler colonies specifically. They claim the “British World economy” after 1850 functioned and was structured by imperial connections that depended on Britishness. Britishness was at once the main linkage between the imperial center and the colonies as well as the method of how decisions were often made in trade, investment and migration decisions. This book is valuable because it treats identity, Britishness, as integral to decision making surrounding the British World. Much like Darwin it gives much needed

31 Gary Bryan Magee and Andrew S. Thompson, Empire and globalisation: networks of people, goods and capital in the British world, c.1850-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 2-3 32 Magee and Thompson, Empire and Globalisation, 5-6 33 Ibid, pp. 8-9 34 Ibid, p.34 35 Ibid, pp.35-36 16

texture compared to studies that emphasize political-economy as the arbiter of all imperial activity.

Economic, political, social and cultural explanations for the movement or increased interest for viewing Great Britain and the Dominions as one Greater Britain became prevalent in the second half of the 1850s and through the rest of the Victorian and Edwardian eras because of many factors. The literature focuses on the person of Joseph Chamberlain and the advocacy of the Tariff Reform League as the main driving force in this drive for imperial unity in reaction to greater competition from the US and Germany in the industrial and commercial arena. The project of imperial preference and of commercial Zollverein were the main goals identified by this school of the historiography. Chamberlain and the Tariff Reformers were willing to do away with the received Cobdenite free trading orthodoxy as well as colonial protection in order to move towards imperial unity and economic cooperation. This version of imperial unity was doomed to fail because of that same fact, it attacked the City's belief that finances were the core of British strength, the Liberal commitment to Cobdenite retrenchment, “little Englandism,” and free trade. The colonies balked at lowering tariff barriers and allowing their “young” industries and forcing them into open competition with British counterparts.

John Darwin's arguments encapsulate a different side of the argument in the process for greater imperial unity between Great Britain and the settlement colonies after 1850. Darwin's systemic view of the British Empire is significant as it creates a workable schema of analysis for other scholars interested in the workings of the British world-system. What is particularly interesting and valuable are his factors that were key to maintaining British power throughout the world-system: 1) Naval and military power, expressed mainly through control of key strategic points all around the globe, 2) commercial preeminence and the power of British investment to influence from Canada to Hong Kong, 3) the power of British out-migration especially to its colonies of settlement was fundamental principally in its power for creating “new Britains” at the antipodes, 4) the importance of better and faster communications and its ability to create a better integrated world-system that could have the seeds in it of a functioning world-state. A systemic and interconnected view of British world power is central to this paper because it suggest how the British Empire looked at itself in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras.

17

Darwin is also valuable in making civil society or as he puts it “a set of cultural assets whose value is harder to quantify but is of crucial importance,” a key to British world power. The work of groups outside of the state is vitally important in putting together my vision of the relationship between Canada and the British Empire. Leagues, Clubs, Newspapers and the Church the gristle of civil society were on the front lines of the debate to find Canada's place within the British Empire. Daniel Gorman also attacks the question of imperial unity through intellectual history, although using a schema of “imperial citizenship” to explicate how Britain and the Dominions found common ground. Gorman defines citizenship as the “primary means through which societies assert, construct and consecrate their sense of identity”36 Thus citizenship was a category that defines a sense of civic belonging as well as social and legal-political identities. Gorman's study of imperial citizenship and imperial unity can provide historians with a “partial map of the imperial mind of the pre-Great War period, offering insights into the political development of Empire, as well as the vast discrepancies in the benefits and the status of different classes of citizens”37 Citizenship as a form of belonging, is slippery in the British sense, because Britain had no citizens only subjects. It is the negotiation of this category “citizen” which gave it meaning especially in the Dominions during the Victorian and Edwardian periods.38

Discourses of Imperial Unity: Variations on a Theme

J.R Seeley and Conceiving “Greater Britain” Starting in the late Victorian era and moving into the Empire's involvement in World War I, discussions of the relations between Great Britain and her more advanced colonies of settlement were a major part of the enterprise of political philosophy in the British Empire. This chapter focuses primarily on the rhetoric of “Britishness” in relation to Imperial naval defense. One of the most powerful advocates for imperial unity was John Robert Seeley and his most significant contributions in our context is of his conception of Greater Britain as a “world- state.”39 Seeley claimed that Greater Britain, Britain and the Dominions Colonies met the

36G Daniel Gorman, Imperial Citizenship: Empire and the Question of belonging (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006) 1-2 37Ibid. 38pp.21-22 39Bell, p.108 18

standards for being a state because of their homogeneity. Seeley created three prerequisites for the unity of a nation-state, communities of race, religion and interest. Seeley goes on to say “If England and her colonies are taken together make, properly speaking, not an Empire but only a very large state, this is because the population is English throughout and the institutions of the same kind.”40 Seeley goes on to explain that the bond of race and religion were enough to create “a unity of interests,” making Greater Britain “a global political space occupied by millions of people united by a common history and common institutions.”41 Seeley's concept of Greater Britain as something more than Great Britain and the Dominions but as a world-state united by common bonds of race, religion and interest is valuable to the conception of the movement behind imperial unity. Seeley stated his position very simply, the British Empire was something more than just a simple imperial polity. What made it different were these connections, race, religion, institutions and history. Greater Britain existed in a realm above practical politics and was bound together by its inherent Britishness. A world-wide community that lived in a “world-Venice, with the sea for streets.”42 Seeley’s world-state also illuminated another point. Formal schemes for imperial federation proper, weren't as powerful as broader and less formal intellectual and philosophical conceptions of imperial unity broadly defined. Seeley's vision of a world-state united by British people wherever they may be found, is an invaluable way to view how thinkers and politicians during the late Victorian period framed the problem. Bell sees Seeley as “cosmopolitan nationalist,” a concept that may be “paradoxical” but that was “anchored in in the idea of the ultimate, albeit only vaguely articulated, unity of humankind.”43 Seeley represented nationalism as a metaphysical construct of two churches, the first an universal church, accommodating all the species, believers and non-believers alike, and the national churches as institutionalized in the form of the modern state. The latter took priority, as the highest embodiment of human communal life, but it was embedded in the wider domain of the former.44 It is easy to see how this concept of non-exclusive nationalism and in the belief of cosmopolitanism would lead Seeley to view Greater Britain as one world-state bound by its

40p.109 41p.110 42ibid 43p.161 44Ibid. 19

common traits rather than its differences.

Goldwin Smith: Civilization, Empire and Liberty If Seeley was a “cosmopolitan nationalist” a rough contemporary of his Goldwin Smith was much more of a conservative in the sense of , stressing “blood and sentiment” as the material which connected the Anglophone world.45 Smith stressed “language, literature, intercourse, history, transmitted habits, institutions and forms of thought” these factors were enough to create “the core of a distinct Anglo-Saxon civilization.” Claiming that these common bonds were strong enough to not “be affected by political separation”46 This belief in the connection of Anglo-Saxon race despite political ties was only a facet of Smith's view of the problem of formal movements for imperial federation. Smith's followed Richard Cobden's Manchester School and its commitment to the “principles of peace, retrenchment and free trade.” The Manchester School also objected to empire in “its cost both direct and indirect: 'armies and ships' could not 'protect or extend commerce.' whilst the 'the expenses of maintaining them oppress and impede our manufacturing industry'.”47 This typical worry of mid -Victorian Cobdenites was that “empire harvested no financial rewards,” and that the cost of defending it was unacceptably high.48 Smith's second line of opposition to artificial imperial federation movements was based on John Stuart Mill's claim that constitutions and political systems could not be made to fit onto other societies but “rather that they grew organically and should be suited to local conditions.”49 Smith's skepticism of the project behind imperial unity was as seen above a result of highly eclectic philosophical background. With his thought being taken from thinkers as diverse as Edmund Burke and J.S Mill, all of them uniquely British. The main feature of Smith's thought was the thoroughness of its liberalism but how did Smith conceive of liberalism? Smith expressed it in typical Victorian terms, of “self-exertion

45p. 185 Donald Winch, Riches and poverty: an intellectual history of political economy in Britain, 1750-1834 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 138 46Ibid 47Gregory Claeys, Imperial sceptics British critics of empire, 1850-1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 28

48Bell, p.187 49Ibid, 188 20

and self-reliance,” Smith's view was that Self-help is mutual help, because, constituted and related as we are, in a state of freedom, we all, at every moment of our lives, stand in need of each other's aid; whereas under a paternal Government, be it that of an ordinary despot or a socialist committee, each man will look more to the government and less to his fellows.50 The belief in “liberty” and in the power of societies for self-help is inherent in Manchester School liberalism. But what is more significant is how this anxiety of the exercise of state power dovetails nicely with other features of Smith's opposition to imperial unity. The belief in “liberty,” the power of “blood and sentiment” as well as the foreign and imperial policy implications of Cobdenism came together to form a cogent opposition to formal political federation of Greater Britain, while maintaining other bases for the connection of Great Britain and the Dominions. Bell by exploring the thought of these two men on opposing sides of the debate about the future of the British Empire gave some valuable insight into the strictures of debates of political philosophy and the nature of the state in the Victorian era. Seeley by framing his debate in “continental” language that of Kant, Hegel and Fichte is not nearly as concerned with the state or the exercise of state power. Seeley and his “cosmopolitan nationalism” approximates a metaphysical discourse about how nations, states and societies come to be. Ultimately, by claims that Greater Britain was united by race and religion argued for the Britishness of this world-state. Smith on the other hand was a thoroughly British thinker. He drew upon the Burkean tradition, J.S Mill and the contemporary strength of Richard Cobden's Manchester School. Unlike Seeley, Smith was anxious about state power and other interventions of outside power onto society. This anxiety led to his skepticism of the creation of a formal imperial federation, as some sort of supra-state. On the other hand his belief in the power of the Anglo-Saxon “race” and the products of its civilization led him to another conclusion, of the natural links between Britain and her colonies. The Anglo-Saxon “character” was just another version of Seeley's ties of race and religion. Smith like Seeley arrives at Britishness as the factor which gives Greater Britain its unity. This discourse of Britishness articulated in either a purely “racial” way or in a more vaguely nationalist sense was exclusionary. It portrayed the wider British world as a product of the mother country, primarily of English expansion into the wider world.

50Ibid, 199 21

Imperial Unity and Naval Superiority: The Language of Hegemonic Britishness in Action

The discourses of Britishness defined and operated upon during the Edwardian Era were made up of three distinct ideological streams. The first was utilized by Lord Milner who made calls to supranational citizenship in Greater Britain as the common identifier of all residents of the Dominions. The creation of a rhetoric of Imperial citizenship was key in the delineation of their beliefs on the strengths of a more united British Empire. The second ideological stream adopted by supporters of imperial unity was based on the belief of the exceptionalism of the British race. This exceptionalism was a natural evolution of the Anglo-Saxon spirit. These men promoted an imperial ideology that was exclusionary because of its view of empire and imperial unity as a method of opening lands up to the Anglo-Saxon race. The theory of Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism was wedded to the belief that British institutions were the glue that bound the British Empire together. Third and finally was a school of thought that emphasized technological advances. This school could be seen as advocates of a sort of proto-globalization limited to the British Empire. Theybelieved that advances in transportation and communication could lead to better relations between states as a signifier of processes associated with globalization.

“I Have Striven to be a Devoted Citizen of Greater Britain” Alfred Milner, Imperial Citizenship and Cooperation in Naval Defense

In the fall of 1908, Lord Milner, made a speaking tour of Canada giving several speeches at Canadian Clubs and other major associations throughout the Dominion. Milner in his travels and through his speeches created a discourse that advocated for greater unity between Canada, the other Dominions and as he called it the “Old Country.” Milner argued for greater imperial unity through the prism of imperial citizenship. Citizenship as a form of belonging to a greater socio-political unity argued that if a citizen of Greater Britain may live in Canada, New Zealand or in England but does not mean he belongs exclusively to his nation “but belongs to the whole Empire.”51 Imperial citizenship was constructed as both an exclusionary as well as an inclusionary tool. It excluded all members of the Imperial family under the Crown while excluding all others.

51 Alfred Milner, Speeches delivered in Canada in the autumn of 1908 (Toronto: W. Tyrrell, 1909), 1-2 22

The word British, as applied to the Empire, does not mean English, nor yet English, Scotch and Irish all together. The Empire is not something belonging to the any more than to Canada, or to Australia, or to any other single portion of it. All the subjects of the King ought to be equal sharers in it, and so to regard themselves.52 Citizenship, as a form of belonging, is in itself exclusionary. Citizenships must be bounded by some sort of restriction; geographic, racial, national or otherwise. Citizenship confers privileges and also demands responsibilities. As a member of the community of British Imperial citizens, residents of the Dominions received certain privileges as well as some responsibilities. Milner outlined the privileges of Imperial citizenship by saying that “British citizenship is the most valuable citizenship in the whole world.”53 The benefits of Imperial citizenship included being able to use the Pound as his currency and being afforded the same ability to use his own language and being provided with the same basic rights to person and property.54 The rights of imperial citizenship were as valid in any of the Dominions as they were Great Britain. It is this perfect sense of Imperial unity that was a feature of living in the British world in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. The value of Imperial citizenship with the rights and privileges it provided any British subject was mitigated by the responsibilities that Imperial thinkers thought necessary in the years leading up to the First World War. The greatest responsibility associated with Imperial citizenship cited by Lord Milner in his speeches in Canada was the belief in the necessity of greater participation in imperial defense by the Dominions. Milner’s argument, was that although Canada had already done a great deal in advancing the prestige of the Empire, is that one day she will contribute even more to it.55 The main avenue towards greater imperial contribution was through greater imperial defense unity. Milner’s program for imperial defense centered on the belief that cooperation was not a question of shifting burdens, but of developing fresh centres of strength. For this reason I have never been a great advocate of contributions from the self-governing states to the army and navy of the United Kingdom, though as evidences of a sense of the solidarity of the Empire such contributions are welcome, and valuable, pending the substitution of something better.56 Seizing responsibility for imperial defence was an integral part of imperial citizenship. Although

52 Milner, Speeches in Canada, 3-14 53 Ibid, 18 54 Ibid 55 Ibid, 10-11 56 Ibid, 32-33 23

Milner preferred that each Dominion should take responsibility for its own defense a policy of contribution was a good temporary solution until something better could be implemented. Milner also believed that greater military organization would not lead to a spirit of independence arising within the Dominions. Milner disagreed with this assessment arguing that “in proportion as the self-governing Dominions grow in power they will feel a stronger desire to share in the responsibilities and the glory of Empire.”57 This belief that the independent development of the defensive capabilities of each Dominion led Milner to believe that contribution was not the solution to the problem of imperial defense unity. In Milner’s view, the best way forward in forging greater imperial unity in the issue of defense cooperation was through integrating the Dominions into the day-to-day business of defending the Empire. The true line of progress is for the younger nations to be brought face to face themselves, however gradually and however piecemeal, with the problem of the defence of the Empire, to undertake a bit of it, so to speak, for themselves, always provided that whatever they do, be it much or little, is done for the Empire as awhile, not for themselves only, and is part of a general system.58 Milner believed that imperial defense cooperation was predicated on the Dominions playing an expanding part in claiming their responsibility as a part of their membership in the British Empire. This construct still afforded flexibility to the concepts of imperial defense that should be adopted by the Dominions. These included an ability for each entity to go its own way while keeping a certain standard of uniformity on certain fields; chief among these training, the commission of officers and the requisition of arms.59 Milner’s conception of British identity especially as it related to defense can be best summed up by the following quote one who, no doubt, recognizes a special duty to that portion of it in which he happens to reside in my case England as, for the matter of that, he has a special duty to his own parish and his own country but whose highest allegiance is not to England, or to the United Kingdom, but to the great whole, which embraces all the dominions of the Crown. That is his country. He does not regard himself as a foreigner in any part of it, however distant, however different from the part in which he habitually resides.60 Allegiance ultimately rested not in the individual nation or state but in the Empire as a whole. A citizen of Canada was much an Australian because of their mutual connection to the Crown and Great Britain.

57 Ibid 58 P.34 59 P.36 60 P.88 24

“The Foundations of British Greatness Rests in the Creative Power of Industry” Imperial Unity, Naval Supremacy and Commerce

George Robert Parkin was the son of a Yorkshire farmer, born in 1846 in New Brunswick, one of the biggest advocates of imperial unity in the 1880s and 1890s. He undertook a massive speaking campaign in Australia and New Zealand in support of the Imperial Federation League. It was in this period that he published the book Imperial federation, the problem of national unity. Parkin was greatly influenced by the thought of J.R Seeley and which explains his emphasis on sea power and Imperial communication as the keys of British power and in maintaining imperial unity.61 Parkin’s thought was based on a mixture of J.R Seeley’s belief in a global British polity situated in the Dominions with a Mahanian view of sea power and geostrategy. Imperial unity was predicated not only on the bonds of imperial sentiment but on the sinew of the British Empire’s geostrategic position. Sentiment alone could not keep an empire together, although it was important, Parkin’s conception of the British Empire is pictured as an outgrowth of the creative energies of the British people transplanted across the oceans to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Parkin argued that the foundations of “British greatness rest[ed] in the creative power of industry, and that interaction of industry or exchange of products which we call commerce.”62 The unique characteristic of the “Briton” is that wherever he is in the Empire or without he remains “the eager worker and trader, and the field for the exercise of his qualities is ever enlarging.63 British industry, the capacity for work led to the creation of an Empire that secured “the welfare and prosperity of the greatest aggregation of human beings that ever was joined together in one body politic.64 The maintenance of such a large empire had until the nineteenth century been a source of vulnerability. Parkin argued that the introduction of steam power harkened a revolution in the organization of empires.65

61 Terry Cook, Dictionary of Canadian Biography (University of Toronto, 2003) s.v Parkin, Sir George Robert http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/parkin_george_robert_15E.html. 62 George R. Parkin, Imperial Federation, the problem of national unity. (London: Macmillan and co, 1892), 60 63 Parkin, Imperial Federation, 60 64 Ibid 65 Parkin, 62 25

The importance placed by Parkin on geography and strategy as the keys to imperial unity and defence connect him to one of the premier geostrategic thinkers of the nineteenth century the American navalist Alfred Thayer Mahan. The introduction of steamships had completely changed the way that “trade, intercourse, naval power” was used. 66 The introduction of steam power and the necessity for coaling station made the Dominions key parts of the British naval defense scheme.67 Parkin’s assessment of the problem of imperial defence cooperation especially in its effect on the Dominions focused on the question of the eventual independence of the Dominions and the benefits of imperial unity. Within the Empire they would have the advantage of naval bases in every important corner of the world. The portion of force contributed by themselves would have the prestige of the whole to make it most effective. They would have the advantage of all the stored-up skill and experience of the greatest school of naval training that the world has ever known. They would have the direction of naval experience absolutely unique. They would be at once in spending their money to avail themselves of the best results of naval experiments carried on by the United Kingdom at enormous cost. Alike in cheapness and efficiency they would enjoy the advantages which come from co-operation on a great scale.68

Parkin’s ultimate wish for imperial unity especially as it related to defense issues was that it should be “disentangled from the petty political questions by which the relations between the mother-country and her children are often hampered and sometimes embittered.” The ultimate duty of Great Britain and the Dominions in Parkin’s view was that they should put aside any differences for the sake of mutual assistance in the trying times for the Empire.69 Another of Parkin’s schemes focused on the importance of telegraphy and of Canada itself to Imperial unity. The idea of an “All Red Line” or Pacific Cable was developed by the Scottish-Canadian engineer Sandford Fleming who championed the idea of a “State-owned, State-operated cable system, which should play an important part in welding the British Empire by the great and subtile force of electricity.”70 Parkin was a great supporter of Fleming’s plan, and said of it; that it would be greatly advantageous for the British Empire to be connected from

66 Parkin, 63 67 ibid 68 Parkin, 85 69 Parkin, 99-100 70 George Johnson, The all red line. The annals and aims of the pacific cable project (Ottowa: J. Hope & Sons, 1903), 6-7 26

London to Australia without ever leaving British territory especially given the troubles in Europe71 In this scheme, Canada and namely the Canadian Pacific Railroad was seen as the “keystone” of Empire, the part that connected all ends together. The cable traveled from Britain to Canada, across Canada to Vancouver and then across the Pacific island hopping its way to Australia. Without Canada the project would have been impossible. An anecdote told by Parkin in another work highlights the strength of steamships, telegraphs and Imperial strategy in the development of the British form of globalization You meet a friend in London; as he shakes hands with you in farewell, he hails a cab to catch a P. and 0. boat for Singapore, or an Allan Liner for Vancouver. You see a familiar face, and you remember that you last saw it a few weeks ago in Montreal or Melbourne. These are not exaggerations, but the ordinary facts of daily life to men of business and travel—in these days a very numerous class. In the autumn of 1888 I was speaking at a large meeting in your Edinburgh Music Hall. About six months later, I found myself, quite casually, sitting at dinner in Melbourne with four people who had been at the same meeting, while our hostess mentioned that a fifth who had called during the afternoon had also referred to being there.72 The British Empire in this view was not delineated by citizenship as it was by Milner. It was defined by the ease of communication and the strength of the imperial bond. Steamships, telegraphs, subsidized mail and other advancements in imperial communication pursued by advocates of imperial unity was nearly as vital as matters of imperial defense. Parkin can be seen as a middle ground between the advocates of greater civilian cooperation and naval unity within the Empire. But ultimately it was naval supremacy and strategic superiority that allowed for discussions of greater civilian interconnectedness within the Empire.

“Why is the Naval Supremacy of Britain Vital to Canada?” Anglo-Saxon Exceptionalism and Naval Supremacy in Canadian Politics

A third strain of thought argued for the unity of the Dominions and Great Britain on the basis of a common legacy as Britons. This view of the development of the British Empire emphasized the role that England’s seafaring tradition had on creating a polity that was not separated by the seas but instead connected by them. This view was particularly fundamental to arguments by supporters for the creation a Canadian Navy under the ultimate command of the

71 Parkin, 122-123 72 George R. Parkin, “The Geographical Unity of the British Empire,” The Geographical Journal 4 (1894) 227-239

27

Admiralty. These included noted Imperialists like Clive Phillips-Wolsey, the vice-president of the Esquimalt-Victoria branch of the Canadian Navy League, Robert Borden who was then Conservative leader and the leader of the opposition, and George Foster, a conservative MP. These men advocated a position that the strength of the British Empire and of Canada itself could only be maintained by viewing the problems of imperial unity, defense and naval supremacy as one. It was Britain’s naval supremacy that allowed for the expansion of the Empire and if, Britain was to maintain her place in the world, the Empire would have together to defend itself and the greater interests. The British Empire was built on naval power and a spirit of expansion that was somehow inborn in the British national spirit. George Parkin in a lecture given to the Royal Scottish Geographical Society titled “The Geographical Unity of the British Empire” details the British expansion starting in the seventeenth century. Parkin saw the drive for British expansion as a civilizing mission in which “the spirit of adventure, the desire for wealth, the wish to free the soul from old-world traditions and despotisms, conspired to kindle the colonising spirit.”73 The germ of British expansion was still guided by the needs of trade and settlement, which were weak in the beginning but in each lay the “germ, on two distinct lines of astonishing growth.” 74 Trade and settlement were for Parkin the two primary strengths of the British Empire since it left England’s shores in the seventeenth century. The energies of the British people were directed outwards but remained united based on a sort of imperial division of labor. Using the example of wool, Parkin said that for “centuries given employment to a considerable number of people, took a new start, through the application of machinery, and since that time its development has been prodigious.” This Parkin argued was concurrent with the move of sheep-raising operations to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand where the conditions for raising sheep inexpensively were much better.75 Although Britain’s wool mills were separated by great distances the production still increased thanks to the advent of machinery and better supply of wool from the Dominions. This according to Parkin was a feature of the geographical unity of the British Empire. Where the oceans were not a hindrance to development but instead a benefit to it.

73 Parkin, ”Geographical Unity,”227 74 Ibid 75 Parkin,232 28

Clive Phillips-Wolley, the vice-president of the Victoria-Esquimalt branch of the Canadian Navy League argued upon similar lines when arguing for greater imperial unity on the matter of naval defense. Phillips-Wolsey argued that the British Empire was connected by the seas and that trade was the life blood that connected Britain to the Dominions. In striking a worrying tone about the importance of naval defense Phillips-Wolsey wrote it must be borne in mind that when the Heart stops beating the Limbs die; when the market has been destroyed it will be no use to ship wheat to it; it will be no good for the Middle West to go on growing more wheat than she wants for her own consumption. It will be no good to call upon London for the flotation of our bonds, for money for our development, when, the seaways having been cut or closed, London has been starved to death.76 The connection Canada and the other Dominions owed to imperial defense ultimately depended on their own survival not just on Britain’s. The Empire was united by necessity and by the facts of geography, the seas could not have been defended “by a kingdom, or by divided dominions, but they can be done by a United Empire of four hundred and fifty million Britons (including ) owning a quarter of the habitable globe, and controlling a commerce of £1,600,000,000 sterling per annum.”77 The defense of the Empire was ultimately the defense of its trade and Phillipps-Wolsey argued that Canadians could no longer face the world alone instead it must do so as Britons and a necessary part of this was a duty “to contribute to maintain the naval basis of that Empire's corporate existence.”78 Phillipps-Wolley goes on to argue that naval supremacy alone is what made the British Empire into the power that it became. Phillipps-Wolley’s argument as a leader of the Canadian Navy League set Canada up as an “integral part of the British Empire, whatever is vital to that Empire is vital to Canada, and we have shown that the maintenance of Britain's supremacy at sea is vital to her.” The ultimate argument is not only for Canada taking up her duty as integral part of the British Empire but for all of the Dominions connected as they were by trade and the oceans to partake in mutual assistance as none of the parts could defend itself alone.79 The connection between naval supremacy, imperial unity and defense are articulated on the worries about the inherent frailty of the British Empire.

76Clive Phillipps-Wolley, The Canadian naval question. Addresses delivered by Clive Phillipps-Wolley, F.R.C.S., Vice-President Navy League (Toronto: William Briggs, 1910), 14 http://uproxy.library.dc- uoit.ca/login?url=http://books.scholarsportal.info/viewdoc.html?id=/ebooks/oca10/48/canadiannavalque00phil. 77 Phillipps-Wolley, Canadian Naval Question, 34 78 Ibid 79 Ibid, 36 29

The structure of British world power was predicated on naval supremacy and any threat to that supremacy was enough to call into question the basis of the British world system. Canadian intellectuals, activists and policymakers like Parkin, Phillipps-Wolsey, Borden and Foster were keenly aware of the challenge being posed by the German naval buildup. They were also situated within the British intellectual sphere which regarded Germany as the biggest threat to Britain’s naval supremacy. Phillipps-Wolley in another speech cites the British consensus “In England before the elections, McKenna, Balfour, Blatchford, Asquith, Grey, Lord Cromer, Lord Curzon, Lord Roberts, and Lord Charles Beresford. The Times, the Post, the Spectator, the Clarion, Indeed the utterances of almost every great voice In England, whether of Liberal or Conservative or Socialist, whether soldier, sailor or Journalist.”80 Regarding the emergency posed by German naval construction. Canadian civil society, its leagues, newspapers and voluntary associations were in tight communication with their British counterparts. It is easy to assume that the Canadian Navy League was in communication with the British Navy League and was keenly aware of the politics in Great Britain. If one of the goals of the Imperial Federation League was to create tighter relationship between Great Britain and the Dominions it succeeded in that respect. Debates on imperial unity, naval defence and the nature of British world power took a characteristically imperially flavor in the years leading up to the First World War. The language of empire and of unity was being used by all advocates of naval defense in Canada no matter what argument they tended to use. Robert Borden who was the Leader of the Opposition during the 1909-1910 naval debates argued that Canada should contribute to imperial defense because of everything that being part of the British Empire had contributed to Canada’s national development. British institutions assured the “safety of our commerce the security of our shores. The safeguarding of our citizens and their property upon every sea and under every sky.”81 These included protection under the British flag, the ability to use the network of “might and influence” associated with the British diplomatic and consular service.82 These were advantages that being part of the British

80 Clive Phillipps-Wolley. Canada and the navy: speech delivered by Capt. Clive Phillipps-Wolley at public meeting, Victoria B.C., 10th March, 1910 (Victoria, 1910), 4

81Robert Laird Borden, The naval question speech delivered by Mr. R.L Borden, M.P., 12th January, 1910, (Ottawa: 1910), 2 82 Borden, The Naval Question, 2 30

Empire provided Canadian citizens. Much like Lord Milner, Borden’s appeals to British institutions and citizenship as the most central features of belonging to the British Empire. Identity in this case was delineated by inclusion in the community of British citizens which also included certain responsibilities. Borden appealed to Alfred Mahan and to Edward Grey, the Secretary of State for the Colonies to argue for the importance of sea power and naval supremacy to the maintenance of the British Empire. Borden quotes Mahan by saying “At Trafalgar it was not Villeneuve that failed but that was vanquished; not Nelson that won but England that was saved.”83 He also quotes Grey as saying “the navy is the common security of the whole empire If it ever fails to be that it will be of no use for us to discuss any other subjects, and the maintenance of the navy in that position must therefore be the care not only of us at home but of the self-governing Dominions beyond the seas.”84 The primacy of sea power as the main bulwark of the British Empire against foreign competition was solidly stated by two diverse sources as Alfred Thayer Mahan and the Edward Grey. Borden’s argument for British naval supremacy led to his final point. The line of thought advanced by supporters of imperial unity and naval supremacy tended towards not only encouraging technical cooperation or connections based on sentiment but on concrete proposals for greater imperial unity. Canadian Conservatives like the Leader of the Opposition Robert Borden and George Foster used the naval debate to advance a position opposed to the building of local navies instead preferring a policy of contribution.85 Either of the money or of a fleet unit organized in the manner requested by the Admiralty. Borden in advancing his point about Canada’s role in Imperial defense goes in depth into the German naval buildup and the threat posed by Britain losing command of the seas. Borden also heavily cites British Prime Minister H.H Asquith’s speeches at Westminster as well as statements made by Sir Reginald McKenna the First Lord of the Admiralty. This undoubtedly shows a connection between British needs and how they were communicated to Canada. British naval defense policy especially in the period after the German naval scare was intricately connected to the politics of imperial unity. The so-called “Dreadnought Crisis” was used by

83 Borden, 6 84 Ibid 85 Borden, 11 31

advocates of imperial unity to create tighter institutional connections that advanced the view of the advocates of the need for British naval supremacy. George Foster who was also a Conservative MP in in Ottawa, argued that Canada should contribute to naval defense because other less established and less populated colonies like New Zealand, Australia were contributing to the defense of the empire while,

the name of Canada does not appear, and as we look at that procession in the first line of defence we come to the conclusion, and it is not an exhilarating one, that not only have we not put a dollar into the naval defence of Canada for her own coasts, but that not a ship in the procession bears the name of Canada and that not a sliver or a sixpence of the mighty expense of that great battle line has been contributed out of the money of Canada. Well, I say that this grips attention. It gives us, at least, to press it no further, reason for thought. To some, and I confess to myself, it appears necessary for very shame's sake, that we did something and did something adequate. But says some objector, Great Britain is bound to protect the empire, her prestige demands it, her necessities demand it. Well, all I have to say of that argument at the present time is, that it is not the argument of the brave, or of the generous-hearted, or of the self-respecting, or of the properly independent man, and it is not the argument for a young and growing people which is a candidate for admission amongst the nations of the earth.86 Foster's argument for Canada supporting the defense of the empire lined up with ideas that contribution was necessary for maintain British naval supremacy. Tories in the Canadian Parliament saw it as their duty to serve the British Empire and be good loyal subjects. Foster in the above was making a financial argument for loyalism, that it was in fact Canada's duty as a member of the British Empire to contribute to both her own defense as well as the empire's wider defense. Foster and others like him were members of a part of society on both sides of the Atlantic that believed in imperial unity not as just an idea but as a policy goal to be actively pursued.

In these debates surrounding Canadian contributions to imperial naval defense that the ideals of thinkers like J.R Seeley and others became instrumental in the policy arena. For men like Foster, Canada's duty to Britain proper was not because of constitutional obligation or of the economic needs of the Admiralty. It was what Canada owed to the British people for their struggles, Britain after all had “mothered nation after nation, people after people, continent after continent, brought them out of darkness and slavery and set them upon the path of a better

86House of Commons Debates, 11th Parliament, 1st Session, vol. 2, col. 3491

32

civilization.”87 These Victorian conceptions of civilization and of patriarchal imperialism were key to the ideology of the British Empire and subsumed all other conversations in the period. At the time these “Orientalist” beliefs that were seen as a positive force for change in the world. Foster in some sense agrees with Goldwin Smith's conception of the Anglo-Saxon “race” as a vanguard of change in the world and as one of the strongest bonds between Great Britain and the Dominions.

Conclusion The 1909 “Dreadnought Crisis” laid bare a lot of issues at the heart of the imperial unity movement and the relationship between Canada and Great Britain, the imperial unity movement and the political parties and the nature of British Imperial politics. British imperialists, advocates of imperial unity, used the crisis as an opportunity to advance the cause of greater imperial unity. They did so under three primary strains of thought which dovetailed nicely into a policy of greater contribution by the Dominions to imperial defense. The first was advanced by Alfred Lord Milner and can best be described as an ideology of Imperial citizenship. Milner argued that all subjects of the Crown were equal members of the British Empire and that part of the responsibility as an Imperial citizen and as a Dominion government was to contribute to the general Imperial defense. Secondly George R. Parkin argued invoking J.R Seeley and Alfred Thayer Mahan a dual sense of belonging that focused on the exceptional character of British overseas expansion with the primacy of sea power and geostrategy in maintaining the British Empire. The final argument was the most thoroughly Canadian one advanced by prominent Canadian imperialists like Clive Phillipps-Wolley, Robert Borden and George Foster. They argued that Canadian contribution to Imperial defense was key because of the connections and institutions that Britain had provided Canada. This strain of thought also emphasized the importance of trade, settlement and naval supremacy in the development of the British Empire into a world power. These three schools of thought were different but ultimately still reinforced the idea of hegemonic Britishness as discourse used to include certain members of colonial society and as a vehicle for greater imperial unity

87House of Commons Debates, 11th Parliament, 1st Session, vol. 2, col. 3491

33

Another particular strain of thought promoted by advocates of imperial unity was one that relied on the ideology of “National Efficiency” and of manpower contribution to Imperial defense. In the wake of the British failures in the Second Boer War, British policy-makers both in Great Britain and in the Dominions focused on strengthening Britain’s military readiness looking forward to a war against an even more powerful adversary than irregular Boer militias that easily handled the British Army in South Africa during “Black Week.”

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CHAPTER 2

FROM THE BOER WAR TO THE WESTERN FRONT. THE POLITICS OF NATIONAL EFFICIENCY, IMPERIAL UNITY AND MILITARY DEFENSE, 1900-1917

Introduction Worries about the state of the British Army in the wake of the Boer War coupled with a concern for national decline and the pursuit of national efficiency was the primary political and ideological concerns of British military policymakers in the buildup to the World War I. Their ideas crossed the Atlantic and became part and parcel of Canadian political culture and dialogue during the Edwardian Era. Similar organizations popped up in the Dominion that had materially the same goals as the British counterparts. The Canadian Defence League, (CDL) the Canadian National Service League, the Boy Scouts of Canada and aswe saw earlier the Navy League of Canada. The self-consciously imperial character of these organizations gave them tight bonds with their counterparts in Great Britain itself. “British” ideas were easily transported across the Atlantic Ocean via steamships, telegrams, telephones and newspapers. Canada’s most connected cities, its “imperial centers,” if you will, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa were tightly connected with political developments in metropolitan Britain. Much like the projects for imperial unity, tariff reform, a stronger imperial defence and anti-imperialism debates about conscription and military readiness were not merely British movements but truly Imperial ones. Civil society, the network of organizations working outside of the state were equally strong in Canada’s major cities, as they were in London, Manchester or Birmingham. The Navy League was promoting a stronger British Navy in the face of greater challenges from other powers and the end of unquestioned British dominance on the high seas. Joseph Chamberlain and the Tariff Reform League likewise played a huge role in calling for greater imperial unity claiming Britain’s decline as the world’s preeminent commercial power. Issues of naval policy, imperial defense, commercial and imperial unity as well as Dominion nationalism were tightly connected in the Edwardian Era. Another major debate that occurred in the wake of the Boer War was one surrounding “National Efficiency” and the role that the lack of a standing army played in British failures in South Africa. The National

35

Service League was founded in 1901 to campaign for national service if not conscription at least compulsory training for men 18-22 based on the Swiss model. The ideology of “National Efficiency” was a development in British politics after the Boer War that advocated for the strengthening of the British populace keeping in mind the apparent poor health condition of the average British urban male of military age. Successes of groups like the National Service League and the creation of a British Home defense force reflected the ideology of this “efficiency group”. Prominent supporters of “National Efficiency” included Alfred Milner, , the Liberal War Secretary Richard Burton Haldane and even Beatrice and Sidney Webb. General Robert Baden-Powell had his own vision for remedying the situation in which Britain and the Empire saw itself. By looking to the Empire’s young men and Scouting as a solution to the problem. Baden-Powell saw Scouting as the solution to the problem of Britain’s imperial decline both in the world stage and at home. The closeness of the imperial unity and efficiency movements highlighted the ease with which certain political causes were transferred from Great Britain to Canada. The work of groups such as the Canadian Military Institute and the Canadian Defence League closely mimicked many of the policy initiatives pushed by the National Service League. The ideology of efficiency and manpower contribution was also pushed by the Liberal government itself especially during the 1907 Colonial Conference which made large strides towards creating better military ties between the British Army and the Dominion militias. These institutional ties were put to the test during the First World War in the winter of 1916 and the spring of 1917 when Britain was experiencing acute manpower shortages both in industry and at the front. The War Cabinet and the Imperial War Cabinet resorted to using Dominion manpower to cure the shortages

“Black Week” and Institutional Failure: “The Quest for National Efficiency” in the British Army after the Boer War

The Edwardian Era was one of anxiety for Britain’s politicians, intellectuals, military decision makers and other important opinion makers. The British Army’s reverses during the Boer War signified by failures of “Black Week.” (The week in December of 1899 where the British Army lost three battles at Stormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso against Boer militias.)88

88 Christopher Wilkinson-Latham, the Boer War (Osprey Publishing, 2012), 10 36

The failures of “Black Week” raised anxieties whether Great Britain could cope if it ever found itself at war with a major European power. 89 The failures of the Boer War led Britain’s influential politicians and intellectuals “to diagnose their country’s situation and to formulate a policy of recovery” G.R Searle argues that in response to the failures of Black Week as well as of competition with Imperial Germany created a creed of “National Efficiency.”90 Edwardian intellectuals and policymakers formulated efficiency as an ideology that cut across party and ideological lines and would work to restore the nation’s lost competitiveness. The concept of “efficiency” meant something different to Victorian and Edwardian middle and upper classes, the main constituencies of the British politicians and intellectuals, than it does to us today. The word “efficiency” did not conjure the image of “an engineering workshop” but rather “one of army barracks or a staff officer’s room” To Victorian and Edwardian voters “efficiency” denoted a volunteer well trained for military service.91 So it is not surprising to discover that much of the rhetoric of National Efficiency was not so much technocratic but militaristic: the strident calls for organization, discipline hierarchy, and self-sacrifice clearly reflecting the ethos and values of the regimental mess.92 Britain’s efficiency problems had clearly stemmed from inadequate military training that was exposed by Boer irregular troops during “Black Week.” The challenge posed by Germany was primarily a military one and the supporters of the “National Efficiency” agenda sought military solutions to military problems. Similarly significant was how the ideology of “National Efficiency” influenced the development of public opinion surrounding militarism and nationalism in Britain in the lead-up to the First World War. The failures of the Junior Service in South Africa according to The Daily Telegraph caused a “profound transformation” in Britain’s political temper. The article claimed that “A change ha[d] come over the spirit of our dream,” it goes on “and all that is earnest, strenuous, and determined in our national character is unmistakably working its way up.”93 Failure made the British people have a moment of soul searching wherein they looked at their national weaknesses and how to best address them.

89 G.R Searle, The Quest for National Efficiency: a study in British politics and political thought, 1899-1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971) 37-40 90 Searle, Quest for National Efficiency, xix-xx 91 Ibid, xix 92 Ibid 93 Ibid, 41 37

One of the major weaknesses pinpointed by British failures in the Boer War was the inability of the army to adapt to the situation on the ground. The army was stuck in the eighteenth century with its emphasis on “the traditions of service” and its institutional culture. How could the British Army fight and win a war against another Great Power if it was still reliant on the tactics, protocols and habits of the army that defeated Napoleon at Waterloo? Leo Amery, The Times correspondent during the Boer War, noted that the culture of the British Army with its emphasis on the “traditions of service instituted by the late Commander in Chef the Duke of Cambridge was a major detriment to the efficient functioning of the British army units in South Africa. The preserving of mathematically straight lines and fixed intervals, the wheeling of a line of men through an angle with all the precision of a clock dial – this and much other eighteenth century frippery ruled paramount at inspections and even at manoeuvres. Cavalry and artillery tactics were dominated by the same idea.94 In all, two months of a soldier’s life was taken with actual military training as such, the rest was dominated by parades, guard duty, domestic work and taking care of the uniform. These antiquated techniques coupled with the lack of education and limited opportunity provided to junior officers “meant that British Army did not have the best brains that Britain had to offer.”95 Overall, British military failure in the Boer War was a wake-up call for British policy makers and intellectuals and ultimately the ideology of “National Efficiency” was the principle found most suitable for solving the problem. Searle argues that “National Efficiency” was a “cohering ideology” that merged militaristic and technocratic language to appeal to different segments of Edwardian society and political opinion. It was also an attempt by the parties to advance military priorities after Britain’s military prowess was called into question by its misadventures in South Africa. As such it is a key piece of the puzzle that formed the greater ideological milieu of British thinking surrounding its military prospects in the years before the First World War. 96

94 Ibid, 45 95 Ibid 96 Ibid, xx 38

Sons of Empire: The Scouting Movement, Physical Fitness and Empire

The proponents of National Efficiency supported a militaristic and technocratic ideology they also viewed the nation’s population as the “basic raw materials out of which national greatness was constructed” and they encouraged that this resource not be wasted through indifference “indifference and slackness”97 Arguments for “national service,” ranging from compulsory military training to conscription concluded that Britain’s failures in South Africa stemmed from the “physical unfitness of the slum denizens of the big cities”98 Supporters of National Efficiency and compulsory military training couched their arguments on the health benefits of military training. They argued that if Britain’s young men would benefit from leaving the city and being out in the country and giving them “regular good food, exercise and wholesome country air would quickly improve their health.”99 Henry Birchenough, a friend and political associate of Alfred Milner’s, summed this argument up when he wrote. Discipline and physical fitness lie at the very root of national efficiency, and it is because we see in universal compulsory military training of the main routes which lead to national efficiency, that we should continue to advocate it, even if our military requirements were less pressing then they are.100 These arguments about the decay of the British man and its impact on the weakness of the British military, especially as it reflected in its performance during the Boer War; was a major concern for one of the Britain’s commanders in South Africa General Robert Baden-Powell the founder of the Boy Scout movement. If Britain’s men were unfit for military service and were a major reason for Britain’s faltering in South Africa, then wouldn’t better preparing its boys for the next war be a reasonable course of action? That is exactly the conclusion that Lt. General Robert Powell came to in the years after the Boer War. Baden-Powell was the founder of the Boy Scout Movement and one of the biggest proponents for better military and physical readiness during the Edwardian era. Robert MacDonald’s Sons of the Empire: the frontier and Boy Scout movement, 1890-1918, is a deep look at the ideology of the Boy Scout movement and how it was influenced by the

97 Ibid, 60 98 Ibid 99 Ibid, 65 100 Ibid, 66 39

“National Efficiency” movement and its influence in creating British militarism in the Edwardian Era. MacDonald argued the “frontier, and its stereotypical hero, the war scout, provided British society at the beginning of [the last] century with an alternative ethic, answering this general fear about the condition of the nation’s virility.” The “idea” of the frontier was still powerful in Edwardian minds and it came to symbolize “an attractive solution” to a set of increasingly complex problems at home.”101 According to MacDonald, during the Edwardian era, British culture built a “Frontier myth” that supported the frontiersman as a cult figure and it used “primitive races” such as “Red” Indians and Zulus as examples of martial virility as well as making the imperial scout a national hero.102 This “frontier myth” endeavored to a find a solution to British anxieties during the Edwardian era. The frontier was seen as a place where real men thrived, be they the heroic imperial scout or the proud savage. An effect of the strengthening of the martial virtues of imperial scouts and noble savaged was intertwined with setting up a dichotomy between the genders. Baden-Powell and the other “uncles”, the other founders of youth movements, set-up binaries between “men” and “women.” Men were strong, vigorous/ this dichotomy extended further to a public/private binary where in men took part in the “world of action, empire, and the military” and women were associated with the worlds of the home and childhood.103 Scouting proposed a solution to the imagined problem of a “weakening virility or a “crisis of masculinity.” By the end of nineteenth century concerns were widespread about soft men and in juxtaposition the aggressive “New Woman” who wanted suffrage and freedom from patriarchal control.104 This problem of the weakening of the men was a particular concern for Baden-Powell and the leaders of the various youth movements. Macdonald argued that Scouting can be seen as a response to the debate about national efficiency but it also “expressed vaguer conservative or reactionary fears” To Britain’s middle and upper classes, the working masses “in their millions seemed foreign, godless, uncontrollable,

101Robert H. Macdonald, Sons of the Empire the frontier and the Boy Scout movement, 1890-1918 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 5

102 Ibid 103 Ibid, 17 104 Ibid, 40

they were awkwardly independent, and at times almost lawless; they threatened good order with continual strikes and riots.”105Concerns about the unruly nature of the Britain’s working class and its state stemmed from military failures in the Boer War and its connection to poor health of the British populace. The findings of the 1904 Inter-departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration found that the living condition of the Britain’s working class was in dire straits, especially amongst it children106 The solution posed by the Committee was that “some grant should be made from the National Exchequer in aid of all clubs and cadet corps in which physical or quasi-military training, on an approved scheme, is conducted.”107 These concerns about physical deterioration and weakening virility were addressed by group’ like Baden- Powell’s Scouts as well as other youth clubs. To Baden-Powell and other supporters of military and quasi-military training, representatives of the British middle class opinion saw the countryside and fresh air as solution to the problem of the weakening of the British stock. The nation’s health, its “efficiency” and the future of its children were all strongly intertwined in the thought of many Edwardian opinion and policymakers. The appreciation of nature had “deep roots” in nineteenth and early twentieth century British middle class society. These romantic influences and the rejection of the squalor and depravity of the city was that the natural was superior to man-made. The leaders of the youth movements believed that they could “drive out the bad by bringing in the good,” and turn the “loafer or hooligan” into the “Christian boy or the good Scout.”108 Nature, fresh air and discipline were all methods considered to improve the moral and physical health of the nation and thus insure that the next generation would be prepared for the challenges posed by Britain’s imperial rivals. Concerns about “National Efficiency” namely Britain’s military preparedness, the weakening of gender roles as well as the poor health of the nation were question answered by Scouting. The Boy Scout was successful because it was a timely response that answered so many anxieties of the time both in progressive and “reactionary” modes. It incorporated novel liberal educational and social theory as well as a “wide range of conservative, imperialist and

105 Ibid, 20 106 Ibid,19 107 ibid 108 Ibid, 21-23 41

militarist opinion” Scouting was a new solution for the problems of an age and its emphasis was in Baden-Powell’s own words creating real men.109

Militarism and British Society before the Great War The Edwardian Era was marked by its questioning of the health of Britain and its Empire. The failures of the Boer War and the debates it sparked and the solutions it engendered can all be seen as militaristic expressions. The “National Efficiency” debate primarily surrounded how Britain should best prepare for its next conflict. The concept of compulsory military training was given as a solution to the problem of “National Efficiency” first and foremost for its value in improving the health of Britain’s working class. The British government discovered that the physical condition of Britain’s urban slum denizen was appalling and a major cause for its failures in South Africa. General Robert Baden-Powell, the hero of Mafeking, founded the Boy Scout Movement in 1908 as a response to many of the concerns raised by members of the “efficiency group.” Scouting was meant to be an enterprise in shaping Britain’s future soldiers. Scouting emphasized “being prepared,” physical fitness, an appreciation of the outdoors and good citizenship. It is fair to look at Baden-Powell’s Scouts as boy soldiers and one of the keys to militarization of British life. Likewise, the National Service League, advocated for compulsory military training. The NSL programme in essence called “for an initial period of a few month’s training in camp for men in their late teens and early twenties, followed by shorter periods of training over the subsequent three years.”110 The NSL advocated for compulsory service “through a determined propaganda campaign,” including lectures plays and even films. The NSL also boasted its own periodical The Nation in Arms as well the support of “powerful elements within the right-wing press.” Including the Morning Post, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express.111 The NSL’s campaign for compulsory military service ultimately failed, no measure was passed through Westminster before the outbreak of World War One that contained a provision for military training. Even more critical was that the NSL’s campaign showed the popularity of a program of

109 Ibid, 26 110 Johnson, Militarism and the British Left, 92 111 Johnson, 93 42

national military service within society. By the eve of the war, the NSL claimed that it had more than 250,000 “adherents.”112 Although the NSL agitated for conscription and national service throughout the Edwardian decade it was a Liberal War Secretary Richard Burton Haldane who made the biggest strides in advancing military modernization in response to the failures in South Africa and the anxieties of national decline in the face of German competition. Haldane’s plan was to create a “nation-in-arms” that consisted of a “Citizen Army.” The Territorial and Reserve Forces Act was widely criticized by the left who saw the provision as an “easy descent towards universal and compulsory military service”113 Haldane’s Territorial Force scheme leaned heavily on the established constitutional infrastructure of the Reserve Forces namely the office of the Lord Lieutenant and through Territorial Associations. Military reorganization drew as much from praise from the NSL as it drew scorn from radicals and labor. George Shee, a major supporter of the NSL praised Haldane’s reorganization of the military, claiming in a letter to The Times that it was “easily adaptable to a system of universal compulsory training, and calculated to make the system rather a development of existing institutions than an abrupt departure from the military traditions to which the people of this country have been accustomed.”114 Haldane had always been a supporter of the uniformed youth groups such as the Boys Brigade and Baden-Powell’s Scout movement which he remarked, “even with very little encouragement from the public authorities, and with no help from the public purse, have proved their value as a means instilling military efficiency and military discipline in the youth of the nation.”115 Haldane’s and the Liberal government’s support for the uniformed youth organizations even making them an official part of the War Office’s cadet corps program was another step by which British society was militarized during the Edwardian era.116 British society was changed profoundly in its view towards the military in the Edwardian Era in and towards the role that the military should play in the life of state and its relationship to society. The embarrassment in South Africa created a new language of “National Efficiency” characterized by its militaristic vernacular. The political, social and educational programs of the

112 ibid 113 Ibid,134 114 Ibid,137 115 Ibid, 146 116 Ibid,146-47 43

National Service League, Baden Powell’s Scouting Movement and of Richard Haldane’s Territorial Force scheme were various responses to the debate surrounding “National Efficiency” which worked to militarize British society. The work of the NSL and its agitation for conscription and compulsory national service was unsuccessful, no provision passed through Westminster that contained either compulsory military service or conscription until 1916. Conscription was necessary after the costly British losses at the Second Battle of Ypres and the Loos-Artois offensive of 1915. 117 The NSL’s success lay in its ability to create a strong coalition of civil society in support of compulsory national service. The NSL by the outbreak of the war boasted a quarter of million “adherents” they also claimed to have at least 100 Unionist MPs in Parliament. Despite Britain’s liberal tradition the anxieties of the Edwardian Era made the goals of the NSL a winning proposition within society. Likewise¸ the Scout Movement as well as many other uniformed youth groups answered salient questions and concerns regarding the health of the British working class in the first decade of the last century. The findings of the Inter-departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration as well as other fears about the weakening health and virility of Britain’s men were intricately connected to the rise of the Scouting movement as outlined by MacDonald in his book. Baden-Powell himself never said that his scouts had a military character but he explicitly expressed the value of being prepared as one of the main tenets of the movement. It was a felicitous coincidence that Haldane was able to coopt the youth organizations as one of more chain in his link of home defense enacted by the Territorial and Reserve Forces scheme. The reorganization of the Volunteer force and the militia was a major success for the Liberal government and the advocates of “National Efficiency.” Haldane, at the War Office, was able to craft a piece of legislation that was acceptable to the mainstream of Liberal opinion and even garnered praise from Unionist MPS and the NSL. The new Territorial Force still functioned on the basis of volunteerism but it remained one of the biggest revolutions in British military organization in history. Haldane’s reforms were not progressive enough for the radicals in his own party and ultimately allowed for an easy expansion of compulsory service according to the

117 Spencer Tucker, The great war, 1914-18 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998) 68

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NSL. The Territorial Force scheme was largely successful and proved its value in the longevity of the model. One of the most influential works in the study of British militarism before World War I Anne Summer’s article sums it up best. Militarism in Britain was more than a ruling class ideology, and far more than an ideological instrument of the professional armed forces. Liberal, popular and independent forms of militarism flourished alongside and indeed in opposition to militarism in its official forms. Militarism was, perhaps, an integral part of the liberal political culture of the country; it was also integral to much of Anglican and Nonconformist Christianity. For these reasons it became a popular cause, and a peculiarly British one. The Volunteer Forces and thee militaristic leagues boasted of the numbers of their adherents, and of the fact that they were from many different regions and social classes118 “British Militarism” was integral because it showed how it was an integral part in the shift of priorities by British state and society in the wake of the Boer War. “British Militarism” in this sense is just another expression of Searle’s “National Efficiency” or Johnson’s claims about the compatibility of militarism and left-wing politics. British failures in South Africa showed that the mechanisms of state and society were not suitable to fixing the problems of a new century. The ideology of militarism and “National Efficiency” were just two related initiatives that aimed to create new policies and organizational mechanisms that could fix Britain’s past military failures without stepping outside of the bounds of what was politically acceptable in British political culture. Militarism, “National Efficiency,” military reforms, the calls for a better and healthier working class, the rise of the Scouting movement were all responses within British state and society to the concerns raised by the failures in the Boer War and the ever increasing threat posed by Imperial Germany during the course of the Edwardian Era.

“With Shoulders square and heads held high, down they came, the heroes of the Empire” National Service, Efficiency and Canadian Society before the First World War

The ideology of “National Efficiency” and more importantly the organizations that it spawned in Great Britain were quick to cross the Atlantic to Canada. Both imperialist and anti- imperialist ideologies, organizations and movements did not exist in a vacuum “British” politics

118 Summers "Militarism in Britain before the Great War,” 105-106 before the Great War". History Workshop.(2): 104-123. Pp 105-106 45

was not closed to Great Britain but stretched out into the rest of the self-governing Dominions. The relation of policymakers and civil society in both London and throughout the empire was very similar in the years before the First World War. Organizations like the Navy League or the National Service League had its share of supporters in government both in Whitehall and in Westminster. The leagues, worked in an environment where government was particularly responsive to public pressure and worked in tandem with society to craft policies for both naval and military initiatives. Civil society was particularly well developed in this respect in Canada. Groups like the Imperial Federation League, the Tariff Reform League, the Canadian Club and the Navy League were all active participants in Conservative and Imperialist politics in the first two decades of the twentieth century. The leagues worked in conjunction with the political parties in order to advance their particular positions although in many cases there was much consensus between the parties on issues of imperial defense, naval policy and military matters. The Canadian Defence League was a Canadian offshoot of the National Service League and advocated for many of the same policy changes The origins of the Canadian Defence League like many other organizations that advocated for military efficiency had its origins in imperialist politics and as a reaction to the failures of British contingents during the Boer War. The founder of the Canadian Defence League, Lt. Col. William Hamilton Merritt had connections to another organization the Canadian Military Institute which was an organization that prided itself in its imperialist bona fides. Merritt in 1905 after commanding a unit in South Africa and a trip to Switzerland returned to Canada and began “advocating compulsory military training to all Canadians.”119 Merritt through the CDL and its journal Canadian Field and through public lectures worked for “systematic physical and military training of all of our youths.” The CDL’s leadership was not widespread, it centered primarily in Toronto. It was marked by the “social eminence of its backers,” which included prominent clergy, educators, journalists and the business community, all key members of well-to-do society in Canada’s most imperialistic city.120 The CDL, unlike the NSL, did not draw huge popular following because as even Canadian imperialists themselves acknowledged “no country exhibits a greater corporate

119 Berger. The sense of power, 237 120 Ibid 46

indifference to her defence than does Canada” after all Canadians were an “unmilitary people.” A major source of Canadian pacifism was embedded in the “indignant language of mid-Victorian liberalism.” Canadian opposition to militarism owed much to the belief that “universal peace” was still possible. Canadians Liberals as late as 1914 held onto the beliefs of Manchester liberalism and thought that militarism was a counterproductive enterprise.121 This was strengthened by the belief by that Canada’s relationship with its strong neighbor to the south and the shield that the Monroe Doctrine provided.122 Canadians who opposed militarism and imperialism demonstrated the “consanguinity between liberal anti-imperialism, and isolationism, pacifism and anti-militarism.”123 As will be pointed out in the next chapter this made Bourassa and the Nationalistes a part of the mainstream of British imperial political thought not particularly radical in their rationale in opposing the Boer War specifically and more broadly a more prevalent imperialist and materialist spirit. Although the Canadian people rejected the project for a compulsory military service it is still instructive to approach the question of why Canada’s imperialist elite so heartily supported the goals of the CDL. The CDL like the Imperial Federation League, the Tariff Reform League, and the Round Table Movement was another group that aimed to further the ties between Canada and Great Britain in order to forge more significant imperial unity. Lt. Col Merritt, the president of the CDL, wrote a book which was published in 1917 titled Canada and National Service. In it Merritt seems to be fully fluent in the language of “National Efficiency” so prevalent in Great Britain. Merritt praised military training for its ability to improve the health of a nation’s men and he cites a prominent Swiss man, The British Medical Journal and a “recent authority” in order support his case for why universal military training was the best course forward for the defense of Canada.124 A chapter of note in Canada and National Service is titled “Military Systems” wherein Merritt goes through all the countries of the world and analyzes each particular system of military service. He pays particular attention the system of other self-governing Dominions, the United States, Great Britain and Imperial Germany.125 Merritt concludes that Canada “is the only

121 Ibid, 240 122 Ibid 123 Ibid, 242 124 William Hamilton Merritt, Canada and national service (Toronto: Macmillan company of Canada Limited, 1917), 183-186 125 Merritt, Chapter v,118- 151 47

community which still rests under the voluntary form of military service.”126 In setting Canada’s military contributions as distinct from the other self-governing entities of the British Empire he creates a dichotomy where Canada is shirking her burden in imperial defence. Achieving imperial unity on political matters was impossible thus imperial defence cooperation became the goal of men like Merritt who viewed the British Empire stronger as a single entity working for the same goal. British imperialists subscribed to the idea that defense of the empire should not be Britain’s alone and thus advocated for imperial unity on defence matters. Leo Amery, the critic of British military doctrine in South Africa and a prominent Imperialist thinker, in a speech before at the Canadian Military Institute in Toronto quickly sums up many of the different currents in British and imperial thought on the role that compulsory national service and imperial defense cooperation may have on improving the social and political life of a country. Amery makes his case clear early in the speech, “the work of defence done by citizens in the defence of their country, is just as much productive work as that done by the doctor who defends us against disease, the lawyer who defends us against injustice, the architect or builder, who provides our defence against the weather.”127 Amery posits that the national defense “is an essential and necessary element in national life.” Emulating the proponents of “National Efficiency” Amery simply works to make military service and readiness a positive goal that a state should aim towards. The benefits of a strong national defense include the improvement of industry, commerce, public health, education as well as its ability to improve social order.128 Imperialist ideologues both within and outside government aimed to subvert the Manchester School, “Little Englandism”, that was so prevalent in Canada by positing the dirty word, “militarism” as a net positive. British militarism was not “Prussianism” it was not authoritarian or regimented it was just an attempt to reorganize state and society towards a new goal. The manifest unreadiness of the British army to even face an inferior Boer militia in South Africa made it plain that something had to be changed. What was remarkable was the ability of these actors to pursue their goals while “thinking imperially,” as Joseph Chamberlain

126 Merritt, 121 127 L.S Amery, Canadian citizenship and imperial defence speech (Toronto: Canadian Defence League, 1910) 4

128Amery, 4-5 48

suggested at Guildhall in 1904.129 National boundaries where not obstacles to men like Leo Amery, Joseph Chamberlain or they conceived of the British Empire as one entity, separated by distance but united by Anglo-Saxon “civilization.” This idea may be abstract when talked about in philosophical terms, as a “civilization,” or as a nation, but it can also have very practical implications as will be delved deeper into the following pages. It is striking to me to what extent the language of imperial unity was exploited by advocates of imperial defense to argue for greater military cooperation between the Great Britain and the Dominions in the years before the First World War. Proponents of what Anne Summers called “British militarism” and Searle “National Efficiency” saw the Dominions as fertile ground for bolstering the British Empire’s military readiness even if local society was not keen on the idea. In its heyday the idea of imperial unity ran the gamut from the reasonable idea of greater contribution to imperial defence by Dominion armies to the grandiose idea for a British world- state. Although many of the same politicians, thinkers and organizations were involved in the promulgation of these projects the ideological underpinnings were actually quite varied. Leo Amery as one of the major proponents of “National Efficiency” and of compulsory military service in the same speech that he started above gives a view of the value of the interdependence of British and Dominion militaries and navies in times of peace and of war. Defence cooperation is intimately tied up with the idea of imperial defence. Amery clarifies the role that he sees for the Canadian military pointing out that it should “form an integral unit” in Imperial defense and that there should be “continuous and free interchange of visits and individuals” between Canadian and British forces.130 Organizations like the CDL or the Australian National Service League were more than mere offshoots or mimics of the British National Service League. They were organizations started by men that thought that it was their duty to provide for the defense of the empire in whatever way possible. This is particularly obvious in the transcription of Amery’s speech to pamphlet form. Merritt and his associates printed in all capital letters passages of Amery’s speech that advocated for the creation of “citizen forces for the defence of her land frontier.” As well as Amery praise of Canada’s willingness to undertake “the best form of home defence” in which “every citizen is trained to take part in that defence.” The speech even goes as far to

129 W.T Stead, The Review of Reviews (London: Office of the Review of Reviews, 1890), 104

130 Amery, 7 49

mention the work of the National Service League and his satisfaction that Canada was so willing to undertake on its own a form of military training which “can be made to do a great deal for the physical welfare of the citizens, and which can do even more in promoting a sense of discipline and patriotism.”131 The goal of improving the British Empire’s military readiness was not isolated to Great Britain and the imperial center. Organizations like the CDL in the Dominions were also heavily invested in the goal of improving military readiness in view of the Empire’s many challenges in the new century. A particularly interesting view of the problem of imperial defense, military readiness and the role of the Dominions in the British Empire was proffered in a book titled The Colonies and Imperial Defence by Percy Arthur Baxter Silburn. Silburn was a member of the South African Parliament and as a member of the Natal Volunteers that relieved Ladysmith during the Boer War.132 The book itself in its entirety isn’t the most convincing argument for deepening defence cooperation between the Dominions and Great Britain but it is a great window into contemporary thought regarding imperial defense and efficiency from a colonial point of view. Silburn raises two points in his book that are of particular importance when considering the nature of British defense cooperation before World War one. First, Silburn creates a link between “responsible government” and a Dominion’s duty to contribute to the military defence of the British Empire. Silburn argued, the older, better established, self-governing colonies, Canada and Australia should have a modicum of responsibility for their own defense. Secondly, Silburn expresses doubt at the ability of Colonial politicians to make imperial defense a priority. Silburn is also worried that the short-sightedness, parochialism and the nature of colonial politics leads to a lack of readiness and promotes inefficiency in defense matters. . Silburn’s greatest contribution was in his appreciation of the situation by summing it all up in one word, responsibility. Silburn explains, “the larger Colonies have responsible government but it does not mean responsibility for own defence in all cases. In these Colonies from which British troops have been withdrawn, the question of defence is playing an important part in their politics.”133 The driving principle for Silburn was responsibility, the well-developed Dominions should be able to lessen the burdens placed on the British army as well be able to

131 Amery 10-11 132 The Natal who's who; an illustrated biographical sketch book of Natalians (Durban: Natal Who’s Who Pub. Co, 1906), 18 133 Percy Arthur Baxter Silburn, the Colonies and Imperial Defence (London: Longmans, Green, 1909) 171

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come to its own self-defense if necessary Another major contribution by Silburn is proposing the creation of a Council of Imperial Defence staffed by “men selected for their intimate knowledge of Imperial defensive requirements” along with regular meetings between the British and Dominion defense officials will create deeper and more meaningful defense cooperation and information sharing that “will give increased confidence to the units of the empire.”134 Silburn argues that one of the major hurdles to greater efficiency was the role that colonial politics and politicians played in retarding the growth of proper system of imperial defence. Silburn writes defense, was not recognised or acknowledged by the average Colonial politician; its offices have too often been looked upon as sinecures for political friends or relations. A legislator may himself covet rank; he therefore assumed that the title he considered most appropriate. There are signs, however that reason is prevailing. The advisability of politicians serving in the defence forces has been questioned. Some officials though at the cost of their positions, have fearlessly given concrete cases of glaring interference by legislators in matters of discipline and organisation, and have urgently appealed for reform; the protest is spreading and growing stronger throughout the Empire.135

Silburn’s critique of the state of the relationship between the government and the military in the colonies centers on the belief that military prerogatives and efficiency were subordinated to civilian ones. Silburn claims that Dominion governments saw the military as nothing but a tool for advancement and for political patronage. The disregard for the primacy of defense was ultimately the cause for military inefficiency in the individual Dominions and throughout the whole Empire. A move towards greater efficiency in Great Britain “with its four-fifths of the Empire’s white population,” was the creation of the Army Council.136 The Army Council was founded in 1904 after implementing the recommendation of the Esher Report. The Army Council consisted of seven members, the secretary of state for war, three military member, and two civilian members. Another change implemented was the abolition of the office of the commander in chief and his replacement with an Imperial General Staff and a chief of the general staff.137

134 Silburn,176-177 135 Ibid, 207-208 136 Silburn, 209 137 Harold E. Raugh, The Victorians at War: 1815-1914; an encyclopedia of British military history (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004), 136 51

Silburn argued that Canada and Australia should follow the “parent State” and move towards the British model and curb the influence of politics on the defense apparatus.138 Silburn suggests that this be done by inviting relevant Dominion authorities to take part in the work of the British Army Council. This Silburn claimed, should increase “the sense of the responsibility thus given,” and would serve to raise “the moral tone of Colonial politics” as well as “check the political inroads into the province of defence.”139 Although Silburn’s analysis is strangely anti-democratic and unduly critical of “Colonial” politicians his ideas still have a seed of truth to them. The concept that Great Britain and the Dominions should have deeper and more meaningful defense cooperation was a hugely substantial part of the discourse regarding imperial unity. In contrast to the work of the Imperial Federation League, the Tariff Reform League and organizations like the Round Table Movement the supporters of greater imperial defense cooperation no longer used the language of nationalism or of political unity. They instead used the highly circumscribed language of imperial defense and military efficiency. It remained true that a certain types of Imperial thinkers and policymakers remained the most ardent advocates of greater imperial defense cooperation. The dual failures of the Unionist government, namely the blunders of the Boer War and the failure of Joseph Chamberlain to garner enough support for his imperial unity scheme, led to their defeat in 1906 general election ushering in the last majority Liberal cabinet in Westminster. Lord Roseberry, Richard Haldane, H.H Asquith, and other prominent Liberal politicians were as much Liberal Imperialists as they were prophets of what Searle called the ideology of “National Efficiency.” The Liberal government, populated by Liberal Imperialists and a numerous members of the “efficiency group,” pounced on the idea of killing two birds with one stone. Improving efficiency while also deepening imperial unity. Although it would probably be served by having its own project there is ample evidence that there was a major connection in the growth of the prominence of the language of a more limited debate surrounding imperial defence. Imperialists both Conservative and Liberal, supporters of efficiency and members of the British military saw that a greater emphasis on cooperation between Great Britain and the Dominions was key to a better response in case of a war against a Great Power on the continent.

138 Silburn, 209 139 Ibid,210 52

The 1907 Colonial Conference – Liberal Imperialism and National Efficiency and Military Policy

The general trend of political and military relationships in the decade before World War One was defined by a mutual desire for greater and better defined cooperation on defense matters between Great Britain and her self-governing Dominions. British failures in South Africa galvanized a faction of ideologues and policymakers that created a “cohering ideology” of “National Efficiency.” One of the most prominent causes associated with the efficiency group was that of national service, which took the form of compulsory military training for Britain’s young men throughout the Empire. National service was seen as a key to shoring up the weak links of the imperial defense system during the Edwardian era. Debates concerning closer imperial military cooperation was suffused with the language of efficiency The Coefficients Club a dining society hosted by noted Fabians Sidney and Beatrice Webb consisted of a group of “twelve self-appointed experts on domestic, foreign and defence policy [who] met regularly, from 1902, to discuss issues of national and international politics.” The membership of the Coefficients was interesting because it served as a nexus of Fabians, Tariff Reformers, proponents of National Service and Liberal Imperialists could discuss the problems facing Britain at the time. Notable members included Richard Haldane, Lord Milner, Leo Amery, the Webbs and even Bertrand Russell.140 The trend within the higher reaches of British imperial opinion and British government and society in the period after the Boer War was to incorporate the ideology of “National Efficiency,” and imperialism in order to forge closer military cooperation between British and Dominion militaries. The 1907 Colonial Conference, held in London in the spring of 1907, brought together the heads of government of the various Dominions to discuss issues of importance to imperial unity. Military defense was one of the primary issues of debate at the conference. Richard Haldane, the Secretary of War in the Liberal government, who was a noted Liberal Imperialist and a member of the “efficiency group” spoke during the fourth day of the conference. 141 Haldane made the point clear, regarding the importance of military cooperation to imperial defense in the wake of the Boer War. He began by saying of the South African debacle, that

140 Samuel Hynes, The Edwardian turn of mind (. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), 141 Searle, The Quest for National Efficiency, 227 53

they later “realised that we had gone into that war without adequate preparation for war on a great scale, and that we had never fully apprehended the importance of the maxim that ‘all preparation in peace must be preparation for war”; it is of no use unless it designed for that it is the only justification for the maintenance of armies – the preparation for war.”142 Haldane argued in his speech for “the desirability of a certain broad plan of military organisation for the Empire.”143 Haldane mentioned a paper written by the General Staff, which called attention to the three great principles on which I have touched – first of all, the obligation of each self-governing community to provide as far as possible, for its own local security; secondly, the duty of arranging for mutual assistance on some definite lines in case of supreme common need; and thirdly, the necessity for the maintenance of that sea supremacy which can alone ensure any military cooperation at all.144

The principles of self-defense, mutual assistance and naval supremacy brought up by Haldane and the General Staff were clear lessons learned from the British experience in the Boer War. Haldane’s speech advocated for an imperial military forces divided into defensive and offensive arms. The offensive arm was the Expeditionary Force, which was to be composed of both naval forces and the military. The defensive arms was what Haldane called a “second line” that was to be organized on the same principle as Britain’s home defense force- the Territorial Army – discussed earlier in this chapter.145 The twin principles of self-defense and force projection were at odds with each other as pointed out by the Canadian Minister of Militia Sir Frederick Borden. Borden pointed out in response to Haldane’s speech that Canada’s Militia Law only gave it the authority to “expend money and make preparation for the defence of Canada itself.” He also explained that there was a law that Parliament would have to vote on any contribution of military forces for the purposes of imperial defense abroad.146 The 1907 Colonial Conference as it turned out was a milestone in the relationship between Great Britain and the Dominions. It was here that the defense relationship between Whitehall and the Dominion armies was formalized. The principles of Imperial defense

142 Colonial Conference, Minutes of proceedings of the Colonial Conference, 1907 (London:Printed for H.M. Stationery Off., by Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1907) 94 from hereafter Minutes 143 Minutes, p. 95 144 Colonial Conference, Papers laid before the Colonial Conference, 1907 (London: Printed for H.M.S.O. by Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1907) 97 from hereafter Papers 145 Papers, 96 146 Papers 99-10 54

cooperation and particularly of mutual assistance was solidified. The strength of these plans was tested by Britain’s commitments on both the Western Front and on the labor front. The manpower needs brought on by the extended period of deadlock on the Western Front as well as the need for industrial labor necessitated the British government to pursue a policy of manpower recruitment in the Dominions. The War Cabinet and the Manpower Issue By late 1916, the War Cabinet had reached the conclusion that the fighting on the Western Front would take up much larger manpower requirements then they had ever expected. Discussions within the War Cabinet focused on what measures could be taken to shore up the strength of the BEF on the field without amending the Military Service Act of 1916. Some of these measures included calls by the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) that home defense forces should be moved to the Western Front.147 At a meeting of the War Cabinet in January of 1917 the question of non-essential labor that could be transferred to active military duty. This included 30,000 men in agriculture, 20,000 in mining and 50,000 unskilled and semi- skilled men engaged in the munitions trade. At that same meeting the War Cabinet also undertook a measure to call up 18 year olds to shore up the manpower situation. 148 Another problem created by the manpower shortage was a competition between civilian and military branches for a limited pool of labor. The War Cabinet took this problem head on by making an arrangement with the Commander of the Home Forces to allow for his men to work in civilian industry in case of emergency.149 Discussions within the War Cabinet through late 1916 and early 1917 focused on the manpower issue primarily as it related to what could be done to shore up the situation using the powers given by the Military Service Act and by shifting men from the Home Defence forces to duty on the front. Keith Grieves in his book The Politics of Manpower, 1914-18, gives a much more thorough and considered view of the problem and its impact on British politics and its impact on the conduct of the war. Lloyd George and the War Cabinet were informed that if “forces in France were to be maintained in the months of April, May and June it was necessary to recruit 450,000 men in the first three months of 1917.” And of

147 CAB 24/2/46 148 CAB 23/1/39 Minutes of a Meeting of the War Cabinet held at 10, Downing Street, on Friday, January 19 1917, at 12:30 PM 149 CAB 23/1/40 55

these 350,000 had to be “A” category recruits.150 The stresses put upon the manpower requisition system made plain that Great Britain would not be able to finish the job on the Western Front alone, it would need the help of the Dominions. The manpower question brought on by the use of attrition tactics at the front put stresses on the British manpower system that could not easily be remedied. The War Cabinet, the Ministry of National Service, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff and the Commander of the British Expeditionary Force all had unique needs to fill regarding manpower. The discussions at the highest levels in 1916 and 1917 surrounded the issue of the efficient provisioning of men to assist both at home and on the front. At this point the War Cabinet saw the Dominions as a supplementary source of much needed manpower.

“However long the path, to final victory, we shall tread it side by side.” The Imperial War Cabinet: Canada, Manpower and the Politics of Imperial Contribution

As the war dragged into the spring of 1917 the War Cabinet had an opportunity to capitalize on the debate surrounding greater Dominion contribution to the war effort through the meeting of the Imperial War Cabinet (IWC). The IWC functioned as an expanded version the regular War Cabinet wherein the Prime Ministers of the self-governing Dominions met to discuss issues pertinent to the prosecution of the war. Sir Robert Borden, the Canadian Prime Minister was an integral part of the work of the IWC and was one of the project’s biggest supporters. The meeting of the IWC gave the members of the War Cabinet an opportunity to ask of the Dominion governments to what extent they could assist with the prosecution on the Western Front through greater manpower contributions. The principles established during the 1907 Colonial Conference in the paper by CIGS and in Haldane’s speech still rang true. Mutual assistance – Imperial contribution – in a time of dire need for the British Empire was the primary duty of the Dominions. Discussions within the War Cabinet, the IWC and in Canada emphasized that although there were political realities to be cognizant of, Dominion manpower was ultimately there to be of service to the defense of the Empire. In this case by assisting with operations on the Western Front. The language used in

150 Keith Grieves, The politics of Manpower, 1914-18 (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1988) 91-92

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Canada by both parties and their leaders was also based on the principle of Imperial cooperation and mutual assistance in a time of emergency. Although conscription was a divisive issue that split political opinion, the war effort itself and the principle of Imperial contribution itself was not. Opinion within the War Cabinet developed beginning with the ascension of Lloyd George to the office of Prime Minister that the Dominions should contribute more manpower for the Imperial war effort. There was much discussion during the winter of 1916-17 during the lead up to the convening of the Imperial War Conference and of the Imperial War Cabinet regarding appraisals of the strength and ability of the Dominions to contribute in easing the Empire’s manpower woes. The institution of the War Cabinet is an interesting source because it was a representation of the ideas, proposals and policies both successful and less so of the most able men that the British government could muster at the moment. Cabinets function as consensus building institutions and the prosecution of the war proved that about the War Cabinet and the IWC. Lloyd George upon taking up the office of the Prime Minister was quick to make it obvious to the Dominions what he thought was the largest need for Britain in the winter of 1916, commitment We realise that we shall need every man that we can put on the field, every pound that rigid public and private economy can provide, and every effort which a united people can put forth to help the heavy task of our soldiers and sailors. The splendid contributions to the common cause already made by the Dominions give us sure confidence that their determination was no less high than ours, and that however long the path, to final victory, we shall tread it side by side.151 Lloyd George seemed to be fully committed to the language of contribution and partnership in the Imperial war effort. The Dominions were characterized as partners not subordinate members in the British Empire and their contributions were valued as such. This rhetorical tool was useful in laying the ground work for further contributions as deemed necessary by CIGS and the War Cabinet. On January 23, the War Cabinet convened a meeting that focused heavily on the manpower issue and how the Dominions could be instrumental in helping to ease the shortage on the Western Front. Those present included the Prime Minister, Lord Curzon, Austen Geddes, director of recruiting and Lord Rhondda, president of the Local Government Board. The War

151 CAB 23/1/11 57

Cabinet adopted the recommendation of the Army Council regarding manpower resources of both the Dominions and Dependencies of the Empire. This included a resolution urging the Canadian Government “to send the fifth division to France as it can be completed to establishment.” It also concluded that Ottawa should “examine the possibility of raising a sixth Division.”152 The memorandum attached to the Minutes written by R.H Brade quickly summarized the thought of the former Canadian Minister of Militia, Sir Sam Hughes, regarding the outfitting of a fifth and a sixth Canadian division for service on the Western Front. Brade cites Hughes as “confident that adequate reserves for all six divisions would be forthcoming.”153 This raises the question of the expectations by both Canadian and British politicians on the issue of recruiting that was brought up in the Imperial War Cabinet. In January of 1916, Borden announced that he had raised the statutory limit of the Canadian Expeditionary Force to 500,000 men. This move could be interpreted in many different ways but James Wood in Militia Myths concluded that the aforementioned figure was to be seen as “a dramatic gesture of devotion to the Empire and the cause for which Canadians were fighting.”154 Wood cites the official history of the CEF and even within those pages, the figure 500,000 men, one-sixteenth of Canada’s population became “a symbol” and didn’t actually reflect the Dominion’s manpower needs.155 Borden’s “pledge” was a vital part of the Canadian commitment to the war effort. The issue of recruitment and of maintain his promise put stresses on the Canadian national service system. By the beginning of 1917, the Minister of Militia and Council had decided to lower the standard of fitness somewhat, to place the height at 4 feet 11 inches, to loosen the sight and flat-foot test, to accept one-eyed men otherwise fit, to apply a similar rule to hearing in one ear or the loss of one or two fingers or toes, to make the age limit 18 and 45 years, to classify men medically unfit for the infantry or artillery as available for Medical, Ordnance or Forestry units, to have all recruits pass a final Board before being attested.156 As is often the case, the realities of war interfere with perfect plans. The emphasis on national service, health and wellness, and efficiency was abandoned by the need for troops. The Minister of Militia had no choice to but the degrade the quality of the men available for national service if Borden’s goals of recruiting 500,000 men was to be reached.

152 CAB 23/1/41 153 Ibid. 154 James A. Woods, Militia myths: ideas of the Canadian citizen soldier, 1896-1921 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010) 228 155 Ibid 156 J. Castell Hopkins, The Canadian Review of public affairs 1917 (Toronto, 1918), 305 58

With this in mind we now move to the meeting of the IWC and Maurice Hankey’s tentative agenda for it. Hankey was the Secretary of the War Cabinet and the driving force behind the creation of the Committee of Imperial Defence and was very familiar with the functioning of Dominion politics. Hankey’s agenda called for discussion “of further contribution” for both fighting and labor. As well as defining how many forces could be available and for how long they could be effective.157 The meeting to discuss the manpower issue was held on March 30, at 10 Downing St. The substance of this meeting was taken up by the representatives of the Dominions and India describing what their contribution to the war effort had been to that point. The representatives were also presented with a memorandum written by CIGS detailing the prosecution of the war. The significant passage of the memo concerned the relative strength of British manpower on the front. Last autumn it became apparent that unless immediate steps were taken to increase the strength of our force in France by the spring of 1917, it would be impossible after next April to keep our army up to strength. I regret to say that the efforts made to obtain men have proved inadequate, with the result that we are now faced with the situation foreseen last year, and if heavy fighting takes place in April or before, the strength of the armies in the field will diminish, no matter what steps are now taken. The success of the forthcoming operations has therefore already been prejudiced, and unless immediate measures are taken to obtain more men, our chances of ultimately achieving such success as will give us the terms of peace we want will be correspondingly reduced.158

CIGS further warned of the passage in Germany of Auxiliary Service Law that freed an additional 1.7 million men for military service. The General Staff stated this provision along with others could increase the number of German divisions on the front to as many as 258. 89 more than at the beginning of the summer of 1916. This tactic by War Office and the British members of the IWC was designed to scare the Dominion representatives into action and it clearly worked. The fear of Britain losing the war of attrition on the Western Front directly led to Borden calling for conscription upon his return to Canada in May of 1917. In a speech to Parliament on May 18, Borden recounted the work of the IWC and ended with the Prime Minister making a plea for conscription. Borden began by saying that the Germans would have 1 million more men

157 CAB 24/7/93 158 CAB 24/8/85 59

“at the commencement of this spring’s campaign” than she put “in the field last spring.”159 Borden continued, Hitherto we have depended upon voluntary enlistment. I myself stated to Parliament that nothing but voluntary enlistment was proposed by the Government. But I return to Canada impressed at once with the extreme gravity of the situation, and with a sense of responsibility for our further effort at the most critical period of the War. It is apparent to me that the voluntary system will not yield further substantial results.160

Borden concluded by announcing that government was drafting a proposal for “compulsory military enlistment on a selective basis, such reinforcements as be necessary to maintain the Canadian army in the field as one of the finest fighting units of the Empire.”161 This would require at least 50 thousand men and perhaps as many 100 thousand.162 The call for conscription by Borden and the Conservative government in May and pursued through the course of the summer of 1917 was just the peak of the movement that had started back in 1909 with the founding of the Canadian Defence League. Imperialists and advocates of “National Efficiency” had always wanted to assure that Canada and the other Dominions would be fully involved in the military defense of the British Empire as full partners to Great Britain.

Conclusion Imperial defense cooperation was formalized at the 1907 Colonial Conference by Haldane and the Chief of the General Staff with the triple principles of self-defense, mutual assistance and naval supremacy. A decade later at the Imperial War Cabinet with Britain mightily struggling with her own manpower problems the Dominions and especially Canada were seen as a ready source of manpower. Contribution, mutual assistance, imperial defense cooperation, whatever name it went by, was a commitment by Canada the defense of the Empire. This commitment was buttressed by the strength of British identity in Canada based upon the strength of British institutions. The strength of civil Society, the ease of imperial communication, and the rate of immigration from Britain were the primary structures that created a feeling of unity between

159 Hopkins, Canadian Review of Public Affairs.339 160 Ibid 161 Ibid 162 Ibid 60

Great Britain and Canada. The willingness of the 400,000 Canadians which joined the CEF by the spring of 1917 to fight in France and Flanders to protect Great Britain underlined the strength of a British Imperial identity shaped by the strength of British institutions.163 There was a stark change in the defense relationship between Canada and Great Britain from the Boer War to the end of the First World War. Canadian troops had deployed and died both on the veldt and the trenches of the Western Front. Canada with pressure from advocates of imperial unity and the Admiralty was given the right to have its own navy but not the authority to deploy it as it wished. There was much opposition to these developments especially from Henri Bourassa and a particular kind of French Canadian nationalist intellectual.

163 The Bonds of Empire Britain's tribute to the overseas Dominions : speeches by Mr. Lloyd George, Sir Robert Borden, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Massey and Mr. Asquith, London, June 21st, 1918. 1918 (Toronto: Empire Parliamentary Association, 1918) 5

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CHAPTER 3

WHAT DO WE OWE ENGLAND? HENRI BOURASSA AND THE LIGUE NATIONALISTE: FRENCH CANADIAN NATIONALISM AND OPPOSITION IMPERIAL UNITY

Introduction Henri Bourassa is rightfully known as one of the leading French Canadian intellectuals of the twentieth century. Bourassa opposed British — Anglo-Canadian — proposals for greater imperial unity in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, and the activities of the Conservative Party of Canada, the Navy League and of civil society at wide to support greater Imperial unity in the defense sphere. Britishness was a powerful mode of identification for English colonists in the Dominions. The previous chapters outlined how imperial defense policy was one of the primary battle grounds during the late Victorian and Edwardian period in which the relationship between Great Britain and Canada was negotiated. The naval issue, and the events of 1909 precipitated a wide division between the imperialists and the “autonomists” in Ottawa.164 Parliamentary politics in both the Imperial center and the Dominion were obstacles in forming any solid imperial naval defense policy. The interconnectedness of imperial and defense policy in the period between the Boer War and the outbreak of the First World War (1899-1914) on both sides of the Atlantic affords me the opportunity to place the thought of Henri Bourassa in context with other British opponents of Empire. Bourassa’s Canadian nationalism was liberal and anti- imperialist. This chapter will explore Bourassa’s intellectual and political activity from the Boer War to the 1909-1910 naval debate. Bourassa built a critique of the naval bill based on the tenor of debate created by the introduction of imperialist interests in Canadian politics. Bourassa claimed that both Liberal and Conservative politicians and political parties were committed to the imperialist cause and that the fervor for a hybrid Canadian-imperial Navy was the culmination of that drive. The linkage of the transatlantic partisan press with imperialist party interests was a major factor in the creation of an environment conducive to a hegemonic debate.

164 A. Gordon Dewey, “Canada's Part in the Britannic Question". Canadian Historical Review. 8, 4 (1927): 284-301

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Bourassa’s reasoning for founding Le Devoir must have been a desire for influencing anti- imperialist feeling in the press. A particularly interesting way of considering Henri Bourassa’s opposition to imperialism advanced by the transatlantic Imperialist actors is to consider it as an opposition their role in creating a hegemonic discourse. Antonio Gramsci’s theories about the nature of the role civil society and the role it plays in the creating of hegemony is illuminating. According to Gramsci both the “state” and “civil society” Are the two major superstructural “levels”: the one that can be called “civil society”, that is the ensemble of organisms commonly called “private”, and that of “political society” or “the State”. These two levels correspond on the one hand to the function of ”hegemony” which the dominant group exercises throughout society and on the other hand to that of “direct domination” or command exercised through the State and “juridical” government. The functions in question are precisely organisational and connective. The intellectuals are the dominant group’s “deputies” exercising the subaltern functions of social hegemony and political government.”165

Stephen Gill, claimed that Gramsci believed civil society was “the realm in which all of the dynamics of identity formation, ideological, the activities of intellectual, and the construction of hegemony took place.” Civil society wass the locus of “the aggregation of interests” and where narrow interests become more universal.166 Hegemonic discourses are created by the complex of private associational groups known as civil society. J.A Hobson in Imperialism: A Study concurs with a Gramsci’s analysis of the primacy of civil society in creating hegemonic discourses. Hobson maintained that imperialism and its “spirit of naked dominance” required that it would be necessary to make it more palatable “for the educated classes of the nation.”167 Hobson posited the concept that “the church, the press, the schools and colleges, the political machine” as the four primary tools of “popular education.” The press and the political machine are the two significant aspects of civil society in creating hegemony in Hobson’s view. The political machine, the political parties were “a hireling, because it is a machine, and needs constant repair and lubrication from the wealthy members of the party; the machinist knows from whom he takes his pay, and cannot run against the will of those who are in fact the patrons of the party.” Hobson claimed that British imperialist were bankrolled by wealthy financial and industrial

165 Gramsci, Hoare, Nowell-Smith. Selections from the prison notebooks, 145 166Stephen Gill, Gramsci, historical materialism and international relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 129 167 J.A Hobson, Imperialism, a study (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1965) 63

interests for “the election of “imperialist” representatives and for the political instruction of the people.”168

Cobden, Gladstone, and the New Radicals: The Legacy of Nineteenth Century Radical Liberalism

Canadian imperialists were loyal not just to the crown but to Anglo-Saxon civilization. In the late Victorian and Edwardian period, Tories on both sides of the Atlantic coalesced around the issue of imperial unity as a method of strengthening the British Empire against its rivals. Imperial advocates viewed the empire as a net positive for Great Britain, however their ideas did not go unchallenged. The British Liberal Party in the nineteenth century had built itself a legacy of anti- imperialism. The main tenets of which were built upon Richard Cobden’s “Little Englandism” and belief in free trade and the principles of William Gladstone’s foreign policy. Critiques of “the ” from the 1880s on was built by radical liberals like J.A. Hobson and British socialist organizations such the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and the Trade Unions Congress (TUC) among others.

The Manchester School — Richard Cobden, Free Trade and Internationalism Richard Cobden and were the most prominent advocates of a Radical liberal foreign policy during the mid-Victorian era. Cobden and Bright promoted in parliament and civil society a foreign policy that harmonized with the “principles of peace, retrenchment and free trade.”169 Cobden’s critiques of foreign policy and empire were filtered through the lens of a “cosmopolitan social and political world order.” Cosmopolitanism in this sense, implied a world view that acknowledged certain “irremediable flaws in the nature of the nation-state in its preoccupation with (power) politics, national self-determination and sovereignty.” For cosmopolitan thinkers like Cobden these features of the nation-state “[we]re anathema to a

168 Ibid 169 Claeys, Imperial sceptics critics of empire, 28 64

peaceful and prosperous international or global order.170 Another manner in which to contextualize Cobden’s cosmopolitanism is through his conception of internationalism. J.A Hobson’s study of Cobden’s politics worked to create a view of the latter as an “international man,” and as an “internationalist.” Hobson clarified Cobden’s internationalism by describing his view of non-intervention. Non-intervention for Cobden did not mean only “abstinence from aggressive or other unnecessary wars.” 171 It meant a reduction of foreign policy to the smallest practical dimensions. Cobden believed that internationalism could not be achieved in the relations between governments’ only private individuals. People willing to “get into sane, amicable, and mutually profitable relations with one another, that intercourse is best promoted by leaving it to the them, with as little interference as possible either in the way of help or hindrance by their respective governments.” 172 Cobden’s belief in the power of private exchanges in the foreign policy arena was complemented by a skepticism in the character of the “classes of Government officials who conducted diplomacy, and the methods they employed.”173 Cobden believed that the methods of statecraft and diplomacy were a product of a bygone era one that was tainted by “suspicion and hostility” and of a world where the interests of “rival dynasties” was valued over the concerns and benefits of populations. 174 Hobson reached the conclusion that the essence of Cobden’s thought was best exemplified by a policy of state non-intervention driven by private mutual interest which would ultimately lead to the “bonds of union between people, peace on earth and good-will among nations.”175 Hobson did not accept Cobden’s assertions uncritically, he deployed Cobden’s view of a world ruled by the power of free trade as powerful contrast to the realities of the rivalries created by the search for new markets in the period after 1870. Cobden argued Internationalism and “non-intervention” were best applied through the principles of peace, retrenchment and free trade. According to Cobden free trade, “would unite mankind in the bonds of peace.” Cobden believed that the solution to Britain’s problems could be remedied through imperial retrenchment and by renouncing an interventionist foreign policy.

170 Per A. Hammarlund, Liberal internationalism and the decline of the state: the thought of Richard Cobden, David Mitrany, and Kenichi Ohmae. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 115 171 Hobson, J. A, Richard Cobden: the international man (London: Benn, 1968), 388 172 Ibid, 388-389 173 Ibid, 388 174 ibid 175 Hobson, 399 65

According to Cobden the problem with empire was “its cost, both direct and indirect: ‘armies and ships’ could not ‘protect or extend commerce’, whilst ‘the expenses of maintaining them oppress and impede our manufacturing industry.”176 Cobden believed that Britain’s role in the world was to “promote justice, therefore, by the force of example.” By expanding all kinds of liberty at home “for if he is working for liberty at home, he is working for the advancement of the principles of liberty all over the world.” Cobden’s liberalism and cosmopolitanism in its rejection of militarism, interventionism and belief in the power of free trade would be one of the most powerful ideological strands in Liberal Party politics through the remainder of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth century. Radical Liberals well into the late Victorian era based their critiques of British imperialism on the Manchester School orthodoxy of financial retrenchment, non-intervention and opposition to overt militarism.

William Gladstone — A Conflicted Radical The contradictions of William Gladstone’s foreign policy are demonstrated by his positions on the concert of Europe and his adherence to Cobdenite principles. A.J.P. Taylor’s The Troublemakers complicates the view of the People’s William as a dissenter, calling Gladstone “the champion of Dissent and also its ruin.”177 Gladstone had been carried to the leadership of the Liberal Party by the Cobdenite Radicals, primarily because of his fervor for retrenchment in armaments and other things. But in reality Gladstone believed that the Manchester School had never Ruled the foreign policy of this country — never during a conservative government, and never especially during a Liberal government. It is not only a respectable, it is even a noble error. But however deplorable wars may be, they are among the necessities of our condition; and there are times when justice, when faith, when the failure of mankind, requires a man not to shrink from the responsibility of undertaking them.178 Gladstone was a Liberal and maybe even a Radical one. But what the above quote suggests is that he was more committed to maintaining Britain’s stature in the world and even maintaining the balance of power in Europe than being held to the standards of Cobdenite foreign policy orthodoxy. Taylor put it this way, quoting Gladstone in response to a query of Queen Victoria’s Is England so uplifted in strength above every other nation that she can with prudence advertise herself as ready to undertake the general redress of wrongs? Is any Power at this

176 Claeys, 28 177 A.J.P. Taylor, The trouble makers; dissent over foreign policy, 1792-1939 (London: H, Hamilton, 1957), 68 178 Ibid.70 66

time of day warranted in assuming this general obligation? It is dangerous to assume an advanced position. Seek to deter the strong. Seek to develop and mature the action of a common, or public, or European opinion. But beware of seeming to down of that opining by her own authority.179 This “European opinion” was nothing more than the “Concert of Europe.” What is the “Concert of Europe” but a “Holy Alliance,” most detested of names to a Radical?180 These contradictions are what made Gladstonian foreign policy such an enigma. He was a Radical, brought to power by the Cobdenite wing of his party but he was not willing to be limited by Cobdenite dogma. Gladstone opposed Lord Palmerston on the Schleswig question in 1864 on Cobdenite principles but was willing in 1882 to put orthodoxy aside and went forward with the occupation of Egypt.181 What is more noteworthy to consider is the question of how later Radicals saw Gladstone. The League Against Aggression and Militarism (LAAM) one of the organization that agitated against the war in South Africa printed the “Gladstone Series” of pamphlets titled “The Right Principles of Foreign Policy,” “The War Spirit,” Spurious Patriotism: the Tories and the Colonies” and Mr. Gladstone on the Annexation of the Transvaal.”182 These short pamphlets were calls to Gladstone’s legacy as a method of opposing the war in South Africa. The league cited in the pamphlet “The right principles of foreign policy” a passage from the Third Midlothian Speech, in which Gladstone claimed that the principle of foreign policy which he valued most was the principle of the equality of nations; “because without recognising that principle, there is no such thing as public right, and without public international right there is no instrument available for settling the transaction of making except material force.” 183 The members of the LAAM had no problem in quoting the above passage despite Gladstone’s record in occupying Egypt in 1882 and arguably leading all European powers into the “Scramble for Africa.” It is illustrative that Radicals would pick and choose the view of Gladstone that would

179 Ibid, 72 180 Ibid 181 Ibid 68 182 W.E Gladstone, Spurious patriotism the Tories and the colonies (London, England: League of Liberals against Aggression and Militarism, 1899) W.E Gladstone, The war spirit. London, England: League of Liberals against Aggression and Militarism, 1899) W.E Gladstone, The Right Principles of foreign policy London, England: League of Liberals against Aggression and Militarism, 1899 183 Gladstone, The right principles of foreign policy 67

support their cause against the war in South Africa while eliding the realities that would weaken their cause.

Socialist, Anti-Imperialist and Anti-Capitalist Opposition to the Boer War The League Against Aggression and Materialism mentioned above looked to Gladstonian foreign policy principles, especially the Third Midlothian Speech to create a cogent argument against British intervention in South Africa. But there were obvious shortcomings to this approach. Gladstone himself did not always abide by the “right principles” forwarded by the Third Midlothian speech or the LAAM. In a world of imperial rivalry, protectionism and of political crisis it is also true that the Cobdenite orthodoxy was no longer the only practical solution. Cobdenite and Gladstonian constructs were indelible parts of the Radical Liberal constellation of thought by the time of the Boer War. But a new century called for new criticisms of imperialism and what Cobden called a “spirited foreign policy.”184 The rise of the “New Imperialism” variously called “capitalistic jingoism” or “capitalist imperialism” by Liberal opponents to the War in South Africa left the Liberal Party “bewildered.”185 Bernard Porter, in Critics of Empire, argued that the “New Imperialism” was for Liberal MPs “outside the range of their experience, and certainly outside their range of competence.” 186 This was not surprising given the history of the party in nineteenth century—its Cobdenite and Gladstonian legacy— viewed capitalism as a generally positive thing and the party could not see the obvious downside of policies being promoted by the Unionist government through the 1890s.187 The Second Boer War, was a turning point in the rhetoric deployed by opposition MPs. Arguments from the floor in the House of Commons questioned the motives for the war since there was “no casus belli” and it was shown that Milner and Chamberlain had provoked the Boers into issuing the ultimatum.188 Porter claimed it did not require much ingenuity, after the Jameson Raid had made an economic interpretation of events in South Africa inescapable, to find the answer among the capitalists of the Rand and their ‘parasites’ on the Stock Exchange; and the dispatches which J.A Hobson sent to the Manchester Guardian from Johannesburg in 1899, together

184 Hobson, 389 185 Bernard Potter, Critics of empire: British Radical attitudes to colonialism in Africa 1895-1914 (London: Macmillan, 1968) 56 186 Ibid 187 Ibid 188 Ibid, 63 68

with his later books and articles, filled in the details of a sinister tale of gold-lust and intrigue. Irish Nationalists, Labour and Radicals MPs as well as the anti-War organization “joined in the anti-capitalist chorus. Anti-imperialist arguments against the Boer War placed blame on stock- jobbers, “shady financiers,” “speculators,” and “money-seekers.” They spoke of a “capitalist conspiracy” and Hobson in particular advanced the idea of an “international-Jewish-financial” conspiracy.189 In finding responses to the problem of government intervention in South Africa the Radicals were able to stumble upon a language that opposed it in economic terms, if not entirely socialist ones. Ramsay MacDonald, the future Labour Prime Minister was one of the strongest opponents of the War in South Africa, writing vigorously against it. Ramsay MacDonald was one of the most notable propagandist of the foremost socialist organization of the period the Independent Labour Party. MacDonald wrote in 1900 a pamphlet condemning British imperialism in it he attacked the premise that Britain should deal with other states not on the principles of “cooperation as by the assumption of superiority.”190 MacDonald opposed imperialism because it meant, “the constant extension of territory, whether we like it or not, the continued subjection of peoples whether we intend it or not.”191 MacDonald also argued that most supporters of imperialism did so because they thought “civilization follows the flag.” He did not believe that it was possible for one people to “civilize” another by governing it. He viewed civilization as a growth. The religion, the history, the circumstances of a people determine it. You cannot carry it about with you. The civilization of an Englishman in India is not that of London. A western civilization cannot be imposed on an Eastern, or a Temperate upon a Tropical, people. We can no more send our civilization to Central Africa than we can send our climate there.192 MacDonald also dismissed the idea that British “law and order” could lead a people towards self- government. Macdonald also was wary of the cost of imperialism for democracy at home and the “rising costs of militarism.”193 The ILP position against militarism, imperialism and intervention although of socialist origin still owed much to Cobden’s “Little Englandism.”194

189 Porter,.62-64 190 Claeys, 199 191 Ibid. 192 Ibid 193 Claeys, 200 194 Claeys, 220-223 69

All post-Cobdenite foreign policy were variations on the Manchester school model. Cobden and Bright advocated, free trade, peace and retrenchment. The ideas of Cobden and Bright taken together can be best viewed as a rejection of the Empire proper and the mission of empire at large. Cobden in his time opposed Palmerston’s “spirited foreign policy” and advocated for greater autonomy for the colonies. Gladstone was a Cobdenite in principle, he believed in retrenchment and free trade but was unwilling to forgo Britain’s role as a Power in the Concert of Europe. Gladstone was the Prime Minister that ultimately brought Britain into Africa with the occupation of Egypt in 1882. But as the League Against Aggression and Militarism showed during the War in South Africa, Gladstone’s perceived radicalism was more consequential than his record. The War in South Africa was a major departure for how Radicals approached imperialism During the 1890s; Radicals did not know how to oppose New Imperialism in Africa. It was only the motives given for the war that allowed them to create a logical argument against. Radical and Labour MPs as well as the anti-war organizations criticized “economic imperialism” and speculators, financiers, stock-jobbers and others for the war in South Africa. Ramsay MacDonald and the ILP also offered their own criticism of intervention which was equal parts socialist and “Little Englandist.” MacDonald said in the Labour press that neither civilization nor trade followed the flag. The legacy of Radical foreign policy is indispensable to contextualizing the thought of Henri Bourassa because as was argued earlier the thickness and multitude of networks that connected the British Empire in the decades before the First World War. It is presumable to think that Radical Liberal speeches, pamphlets, newspapers and activists were travelling across the Atlantic and around the Empire during the War in South Africa. Just as it was fundamental to contextualize Canadian imperialism and the movement for imperial unity on an Imperial basis it is essential to contextualize Henri Bourassa’s anti- imperialism within the context of Imperial political ideology. The connections between Metropolitan Britain and the Dominions were manifold and functioned upon networks. The strength and thickness of these imperial networks is what defined the British Empire after 1850, although geographically dispersed and disconnected over many oceans, continents, regions cultures, people and tradition, was an interconnected commercial, intellectual, ideological, and emotional web connecting numerous people to the to the varying sites of the and the metropole. The imperial connections were facilitated by the movements of

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individual people, official reports, letters, travel writing, official dispatches, ships, and commercial trade.195 Political ideas were easily disseminated across the empire much less across the Atlantic in a world of telegraphs, fast steamships, subsidized mail and of daily newspapers. It is easy to see how the ideas of the Liberal Party made it across the Atlantic to Canada.

Henri Bourassa and the Nationalistes: Anti-Imperialism and Opposition to the War in South Africa

Two strains of thought opposed imperialism and the War in South Africa. First was the long tradition British liberalism and the Liberal Party. The legacy of the Radical Whigs, colonial reformers, Free Traders and William Gladstone’s unique foreign policy defined this view. But what was more significant was the appeal to more novel anti-imperialist theories like that of J.A Hobson which made a connection between imperialism and its economic causes. The Liberal tradition of the Radicals, Free Traders, colonial reformers and of Gladstone, the Grand Old Man himself. Thinkers since the 1830s, attacked the institutions and the idea of Empire. This led Conservative Prime Minister to protest this tendency. Disraeli claimed at his famous Crystal Palace speech in June of 1872 that “since the advent of Liberalism— forty years ago- you will find that there has been no effort so continuous, so subtle, supported by so much energy, and carried with so much ability and acumen, as the attempts of Liberalism to effect the disintegration of empire of England.”196 If Disraeli himself emphasized the importance that “Liberalism” had in questioning empire it must be true that the main supporters of this tendency were influential in the British political imagination. What Disraeli meant by “liberalism” was the series of changes in the relationship between Britain and the colonial empire from the late 1830s on. This was symbolized by the promulgation of the Durham Report, which advocated for a “unified and self-governing British North America.” Other major “liberal” policies included the repeal of Corn Laws and the

195Juliette Bridgette Milner-Thornton, The long shadow of the British Empire: the ongoing legacies of race and class in Zambia (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 129 196 Benjamin Disraeli and T.E Kebbel, Selected speeches of the late Right Honourable the Earl of Beaconsfield (London: Longmans, 1882) 530 71

Navigation Acts in the 1840s, which ended “colonial preference.”197 Responsible Government and Free Trade were the two policies that effectively ended the old colonial system. British Liberals had transformed a mercantilist Empire into a capitalist, Liberal one. Canada in particular had benefitted from these reforms, Responsible Government and the end of colonial preference. Canadian Liberals cherished their place in the new empire and the work of the men who worked to make it a reality. Radical Whigs, colonial reformers and Free Trade created the modern united if not yet confederated Canada. Henri Bourassa and other Canadian liberals who believed in the strength of the empire conceived by Free Trade, Responsible Government and the constitutional relationship placed in the mainstream of imperial liberal opinion. Many Liberal backbenchers in Westminster who opposed the War in South Africa thought the party198 should follow in the footsteps of Cobden, Bright and Gladstone in supporting ‘peace, retrenchment and reform’. They opposed overseas expansion and entanglements as wrong in themselves and as drains on the exchequer. Many backbench Liberal MPs felt that it was a fundamental purpose of the party to maintain what they saw as the ‘Liberal tradition’ of a pacific foreign and imperial policy.199

Bourassa was a “Liberal in the Gladstonian tradition” and he was in opposition to British Imperialism in any form but he “was careful to place himself in within the tradition of British Liberalism.”200 What is noteworthy is that Henri Bourassa and Radical backbenchers invoked the tradition of the Liberal Party and not its current leadership or positions to oppose involvement in South Africa. The importance of Cobden, Bright and Gladstone to the core of Imperial liberal thought cannot be underestimated, calls to liberal radicalism were effective on both sides of the Atlantic. Although Liberals appealed to their Radical tradition, their Cobdenite origins and their Gladstonian faith this was just one strain in Liberal opposition to the War in South Africa. Bourassa’s arguments against the War in South Africa placed him in the mainstream of Imperial liberal thought and political practice. Bourassa himself endeavored to place himself

197Richard Koebner and Helmut Dan Schmidt, Imperialism: the story and significance of a political word, 1840- 1960 (Cambridge [Eng.]: University Press, 1964), 55-66 198198 James Kennedy, Liberal nationalisms Empire, state, and civil society in Scotland and Quebec (Montréal: McGill- Queen's University Press, 2013) 89 199 Iain Sharpe, "The Liberal Party and the South African War 1899-1902." Journal of Liberal Democrat History 29 (2000): 3-8 200Carman Miller, Painting the map red Canada and the South African War, 1899-1902. (Montreal, Que.: Canadian War Museum, 1993), 29 72

within that liberal tradition and his writings and speeches in the Canadian parliament bear this tendency out. In a speech given at the Theatre National Français in Montreal in 1901 which was printed as a pamphlet in titled Great Britain and Canada, Bourassa laid out his thoughts on the history of Anglo-Canadian relations and the evolution of that relationship. Bourassa cited William Pitt the younger as “the great man of modern England.” Bourassa thought that the great Prime Minister understood the dangers of militarism and that it was to Pitt’s credit that he was a “champion of, political reform and financial reorganisation.”201 The younger Pitt is only the first British statesman and thinker that Bourassa claimed to have the correct view of empire and foreign policy. Bourassa continued citing statesmen, into the nineteenth century proper and the moment which Canada secured Responsible Government. Bourassa thanked in his lecture. the statesmen who so nobly and so manfully struggled, and with such unflinching tenacity, for the triumph of those principles of liberty, decentralisation, respect to minorities, which ever were in the past the glory and the strength of Great Britain we do, indeed, owe and England and the whole world with us owe a debt of gratitude.202 Although he believed that Canada’s geography and history must still be respected. What is even more telling are the British men that Bourassa thought best represented the cause of freedom and liberty; “[Earl of] Gosford, [Edward Law, Earl of] Ellenborough¸ [Henry] Brougham [Sir Robert} Peel, [Charles] Grey, Bright and Gladstone.203 The men listed above were essential for creating a British Empire and a Canadian state which functioned on the principles of Responsible Government, liberty and autonomy but they were still not Richard Cobden. Free Trade was as Bourassa put it “another timely circumstance which strengthened our new-born liberties.” The man responsible for Free Trade was the former artisan of Manchester,” Richard Cobden. Bourassa summed up Cobdenite thought succinctly. “To Cobden, Imperialism both military and political, was abhorrent; colonial expansion he distrusted.” Bourassa went on, Cobden saw “in the necessity of an army and a war fleet, a bold defiance of foreign powers, and an insuperable obstacle to the fulfillment of his two most cherished dreams, free trade and universal peace.”204 Bourassa’s affinity with the ethic of Cobdenite foreign policy placed him well within an Imperial Liberal mainstream.

201 Henri Bourassa, Great Britain and Canada topics of the day (Montreal: C.O Beauchemin, 1902) 14 202 Bourassa,18 203 Ibid 204 Ibid, 19 73

The power of the British connection between Canada and Great Britain— really England— is what allowed a young French-Canadian politician to make claims to Robert Peel, Charles Grey, the Manchester School and Gladstone himself. The previous chapters demonstrated that if there was a form of transatlantic Imperial ideology and identity based primarily on party networks and civil society. The imperial unity movement marshaled the press, clubs, leagues, associations and the schools to make its case. It is entirely reasonable to expect that Liberal organizations would also have that reach. John Galbraith found that “over 2000 leaflets, pamphlets, and booklets were printed and dispersed across Britain and the world,” opposing the war in South Africa.205 Opposition to the war in South Africa was more fervent among Liberal MPs at Westminster than in Canadian parliament. It is valuable to make some correlations between the arguments employed by Bourassa and those Liberal MPs. The British Liberal Party during the War in South Africa was led by a now retired Gladstone, John Morley, William Harcourt, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Michael Hicks-Beach, David Lloyd George and James Bryce. The Liberal leadership opposed the war in South Africa on the basis of the government’s “provocative militarism” and its “filibustering expeditions in the mixed guise of commerce, religion, geography and imperialism under which names any and every atrocity is regarded as permissible.”206 These men were imperialists because they were internationalists who had to oppose “ruthless, land-grabbing imperialism,” not only because it was “uneconomic” but because it hurt Britain in the eyes of the Concert of Europe 207 Harcourt, Campbell-Bannerman, Morley and were the leading lights of the post-Gladstone Liberal Party and used the words of previous battles. Bourassa himself said of the leading Liberals of the day that they upheld Gladstone’s policy. Bourassa, far from being a French Canadian disloyal to Great Britain was a mainstream British liberal. The most innovative claim against the War in South Africa was a purely “Pro- Boer” appeal to Britain’s historical tolerance that made it the world power it became. Speaking of the Boers Bourassa said on the floor of Parliament in Ottawa,

205 John S. Galbraith, "The Pamphlet Campaign on the Boer War". The Journal of Modern History. 24, 2 (1952): 111- 126

206J. Holland Rose, Arthur Percival Newton, E. A. Benians, and Henry Dodwell, The Cambridge history of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1929), 29 207 Rose et al., 29 74

They are the only living example of the people of the sixteenth century. They despise gold, they despise diamonds, and they want to lead a pastoral life as the first settlers of all countries. They want to lead the same lite as the first settlers of New France; they want to lead the same lite as the first settlers of New England. They are content with their horses, their cattle and their sheep; they are content with their share of the soil and they do not care for the mines. Is It a surprise that mines that are yielding millions and millions of dollars, that are giving to their owners in one week what the whole of the South African soil is giving to the Boers.; is It a surprise to find that this gold Is paying more revenue to the state than the horses and the cattle and the sheep of the burghers.208 The conclusion reached by Bourassa is that it was the miners and their relationship with Great Britain that provoked the incursion into the Transvaal in the first place. 209 The connection between the British government and the South African miners pointed to by Bourassa are an opportune way to transition to the second strain of anti-imperialism found in opposition to the War in South Africa, the Hobsonian critique. J.A Hobson developed a critique of British intervention in South Africa based on the connection between the British government, South African miners and financial interests in London. Hobson developed a theory which placed economics at the center of imperialism. The Uitlanders, European immigrants to South Africa were the primary owners South Africa’s mines. They were a “small ring of financial foreigners,” who added politics to their portfolio of investments.210 In a magnificent one paragraph summary of the Hobsonian theory of imperialism Bourassa gets to the heart of the matter. Hence the British manufacturer stands confronted by the following conditions: his good are shut out from the markets by foreign competition, whereas the needs of home consumption are amply supplied. He looks about, in quest of a remedy. He begins to question whether he had not sooner build up for himself a more modest abode than the world-palace in he has so far dwelt as supreme ruler. In order to secure a few markets in which he might properly call his own, he would gladly consent to a few sacrifices of principle and even of treasure, to be shared in common with his fellow-citizens. To achieve that result he needs to turn to countries where he could exercise some political authority.211 Bourassa goes further by saying that “jingoism” had turned Britain into a militaristic country who believed that “Trade follows the flag.”212 It was this spirit of jingoism that along with a

208 Official report of the debates of the House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada : fifth session, eighth Parliament ... comprising the period from the eighth day of June to the eighteenth day of July inclusive, 389-390 209 Bourassa, 40 210P.J Cain, Hobson and imperialism: radicalism, new liberalism, and finance 1887-1938 (Oxford, England: , 2002) 211 Bourassa,29 212 Ibid 75

vivacious Imperialist press that led the empire into the folly of the War in South Africa. Which Bourassa claimed was orchestrated by the South African League, Mr. started a huge trust composed of all the speculators of the Rand. By means of this powerful body, bought out every English newspaper in the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, in Cape Colony, in Natal and he had a regular system of correspondence organized between the editors of that reptile press and the Tory and Jingoist newspapers of London, foremost of which was the Daily Mail.

Bourassa’s argument dovetails nicely with the arguments made by J.A Hobson in his work “The Psychology of Jingoism” in it Hobson points out the “all important role of the press,” in bringing Britain to war with the Transvaal Republic. The connection between the mine owners, the South African newspapers and the reliance of the British press on South African copy created a confluence of forces that led to the war. The Uitlander press was first able to influence thought in South Africa and use its connections in order to communicate “the passion to the minds of the British public.”213 Henri Bourassa’s opposition to the Boer War and Imperialism lay on two strains of thought. The first such strain was the long British Liberal Party and liberal tradition. Bourassa’s appeal to the thought and practice of Radicals, colonial reformers, Free Traders and of William Gladstone placed him well within the imperial liberal mainstream. Second, the New Imperialism and the War in South Africa demanded that British Radicals had to change their language in order to criticize a new kind of foreign policy. The most influential thinker of this new strain of thought was J.A Hobson. Hobson cast imperialism within an economic mold instead of a strictly political one. The confluence of state interest and private interest is where capitalism must have sprung. This interpretation of the War, as one being fought for the Uitlander capitalist class is one that persists to this day. Bourassa also agreed with Hobson’s thesis that the relationship between the South African capitalist press and the English imperialist newspapers was a major cause of the war in South Africa.

213 Cain, 99 76

Bourassa’s Opposition to Wilfrid Laurier’s Naval Bill and its Imperial Implications

Bourassa’s anti-imperialism during the War in South Africa had two origins as we saw, the first, a deep belief in Britain’s liberal tradition and second a call to the more innovative radicalism of J.A Hobson. During the Boer War period, Bourassa was an anti-imperialist in his desire to maintain Britain’s as well as Canada’s record as true liberal powers. The principles of non-intervention, Free Trade, peace and constitutionalism were key animators in Bourassa’s and in the Opposition’s arguments at Westminster. This was paired with a new analysis of imperialism that placed economic and financial motives at the center of the phenomenon. This interpretation placed the confluence of London financial interests and their stake in South Africa’s gold mines as the primary motivator for the war. This section aims to further explore Henri Bourassa’s anti-imperialist thought but as it concerns Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s plan for the creation The Royal Canadian Navy in the years 1909 through 1911. Secondly, Bourassa’s opposition to the RCN on the basis of the link between it and the project for imperial unity. Bourassa argued that the creation of the RCN as a hybrid institution, one both Canadian and British was untenable. A Canadian navy must either be entirely sovereign for it to actually be an effective part of Canada’s national defense. If Canada’s ships could be commandeered by the Royal Navy in wartime then Canada had no navy at all. This challenges the principle of imperial defense advanced by advocates of imperial unity in the last chapter. Bourassa’s arguments against imperial unity and in the naval issue Bourassa adds Canadian nationalism to his liberal opposition to imperialism and militarism. Bourassa’s thoughts on the importance of political parties and the press in defining the terms of debate places him in the same stream of thought as Gramsci and Hobson on the issue of ideology and the imperialist drive. Civil society played a major role in creating hegemonic discourses in Canadian politics in the years before the First World War. The goals of imperialist politicians were being carried by civil society in the form of political parties, speaking clubs, Leagues and the attendant press. Bourassa’s actions against Canadian involvement in the War in South Africa as well as his opposition to the creation of an ultimately British Canadian navy placed him well in the opposition. Bourassa’s political activism focused on parliament, lectures, the newspaper press as well as pamphlets made him an intellectual within civil society. He complimented his intellectual

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work by positing a liberal nationalism that was free of the categories of Britishness essential to imperial unity. Bourassa’s thought on the imperialism forwarded by Joseph Chamberlain, Sir Charles Tupper and other imperial politicians was not yet mature at the time of Canadian involvement in the War in South Africa. At that time, Bourassa made claims mostly to a larger British liberal tradition of peace and internationalism to justify to his opposition to Canada’s involvement in imperial wars. A decade later the campaign for imperial unity reached a major a cross roads. In the years 1909-1911, with the “Dreadnought Crisis” as the inciting event, the issue of the creation of a Canadian Navy was put forward at Parliament. Bourassa’s opposition to the creation of the Royal Canadian Navy was defined by two large issues. First, was the issue of autonomy of said navy, especially its relationship to the Royal Navy in times of war. The Second, issue flowed from the first, if Britain had gone to war without consulting the Dominions in South Africa and countless times before, what would stop the government in London from doing so again? Bourassa’s opposition to the creation of Canadian navy was first of all driven by a desire for true sovereignty. The Naval Bill passed in Ottawa created a hybrid navy, one that was both Canadian and British. In times of war, the Canadian “fleet” would be absorbed into the Royal Navy. Which led Bourassa to declare. Instead of a Canadian fleet under the authority of the Canadian government for the defense of Canada, he bestowed upon us two squadrons, organized and paid for by the people of Canada, placed in the case of war under the exclusive authority of the English admiralty, to take part in English wars.214 Bourassa also raised issue with the perception that a Canadian navy was created not to defend Canada itself but to fill the holes in the Royal Navy’s own defense schemes. Bourassa said, “Canada’s navy does not exist to protect Canadian interests but instead it would have served to replace the Atlantic and Pacific squadrons of the English fleet which the English admiralty called home many years ago.”215 It is interesting to ponder these complaints by viewing them through the lens of citizenship and identity. Bourassa objects primarily to the RCN’s imperial quality, its Britishness which worried him. An imperial Canadian navy would ultimately be beholden to British citizens and not to Canadian subjects unless both were joined in equal terms on matters of

214 Henri Bourassa and Joseph Levitt, Henri Bourassa on imperialism and biculturalism, 1900-1918 (Toronto: Copp Clark Pub. Co, 1970 215 Bourassa, 75 78

imperial foreign policy. Bourassa said that the only solution to the problem of split character of the principle of imperial defense cooperation was to create a true partnership between Britain and the Dominions. Bourassa claimed that true partnership rested on citizenship to all the subjects in the Dominions so “whether they are farmers in the colony or whether they’re landlords in the kingdom” both men can speak equally on the matters of foreign affairs.216” It was unrealistic to think that British voters and especially parliament, the prime minister and the administration would give up their prerogative for creating imperial foreign policy and Bourassa recognized that fact. Governments don’t give up their power very easily especially when it is something as vital as the formulation of foreign policy and the control of military policy. A solution to the problem was put forward by Bourassa in an open letter titled the “Principles of Nationalist Defence.” In it Bourassa articulated three points about the responsibilities of the Dominion governments and of the government in London as it related to defense of the empire. First, “that the British authorities having the exclusive and absolute control of the foreign policy and military organization of the empire, the people of the United Kingdom, should bear the consequences and provide for the external defence of the Empire.”217 Second that the people of the self-governing colonies should provide for the defense of their own territory. Third, that Britain should maintain their army and navy for the defense of the crown colonies and India not of the Dominions.218 Bourassa once again gives the best one paragraph summation to a major issue of the day in imperial politics. Should every self-governing colony concentrate all its attention and energies on the problem of self-defence, imperial defence would be rendered much easier and more efficacious than by any attempt to adopt a system of united military and naval organization, the control and authority of which must of necessity be in the hands of the imperial authorities in London.”219 Nationalism in this case was the belief in the primacy of autonomy and sovereignty in the relationship of the Dominions with the imperial government. Bourassa believed that the Dominions should move forward as soon as possible if not as fully independent countries but at least as more autonomous units within the British Empire. The standard of self-defense was how Henri Bourassa intended to separate the Dominions from imperial defense schemes.

216 Ibid 217Ibid, 59 218 Ibid 219Ibid, 60 79

What do we Owe England? Henri Bourassa’s Anti-Imperialist Manifesto

In the time since the War in South Africa and in light of the events surrounding the imperial defense debate in 1909 and 1910, Bourassa had formulated a critique of imperialism forwarded by Conservative politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. Bourassa in a book published in 1915 titled Que Devons nous à l’Angleterre? What do we owe England? Bourassa goes straight at the issue of what he calls an “Imperialist revolution” in British politics since Disraeli’s time. Bourassa also opposed British militarism and its relation to European imperial rivalry as well as Britain’s role as a part in the Concert of Europe. Bourassa took further issue with what imperialist politics had done to the political parties in Ottawa. The 1909-1911 Naval Issue was once again the nexus of this complaint. For Bourassa, the change in tenor and practice coming from the advocates of imperial unity rested on their impulses could be explained in ten words, “the active participation of colonies in the wars of England.220 This was Bourassa’s reasoning for the creation of a movement for imperial unity. Bourassa singles out Joseph Chamberlain as the primary advocate of the policy of imperial unity. The goal of Chamberlain and his was supporters according to Bourassa was to forge closer ties between Britain and the Dominions as method “to pursue the projects of conquest and brutal expansion for England.”221 It is interesting that Bourassa draws a line between the goals of imperial unity as imperialism and of outward imperialism as a project “conquest and brutal expansion.” One explanation for this distinction might lie in the character of what Bourassa calls the “Vortex of Militarism” as well as a view of the British Empire as a carrier of an Anglo-Saxon supremacy. The connection between those two tendencies is a belief in the primacy of imperial and racial rivalry as primary feature of European power politics. The “Vortex of Militarism” was the significance of British policies and their historical reactions to European power politics in the course of the nineteenth century. Bourassa shows that Britain had taken part in twenty three wars in between the Napoleonic War and World War I protect and advance its interests Bourassa cites the wars in Afghanistan, the Sudan Crimea, the Boer War the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 and the Russo-Japanese War as examples of British aggression and the value that it placed on its

220Ibid, 78 221Ibid, 84 80

own interests and in maintaining the Balance of Power in Europe. The importance of considerations of the Balance of Power was particularly trenchant in Britain’s stance a pro- Turkish and anti-Russian power after the Crimean War. Bourassa points to Chamberlain plan to subjugate the Dominions as a method to convince Englishmen of the “considerable reinforcements from the colonies, without cost to Great Britain, he would more easily overcome calculations born of prudence, scruples and morality.”222 Bourassa claims that plan for imperial unity was a way for British jingoist politicians to satisfy their need for manpower in expanding the Empire. Chamberlain had a three pronged plan for building imperial unity: commercial, political and military methods. The Zollverein proposal for creating imperial preference failed at 1902 Imperial Conference. Second, the plans for creating an imperial government that included the people of the Dominions also failed. Third, the plans for creating an imperial navy rested on the cooperation of Canada and the other self-governing colonies. Bourassa aimed to disrupt this last part of the plan by advocating for greater autonomy in defense matters for the Dominions.223 Imperial unity and defense cooperation was just the latest attempt by Imperialist politicians to create tighter union between Britain and Canada. In Ottawa both the Liberals and the Conservatives were fully onboard with the concept of creating a hybrid Canadian imperial navy.

Conclusion

The creation of hegemony and intellectual movements are negotiated within civil society. The sphere of government where intellectuals conduct their ideological function. The political parties and the newspapers are two major sites of intellectual contestation. The above chapter is largely about not only about Henri Bourassa anti-imperialist intellectual it is also about Bourassa the counter-hegemonic politician. By building arguments against imperial unity based on the strength of nationalism and British liberal thought stretching from Cobden to Hobson, Bourassa was able to create a legitimate alternative to imperial unity.

222Ibid 223 Ibid 81

The work of counter-hegemony is according to Gramsci a long road, intellectuals must fight a war of position. Gramsci’s analogy is based on the fact that civil society acts as a set of “trenches” against the state and the economic substratum. Thus the war of position is a long proposition wherein the non-hegemonic must slowly build an offensive against hegemony within civil society. Henri Bourassa failed to stop Canadian involvement in imperial defence. But he did build a new vocabulary that Canadians could deploy to assert their identity as independent from the British Empire and hegemonic Britishness. The campaign for imperial defense cooperation during the Edwardian era is an interesting case about how British political culture was organized. The strength of the political parties, civil society especially the press, the thickness and extensiveness of Imperial connections structured the terms of debate. Ideologies, more strictly languages were developed in the course of these debates to make the case for naval contribution, “National Efficiency” and even in opposition to the imperialist cause. Imperialists and anti-imperialists appealed to certain categories of belonging, identities, nationalist or otherwise to make their case. This included imperial citizenship, the strength of British connection, historical Anglo-Saxon naval supremacy, “militarism,” “National Efficiency” and French Canadian nationalism. Although debate was substantively about simple defense policy the discursive strategies and rhetorical appeals used to make those cases went far past the bounds of a simple policy debate. Actors on both sides of the issue used powerful language based on identity and to make their case.

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CONCLUSION

The politics of imperial defense unity in the years before the First World War serve as a way to study some major points in the political culture of the British Empire in the Edwardian era. This included the strength of ideology and how these ideas were articulated into policy by a strong civil society which was able to weave together strong political movements across party lines. These political movements have after the fact been reduced to catchphrases like militarism, navalism or tariff reform. The membership of these groups was not homogenous or monolithic British intellectuals, policy makers, parliamentarians and former military men; the creators of opinion often changed their ideological affiliations and often worked for more than one cause at a time. This mutability of the membership of these political movements and the expediency of supporting certain ideological strains at certain times highly influenced the decision making process both in Great Britain and the Dominions. These political movements articulated their political goals through the British Empire’s thriving civil society. Civil society, the ambit of what is private, delineated the terms of debate surrounding the issues of imperial defense unity and cooperation. Private institutions such as newspapers, the pamphlet press, political parties, pressure groups and speaking and dining clubs dictated the terms of the debate surrounding many of the issues raised in this project. Leo Amery and J.A Hobson were working as journalists during and after the Boer War and their analysis of the events in South Africa and how they affected the political discourse came directly from the press. Another group that played a large role in the shaping of the debate was the various Canadian Clubs in the Dominion’s major cities. Imperialist politicians and intellectuals used these speaking clubs as a forum to spread their ideas about imperial unity and other major political topics of the day. The network created by these speaking clubs, the press and their relation to the political parties created the environment that all actors had to work within. The picture that becomes clear is that especially in the Canadian context a certain cadre of Imperialist advocates aimed to use the full power of civil society to bring Canada and Great Britain closer together particularly in the field of defense cooperation. Civil society was used by both sides in Canada and Great Britain to bring to bear what changes they thought were necessary to the political organization of the Empire to improve its military standing in the world.

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If civil society, political parties and organized political movements were the sphere where ideology was translated into practical policy directives, the political branch of the movement there was another field which created the debates, the ideological field. The two major streams of thought that produced debate around imperial defense issues was first, Britishness and second, “National Efficiency.” The discourse of Britishness that was employed by imperialists who took up the naval defense issue as their biggest concern. The Navy League of Canada, Robert Borden and the Conservative Party, George R. Parkin, Alfred Milner were all thoroughly “imperial” political actors. They had their own inflections on the reasons they thought that Britain, the British Empire and its white Anglo-Saxon populations were connected. These ranged from concepts of imperial citizenship to an affirmation of Anglo-Saxon connection and the strength of Britain’s global strategic position. These claims were all based on a belief of a single British identity, which was used to include a certain in-group, the Anglo-Saxon protestant settler and to exclude all others who were all already in situ. These included the Boers in South Africa, the French in Quebec as well as aboriginal populations throughout the Empire of settlement. Britishness was created in response to these outside forces and acted as a method of defining British settler societies as an outgrowth of an organic British drive towards expansion. Britishness was a particular form of settler nationalism that was used as a way for British populations in the Dominions to articulate their interests in face of the imperial center, foreign pressures and against “native” populations. British misadventures during the Second Boer War which were symbolized by the events of “Black Week,” cast a shadow of doubt about the strength of the British Empire and its urban population. The British Army was handed several defeats at the hands of Boer militias which called into question the army’s ability to fight a war against its premier continental rivals. A certain group of British intellectuals and policy-makers many of whom were associated with the Liberal party were part of a group that advocated for an ideology of “National Efficiency” as a solution to Britain’s military problems. Lord Roseberry, the War Secretary Richard Burton Haldane and other prominent British thinkers posited that the problems could be solved by better organizing Britain’s military forces. These reforms included the creation of an Army Council, of a Territorial home defense force, a reserve officer corps an Imperial General Staff and college and of advocating for the institution of compulsory military training for all young men. These changes to the infrastructure of British military requisitioning, command, control and oversight

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instituted after the Boer War were the primary successes of the “efficiency group” in crafting military policy. Another worry for British intellectuals and policy-makers in the years following the Boer War was one that concerned not only the physical health of Britain but its racial health and virility. The solution posed to the problem of a weakening working class was by appealing to the Empire and namely to the frontier and the scout as a personification of the strength of the British people all over the world. General Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the hero of the war the war in South Africa and the founder of the Boy Scout Movement advocated that the outdoors and physical activity was the answer to the weakening of the British people. Scouting advocated physical exercise, respect for nature and taught boys and young men simple militaristic skills and drill. Such as marching, shooting, orienteering and wood carving, these were skills that would come in handy when these boys grew up and became of military age. Scouting was a solution that was advocated outside of government to the problems posed by British failures and anxieties in the Edwardian era. These ideas about “National Efficiency” were translated through imperial unity channels into a language that advocated for greater manpower contribution and defence cooperation between the British Army and the Dominion militias. The Liberal government led by War Secretary at the 1907 Colonial Conference, advocated several changes to imperial military defense organization which included the creation of an Imperial General Staff and encouraged Dominion governments to strengthen their own military plans. This reorganization of imperial military defense proposed at the Colonial Conference changed the relation between the Dominion and British armies that would culminate with Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden calling for conscription in the spring of 1917. This tendency towards “militarism” was instituted in Canadian politics and civil society by groups such as the Canadian Defence League and the Canadian Military Institute which sought greater efficiency, contribution and cooperation in Imperial military organization. Dominion manpower was key to imperial military defense in the eyes of Haldane and other prominent members of the government and the “efficiency group.” They saw it as a key source of manpower in the case of an emergency and they were proven right in the period after the Battle of the Somme and the attendant manpower crisis that followed it. Imperial unity, Britishness, “National Efficiency, militarism and navalism were all ideologies and political movements that drove for the same goal in the Edwardian era. The

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strengthening of the British Empire, especially its center and settler colonies, against more powerful adversaries in the international arena. The rise of Germany, Japan and the United States as legitimate powers caused much anxiety in political and social circles. The Boer War and the 1909 Dreadnought Crisis made these stresses plain and galvanized opinion in favor of strengthening the Empire’s naval and military institutions. The attendant languages used to strengthen these were a clear departure from the radical and liberal tradition of free trade, retrenchment, peace and reform that was a mainstay of British politics for the majority of the Victorian period. All political movements must have opponents and imperial unity was no exception. Henri Bourassa and the Ligue Nationaliste were the primary opponents to imperialism, militarism, navalism and Britishness in Canada. Bourassa was a French Canadian political and intellectual who opposed both British involvement in the Boer War and the creation of an “Imperial” Canadian navy. His concerns were not characterized by his French background but instead by the thoroughness of his Canadian identity. Bourassa and the Ligue were the strongest supporters of the radical and liberal tradition in the British Empire even more committed than the Liberal party in England. Canada owed its existence and prosperity to radical Whigs and free trading Liberals who advanced the cause of responsible government, the abolition of the mercantilist state and cleared the way to confederation. Bourassa’s opposition to the Boer War drew upon this long tradition of the liberal belief in peace, trade and retrenchment as well as the critiques posed by the “New Liberals” like J.A Hobson. Hobson’s and Bourassa’s analyses for the cause of the Boer War are strikingly similar and attack the same group of British political life. Understanding that Bourassa and Ligue Nationaliste were in the mainstream of British liberal thought explains their opposition to the Boer War. The debate raised by the Naval Issue recapitulated many of the same concerns about Canada being involved in Imperial wars against its will as Bourassa’s opposition to the Boer War. The Ligue articulated an ideology that promoted further autonomy between Great Britain and the Dominion, just like it preached for increased autonomy of the provinces from federal power in Ottawa. French Canadian Nationalists made a case of being uniquely Canadian and not British. This meant arguments for greater political, military and naval autonomy from the Empire not closer ties to it. Bourassa and the Ligue created a particular blend of liberal nationalism that encouraged greater Canadian autonomy and argued against militarism and

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aggressive imperialism. The Ligue Nationaliste failed in both its battles against imperial unity and increased defense cooperation. What it made clear was there were languages and tactics that could be used to counter the discourses crafted by the imperialist/militarist faction. World War I was the culmination and the end of the moment for imperial unity based on military and naval cooperation. Canada and the other Dominions came away from the Western Front, from Gallipoli and their conscription crises more self-conscious as individual actors on the international stage. Moments like the Battle of Vimy Ridge, the ANZACs at Gallipoli and having a “seat at the table” during the Versailles peace conference would change how the Dominions saw themselves. The plan for a British world-state never came true, the Dominions gained more and more autonomy during the course of the twentieth century and ultimately became independent. What this period teaches us is about the power of shared experience and how states and societies choose to relate to each other. Canadians, Australians, English and South Africans all wear the poppy on their lapel on Remembrance Day because although there may not be a solid political connection outside of the crown all of these share a legacy that was shaped by battles fought together on the veldt, at the Somme and at Ypres. Circumstance and Empire have forged a bond that political reality hasn’t been able to corrode. The British Empire is a thing of the past but many of its symbols and memories are still here with us today.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Parliamentary Reports Official report of the debates of the House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada : fifth session, eighth Parliament ... comprising the period from the eighth day of June to the eighteenth day of July inclusive House of Commons Debates, 11th Parliament, 1st Session, vol. 2, col. 3491

Government Publications

Colonial Conference. 1907. Minutes of proceedings of the Colonial Conference, 1907. London: Printed for H.M. Stationery Off., by Eyre and Spottiswoode.

Colonial Conference. 1907. Papers laid before the Colonial Conference, 1907. London: Printed for H.M.S.O. by Eyre and Spottiswoode.

Cabinet Papers

Great Britain. 1979. Cabinet minutes and memoranda, 1916-1939: Cabinet minutes (conclusions) CAB 23 and Cabinet memoranda CAB 24 : bibliographical/chronological guide. Millwood, N.Y.: KTO Microform.

Published Primary Sources Amery, L. S. 1910. Canadian citizenship and imperial defence speech. Toronto: Canadian Defence League

Bourassa, Henri. 1902. Great Britain and Canada topics of the day. Montreal: C.O. Beauchemin. http://ebooks.library.ualberta.ca/local/greatbritaincana00bouruoft. 1970. Henri Bourassa on imperialism and biculturalism, 1900-1918. Toronto: Copp Clark Pub. Co.

Borden, Robert Laird. 1910. The naval question speech delivered by Mr. R.L. Borden, M.P., 12th January, 1910. Ottawa?: s.n.

Hobson, J. A. 1965. Imperialism, a study. [Ann Arbor]: University of Michigan Press.

Gladstone, W. E. 1899. Mr. Gladstone on the annexation of the Transvaal. London, England: League of Liberals Against Aggression and Militarism. http://dds.crl.edu/CRLdelivery.asp?TID=2275.

1899. Spurious patriotism the Tories and the colonies. London, England: League of Liberals Against Aggression and Militarism. http://dds.crl.edu/CRLdelivery.asp?TID=2274.

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1899. The war spirit. London, England: League of Liberals Against Aggression and Militarism. http://dds.crl.edu/CRLdelivery.asp?TID=2273.

Hopkins, J. Castell. 1918. The Canadian annual review of public affairs, 1917

Johnson, George. 1903. The all red line. The annals and aims of the Pacific cable project. Ottawa: J. Hope & Sons

Merritt, William Hamilton. 1917. Canada and national service. Toronto: the Macmillan Company of Canada Limited.

Milner, Alfred Milner. 1909. Speeches delivered in Canada in the autumn of 1908. Toronto: W. Tyrrell.

National Liberal Federation of Canada. 1913. Canada and the Navy answers to important questions : what are the views of the other self-governing Dominions of the British Empire? Ottawa: Central Information Office of the Canadian Liberal Party.

The Natal who's who; an illustrated biographical sketch book of Natalians. 1906. Durban: Natal Who's Who Pub. Co

Parkin, George R. 1892. Imperial federation, the problem of national unity. London and: Macmillan and Co. 1894. The geographical unity of the British Empire. [London?]: [publisher not identified].

Phillipps-Wolley, Clive. 1910. Canada and the navy: speech delivered by Capt. Clive Phillipps- Wolley at public meeting, Victoria, B.C., 10th March, 1910. Victoria, B.C.: s.n.

Sillburn, Percy Arthur Baxter. 1909. The colonies and imperial defence. London: Longmans, Green

The Bonds of Empire Britain's tribute to the overseas Dominions : speeches by Mr. Lloyd George, Sir Robert Borden, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Massey and Mr. Asquith, London, June 21st, 1918. 1918. Toronto?:

Periodicals

Le Devoir Avant le Combat http://www.ledevoir.com/non-classe/324456/avant-le-combat

Stead, W. T. 1890. The Review of reviews. London: Office of the Review of Reviews

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Secondary Sources

Books

Adams, R. J. Q., and Philip P. Poirier. 1987. The conscription controversy in Great Britain, 1900-18. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Anderson, Fred. 2001. Crucible of war the Seven Years' War and the fate of empire in British North America, 1754-1766. New York: Vintage Books

Baker, Keith Michael. 1990. Inventing the French Revolution: essays on French political culture in the eighteenth century. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press.

Bell, Duncan. 2007. The idea of greater Britain empire and the future of world order, 1860- 1900. Princeton: Princeton University Press. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=457751

Berger, Carl. 2013. The sense of power studies in the ideas of Canadian imperialism, 1867-1914. Toronto [Ont.]: University of Toronto Press.

Claeys, Gregory. 2010. Imperial sceptics British critics of empire, 1850-1920. New York: Cambridge University Press

Cain, P. J., and A. G. Hopkins. 2002. British imperialism, 1688-2000. Harlow, England: Longman

Cain, P. J. 2002. Hobson and imperialism: radicalism, new liberalism, and finance 1887-1938. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Claeys, Gregory. 2010. Imperial sceptics British critics of empire, 1850-1920. New York: Cambridge University Press

Darwin, John. 2009. The empire project: the rise and fall of the British world-system, 1830- 1970. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Disraeli, Benjamin, and T. E. Kebbel. 1882. Selected speeches of the late Right Honourable the Earl of Beaconsfield. London: Longmans

Gill, Stephen. 1993. Gramsci, historical materialism and international relations. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press.

Gorman, Daniel. 2006. Imperial citizenship: empire and the question of belonging. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.

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Grierson, Edward. 1972. The imperial dream: the British Commonwealth and Empire, 1775- 1969. London: Collins

Grieves, Keith. 1988. The politics of manpower, 1914-18. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press

Habermas, Jürgen. The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. MIT press, 1991.

Hammarlund, Per A. Liberal internationalism and the decline of the state: the thought of Richard Cobden, David Mitrany, and Kenichi Ohmae. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005

Hobson, J. A. 1968. Richard Cobden: the international man. London: Benn.

Hynes, Samuel. 1968. The Edwardian turn of mind. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Johnson, Matthew. 2013. Militarism and the British Left: 1902-1914. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kennedy, James. Liberal nationalisms empire, state, and civil society in Scotland and Quebec. Montŕal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013

Koebner, Richard, and Helmut Dan Schmidt. 1964. Imperialism; the story and significance of a political word, 1840-1960. Cambridge [Eng.]: University Press.

MacDonald, Robert H. 1993. Sons of the Empire the frontier and the Boy Scout movement, 1890- 1918. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Magee, Gary Bryan, and Andrew S. Thompson. 2010. Empire and globalisation: networks of people, goods and capital in the British world, c.1850-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Milner-Thornton, Juliette Bridgette. 2012. The long shadow of the British empire: the ongoing legacies of race and class in Zambia. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan

Miller, Carman. Painting the map red Canada and the South African War, 1899-1902. Montreal [Que.: Canadian War Museum, 1993 Porter, Bernard. 1968. Critics of empire: British Radical attitudes to colonialism in Africa 1895- 1914. London: Macmillan.

Raugh, Harold E. 2004. The Victorians at war: 1815 - 1914 : an encyclopedia of British military history. Santa Barbara [u.a.]: ABC-CLIO.

Rose, J. Holland, Arthur Percival Newton, E. A. Benians, and Henry Dodwell. 1929. The Cambridge history of the British Empire. Cambridge [Eng.]: The University Press.

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Taylor, A. J. P. 1957. The trouble makers; dissent over foreign policy, 1792-1939. London: H. Hamilton

Tucker, Spencer. 1998. The great war, 1914-18. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Wilkinson-Latham, Christopher. 2012. The Boer War. [S.l.]: Osprey Publishing.

Winch, Donald. 1996. Riches and poverty: an intellectual history of political economy in Britain, 1750-1834. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press.

Wood, James A. 2010. Militia myths: ideas of the Canadian citizen soldier, 1896-1921. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10831352

Articles

Buttigieg, J. A. 1995. "Gramsci on Civil Society". BOUNDARY 2. 22 (3): 1-32.

Darwin, John. 1997. "Imperialism and the Victorians: The Dynamics of Territorial Expansion". The English Historical Review. 112 (447): 614.

Dewey, A. Gordon. 1927. "Canada's Part in the Britannic Question". Canadian Historical Review. 8 (4): 284-301

Galbraith, John S. 1952. "The Pamphlet Campaign on the Boer War". The Journal of Modern History. 24 (2): 111-126.

Sharpe, Iain. "The Liberal Party and the South African War 1899-1902." Journal of Liberal Democrat History 29 (2000): 3-8. P.3

Summers, Anne. 1976. "Militarism in Britain before the Great War". History Workshop.(2):

Reference Works

Terry Cook, “PARKIN, Sir GEORGE ROBERT,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed October 21, 2014, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/parkin_george_robert_15E.html

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH I got my Bachelor’s here at Florida State in History and have always been interested in history and the interaction between state and society. Further, empire, imperialism and decolonization have always played a big role in my historical thought. The ideology of empire and how it is used to organize societies has always been my primary research focus. My first Master’s in International Affairs focused on the rise of pan-Arab nationalism in the early 1950s. Gamal Abdel Nasser and his Free Officer’s Movement inspired a wave of progressive nationalism throughout the Arab Middle East spreading to the Hashemite realms of Jordan and Iraq. The strength of the Arab middle class, the effendiyya, is what made the dissemination of these ideas possible.

Coming into this second thesis I knew that I was interested in empire, nationalism and civil society. I feel like this project is a great example of my thought and how all of these ideological strains intersect. The project for imperial unity and defense cooperation is just one moment in time that encapsulates how ideology, the state and civil society interact to create powerful political movements and moments.

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