Mother-Country for protection during the formative period of her national life, has been to produce in Canada a British loyalty which can scarcely be excelled in the United Kingdom itself. A recent statement by one not himself a Canadian is significant :

'Every one who has known Canada must have been struck with the fact that Canadians are almost more British than the British themselves. The Canadian love for the British Empire has for years burned like a slow fire, making little heat and smoke to be sure, but only awaiting the draft of war to cause it to blaze into a fusing flame.'

There are in Canada, of course, different groups with varying patriotic sentiments. There is a small Annexation group, whose voice is no longer heeded, and which is destined to an early death. Those who emphasise the weakness of the bond between Great Britain and Canada make capital out of the utterances of this group, which in reality does not express Canadian opinion at all. There is also a growing Nationalist group, especially strong among the French-Canadians. The watchword of this group is the development of Canada along Canadian lines. What needs emphasising in this connexion is that one may be a Nationalist and yet be intensely loyal to Great Britain and the Empire. There is, thirdly, a considerable body of new-comers not yet fully Canadianised; but we have faith that they will make good loyal Canadian citizens, as millions of immigrants have been Americanised across the border. Finally, there is the main body of the population, which is British-Canadian through and through. Contrary to a wide-spread opinion that this group is composed almost exclusively of English-speaking Canadians, it is a fact that it contains a large number of French-Canadians. Too many writers forget that they too can appreciate and respond to the privileges granted them under British rule. The words of the Hon. Rodolphe Lemieux, himself a French-Canadian, ought to refute all insinuations that they are not loyal Britishers:

'You ask me why I am a British subject and why I wish to remain one. I reply that I honor the flag that honors

* Julian Street in Collier's Magazine,' Jan. 16, 1915.

its obligations; that I prize most those institutions that secure me most strongly in my rights and liberties; that I am proud to be a sharer in the great work of advancing peace and progress throughout the world, for which the British Empire stands. Gratitude for what has been done for them [i.e. for the French-Canadians] in the past, contentment in the liberties which they to-day enjoy, pride in the future greatness of England and her Dominions scattered throughout the whole of the globe-this, and much more, warms the hearts of French-Canadians to the Motherland and makes of them loyal subjects, second to none under the British crown.'

On the whole, therefore, there is in Canada to-day, and has been for years, a filial love for the MotherCountry, an admiration of all things British, a glory in the Empire, and a devoted loyalty, all of which are being embodied in Canada's present contributions to the war. This devotion to the British cause may not always be apparent on the surface. Only those who know the inner Canadian spirit can truly appreciate it. To the German it is almost incomprehensible. The American, or the Englishman even, who merely tours Canada for a year, can have little conception of it. We Canadians are often misjudged by both Americans and Englishmen, for the simple reason that the visitor may see only externals and base his judgments upon them, while he fails to study the more essential thing-the spirit which lies more deeply hidden.† Canadians, however, are willing to be misunderstood occasionally, so long as they themselves are sure of their own inner spirit; and this spirit, which they will persistently maintain, in spite of statements to the contrary from the outside, is one of consecrated devotion to the British cause.

Great Britain has handed over to us full control of our own internal affairs, even the disposition of our military forces-a thing Germany certainly would not have done. She has allowed us to develop our own institutions according to our natural inclinations, without forcing upon us the English stamp. To the German

* Canadian Annual Review for 1912,' p. 44.

† A conspicuous example is J. F. Fraser, Canada as it is.' A more appropriate title would be, Canada as it is not.'

charges that Britain is avaricious and guided by sordid mercenary motives, all we Canadians can answer is that we know nothing about it. Our country has vast stores of great undeveloped natural resources awaiting captains of industry to turn them into money, yet our rich farms, mines, forests and fisheries have never been exploited by the English. Our preferential tariffs have been made by ourselves without English solicitation. During all these years, while we have gone our own way politically and commercially, the British navy protected our commerce to the ends of the earth, and for that protection we paid not one dollar.

After a century and a half of British rule, after our bitter experience with English avarice in trade and landgrabbing in general, we silently point to the Canadian graves in Flanders. Surely we are not hypnotised fools! No, but as an expression of our appreciation of the goodness of a Mother who has erred, if at all, on the side of leniency, and at the same time as a guarantee of the future continuance of the liberty and happiness which we have enjoyed under British democracy, greater we believe than we could have enjoyed as an independent nation or under another foreign power-for these reasons Canadians are going to the front and they will continue to go. They go not because Great Britain says they must, nor because they have any special hatred for the Germans, nor because the adventures of war have carried them off their feet. They go because it is the only honourable course to take in view of their present happy position in the Empire. But above all, they go because their filial love is so strong that they would regard it as a monstrous neglect of duty to stand aside and complacently look on while the Mother-Country fights for her life. They go for ideal and sentiment combined, both of which are grounded in their British loyalty. In the last analysis they go because Britain is at war, and because their interests are one with those of the Empire.

A CANADIAN.

Art. 2.--OUR AGRICULTURAL RIVALS.

1. Rural Denmark and its Lessons. By Sir H. Rider Haggard. London: Longmans, 1913.

2. Report of the British Consul in Copenhagen for 1912. 3. A Free Farmer in a Free State. By 'Home Counties.' London: Heinemann, 1912.

4. Agrarverfassung und Landwirtschaft in den Niederländen. By Dr J. Frost. Berlin: Carey, 1906.

5. Land and Labour: Lessons from Belgium. By H. Seebohm Rowntree. Macmillan, 1911.

THE writer who narrates the agricultural history of the last half-century will chronicle few things more remarkable than the descent which has been made on Denmark by seekers after rural truth. Singly or in deputations, students of farming and of rural civilisation from Great Britain and Ireland, from all parts of the Continent, from the Colonies, the United States, South Africa, and Japan, may be met with any summer, laboriously examining the institutions, and collecting the ideas of a little country half the size of Scotland. In almost every recent English book on rural life and industry one may turn to the index with the certainty of finding a reference to Denmark; while in speeches and newspaper articles, since the development of the land controversy, allusions to Denmark have been constant. It is the same, if in a minor degree, with Holland and Belgium, so far as students of agricultural therapeutics from the United Kingdom are concerned.

Unfortunately, although the investigations have been numerous, they have often been untrustworthy. Few of the visitors have allowed themselves enough time; not many have had the gift of gathering information in a foreign country. Certainly, there is hardly a publication about rural Denmark which is altogether free from slips; in many cases, indeed, it is charitable to call them slips. Some visitors to Denmark have not gone thither with an open mind; they have carried with them a political axe to grind. Another drawback from which investigations in Denmark and Holland have suffered is seldom considered. Danish and Dutch rural industry being concentrated on the export trade, those who direct

it need to be reasonably well acquainted with English. It is to the care of these leading men that the visitor generally finds himself committed. But, ready of speech though these courteous guides prove invariably to be, the extent to which they are accustomed to the simplicities of English visitors and to reeling off well-worn clichés for their benefit makes it possible for their guests to return home with generalisations more picturesque than accurate. It is the man or woman who has had little or no direct intercourse with foreigners who, often, by some chance phrase or experience, gives an enquirer the precious view into the real state of things—precious, that is, if the foreigner has insight, perspective, and knowledge enough to appraise it. The life and soul of another country, even of a country whose talk is of bullocks,' are not laid bare to a foreigner in a week or two of easy sight-seeing, in which he puts forth little or no intellectual exertion.

It need hardly be said that the more or less pressing proposals which have been made, in not a few instances, to apply Danish methods to English conditions have been by no means according to knowledge either of Danish or of English agricultural practice. Those who have lightly proposed the Danification or Hollandising of England have certainly omitted to tell us what form the development of our country at the hands of the Danish or Dutch agricultural invaders would be likely to take when they found themselves in the possession of coal and iron. Danish agriculture and Dutch agriculture are what they are largely because Denmark is wholly without minerals and Holland is practically so.

While we are a naturally rich, primarily manufacturing country, Denmark is a naturally poor, primarily agricultural country. While our agriculture is wholly devoted to providing food for the people and the cattle of Great Britain, and succeeds in providing only a proportion of the supplies needed, Denmark is farming not only to feed herself, but with a view to sending enough produce abroad to obtain from her foreign customers the wherewithal to buy all the necessities of modern life beyond bread, meat, milk, and cheese. The English, Scots, and Irish farmer's eyes are ordinarily on the corn and hay and straw merchants and the cattle dealers in Vol. 225.-No. 446.

C