When, therefore, the new Prime Minister, Sir Robert Borden, faced the issue, he endeavored to frame a policy which would suit both wings of his following.In 1912 he proposed as an emergency measure to appropriate a sum sufficient to build three dreadnoughts for the British navy, subject to recall if at any time the Canadian people decided to use them as the nucleus of a Canadian fleet.At the same time he undertook to submit to the electorate his permanent naval policy, as soon as it was determined.What that permanent policy would be he was unwilling to say, but the Prime Minister made clear his own leanings by insisting that it would take half a century to form a Canadian navy, which at best would be a poor and weak substitute for the organization the Empire already possessed.The contribution to the British navy satisfied the ultra-imperialists, while the promise of a referendum and the call for money alone, and not men, appealed to the Nationalist wing.Under the impetuous control of its new head, Winston Churchill, the British Admiralty showed that it had repented its brief conversion to the Dominion navy policy, by preparing an elaborate memorandum to support Borden's proposals, and also by formulating plans for imperial flying squadrons to be supplied by the Dominions, which made clear its wish to continue the centralizing policy permanently.
The Liberal Opposition vigorously denounced the whole dreadnought programme, advocating instead two Canadian fleet units somewhat larger than at first contemplated.Their obstruction was overcome in the Commons by the introduction of the closure, but the Liberal majority in the Senate, on the motion of Sir George Ross, a former Premier of Ontario, threw out the bill by insisting that it should not be passed before being "submitted to the judgment of the country." This challenge the Government did not accept.
Until the outbreak of the war no further steps were taken either to arrange for contribution or to establish a Canadian navy, though the naval college at Halifax was continued, and the training cruisers were maintained in a half-hearted way.
In the Imperial Conference of 1911, one more attempt was made to set up a central governing authority in London.Sir Joseph Ward, of New Zealand, acting as the mouthpiece of the imperial federationists, urged the establishment, first of an Imperial Council of State and later of an Imperial Parliament.His proposals met no support."It is absolutely impracticable," was Laurier's verdict."Any scheme of representation--no matter what you call it, parliament or council--of the overseas Dominions, must give them so very small a representation that it would be practically of no value," declared Premier Morris of Newfoundland."It is not a practical scheme," Premier Fisher of Australia agreed; "our present system of responsible government has not broken down." "The creation of some body with centralized authority over the whole Empire," Premier Botha of South Africa cogently insisted, "would be a step entirely antagonistic to the policy of Great Britain which has been so successful in the past....It is the policy of decentralization which has made the Empire--the power granted to its various peoples to govern themselves." Even Premier Asquith of the United Kingdom declared the proposals "fatal to the very fundamental conditions on which our empire has been built up and carried on."Stronger than any logic was the presence of Louis Botha in the conferences of 1907 and 1911.On the former occasion it was only five years since he had been in arms against Great Britain.The courage and vision of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in granting full and immediate self-government to the conquered Boer republics had been justified by the results.Once more freedom proved the only enduring basis of empire.Botha's task in attempting to make Boer and Briton work together, first in the Transvaal, and, after 1910, in the Union of South Africa, had not been an easy one.Attacked by extremists from both directions, he faced much the same difficulties as Laurier, and he found in Laurier's friendship, counsel, and example much that stood him in good stead in the days of stress to come.
Not less important than the relations with the United Kingdom in this period were the relations with the United States.The Venezuela episode was the turning point in the relations between the United States and the British Empire.Both in Washington and in London men had been astounded to find themselves on the verge of war.The danger passed, but the shock awoke thousands to a realization of all that the two peoples had in common and to the need of concerted effort to remove the sources of friction.Then hard on the heels of this episode followed the Spanish-American War.* Not the least of its by-products was a remarkable improvement in the relations of the English-speaking nations.The course of the war, the intrigues of European courts to secure intervention on behalf of Spain, and the lining up of a British squadron beside Dewey in Manila Bay when a German Admiral blustered, revealed Great Britain as the one trustworthy friend the United States possessed abroad.The annexation of the Philippines and the definite entry of the United States upon world politics broke down the irresponsible isolation which British ministers had found so much of a barrier to diplomatic accommodations.With John Hay and later Elihu Root at the State Department, and Lansdowne and Grey at the Foreign Office in London, there began an era of good feeling between the two countries.
* See "The Path of Empire".
Ottawa and Washington were somewhat slower in coming to terms.
