The Men Who Wrought

"And what is the answer to it all?" he enquired. His eyes were serious, and his words came crisply. He had caught something of his boy's gravity although he was not sure how far he accepted his creed. "There must be an answer. Every problem of State possesses its solution, if we can only find it – in time."

Ruxton nodded. Then he rose abruptly from his chair and flung his cigar-end into the empty fireplace with a forceful gesture. He began to pace the room.

"That is the crux of the whole situation," he declared feverishly, his dark eyes burning with an intense light. "In time! In time! If we could only be induced to adopt the true solution 'in time' – before we are forced to adopt it. Oh, yes, there is a solution – a right solution. It is so simple that one wonders it has not long since been discussed by every man in the street. The solution stares us in the face on every hand. It calls aloud to us in appeal, and we turn from it. Every country that can ever hope to last out the days of man must be self-contained, self-supporting. In times of stress it must be capable of existence upon its own natural stores. Look at America's position during the war. She could afford to hold aloof, and continue her reign of prosperity while she snapped her fingers at Armageddon. Why? Because she was independent of the rest of the world both economically and strategically. Let the whole of the rest of the world blaze. Let the slaughter go on. She could stand alone though the conflagration raged a century. No combination of human forces could defeat America without exterminating her peoples. Here are we, with territory, blocks of territory scattered throughout the world so vast as to make America look small in comparison. They are not tracts of savage country, but cultivated and highly civilized States, any one of which can be wholly self-supporting. They are ours – peopled with our people – governed by codes of laws similar to our own – with objects and principles like to our own. And yet we sit here awaiting ultimate destruction, a tiny group of islands upon the crests of the Atlantic waters. It makes one think of the foolish bird, who builds her nest and stocks it full of eggs, and sets it upon the topmost twigs of a tree, waiting for the gathering of the storm which must sweep it out of existence, while the whole protection of the tree's full strength lies open to her. The position is so absurd as to set one laughing in very bitterness. I tell you the day will come when an island home is utterly untenable for any great nation. I am not even sure that the time has not already come. If I had my way our empire would be ruled from the heart of Canada, whose vast tracts of territory are bursting with an unbroached wealth which no country in the world can ever hope to match. There, amidst those fertile plains, I would set up our kingdom, and gather our limitless resources about us. There, in the midst of that new world, I would wield me the sceptre of the greatest Empire of all time, and within its ramparts I would strive unceasingly for the spiritual and mundane welfare of our people and all mankind. No nation in the world was ever more fitted, both in temper and in power, for the task. No peoples would more willingly lend themselves to it. All our history has been one long story of pacific purpose, and only has our regrettable geographical setting forced upon us any other course. My most ardent thought and desire is that some day we may voluntarily remove the obstacles besetting us, and our pacific purpose may be given the full development it seeks. But so long as Britain nests upon the waters of the Atlantic, so long shall we continue to live under the burden of war. And the end? – Who can prophesy the – end?"