hieved. After
fifteen years of contribution not a single Australian had been trained
as a sailor. At last, opinion in the Commonwealth took decided shape
and demanded immediate national action--demanded the creation of a
Royal Australian Navy.

{300}

Heretofore Canada had blazed the trail that led from colonialism to
nationhood. Now Australia took the lead. The reasons were clear.
Canada's chief neighbour was the United States--on the whole, not a
militarist country--and there was little fear of military aggression.
But commercial intercourse with this neighbour, along a frontier of
three thousand miles, was close and constant, making it necessary for
Canada to take into her own hands the control of commercial relations.
Australia had no such overshadowing commercial relations with any
power, but had neighbours in the Pacific--the colonies of aggressive
European states, first France and later Germany, and the teeming and
awakening powers of Asia--which gave urgency to the question of
defence. A Commonwealth which ruled a dependency of its own, in Papua,
and shared dominion of the world's second greatest island with imperial
Germany (nowhere except in this anomalous, precedent-defying British
Empire could any one have dreamt of 'the colony of a colony'), could
not long remain indifferent to naval defence. For twenty years
discussion of the issue had gone on in Australia, clarifying and
precipitating opinion. It was no wonder that Canada, which tried to
{301} concentrate the same discussion into four or five years, years of
great economic pressure, proved more confused in opinion and less
unanimous in action.

At the Conference of 1907 the Admiralty modified its former policy and
suggested that instead of a money contribution any Dominion might
'provide for local service in the imperial squadrons the smaller
vessels that are useful for defence against possible raids or for
co-operation with a squadron.' The prime minister of Australia, Mr
Deakin, welcomed the proposal as a step forward, but on his return to
Australia it was still found impossible to reconcile the national
aspirations of the Commonwealth and the desire of the Admiralty to
control all ships, however provided, and no definite action followed.
Canada for the present remained content, having extended the fishery
service and garrisoned with her own troops Halifax and Esquimalt. Both
parties in Canada agreed in giving no attention to the question.