omfort an enemy by abstention, or by
confining their armaments to self-defense, which might and would be read
as disapproval of Britain's course, if the war were one of magnitude
endangering her. A system more powerfully requiring Great Britain to
take heed that her quarrel be just, lest she be not thrice armed by
approving children, can scarcely be imagined.

On this matter I have had the pleasure and benefit, during the last
twelve years, of talking with Sir Wilfrid Laurier often. In the quoted
Jebb view he agreed closely when I saw him a few days ago. He remarked,
with special regard to this article for THE NEW YORK TIMES, that his
point of insistence at the Imperial Conferences of 1902, 1907, 1911, and
on all proper occasions, has been that local autonomy--that is, complete
self-government for each of the Dominions--is not only consistent with
British unity but necessary thereto as promoting and conserving that
unity.

When Mr. Asquith's denial of the practicability of giving the Dominions
a direct share in control of Great Britain's foreign policy is
considered, the Jebb-Laurier view would appear one to which Sir Robert
Borden, cautious statesman, must be led by recognition that potent
influence on foreign policy cannot but come to Dominions energetically
providing at once for their own defense and for their power to aid Great
Britain all along the line.

As to imperial federation, Sir Wilfrid remarked that he has ever been
openly attracted by that aspiration toward permanent British union, on
which advocacy of the vague project has ever been bottomed. He is, as he
said to me, and as all his long series of political actions have
manifested, British in heart and way of political thinking, as indeed
substantially all his French-Canadian compatriots are. British
liberality, not to say liberalism, has attached them to the British
system as firmly as any community originating from the United Kingdom.
It was a French-Canadian statesman who asserted, some fifty years ago,
when many British-Canadians seemed tending toward union with the United
States, "The last shot fired in Canada for British connection will be
from a French-Canadian." That was before the civil war abolished
slavery.

But, even as the Britishism of Old Country liberals is strongly
tinctured by devotion to ideals which Americans are wont to regard as
theirs--ideals making for settled peace, industry, the uplift of the
"common people," fair room and re