mped camel for the first
time. "Hell," said Ottawa, "they ain't no such animal!" Now it calls
Sir Thomas White 'great'--and even Sir Thomas admits it!"

Vol. I., No. 1 of The Onlooker, had this to say on the other side of
the ledger:

"One would gather from the way some of his admirers talk that he, and
he alone, was responsible for the success of the various loans issued
during the war. He had it easy. The country was literally bursting
with money seeking investment. One could almost have raised it with
his eyes shut. The whole community was humming with activity like a
top asleep; and still the orders from abroad came pouring in. Every
fresh loan stimulated activity anew. All that was required was to
issue the prospectus, pass the solicitation of funds to interested
canvassers, newspapers, publications, loan companies, banks, brokers,
and hurrah at the end."

Some things do look easy to the man who is not doing them. Common
sense admits that the man who patriotically juggled the billions from
pocket to exchequer and back to pocket again would have had a much
harder task to undertake what somebody called "the Gethsemane" of
paying the nation's bills when the "hurrah" was over. The method of
financing Canada in the war may be vastly different from the method
necessary in peace. But when money must be had quickly in vast
quantities there is no time to debate on just how you are going to get
it. Sir Thomas White's raid upon the pockets of Canada was a financial
spectacle not to be judged by standards of thrift, for the very good
reason that the people were nauseated with thrift talk, were looking
for something easy, and White had the instinct to know that the easier
and the more spectacular he could make a Victory Loan the better for
the war. He rowed with the current and knew he was doing it. In his
own financial brain, which is not unthrifty, he knew that the "hurrah"
was not healthy in the long run and that it could not last forever.
But once it was started there was no other way but to keep it up.

Thanks to Sir Thomas, every citizen had an opportunity to get himself
rubber-stamped on behalf of the nation; which on general principles was
a good thing, because a large number of people at that time indulged
the fiction that as the Government was paying its debts, a good way to
do it would be to print more paper money. It was the Finance
Minister's opportunity to instruct us, that the Government wa