e the men Canadian--if not many of
them Canadians--but their uniforms, boots, kits, rifles, horses, tents,
artillery, machine gun batteries, army waggons, cook waggons,
engineering outfits and munitions, were as far as possible produced in
Canada. Troop trains and transport steamers were Canadian. The money
that paid for the army was Canadian. The pay of officers and men was
Canadian. And we know what Hughes was.

But the moment Hughes let go the rope ladder that should have made him
Lord Valcartier, he began to undo his own career.

In a misguided speech afterwards Sam reminded Lord Shaughnessy that to
raise, equip and dispatch the First Contingent from Canada was a
heavier contract than building the C.P.R. The comparison was foolish,
but very human. Shaughnessy had provoked it by announcing to the
Government that he intended to make a speech in condemnation of Hughes'
methods of recruiting.

The author of Canada in Flanders describes exactly what the work of
organizing that Contingent was. A few extracts will do:

"In less than a month the Government, which had asked for 20,000 men,
found almost 40,000 at its disposal. . . General Hughes devised and
ordered the establishment of the largest camp that had ever been seen
on Canadian soil. The site at Valcartier was well chosen. . . ."

"The transformation effected within a fortnight by an army of engineers
and workers was a remarkable triumph of applied science. Roads were
made, drains laid down, a water supply with miles of pipes installed,
electric lighting furnished from Quebec and incinerators built for the
destruction of dry refuse. A sanitary system second to none that any
camp has seen was instituted. Every company had its own bathing place
and shower baths: every cook-house its own supply of water. Troughs of
water for horses filled automatically so that there was neither
shortage nor waste. The standing crops were garnered; trees cut down
and the roots torn up. A line of targets 3 1/2 miles long--the largest
rifle range in the world--was constructed. . . . . Camp and army
leaped to life in the same hour. Within four days of the opening of
the camp nearly 6,000 men had arrived in it. The cloth mills of
Montreal began to hum with the manufacture of khaki, which the needles
of a great army of tailors converted into uniforms, greatcoats and
cloaks. The Ordnance Department equipped the host with the Ross Rifle.
Regiments were shuffled and resh