ughes knew that in
actual warfare the Ross was the finest sniper's rifle in the world, but
that in quick action it jammed so badly that often the Canadians
furtively swapped them for Lee-Enfields whenever the chance came.
There was no excuse for the Ross rifle, and Hughes ought to have
admitted it. There never should have been a chance for any detractor
of his to insinuate that the Minister had stock in the Ross Rifle
Company. We had cellulose nitrate and Grant Morden, who has never had
an equal over here for making sudden wealth out of next to nothing and
getting popular credit for doing it. What the ex-Minister of Militia
made out of that promotion was never stated. It never should have been
necessary for him to have made a copper in any such way. On his
retirement from the Cabinet Hughes should have had a big honourable
endowment from the nation sufficient as an income for the rest of his
life. The whole idea of such a character being even good-humouredly
mixed up with any deal not absolutely foursquare is a paradox. The Sam
Hughes that we knew best was as straight as a chalk line.

The exploits of Canada's army never surprised Hughes. He had always
said they could do it. He boasted about the generals he had taken from
desks and offices. But the generals were fighting. There was a cubist
picture in the War Memorials at Ottawa thus described by a Canadian
editor who went over the battlefields which it depicted:

"The canvas shrieking with its high hues was filled with Turcos in
panic flight crowding one another in their terror, while over them
billowed the yellow poison pall of death; but in the midst of the
maelstrom the roaring Canadian guns stood immovable and unyielding,
served by gunners who rose superior alike to the physical terrors of
battle and the moral contagion of fear."

That picture of St. Julien must have thrilled Hughes, whose son was
soon to be Brigadier-General. It was on the crest of the St. Julien
wave that Hughes got his title and was given the freedom of London;
when some delirious writer in a London daily predicted that some day
Sir Sam would ride through London at the head of his victorious troops.
One writer called him the Commander-in-Chief of Canada's Army. None of
these things moved Sam Hughes to humility. As well as any man he knew
how small the greatest man was in the fury of that war.

Other Cabinet Ministers had to wait till the Peace Conference before
getting such