and in the city
of Kitchener where Laurier had politically baptized Mackenzie King, his
successor, there was almost a state of civil war.

But the fervour of the Hughes programme prevented the Premier from
taking stock of the nation. He permitted Hughes to treat Quebec as an
automatic part of Canada at war--which it was not; and he failed to use
even the Machiavellian energies of Bob Rogers in getting a line on the
psychology of the West, supposed to be useful only in elections. Sir
Robert had long known of the menace of Germany, and his Naval Aid Bill
was one proof that he knew. But he did not understand the menace of
disunited Canada. There never was in Ottawa any informing vision of
Canada at war. Canada, in fact, was not at war. Political feuds were
indeed forgotten; thanks to a noble-minded Premier that was natural
enough. But had there been a national poet then big enough to
translate into great verse the true spiritual state of Canada, he would
have written with poignant sadness about Quebec; perhaps a few verses
on the overwhelming British-born majority in the First Contingent. He
would have explained that being a native son of Canada, whether you
were English or French by extraction, did not of itself lead to
enlistment in the ranks. The Premier should have known whether Sam
Hughes was awarding patronage by making officers from the Conservative
party or whether according to his own statement he was doing just the
opposite. In fact it was the Premier's business to see that the
Minister of War pursued neither policy.

But with the Hughes flares all about him it was hard for the Premier to
see the nation; most of all Quebec. In this matter of the two Canadas,
Sam Hughes saw his opportune duty and he did it. Sir Robert saw his
and shrank from it, not weakly but blindly. Quebec should have been
the instant objective of all the wisdom in Canada's Cabinet. Except
for one or two grand battalions and a minority of broad-minded
French-Canadians, Quebec was not at war, as part of united Canada.
Banging the drum and blowing the bugle in Quebec was as wrong in
strategy as to send Bob Rogers down to exorcise, as he did in 1915, the
phantom of conscription. Sir Robert knew that even in civil times his
Government was electorally ignored on the St. Lawrence. How much more
in a time of unpopular war? Was it not clear that every hurrah for the
Empire in Ontario, every fresh battalion mustered and drilled in
Tor