} navigation, naval
armaments on the Great Lakes, canals, drainage, and many more. The
British ambassador who left Washington in 1913 declared officially that
most of his attention had been devoted to Canadian affairs; and most of
these Canadian affairs were connected with the water. Nor was there
anything new in this, or in its implication that Canadian waters brought
Canada into touch with international questions, whether she wished it or
not. The French shore of Newfoundland; the _Alabama_ claims; the San
Juan boundary; the whole purport of the Treaty of Washington in 1871; the
_Trent_ affair of ten years earlier; the Panama Canal tolls of to-day;
the War of 1812; the war which others called the Seven Years' War, but
which contemporary England called the 'Maritime War'; all the invasions
of Canada, all the trade with the Indians, all Spanish, French, Dutch,
British, and American complications--everything, in fact, which helped to
shape Canadian destinies--were inevitably connected with the sea; and,
more often than not, were considered and settled mainly as a part of what
those prescient pioneers of oversea dominion, the great Elizabethan
statesmen, always used to call 'the sea affair.'

{7}

Canada, like other countries, may be looked at from many points of view;
but there is none that does not somehow include her oceans, lakes, or
rivers. Her waterways, of course, are only one factor in her history.
But they are a constant factor, everywhere at work, though sometimes
little recognized, and making their influence felt throughout the length
and breadth of the land. If any one would see what the water really
means to Canada, let him compare her history with Russia's. Russia and
Canada are both northern countries and both continental, with many
similarities in natural resources. But their extremely different forms
of government are not so unlike each other as are their differing
relations with the sea. The unlikeness of the two peoples accounts for a
good deal; but this only emphasizes the maritime character of Canada.
Russia is essentially an empire of the land. Canada is the greatest link
between the oceans which unite the Empire of the Sea.

Take any aspect of sea-power, naval or mercantile, and British interest
in it is at once apparent. Take the mere statistics of tonnage--tonnage
built, tonnage afloat, tonnage armed. The British Navy has over a third
of the world's effective naval tonnage; the Britis