Before La Perouse reduced Churchill it was regarded as a second Gibraltar.  Yet Churchill and Nelson and Quebec and Louisburg all fell before a foreign foe, and Europe is nearer to-day than she was in those eras of terrible defeat.  What additional fortifications or defenses has Canada to be so cocksure that history can never repeat itself?  She is not resting under the Monroe Doctrine.  It is a safe wager that many Canadians have never heard of the Monroe Doctrine.  Besides, the minute Canada voluntarily enters a European war, does she forfeit American “protection” under that Monroe Doctrine?  The idea of being “protected” by any power but her own—­and Britain’s—­right arm Canada would scout to derision.  Yet what are her own national defenses?

Her regular forces ordinarily consist of less than three thousand men; her volunteer forces of forty-five to sixty thousand.  By law it is provided that the Dominion militia consist of all male inhabitants of the age of eighteen and under sixty, divided into four classes:  from eighteen to thirty years of age unmarried or widowers; from thirty to forty-five unmarried or widowers; from eighteen to forty-five married or widowers; men of all classes between forty-five and sixty.  In emergency, those liable to service would be called in this order.  The period of service is three years.  Up to the present service has been voluntary, and the period of drill lasts sixteen days.  Except for fishing patrols and insignificant cruisers, Canada has no marine force, absolutely none, though she can requisition the big merchant liners which she subsidizes.  Canada has an excellent military school in Kingston and a course of instruction at Quebec, but the majority of graduates from these centers go into service in the British army simply because there is no scope for them in their own land.  At Esquimalt off Victoria, British Columbia, and at Halifax, Nova Scotia, before the outbreak of the present war, were Imperial naval stations; but these were being reduced to a minimum.  Perhaps to these defenders should be added some thirty thousand juvenile cadets trained in the public schools, but if one is to set down facts not fictions, much of the training of the volunteers resolves itself into a yearly picnic.  One wonders on what Canada is pinning her faith in security from attack in case disaster should come to the British navy.  Whether Canada is conscious of it or not, her greatest defense is in the virility of her manhood.  Her men are neither professorial nor an office type.  They are big outdoor men who shoot well because they have shot from boyhood and lived a life in the open.  All this, however, is not national defense.  It is unused but splendid material for national defense.