consideration to which I have already alluded: How are we to find a successor to His Royal Highness in 1917?" I heartily concur in Mr. Hamilton's remark that "Our constitutional development is reaching" (I should say has reached) "a stage which seems ripe for an advance." I agree that it is impossible to answer affirmatively the question. "And will Canada be carrying on the series of governors-general selected from the peerage when she has twenty, forty, sixty, millions of people?” I agree with Mr. Hamilton's historical review. I agree (with a qualification hereafter referred to) that "Once we get a royal prince as governor-general it will go against the grain to replace him by a person of lower rank”—from England. I agree that King George should remain our King, and that he should be specifically the King of Canada." I agree that the king "should nominate the governor-general or prince of Canada", and I agree that “It would delight us if something made it plain that he is chosen by the king as distinct from his ministry of the United Kingdom." I agree that Canada should be proclaimed a kingdom; and that King George should be crowned with a Canadian crown, King of Canada. I agree with all this because it appears to me to be so fitting, so laudable, so necessary, and so inevitable. But I am doubtful about Mr. Hamilton's solution. It is, indeed, most appropriate that the ascending scale in social importance of Canada's governors should come to climax, as Canada approaches nationhood, in a prince of the royal blood, but the next step is not, as I think, one from sixyear office to a life term, but one which will present still further acknowledgment of our admitted equality of political status, namely, the appointment of one of our own people as Viceroy of Canada. There is no office in Canada from which Canadians ought to be excluded (a). "How are we to find a successor to his Royal Highness in 1917?" I TAKE THE LIBERTY OF PROPOSING SIR WILFRID LAURIER. (a) Sir Francis Hincks became Governor of Barbadoes and afterwards of British Guiana. 6. LORD MILNER: Lord Milner may very properly be regarded as the leader of the British imperialists. A somewhat lengthy quotation from him upon pages 12 and 13 of Kingdom Paper No. 1 warrants his inclusion among those imperialists who make use of the "language of nationalism". The quotation commenced as follows: "The word 'empire' has in some respects an unfortunate effect. It, no doubt, fairly describes the position as between the United Kingdom and subject countries such as India or our Central Africa possessions. But for the relations existing between the United Kingdom and the self-governing colonies it is a misnomer and with the idea of ascendancy, of domination inevitably associated with it, a very unfortunate misnomer." Quotations from other imperialists could be added, but probably sufficient have been supplied to prove that I was not speaking recklessly when I said: "That the great majority of those who still regard themselves as staunch imperialists, not only contentedly accept the advances which from time to time are made, but that they themselves are learning to use the language of nationalism " JOHN S. EWART. November, 1911. (a) The British Standard of Empire whose raison d'être is imperialism, copied the Star's paragraph (13 October, 1911). THE KINGDOM PAPERS, No. 6. A CANADIAN NAVY These papers (including the back numbers) will be sent, free of charge, to all applicants. JOHN S. EWART, THE KINGDOM PAPERS, No. 6. A CANADIAN NAVY. (In order to draw attention to the purpose for which quotations are employed, ON N two questions Canada appears not to have arrived at very certain conclusions: Does she want a navy of any sort? And, if so, what sort of a navy ought it to be? Indecision must be attributed to two main causes: First, the indefinite character of our political relationship with the United Kingdom; and secondly, unfamiliarity with the history of the subject. In the present Paper, I shall endeavor to supply material for the formation of judgment, rather than to advocate the adoption of my own views. Our Obligations. In previous Papers I have endeavored to define the nature of the relationship which exists between Canada and the United Kingdom, but I am not sure that I have been able to do more than make clear the peculiar anomalies of its character. Nominally, legally, and, very largely, internationally, Canada is still part of the British Empire is still one of those countries governed legislatively by the British parliament, and, administratively, by the Colonial Office. As a matter of fact, Canada is almost completely an independent state; and everyone agrees that domination from London is, for the future, as impossible as from St. Petersburg. Every step from colony to kingdom has been contested—our right to legislate as we pleased; our right to administer our affairs as we pleased; our right to negotiate our trade and boundary treaties as we pleased. But all these contests belong to history. Nothing of them remains. With respect to all of them we are really, although not yet nominally, in the position of an independent state. The contradiction between the real and the merely legal has led, quite naturally, to opposite opinion as to the position of Canada |