and he met them with the contention that Canada must create military
and naval forces for her own defence which would be available for
the wars of the Empire at the discretion of the Canadian parliament.
These views put forward almost tentatively in 1902 ultimately bore
fruit in definite policies of national defence. Thus the answer to
demand for naval contribution, to which policy all the other
Dominions had subscribed, was to declare that Canada should have her
own navy; and this took form, after numerous skirmishes with
admiralty opinion, which was scandalized at the suggestion, in the
Naval Service Bill of 1910.

This course, which was thus urged upon Sir Wilfrid by events, earned
him the displeasure of both the Imperialists and the Little
Canadians. To the former Laurier's policy seemed little short of
treasonable, particularly his insistence that while Canada was at
war when England was at war the extent, if any, of Canada's
participation in such war must be determined solely by the Canadian
parliament. His own countrymen on the other hand viewed with
disquietude these first halting steps along the road of national
preparedness; might it not lead by easy gradations to that "vortex
of militarism" against which Sir Wilfrid had voiced an eloquent
warning? Where there is opinion capable of being exploited against a
government the exploiter soon appears. In Quebec, Monk,
Conservative, and the Nationalist, Bourassa, who entering Parliament
as a follower of Laurier had developed a strong antipathy to him,
were indefatigable in alarming the habitant by interpreting to him
the secret purposes of the naval service bill. It was nothing, they
claimed, but an Imperialistic device by which the Canadian youth
would be dragged from his peaceful fireside to become cannon fodder
in the Empire's wars. Meanwhile in the English provinces, the