campaign; but their courage, initiative, and endurance were
tested and proved beyond all question. Paardeberg sent a thrill
of pride and of sorrow through Canada.

The only province which stood aloof from wholehearted
participation in the war was Quebec. Many French Canadians had
been growing nervous over the persistent campaign of the
imperialists. They exhibited a certain unwillingness to take on
responsibilities, perhaps a survival of the dependence which
colonialism had bred, a dawning aspiration toward an independent
place in the world's work, and a disposition to draw tighter
racial and religious lines in order to offset the emphasis which
imperialists placed on Anglo-Saxon ties. Now their sympathies
went out to a people, like themselves an alien minority brought
under British rule, and in this attitude they were strengthened
by the almost unanimous verdict of the neutral world against
British policy. Laurier tried to steer a middle course, but the
attacks of ultra-imperialists in Ontario and of
ultra-nationalists in Quebec, led henceforward by a brilliant and
eloquent grandson of Papineau, Henri Bourassa, hampered him at
every turn. The South African War gave a new unity to
English-speaking Canada, but it widened the gap between the
French and English sections.

The part which Australia and New Zealand, like Canada, had taken
in the war gave new urgency to the question of imperial
relations. English imperialists were convinced that the time was
ripe for a great advance toward centralization, and they were
eager to crystallize in permanent institutions the imperial
sentiment called forth by the war. When, therefore, the fourth