overwhelming victory of free trade and the Liberal party, aided
as they were by the popular reaction against the jingoist policy
which had culminated in the war. When the fifth Conference, now
termed Imperial instead of Colonial, met in 1907, there was much
impassioned advocacy of preference and protection on the part of
Alfred Deakin of Australia and Sir L.S. Jameson of the Cape; but
the British representatives stuck to their guns and, in Winston
Churchill's phrase, the door remained "banged, barred, and
bolted" against both policies. At this conference Laurier took
the ground that, while Canada would be prepared to bargain
preference for preference, the people of Great Britain must
decide what fiscal system would best serve their own interests. A
consistent advocate of home rule, he was willing, unlike some of
his colleagues, from the other Dominions, to let the United
Kingdom control its own affairs.

The defense issue had slumbered since the Boer War. Now the
unbounded ambitions of Germany gave it startling urgency. It was
about 1908 that the British public first became seriously alarmed
over the danger involved in the lessening margin of superiority
of the British over the German navy. The alarm was echoed
throughout the Dominions. The Kaiser's challenge threatened the
safety not only of the mother country but of every part of the
Empire. Hitherto the Dominions had done little in the way of
naval defense, though they had one by one assumed full
responsibility for their land defense. The feeling had been
growing that they should take a larger share of the common
burden. Two factors, however, had blocked advance in this
direction. The British Government had claimed and exercised full
control of the issues of peace and war, and the Dominions were