measure to appropriate a sum sufficient to build three
dreadnoughts for the British navy, subject to recall if at any
time the Canadian people decided to use them as the nucleus of a
Canadian fleet. At the same time he undertook to submit to the
electorate his permanent naval policy, as soon as it was
determined. What that permanent policy would be he was unwilling
to say, but the Prime Minister made clear his own leanings by
insisting that it would take half a century to form a Canadian
navy, which at best would be a poor and weak substitute for the
organization the Empire already possessed. The contribution to
the British navy satisfied the ultra-imperialists, while the
promise of a referendum and the call for money alone, and not
men, appealed to the Nationalist wing. Under the impetuous
control of its new head, Winston Churchill, the British Admiralty
showed that it had repented its brief conversion to the Dominion
navy policy, by preparing an elaborate memorandum to support
Borden's proposals, and also by formulating plans for imperial
flying squadrons to be supplied by the Dominions, which made
clear its wish to continue the centralizing policy permanently.
The Liberal Opposition vigorously denounced the whole dreadnought
programme, advocating instead two Canadian fleet units somewhat
larger than at first contemplated. Their obstruction was overcome
in the Commons by the introduction of the closure, but the
Liberal majority in the Senate, on the motion of Sir George Ross,
a former Premier of Ontario, threw out the bill by insisting that
it should not be passed before being "submitted to the judgment
of the country." This challenge the Government did not accept.
Until the outbreak of the war no further steps were taken either
to arrange for contribution or to establish a Canadian navy,
though the naval college at Halifax was continued, and the