Both sets balance inwardly the chances that sentiments
seemingly irreconcilable and about equally respectable may, after the
war, urge Canadians either to draw politically closer to their
world-scattered kin, or to cut ligaments that might pull them again and
again, time without end, into the immemorial European shambles.
But is the Canadian public excitedly interested in the discussion? Not
at all. Spokesmen and penmen of the two contentious factions are
victimized by their own perfervid imaginations. The electorate, the
masses, are not so swayed. The Canadian people, essentially British no
matter what their origins, are mainly, like all English-speaking
democracies, of straight, primitive, uncomplicated emotions, and of
essentially conservative mind. They "plug" along. The hour and the day
hold their attention. It is given to the necessary private works of the
moment, as to the necessary public conduct of the time.
They did not, as a public, spin themselves any reasons or excuses for
their hearty approval of Canada's engagement in the war. Her or their
contributions of men and money to its fields of slaughter and waste
appeared and appear to them natural, proper, inevitable.
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