"No More Canadians For Overseas Service. This Young Dominion Has Sacrificed Enough"

Sault Express, June 23, 1916

The Express in its limited sphere has been advocating peace among the warring nations of Europe, but save in the undercurrent of Canadian sentiment which we know exists in the heart of many of our people there appears to be no desire for a termination of hostilities until the Germanic power in Europe has been utterly destroyed and many of the old world wrongs have been made right. We fear that if Canada is to continue to shed her life blood until that day arrives there will not be many Canadians remaining to celebrate the conquest, and the high purposes for which our forefathers on this continent strove will all have been in vain. And more than that, we have grave fears that if this horrible conflict goes on for another two years we shall not have our United Empire to cheer for. These words are spoken in the fullest consciousness of their meaning. The destruction of the Teutonic race is quite as impossible as the destruction of the Anglo-Saxon race, and the destruction of either would be nothing short of a catastrophe handed down to posterity as an example of our present day higher civilization. What our empire needs right now and what Canada needs right now is PEACE. But we have drifted away from what we started out to say, which was that this Dominion should not send any more of her sons overseas to engage in this frightful cataclysm. The truth is that there has already been too much Canadian bloodletting and the cost of British connection has been away and beyond what our people counted on. We have less than eight millions of population as against three hundred millions in India. If, as we are told, the shedding of blood overseas is the silicon which binds the steel of Empire, then why does England not draw upon her three hundred millions in India as she has drawn upon her seven millions in Canada.

"The Canadian troops made a most gallant stand;" "the soldiers from Canada well upheld the traditions of the race;" "thousands of our brave Canadian soldiers fell with honour," "we can never forget the heroism of those grand Canadians." That kind of salve from London does not bind up the hearts of the thousands of Canadian mothers and sisters whose loved ones sleep in a foreign land after dying for a foreign cause.

 It is about time for Canadians to wake up and realize that they are living in America and not Europe; that old world empires rise and fall; that we are the last great land to the west on this great planet and that the Lord has so ordained; that our neighbors and we are of the same faith, our language is the same and there is a comity of blood existing between us which makes us brothers in the truest human sense. A century of peace exemplifies the silicon in the steel.

 Canada will contribute more to the future greatness of the Anglo-Saxon race by pursuing her own ideals and minding her own business on this side of the Atlantic then by spending "her last son and her last dollar" across the water in a futile effort to adjust the wrongs which most of our ancestors left the old world to escape ...