CANADIAN CONDITIONS. 23

much, that any suspicion that it was being jeopardised
 would immediately raise a demand for more
independence. They are nearly all resident in
Quebec and the East, and have therefore little
desire to surrender independence for a preference
to Manitoba wheat. If ever cause were given to
Canada to desire to throw off the ties of Empire
the French Canadians would support the movement.
 Their present attitude towards Mr. Chamberlain’s
 scheme, as far as it has been developed,
is to betray a certain amount of distrust of what
may lie behind it. A closer Imperial connection
would mean a more direct concern in European
politics, and with this they always associate the
idea of militarism. It would be easy to place
these Eastern French Canadians in conflict with
the Western farmer.
When Mr. Bourassa warns his audience that
despite the reverses Mr. Chamberlain has sustained
“Imperialism” is not dead, and urges them to resist
that statesman’s designs on Canadian autonomy,
he is not preaching the actual independence of
Canada. An Imperial ideal which will guarantee
freedom and independence to Canada under the
British flag, he supports and extols, but an Imperial
ideal which would place Canada as part of a
closely connected Imperial machine, he resents
and opposes. Imperialism as it was in 1895 he
welcomes, Imperialism as it is defined by Mr.
Chamberlain he repudiates, and if Mr. Chamberlain’s
 views find favour in England, we shall find