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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
It is an old and well-worn charge, now re-enforced by the emergence of the totalitarian state, that democratic governments are essentially inefficient. They are especially alleged to be slow in decision, cumbersome in movement, uncertain and unduly deliberate in execution, these faults tending to become much more pronounced when the increased stresses of war make effective action imperative. But the validity of so sweeping a criticism may easily be questioned, although it is, up to a point, undoubtedly justified. For once that point is passed and a democracy is fully seized of the seriousness of the emergency, it may develop reserves of power which have been hitherto unsuspected, and display a political resourcefulness which will enable it to mould and adapt its institutions to the novel demands made upon them. Such, at least, was the experience during the last world war, and such seems to be the trend of events during the present war also. From this point of view, a survey of the Canadian effort during the past eighteen months discloses something more than the struggle of the Dominion to win the war. It also furnishes an interesting illustration of both the flexibility of democratic government and the nature of the devices which a democracy may utilize without entirely sacrificing the ideas of responsibility and popular control.
In the early months of the present war the Dominion of Canada moved, in the language of the English Chancery, “with all deliberate speed.” The original idea, generally held and frequently expressed, was that the war could be fought in rather leisurely fashion, that Canada could participate and at the same time limit the extent of her efforts. This seems, at least, to have been the hope of most of the people, derived partly from their own inclination, partly from the attitude of their government, and partly also by contagion from the lukewarm Chamberlain administration in Great Britain. Canadian Ministers visited England and British officials came to Canada, and all professed to be quite satisfied with the progress of events, awaiting with some complacency the slow economic starvation of Germany as an inevitable consequence of Allied encirclement. Unhappily Germany had other ideas. The disasters of last spring brought a violent awakening, and were susceptible of but one interpretation: the issue became thenceforth a simple one-win or perish.
The substance of this paper was delivered as a lecture last March at Columbia University and the College of William and Mary. I wish to acknowledge the great help I have received from Professor A. F. W. Plumptre at various stages in its preparation.
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“If at that time you had enforced strict and circumspect financial control and procedure, with every kind of check and counter-check operative both before and after the event, you might indeed have saved several millions—I dare say that is a modest figure—but you would have cramped and paralysed the whole of the organisation, and by so doing would have run grave risk of causing serious military injury which would manifest itself in the loss literally of scores of thousands of lives” ( Churchill, Winston S., British House of Commons Debates, 04 25, 1918, pp. 1156–7).Google Scholar
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