Mr. McMASTER:

I would imagine that

when a boy is given a gun in his hand and a uniform is put on his back, the idea conveyed is that he is to be trained to kill somebody in a certain eventuality.

Mr. McMASTER:

In so far as the educational authorities ask for cadet training in their schools, I think they are wrong, and I would also say this: I believe that if a vote were taken of all the teachers and all the parents in all the provinces, a very handsome majority would be registered against cadet training. That is my view. We have taken no plebiscite and I may be mistaken, but I think that is the view of the Canadian people.

There is one bright ray in this picture, and it is this, that not only have those who have generally been called pacifists come out strongly in denunciation of war, but it is no longer regarded as the school of hardy virtue. We used to be told when I was a boy that nations required war, that if they did not have war they would become

Supply-Defence

effeminate, that wars were required to build up a strong and virile people. You do not hear that sort of talk to-day except among people who are perfectly crazy. Great generals, like Sir Arthur Currie, General Sir Ian Hamilton, great military leaders like Earl - Haig are just as strong and stern in their denunciation of war, and in their declarations that war never settled anything, and that mankind has to find a better way for settling international disputes. Under these circumstances, is it quite fair to the rising generation to put them in touch with military matters in this way? I think it would be wiser not to do so. After all, as John Bright once said, we are the true ancients-we stand on the shoulders of our forefathers and can see farther, and I think the best of modern thought would be that we might well leave out this expenditure of public money for the purpose for which it is asked this evening.

Mr. McMASTER:

If we are going to keep

the cadets in jerseys, if we are going to uniform them like the Boy Scouts, if we are going to keep guns out of their hands, then I suppose I would ask the genial member for Kingston, when is a cadet not a cadet?

Both parties in this verbal controversy have appealed to the United States. Some people in the United States are thoroughly convinced that the security of mankind is not to be maintained through military preparedness, and I think they represent the majority of that great people. There are others who make the common error of confounding patriotism with militarism, and who are prepared to denounce those who do not like militarism as being unpatriotic. Well, if that is what the pacifist has got to bear-to be called unpatriotic-then I am prepared to be called unpatriotic.

Let me say just two words in closing. Some criticism has been directed to the member for Southeast Grey because of her desire to

see war memorials take a shape different from the shape they take at the present time. There are those who think it wise to raise stone memorials to those who have fallen and to the beloved ones who have passed over. I for my part have no objection to that, but I think there is a better way. If I may be permitted a personal reference, a college society to which I belonged in my ycuth lost two-thirds of its active chapter during the war, and what we did was this: We raised no brass tablet, we raised no stone monument, but we subscribed until we had a fund of upwards of $20,000, and we founded a scholarship at the university to which we belonged.

Mr. McMASTER:

Would the hon. member permit a question? Would he eliminate mothers in order to develop manliness in the race?

Mr. McMASTER:

I think it would carry

the lesson a great deal better because it would show that in better knowledge, with bet'er information, there might be found a way out of the morass which we all wish to avoid. We should try to find the greatest common ground. I do not think there is much that divides us, but what I want to insist upon to the members of this House is that to surround children with a military atmosphere is, I think, a mistake. It has been done in the past, said the minister. Why, everything has been done in the past that we wish to get rid of.