At bottom Canada needs for her political and commercial welfare disentanglement from European complications just as much as does the United States; and the diplomacy, official and unofficial, of the United States, should seek to convince Canada of the truth of this statement.  Neither need a policy which looked in that direction necessarily incur the enmity of Great Britain.  In view of the increasing cost of her responsibilities in Europe and in Asia, England has a great deal to gain by concentration and by a partial retirement from the American continent, so far as such a retirement could be effected without being recreant to her responsibilities towards Canada.  The need of such retirement has already been indicated by the diminution of her fleet in American waters; and if her expenses and difficulties in Europe and Asia increase, she might be glad to reach some arrangement with Canada and the United States which would recognize a dominant Canadian interest in freedom from exclusively European political vicissitudes.

Such an arrangement is very remote; but it looks as if under certain probable future conditions, a treaty along the following lines might be acceptable to Great Britain, Canada, and the United States.  The American and the English governments would jointly guarantee the independence of Canada.  Canada, on her part, would enter into an alliance with the United States, looking towards the preservation of peace on the American continents and the establishment of an American international political system.  Canada and the United States in their turn would agree to lend the support of their naval forces to Great Britain in the event of a general European war, but solely for the purpose of protecting the cargoes of grain and other food which might be needed by Great Britain.  Surely the advantages of such an arrangement would be substantial and well-distributed.  Canada would feel secure in her independence, and would be emancipated from irrelevant European complications.  The United States would gain support, which is absolutely essential for the proper pacification of the American continent, and would pay for that support only by an engagement consonant with her interest as a food-exporting power.  Great Britain would exchange a costly responsibility for an assurance of food in the one event, which Britons must fear—­viz., a general European war with strong maritime powers on the other side.  Such an arrangement would, of course, be out of the question at present; but it suggests the kind of treaty which might lead Great Britain to consent to the national emancipation of Canada, and which could be effected without endangering Canadian independence.