pleasant reception you have given to me on my return to Winnipeg, and
for the words in which you proposed my health and have expressed a hope
for the complete recovery of the Princess from the effects of that most
unfortunate accident which took place at Ottawa. I know that the
Canadian people will always remember that it was in sharing the duties
incurred in their service that the Princess received injuries which
have, only temporarily, I trust, so much impaired her health.
(Applause.) Two years hence the journey I have undertaken will be an
easy one for all to accomplish throughout its length, while at present
the facilities of railway and steam accommodation only suffice for half
of it. For a Canadian, personal knowledge of the North-West is
indispensable. To be ignorant of the North-West is to be ignorant of
the greater portion of our country. (Applause.) Hitherto I have
observed that those who have seen it justly look down upon those who
have not, with a kind of pitying contempt which you may sometimes have
observed that they who have got up earlier in the morning than others
and seen some beautiful sunrise, assume towards the friends who have
slept until the sun is high in the heavens. (Laughter.) Our track,
though it led us far, only enabled us to see a very small portion of
your heritage now being made accessible. Had time permitted we should
have explored the immense country which lies along the whole course of
the wonderful Saskatchewan, which, with its two gigantic branches,
opens to steam navigation settlements of rapidly growing importance. As
it was, we but touched the waters of the north and south branches, and
striking southwestwards availed ourselves of the American railway lines
in Montana for our return. It was most interesting to compare the
southern mountains and prairies with our own, and not even the terrible
events which have recently cast so deep a gloom upon our neighbours, as
well as ourselves, could prevent our kinsmen from showing that
hospitality and courtesy which makes a visit to their country so great
a pleasure. (Loud applause.) I am the more glad to bear witness to this
courtesy in the presence of the distinguished consul of the United
States, who is your guest this evening, and who, in this city, so
honourably represents his country--(applause)--in nothing more than in
this, that he has never misrepresented our own. (Loud applause.) Like
almost all his compatriots who occupy by the suffrage of their people
official positions, he has recognised that fact, which is happily
acknowledged by all of standing amongst ourselves, that the interests
of the British Empire and of the United States may be advanced side by
side without jealousy or friction, and that the good of the one is
interwoven with the welfare of the other. (Cheers.) Canada has recently
shown that sympathy with her neighbour's grief which becomes her, and
which has been so marked throughout all portions of our Empire. She has
sorrowed with the sorrow of the great commonwealth, whose chief has
been struck down, in the fulness of his strength, in the height of his
usefulness, in the day of universal recognition of his noble character,
by the dastard hand of the assassin. We have felt in this as though we
ourselves had suffered, for General Garfield's position and personal
worth made his own and his fellow citizens' misfortune a catastrophe
for all English-speaking races. The bulletins telling of his calm and
courageous struggle against cruel and unmerited affliction, have been
read and discussed by us with as strong an admiration for the man, and
with as tender a sentiment for the anxiety and misery of his family, as
they have been awaited and perused in the south. It is fitting and good
that this should be. We have with the Americans, not only a common
descent, but a similar position on this continent, and a like probable
destiny. The community of feeling reaches beyond the fellowship arising
from the personal interest attaching to the dignity of a high office
sustained with honour, and to the reverence for the tender ties of
hearth and home, sacred though these be, for Canadians and Americans
have each a common aim and a common ideal. Though belonging to very
different political schools, and preferring to advance by very
different paths, we both desire to live only in a land of perfect
liberty. (Loud cheers.) When the order which ensures freedom is
desecrated by the cowardly rancour of the murderer, or by the tyranny
of faction, the blow touches more than one life, and strikes over a
wider circle than that where its nearer and immediate consequences are
apparent. The people of the United States have been directed into one
political organisation, and we are cherishing and developing another;
but they will find no men with whom a closer and more living sympathy
with their triumphs or with their trouble abides, than their Canadian
cousins in the Dominion. (Cheers.) Let this be so in the days of unborn
generations, and may we never have again to express our horror at such
a deed of infamy as that which has lately called forth, in so striking
a manner, the proofs of international respect and affection. (Hear,
hear.) To pass to other themes awaking no unhappy recollections, you
will expect me to mention a few of the impressions made upon us by what
we have seen during the last few weeks. Beautiful as are the numberless
lakes and illimitable forests of Keewatin--the land of the north wind,
to the east of you--yet it was pleasant to "get behind the north
wind"--(laughter)--and to reach your open plains. The contrast is great
between the utterly silent and shadowy solitudes of the pine and fir
forests, and the sunlit and breezy ocean of meadowland, voiceful with
the music of birds, which stretches onward from the neighbourhood of
your city. In Keewatin the lumber industry and mining enterprises can
alone be looked for, but here it is impossible to imagine any kind of
work which shall not produce results equal to those attained in any of
the great cities of the world. (Great cheering.) Unknown a few years
ago except for some differences which had arisen amongst its people, we
see Winnipeg now with a population unanimously joined in happy concord,
and rapidly lifting it to the front rank amongst the commercial centres
of the continent. We may look in vain elsewhere for a situation so
favourable and so commanding--many as are the fair regions of which we
can boast. (Loud cheers.) There may be some among you before whose eyes
the whole wonderful panorama of our Provinces has passed--the
ocean-garden island of Prince Edward; the magnificent valleys of the St.
John and Sussex; the marvellous country, the home of "Evangeline," where
Blomidon looks down on the tides of Fundy, and over tracts of red soil
richer than the weald of Kent. You may have seen the fortified Paradise
of Quebec; and Montreal, whose prosperity and beauty is worthy of her
great St. Lawrence, and you may have admired the well-wrought and
splendid Province of Ontario, and rejoiced at the growth of her capital,
Toronto, and yet nowhere will you find a situation whose natural
advantages promise so great a future as that which seems ensured to
Manitoba and to Winnipeg, the Heart city of our Dominion. (Tremendous
cheering.) The measureless meadows which commence here stretch without
interruption of their good soil westward to your boundary. The Province
is a green sea over which the summer winds pass in waves of rich
grasses and flowers, and on this vast extent it is only as yet here and
there that a yellow patch shows some gigantic wheat field. (Loud
cheering.) Like a great net cast over the whole are the bands and
clumps of poplar wood which are everywhere to be met with, and which,
no doubt, when the prairie fires are more carefully guarded against,
will, wherever they are wanted, still further adorn the landscape.
(Cheers.) The meshes of this wood-netting are never further than twenty
or thirty miles apart Little hay swamps and sparkling lakelets, teeming
with wild fowl, are always close at hand, and if the surface water in
some of these has alkali, excellent water can always be had in others,
and by the simple process of digging for it a short distance beneath
the sod with a spade, the soil being so devoid of stones that it is not
even necessary to use a pick. No wonder that under these circumstances
we hear no croaking. Croakers are very rare animals throughout Canada.
It was remarked with surprise, by an Englishman accustomed to British
grumbling, that even the frogs sing instead of croaking in Canada--
(great cheering)--and the few letters that have appeared speaking of
disappointment will be amongst the rarest autographs which the next
generation will cherish in their museums. But with even the best troops
of the best army in the world you will find a few malingerers--a few
skulkers. However well an action has been fought, you will hear
officers who have been engaged say that there were some men whose idea
seemed to be that it was easier to conduct themselves as became them at
the rear, rather than in the front. (Laughter and applause.) So there
have been a few lonely and lazy voices raised in the stranger press
dwelling upon your difficulties and ignoring your triumphs. These have
appeared from the pens of men who have failed in their own countries
and have failed here, who are born failures, and will fail, till life
fails them. (Laughter and applause.) They are like the soldiers who run
away from the best armies seeking to spread discomfiture, which exists
only in those things they call their minds--(laughter)--and who
returning to the cities say their comrades are defeated, or if they are
not beaten, they should in their opinion be so. We have found, as we
expected, that their tales are not worthy the credence even of the
timid. (Applause.) There was not one person who had manfully faced the
first difficulties--always far less than those to be encountered in
the older Provinces--but said that he was getting on well and he was
glad he had come, and he generally added that he believed his bit of
the country must be the best, and that he only wished his friends could
have the same good fortune, for his expectations were more than
realised. (Cheers and laughter.) It is well to remember that the men
who will succeed here, as in every young community, are usually the
able-bodied, and that their entry on their new field of labour should
be when the year is young. Men advanced in life and coming from the old
country will find their comfort best consulted by the ready provided
accommodation to be obtained by the purchase of a farm in the old
Provinces. All that the settler in Manitoba would seem to require is,
that he should look out for a locality where there is either good
natural drainage, and ninety-nine hundredths of the country has this,
and that he should be able readily to procure in Winnipeg, or elsewhere,
some light pumps like those used in Abyssinia for the easy supply of
water from a depth of a few feet below the surface. Alkali in the water
will never hurt his cattle, and dykes of turf and the planting of trees
would everywhere insure him and them the shelter that may be required.
Five hundred dollars should be his own to spend on his arrival, if he
wishes to farm. If he comes as an artisan he may, like the happy masons
now to be found in Winnipeg, get the wages of a British Army Colonel,
[1] by putting up houses as fast as brick, wood, and mortar can be
got together. Favourable testimony as to the climate was everywhere
given. The heavy night dews throughout the North-West keep the country
green when everything is burned to the south, and the steady winter
cold, although it sounds formidable when registered by the thermometer,
is universally said to be far less trying than the cold to be
encountered at the old English Puritan city of Boston, in Massachussets.
It is the moisture in the atmosphere which makes cold tell, and the
Englishman who, with the thermometer at zero, would, in his moist
atmosphere, be shivering, would here find one flannel shirt sufficient
clothing while working. I never like to make comparisons, and am always
unwillingly driven to do so, although it seems to be the natural
vice of the well-travelled Englishman. Over and over again in Canada
have I been asked if such and such a bay was not wonderfully like
the Bay of Naples, for the inhabitants had often been told so. I
always professed to be unable to see the resemblance, of course entirely
out of deference to the susceptibilities of the Italian nation. So
one of our party, a Scotsman, whenever in the Rocky Mountains he
saw some grand pyramid or gigantic rock, ten or eleven thousand feet
in height, would exclaim that the one was the very image of Arthur's
Seat and the other of Edinburgh Castle. With the fear of Ontario
before my eyes I would therefore never venture to compare a
winter here to those of our greatest Province, but I am bound to
mention that when a friend of mine put the question to a party of
sixteen Ontario men who had settled in the western portion of Manitoba,
as to the comparative merits of the cold season in the two Provinces--
fourteen of them voted for the Manitoba climate, and only two elderly
men said that they preferred that of Toronto. You will therefore see
how that which is sometimes called a very unequal criterion of right
and justice, a large majority, determines this question. Now although
we are at present in Manitoba, and Manitoba interests may dominate our
thoughts, yet you may not object to listen for a few moments to our
experience of the country which lies further to the west. To the
present company the assertion may be a bold one, but they will be
sufficiently tolerant to allow me to make it, if it goes no further,
and I therefore say that we may seek for the main chance elsewhere than
in Main street. The future fortunes of this country beyond this
Province bear directly upon its prosperity. Although you may not be
able to dig for four feet through the same character of black loam that
you have here when you get to the country beyond Fort Ellice, yet in
its main features it is the same right up to the forks of the
Saskatchewan. I deeply regret that I was not able to visit Edmonton,
which bids fair to rival any place in the North-West. Settlement is
rapidly increasing there, and I met at Battleford one man who alone had
commissions from ten Ontario farmers to buy for them at that place.
Nothing can exceed the fertility and excellence of the land along
almost the whole course of that great river, and to the north of it in
the wide strip belting its banks and extending up to the Peace River,
there will be room for a great population whose opportunities for
profitable cultivation of the soil will be most enviable. The netting
of wood of which I have spoken as covering all the prairie between
Winnipeg and Battleford, is beyond that point drawn up upon the shores
of the prairie sea, and lies in masses of fine forest in the gigantic
half circle formed by the Saskatchewan and the Rockies. It is only in
secluded valleys, on the banks of large lakes, and in river bottoms,
that much wood is found in the Far West, probably owing to the
prevalence of fires. These are easily preventible, and there is no
reason why plantations should not flourish there in good situations as
well as elsewhere. Before I leave the Saskatchewan, let me advert to
the ease with which the steam navigation of that river can be vastly
improved. At present there is only one boat at all worthy of the name
of a river steamer upon it, and this steamer lies up during the night.
A new company is, I am informed, now being organised, and there is no
reason why, if the new vessels are properly equipped and furnished with
electric lights, which may now be cheaply provided, they should not
keep up a night and day service, so that the settlers at Prince Albert,
Edmonton, and elsewhere, may not have, during another season, to suffer
great privations incident to the wants of transportation which has
loaded the banks of Grand Rapids during the present year with freight,
awaiting steam transport The great cretaceous coal seams at the
headwaters of the rivers which rise in the Rocky Mountains or in their
neighbourhood and flow towards your doors, should not be forgotten.
Although you have some coal in districts nearer to you, we should
remember that on the headwaters of these streams there is plenty of the
most excellent kind which can be floated down to you before you have a
complete railway system. Want of time as well as a wish to see the less
vaunted parts of the country took me southwestward from Battleford,
over land which in many of the maps is variously marked as consisting
of arid plains or as a continuation of the "American Desert." The newer
maps, especially those containing the explorations of Professor Macoun,
have corrected this wholly erroneous idea. For two days' march--that is
to say, for about 60 or 70 miles south of Battleford--we passed over
land whose excellence could not be surpassed for agricultural purposes.
Thence to the neighbourhood of the Red Deer Valley the soil is lighter,
but still in my opinion in most places good for grain--in any case most
admirable for summer pasturage,--and it will certainly be good also for
stock in winter as soon as it shall pay to have some hay stored in the
valleys. The whole of it has been the favourite feeding ground of the
buffalo. Their tracks from watering place to watering place, never too
far apart from each other, were everywhere to be seen, while in very
many tracks their dung lay so thickly that the appearance of the ground
was only comparable to that of an English farmyard. Let us hope that
the _entre-acte_ will not be long before the disappearance of the
buffalo on these scenes is followed by the appearance of domestic herds.
The Red Deer Valley is especially remarkable as traversing a country
where, according to the testimony of Indian chiefs travelling with us,
snow never lies for more than three months, and the heavy growth of
poplar in the bottoms, the quantity of the "bull" or high cranberry
bushes, and the rich branches that hung from the choke-cherries showed
us that we had come into that part of the Dominion which among the
plainsmen is designated as "God's country." From this, onward to the
Bow River and thence to the frontier line, the trail led through what
will be one of the most valued of our Provinces, subject to those warm
winds called the "chinooks." The settler will hardly ever use anything
but wheeled vehicles during winter, and throughout a great portion of
the land early sowing--or fall sowing-will be all that will be
necessary to ensure him against early frosts. At Calgarry--a place
interesting at the present time as likely to be upon that Pacific
Railway line [2] which will connect you with the Pacific, and
give you access to "that vast shore beyond the furthest sea," the shore
of Asia--a good many small herds of cattle have been introduced within
the last few years. During this year a magnificent herd of between six
and seven thousand has been brought in, and the men who attended them
and who came from Montana, Oregon and Texas, all averred that their
opinion of their new ranche was higher than that of any with which they
had been acquainted in the south. Excellent crops have been raised by
men who had sown not only in the river bottoms, but also upon the
so-called "bench" lands or plateaux above. This testimony was also given
by others on the way to Fort Macleod and beyond it, thus closing most
satisfactorily the song of praise we had heard from practical men
throughout our whole journey of 1200 miles. Let me advert for one
moment to some of the causes which have enabled settlers to enjoy in
such peace the fruits of their industry. Chief amongst these must be
reckoned the policy of kindness and justice which was inaugurated by
the Hudson's Bay Company in their treatment of the Indians. Theirs is
one of the cases in which a trader's association has upheld the maxim
that "honesty is the best policy," even when you are dealing with
savages. The wisdom and righteousness of their dealing on enlightened
principles, which are fully followed out by their servants to-day, gave
the cue to the Canadian Government. The Dominion through her Indian
officers and her mounted constabulary is showing herself the
inheritress of these traditions. She has been fortunate in organising
the Mounted Police Force, a corps of whose services it would be
impossible to speak too highly. A mere handful in that vast wilderness,
they have at all times shown themselves ready to go anywhere and do
anything. They have often had to act on occasions demanding the
combined individual pluck and prudence rarely to be found amongst any
soldiery, and there has not been a single occasion on which any member
of the force has lost his temper under trying circumstances, or has not
fulfilled his mission as a guardian of the peace. Severe journeys in
winter and difficult arrests have had to be effected in the centre of
savage tribes, and not once has the moral prestige which was in reality
their only weapon, been found insufficient to cope with difficulties
which, in America, have often baffled the efforts of whole columns of
armed men. I am glad of this opportunity to name these men as well
worthy of Canada's regard-as sons who have well maintained her name and
fame. And now that you have had the patience to listen to me, and we
have crossed the continent together, let me advise you as soon as
possible to get up a branch Club-house, situated amongst our Rocky
Mountains, where, during summer, your members may form themselves into
an Alpine club and thoroughly enjoy the beautiful peaks and passes of
our Alps. In the railway you will have a beautiful approach to the
Pacific, The line, after traversing for days the plains, will come upon
the rivers whose sheltering valleys have all much the same character.
The river-beds are like great moats in a modern fortress-you do not see
them till close upon them. As in the glacis and rampart of a fortress,
the shot can search across the smoothed surfaces above the ditch, so
any winds that may arise may sweep across the twin levels above the
river fosses. The streams run coursing along the sunken levels in these
vast ditches, which are sometimes miles in width. Sheltered by the
undulating banks, knolls, or cliffs, which form the margin of their
excavated bounds, are woods, generally of poplar, except in the
northern and western fir fringe. On approaching the mountains their
snow caps look like huge tents encamped along the rolling prairie. Up
to this great camp, of which a length of 200 miles is sometimes visible,
the rivers wind in trenches, looking like the covered ways by which
siege works zig-zag up to a besieged city. On a nearer view the camp
line changes to ruined marble palaces, and through their tremendous
walls and giant woods you will soon be dashing on the train for a
winter basking on the warm Pacific coast. You have a country whose
value it would be insanity to question, and which, to judge from the
emigration taking place from the older Provinces, will be indissolubly
linked with them. It must support a vast population. If we may
calculate from the progress we have already made in comparison with our
neighbours, we shall have no reason to fear comparison with them on the
new areas now open to us. We have now four million four hundred
thousand people, and these, with the exception of the comparatively
small numbers as yet in this Province, are restricted to the old area.
Yet for the last ten years our increase has been over 18 per cent,
whereas during the same period all the New England States taken
together have shown an increase only of 15 per cent. In the last thirty
years in Ohio the increase has been 61 per cent.--Ontario has seen
during that space of time 101 per cent of increase, while Quebec has
increased 52 per cent. Manitoba in ten years has increased 289 per cent,
a greater rate than any hitherto attained, and to judge from this
year's experience is likely to increase to an even more wonderful
degree during the following decade. Statistics are at all times
wearisome, but are not these full of hope? Are they not facts giving
just ground for that pride in our progress which is conspicuous among
our people, and ample reason for our belief that the future may be
allowed to take care of itself. They who pour out prophecies of change,
prescribing medicines for a sound body, are wasting their gifts and
their time. It is among strangers that we hear such theories propounded
by destiny men. With you the word "annexation" has in the last years
only been heard in connection with the annexation of more territory to
Manitoba. I must apologise to a Canadian audience for mentioning the
word at all in any other connection. In America the annexation of this
country is disavowed by all responsible leaders. As it was well
expressed to me lately, the best men in the States desire only to annex
the friendship and good will of Canada. (Loud cheers.) To be sure it
may be otherwise with the camp followers; they often talk as if the
swallowing and digestion of Canada by them were only a question of time,
and of rising reason amongst us. How far the power of the camp
followers extends it is not for us to determine. They have, however,
shown that they are powerful enough to capture a few English writers,
our modern minor prophets who, in little magazine articles, are fond of
teaching the nations how to behave, whose words preach the superiority
of other countries to their own, and the proximate dismemberment of
that British Empire which has the honour to acknowledge them as
citizens. They have with our American friends of whom I speak at all
events one virtue in common, they are great speculators. In the case of
our southern friends this is not a matter to be deplored by us, for
American speculation has been of direct material benefit to Canada, and
we must regret that our American citizens are not coming over to us so
fast as are the Scotch, the Irish, the Germans, and the Scandinavians.
Morally, also, it is not to be deplored that such speculations are made,
for they show that it is thought that Canadians would form a useful
though an unimportant wing for one of the great parties; and, moreover,
such prophecies clothe with amusement "the dry bones" of discussion.
But it is best always to take men as we find them, and not to believe
that they will be different even if a kindly feeling, first for
ourselves and afterwards for them, should make us desire to change them.
Let us rather judge from the past and from the present than take
flights, unguided by experience, into the imaginary regions of the
future. What do we find has been, and is, the tendency of the peoples
of this continent? Does not history show, and do not modern and
existing tendencies declare, that the lines of cleavage among them lie
along the lines of latitude? Men spread from east to west, and from
east to west the political lines, which mean the lines of diversity,
extend. The central spaces are, and will be yet more, the great centres
of population. Can it be imagined that the vast central hives of men
will allow the eastern or western seaboard people to come between them
with separate empire, and shut them out in any degree from full and
free intercourse with the markets of the world beyond them? Along the
lines of longitude no such tendencies of division exist. The markets of
the North Pole are not as yet productive, and with South America
commerce is comparatively small. The safest conclusion, if conclusions
are to be drawn at all, is that what has hitherto been, will, in the
nature of things, continue,--that whatever separations exist will be
marked by zones of latitude. For other evidence we must search in vain.
Our county councils, the municipal corporations, the local provincial
chambers, the central Dominion Parliament, and last not least, a
perfectly unfettered press, are all free channels for the expression of
the feelings of our citizens. Why is it that in each and all of these
reflectors of the thoughts of men, we see nothing but determination to
keep and develop the precious heritage we have in our own constitution,
so capable of any development which the people may desire. (Cheers.)
Let us hear Canadians if we wish to speak for them. These public bodies
and the public press are the mouthpieces of the people's mind. Let us
not say for them what they never say for themselves. It is no
intentional misrepresentation, I believe, which has produced these
curious examples of the fact that individual prepossessions may distort
public proof. It reminds me of an interpretation once said to have been
given by a bad interpreter of a speech delivered by a savage warrior,
who, in a very dignified and extremely lengthy discourse, expressed the
contentment of his tribe with the order and with the good which had
been introduced amongst them by the law of the white man. His speech
was long enough fully to impress with its meaning and its truth all who
took pains to listen to him, and who could understand his language, but
the interpreter had unfortunately different ideas of his own, and was
displeased with his own individual treatment. When at last he was asked
what the chief and his council had said in their eloquent orations, he
turned round and only exclaimed,--"He dam displeased!" (Great laughter.)
And what did his councillors say? "They dam displeased!" (Roars of
laughter.) No, gentlemen, let each man in public or literary life in
both nations do all that in him lies to cement their friendship, so
essential for their mutual welfare. But this cannot be cemented by the
publication of vain vaticinations. This great part of our great Empire
has a natural and warm feeling for our republican brethren, whose
fathers parted from us a century ago in anger and bloodshed. May this
natural affection never die. It is like the love which is borne by a
younger brother to an elder, so long as the big brother behaves
handsomely and kindly. I may possibly know something of the nature of
such affection, for as the eldest of a round dozen, I have had
experience of the fraternal relation as exhibited by an unusual number
of younger brothers. Never have I known that fraternal tie to fail, but
even its strength has its natural limit, so Canada's affection may be
measured. None of my younger brothers, however fond of me, would
voluntarily ask that his prospects should be altogether overshadowed
and swallowed up by mine. So Canada, if I may express her feelings in
words which our neighbours understand, wishes to be their friend, but
does not desire to become their food. She rejoices in the big brother's
strength and status, but is not anxious to nourish it by offering up
her own body in order that it may afford him, when over-hungry, that
happy festival he is in the habit of calling a "square meal." (Loud
laughter.) I must ask you now once more to allow me, gentlemen, to
express my acknowledgments to you for this entertainment. It affords
another indication of the feelings with which the citizens of Winnipeg
regard any person who has the honour, as the head of the Canadian
Government, to represent the Queen--(cheers)--you recognise in the
Governor-General the sign and symbol of the union which binds together
in one the free and kindred peoples whom God has set over famous isles
and over fertile spaces of mighty continents. I have touched, in
speaking to you, on certain vaticinations and certain advice given by
a few good strangers to Canadians on the subject of the future of
Canada. Gentlemen, I believe that Canadians are well able to take care
themselves of their future, and the outside world had better listen to
them instead of promulgating weak and wild theories of its own. (Loud
applause.) But however uncertain, and I may add, foolish may be such
forecasts, of one thing we may be sure, which is this, that the country
you call Canada, and which your sons and your children's children will
be proud to know by that name, is a land which will be a land of power
among the nations. (Cheers.) Mistress of a zone of territory favourable
for the maintenance of a numerous and homogeneous white population,
Canada must, to judge from the increase in her strength during the past,
and from the many and vast opportunities for the growth of that
strength on her new Provinces in the future, be great and worthy her
position on the earth. Affording the best and safest highway between