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 THE II 
 
 Colonies and India in London. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS CROSS. 
 
 Late SECRetARy to the Canadian Co 
 
 MMISS.ON AT THE EXHIBSTICN OF THE 
 
 Colonies and India 
 
 READ BEFORE THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY 
 
 OF OTTAWA. 5th April. 1887. 
 
 Hon. Sir <l.„.„.s T,,,,,...., «.t.M.«;., „. „.,, , „„„, 
 
 WOODBURN, PRINTER, OTTAWA 
 
( 
 
THE COLONIES AND INDIA IN LONDON. 
 
 BY THOMAS CROSS, 
 
 Late Serretary to the Canadian Commissi'^' at the Exhibition of the 
 
 Colonies and Jna^u, 
 
 Read before the Literary and Scientific Society of Ottawa, 
 
 5TH April, 1887. 
 
 Hon. Sir Charles Tapper, G. C. M. G., in the chair. 
 
 Mr, Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 Long betore the year 1886 it had been felt by thoughtful minds, 
 both in Great Britain and throughout her vast and scattered dependencies, 
 that if the Empire were ever to do justice to itself, something should be 
 done to remove the ignorance prevailing in every constituent part of it 
 concerning every other part. This ignorance has all along been mutual, 
 but the mother country being concerned in knowing something about 
 every individual dependency, her ignorance has been most reprehensible 
 and the most disastrous. It seems, too, to have been actually cher- 
 ished, and with a strange and scornful fatuity ; and it has been alike the 
 cause of those cruel and wanton slights which have so often wounded 
 Colonial sensibilities and affections, and of those terrible diplomatic 
 blunders by which, on this continent, empires have been lightly flung; 
 away into the hands of our astute and grasping reighbors. It has- 
 existed all along, too, in quarters where duty should forbid it. VValpole 
 tells us that when General Ligonier suggested to the Duke of Newcastle 
 that Annapolis should be defended, the Duke lisped out ; — "Annapolis,, 
 Annapolis. Oh, yes, Annapolis must be defended. To be sure, Anna- 
 polis should be defended. Where is Annapolis ?" Smollett tells us 
 that, in the beginning of the war, the Duke told somebody, in a great 
 fright, that 30,000 French had marched from Acadia into Cape Breton. 
 *' Where did they find transports ?" said his interlocutor. "I tell you 
 they marched by land to Cape Breton — what, is Cape Breton an island ?" 
 
 \ 
 
2 
 
 "Certainly." " Ho, are you sure of that ?" When it was pointed out 
 on the map, he examined it earnestly with his spectacles. Then taking 
 the other in his arms — " My dear C," cried he, " you always bring us 
 good news. Egad, I'll go directly and tell the King that Cape Breton 
 is an island." (See " Montcalm and Wolfe." — Parkman.) 
 
 The slight estimation in which Britain held her North American 
 Colonies, up to the middle of the present century, may be seen in the 
 Treaty of Ghent in 1814, the Ashburton Treaty in 1842, and the Oregon 
 Treaty in 1846. Canadians were justly proud of the events of the war 
 of 181 2. Owing largely to their gallantry, Britain had recovered pos- 
 session of very considerable tracts which had been surrendered to the 
 Americans in 1783. We were then actually masters of territory which 
 would now have shortened our railway from ocean to ocean by about 
 1500 miles. Part of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota were in our 
 hands. The site of Chicago was ours, and all the country north of a 
 line drawn thence to Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi. We also held 
 that part of Massachusetts, now Maine, which, abandoned under the 
 Ashburton Treaty, pierces like a great canine tooth between the Prov- 
 inces of Quebec and New Brunswick. All this England lightly filipped 
 away by the Treaty of Ghent and the Ashburton Treaty, Then followed 
 the Oregon Treaty, by which we surrendered a territory as big as Spain 
 and Portugal, with half of France thrown in. It has been said that the 
 chief consideration which influenced the high contracting parties on the 
 side of England in passing this treaty was the fact that, in the streams of 
 the Pacific slope, the salmon don't take the fly. This may be a libel, 
 but it is the best reason that can be imagined for this most lamentable 
 surrender to impudent bullying. In the words of my late lamented 
 friend. Colonel Cofiin, which I find in a paper read before this Society 
 in 1876, " Canada reminds us of a rabbit or a dog in the hands of an 
 experimental anatomist. Like animals doomed to vivisection for the 
 benefit of science, she has been operated upon unsparingly for the good 
 of the Empire. Diplomatic doctors, in constantly recurring succession, 
 have given her up, and given her over. She has been the victim of an 
 endless exhibition of treaties, applied allopathically, and then, by force 
 of counter irritants, has been treated nigh unto death." Strange it must 
 seem that the great colonizing power of modern times, which has fas- 
 tened its grasp upon nearly every available foot of the earth's surface, 
 fihould not, from the beginning, have administered its Colonial affairs 
 
8 
 
 wisely and well. Strange, too, that it should have foi so very long 
 remained blind to the value of those splendid possessions. So late as 
 1880, an English M.P. wrote an article in the Contemporary Review on 
 the future of Canada. He saw no uses in Colonies save as outlets for 
 surplus population and markets tor English manufactures ; and, said he> 
 the United States serve both these purposes better than all the Colonies 
 put together. It mattered not to him that his countrymen should go to 
 the States, become alien or hostile to the old land, and swear to fight 
 the battles of the Republic against all princes and rulers, especially the 
 Queen of England. He was bhnd, too, to the fact, so loudly proclaimed 
 in London last year, that trade follows the flag. He was a manufacturer, 
 but he took no account of the fact that every man settling in Canada 
 consumes at least five times as much of British manufactures as he 
 would did he settle to the south of the line. Now, so well do France 
 and Germany understand the value of Colonies, that they have for some 
 years been hunting the world over to find where to set their feet. We 
 have seen Germany establish herself at Agra Pequana, a desolate spot 
 on the west coast of Africa, destitute even of water, and supporting little 
 life, animal or vegetable. German writers, too, have lately been telling 
 England that her existence as a first-class power will henceforth depend 
 upon her drawing her Colonies more closely around her. One of them 
 even compares her to a rotten trunk, only kept from falling by the 
 mighty saplings growing up about it. This comparison may be objected 
 to, not only as being odious, but. because it is. in a general way, abso- 
 lutely untrue. So far from being rotten, England is as sound as any 
 country in the world, and sounder than most. The writer who makes 
 the comparison only does so, indeed, in view of^the condition to which 
 slie has been brought by the abuse of her free institutions under the 
 leadership of Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 But whatever misconception may have existed in England as to the 
 value of her Colonies, whatever may have been her indifference toward 
 the communities of her own children growing up all over the world, she 
 was never indifferent to India. The cases of the Colonies and India 
 were, from the first, as utterly different as they could be. The Colonies 
 had cost England little. They had been built up by the energies of 
 her own children, at little trouble to herself. Her wars with France 
 extended to this continent, but were not undertaken for its sake, and 
 in turn her American colonists gave her willing and effectual aid. But 
 
for India she had toiled unceasingly, bled freely, sinned deeply. The 
 Colonies had at first nothing to offer but the vast expanses of virgin soil 
 from which her poorer sons might win first, support, and afterwards 
 wealth, by the slow process of hard work. For ages before the name 
 of England had ever been spoken, the name of India had been insepar- 
 able from the idea of fabulous wealth. The Colonies therefore attracted 
 the industrious, who sought nothing more than fruitful fields where 
 they might reap where they had sown ; or the persecuted, who sought 
 free homes. But India attracted the high-born and the ambitious, the 
 soldier, the adventurer, the capitalist, and became the scene of a per- 
 petual series of stirring and romantic events. The Colonies were the 
 very newest of countries, and had no associations ; India, the very 
 oldest of countries, the probable cradle of the human race, where, once 
 upon a time, the forefathers of the Greek and the Roman, the Hindoo 
 and the Englishman, dwelt together, spoke the same language, 
 worshipped the same Gods. For all these reasot.s, the Colonies 
 enjoyed little of the attention of the governing classes of England, who 
 were powerfully attracted by the mystery and the romance, the adven- 
 ture and the hope, associated with the name of that ancient land so 
 strangely given to her hands. 
 
 The Colonies were thus, to a great extent, the work of the 
 " younger sons of younger brothers " of England ; and the manner in 
 which relations of this degres have been looked upon in the land of 
 primogeniture and entail, may be estimated by the fact that when Sir 
 John Falstaff wanted to describe his ragged regiment in terms expressing 
 the very depth of valuelessness, he called them " discarded unjust , 
 serving men, younger sons of younger brothers, revolted tapsters, ostlers 
 trade-fallen." The " younger sons of younger brothers" betook them- 
 selves of the Colonies, where they grew strong by their struggles and 
 their hardships. As Colonel Barre' said, more than a hundred y ^ars 
 ago, of the Ai».«rican Colonies to the South of us, they grew by the 
 very neglect of the parent s^ate ; and they grew to such purpose that in 
 the^>e days, when England's territorial aristocracy arid her agricultural 
 interest feel the pinch of foreign competition, and when her social pro- 
 blems cry more and more loudly for solution, the Colonies are at length 
 recognized as the natural quarters from which help may be looked for. 
 Accordingly, the Prince of Wales, who occupies an excellent posi- 
 tion foi a comprehensive view of the Empire, and whose broad shoulders 
 
are surmounted by a very practical head, conceived the idea of apply- 
 ing, to the widely-scattered members of the Empire, the means of 
 mutual acquaintance which his father so successfully devised for the 
 nations. This method has never been abandoned, never improved. 
 One by one, and some of them many times, the nations have followed 
 the path pointed out by Prince Albert in 185 1, and have found it to be 
 the only one which could guide them to a knowledge of their mutual 
 needs, and enable them to adjust their mutual commeicial relations from 
 time to time. It is, perhaps, not amiss to remember here the indebted- 
 ness of mankind to this device of the wise and thoughtful German 
 Prince, who filled so admirably a position very trying to a foreigner in 
 England. 
 
 So early as the autumn of 1884, the Prince of Wales addressed 
 letters to the representatives of the Colonies in London, notifying them 
 of his intention to hold the Exhibition ot 1886, and making suggestions 
 which he deemed might be useful for their guidance. Of those I only 
 saw the one to Sir Charles Tupper, which dealt with the subject at great 
 length, and showed much thought. It also displayed a shrewd idea on 
 the Prince's part as the position which Canada would occupy among 
 the Colonies, and expressed the wish that Sir Charles might be appoint- 
 ed Executive Commissioner. I need not recall the alacrity with which 
 the Dominion responded to the invitation of the Prince of Wales, the 
 zeal displayed by the Department of Agriculture and its agents, nor the 
 exertions of the Executive Commissioner in London. Indeed, I cannot 
 dismiss the latter subject with a mere passing notice. No one who has 
 not taken part in exhibition work, can imagine the labor involved in 
 reducing to order a section so vast and varied as the Canadian ; and 
 only those who were associated with Sir Charles Tupper in this work 
 can hiive any idea of the energy, the quick judgment, and the keen 
 watchfulness, with which he went about it. Twice, during the Exhibi- 
 tion, the Canadian exhibitors, collectively, acknowledged those services 
 to which the splendid position taken by the Dominion was so largely 
 owing. 
 
 On the 4th May Her Majesty opened the Exhibition with all the 
 pomp with which the Royalty of England is wont to signalize events of 
 the first importance. The pageant of that day recalled those of 
 Shakespeare's historical plays. I had the good fortune to be placed, in 
 the middle of the central gallery, in a kind of porch of polished planks 
 
6 
 
 of Douglas pine, from British Columbia, through which the august 
 procession passed on entering the Canadian Court, so I watched it all 
 within six feet. I cared little for pursuivants or heralds, Rouge Dragon, 
 IJluemantle, Rouge Croix or Portcullis, for the HeraJds of Chester, 
 Windsor, I^ncastcr, York, Somerset, or Richmond, nor yet for Garter 
 King of Arms, Lord Steward, Lord Chamberlain, nor even for the 
 Acting Mistress of the Robes and the women of the Bedchamber. I 
 was awaiting the coming of the plainly dressed lady, the central figure 
 of all that splendor, the central figure of so many lands. As she 
 approached, bowing right and left to her cheering people, I thought I 
 had never seen eyes so blue, nor a face so sorrowful. It might have been 
 thought that on that day of all others, surrounded by the proofs of her 
 country's achievements in every clime, there might have been something 
 in her bearing of the consciousness of power. She had just ji.issed 
 through a scene which might well have flattered a Xerxes or an Alex- 
 ander. On her way through the Central Avenue, she had passed 
 between two gates representing lands far apart ; on her right the 
 Gwalior Gate, the gift of the young Maharajah Scindia, of Gwalior, a 
 lofty work in stone, a marvel of eastern art ; on her left, a reproduction 
 of ancient Bishopsgate with its grim portcullis and frowning towers. 
 Before the Indian gate stood a long line of dark and turbaned forms ; 
 before the old English gate, a line of the soldiers of England ; and as 
 the Queen passed thus between East and West, East and West saluted 
 her, each in its own fashion. But her thoughts were probably of the 
 day, thirty-five years before, when she had opened the first exhibition, 
 with her husband by her side. The one woman who, of all woman in 
 the world is surrounded by everything that can wean a woman from 
 home life, turns to home life whenever she feels herself at liberty to 
 follow her inclinations. I have been told by gentlemen in office that 
 the Queen works hard ; that her long experience, unbroken by party 
 changes, is very useful to her ministers ; that documents submitted to 
 her are often returned with long notes in her own handwriting. But 
 while she attends quietly to her public duties, she has always turned 
 fondly to home occupations ; and I think people who talk about 
 womar ;' rights might observe, not without profit, how little the Queen 
 of England, the one woman who might, did she choose, enjoy those 
 rights to a degree we seldom think of, values them in comparison with 
 the prerogatives of woman's domestic crown. 
 
The opening of the Exhibition was an event to which much signifi- 
 cance was attached by the English press, quite apart from the objects 
 for which it had been designed. Mr. Gladstone was still in power, and 
 the debate on his Irish measures was developing their nature. The 
 spectacle of the assembling of that matchless family of free nations in 
 the home of their august mother could not fail to bring home to the 
 minds of Englishmen a sense of the power of such a family, if closely 
 united ; and there can be no doubt that the presence of the Colonies 
 in England had much to do with the development of that overwhelm- 
 ing union sentiment which reduced the great Liberal party, a little 
 while before so powerful, to a state of chaos. During the progress of 
 the debate, I was sorry to observe what a lamentable want of acquain- 
 tance existed among English statesmen as to the historical events which 
 have brought about the existing state of things. Mr. Gladstone himself 
 made egregious historical misstatements in his great speech of the 9th 
 April, and Mr. Chamberlain read in the House of Commons scraps 
 from Mr. Froude's "English in Ireland," giving a few of the many facts 
 with which all legislators pretending to deal with Irish affairs should 
 have been familiar from the first. 
 
 In the immediate objects which the Prince of Wales sought in 
 bringing about the Exhibition, its success surpassed all expectation. 
 The interest in the Colonies appeared to be unbounded, and the 
 colonists in London became the recipients of a series of varied and 
 splendid entertainments, of which the barest enumeration would be too 
 fatiguing for me to read or for my audience to listen to. Before the 
 opening, the Prince of Wales had appointed a Reception Committee, 
 consisting of three members of the Ruyal Commission, the Duke of 
 Abercorn, the Marquis of Lome, and the Earl Cadogan. With this 
 Committee all parties communicated who desired to entertain the 
 Colonial and Indian visitors. In order to give you, as briefly as possible, 
 an idea of the extent and splendor of the hospitalities extended by Eng- 
 land to her children, I will read here a paragraph from the Reception 
 Committee's Report : 
 
 " It will thus be seen that Her Majesty the Queen, His Royal 
 •* Highness the Prince of Wales, with other members of the Royal 
 •' Family, were graciously pleased to receive and entertain the Colonial 
 "and Indian visitors; while the Lord Mayor and Corporation of the 
 *' City of London, and the leading city companies, the Lord Provosts 
 
8 
 
 " Magistrates and Town Councils of the cities of Edinburgh and Glas- 
 " gow, the Lord Mayors and Corporations of the cities of Dublin and 
 " York, and the members f numerous Municipal Corporations of Eng- 
 *' land, Scotland and Ireland, the Officers of the Army and Navy, and 
 *' the Nobility and Gentry, vied with each other in giving a hearty 
 ** welcome and splendid hospitality to our Colonial and Indian visitors.'' 
 This paragraph, comprehensive as it appears, by no means covers 
 the whole ground. It says nothing of visits to Oxford and Cambridge, 
 the visits to Canterbury and York by invitation of the Deans and Chap- 
 ters, nor of many other treats very memorable indeed ; nor can any 
 mere list of the entertainments convey any idea of the generous thought- 
 fulness which characterized them. So I will give a very brief account 
 of one or two, as specimens. For the excursion to Scotland we had a 
 special train of saloon carriages. We reached Sheffield in time for 
 luncheon, and took that meal with the Mayor and Corporation. We 
 remained twenty-four hours in Sheffield as guests of the town. I was 
 quartered upon a wealthy alderman, at a very pretty place about three 
 miles off, to which his carriage was waiting to convey me. We were 
 shown the many manufacturing establishments, and entertained with a 
 conversazione and supper by the Mayor and Corporation, and the 
 Master Cutler and Culler's Company. When we took our seats in our 
 saloon carriages to proceed on our way to Scotland, we found champagne 
 luncheons on all the tables, and we each received a beautiful penknife, 
 with the compliments of the Master Cutler. At Edinburgh we were the 
 guests of the Lord Provost and Magistrates, who did everything that 
 could be done during so short a time as we could remain, to show us 
 the places of historical interest, or of natural or other beauty, in which 
 the Scottish Capital abounds so richly. We were also driven out to 
 Dalmeny Park and received there by Lord and Lady Rosebery At 
 Glasgow the same magnificent hospitalities were repeated. Nowhere in 
 Scotland were we allowed to spend a penny if our entertainers could 
 help it. The Lord Provost and Magistrates of Glasgow treated us to a 
 day on the lovely estuary of the Clyde, through the Kyles of Bute and 
 round part of the Isle of Arran. I remember that as we passed through 
 the Kyles of Bute, I was so rash as to venture upon a very small joke 
 with the wife of a Glasgow baillie. " How pretty it is," I said ; " I'm 
 sure the very word 'beautiful' must be derived from Bute." The lady 
 did some very hard thinking, imtil I had almost forgotten what I had 
 said : at length she replied, " I don't think so. You see it's speh B-u-t-e." 
 
9 
 
 Nor did Old Ireland neglect us. Every month the Reception 
 Committee issued a p'-ogramme of entertainments; and in that for 
 August appeared the following announcement : 
 Monday, August i6th — Sleep at Dublin. 
 Tuesday, August 17th — Sleep at Dublin. 
 Wednesday, August 18th — Sleep at Dublin. 
 
 At first we thought that kind Patrick, having considered how hard 
 worked we had been in London, had determined to rescue us for thiee 
 days and three nights, and give his beloved (colonists) sleep. Then we 
 thought that, having just enjoyed a glorious shindy at Belfast, he was 
 determined to show us how quiet he could be when he liked, and that 
 it is nui true that he is never at peace but when lie is fighting. But we 
 soon found that he had nothing whatever to do w ' h this somnolent 
 programme. He did not let us wait until we set foe;, on the Green Isle 
 to convince us of that, but made two superagatory trips across the 
 abominable bit of sea which parts him from England, and took charge 
 of us at Holyhead, where the High Sheriff and other notables of his 
 charming capital soon dispelled all our hopes or fears of a three days' 
 nap. The first night we were allowed to sleep at Dublin, and very 
 welcome the sleep was after the pitch and toss of the Irish Sea. Early 
 next morning we met at the Ancient Concert Rooms, a favorite place 
 of meeting when anything jolly is gomg forward. A choice of pleasures 
 of great variety was submitted. For my part, I soon found myself in a 
 carriage with the High Sheriff, who is a staunch Home Ruler, and a 
 Parsee gentleman from Bombay. We spent most of the day together, 
 and very interesting I found it to listen to these gentlemen's views as to 
 what they thought desirable for their respective countries. Though not 
 myself a Home Ruler, I could not for a moment doubt the honesty of 
 the Irish gentleman's conviction that Home Rule would, at once, cure 
 the ills which afflict his country; and as we stood together on the floor 
 of the old House of Commons of Ireland, the words, once spoken there 
 by Grattan, seemed still to be in the air — " I demand that the Parlia- 
 ments be two, that the Empire may be one." But I remembered that 
 when Grattan spoke those words the Parliaments had long been two, 
 but the Empire had not been one. 
 
 Among other places we visited Guinness's brewery. The extent of 
 this famous establishment may be imagined from the fact that it is found 
 necessary^to have an underground railway on the premises. There are 
 
immmt 
 
 10 
 
 three fermenting vats, each as big as a good sized ball-room. Ever 
 since I saw them I have felt aggrieved at being charged a quarter 
 dollar for a miserable little bottle of what I saw that day in lakes and 
 rivers, into which they ought to let everybody dip a pail at will. 
 
 That night the Lord Mayor gave us a ball at the Mansion House, 
 in the great circular ball-room built on the occasion of the visit of 
 George the Fourth. Had our Kings and Queens danced at Dublin a 
 little oftener it would have done them and their kingdom no harm. As 
 I looked round that beautiful ball-room, I thought of a statute of 
 Edward the Third, under which any Englishman marrying an Irish- 
 woman rendered himself liable to be hanged, cut down alive, dis- 
 embowelled, and otherwise shamefully mutilated. What a stupid and 
 useless act ! What Englishman in that Dublin ball-room would or 
 could have thought about it one moment had it been still on the statute 
 book ? No doubt the English monarch had frequent provocation to 
 enact it, but it was no go, and no wonder. An old chronicler tells us 
 that "the Irishmen sore feared the English bowes." Small blame to 
 them if they did, for so did the Scotchmen and the Frenchmen in those 
 days. But if it were so, the Irish ladies enlisted the services of an 
 archer far more dangerous. 
 
 The following day we were taken by train to Bray, on the borders 
 of Wicklow. The famous Vicar is, at last, quite at his wits' end. At 
 Bray we found coaches and jaunting cars to take us a day's drive into 
 the beautiful County of Wicklow, through the demesnes of Lords Monck, 
 Meath and Powtrscourt. We walked through part of the valley of the 
 Dargle, a wild and lonely vale, with magnificent woods and everywhere 
 the unrivalled green of Erin. A motley company we were, Hindoos, 
 Parsees, representatives of the African Colonies as black as — never mind 
 who. We poor whites from Canada and Australia had no chance in the 
 popular affections beside the blacks and tawnies, so for my part I thought 
 I might as well enjoy a little reflected glory by sitting on the top of a 
 coach beside a young Parsee lady from Bombay, whose large dark eyes 
 looked out very dangerously from beneath a flowing head-dress thickly 
 spangled with pearls and diamonds. Before the day was over I began 
 to think what a nice thing Imperial Federation would be, and I was 
 glad to see, on the next coach, a very determined endeavor being made 
 to promote it by a handsome dark face surmounted by a jewelled turban 
 and a fair rosy face surmounted by a wreath of chestnut hair, Aft^r a 
 
11 
 
 I? 
 
 long drive in one of the loveliest counties of Ireland, and a visit to the 
 seats of Lords Meath and Powerscourt, we returned to Bray, where a 
 banquet was ready for us in a large tent. There was no dressing for 
 dinner, for our clothes were in Dublin ; and, altogether, the banquet at 
 Bray was a pleasing novelty after all our previous sufferings in that way. 
 For by that time we had fairly begun to shudder at the word " banquet," 
 and the summons to silence, which announced the speeches of a baker's 
 dozen of distinguished but most prosy gentlemen, produced a gasp of 
 despair from all whose philosophy had not taught them that all things 
 of earth have an end sometime. The Irish banquet was, as I have said, 
 a most welcome change. No dressing, no stiffness. A huge tent full 
 of very big peep holes, through which peered the rosy faces of Pats and 
 Biddies without number, which, after the fun had proceeded a while, 
 were made the targets for a running fire of cakes and good things of all 
 sorts, accompanied by much good-humored chaff. Then we had a 
 speech of genuine Irish eloquence and fervor by the Lord Mayor of 
 Dublin, a rattling Home P.ule speech, full of a pathos which proved the 
 reality of the speaker's convictions. Alluding to the happy condition of 
 the Colonies, he expressed the hope that, ere long, none of Her Majes- 
 ty's dominions would be held by any but the silken bonds which bind 
 them to the throne. Whila in Dublin, we also visited the museum of 
 Trinity College, the Castle, the Cathedrals, and the monuments of that 
 long sad tale of misgovernment and sorrow, which contains so many 
 lessons upon the union of ill-mated peoples, upon the importance of 
 ethnological considerations in practical politics. 
 
 The English entertainments were, of course, the most numerous. 
 Banquets, banquets everywhere, and such a lot to drink : banquets by 
 the Lord Mayor of London, by Chambers of Commerce, by the Worship- 
 ful Companies of Barbers, Mercers, Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, 
 Skinners, Salters, Ironmongers, Clothworkers, Leathersellers, Saddlers. 
 And lest any very democratic individual in Canada should feel shocked 
 at his representatives dining with all these horrid tradesmen, I may 
 mention that the Lord Chancellor of England is the Master of the 
 Worshipful Company of Saddlers. No doubt he finds the woolsack very 
 nice and sot '^ing after the saddle. The officers of the Royal Navy 
 and Marines ^ e us a delightful day. They provided a special train to 
 take us to Portsmouth and back, and Admirals Sir Alexander Milne, 
 Sir Cooper Key, and other distinguished officers, took charge of us at 
 
12 
 
 if 
 
 Victoria station. When we got out of the train at Porfsmouth, we saw 
 f n one of the docks, an ancient and stately line of-battle ship, with 
 bulging sides and high poop. I believe we all felt in our very bones 
 what ship she was, and knew that on approaching her we should read 
 the name "Victory" on her stern. Some of the party, myself among 
 them, went on board, ami remained for a few minutes in silence around 
 a litde brass plate in the deck bearing the words " Here Nelson fell.'' 
 Our entertainers took us over several of the ironclads in the docks, nnd 
 showed us the monster guns coming out and going in, and elevating and 
 depressing themselves, seemingly without any assistance whatever. 
 After luncheon aboard the " Inflexible," we steamed to Spithead, and 
 anchored opposite the " Colossus," an armored ship whose size fully 
 justified her name. Here we witnessed a sham fight between the ship 
 and a number of torpedo boats. These impudent and waspish little 
 craft were wonderfully audacious and rapid in their movements. One's 
 sympathies were altogether with the dignified-looking ship, and I think 
 I would have bet on her too, for her big guns seemed very well aimed, 
 and a single shot would have cut a torpedo boat clean in two — that is, 
 as well as a layman could judge. The torpedoes, too, all exploded 
 against the ship's " crinoline," a means of defence transferred happily 
 from the street and the ball-room to the sea. 
 
 The visits to the country houses of the nobility and gentry were 
 perhaps the most delightful of all the many pleasures provided lor us. 
 Other countries have beautiful and interesting capitals, but the stately 
 homes of England are peculiarly her own, and so is the sweet and placid 
 rural beauty which surrounds them. And what memories haunt an 
 historic seat such as Hatfield, the home of the Marquis of Salisbury, a 
 kind of pictorial volume of the history of the reigns of Elizabeth and 
 James the First. At one spot in the grounds there is the oak under 
 which Elizabeth was seated when they brought her the news that she 
 was Queen of England. In another spot is a mulberry tree planted by 
 her sapient successor. Like so many of the great country houses of 
 England, Hatfield House is a grand museum of art and archaeology ; 
 and among the many debts of England to her splendid aristocracy, is 
 the preservation of so many places of such great and general interest, in 
 the midst of so much beauty. 
 
 Among the countless entertainments in London, I remember one 
 by Mr. Henry Irving, at the Lyceum Theatre, with especial pleasure. 
 
 'h 
 
13 
 
 i 
 
 < 
 
 The invitations to so many visitors were in themselves no small kindness 
 for seats at the Lyceum had then, and I believe still have, to be secured 
 weeks in advance. The piece, of course, was /ifl v.?/. It was then July, 
 and I^aiisf have been running since November, and is still going on, or 
 was a week or two ago. In the version given by Mr. Irving, the C ;rn'"in 
 original is terribly cut up. The framework of the scenes is thero, an.' 
 this gives Mr. Irving splendid scope for the production of '••ct n 7i , , 
 But of the original dialogue little more is given thun is bare v e . : ^n >.o 
 mark the progress of the piece. The absolute perfection of the scenery, 
 the wonderful pains taken with every detail, only make one more sensible 
 of the absence of all the gorgeous poetry and deep philosophy which 
 should go with them. The lightning is a vivid, zigzag, blinding flash, 
 produced by electricity, not the dull, slow, red flame familiar in stage 
 thunderstorms. When Mephisto's sword crosses Valentine's, it emits a 
 sharp flash. The devilment, throughout, makes one creep. In one of 
 the acts, the curtain rises upon a wonderfully real scene of crag and 
 cataract and pine forest. This is the scene which, in the original, opens 
 with that famous soliloquy in blank verse, Faust's address to the Earth- 
 Spirit. There are the crags and the cataract and the pines, there is 
 /<///j/ too, but no soliloquy. In the p:rt of Margaret alone has the 
 German original been adhered to with any degree of fidelity. I men- 
 tioned this to Miss^rry. " Oh, yes," she said, " I know just enough 
 German to stumble through Faust with the dictionary, and to see how 
 beautiful it is ; so I made them keep me my part." So, thanks to the 
 sense of the glorious actress, the piece is not robbed of the most touch- 
 ing of all Goethe's female creations ; and the part of Margaret, the one 
 solitary bit of classic drama which I saw in all the London theatres, is 
 left to the Lyceum stage. The very argument of the original is revers- 
 ed. It is, briefly, that the native integrity of the human soul finally 
 triumphs over the powers of evil. In the Lyceum version, the devil 
 has things all his own way to the end. After thgy«urtain fell, we had 
 supper on the stage with Mr. Irving and Miss^Ferry. Mr. Irving re- 
 ceived us in his Mephisto dress, plus a pair of eyeglasses, which neutral- 
 ized his otherwise diabolical appearance in rather an odd way. Indeed 
 his diabolical appearance was sometimes marred, even during the per- 
 formance, by the natural benevolence ofJjis countenance, which he 
 could not always put out of sight. Miss ^erry also retained her stage 
 dress. She seemed very much agitated by her very trying part. I 
 
14 
 
 asked her, rather wickedly, if she did not find it very monotonous to play 
 the same role for such a length of time. " Monotonous," she said, 
 " Look at me. I'm shedding crocodile tears again. I've done so 
 every night smce November." Her eyes were ind'^ed full of tears, and 
 her face pale and haggard. That terribly vivid picture of human 
 anguish which nightly thrills those hundreds of men and women of the 
 world, is not produced without first thrilling the great artist herself. In 
 my remarks on Mr. Irving s version of fau^i, I am far from wishing to 
 blame him or wishing to be ungrateful for his kindness. Nor do I 
 accuse him of any inability to appreciate the great original. He merely 
 shows how exactly he estimates his public. Had he followed Goethe 
 conscientiously, he would probably have done little good to himself or 
 any body else. By doing as he has done, he fills his own coffers, and I 
 believe he has at 'he same time caused a demand for copies oi Faust to 
 the extent of over 1 00,000. In the other London theatres I saw noth" 
 thing classical and little that was in any way moving. The taste is for 
 mere amusement. Everything is done thoroughly well so far as it goes. 
 Wonderful scenic effects are produced, at great cost and pains. The 
 actors and actresses speak and move like gentlemen and ladies, and the 
 English language is music in their mouths. At the Avenue theatre, 
 they had revived the ancient Beggars' Opera, which once amused 
 Johnson and Boswell and their contemporaries. I could not help 
 thinking how easily our forefathers must have been amused. The 
 dialogue consists largely of stupid jokes at the expense of wives and 
 widows. The one merit ot the piece is that it gives a number of those 
 sweet old English airs which the English people have'long so shamefully 
 neglected. It is the source, too, of a number of sentiments we have 
 known all our lives and wondered where they come from ; one of which 
 we may some of us have had occasion to apply at some time or other — 
 
 How happy could I be with either, 
 Were t'other dear charmer away. 
 
 The expressions of goodwill toward the visitors were universal, for 
 the only dissentient was Mr. Labouchere, and he does not matter. He 
 called us '* tag-rag and bob-tail " and ** slip-slop," but we did not mind 
 " Labby." The enthusiasm sometimes bordered upon extravagance. In 
 an evil moment, a leading London journal called upon its readers to 
 admire even the brusqueness of the Colonist. Up to that time I had 
 not observed any special brusqueness on his part ; but after that the 
 
 Sfi 
 
 A 
 
15 
 
 ^ 
 
 least the obliging Colonist could do was to give the readers of that 
 amiable journal plenty of brusqueness to admire. 
 
 Thus, while the Exhibition was enlightening Englishmen as to the 
 value of the Colonies, every opportunity was afforded to the Colonists to 
 learn what manner of country it is whose flag floats over them. They 
 were shown, in every possible way, her wealth, her power, her civiliza- 
 tion, her imposing social order. They might read, too, in the monuments 
 of the noblest history the world has ever known how steep and toilsome 
 has been her path through the ages, to those heights of light and liberty 
 upon which she was at length enabled to place her children all over the 
 world. Upon many of the visitors these things produced all the effect 
 that could be desired. A French-Canadian gentleman said to me: 
 " What best becomes a Canadian here is modesty "; and this was said 
 without any disparagement to his own country, whose zealous champion 
 he always proved himself to be when wanted. I had the pleasure of 
 meeting two other French-Canadian gentlemen, men of education and 
 sensibility, fully capable of appreciating what they saw and what was 
 done for them. It is much to be desired that Colonists of this stamp 
 should visit the mother country as frequently as possible. Unfortunately, 
 not all the visitors were as capable as these gentlemen of profiting by 
 what they saw. There is a proverb which says : " He who would bring 
 back the wealth of the Indies, must take out the wealth of the Indies." 
 Those who went to England with their heads empty, brought them back 
 much in the same condition. One Colonial gentleman said to me : 
 •' They can beat us in nothing but cheap beer and barmaids." '* Have 
 you been to the British Museum?" I asked. "No." "To the Na- 
 tional Gallery ?" "No." I named a few more places and then gave 
 up, thinking : What use is it for you to go anywhere ? You brought 
 nothing into England, and it is certain you shall carry nothing out. 
 What are the Elgin Marbles and all the wonders of Egypt and Assyria 
 and Greece to you ? What would you care for Raphael and Titian and 
 Turner and Landseer ? And supposing I were to take you into West- 
 minster Abbey, to that quiet corner in the South Transept, and set you 
 before a seated marble figure in the garb of the days of Elizabeth, with 
 these words engraven beneath : — 
 
 Like the baseless fabric of a v/sion, 
 The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
 
16 
 
 And, like an insulis intial pageant fatletl, 
 Leave not a vrack beland, 
 You hove, no doubt, hciird ihe name which tells you whose monu- 
 ni(Mit you stand before, but most probably even that name means little 
 to you. And suppose 1 were to take you a few steps further, and set 
 you before another form in marble, in the garb of a century later, whose 
 fac,; speaks of God-like power and utter triumph, and whose hand grasps 
 a scroll showing a single line of music, an air in I) major, with the words 
 which the marble lips seem ready to utter — "I know that my Redeemer 
 liveth. " What to you the name of the mighty German musician who 
 found in I'^ngland a life and a grave ecjually glorious, and a monument 
 more lasting than brass in the hearts of the English people ? 
 Or let me take you down the nave, and show you a certain little square 
 blue stone in the floor. "■ Well," you will most likely say, "What do I 
 care for 'Oh, rare Ben Jonson ?" I believe they might show you all 
 that array of monuments which moved an American poet to say of 
 
 England — 
 
 One half her soil has walked the rest 
 
 In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages — 
 and you would still go back to — British North Borneo, and say — "They 
 can beat us in nothing but cheap beer and barmaids." 
 
 Of all the visitors, it was perhaps natural that those from India 
 should attract the largest share of attention. They were, many of them, 
 of princely rank, most of them of princely manners. They were not, 
 like the colonists, men of our own blood, occupying lands reclaimed 
 from the wilderness, but natives of an ancient land which we possess by 
 conciuest and by other means more que.stionable still, and which, thirty 
 years ago, express its feelings tv. wards us by a bloody rebellion. Their 
 presence in l.ondon, their cordiality in mingling with the rest of the 
 Empire assembled there, their public avowals that England had at 
 length vindicated her right to rule India by the improvement her rule 
 had wrought, all these things were interesting proofs of the happy 
 change brought about in India since 1857, when she cane under the 
 immediate sway of her Empress, They do not regard things as quite 
 perfect yet. They complain of the ignorance of the English House of 
 Commons as to their condition and their needs. They would like to, 
 have a few members sitting at Westminster to give explanations when 
 Indian matters are under discussion. But they have confidence in the 
 justice of England, and sense to appreciate the advantages of her rule. 
 It is time now to say something about the Exhibition itself. It was 
 
 
17 
 
 (A 
 f 
 
 held, not in any beautiful and lofty structure like the Cathedral of Glass, 
 as Mr. Kinglake called it, which, in 185 1, climbed above and around 
 he stately elms of Knightsbridge, but in a series of low sheds, outward- 
 ly unsightly enough, :overing most of the ground formerly occupied by 
 th ; Horticultural Gardens of South Kensington. These buildings were 
 so di'^posed as to alternate prettily with gardens, greenhouses, ponds 
 and fountains. They had concave glass roofs ; and though this made 
 them very bright, and gave great effect to their pretty decorations, it also 
 rendered them more "juitable to the ripening of peaches and apricots 
 than to the comfort of human beings. The precincts of the exhibition 
 also included what was left of the gardens, where an excellent musical 
 programme was provided every day, and which, with their great foun- 
 tains, were beautifully illuminated every night, and the Royal Albert 
 Hall. In the gallery of this immense concert room the Colonial and 
 Indian pictures were placed, with the exception of the Australian 
 pictures, which were exhibited in the Courts of the Colonies, and con- 
 tribuied much to their beauty. In the Albert Hall, too, there were 
 daily recitals of a very high order on the great organ ; and in the con- 
 servatory, a constant succession of those wonderful flower shows in 
 which they take so much delight in England. Altogether, the exhibi- 
 tion covered : space of about 1,500 feet by 1,200, including the gardens 
 and the Albert Hall. Within that little space, a quarter of a mile 
 square, there were gathered together means of instruction which could 
 hardly have been found elsewhere, even by life-long travel among all the 
 dependencies of Great Britain. There was spread open a vast picLorial 
 volume, from which the mind of the spectator received an impression, 
 vivid and true as that on a photographer's plate. That impression, 
 photographed on the mind of England by this device of her future 
 ruler, will never be effaced. It was the first fair impression she had 
 ever received of her own strength, her own greatness. 
 
 Before we part to-night, we may as well take a walk through as 
 many of Her Majesty's colonies as we can. We shall find finger-posts 
 here and there, saying coolly — '* To Canada," " To Australia," " To New 
 Zealand," "To Africa." You know enough about Canada already.- 
 She is quite cocky enough about the figure she made. It was a very 
 capital figure, but then she is so much older than her sisters, and it 
 would be a shame for her not to know more than they do. We will go 
 in by the main entrance on Exhibition Road. We find ourselves in a 
 
18 
 
 \ 
 
 vast and lofty hall, in the middle of which there is a colossal bronze 
 equestrian statue of the Prince of Wales. The walls are adorned by 
 large pictuies ot the chief cities of the colonies, and all around are trop- 
 ical shrubs and flowers in profusion. Passing on through lofty doorways 
 draped with rich and heavy Indian curtains, we are in the India Hall. 
 Here there is not much to see, only the beautiful hangings and the 
 efifigies of real corporals and privates of our native forces in India, uni- 
 formed and armed, each man having his queer name attached to him^ 
 and also his dimensions and fi{^hting weight. Pa sing through the hall 
 we descend a few steps, and stand before a marvel of eastern patience 
 and skill which bids us pause. It is only a gateway, and a wooden gate- 
 way too, but the endless convolutions of the design have been followed 
 with faultless exactness. How stiff and void of grace are all the carvings 
 of the churches of Europe beside this work of the heathen artificer. The 
 great screens flanking the gateway look like delicate veils. This beau- 
 tiful work IS the gift of the Maharajah of Jeypore, and forms a worthy 
 introduction lo the scene of enchantment which awaits our passing 
 between its delicate wooden curtains into the Indian Courts. Before us 
 is a seemingly endless vista, stretching away between the beautiful 
 porticoes containing tht productions of the Indian States. These 
 porticoes are, apart from their contents, well deserving of study. Some 
 of them are inlaid with beautiful designs in ivory ; others are of sculptured 
 marble ; others of inlayed work of mazy design in metals of many kinds. 
 Under these porticoes are displayed the products of the ancient arts of 
 India, the work of men to whom time is no object, of men satisfied with 
 a handful of rice and a cup of water, of men without ambition, to whom 
 the idea of " getting on " never once suggests itself. But what beauti. 
 ful work these unambitious artificers produce. Here are vessels of gold 
 and silver whose intricate chasings defy the eye ; other vessels in which 
 different metals are blended with such skill that the ground metal upon 
 which all these inlayings are executed cannot be discovered ; carpets and 
 shawls, curtains and fabrics of "woven air," gossamer fabrics in silver 
 and gold, jewelry, weapons and armor whose very beauty might disarm 
 an enemy of any taste or sensibility. We will walk leisurely about half 
 way down this court, and turn to the left into the Imperial Economic 
 Court of the Indian Empire. Here is no scene of eastern enchantment 
 like the one we have left, but, what is much more interesting, every 
 product of India having any commercial value. This court is a com- 
 
19 
 
 pendium of the economic resources, the productive powers, and the 
 commerce of the Indian Empire, representing the food products and the 
 resources of 252 millions of people ; and as India ranks as the fifth com- 
 mercial power of the world, their products are of course far too numer- 
 ous even to mentio" here. There are vast collections of tcis, coffees 
 and tobaccos, interesting collections illustrating the silk industry, drugs, 
 gums, resins, minerals and ores, cereals, dyes, timbers. After satisfying 
 ourselves that the wealth of India is a reality, we leave this court, cross 
 the first one, and enter the court yard of the Indian Palace, a fine cir- 
 cular open space, surrounded by terra-cotta reces es, in each of which 
 sits a dark and ^-jrbaned artificer, goldsmith, silversmith, potter, carpet- 
 weaver, or swt tmeat maker, each a picture from the Thousand and Ona 
 Nights. Remarkable among these is old Buxshiram, the potter from 
 Agra. Buxshiram is 102 years old, and there he sits, as he has sat for 
 nearly a century, with his knees on a level with his ears, spinning his 
 heavy stone wheel, moulding his peacocks or his pretty little vessels, nnd 
 peering up strangely from time to time from under his bushy and snow- 
 white eyebrows. At first Buxshiram came to work without trousers, but 
 whether he found his poor old spindleshanks cold, or whether he was 
 told that in London the costume of a gentleman included "continuations," 
 he shortly got him two pieces of cotton print of very different colours and 
 patterns, and make him a pair which was not all a pair, in fact not at 
 all a pair. However, they pleased Buxshiram and afforded inexpressible 
 amusement to five and a half millions of Her Majesty's subjects. We 
 pass from the Indian Palace by the Gwalior Gateway, to which I have 
 already alluded, and find ourselves on the Central Avenue, opposite the 
 grim and frowning portcullis of Old Bishopsgate, through which we are 
 admitted into Old London. "Old London" represents a street of the 
 old town before the great fire of 1666. The houses are, I believe, fac 
 similes of the originals whose names they bear, with their projecting 
 upper stories, their gables in perverse but picturesque intrusion on what 
 would seem to modern eyes the rightful domain of the street. This old 
 street has nothing to do with the Colonies and India, and had been 
 there during the previous exhibitions held on the same ground. It is, 
 at the same time, one of the most attractive features of the show, ±.y 
 the time we get here, we have had a good deal of walkmg about, so we 
 may as well pass by old Isaac Walton's house and the old Rose inn, 
 and turn into "Ye Old Cocke Taverne," and ask one of those damsels 
 
20 
 
 in the Puritan dresses for a glass of the uncommonly strong ale from the 
 brass-hooped cask above her head. Her puntanism begins and ends 
 with her white cap and broad collar, short blue petticoat and high heeled 
 shoes. It is not even skin deep. So she will give us our ale, and a 
 little chaff too, if we li':e. We will now pass on through " Old London ' 
 into South Africa. This spacious court deserves much more study than 
 we have time to give it. The first thing we see is an enormous machine, 
 grinding away very fussily. It is washing out diamonds from earth 
 brought, I should think, from King Solomon's Mines, or at a rate 
 from mines that do as well, for it washes out diamonds enough . : ^)^ 
 a large force of artificers at work along side, cutting and polishing, xi. 
 1886 the Cape exported diamonds to the value of <;^3,507,2io. li we 
 come early in the morning we should see two immense Zulu Kaffirs and 
 a little hideous Bushman attending to the wants of the great machine. 
 Like Buxshiram, the Zulus used to come without trousers at first, but, 
 to my great grief, their splendid proportions were soon put out of sight. 
 South Africa has a good deal to show besides diamonds. There is a collec- 
 tion of very tolerable and rather powerful wines, some of the richest ores I 
 ever saw, a great wreath of ostrich feathers, excellent samples of wool and 
 cereals. Thenaturalhistorycollectionsincludedagreatmany pairs of horns 
 just like gigantic cork-screws, andtheseit was, no doubt, which first induced 
 the countrymen of Mynheer van Dunk to settle in the country ; for even 
 were his draught " deep as the rolling Zuyder Zee," these monstrous 
 corkscrews would be equal to the occasion. There were samples of tea 
 from South Africa too. The tea plant has been recently introduced 
 and seems likely to flourish. We have only time for a very hasty look 
 at Australia and New Zealand, interesting and beautiful as they are. 
 Their Courts were the prettiest of all except the Indian, giving evidence 
 of a population enjoying great wealth, and leading times of correspond- 
 ing refinement, but co-existing with the most primitive savagery. For 
 here alongside of paintings and statuary furniture and clothing, carriages 
 and saddlery, gold and silversmiths' work, there are aboriginal camps, 
 with their black and naked occupants engaged in their rude and very 
 limited occupations, The Victoria Court is entered through an 
 immense golden arch, built of bricks of 1,000 ounces each, and repre- 
 senting the value of the gold mined in the colony from the first, 
 ^216,000,000. There is in this Court much silver, copper, zinc, tin 
 and coal, wood and cereals are well represented, and there are some 
 
 \ 
 
21 
 
 beautiful woollen goods, splendid furniture, and wall decorations. All 
 the Australian Colonies showed fine collections of ornamental and other 
 timbers. In comparing Canada with Australia, we should remember 
 thr Australia is little more than 50 years old; and when we see the 
 evidences of the wealth of Melborne alone, and reflect that here within 
 50 years, a city has grown up half as large again as Montreal, we may 
 think of looking to our laurels. It is now time to go to Canada, and 
 the best way tf entering Canada is by the East Arcade through the 
 West Indies, and past Cyprus and Malta. The great agricultural 
 trophy of the Dominion is before us, and we make straight for it, past 
 Johnstons Fluid IJeef, Pillow & Hersey's tacks and nails, and some 
 other things. 'J'his beautiful trophy is one of the principal features of 
 the whole Exhibition. It covers a space of nearly seven hundred square 
 feet, and towers up to the roof of the Central Gallery. It is completely 
 representative of the agriculture of Canada, from ocean to ocean, in all 
 its ramifications. It was designed at the request of Sir Charles Tupper, 
 by Mr, Watts of the Department of Public Works, and was carried jut 
 under the personal supervision of Sir Charles, by Mr. Alexander Begg, 
 with the valuable artistic aid of Mr. Wilson, of Sparks street. This trophy 
 did more during the six months of its existence, than could have been 
 done by libraries of books and years of lectures ; and it is not too much 
 to say that the whole Dominion is ve-y greatly indebted to the gentle- 
 men who designed and carried it out. It was constantly surrounded by 
 people who meant business ; solid tenant farmers with capital, seeking 
 means of escape from rents, bad seasons and foreign competition ; 
 parties desirous of obtaining wholesale supplies of grain or fruit ; 
 gentleman having relations in our North-West or intending to go there 
 themselves. I said just now that you knew all about Canada at the 
 Exhibition, and that I need not say much about it. This may be so, 
 but now I am back again in the old court, I feel the old pride in what 
 Canada has achieved. For everything around us speaks of activity and 
 intelligence and well directed endeavor ; of a country whose infancy is 
 over and whose people are possessed with a restless determination to 
 play second fidd'e to nobody. In the courts of the other great colonies 
 native weapons are a prominent feature. We have got beyond the age 
 of clubs and spears and boomerangs. Our Indians' work is here in 
 plenty, but it consists of things used by civilized people. We are in the 
 Central Gallery amidst all that array of manufactures which, says the 
 
22 
 
 Saturday Review, goes far to explain the depression of trade in England 
 and which I need not nov, ^^oribe in detail. We will walk down the 
 gallery, past those great exhibits of musical instruments in which we 
 shall henceforth do such a business with England, the continent of 
 Europe and many countries more distant still; past the beautiful game 
 trophy, by which we have to squeeze through a crowd of distinguished 
 gentlemen making enquiries about sport ; past the mineral exhibit of the 
 Dominion, which, certainly eclipsed all other mineral exhibits in the 
 exhibition. We are now in the Western Gallery and deafened with the 
 roar of an endless line of machinery, every wheel of it Canadian. The 
 Prince of Wales gave us this gallery in the first instance, knowing that 
 we should be the only people exhibiting machinery in motion to any 
 great extent. I believe all this machinery was sold before the Exhibi- 
 tion closed, and a trade established with many parts of the world. We 
 have now gone over the whole space originally allotted to Canada, 
 except her share of the gallery of the Royal Albert Hall, where the fine 
 art collections of India and the Colonies were displayed. Here, as 
 elsewhere, Canada proved herself the premier colony. An English 
 critic writing in the " Magazine of Art " said " while walking among 
 Canadian pictures you can imagine yourself in a good European gallery 
 much more easily than you can in the fine art collection of any other 
 colony." The report upon the Canadian pictures by Mr. Hodgson of 
 the Royal Academy, made at the request of His Excellency the 
 Governor General, while containing a certain amount of tindiy admoni- 
 tion, is, upon the whole, very encouraging to our artists. 
 
 I said just now that we had gone over the whole of the space 
 originally allotted to Canada. This allotment we at first thought very 
 liberal, but we soon found it to be little more than half enough ; and, 
 by degrees, our indefatigable Executive Commissioner obtained from 
 the Royal Commission, first the West Arcade, then the whole of the East 
 and West Quadrants, and the gallery in the Conservatory. Even this 
 did not do, and we had to put up buildings in the South Promenade, 
 and, finally, to get leave from Government to occupy the Art and 
 Science Gallery of the South Kensington Museum. In this Sir Charles 
 Tupper was assisted by the Marquis of Lome, whose affection for the 
 Dominion is as warm as ever, and who never loses a chance of doing 
 her a good turn. So Canada finally covered more space by one-third 
 than either India or the whole of the Australian Colonies j and when 
 
23 
 
 you stood m the conservatory of the Royal Albert Hall and looked 
 across the gardens, you had Canada in front of you, Canada behind you^ 
 Canada to right of you, Canada to left of you, volleying and thundering 
 her achievements into the eaio of the assembled Empire. 
 
 Of the benefits of the Exhibition to Canada you may read, shortly, 
 in Sir Charles Tupper's report. Those already realized far surpass all 
 anticipations, and there are others extending beyond ihe range of our 
 present vision. Prejudices have been removed, ignorance dispelled. 
 Branches of British and foreign trade already existing have been extend- 
 ed, and new branches established. And Canadians learned as well as 
 taught. They learned new uses to which their country's products are 
 adapted, and they found markets for their wares among peoples who 
 had never before heard of their advancement in the arts of life. 
 
 The time was a very good one for Canada to come to the front in 
 England. The Pacific Railway, a work regarded in England as fully as 
 much Imperial as Colonial, had been virtually completed the year before. 
 Our ability to prosecute this gigantic undertaking to a successful conclu- 
 sion had been doubted in many quarters to the last. The completion 
 of the great railway, and the proofs afforded by the Exhibition of 
 Canadian achievement in so many other directions, established her 
 ji position in the Empire with convincing force ; and her courage, her 
 
 enterprise, and her Resources were recognized with that frank and at 
 times self-accusing generosity, with which Englishmen are ever ready to 
 make up for their tardiness in recognizing the merits of those whose 
 capabilities they have regarded as not proven. 
 
 A id now for a few words as to the results of the Exhibition to the 
 
 Empire at large. 
 
 Just before the opening of the Exhibition a German writer called 
 attention to the many dangers attending the hitherto disjointed condition 
 of the British Empire. He stated that in 1878 the Russian cruisers had 
 orders, should war break out, to destroy the defenceless coaling stations 
 on the Atlantic and Pacific. He pointed to the vast military force, use- 
 less for want of organization. He spoke of the folly of England in 
 continuing to look to alien nations for supplies of food and for marketff 
 which war may at any time put an end to. He showed that the idea of 
 Imperial federation had come from Australia, and pointed to the great 
 step in the direction of a united Empire made in the confederation of 
 the North American Colonies. Nor did he forget the Canadian militia, 
 
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24 
 
 but put Canada down for one-third of the existing forces of the Empire. 
 He said, in conclusion : — 
 
 " What Shakespeare says of the tide in the affairs of men holds 
 good, in a wider sense, in political life. So far as we can judge, this 
 tide has set in now. The Indian population showed itself loyal and 
 ready for sacrifices during the Russian crisis. Although the Australian 
 Colonies found no encouragement in England in their desires, and had 
 more than once to complain of coldness, they were collectively ready, 
 on receiving the news of the fall of Khartoum, to make every sacrifice, 
 and to place their means at the disposal of the Government They were 
 proud when England accepted the offer of troops ] the time had arrived 
 for the realization of Imperial Federation. But while the Colonial 
 population thus showed themselves willing to give up so much for the 
 common weal, no corresponding readiness was shown by England. 
 Public opinion shows little understanding of the wishes and the interests 
 of the Colonies and the Empire. The Englishman still feels himself 
 but the mhabitant of a little island, not ;' = citizen of a world-empire on 
 which the sun never sets." 
 
 These are the words of a German writer before the Exhibition. Now 
 mark the words of an English writer after the Exhibition : — 
 
 " If we apply dvj test of area alone," he says, " the imaginaticii 
 almost refuses to grapple with the figures that describe the resources of 
 our possessions abroad. The area of the British Islands is about 75 
 millions of acres, of which 50 millions are cultivated or cultivaMe. The 
 area of our Australian empire is 1,968 millions of acres, the greater part 
 of which is believed to be capable of yielding excellent crops, alike of 
 cereals and of tubers. In the Canadian North- West alone there are 
 384 millions of acres of valuable agricultural land, the whole of which is 
 admirably adapted for settlement and cultivation. In British India, 
 again, there are close on 600 million acres under cultivation or capable 
 of being cultivated, and much of it, under judicious irrigation, may be 
 made to yield two, and even three, crops in a year. These are the terri. 
 tories that are, or that we would wish to see become, the wheat fields, 
 the grazing lands, the orchards, and the market gardens of the mother 
 country. . . . How much longer shall we continue to withhold 
 from our own Colonies the ;^3o,ooo,ooo sterling, or more, which we 
 have for many years annually paid to the United States for wheat and 
 butcher meat ? The obvious answer to such a problem is, that we shall 
 
25 
 
 do so just as long as, and no longer than, the railway Communication of 
 our Colonies remains inadequate and incomplete. It Canada and India 
 had to-day solved the railway problem as effectually as the United States 
 have long since done, if railway facilities were as abundant between the 
 producers and the ports, and if the rates of freight were as cheap and as 
 :erttirely adapted to the development of the irade, there would be no 
 'Heed for the dependence upon American supplies that now exists. 
 
 . The strides that the Colonies have already n»ade in the direc- 
 tion of furnishing the mother country with bread-stuffs are such as put 
 even thef fabled achievements of the seven-league boots entirely in the 
 shade. Between 1868 and 1882 the imports of wheat into Great Britain 
 increased from 798,060 to 3,ii5,ood cwt, as regards the Dominions 
 from t8t,o6o to 8,463,000, as regards British India ; attd frotn 327,006 
 to a maximum of 4,6i3;ooo in 1880, as regards Australasia. The 
 ■question of whether Our own Colonies can compete with the United 
 States and Russia m supplying the food requirements of the mother 
 country may be regarded as settled by these figures. But even suppos- 
 ing that it were not, it i§ ctearly the interest and the duty of the mother 
 country to endeavor, by every possible mtans, to solve it in favor of the 
 Colonies, whose chief want nOW, and for years past, has been the lack 
 of adequate transportation facilities." 
 
 To all who have noted the utterances of English writers on the 
 Colonies for a s€*ies of years, this change of opinion following the 
 Exhibition is clearly a case oi post hoe propter hoc. The Colonies can 
 never, never revert to their former position. The feeling is in the air 
 that the Empire must in some way or other be more closely united. 
 The words I have just quoted would indicate that the fact has bedft at 
 last brought home to the English mind that the Empire may be made 
 self-sufificing, and therefore practically united, without any subversion 
 of existing political conditions, commanding within itself as it does the 
 products of every clime, and having in every clime active and intelligent 
 sons to turn them to the best accoun*:. 
 
 And this, as the Germans would say,epoch-making Exhibition,owed 
 its existence entirely to the exertions and the foresight of the Prince of 
 Wales. " Not only," said Mr. Edward Cunliffe Owen, in a paper read 
 before the Soci( ty of Arts, " not only was His Royal Highness the 
 originator of the idea of its existence, but he was the centre around 
 which its whole organization turned : and the deep personal interest 
 
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 26 
 
 which the Prince of Wales took in every thing relating to the Exhibition, 
 from the highest questions of policy down to the minutest details ot 
 management, have deeply impressed all those who have had the honour 
 of working under His Royal Highness' commands for the success of 
 the Exhibition." 
 
 The Prince of Wales has thus done a work fit for a King to do ; 
 and although I make no pretence of having any private information as 
 to his motives, I cannot help thinking that he may have had other 
 objects in view, and that he may have foreseen other results, than those 
 intimated in his very business-like utterances during the preliminary 
 stages of the Exhibition. Raised by hiR high station above all the 
 misery of party, he must have seen the peril of the crisis through which 
 the country is passing. May he not, therefore, have had at heart the 
 political. as well as the commercial interests of England, in thus bringing 
 before her the grandeur of the structure raised by the genius, the toil, 
 the blood of her sons ? 
 
 A change, due to many causes within and without, is coming over 
 the ancient and stately social order of England ; and as this change pro- 
 gresses, and as the difference between elder and younger sons grows 
 small by degrees and less, whether beautifully so or otherwise I will not 
 undertake to say, the work of England's "younger sons of younger 
 brothers" over the seas will be duly appreciated, and her debt to her 
 once neglected children will be as evident to herself as it has long been 
 to those clear-sighted neighbors, who have lately been showing what 
 they think of the value of colonies, by hunting the worid over to see if 
 England has left them a spot, be it never so miserable, whereon to set 
 their feet. 
 
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