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 40 EEPLY OF THE -WEST INDIA COMMITTEE. 
 
 on the ground of the consumers' advantage, and at the same time 
 declaring that such interference with trade as is caused by bounties 
 is not conducive to the general prosperity. In short, the Board 
 of Trade apparently propose to accept bounties as an advantage, 
 while at the same time they desire their removal as an interference 
 with trade. 
 
 ' * I am to express satisfaction at the proposed preliminaries for 
 an international Conference. The West India Committee have 
 never advocated the immediate adoption of a countervailing duty, 
 nor gone beyond the suggestion that a means of solution might be 
 found in a Conference as proposed by the Select Committee. The 
 West India Committee have in the letters which you acknowledge 
 laid before the Board of Trade the reasons which induced them to 
 think that foreign Powers would be willing to negotiate, and that 
 the acceptance of the true free -trade principle of a countervailing 
 duty would be effectual in bringing about a successful result of 
 those negotiations. I am to pray that Her Majesty's Government 
 would be pleased to take steps for the meeting of such conference 
 as soon as possible. 
 
 " There is one point in the letter to the Workmen's Committee, 
 copy of which you enclose, which requires notice here. It is 
 stated that many of the colonies at the present time place an 
 export duty upon their own sugar. I beg to say that in British 
 Guiana and Barbados, producing at least half the total of West 
 India sugar, there is no export duty. In Trinidad and Jamaica 
 there is a small tax which is not raised for general revenue, but is 
 strictly applied to the payment of the cost of introducing the labour 
 employed on the sugar plantations. The amount is, therefore, 
 merely part of the cost of labour, and is so small as to be practically 
 inappreciable as compared with foreign bounties, while the general 
 incidence of the export tax over the sugar production is a con- 
 venience and practically results in a reduction of price to the 
 consumer. 
 
 ''I have, &c., 
 
 ''Thos. Daniel Hill, Chairman. 
 
 " West India Committee, 9, Billiter Square, E.C., 
 "December 9th, 1880."
 
 WliJUfi v^^i^/yz«xt^^^-^ y 
 
 THE SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HIS EXCELLENCY 
 
 The marquis OF LOENE, 
 
 K.T., G.C.M.G., Ac, *c., 
 
 GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF CANADA, 
 
 At WINNIPEG, October 10, 1881, 
 
 After a lengthened Tour through Manitoba and 
 the Canadian North-West Territories. 
 
 p—y^"^, 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PBINTED BY M'CORQUODALE & CO., LIMITED, 
 Cardington Street, N.W. 
 
 1881. 
 
 m- 
 
 ^
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OP 
 
 His Excellency THE MARQUIS of LORNE, 
 
 K.T., G.G.M.G., &c., &c., 
 
 GOVERNOR -GENERAL OF CANADA, 
 At WINNIPEG, October lOth, 1881. 
 — •-"K^l^[j^^<^<ji.^ ^ — 
 
 His Excellency, replying to the toast of the evening, said : — 
 
 I beg to thank you most cordially for the pleasant reception you have given 
 to me on my return to Winnipeg, and for the words in which you proposed 
 my health and 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, I trust only temporarily, so much impaired her health. Two years hence 
 the journey I have undertaken will be an easy one to accomplish throughout 
 its length for all, while at present the facilities of railway and steam accommo- 
 dation only suffice for half of it. For a Canadian official a 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. 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 a beautiful sunrise 
 assume towards the friends who have slept until the sun is high in the heavens. 
 Our track through it led as far only as 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 south-
 
 Speech of His Excellency the Marquis of Lome, 
 
 westwards 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. 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 represented his country if in nothing more than in 
 this, that he has never misrepresented our own. Like almost all his compatriots 
 who occupy by the suffrage of their people official positions, he has recognised 
 that fact, which is happily acknowleged by all of standmg amongst ourselves, 
 that the interests of the Empire and of the United States may advance side by 
 side without jealousy or friction, and that the good of the one is interwoven 
 with the welfare of the other. 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 the 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 senti- 
 ment 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. AVe both desire to live only in a land of perfect liberty. 
 When the order which ensures freedom is desecrated by the cowardly rancour 
 of the murderer or by the tyranny of faction, the blow struck touches more tlian 
 one life, and strikes over a wider circle than that where its nearer and imme- 
 diate 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 sym- 
 pathy with their triumphs or with their trouble abides than their Canadian 
 cousins of the Dominion. 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. To pass to other themes, awakening no unhappy recol- 
 lections,^ — ^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
 
 At Winnipeg, October 10th, 1881. 
 
 numberless lakes and illimitable forests of Keewaydin, "the Land of the North 
 Wind," to the east of you, yet it was pleasant to get behind the north wind 
 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 sun-lit 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 enterprizes can alone be looked for ; and 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. Unknown 
 a few years ago, except for some differences which had arisen amongst 
 its people, we see Winnipeg now with a population unanimously joining in 
 happy concord and rapidly lifting it to the front rank amongst the commercial 
 centres of the world. We may look elsewhere in vain for a situation so favour- 
 able and so commanding, many as are the fair regions of which we can boast. 
 There may be some among you before whose eyes the whole wonderful panorama 
 of our provinces has passed. You may know the ocean garden island of Prince 
 Edward, the magnificent valleys of the St. John, and the marvellous country, 
 the home of " Evangeline," where Blomedon looks down on the tides of the 
 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 site whose natural advan- 
 tages promise so great a future as that which seems insured to Manitoba and to 
 Winnipeg, the " heart city " of our Dominion. The measureless»meadows which 
 commence here stretcli without interruption of their good soil westward to your 
 boundary. The Province is a green sea over which the summer winds pass laden 
 with the scent of rich grasses and flowers, and over this vast extent it is only as 
 yet here and there that a yellow patch shows some gigantic wheat field. Like 
 a great net cast over the whole are the bands and clumps of poplar 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. 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 pro- 
 cess of digging for it a short distance beneath the sod with a spade, the soil 
 being so devoid of stones that it is net 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 English- 
 man, accustomed to British grumbling, that even the frogs sing instead of 
 croak in Canada, and the few letters that have appeared speaking of disap- 
 pointment will be amons^st 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 find a few malingerers, a few skulkers. However well an action 
 has been fought, you will hear ofiicers who have been engaged say that there 
 were some men whose idea seemed to be that it was easier to conduct them- 
 selves as became them in the rear rather than in the front. So there have been
 
 •J: Speech oj His Excellenc/j the Marquis of Lome, 
 
 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. 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, 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. 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. 
 
 It is well to remember that the men who will succeed here, as in every 
 growing community, are assuredly 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 older 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 upon his arrival, unless as an artisan he comes here, and finds that, like 
 the happy masons now to be found in Winnipeg, he can get the wages of a 
 British army colonel 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 every- 
 thing 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 Massachusetts. It is the moisture in the atmosphere which makes 
 the cold tell ; and the Englishman who, with the thermometer at zero in his 
 moist atmosphere, would be shivering, would here find one flannel shirt suffi- 
 cient clothing while working. I never like to make comparisons, and 
 I am always unwillingly driven to do so, although it seems to me 
 to be the natural vice of the well-travelled Englishman. Over and 
 over again in Canada I have 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 Scotchman, whenever on the Rocky Moun_ 
 tains he saw some grand pyramid or gigantic rock, 10 or 11,000 feet in
 
 At Winnipeg^ October lOi/i, 1881. 
 
 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, T 
 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 a 
 question to a party of sixteen Ontario men, who had settled in the western 
 portion of Manitoba, as to the merits of the cold season in the two Provinces, 
 fourteen of them voted for the Manitoba climate, and only two elderly men 
 said they preferred that of Ontario. You will see how what is sometimes 
 called that very doubtful criterion of right and justice, a large majority, 
 determines this question. 
 
 Now, although we are at present in Manitoba, and Manitoba interests may 
 demand our thoughts, you may not object to listen for a few minutes 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, namely, that it is not only on 
 Winnipeg Main Street that you can look out for the main chance. The future 
 fortunes of the 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 
 EUice, 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 had a commission 
 from ten 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, 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 woods of which I have spClken as covering 
 all the prairie between Winnipeg and Battleford is beyond that point drawn 
 up on the shores of the prairie sea, and lies in masses of fine forest on the 
 gigantic half circle formed by the Saskatchewan and the Rockies. It is only 
 in the secluded valleys on the banks of large lakes and in the 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 fit to be called 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 some of the new vessels, properly 
 equipped and furnished with electric lights, which may now be cheaply pro- 
 vided, should not keep a night and day service ; so that the settlers at Prince 
 Albert, Edmonton, and elsewhere may not have during another season to suffer 
 the great privations incident to the want of transportation which has loaded 
 the banks of the Grand Rapids during the present year with freight awaiting 
 steam transportation. 
 
 The great cretaceous coal seams at the head waters of the rivers rising in 
 the Rocky Mountains, or in their neighbourhood, and flowing towards your 
 doors, should not be forgotten. Although you have some coal in districts 
 nearer to you, we should remember that on the head waters of these streams 
 there is plenty of the same, 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 
 visited part of the country took me south-westward from Battleford over land 
 which in many of the maps is variously marked as consisting of arid p]:iins or 
 as a continuation of the American desert. Recent maps, especially those
 
 Speech of His Excellency the Marquis of Lome, 
 
 coiitainiii[Ji" the explorations of Professor Macoun, have corrected this wholly 
 erroneous idea. For two days' marcb, that is to say for about sixty or seventy 
 miles, south of Battleford, we passed over land whose excellence could not be 
 excelled for a;^ricultural purposes ; tlience to the neighbourhood of the Ued 
 Deer Valley the soil is lighter, but still, in my opinion, in most places good for 
 grain, and, in any case, most admirable for summer pasturage. 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, and their tracks from watering-place to watering-place (never 
 too far apart from each other) were everywhere to be seen, while in very many 
 places 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, time will 
 not be long before the disappearance of the buffalo from 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. The heavy growth of poplar in the bottoms, the quantity of the 
 " bull " or high cranberry bushes, and the rich bunches that hang from the choke 
 cherries, showed we had come into that part of the Dominion which among 
 the plainsmen is designated as " God's country." From this onward to the J3ow 
 River, and thence to the frontier line, the trail led through what will be one of 
 the most valuable of our Provinces. This region is subject to those warm 
 winds called " the chinooks," and the settler will hardly ever u.-e 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 insure against 
 early frost. 
 
 At Calgary, a place interesting at the present time, as likely to be on that 
 Pacific Railway line 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 attend them, and who come 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 upon the so-called benchlands or plateaux above. This testimony 
 was also given by others on the way to Fort McLeod, thus closing most satis- 
 factorily the song of praise we had heard from practical men throughout our 
 whole journey of 1,200 miles. 
 
 Let me advert for a 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 inaugu- 
 rated by the Hudson Bay Company in their treatment of the Indians. Theirs 
 is one of the cases in which a traders' 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 by their servants to-day, gave the cue to the Canadian Govern- 
 ment. The L'ominion to-day, through her Indian ofiicers, and her mounted 
 constabulary, is showing herself the inheritress of these traditions. She has 
 been fortunate in organising the mounted police force. This is 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 com- 
 bined individual pluck and prudence rarely to be found amongst any soldiery, 
 and there has not been a single case in which any member of the force has 
 lost his temper under trying circumstances, or has not fulfilled his mission as a
 
 At Wirmipeg, October^ 10th, 1881. 
 
 guardian pf the peace. Severe journeys in" winter and difficult arrests have 
 had to be effected in the centre of savag-e 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 liave 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 Rochy Mountains, where 
 during the 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 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 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. Down from this great camp, of 
 which a length of 150 miles is sometimes visible, the rivers wind in trenches, 
 looking like the covered ways by which siege works zigzag up to the 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 Pacj^c. You have 
 a country whose value it would be insanity to question, and which, to judge 
 from the emigration taking place from our other Provinces, will be indissolubly 
 linked with them. It must support a vast population. If I may calculate from 
 the progress we have already made, in comparison with our neighbours, we 
 shall have no reason to fear further comparison with them, on the 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 in- 
 crease has been over eighteen per cent., whereas during the same period all 
 the New England States taken together have shown an increase only of 
 fifteen per cent. In the last thirty years in Ohio the increase has been sixty- 
 one per cent. Ontario has seen during that space of time one hundred and 
 one per cent, of an increase ; while Quebec has increased fifty-two per cent. 
 Manitoba in ten years has increased two hundred and eighty-nine per cent., 
 a greater rate than any hitherto attained, and, to judge from this year's expe- 
 rience, 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 prophesies 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. With you the word annexation has in late 
 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, and, as it was well expressed 
 to me lately, the best men in the States desire only to annex the friendship
 
 8 Speech of His Excellencu the Marquis of Lome, 
 
 and good-will of Canada. 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 rising reason among you. 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 cousins are 
 not coming over to us so fast as are the Scotch, the Irish, the Germans, and the 
 Scandinavians. 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 their 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 
 region of the future. What do we find has been, and is, the tendency of the 
 people of this continent ? Does not history show, and do not modern and 
 existing tendencies declare the lines of cleavage among them to lie along the 
 lines of latitude. Men spread from east to west. The political lines, which 
 mean the lines of diversity, spread in the same manner. The central spaces 
 will yet prove 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 ? 
 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 separa- 
 tions 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 but 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. 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 prepossession 
 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 content- 
 ment 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, unfor- 
 tunately, different ideas of his own, and was displeased with his own individual 
 treatment. When at last he was asked what the chief and council had said 
 in their eloquent orations, he turned round and only exclaimed, " He damn 
 displeased ;" and what did his councillors say ? " They damn displeased." No,
 
 At Winnipeg, October 10th, 1881. 
 
 c^entlemen, 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 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 kindlj'. 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 voluntary ask that his prosperity should be altogether over- 
 shadowed and swallowed up by mine ; so Canada, in words which our neigh- 
 bours may 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 iit 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. I must ask you now once more to allow me, gentlemen, to express my 
 acknowledgment 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. 
 You recognise in the Governor-General the sign and symbol of the union 
 which binds together in one the free and kindred people whom God has set 
 over famous isles and over the 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 Canada on the subject of her future. 
 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 pro- 
 mulgating weak and wild theories of its own. However useless and foolish 
 these theories may be, there is one thing of which we may be sure, and that 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 poAver among the nations. Mistress of a zone of territory favourable for the 
 maintenance of a numerous 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 in the future, become 
 great in her new Provinces and worthy her position on the earth. Affording the 
 best and safest highway between Asia and Europe, she will secure traffic from 
 both directed to her coasts. With a hand upon either ocean, she will gather 
 from each for the benefit of her hardy millions a large share of the commerce 
 of the world. To the east and to the west she will pour forth of her abun- 
 dance her treasures of food and the riches of her mines and of her forests, 
 demanded of her by the less fortunate of mankind. I esteem those men 
 favoured indeed who, in however slight a degree, have had the honour, or may 
 be yet called upon, to take part in the councils of the statesmen who in this 
 early era of her history are moulding this nation's laws in the forms approved 
 by its representatives. For me, I feel that I can be ambitious of no higher 
 title than to be known as one who administered its government in thorough 
 sympathy with the hopes and aspirations of its first founders, and in perfect 
 consonance with the will of its free Parliament. I ask for no better lot tlian 
 to be numbered by its people as rejoicing in the gladness bom of their inde- 
 pendence and of their loyalty. I desire no other reputation than that -which 
 may belong to him who sees his own dearest wishes in process of fulfilment, 
 in their certain progress, in their undisturbed peace, and in their ripening 
 jrrandcur.
 
 /4 
 
 r^ 
 
 ENGLAND 
 
 UNDER FREE TRADE. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE SHEFFIELD JUNIOR LIBERAL 
 ASSOCIATION, Wi NOVEMBER, 1881. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE W. MEDLEY. 
 
 Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co. 
 
 LONDON, PARIS <L NEW YORK. 
 
 iSbi. 
 
 LONDON: RIMPKIX, MARSHALL, & 
 MANCHESTER: A. IRELAND & CO. 
 UNITED KiNGDOAl ALLIANCE, 44, JOHN DALTON STREET.
 
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