yon, Sir, and the Ho?iuse will pardon me for stopped short of that which was needed.
a moment, I may be allowed to remark that There was needed after that the electric
years'ago, wben seated, as a school-boy, jan shocoof a nw idea; the nei dea tlt there
the school form and mak?ing mv first explr- was a bacekground of iluitable reources,
ations into thatwonderful field of geography that thore waa,
and history;followed out with all a boy's eager COUNTRY WITH A. GREAT PROSPECT
enthusiasmf, the birth, the progress, the and a wonderful fertility which should standc
growth and the splendid outflowering of as the background of the old pictnre -to at-?
national greatness, 1 was interested in every tract to us the attention, not only of .people
step, I participated in every struggle, I felt nearly related to us in blood and friendsahp,
sad at every reverse, and I rejoiced at every but the attention and the gaze of the civil-
victory; and.I remember perfeetly well the ized world. The very same thing was
feeling that often and often came foremost needed here that was necessary when the life
in my mind, that I wished, I too, were a of Europe had ecome stagnant in its views.
citizen of a country which waslarge and great Its people, looking out across the Alantic
-which either had Ooean, descried the far distant shores of a
IN ITS STORI1?I PAST A GRAND)EipR new country, opened up to themselves a new
and more the vearning for_ a countrv of not only itsdeveropment in the new world,
to fall back ighp ro,or which thd a future ouatof movement
posibi s whchre grand, andthey h ad be en s trangerfor centuri of
whicli it could carve that grandeur for itself.
topbe almost illmitable. There were many lberty, shich retuming upon thf mootier , -
other bovs io similar forms, m similar lan ndnd fatherland, have do?e more to
I felt the lack of that, I felt a spirit stirr' pas f N enteo pru were set on ingoot an
within me, a desire that that void might be
schoolAs I have grow n, I hav e felt mo re many about d epa rt of progress which found
feelingd more the very sarnie r and had thot only iof tsal development in the new worlne in-d,
whiv h I might be prou ,of which the fut luenc bt broght back that ie idth of movement ,
possi hadbilties ere gr and, a hadd might been sai d that breadth of idea, that trong spibe t of
to be almos t illimitables There were many liberty, which returning upon thea mother-
other bations inpast r forms, ve in sigrown ilar landup to be mthn, er l background, hof ve promie more to
schools, ll over this Dominion, that lwere bring about libe rty of govenment and lib-
feeling the versire. saThose lack,developme antd had t he ihat reof sourcnt th ne in-
very same desired stirring within them. flurne e with wlieh we aracquaited. The
hofre had been boys o f g eneration s pre v growing ery samup to b e wathia attrac necessar when the New
ho had felt they hsae lack, an d had been England States hstream d grown to made itsd. Alen
anirred with of thatsilar desire. These boysut of at once the gret andest impulse opeed wide; andwo-
gene rations past, h ave grow n u to be men, drful b ackgro un d of iddeep. That prosam ise for the
but they have not lost their desire. Those I development of the -richpst resources and
of my own generation are growing up to be thisattracted the gaze of Europe and broughit
men, but they lhave lost none of the ardor ita stream of emigranta and made its enter-
and strength of that des?ir, and out of that prise and spirit and impulse of life, wide and
desire,,born generations back and nurtured broad and deep. That same thinzg was ne-
through the generations that intervened, cessary for tur Confederation of 1867, and it
there sprang the idea of Confederation, came iw1870-71 and 1782. ThenewNorth
which, in 1867, becamo a fixed fact. ~W,est was opened to the gaze of the werld,
I welcomed the idea of Confederation. was annexed to the older Provinces, and we
welcomed it at the outset, outside of all the possessed a' Dominion which extended from
difficuties and conditions which surrounded the Atlantic to the Pacific and which had its
it. I left the arrangement of these difficul- wide resources. great fertility, and wonder-
ties to older heads. It was sufficient to me ful power, first opened to the gaze and at-
that the idea which had been born within tracting the attention of the world.
* me,which had been nurtured and was strong IN 1867 WE GAINED A COUNTRY.
within me, had at last come to its embodi- n1870 and i872 we extended tht A in-
ment, and had been engrated in theourt- try to wide bounds and mnade it more al
try. Our four Provinces became a couhntry y to be roud of, with greater re-
The-provincial life whiehhad been bounded sources and greater lpossibilities tliat we'ha
by narrow limits flowed out afresh in a wider hoped for atthe period of the firse amargaE
sweep and came back again to the different mation of the Provinces.
parts of the confederated Provinces fraught But something was necessary besides this..
with a new life and a new impulse. The elements that made up this hew country
But that. was not all that was needed. of 1871-72, were widelydiversified and wide-
These four Provinces of Canada that became ly scattered. Britiah Columbians had hard-
merged in one. Dominion were old; their ly heard ef Nova Scotians and New Brans-
names were familiar ; they had boen known wickers. The Province ef Quebec with a,
from the seventeenth centuri. The namesof different language, different blood, and a
Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick, different mode of expressing its religious as-
and Nova Scotia, were'old familiar names, pirations lay v ery largely Unknown to the
the mention of which excited no fresh enthu- people of the Maritime ifrovinees and the-
siaam, awakened no new iaterest, had no people of even the Weste/n and newer Prov-
new attrative power. Oatide of the im- mces. It was necessary, in order that we
pulse waich the confe deration of those'four should have a great country ?f which we-
* Provinees gwave,to the life of the people of could'be proud, thatweahouldhavea united
thoBe Provines, the Confederation of 1867, country. The vy same spiritwhich.drovei
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