1 now yearly flowing out. That emigration has only two points to
which it can be directed. One is the great United States. It is
the place where at present the great bulk of the emigration goes;
but it must be remembered that the ability of the United States
to absorb that emigration is daily diminishing. That country is
rapidly becoming filled with people, and therefore, leaving the
United States to one side, there remain only the vast possessions
of the British Crown as the point to which emigration can be
directed. Just conceive the additional strength we should derive
from that state of matters. These various populations-we see it
in the United States-are blending with the existing people;
they share our institutions, they admire them, they believe
them to be better than those they lived under in the countries
they had left; and, instead of being a danger, we shall find they
will be a strength and support to us. We have the finest
unoccupied portion of the world. If you look over the map of the
globe, you will find that the possessions which own the sway of the
Queen are at this moment really the only unoccupied portion of the
/ globe suited for a European population. If you once part with
those possessions they never can be restored. There is no future
for the British Empire if you once allow it to be disintegrated and
severed. The world does not permit of it. Once gone it is
gone for ever. Now the question naturally arises, Is there
anything in the British Empire at this moment that threatens its
future existence? I think there are some causes, and I will
venture to state them. I state them with submission to the very
much better information that you may possess, but they are those
which are suggested to us in the colonies by our own observation.
We think that there is a great deal too much apathy, and I might
even add the word ignorance, in regard to the colonies of the empire.
Frequently in the press we see it spoken of as if the increase of
prosperity in a country like Canada or in Australia would have for
its natural result independence-that they would part from the
mother country. Now the colonies do not like that. Colonists do
not believe this is, or ought to be, the policy of this country. We
believe that the policy of the Government ought to draw us