which Scotland got:
(1) That the States accept our Queen or King as their head. (2) That
we keep our own civil and criminal law and parliamentary constitution,
as Scotland did. (3) That the whole Empire be included in the
arrangement, as the whole of Scotland was in the union. Surely the men
who are never tired of citing the case of Scotland and England as
parallel to ours must admit that this is fair.

But, here comes a question that must be faced. Is it worth while
preserving the independence, the unity, and dignity of Canada? There
are men who, for one reason or another, doubt whether it is. They have
lost faith in the country, or rather they never had any faith to lose.
It is this absence of faith that is at the bottom of all their
arguments and all their unrest. Now, I do not wonder that there should
be men who do not share our faith. Men who were brought up in England,
and who have seen and tasted the best of it; who are proud of that
"dear, dear land", as Shakespeare called it, proud of its history, its
roll of saints, statesmen, heroes; of its cathedrals, colleges,
castles; of its present might as well as its ancient renown; and who
have then come to live in Canada,--well, they naturally look with
amused contempt at our raw, rough ways, our homespun legislators and
log colleges, combined with lofty ambitions expressed sometimes--it
must be admitted--in bunkum. I do not wonder, either, that men who
have been citizens of the United States, who exult in its vast
population, its vast wealth, and its boundless energy, should think it
madness on our part that we are not knocking untiringly at their door
for admission, and that the only explanation of our attitude that they
can give is that we are "swelled heads", or "the rank and file of
jingoism." But, after all, they must know that this question is not to
be settled by them. It must be settled by genuine Canadians. We, like
Cartier, are Canadians _avant tout_. Most of us have been born in the
land, have buried our fathers and mothers, and some of us our
children, too, in the natal soil, and above the sacred dust we have
pledged ourselves to be true to their memories and to the country they
loved, and to those principles of honour that are eternal! God
helping, we will do so, whether strangers help or hinder! We do not
think so meanly of our country that we are willing to sell it for a
mess of pottage. I know Canada well, from ocean to ocean; from the
rich sea pastu