attitude. Let us, at any rate, do
what Australia has done--enter into a treaty, according to which we
shall pay so much a year for a certain number of ships, to be on our
own coasts in peace, and in war at the disposal of the Empire. That
would be tantamount to saying: "You have shared our risks, we will
share yours; we will pay part of the insurance that is necessary to
guarantee peace; we are educating officers for the army, and we are
willing to give a much needed addition to the fleet". That would be a
first step toward the attainment of full citizenship. What would be
the next? We could ask that our voice should be heard in some
constitutional way before any war was decided on. And we would have
the right standing ground from which to urge a wise system of
preferential trade in the common interest. These three things are, in
my opinion, connected, and I have ventured to indicate the order in
which they should be taken.

Would it pay? The experience of the world proves that nothing pays in
the long run but duty-doing. How can a country grow great men if it is
content to be in leading-strings, and to give plausible excuses to
show that that state of things is quite satisfactory?

Only by some form of Imperial Federation can the unity of the Empire
be preserved.

The previous advantages to which I referred concerned Canada directly.
This one may appear, to some persons, far away from us, but it is not.
In another speech I may enlarge on this advantage, but suffice it to
say now, that we cannot isolate ourselves from humanity. Canada ought
to be dearer to us than any other part of the Empire, but none the
less we must admit that the Empire is more important to the world than
any of its parts, and every true man is a citizen of the world.

I will not speak to-night of what the Empire has done for us in the
past, of the rich inheritance into which we have entered, and of the
shame that falls on children who value lightly the honour of their
family and race. Consider only the present position of affairs. The
European nations are busy watching each other. Britain is detaching
herself from them, understanding that she is an oceanic, colonizing,
and world power, much more than a European state. The United States
and Britain are the two Powers, one in essence, cradled in freedom,
that have a great future before them. According to the last census,
the first has a population of some fifty-four millions of whites. The
censu