great pioneer, Lord Durham, but also the grace to listen to him.
His Canadian policy set a headline which has been faithfully and
fruitfully copied. Its success was irresistible. Let the "Cambridge
Modern History" tell the tale of before and after Home Rule in the
Dominion:

"Provincial jealousies have dwindled to vanishing point; racial
antipathies no longer imperil the prosperity of the Dominion;
religious animosities have lost their mischievous power in a new
atmosphere of common justice and toleration. Canada, as the direct
outcome of Confederation, has grown strong, prosperous, energetic.
The unhappy divisions which prevailed at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, and which darkened with actual revolt and
bloodshed the dawn of the Victorian era, are now only a memory. The
links which bind the Dominion to Great Britain may on paper seem
slight, but they are resistless. Imperial Federation has still
great tasks to accomplish within our widely scattered Imperial
domains, but its success in Canada may be accepted as the pledge of
its triumph elsewhere. Canada is a nation within the Empire, and in
Kipling's phrase is 'daughter in her mother's house and mistress in
her own.'"

This is the authentic harvest of freedom.

The "unity" of the old regime which, in a Bismarckian phrase, was like
paper pasted over ever-widening cracks, was abandoned. The Separatist
programme triumphed. And the outcome? The sham unity of government has
been replaced by a real unity of interest, affection and cultural
affinity. We find administrators like Mr Lyttleton, former Tory
Secretary for the Colonies, engaged to-day not in suppressing but in
celebrating the "varied individuality" of the overseas possessions. As
for the political effects of the change, every English writer repeats of
the Colonies what Grattan, in other circumstances, said of the Irish:
Loyalty is their foible. There is indeed one notable flaw in the
colonial parallel. I have spoken as if the claim of the Colonies on foot
of the principle of nationality was comparable to that of Ireland. That
of course was not the case. They were at most nations in the making; she
was a nation made. Home Rule helped on their growth; in its benign
warmth Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa have developed
not only a political complexion characteristic of each but a literature,
an art and even a slang