s thicker than water, whereupon another
with perverse ingenuity begins at once to analyze the blood and
discovers that the elements are not, when resolved, precisely the same.
That, it is said, is the bond of the Anglo-Saxon race; whereupon a
Scotchman insists, or a Welshman insists, that it is not all
Anglo-Saxon, that there is something Celtic in its constitution, and
that to speak of it as the Anglo-Saxon race, either in my country or in
yours, is not in strictness historically accurate. Another finds that
they are the great English-speaking peoples, whereupon an ingenious man
points out that there are people in Great Britain and its dependencies
to whom the English language is not the most natural means of
communication, and that not every inhabitant of the United States is a
perfect master of the English tongue. [Laughter.]

Well, then, I saw an ingenious argument the other day to prove that it
is a gross impropriety to speak of England as the mother country; that
the two countries were really in the relation of sisters, and that we
ought to call them sister countries, and not speak of them as mother and
daughter. I am not going to enter into any of this controversy to-night.
The probability is that none of these suggested explanations is a
completely adequate explanation of the bond that binds the two nations
together, but that in each of them is to be found some element of truth.
I am not going to dwell on them to-night; I prefer a practical rather
than a theoretical view of any subject, and they all agree in this: a
tacit assertion of the fact that there is a bond which unites Great
Britain and the United States such as unites no two other nations
[applause and cheers]; and they express a realization of the fact that
there is a very close relationship between the two countries. Now,
undoubtedly we have at times said nasty things of one another
[laughter]; but then that is not proof that we are not near relations.
[Laughter.] Indeed, it might, perhaps, be cited by some as evidence the
other way. We have sometimes seemed to be very near serious--what shall
I say?--attacks upon one another. But, again, that is no proof that a
close relationship does not exist between us. It is not impossible that
at some future time, when we are either of us menaced by the
intervention of some third party which seriously threatens our existence
or our prosperity, we may find that, whatever differences arise amongst
ourselves from t