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What are we territorially? We are 3,707,000 square miles in area,-three or four hundred thousand square miles larger than the United States, and the Americans have made of their territory a great republic. We are one third of the whole extent of the British Empire. We have elbow room. We are only two persons to the square mile. The United States has thirty; England or Great Britain has 371; France has 190; Germany has 310; Belgium has 589. If we were as populous as the United States, and some day we may be, our population would be now over 100,000,000 of people. The United States began the last century with the same population as we began this century. Will the closing of this century see us with the vast population with which they closed the nineteenth century? It depends upon ourselves to realize that result. I said as to climate our position is most favourable, and this is a peculiar circumstance, or perhaps I should not say peculiar, but a circumstance in the history of all great modern nations, that those who occupy the northern zone are the strongest, the most virile, and the most progressive. Mr. Seward, who was Secretary of State in the Lincoln administration, speaking of Canada, made this reference, as far back as 1857: He said, "All southern political stars must set, though many times arise again with diminished splendour, but these which illuminate the Pole remain shining forever, increasing in splendour." Our star illumines the Pole. May we realize all that Seward predicted for the peoples living in the northern zone. (Applause) To be larger than the United States, to occupy an area nearly equal to the whole of the area of Europe, is a vast heritage to begin with, and demands on our part immense energy for its development.

Its natural resources are the second consideration. Have we the raw material out of which to make a country? Our agricultural resources are greater materially than the agricultural resources of any other country in the world. Our wheat fields have no superior. Last year the grain crops of Canada amounted to $565,000,000. Our wheat fields are yet undeveloped. Should we cultivate one half of the area at our disposal we could

feed the world, producing as we now do over 250,000,ooo bushels of wheat. With our vast prairies under cultivation, who can estimate or who can fully estimate, the productivity of the Dominion of Canada? And the West is not all, for in Ontario and the Eastern Provinces we have agricultural lands that produce crops equal to the best land in any Continent of the globe. (Hear, hear) Our agricultural resources are, as I say, unlimited. There is no boundary to their productivity except the limits of those who cultivate the soil.

Our forest products also, part of our natural resources, without which we would not be fully equipped, are greater, except perhaps those of the United States and Brazil, than any country known to us. The Department of Forestry at Ottawa say that the standing timber of Canada represents five hundred billion feet of lumber. That will build many a structure, and will assist in constructing homes for the millions yet to be.

Our mineral products are still unknown, but are in process of rapid development. Last year they represented $109,000,000 of money. Our cement, and that is a natural product of great value now, produced $7,571,000. We produced $26,000,000 worth of coal, and from the report of the Geological Department at Ottawa it would appear that no country has larger coal fields than Canada; not speaking of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick merely, but going west a great part of Alberta is a coal field, and so are large portions of British Columbia, and as I said, at the present rate of consumption, our coal would last us at least five thousand years. That is long enough for any of us who are present at this Club. (Laughter)

We produced last year $6,911,000 worth of copper, and my friend to the left, just recently from the Yukon, tells me there is still "corn in Egypt and gold in the Yukon." We produced $10,000,000 of nickel. Canada has the only nickel mines of any consequence yet discovered. We produced $14,452,000 worth of silver, placing Cobalt as the second greatest mining camp in the world. Have we not there abundance of raw material with which to erect a glorious superstructure of Em

pire, of Dominion, of wealth, of industry, of power? No nation taking stock in what it now owns in any of the lines I have enumerated can show a better balance sheet.

Who are we then that are the shareholders in this vast estate? Each one of us is a shareholder. We may appoint directors to manage the estate, and we do, but on the shareholders in the last analysis lies the responsibility of developing this great estate.

We are composed of different races, and the mere mention of these races will be in itself suggestive of what can be accomplished. If these races in other lands and under circumstances less favourable have acquired, some of them, the sovereignty of the world, and others have reached the rank of first class nations, why should not races of a similar origin do in Canada what they have done in Europe, in Asia, and in the Dark Continent? Who are we? We are 7,204,000 men, women, and children. Of that population 4,671,000 are Canadian born, a good country to be born in (applause); four sevenths of them bred under our own flag, educated in our own schools, nurtured in our own homes, with a character which Canada home life, I am happy to say, gives to all her sons. Nationally we consist of two great strains, the French and the Saxon, with a considerable infusion of the German. Of the French we have 1,649,371, to be accurate. These French are the children, the descendants, of the 85,000 who remained in Canada when the French flag was lowered on Quebec, and our old Union Jack substituted for it in 1759. That they are a virile race is shown from the fact that from those 85,000 in fifty years we have now over a million and a half. I shall not speak of the characteristics of the French race. If the French race in Canada but exhibit the chivalry, the courtesy, the refinement, the love of home, and at the same time the fondness for everything pertaining to their national institutions, then we have in that French population an element which must contribute largely to the development and prosperity of Canada. (Applause)

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The next section of British origin we have about twice as many as the French, namely, 3,063,195; Saxon English, 1,260,899-a noble strain. Who that looks.

back over the history of England from the days of King Alfred, the first great Englishman, shall I say, down to our present time, and who watches the development of the English constitution from the foundation laid in the Magna Charta in 1215 down to the concession of Responsible Government by Act of Settlement in 1688, but will say that the Saxon mind is particularly qualified for self-government, that the Saxon character is heroic-perhaps stubborn, perhaps self-willed, but ordinarily just, guided by the principle of fair play, by equal rights, by independence of character, by heroic fortitude in difficulties, and by a determination, no matter what intervenes, to maintain its superiority in the face of all opposition. (Applause) Will our 1,260,000 English do for Canada what the early English Saxon race did for England? Will they stand four square against every wind that blows? Will they be invincible where justice ought to triumph? Will they be courageous where danger meets them? Will they be adventurous and bold where there are new worlds to conquer? Will they wield the sceptre of justice over the nations they rule with equal rights to all and special favours to none? If so we will say, Thank God, for one million two hundred and sixty thousand Englishmen in Canada.

Next in enumeration we have 988,721 of Irish origin, -another grievance for Ireland! Englishmen again on top! but here we are, and we have to put up with it, and we do it with feelings of pride and pleasure. No position, I am happy to say, is closed against a man because of his origin, and no man who shows himself qualified for the highest position in the gift of his fellow-men or the Crown is debarred because of his nationality. In Ireland, of course, there has been a great deal of trouble, but we are happy to say that the Irishman who comes to Canada leaves the most of his troubles at home,— where they ought to remain. What is patriotism in Canada I am sorry to say is Pat-riotism in Ireland. (Laughter) We all love the love and the warmth of an Irishman's devotion, even when in the excitement of his devotion he knocks us down. We all love his enthusiasm for liberty, whether he wins it with a shillelagh or obtains

An Irishman must

it peacefully from his fellow-men. be free if he has to fight for it, and if he fights he is very apt to win-a very useful, affectionate, and loyal element is that Irish element. Will they do for Canada as they have done in their own land, and in other lands? Next in order we have 800,154 of Scotch origin. We go to the hills of Scotland for men, for fighting men, (hear, hear) for men who are as fearless as the skirling bag-pipes on the slopes of Bannockburn. They are men who never falter in battle. They are men who save their money, who keep the Sabbath, and everything else they can lay their hands on. (Laughter) God bless the Scotchman, even in his infirmities. If they have not done their duty yet they can do it now, and let them begin to lay in Canada the same foundation of truth, of courage, of religious devotion, and of energy which has characterized them in the Old Land.

We have 310,501 of German origin. No better farmer, no more industrious man, no more loyal citizen, no better conducted homes, than the German homes of Canada, and the German homes of the old land (Hear, hear). Although now and again we have a German scare it is not because of the natural hostility of the Germans to Britain or British institutions. It is, I think, sometimes a little in our own minds because we know the power and force of that tremendous empire with its 64,000,000, should it be aroused to a war-like attitude. Let us not fear at least our own German population, for they are daily adding to the wealth of Canada.

Can we fail- --a

With such material can we fail? three-fold strand is not easily broken. If you had your pick of the nations of the world, what better choice could you have made than to select the elements to which I have referred? If we should fail, then we are recreant to the race from which we are sprung, and the blood which runs in our veins has become degenerate, and our hearts have weakened and our souls are shameless in the presence of such tremendous opportunities! (Applause) But there is more than blood. There is that foundation of moral purpose without which you cannot make a nation. The greatest force in the world, greater than

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