PAGB Empire and Drama The Balance of Power in Europe Professor James Mavor, University of Toronto. Martin Harvey, Esq., London. 156 157 The Drama as a Factor in Social Progress 166 Laurence Irving, Esq., London. The Safeguarding of Imperial Democracy 174 Ven. Archdeacon Cody, D.D., LL.D., Toronto. War and Empire 182 Sir John Willison, LL.D., F. R.S.C., Toronto. COL. THE HON. JAMES MASON D. J. GOGGIN, M.A., D. C. L. J. P. MURRAY, J.P. J. F. M. STEWART, B.A. ELIAS CLOUSE, M.D. J. CASTELL HOPKINS, F.S.S. F. B. FETHERSTONHAUGH, K. C. GLIMPSES OF THE EAST An Address by HON. G. E. FOSTER, D.C.L., LL.D., Minister of Trade and Commerce, Ottawa, before the Empire Club of Canada, Oct. 16, 1913. Mr. President and Gentlemen, The The chairman and myself are at one on two points: First, he said you knew all about me; I come pretty near to occupying the same position, I know a good deal but not quite all about myself. Then, he said, he did not know anything about what I was going to say, and on that point we are pretty nearly on a par. trouble seems to be that whenever you are good enough to invite me, I always say yes, and then the trouble commences. Now, I am not going to make a speech to-day of any set character. It will be diversified whatever there is in it; it will be scrappy; it may be a little bit interesting, especially to those who have not lately travelled the same route that I have traversed, and it may help us not so much in the particular abundance of information-by way of suggestions, and impel us to implement the information which we already possess of eastern countries, information which is, I fear, somewhat circumscribed with the most of us. The chairman asked me for a heading to indicate the line of my talk, and I gave him— "Glimpses of the East." All we have ever had, even the best read amongst us, with reference to the East-and that taken from books-is little more thorough or more exhaustive than glimpses. People who have lived in China, and Japan, and India, for practically the whole of their natural lives, and have had much to do with these peoples, and by confessing that with all their living association and knowledge they do not yet understand the people amongst whom they have been living, and find it difficult to get far inside the Oriental mind. I think most of us can say that the East has always had a fascination for us; from our studies in the Sunday Schools, and from our reading of the Old and New Testament history our minds have drawn towards the East with more than ordinary interest. The East is the cradle of our race. The East has seen the advent of those who have founded the four great religious systems of the world, which to-day embrace within their beliefs the great majority of living people. The East has been associated with great civilizations; great empires, which have now long since passed away and lie buried, fruitful subjects for exploration in this and future ages, for those who wish to dig down to the foundations of these old buried civilizations and interpret to us anew something of their history, part of which we have lost, and part of which we never knew at all. From the East have come these great outpourings of humanity, that have carried fire and sword to the very middle of Western Europe. The East in later periods has become to Englishmen, and perhaps to Europe generally, a source of renewed interest, because Great Britain has through a series of years gradually assumed the position of being almost as much an Asiatic as she is a European Empire. Her vast possessions in Egypt, in India, and her paramount interests in and around China and Japan, with the Pacific islands, large and small, which belong to her, these all are eloquent proofs that the roots of the Empire have struck deep and wide into the eastern world, where Great Britain has taken upon herself trusts of profound importance; trusts which she is bound in her own honour to fulfill; the nonfulfillment of which would cause immense confusion and disaster to vast multitudes in the eastern world. The means of communication with the East have greatly improved. How distant and remote they were in the olden time from the point of view of an overland passage, or even of a passage by the sea around the Capes. The vast navigable highways had to be sought out, and the passage made with less knowledge of the craft, and with far less |