Memories of Canada and Scotland — Speeches and Verses

by Duke of John Douglas Sutherland Campbell Argyll

May this be ever so with you, and may God prosper and bless you in all your undertakings. (Prolonged cheers.)

On his return to Winnipeg, after his tour through the North-Western
Territories in 1881, His Excellency spoke as follows:—

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,—I beg to thank you most cordially for the pleasant reception you have given to me on my return to Winnipeg, and for the words in which you proposed my health and have expressed a hope for the complete recovery of the Princess from the effects of that most unfortunate accident which took place at Ottawa. I know that the Canadian people will always remember that it was in sharing the duties incurred in their service that the Princess received injuries which have, only temporarily, I trust, so much impaired her health. (Applause.) Two years hence the journey I have undertaken will be an easy one for all to accomplish throughout its length, while at present the facilities of railway and steam accommodation only suffice for half of it. For a Canadian, personal knowledge of the North-West is indispensable. To be ignorant of the North-West is to be ignorant of the greater portion of our country. (Applause.) Hitherto I have observed that those who have seen it justly look down upon those who have not, with a kind of pitying contempt which you may sometimes have observed that they who have got up earlier in the morning than others and seen some beautiful sunrise, assume towards the friends who have slept until the sun is high in the heavens. (Laughter.) Our track, though it led us far, only enabled us to see a very small portion of your heritage now being made accessible. Had time permitted we should have explored the immense country which lies along the whole course of the wonderful Saskatchewan, which, with its two gigantic branches, opens to steam navigation settlements of rapidly growing importance. As it was, we but touched the waters of the north and south branches, and striking southwestwards availed ourselves of the American railway lines in Montana for our return. It was most interesting to compare the southern mountains and prairies with our own, and not even the terrible events which have recently cast so deep a gloom upon our neighbours, as well as ourselves, could prevent our kinsmen from showing that hospitality and courtesy which makes a visit to their country so great a pleasure. (Loud applause.) I am the more glad to bear witness to this courtesy in the presence of the distinguished consul of the United States, who is your guest this evening, and who, in this city, so honourably represents his country—(applause)—in nothing more than in this, that he has never misrepresented our own. (Loud applause.) Like almost all his compatriots who occupy by the suffrage of their people official positions, he has recognised that fact, which is happily acknowledged by all of standing amongst ourselves, that the interests of the British Empire and of the United States may be advanced side by side without jealousy or friction, and that the good of the one is interwoven with the welfare of the other. (Cheers.) Canada has recently shown that sympathy with her neighbour's grief which becomes her, and which has been so marked throughout all portions of our Empire. She has sorrowed with the sorrow of the great commonwealth, whose chief has been struck down, in the fulness of his strength, in the height of his usefulness, in the day of universal recognition of his noble character, by the dastard hand of the assassin. We have felt in this as though we ourselves had suffered, for General Garfield's position and personal worth made his own and his fellow citizens' misfortune a catastrophe for all English-speaking races. The bulletins telling of his calm and courageous struggle against cruel and unmerited affliction, have been read and discussed by us with as strong an admiration for the man, and with as tender a sentiment for the anxiety and misery of his family, as they have been awaited and perused in the south. It is fitting and good that this should be. We have with the Americans, not only a common descent, but a similar position on this continent, and a like probable destiny. The community of feeling reaches beyond the fellowship arising from the personal interest attaching to the dignity of a high office sustained with honour, and to the reverence for the tender ties of hearth and home, sacred though these be, for Canadians and Americans have each a common aim and a common ideal. Though belonging to very different political schools, and preferring to advance by very different paths, we both desire to live only in a land of perfect liberty. (Loud cheers.) When the order which ensures freedom is desecrated by the cowardly rancour of the murderer, or by the tyranny of faction, the blow touches more than one life, and strikes over a wider circle than that where its nearer and immediate consequences are apparent. The people of the United States have been directed into one political organisation, and we are cherishing and developing another; but they will find no men with whom a closer and more living sympathy with their triumphs or with their trouble abides, than their Canadian cousins in the Dominion. (Cheers.) Let this be so in the days of unborn generations, and may we never have again to express our horror at such a deed of infamy as that which has lately called forth, in so striking a manner, the proofs of international respect and affection. (Hear, hear.) To pass to other themes awaking no unhappy recollections, you will expect me to mention a few of the impressions made upon us by what we have seen during the last few weeks. Beautiful as are the numberless lakes and illimitable forests of Keewatin—the land of the north wind, to the east of you—yet it was pleasant to "get behind the north wind"—(laughter)—and to reach your open plains. The contrast is great between the utterly silent and shadowy solitudes of the pine and fir forests, and the sunlit and breezy ocean of meadowland, voiceful with the music of birds, which stretches onward from the neighbourhood of your city. In Keewatin the lumber industry and mining enterprises can alone be looked for, but here it is impossible to imagine any kind of work which shall not produce results equal to those attained in any of the great cities of the world. (Great cheering.) Unknown a few years ago except for some differences which had arisen amongst its people, we see Winnipeg now with a population unanimously joined in happy concord, and rapidly lifting it to the front rank amongst the commercial centres of the continent. We may look in vain elsewhere for a situation so favourable and so commanding—many as are the fair regions of which we can boast. (Loud cheers.) There may be some among you before whose eyes the whole wonderful panorama of our Provinces has passed—the ocean-garden island of Prince Edward; the magnificent valleys of the St. John and Sussex; the marvellous country, the home of "Evangeline," where Blomidon looks down on the tides of Fundy, and over tracts of red soil richer than the weald of Kent. You may have seen the fortified Paradise of Quebec; and Montreal, whose prosperity and beauty is worthy of her great St. Lawrence, and you may have admired the well-wrought and splendid Province of Ontario, and rejoiced at the growth of her capital, Toronto, and yet nowhere will you find a situation whose natural advantages promise so great a future as that which seems ensured to Manitoba and to Winnipeg, the Heart city of our Dominion. (Tremendous cheering.) The measureless meadows which commence here stretch without interruption of their good soil westward to your boundary. The Province is a green sea over which the summer winds pass in waves of rich grasses and flowers, and on this vast extent it is only as yet here and there that a yellow patch shows some gigantic wheat field. (Loud cheering.) Like a great net cast over the whole are the bands and clumps of poplar wood which are everywhere to be met with, and which, no doubt, when the prairie fires are more carefully guarded against, will, wherever they are wanted, still further adorn the landscape. (Cheers.) The meshes of this wood-netting are never further than twenty or thirty miles apart Little hay swamps and sparkling lakelets, teeming with wild fowl, are always close at hand, and if the surface water in some of these has alkali, excellent water can always be had in others, and by the simple process of digging for it a short distance beneath the sod with a spade, the soil being so devoid of stones that it is not even necessary to use a pick. No wonder that under these circumstances we hear no croaking. Croakers are very rare animals throughout Canada. It was remarked with surprise, by an Englishman accustomed to British grumbling, that even the frogs sing instead of croaking in Canada— (great cheering)—and the few letters that have appeared speaking of disappointment will be amongst the rarest autographs which the next generation will cherish in their museums. But with even the best troops of the best army in the world you will find a few malingerers—a few skulkers. However well an action has been fought, you will hear officers who have been engaged say that there were some men whose idea seemed to be that it was easier to conduct themselves as became them at the rear, rather than in the front. (Laughter and applause.) So there have been a few lonely and lazy voices raised in the stranger press dwelling upon your difficulties and ignoring your triumphs. These have appeared from the pens of men who have failed in their own countries and have failed here, who are born failures, and will fail, till life fails them. (Laughter and applause.) They are like the soldiers who run away from the best armies seeking to spread discomfiture, which exists only in those things they call their minds—(laughter)—and who returning to the cities say their comrades are defeated, or if they are not beaten, they should in their opinion be so. We have found, as we expected, that their tales are not worthy the credence even of the timid. (Applause.) There was not one person who had manfully faced the first difficulties—always far less than those to be encountered in the older Provinces—but said that he was getting on well and he was glad he had come, and he generally added that he believed his bit of the country must be the best, and that he only wished his friends could have the same good fortune, for his expectations were more than realised. (Cheers and laughter.) It is well to remember that the men who will succeed here, as in every young community, are usually the able-bodied, and that their entry on their new field of labour should be when the year is young. Men advanced in life and coming from the old country will find their comfort best consulted by the ready provided accommodation to be obtained by the purchase of a farm in the old Provinces. All that the settler in Manitoba would seem to require is, that he should look out for a locality where there is either good natural drainage, and ninety-nine hundredths of the country has this, and that he should be able readily to procure in Winnipeg, or elsewhere, some light pumps like those used in Abyssinia for the easy supply of water from a depth of a few feet below the surface. Alkali in the water will never hurt his cattle, and dykes of turf and the planting of trees would everywhere insure him and them the shelter that may be required. Five hundred dollars should be his own to spend on his arrival, if he wishes to farm. If he comes as an artisan he may, like the happy masons now to be found in Winnipeg, get the wages of a British Army Colonel, [1] by putting up houses as fast as brick, wood, and mortar can be got together. Favourable testimony as to the climate was everywhere given. The heavy night dews throughout the North-West keep the country green when everything is burned to the south, and the steady winter cold, although it sounds formidable when registered by the thermometer, is universally said to be far less trying than the cold to be encountered at the old English Puritan city of Boston, in Massachussets. It is the moisture in the atmosphere which makes cold tell, and the Englishman who, with the thermometer at zero, would, in his moist atmosphere, be shivering, would here find one flannel shirt sufficient clothing while working. I never like to make comparisons, and am always unwillingly driven to do so, although it seems to be the natural vice of the well-travelled Englishman. Over and over again in Canada have I been asked if such and such a bay was not wonderfully like the Bay of Naples, for the inhabitants had often been told so. I always professed to be unable to see the resemblance, of course entirely out of deference to the susceptibilities of the Italian nation. So one of our party, a Scotsman, whenever in the Rocky Mountains he saw some grand pyramid or gigantic rock, ten or eleven thousand feet in height, would exclaim that the one was the very image of Arthur's Seat and the other of Edinburgh Castle. With the fear of Ontario before my eyes I would therefore never venture to compare a winter here to those of our greatest Province, but I am bound to mention that when a friend of mine put the question to a party of sixteen Ontario men who had settled in the western portion of Manitoba, as to the comparative merits of the cold season in the two Provinces— fourteen of them voted for the Manitoba climate, and only two elderly men said that they preferred that of Toronto. You will therefore see how that which is sometimes called a very unequal criterion of right and justice, a large majority, determines this question. Now although we are at present in Manitoba, and Manitoba interests may dominate our thoughts, yet you may not object to listen for a few moments to our experience of the country which lies further to the west. To the present company the assertion may be a bold one, but they will be sufficiently tolerant to allow me to make it, if it goes no further, and I therefore say that we may seek for the main chance elsewhere than in Main street. The future fortunes of this country beyond this Province bear directly upon its prosperity. Although you may not be able to dig for four feet through the same character of black loam that you have here when you get to the country beyond Fort Ellice, yet in its main features it is the same right up to the forks of the Saskatchewan. I deeply regret that I was not able to visit Edmonton, which bids fair to rival any place in the North-West. Settlement is rapidly increasing there, and I met at Battleford one man who alone had commissions from ten Ontario farmers to buy for them at that place. Nothing can exceed the fertility and excellence of the land along almost the whole course of that great river, and to the north of it in the wide strip belting its banks and extending up to the Peace River, there will be room for a great population whose opportunities for profitable cultivation of the soil will be most enviable. The netting of wood of which I have spoken as covering all the prairie between Winnipeg and Battleford, is beyond that point drawn up upon the shores of the prairie sea, and lies in masses of fine forest in the gigantic half circle formed by the Saskatchewan and the Rockies. It is only in secluded valleys, on the banks of large lakes, and in river bottoms, that much wood is found in the Far West, probably owing to the prevalence of fires. These are easily preventible, and there is no reason why plantations should not flourish there in good situations as well as elsewhere. Before I leave the Saskatchewan, let me advert to the ease with which the steam navigation of that river can be vastly improved. At present there is only one boat at all worthy of the name of a river steamer upon it, and this steamer lies up during the night. A new company is, I am informed, now being organised, and there is no reason why, if the new vessels are properly equipped and furnished with electric lights, which may now be cheaply provided, they should not keep up a night and day service, so that the settlers at Prince Albert, Edmonton, and elsewhere, may not have, during another season, to suffer great privations incident to the wants of transportation which has loaded the banks of Grand Rapids during the present year with freight, awaiting steam transport The great cretaceous coal seams at the headwaters of the rivers which rise in the Rocky Mountains or in their neighbourhood and flow towards your doors, should not be forgotten. Although you have some coal in districts nearer to you, we should remember that on the headwaters of these streams there is plenty of the most excellent kind which can be floated down to you before you have a complete railway system. Want of time as well as a wish to see the less vaunted parts of the country took me southwestward from Battleford, over land which in many of the maps is variously marked as consisting of arid plains or as a continuation of the "American Desert." The newer maps, especially those containing the explorations of Professor Macoun, have corrected this wholly erroneous idea. For two days' march—that is to say, for about 60 or 70 miles south of Battleford—we passed over land whose excellence could not be surpassed for agricultural purposes. Thence to the neighbourhood of the Red Deer Valley the soil is lighter, but still in my opinion in most places good for grain—in any case most admirable for summer pasturage,—and it will certainly be good also for stock in winter as soon as it shall pay to have some hay stored in the valleys. The whole of it has been the favourite feeding ground of the buffalo. Their tracks from watering place to watering place, never too far apart from each other, were everywhere to be seen, while in very many tracks their dung lay so thickly that the appearance of the ground was only comparable to that of an English farmyard. Let us hope that the entre-acte will not be long before the disappearance of the buffalo on these scenes is followed by the appearance of domestic herds. The Red Deer Valley is especially remarkable as traversing a country where, according to the testimony of Indian chiefs travelling with us, snow never lies for more than three months, and the heavy growth of poplar in the bottoms, the quantity of the "bull" or high cranberry bushes, and the rich branches that hung from the choke-cherries showed us that we had come into that part of the Dominion which among the plainsmen is designated as "God's country." From this, onward to the Bow River and thence to the frontier line, the trail led through what will be one of the most valued of our Provinces, subject to those warm winds called the "chinooks." The settler will hardly ever use anything but wheeled vehicles during winter, and throughout a great portion of the land early sowing—or fall sowing-will be all that will be necessary to ensure him against early frosts. At Calgarry—a place interesting at the present time as likely to be upon that Pacific Railway line [2] which will connect you with the Pacific, and give you access to "that vast shore beyond the furthest sea," the shore of Asia—a good many small herds of cattle have been introduced within the last few years. During this year a magnificent herd of between six and seven thousand has been brought in, and the men who attended them and who came from Montana, Oregon and Texas, all averred that their opinion of their new ranche was higher than that of any with which they had been acquainted in the south. Excellent crops have been raised by men who had sown not only in the river bottoms, but also upon the so-called "bench" lands or plateaux above. This testimony was also given by others on the way to Fort Macleod and beyond it, thus closing most satisfactorily the song of praise we had heard from practical men throughout our whole journey of 1200 miles. Let me advert for one moment to some of the causes which have enabled settlers to enjoy in such peace the fruits of their industry. Chief amongst these must be reckoned the policy of kindness and justice which was inaugurated by the Hudson's Bay Company in their treatment of the Indians. Theirs is one of the cases in which a trader's association has upheld the maxim that "honesty is the best policy," even when you are dealing with savages. The wisdom and righteousness of their dealing on enlightened principles, which are fully followed out by their servants to-day, gave the cue to the Canadian Government. The Dominion through her Indian officers and her mounted constabulary is showing herself the inheritress of these traditions. She has been fortunate in organising the Mounted Police Force, a corps of whose services it would be impossible to speak too highly. A mere handful in that vast wilderness, they have at all times shown themselves ready to go anywhere and do anything. They have often had to act on occasions demanding the combined individual pluck and prudence rarely to be found amongst any soldiery, and there has not been a single occasion on which any member of the force has lost his temper under trying circumstances, or has not fulfilled his mission as a guardian of the peace. Severe journeys in winter and difficult arrests have had to be effected in the centre of savage tribes, and not once has the moral prestige which was in reality their only weapon, been found insufficient to cope with difficulties which, in America, have often baffled the efforts of whole columns of armed men. I am glad of this opportunity to name these men as well worthy of Canada's regard-as sons who have well maintained her name and fame. And now that you have had the patience to listen to me, and we have crossed the continent together, let me advise you as soon as possible to get up a branch Club-house, situated amongst our Rocky Mountains, where, during summer, your members may form themselves into an Alpine club and thoroughly enjoy the beautiful peaks and passes of our Alps. In the railway you will have a beautiful approach to the Pacific, The line, after traversing for days the plains, will come upon the rivers whose sheltering valleys have all much the same character. The river-beds are like great moats in a modern fortress-you do not see them till close upon them. As in the glacis and rampart of a fortress, the shot can search across the smoothed surfaces above the ditch, so any winds that may arise may sweep across the twin levels above the river fosses. The streams run coursing along the sunken levels in these vast ditches, which are sometimes miles in width. Sheltered by the undulating banks, knolls, or cliffs, which form the margin of their excavated bounds, are woods, generally of poplar, except in the northern and western fir fringe. On approaching the mountains their snow caps look like huge tents encamped along the rolling prairie. Up to this great camp, of which a length of 200 miles is sometimes visible, the rivers wind in trenches, looking like the covered ways by which siege works zig-zag up to a besieged city. On a nearer view the camp line changes to ruined marble palaces, and through their tremendous walls and giant woods you will soon be dashing on the train for a winter basking on the warm Pacific coast. You have a country whose value it would be insanity to question, and which, to judge from the emigration taking place from the older Provinces, will be indissolubly linked with them. It must support a vast population. If we may calculate from the progress we have already made in comparison with our neighbours, we shall have no reason to fear comparison with them on the new areas now open to us. We have now four million four hundred thousand people, and these, with the exception of the comparatively small numbers as yet in this Province, are restricted to the old area. Yet for the last ten years our increase has been over 18 per cent, whereas during the same period all the New England States taken together have shown an increase only of 15 per cent. In the last thirty years in Ohio the increase has been 61 per cent.—Ontario has seen during that space of time 101 per cent of increase, while Quebec has increased 52 per cent. Manitoba in ten years has increased 289 per cent, a greater rate than any hitherto attained, and to judge from this year's experience is likely to increase to an even more wonderful degree during the following decade. Statistics are at all times wearisome, but are not these full of hope? Are they not facts giving just ground for that pride in our progress which is conspicuous among our people, and ample reason for our belief that the future may be allowed to take care of itself. They who pour out prophecies of change, prescribing medicines for a sound body, are wasting their gifts and their time. It is among strangers that we hear such theories propounded by destiny men. With you the word "annexation" has in the last years only been heard in connection with the annexation of more territory to Manitoba. I must apologise to a Canadian audience for mentioning the word at all in any other connection. In America the annexation of this country is disavowed by all responsible leaders. As it was well expressed to me lately, the best men in the States desire only to annex the friendship and good will of Canada. (Loud cheers.) To be sure it may be otherwise with the camp followers; they often talk as if the swallowing and digestion of Canada by them were only a question of time, and of rising reason amongst us. How far the power of the camp followers extends it is not for us to determine. They have, however, shown that they are powerful enough to capture a few English writers, our modern minor prophets who, in little magazine articles, are fond of teaching the nations how to behave, whose words preach the superiority of other countries to their own, and the proximate dismemberment of that British Empire which has the honour to acknowledge them as citizens. They have with our American friends of whom I speak at all events one virtue in common, they are great speculators. In the case of our southern friends this is not a matter to be deplored by us, for American speculation has been of direct material benefit to Canada, and we must regret that our American citizens are not coming over to us so fast as are the Scotch, the Irish, the Germans, and the Scandinavians. Morally, also, it is not to be deplored that such speculations are made, for they show that it is thought that Canadians would form a useful though an unimportant wing for one of the great parties; and, moreover, such prophecies clothe with amusement "the dry bones" of discussion. But it is best always to take men as we find them, and not to believe that they will be different even if a kindly feeling, first for ourselves and afterwards for them, should make us desire to change them. Let us rather judge from the past and from the present than take flights, unguided by experience, into the imaginary regions of the future. What do we find has been, and is, the tendency of the peoples of this continent? Does not history show, and do not modern and existing tendencies declare, that the lines of cleavage among them lie along the lines of latitude? Men spread from east to west, and from east to west the political lines, which mean the lines of diversity, extend. The central spaces are, and will be yet more, the great centres of population. Can it be imagined that the vast central hives of men will allow the eastern or western seaboard people to come between them with separate empire, and shut them out in any degree from full and free intercourse with the markets of the world beyond them? Along the lines of longitude no such tendencies of division exist. The markets of the North Pole are not as yet productive, and with South America commerce is comparatively small. The safest conclusion, if conclusions are to be drawn at all, is that what has hitherto been, will, in the nature of things, continue,—that whatever separations exist will be marked by zones of latitude. For other evidence we must search in vain. Our county councils, the municipal corporations, the local provincial chambers, the central Dominion Parliament, and last not least, a perfectly unfettered press, are all free channels for the expression of the feelings of our citizens. Why is it that in each and all of these reflectors of the thoughts of men, we see nothing but determination to keep and develop the precious heritage we have in our own constitution, so capable of any development which the people may desire. (Cheers.) Let us hear Canadians if we wish to speak for them. These public bodies and the public press are the mouthpieces of the people's mind. Let us not say for them what they never say for themselves. It is no intentional misrepresentation, I believe, which has produced these curious examples of the fact that individual prepossessions may distort public proof. It reminds me of an interpretation once said to have been given by a bad interpreter of a speech delivered by a savage warrior, who, in a very dignified and extremely lengthy discourse, expressed the contentment of his tribe with the order and with the good which had been introduced amongst them by the law of the white man. His speech was long enough fully to impress with its meaning and its truth all who took pains to listen to him, and who could understand his language, but the interpreter had unfortunately different ideas of his own, and was displeased with his own individual treatment. When at last he was asked what the chief and his council had said in their eloquent orations, he turned round and only exclaimed,—"He dam displeased!" (Great laughter.) And what did his councillors say? "They dam displeased!" (Roars of laughter.) No, gentlemen, let each man in public or literary life in both nations do all that in him lies to cement their friendship, so essential for their mutual welfare. But this cannot be cemented by the publication of vain vaticinations. This great part of our great Empire has a natural and warm feeling for our republican brethren, whose fathers parted from us a century ago in anger and bloodshed. May this natural affection never die. It is like the love which is borne by a younger brother to an elder, so long as the big brother behaves handsomely and kindly. I may possibly know something of the nature of such affection, for as the eldest of a round dozen, I have had experience of the fraternal relation as exhibited by an unusual number of younger brothers. Never have I known that fraternal tie to fail, but even its strength has its natural limit, so Canada's affection may be measured. None of my younger brothers, however fond of me, would voluntarily ask that his prospects should be altogether overshadowed and swallowed up by mine. So Canada, if I may express her feelings in words which our neighbours understand, wishes to be their friend, but does not desire to become their food. She rejoices in the big brother's strength and status, but is not anxious to nourish it by offering up her own body in order that it may afford him, when over-hungry, that happy festival he is in the habit of calling a "square meal." (Loud laughter.) I must ask you now once more to allow me, gentlemen, to express my acknowledgments to you for this entertainment. It affords another indication of the feelings with which the citizens of Winnipeg regard any person who has the honour, as the head of the Canadian Government, to represent the Queen—(cheers)—you recognise in the Governor-General the sign and symbol of the union which binds together in one the free and kindred peoples whom God has set over famous isles and over fertile spaces of mighty continents. I have touched, in speaking to you, on certain vaticinations and certain advice given by a few good strangers to Canadians on the subject of the future of Canada. Gentlemen, I believe that Canadians are well able to take care themselves of their future, and the outside world had better listen to them instead of promulgating weak and wild theories of its own. (Loud applause.) But however uncertain, and I may add, foolish may be such forecasts, of one thing we may be sure, which is this, that the country you call Canada, and which your sons and your children's children will be proud to know by that name, is a land which will be a land of power among the nations. (Cheers.) Mistress of a zone of territory favourable for the maintenance of a numerous and homogeneous white population, Canada must, to judge from the increase in her strength during the past, and from the many and vast opportunities for the growth of that strength on her new Provinces in the future, be great and worthy her position on the earth. Affording the best and safest highway between Asia and Europe, she will see traffic from both directed to her coasts. With a hand upon either ocean she will gather from each for the benefit of her hardy millions a large share of the commerce of the world. To the east and to the west she will pour forth of her abundance, her treasures of food and the riches of her mines and of her forests, demanded of her by the less fortunate of mankind. I esteem those men favoured indeed, who, in however slight a degree, have had the honour, or may be yet called upon to take part in the councils of the statesmen who, in this early era of her history, are moulding this nation's laws in the forms approved by its representatives. For me, I feel that I can be ambitious of no higher title than to be known as one who administered its Government in thorough sympathy with the hopes and aspirations of its first founders, and in perfect consonance with the will of its free parliament. (Cheers.) I ask for no better lot than to be remembered by its people as rejoicing in the gladness born of their independence and of their loyalty. I desire no other reputation than that which may belong to him who sees his own dearest wishes in process of fulfilment, in their certain progress, in their undisturbed peace, and in their ripening grandeur. (Cheers.)

[1] Masons wages had risen to an extraordinary height in the Autumn of 1881. Excellent pay can now be obtained by bricklayers, carpenters, and blacksmiths.

[2] The Canadian Pacific Railway has now been completed to a valley in the Rocky Mountains beyond Calgarry, through which place it passes.

A Monsieur le Président et Messieurs les Membres de l'Association de
St. Jean Baptiste de Manitoba.

Messieurs,—J'ai l'honneur de vous remercier au nom de sa majesté des sentiments de loyauté que vous venez d'exprimer.

C'est pour moi un plaisir d'entendre exprimer des sentiments de dévouement au trône, de quelque race qu'ils proviennent, soit de la bouche de Canadiens-frangais, d'Anglais, d'Ecossais, de Canadiens-irlandais ou de Canadiens d'origine quelconque.

Les gloires de chaque race aujourd'hui représentée au Manitoba se confondent dans la gloire commune de la nation Canadienne. Que chacune d'elles conserve précieusement ses associations historiques! Elles sont en effet autant de motifs d'encouragement à travailler à augmenter la force et la valeur de la nation entière, une et indivisible. A l'avenir, votre rivalité ne consistera que dans la sainte rivalité de votre dévouement à Dieu et au grand pays qu'il vous a octroyé dans notre puissance du Canada.

C'est à un Canadien-français que revient la gloire d'avoir le premier exploré notre pays. Qu'il revienne aux descendants de cette race de cimenter leur union avec nos diverses races, et de leur donner ainsi de la force. Un Canadien-francais me disait tout dernièrement à Québec: "Ma famille a souvent versé de son sang en combattant les Anglais." Je lui répondis: "Oui, monsieur, et ma propre famille en a versé encore bien plus en les combattant, car nous les avons combattus pendant plus de trois siècles." L'histoire de vos ancêtres est aussi glorieuse que celle de l'Ecosse ou de l'Angleterre.