On the arrival of Mr. Speaker and the members of the Commons in the
Senate Chamber, the following address was read to His Excellency and H.
R. H. the Princess Louise by Sir John Macdonald.
To His Excellency the Governor-General of Canada, etc, etc.,—May it please your Excellency, We, Her Majesty's dutiful subjects, the Senate and House of Commons of Canada in Parliament assembled, desire on behalf of those we represent, as well as on our own, to give expression to the general feeling of regret with which the country has learned that your Excellency's official connection with Canada is soon about to cease. We are happy, however, to believe that in the councils of the Empire in the future, and whenever opportunity enables you to render Her Majesty service, Canada will ever find in your Excellency a steadfast friend, with knowledge of her wants and aspirations, and an earnest desire to forward her interests.
Your Excellency's zealous endeavours to inform yourself by personal observation of the character, capabilities, and requirements of every section of the Dominion have been highly appreciated by its people, and we feel that the country is under deep obligations to you for your untiring efforts to make its resources widely and favourably known.
The warm personal interest which your Excellency has taken in everything calculated to stimulate and encourage intellectual energy amongst us, and to advance science and art, will long be gratefully remembered The success of your Excellency's efforts has fortified us in the belief that a full development of our national life is perfectly consistent with the closest and most loyal connection with the Empire.
The presence of your illustrious consort in Canada seems to have drawn us closer to our beloved Sovereign, and in saying farewell to your Excellency and to her Royal Highness, whose kindly and gracious sympathies, manifested upon so many occasions, have endeared her to all hearts, we humbly beg that you will personally convey to Her Majesty the declaration of our loyal attachment, and of our determination to maintain firm and abiding our connection with the great Empire over which she rules.
His Excellency the Governor-General made the following reply:—
Honourable Gentlemen,—No higher personal honour can be received by a public man than that which, by this address, you have been pleased to accord to me. In asking you to accept my gratitude, I thank you also for your words regarding the Princess, whose affection for Canada fully equals mine. It will be my pride and duty to aid you in the future to the utmost of my power. Now that the pre-arranged term of our residence among you draws to its end, and the happiest five years I have ever known are nearly spent, it is my fortune to look back on a time during which all domestic discord has been avoided, our friendship with the great neighbouring Republic has been sustained, and an uninterrupted prosperity has marked the advance of the Dominion. In no other land have the last seventeen years, the space of time which has elapsed since your Federation, witnessed such progress. Other countries have seen their territories enlarged and their destinies determined by trouble and war, but no blood has stained the bonds which have knit together your free and order-loving populations, and yet in this period, so brief in the life of a nation, you have attained to a union whose characteristics from sea to sea are the same. A judicature above suspicion, self-governing communities entrusting to a strong central Government all national interests, the toleration of all faiths with favour to none, a franchise recognising the rights of labour by the exclusion only of the idler, the maintenance of a Government not privileged to exist for any fixed term, but ever susceptible to the change of public opinion and ever open, through a responsible Ministry, to the scrutiny of the people—these are the features of your rising power. Finally, you present the spectacle of a nation already possessing the means to make its position respected by its resources in men available at sea or on land. May these never be required except to gather the harvests the bounty of God has so lavishly bestowed upon you. The spirit, however, which made your fathers resist encroachment on your soil and liberties is with you now, and it is as certain to-day, as it was formerly, that you are ready to take on yourselves the necessary burden to ensure the permanence of your laws and institutions. You have the power to make treaties on your own responsibility with foreign nations, and your high commissioner is associated, for purposes of negotiation, with the Foreign Office. You are not the subjects but the free allies of the great country which gave you birth, and is ready with all its energy to be the champion of your interests. Standing side by side, Canada and Great Britain work together for the commercial advancement of each other. It is the recognition of this which makes such an occasion as the present significant. Personal ties, however dear to individuals, are of no public moment. These may be happy or unhappy accidents, but the satisfaction experienced from the conditions of the connection now subsisting between the old and the new lands can be affected by no personal accident. I therefore rejoice that again it has been your determination to show that Canada remains as firmly rooted as ever in love to that free union which ensures to you and to Great Britain equal advantage. Without it your institutions and national autonomy would not be allowed to endure for twelve months, while the loss of the alliance of the communities which were once the dependencies of England would be a heavy blow to her commerce and renown. I thank you once more for your words, which shall be dear treasures to me for ever, and may the end of the term of each public servant who fills with you the office which constitutes him at once your chief magistrate and the representative of a united empire, be a day for pronouncing in favour of a free national Government defended by such Imperial alliance.
At the conclusion of His Excellency's reply, Mr. Speaker returned to the Commons Chamber, followed by the members. The last paragraph of the speech from the Throne was as follows:—
Honourable Gentlemen of the Senate: Gentlemen of the House of Commons,—I desire to thank you for the great honour conferred on me by the presentation of a joint address. The Princess and I have both been profoundly touched by your words, and the message of which you make us the bearers, comes, as we personally know, from a people determined to maintain the Empire. The severance of my official connection with Canada does not loosen the tie of affection which will ever make me desire to serve this country. I pray that the prosperity I have seen you enjoy may continue, and that the blessing of God may at all times be yours, to strengthen you in unity and peace.