As I have already said, during 1888-9-90, I was frequently addressing public meetings and speaking at banquets of all sorts of societies and organisations. We had also started the raising of the flags in the schools, the decoration of monuments, the singing of patriotic songs, &c., and generally we were waging a very active campaign against the Commercial Union movement. In 1891, the most dangerous crisis of the struggle, Mr. Smith commenced a series of lectures which were cleverly intended to sap the loyalty of our people and neutralise the effect of our work. The three lectures were delivered before the Young Men’s Liberal Club of Toronto. The first was on “Loyalty” and was delivered on the 2nd February, 1891, and was intended to ridicule and belittle the idea of loyalty.
In reply to this I prepared at once a lecture on the United Empire Loyalists which I delivered at the Normal School to a meeting of school teachers and scholars on the 27th of the same month.
On the 11th May, 1891, Goldwin Smith delivered his second lecture on “Aristocracy.”
I saw now that there was a deliberate and treasonable design in these lectures to undermine the loyal sentiment that held Canada to the Empire, and as there was danger at any time of open trouble, I replied to this in another way. I delivered a lecture on the opening of the war of 1812 to point out clearly how much the loyal men were hampered by traitors at the opening of the war of 1812, and how they dealt with them then, how seven had been hanged at Ancaster, many imprisoned, and many driven out of the country, and I endeavoured to encourage our people with the reflection that the same line of action would help us again in the same kind of danger.
On the 17th April, 1891, this lecture was delivered before the Birmingham Lodge of the Sons of England.
On the 9th of the following November Goldwin Smith delivered his third lecture entitled “Jingoism.” This was a direct attack on me and on what my friends and I were doing.
This lecture aroused great indignation among the loyal people. I was asked by the Supreme Grand Lodge of the Sons of England to deliver a lecture in reply at a meeting to be called under their auspices, which it was intended should be a popular demonstration against Goldwin Smith, and a proof of the repudiation by the Toronto people of his views. The meeting was held in Shaftesbury Hall, then the largest room in the city for such purposes, and it was packed to the doors. My lecture was entitled “National Spirit,” and was delivered on the 17th December, 1891. (See Appendix B.)
Referring to this lecture the Empire of the 18th December, 1891, commented as follows:
The fervour and appreciation of the large audience which assembled in the auditorium last evening to hear Colonel George T. Denison were undoubtedly due in great measure to the well-known ability of the lecturer and to the intrinsic qualities of the lecture—its wide range of fact, its high and patriotic purpose, the eloquence with which great historic truths were imparted—but its enthusiastic reception was due none the less to the fact that the lecturer struck a responsive note in the breasts of his hearers, and that he was expressing views which are the views of the ordinary Canadian, and which at this time are especially deserving of clear and emphatic enunciation.
In marked contrast to the enthusiasm of this immense gathering was the small handful of disgruntled fledglings and annexationists who assembled lately in some obscure meeting place to hear the sentiments of Professor Goldwin Smith, though even there the respectable Liberal element was strong enough to utter a protest against the annexationist views of the Professor.