The following resolution was also, after careful consideration, carried unanimously:
Moved by G. R. R. Cockburn, Esq., M.P., seconded by H. J. Wickham:
1. That the Executive Committee having had brought to its notice telegrams from England published during the past week in the daily papers stating that the Council of the League in England contemplated carrying resolutions tending towards its dissolution, would ask (as it conceives it has the right to do) to be advised at once of any steps proposed to be taken in that direction.
2. The Canadian Branch of the League was formed at a meeting held in Montreal on the 9th May, 1885. At that meeting the resolutions passed at the Conference held in London on the 29th July, 1884, and at the inaugural meeting of the League held on the 18th November, 1884, were accepted, and a resolution was then carried forming a Canadian Branch of the League, to be called the Imperial Federation League in Canada.
3. Among the resolutions of the League in England so accepted were the following:—
(1) That the object of the League be to secure by federation the permanent unity of the Empire.
(2) That British subjects throughout the Empire be invited to become members and to form and organise branches of the League which may place their representatives on the general committee.
4. Canada then was, and is to-day, face to face with momentous questions involving its whole political future. The Earl of Rosebery then and until recently President of the League, in a speech at Edinburgh on the 31st October, 1888, quoted from a speech delivered in the American Senate by Senator Sherman these words:
“I am anxious to bring about a public policy that will make more intimate our relations with the Dominion of Canada. Anything that will tend to the union of Canada with the United States will meet with my most hearty support. I want Canada to be part of the United States. Within ten years from this time (and I ask your particular attention to this), within ten years from this time the Dominion of Canada will, in my judgment, be represented either in the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain, or in the Congress of the United States.” Such language he thought worthy of attention, and then Lord Rosebery went on to say: “My plan is this: to endeavour so to influence public opinion at home and in the Colonies that there shall come an imperious demand from the people of this country, both at home and abroad, that this federation should be brought about.”