The West and Canada's Problem

THE WEST AND CANADA'S PROBLEM BY THE HONOURABLE, J. G. GARDINER, B.A., LL.D., PRIME MINISTER OF SASKATCHEWAN (Links of Empire Series) 27th October, 1927.

PRESIDENT ALEXANDER ERASER introduced MR. GARDINER, who spoke as follows :-I need hardly say that it is a great pleasure to me for the first time to have the opportunity to speak to so many of Toronto's business men, partly because of the importance of the City of Toronto itself in the Dominion of Canada, and partly because of the fact that it is the capital city of my native province (Applause). The gathering with which I am confronted today expect me to deal with facts, expect me to treat of the subject, "The West and Canada's Problem" in a spirit that is befitting an Empire Club, and I hope that I shall meet your wishes in that regard.

The problem which is confronting the Dominion of Canada today not only in the West, not only in what is generally called the East, but in all parts of the Dominion of Canada, is the problem as to how we can best, within the British Empire, build up on the northern half of this North American continent a nation (Hear, hear, and applause). It is not my intention to follow in the beaten paths in this discussion of that subject, but to try so far as I possibly can, to give you some idea of what the view of Western Canada is, or is coming to be, upon that great problem and in connection with its development. We in Western Canada have been known from the opening of the West as an agricultural people. We are an agricultural people. We are proud of that fact, and we at all times emphasize the importance of agriculture within the Dominion of Canada. Yet I hope that the time will never be when we look upon agriculture as being important to the exclusion of any other great industry in the Dominion of Canada (Applause). We at this time would call to your attention the fact that Canada stands fifth among the nations of the world in the matter of international trade; and the further fact that we stand first among the nations of the world in the matter of international trade, so far as it affects the export of wheat. We are the greatest wheat-exporting country in the world today (Applause). I might say to you that with a population of less than a million people in the Province of Saskatchewan, we are producing more wheat than all the other provinces of the Dominion of Canada put together, and that the Province of Alberta, another of the western provinces, is producing the greater part of what remains. I might state this further, that with less than a million people, we are producing for export more wheat than the whole of the United States to the south of us (Applause). In addition to that, I might call to your mind the fact that you have in the Province of Ontario one of the richest gold mines in the world, that we have within the Dominion of Canada, the richest asbestos and nickel mines that are to found in the world, that we have in the Dominion of Canada the greatest pulp-wood resources to be found in any country in the world; and that all this exists under a form of government patterned after that of England itself, where freedom and justice are shared to a greater extent than under any other form of government (Applause). This is just another way, and perhaps a roundabout way of declaring to this audience that we in the Dominion of Canada are the most sparsely settled of any country in the world in proportion to the natural resources which we have. That, it seems to me, is the great fact that confronts us when we are quoting statistics with regard to the Dominion of Canada, when we are comparing ourselves with other nations, when we are comparing ourselves with other parts of this continent, that the Dominion of Canada stands today as the most sparsely settled country that is to be found in the world under a settled form of government. Well now, in that fact it seems to me is to be found the problem which is confronting the people of the Dominion of Canada in building a nation on the northern part of this continent.

We might look back over the experience of the last century, so far as this continent is concerned. We might compare the development of this country with the great republic to the south, and in order to emphasize the point of view which would be before our minds if we were to do that, I might recall the words of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, then Prime Minister of Canada, more than a quarter of a century ago, when he said that the nineteenth century was the century of the United States, but that the twentieth century belongs to the Dominion of Canada (Applause). Well if we were going to attempt to prove that we have at least made a start upon bringing about this century as the century of Canada, we might refer to the development in matters of population. In 1800 the United States had a population of 5,300,000 people. In 1900 the Dominion of Canada had a population of 5,300,000 people. In 1810 the United States had a population of 7,200,000 people. In 1910 the Dominion of Canada had a population of 7,300,000 people. In 1820 the United States had a population of 9,600,000. And in spite of the fact that between 1910 and 1920 this country was shaken by the results of one of the most devastating wars of all time, the Dominion of Canada in 1920 had a population of 8,800,000 people. And today in the year 1927, with three years yet to run, we have a population approaching 10,000,000 people, and in 1830 the United States had 12,000,000 and a little more, in that great country to the south. What is the problem that is before us, if we are going to make of the Dominion of Canada a country in this century of as great importance, as far as population is concerned alone, as the United States. Well, gentlemen, about 1850, through the development of the great agricultural areas of the United States, they had produced a population of 23 million. Is it impossible that the Dominion of Canada should have a population of 23 million of people by 1950? I say no. The Dominion of Canada can bring that about in the 23 years that are yet to pass between now and the year 1950. But I believe that it is important that we in the Dominion of Canada, who are confronted with such a problem, should take some account of what did take place in the United States in the years between 1800 and 1850. And in order to lay the foundation for the development of that ideal let me say this, that in the United States of America, you have the greatest agricultural area that is to be found anywhere in the world under a settled form of Government. You have the Atlantic slope, you have that great part of the central plain between the Appalachians and the Rockies between the 49th parallel and the Great Lakes on the north and Mexico, and let me repeat, this is the greatest agricultural area to be found anywhere in the world under a settled form of government. And it was through the development of that great agricultural area that 23 million people were brought to the United States, or were born in the United States, in order to take advantage of the great resources which that rich area gave. Well after 1850 there took place in the United States the most marvelous industrial development that has ever taken place in any country in a similar length of time. That development was built up largely, I believe, upon the exploration of the mineral wealth of the great Appalachian Highlands that runs to the south of this great city in which we are meeting. And as a result of that mineral growth together with the further development of the agricultural areas of the United States, by the end of the last century they had increased the population of the United States fourfold, making it to approach a hundred million, rather than 23 million as it was at the middle of the century. Well now, in connection with that it seems to me that we can develop certain ideas that may have something to do with the building up of the nation on the northern half of this continent. One of the great events of the last century, so far as the Dominion of Canada was concerned, was the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway at a time when we had not the information which we have today. When men ask me, as a Minister of the Crown in my own Province, to prove some of the undertakings which we have in mind when we are starting out upon them, I refer to the undertaking, the building of the C.P.R. at a time when there was scarcely a white man between the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains, at a time when we were told that the building of the railway there would not pay for the axle grease upon the wheels of the trains run across it. And what have we today? We have the opening up of one of the greatest wealth-producing areas of the Dominion of Canada, in that section of country which lies west of the Great Lakes. And in order to give you some further idea of what the building of the C.P.R. meant to the Dominion of Canada, let me refer to this, that it started on the eastern coast, that it connected the City of Montreal with that eastern coast, but ran part of its way through the State of Maine, that it crossed the Province of Ontario towards the centre of it, that it crossed what has been known as the great barren area of the western portion of your province, hugging Lake Superior, that it goes across the prairie country within a very few miles, as we see it today of the boundary line of the United States; skirting the southern boundary of the whole Dominion of Canada from one end to the other, with the exception of that part where Ontario lies like a great spearhead pointing into the centre of the United States, in this section where we are meeting now. All other parts of the Dominion of Canada served by the railway form a ribbon of settlement along the boundary of the United States. And all eyes, in all parts of that settlement, have been attracted, of necessity, to the great country to the south. Let me digress here for a moment to point out to the people of the City of Toronto what I believe to be one of the greatest drawing cards today for young men to go to the United States. I read the editorials in our press, I read the articles in our periodicals; I note that of thirty-one thousand University graduates from eight leading Universities of Canada, some four thousand are in the United States, and I believe that is one thing of which we should be proud, that 27,000 out of 31,000 graduates of the Universities of Canada are still within the Dominion of Canada (Applause). There is still another fact that is confronting us as we pick up our newspapers. I see newspaper after newspaper which makes the very strongest appeal to young men to go to the United States that can possibly be made; in this fact that we are reporting whole front pages of the sports of the United States, and sometimes neglecting our own (Hear, hear). What is it that appeals to the mind of the young man, what is it that appeals to the man who is twenty? Is it not the possibility of being able to measure his strength, his physical strength on the athletic field against some other young man, and if he has got to go to the great cities of the United States in order to play hockey, in order to play baseball, in order to play football, in order to have himself appear on the front pages of our paper, and earn the hurrah of his community, what greater drawing card could there be to take a young man to the United States than that? We may write editorials, we may make speeches on the necessity of keeping our young men in Canada, but so long as we carry on that kind of thing, I believe a great many of our young men will go south.

Then let me say this, that in 1904, four years after the beginning of this century, there was marked out the second great transcontinental railway across Canada. It did not skirt the American boundary; it ran back a little further into the Dominion of Canada; it ran in a direct line from the City of Quebec to the City of Winnipeg, and in a direct line from the City of Winnipeg up to the Yellowhead Pass, and in a direct line from the Yellowhead Pass to the Pacific Ocean at Prince Rupert; giving greater breadth to the Dominion, opening up great prairies, but in addition opening up the great hinter land of Quebec and Ontario. In addition your government in the Province of Ontario connected this great city with the hinterland of this province, by building a government railway stretching up into that hinterland. What has been the result? Last session I sat in the House of Commons at Ottawa and heard a member from one of the constituencies in the northern part of your province make the statement that he represented the wealthiest constituency in the Dominion of Canada, and I did not hear anyone contradict him. Then I heard another gentleman who came from the City of Toronto speaking in the City of Regina make this statement; he said the Cobalt district has made the cities of Montreal and Toronto lazy with wealth (Laughter). Well now, those two statements emphasize something which is running through the minds of the people of the Dominion of Canada today. We have in that hinterland, which was opened up by the building of a second transcontinental railway, a district which has made possible, according to the representations of the press during the last few days the greatest business transaction in connection with the natural resources of Canada that has taken place since Confederation. That, it seems to me, is a fact that should be borne in on the minds of all of us. There are possibilities in some of the unexplored areas of Canada that are yet undreamed of by the older men of Canada, and alike by the young men to whom we are appealing to remain within the bounds of the Dominion of Canada.

Then I might call your attention to the importance of broadening out that area in western Canada by referring you to this fact, that in the year 1905, when the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were formed, that we were producing thirty million bushels of wheat. In the year 1923 we produced in those two provinces alone 415 million bushels of wheat (Applause). That represents some of the development which took place as a result of the broadening of the basis upon which settlement is being placed in the Dominion of Canada, and it represents as well a great problem which has been confronting the people of the west, and which has to do materially with the creating of the proper spirit on which to build a nation on the northern part of this continent.

With the 415 million bushels of wheat, and only the one old trade route over which wheat was carried to any great extent towards the ports from which it was to be shipped across the ocean to the markets of the world, the wheat of the farmers of western Canada was backed right up into the farmers' granaries. A new route was found by way of Vancouver which took care of 50 million bushels, shipping it by way of the Panama Canal, and so across the ocean to the Old Country. That route is becoming somewhat important in the development of trade in the Dominion of Canada, and it is of just as great importance to the people of the City of Toronto, to the people of the City of Montreal, to the people of the Maritime Provinces, as it is to the people of Western Canada or to the people of British Columbia, if we are all engaged in the one great work, and that the building of a well-balanced Dominion of Canada (Applause). The importance of that western route might be estimated if I were to describe to you that part of the Great Central Plain which lies within the Dominion of Canada. It stretches like a great triangle, an obtuse-angle triangle, if you will, with the obtuse angle at the point where the Rocky Mountains cross the American border; the American boundary forming one side of the angle, running down to about where Fort William is, and the other side of the triangle running along the top of the Rocky Mountains, with the connecting line stretching from away up in the Peace River Country right down to Fort William. In that triangle you will find all the wheat which is coming east directed down to the narrow point which has its position at the City of Fort William. But if you were to draw a line across Western Canada at about where Swift Current is, that is a considerable distance into the Province of Saskatchewan from the Alberta boundary, directly northwards, you would have pretty nearly the dividing line as between where wheat can be shipped west and where it can be shipped east under the present freight rates which exist. And when you compare those two great areas you will find this, that the whole Peace River Country is to be found in the western part of that district, and almost directly north of the City of Vancouver, a little to the east and north of the Port of Prince Rupert. This should bring to mind the fact that in the future those great ports on the Pacific coast will be among the most important centres of the Dominion of Canada. It cannot be otherwise, and why should we wish it otherwise? No man in the City of Toronto, no man in the City of Montreal, no man in the whole Province of Ontario, or the Province of Quebec, or the whole Prairie Provinces, desires anything else but prosperity for the Pacific coast (Applause).

But here is another problem we have in another area lying between the Saskatchewan River and the Churchill River, another great section of Western Canada which is at present hardly touched. A few settlers are in there; I have gone up 120 miles north of the City of Battleford and addressed a meeting where fifteen hundred men and women were gathered together, at that time 90 miles from the railway, at Meadow Lake, many of them homesteaders, all of them ranchers, all bent upon enlarging the area over which Canada can be spread in order to build that nation of which we are speaking. But in that great section of country there is scarcely a railway today, there is scarcely any development, and might I point this out to you that one of the ideas which Western people have in mind today in connection with the opening up of a fourth route whereby our grain may be shipped to the markets of the world has to do with the great unexplored and undeveloped area between the Saskatchewan River and the Churchill River. When I recall once more the remark I made a few moments ago, that in the year 1923, with our 415 million bushels of wheat in two provinces of Western Canada, the wheat of our farmers with our present routes was backed right up into the granaries of the farmers, you can see the importance of having for the future every route that is possible open, in order to make it possible for that wheat to be got out. I am very pleased to know that this has ceased to be a political issue, that it is no longer a matter of contention, that all men in the Dominion of Canada who are interested in the future development of Canada, realize that the building of the Hudson Bay Railway will have the effect of still further broadening the basis of settlement on which Canada is based in building the country. There is this further fact, in connection with which we have been asked at certain times to prove the feasibility of the road. Allow me to refer you once more to the thought that we did not prove the feasibility of the C.P.R. before we built it. Let me refer you to the thought, if we are thinking of Old England, that Hengist and Horsa were not called upon to prove the feasibility of building the Anglo-Saxon race when they walked into England and took their part in developing and building what we are proud to call the British Empire. The Empire was built because of the spirit of the men who have inhabited that little island. And the Dominion of Canada is going to be built because of the spirit of the men and women who inhabit the Dominion of Canada (Applause). I believe that while there may be great difficulties, difficulties on land, difficulties on the sea, difficulties in the Straits, difficulties in the Bay, in connection with the development of the Hudson route, yet I believe that the descendants of men like Hawkins, men like Drake, men like Frobisher will find a way of overcoming those difficulties and will make that route an established fact as one of the most important arteries of the British Empire (Applause). That will be the fourth outlet, and I believe we need them all.

But I do not wish to leave the impression this noon-hour with this gathering that the Dominion of Canada as a nation is going to be built entirely upon the material wealth of the country in which we live. Nor is it going to be built only by the building of great railways from one end of our country to the other, important as those railways may be. It is going to be built if we realize not only the achievements of the past, and the achievements of the immediate future, but if we realize at the same time something of a vision of what Canada may become in the future. When I speak of that agricultural area which has placed in the Dominion of Canada, whether it be down in the Maritimes, in the southern part of Quebec, in the southern part of Ontario, in the great prairie section, or out in the valleys and down along the slopes to the Pacific in the Province of British Columbia, that has placed something approaching ten million people in the Dominion of Canada, I say this in addition, that I believe we have reached the point where we have to give still further and further attention to that great shield which reaches about the Hudson Bay, running through the northern part of your province, into the Province of Quebec, on across the Province of Manitoba, across the northern part of the Province of Saskatchewan, and which I believe has within it wealth as great and greater than that which was found within the Appalachian Highlands to the south, that made possible the great development in the United States. We in the Dominion of Canada have been accustomed as young men to leave the old homestead down in the Province of Ontario or Quebec or the Maritime Provinces, to wend our way by rail out across what we have been pleased to call the great barren waste of northern Ontario and find ourselves out on the western plains. Because of the tension existing between the East and the West, there has been stirred in the minds of many, not those who have been born in Canada, not those necessarily who have been born outside the British Empire, but in the minds of some there has been stirred the question as to whether or not Canada would benefit for all time to come by keeping up that unity of relationship which exists under Confederation, as between these two great sections of Canada. But I am proud to say that today that has vanished from the mind of every public man that can be found in the western part of the Dominion of Canada (Applause). And why has that vanished? It has vanished because we are beginning to realize that the development of the northern part of the Province of Ontario is a development which is going to make better freight rates possible, is a development which is going to make better prices for our wheat possible, is a development which is going to makebetter markets possible; is a development which is going to place the very heart into Canada at the point where the heart should be. And believing that we would say this, that all we ask of the people of other parts of Canada is to realize with us that we have similar assets in the form of resources in the northern parts of our own provinces. We ask for the expenditure of the capital of the capitalist, and we ask in addition to that for the coming of young men, strong men, men of ambition, in order to fill up the frontiers of this country. To whom is the call of Canada today? Is it to any one race? Is it to any one people? Is it to the people who are living under the flag of any one nation? Those sparsely settled areas of the Dominion of Canada today, offering homes, offering possibilities for the future, are calling to every young man who has ambition to go out into the frontiers and build a home (Applause).

And let me say this, that we in the Dominion of Canada are sometimes inclined to forget that we are attempting to build a nation, so to speak backwards. Did you ever stop to consider how the great nations of Europe have been built? Did you ever stop to consider how the great nations of all time have been built? Boundary lines were not drawn around a certain area and then it was said to the people within that area, you must talk a certain language; within that area you must have certain customs; within that area you must be bound by certain traditions. No; go back to the very beginnings of history, and back to the time of Abraham if you like. What did he do? He walked out from among his people, he went out into an unsettled area, he settled down there and he said to the world, Here shall I dwell with my children, and my children's children, until my seed shall become as numerous as the sands of the sea. And about what did they build the Jewish race? About what did they build Jewish civilization? They built it about the ideals which that one man had when he came out and established himself there. They built about him customs, they built about him a language, they built about him a religion. And when their bands met the bands of other men who were doing similar things, a conflict began, not between languages, but between great ideals for which the nations stood. And the whole history of the race is a history of the advance of those ideals and customs. You can go across to Greece and to Rome, and you will find exactly the same thing. Aeneas, after the great wooden horse had been drawn into Troy, and after his city had been wiped out of existence, fled on and on into the west, until finally he found himself in the Italian peninsula, and there he established himself, and then we are told in the tradition of that country that at a later date some of his posterity, two little boys by some means or other found themselves on the banks of a river, being suckled by a she-wolf, and all the ideas that entered into the mind of a man in connection with a wolf, entered into the minds of the boys, and more or less, of Rome, in connection with their progenitors, and that nation became the most warlike nation of all time, advancing itself into all the known world in the day when she existed. That is the method by which nations have been built, and when the boundary lines extended until they touched the boundaries of other nations, war began, and as a result of war treaties were made and boundaries were fixed, in order to safeguard the customs and literature and ideals of those who lived within those boundaries. But we in the Dominion of Canada speak of something called Anglo-Saxonism. We sometimes speak of an Anglo-Saxon race, which does not exist, never did exist, and never can exist, because if you go back to the beginnings of British history, what are you told? You are told that Hengest and Horsa, with their Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, came over from the continent and established themselves in England, that they drove the Britons back into the mountains of Wales and the mountains of Devon, that they drove the Picts and Scots up into the Highlands of Scotland; and there is not a Scot today, nor a Welshman today, nor a Devonshire man today who owns one drop of Anglo-Saxon blood. In addition to that as we read history we come down through the period and we find that there came to England young men like Canute and Hardicanute, the Norsemen from the north, those men who were inspired by that desire of adventure which took them into all the seas of the world, and made of England the nation which is Mistress of the Seas, and whose colonies can be found in every island and upon every continent today. Those men had ideals and characteristics, and in establishing them in England they drove even the Angles and Saxons and Jutes back into a corner of England, made a treaty with Alfred the Great, and established themselves in control of a great part of it, and the marks of their nationality can be seen today in the characteristics of the peoples of all that part of England which they inhabited. Then, again, William the Conqueror in 1066 came over with his armies from Norman France and he established those ideals which gave dash and bravery in time of war, and chivalry in times of peace, which became the characteristic of the English race. I would like to say to the Mayor of Chicago today, that he cannot burn the Anglo-Saxon race on the shores of Lake Michigan. Canute, Hardicanute, and William the Conqueror took care of the Anglo-Saxon race long ago (Applause). But then there is another thing which is called Anglo-Saxonism and Anglo-Saxonism is to be found in the thrift and industry of the jutes, Angles and Saxons who established themselves in Great Britain and who passed that thrift and industry on, and who passed on that desire to build homes, to the peoples who came to settle themselves in the British Isles from time to time. Not only was there thrift and industry, but there was that desire for freedom and liberty which is given expression to today in all the institutions of government of every country within the British Empire. That is what is known as AngloSaxonism, and let me again tell the Mayor of Chicago that if he were to burn all the books that were ever written in the British Isles, that if he were to burn all the books that were ever written in the United States, that at least a million men in the United States could stand up tomorrow and write back into the literature of the United States everything that is worth while in it today (Applause). Because the institutions of government of Canada, the institutions of government of the United States, the institutions of government of every English-speaking race, are based upon those ideals which were established, not in a thoroughly Anglo-Saxon race in England, but which were established in the time of Cromwell in England, the most cosmopolitan of any nation to be found in Europe or anywhere else in he world up to that time.

What are we doing in Canada? We are repeating the experiment which was carried on in Britain centuries ago. I have heard men make certain remarks with regard to the population of Western Canada. Let me give you the facts. We in the Province of Saskatchewan live in the most cosmopolitan province in the whole Dominion of Canada, and in that province 75°0 of our people were born within the British Empire (Applause). That does not mean that 75°/0 of them are of British origin, but 53°0 of them are of British origin, and I have still sufficient faith in the good old characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon race to believe that 53 % of the people can establish firmly for all time institutions of government, literature and a language in the Province of Saskatchewan based upon Anglo-Saxonism if you like (Hear, hear). But let me give you further facts. We have in the Province of Saskatchewan only four great races to any considerable number. We have the Germans who form one eleventh of the population of the Province of Saskatchewan, not in the matter of birth, but in the matter of ancestry. Some of those men were born of parents who were born in the Province of Ontario. One of the members of my own government is a man who would rank among them. His father fought in the Franco-Prussian War on the French side, and settled in the County of Bruce, Ontario. He was born in Bruce and he lives today in the western part of Canada, one of those many of whom I am speaking. But only one eleventh of the whole population is of the ancestry coming from that country, and that is the greatest foreign-speaking population that we have in the Province of Saskatchewan. There are only four races that have more than one in twenty of the population of Saskatchewan; those peoples are the Germans, the Russians, the Scandinavians, and the French. Going back over the little recital of history I gave you a few moments ago, those are the races, with the exception of the Russian, of which the English race has been built. Do we object to the bringing back within the bounds of Canada some more of that people which gave the thrift and industry to the English speaking people? Do we object to the bringing back within the bounds of Canada more of those people, moved by that adventure and that love of the sea which made England the Mistress of the Seas, and the greatest colonizer of all time? Do we object to the bringing back within the Dominion of Canada of French speaking people, people who have given to the English race that dash and bravery in war and chivalry in times of peace, for which she has been noted? I believe not. We are simply replenishing the old stock that found its birth in the British Islands, and from that stock we intend to build a Canadian race which shall owe its allegiance to the Crown in a country with a similar race, and in doing that I believe we shall have accomplished the task which is before us as a people. But in accomplishing it let me direct your minds to this. We must go back to the beginning of things again in nation building. We must establish that unity which we desire to have from coast to coast, not upon dollars and cents, not upon bank accounts, not upon railroad dividends, but we must establish it by doing what we have been doing ever since Canada was Canada, teaching our boys and girls the beauty of the traditions of the race to which we belong; beginning back in England, giving them the stories of Boadicea, the stories of Canute, the stories of Alfred the Great, the stories of William the Conqueror, the stories of Cromwell and his Ironsides; coming into the Dominion of Canada and not forgetting at any time those French missionaries who came over with the fur-traders, established themselves on the banks of the St. Lawrence, passed out into the wilds of the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec to the Indian tribes in order to teach them that Christian civilization in which those men believed. There was no hate in the minds of those men; there was no religious prejudice, there was no prejudice against language or color. These men were inspired by the broad principles upon which nationality must be established in this country. Then again in addition to that let us remember those thrilling stories such as the episode of Dulac as he went up from the City of Montreal to encounter the great Iroquois tribes that were coming down to wipe out the little colony that was forming at Montreal. And what did he do? He and his noble men sacrificed their lives, but in doing so every man of them established a little colony for all time as the basis upon which Canadianism is to be built. That is one of the stories. Another is the story of the heroine of Vercheres, who as a young girl defended the fort against the assaults of the Indians until her father returned to take possession and defend it further in order that the men and women and children might live. The one governing principle in the building of Canada today is the life of its childhood and the life of its manhood, and it has been inspired by the telling of these stories, not by any desire to keep any one race in possession of the Dominion of Canada. Those stories inspire the boy from Russia, they inspire the boy from Germany, they inspire the boy from France, they inspire the boy from the Scandinavian countries, and they make of those boys willing citizens under the freest institutions of government that can be found anywhere in the world, institutions patterned after those of Great Britain, institutions established, not out of the mind of any one individual evolving a system of government, but institutions established through the influence of a nation in building for more than fifteen hundred years (Long applause). A vote of thanks to the speaker was moved by MR. J. A. MCLEOD.