LX THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



minor role, while recognizing that we could have done a more worthy 

 part. Our Provinces could not have for the moment engaged all 

 their energies as the Dominion, which they form, has done, and we 

 could not, further, have brought to the motherland the moral force 

 which, with that of the other daughter states, has been of enormous 

 value to her in steadying her in the high courage she has shown in 

 this time of peril to liberty and all else that is dear to humanity. 



The event of fifty years ago has had another far-reaching effect, 

 It may be said, I believe, without contradiction, that the example set 

 by the Canadian Provinces has in no small degree promoted the 

 foundation, in other parts of the Empire, of the Commonwealth, 

 the Dominion and the Union that to-day make Australia, New Zea- 

 land and South Africa, with Canada, as it were, buttresses of the Empire 

 against whatever may happen, whether it be the tottering or the 

 decay that comes to all things in old age, or the war storms of the 

 world. 



They, who laboured in bringing about that Confederation, there- 

 fore, performed a priceless service. They did not wholly forecast 

 the future and estimate the effect of their action. The result they 

 strove to reach was not one of choice but determined by necessity. 

 They efïected it in order to solve difïiculties which were intolerable 

 and which threatened to promote such disunion as would ultimately 

 imperil the continuation of the British status in North America. 

 They were not wholly optimistic as to the final effect of their efforts. 

 It is easy now, in examining all the details of the agitation they led 

 to achieve the result they had in view, to detect in their hopefulness a 

 minor note, an overtone derived from their despair regarding the 

 conditions from which they wished Canada to escape, a note of un- 

 certainty as to the full success of the organization they brought 

 about. What they sought to avoid or abolish seemed to them fraught 

 with more danger than would beset the future under any new con- 

 ditions, and, in consequence, they, with a courage that time has 

 abundantly justified, loyally endeavoured to make the Dominion 

 which they brought into being a success in unifying our scattered 

 peoples and making them a nation with ideals in harmony with 

 the traditions and standards of the British race the world over. That 

 they could not and did not peer far into the future was what might 

 have been expected. Men, and especially those who concern them- 

 selves with affairs of national polity, rarely attempt to divine the 

 future, at least, that part of it immediately beyond their generation, 

 and, if they do, they more rarely order their action for that distant 

 time. It is, on the whole, wise that this should be so. "New occasions 



