70 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



fronting and in solving great public questions. It is the West which has 

 brought to the East, as far at least as the Ottawa River, votes for 

 women, rigorous prohibition of traffic in intoxicating liquors, free 

 trade in wheat, and other things only less important. A new society 

 has been created in the West. It has broken in a variety of ways with 

 the traditions of the East. The party system is not so rigorous, the 

 press is freer, the fictions which satisfy a more conventional life are 

 blown away. The old convention that the elders lead and the young 

 follow is hardly true in the West. Nothing is more conspicuous 

 there than the dominance of the young man. Social distinctions, 

 while not banished, play a much smaller part than they do in an older 

 society. The West is the land of reality. 



Fifty years from now Canada will be under the rule of the West. 

 During the intervening period what are to-day in the West hopes and 

 aspirations will probably have become achieved realities. When I 

 ask what this will mean for the unity of the British Empire I have few 

 misgivings. The West has done better than the East in the scale of 

 its voluntary service for the war. The West, familiar as it is with the 

 coming together of many varying peoples in the unity of a single 

 state, is probably more cosmopolitan and broadly human than the 

 East. It has felt with a deep intensity that the present great struggle 

 is a vital one for human liberty and it has acted on its conviction. 

 I do not fear the influence of the West. I like to see its power grow. 

 If out of the sorrow and suffering of this tragic era there is to come a 

 new humanity, it is the fresh and vigorous West which will give much 

 of the vital energy and the inspiring idealism to create a better brother- 

 hood among ourselves and a nobler destiny for mankind. 



