The Growth of Canada and Imperial Federation. 577 



United States, we will stand by our allegiance ; we will not desert 

 the country to which we are so deeply attached, and the institutions 

 we revere." Speaking on the same subject shortly afterwards, Sir 

 John observed : " We see in the Maritime Provinces some of our 

 most extreme Grits, instead of feeling that the country has been 

 humiliated by the treaty in which it was said I betrayed it, crying out 

 for the renewal of the treaty, and charging the Government with 

 want of energy in trying to get it renewed. It is no use now 

 trying, because the Americans have resolved not to renew it. They 

 have given us notice, and we shall have to submit. We will, how- 

 ever, do all we can to increase our commercial relations with the 

 United States, and if we can in the course of such negotiations 

 obtain a renewal of the Fishery clause on fair and equal terms, we 

 shall spare no pains to do so, but we are not going on our knees, 

 which would be dishonest, and would defeat our object, to ask the 

 United States to be good enough to save us from ruin by making 

 this arrangement." 



These utterances, along with other signs of the times, indicate 

 that already the leading statesmen of Canada, seeing that the work 

 of Confederation is about finished, are laying some plans for the 

 development of this Canadian nation, the framework of which they 

 have already reared. Imperial Federation of some sort will be a 

 legitimate result of British colonial growth, and more especially of 

 the growth of Canada, where, for years to come, in order to enforce 

 all our rights, we shall often need the guiding and protecting hand 

 of England ; not that it will have to be raised in acts of war to 

 defend us, for, in all likelihood, the fact that it is pledged to Canada 

 will be a moral power quite sufficient to spare us from even 

 attempted aggression. 



Sir John A. Macdonald, in speaking at the recent banquet given 

 in his honour in Toronto, and referring to the question of Imperial 

 Federation, said : " It is the fashion in some quarters to sneer at 

 loyalty. I believe that the sentiment of loyalty and the sentiment 

 of patriotism are both requisite in order to make any country a 

 great country. I do not believe in that universal Christian charity 

 which makes every man love foreign countries better than his own. 



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