226 WITH MR. CHAMBERLAIN IN THE 



work, and we can honestly congratulate him on his 

 success, and can hope that there may remain for him 

 many other occasions on which he may render 

 great services to his country. The toast or the 

 sentiment which I have been asked to propose is 

 ** Our Kinsmen " in America, that is, in the United 

 States and in the Dominion of Canada. (Cheers.) 

 Now I like the word " our kinsmen " very much. 

 When I read it it strengthened the disposition which 

 I had to be here this evening, and really I think we 

 have a right to call all these people on the other side 

 of the Atlantic ** our kinsmen." Are they not so ? 

 Are they not people of our own blood } A hundred 

 years ago, a little over, the Republic of the United 

 States was founded. Who were the men who are 

 now held by all historians to have been the founders 

 of that Republic ? There were great men dis- 

 covered there that the world before did not know 

 of ; at the same time the world discovered there 

 were very small men in this country. Our small 

 men legislated so as to bring about the Colonial 

 rebellion, and then the war was carried on in a 

 manner so utterly disgraceful and discreditable that 

 it was quite impossible that this country should suc- 

 ceed. Then, in regard to these great men in the 

 United States of whom I speak — they were in 

 reality either English or British — ^we read of them 

 now as great men who founded the Republic. But 

 they were all our own countrymen ; and at that 

 time they were subjects of the English Crown, and 

 if they had come over to this country they might 

 have stood for any constituency, and might have 



