264 WITH MR. CHAMBERLAIN IN THE 



Mathews, that to-night members of alKpoHtical 

 parties are represented. (Cheers.) I say that ours 

 is a relationship which, I think, I may venture to 

 call a personal friendship — (hear, hear) — and it has 

 been cemented by many years of mutual knowledge 

 and mutual trust and confidence. When I have 

 been travelling out of this country I have had re- 

 peated proofs of the existence of this feeling in the 

 jfriendly greetings of Birmingham men who have 

 seized the opportunity — they being for the time 

 voluntarily expatriated — to recall their associations 

 with the old town and with myself ; and when 

 the other day my engagement was announced I had 

 numerous expressions of the same sentiments from 

 all sorts and conditions of men and from many 

 distant places. And now I cannot refrain from 

 mentioning that within the last day or two I have 

 been touched and gratified by a note which I re- 

 ceived from a Birmingham man in the wilds of 

 Canada, in a place which only a few years ago was 

 a mere outpost of civilisation among the Indians, 

 who sends me his congratulations and good wishes 

 and a little token of his regard and his gratitude in 

 the shape of a sample of his skill. (Cheers.) Ladies 

 and gentlemen, I am prouder of it, of having excited 

 this feeling amongst my fellow-townsmen, than I 

 am of anything else in my public life ; and if I have 

 ever been prompted to do any service to Birming- 

 ham, if any opportunity should hereafter arise, I 

 say it has been more than repaid by the generous 

 recognition I have already received. I know that 

 I do not stand alone in my devotion to our city. 



