234 WITH MR. CHAMBERLAIN IN THE 



the Minister of that colony is a townsman of your 

 own — Sir Henry Parkes. (Cheers.) We see, 

 without employing any argument to prove it, that 

 under these conditions there can be no kind of 

 federation or unison between them for common 

 purposes, and the difference will probably continue 

 to widen, and federation between them, and, it may 

 be, between Victoria and other colonies also, will 

 become pretty nearly, if not absolutely impossible. 

 There is another reason which makes it impossible, 

 that is the existence of our foreign policy, especially 

 in the East of Europe, which is constantly setting 

 up a peril that we are about to go to war with the 

 great empire of Russia on matters in which we have 

 really no interest whatever. I think it is quite 

 hopeless to expect there should be federation be- 

 tween our wide colonies and their vast populations, 

 and the people and the Government of this country. 

 I feel the whole thing is a dream and an absurdity, 

 but it does not follow that you may not do a great 

 many things by binding the colonies to us and 

 creating a perpetual friendship, I hope, between 

 them and the mother country. Now, what can one 

 say of the future of our race and of our kinsmen ? 

 Is that merely a dream ? By no means. I, who 

 have no belief in this scheme of federation, have 

 the greatest possible belief in the great future of 

 those colonies, and in that future, also, I hope there 

 will be strengthened amicable connection with this 

 country. (Hear, hear.) In this country we are 

 rearing a population which, probably, by the end of 

 the century will be forty millions. In Canada and 



