No country in the world gives more conclusive evidences of substantial development and prosperity than the Dominion under the beneficial influences of federal union and the progressive measures of governments for many years. The total trade of the country has grown from over $131,000,000 in the first year of confederation to over $321,000,000 in 1899, while the national revenue has risen during the same period from $14,000,000 to $47,000,000, and will probably be $50,000,000 in 1900. The railways, whose expansion so closely depends on the material conditions of the whole country, stretch for 17,250 miles compared with 2278 miles in 1868; while the remarkable system of canals, which extend from the great lakes to Montreal, has been enlarged so as to give admirable facilities for the growing trade of the west. The natural resources of the country are inexhaustible, from the fisheries of Nova Scotia to the wheat-fields of the north-west, from the coal-mines of Cape Breton to the gold deposits of the dreary country through which the Yukon and its tributaries flow. No dangerous questions like slavery, or the expansion of the African race in the southern states, exist to complicate the political and social conditions of the confederation, and, although there is a large and increasing French Canadian element in the Dominion, its history so far need not create fear as to the future, except perhaps in the minds of gloomy pessimists. While this element naturally clings to its national language and institutions, yet, under the influence of a complete system of local self-government, it has always taken as active and earnest a part as the English element in establishing and strengthening the confederation. It has steadily grown in strength and prosperity under the generous and inspiring influence of British institutions, which have given full scope to the best attributes of a nationality crushed by the depressing conditions of French rule for a century and a half. The federal union gives expansion to the national energies of the whole Dominion, and at the same time affords every security to the local interests of each member of the federal compact. In all matters of Dominion concern, Canada is a free agent. While the Queen is still head of the executive authority, and can alone initiate treaties with foreign nations (that being an act of complete sovereignty), and while appeals are still open to the privy council of England from Canadian courts within certain limitations, it is an admitted principle that the Dominion is practically supreme in the exercise of all legislative rights and privileges granted by the imperial parliament,--rights and privileges set forth explicitly in the British North America act of 1867,--so long as her legislative action does not conflict with the treaty obligations of the parent state, or with imperial legislation directly applicable to Canada with her own consent.