the most unsentimental and matter-of-fact of interests, is wont for long periods of time to follow in the track of custom, habit and sentiment. This was a fact which for a long time the English people failed to comprehend. They failed to comprehend the desire which the colonies had to have their kinship recognised. Happily, however, the increased facilities of communication and the necessities and exigencies of trade have changed all this, and I believe that now there is not a man in England who does not understand, and to whose imagination it has not been forcibly brought home, that beyond the circuit of the narrow seas which confine this island are vast territories, inhabited by powerful communities who are actuated by ideas similar to our own, who are proud to own allegiance to Queen Victoria, whose material resources are greater than those possessed by his own country, and whose ultimate power may, perhaps, exceed the power of Great Britain. And yet these great communities of noble, high-spirited, industrious Englishmen, if only they are properly dealt with, and if only their feelings and just exigencies are duly considered, will never have a higher ambition than to be allowed to continue as co-heirs with England in her illustrious career, associated with her in her gigantic empire, and sharers in her fortunes, whether they be for good or evil, until the end of time. Gentlemen, such are the sentiments and opinions which I believe this club has been founded to encourage and propagate, and I felt that in rising to return thanks for the great and signal honour which you have done me, and for which really I cannot find words sufficient to thank you, I could not do so in a more acceptable manner than by telling you with what enthusiasm and with what sincerity of conviction I myself subscribe to these sentiments. One of my pleasantest recollections of London dates about ten days before my departure for Canada. When the heat was tempered by a fresh breeze, a party of us met by appointment on one of the wharves near London Bridge. We owed the invitation to a Canadian who, like myself, was from the north of the Tweed. He introduced me to our host, one of his oldest friends, a friendship which had lasted from boyhood. Our host had engaged a steamer to take his guests down the river to the large establishment of which he is the leading mind. I believe I am safe in saying that thousands of people are employed in these works. We went through the various departments, and to do so took some hours. Some of the ladies of the party thought they had accomplished miles of pedestrianism. They were greatly interested in what they saw, and before they left were delighted, for our host, who has a heart as large as the business he controls, presented from the factory to each of our party a substantial mark of his regard.