Mr. Bourassa, in his recent pamphlets, reviewing the situation from his wrong and prejudiced standpoint, has decidedly come out in favour of Canadian Independence. The least that can be said is that the time was very badly chosen to raise the question. To select the moment when the Motherland was engaged in a fight for life or death, to propose to run away from the assailed home where we had lived many happy years, was certainly not an inspiration of loyal devotion and gratitude. I am glad to say that the wild proposition met with no countenance on the part of our French Canadian compatriots. To the point raised in England, some years ago, that it was not to be supposed that the British Empire was destined to exist forever, one of the leading British statesmen of the day, then a member of the Cabinet, answered that, though it was likely to be true that the British Commonwealth would not be eternal, like many other great political societies of times gone by, it was surely not the particular duty of a British minister to do his best to hasten the day of the final downfall of the country he was sworn to maintain. The rejoinder was no doubt peremptory. It can very properly be used in answer to Mr. Bourassa's plea for the independence of Canada. However, the question having been so unwisely raised, to say the least, for the obvious purpose of disheartening the French Canadians from their present situation and raising in their minds extravagant hopes of a change for the better, I believed it advisable to tell them not to be carried away by dreams of a too far distant possible realization. In all frankness, I must say that I have never taken any stock in the suggestion made from time to time, for the last fifty years, in favour of Canadian Independence. It always seemed to me that our destinies were not moving along that way. In my opinion, which nothing has happened to alter, the steady growth of the consolidation of the Empire was yearly working against the assumption of the prospective independence of the Dominion. But even supposing that the course of events would change and put an end to British connection, could we pride ourselves with having at last, though in a very peaceful way, achieved our national independence? I am more and more strongly impressed by the paramount consideration that, nominally independent, Canada would be very little so in reality. Situated as she would be, she could not help being under the protectorate of the United States. I have always thought so. I think it more firmly than ever, when I see looming larger every day on the American political horizon the fact that the neighbouring Republic will come out of the present war with flying Colours, taking rank as one of the most powerful nations on earth. Be that as it may, there is every certainty that the question of Canadian Independence is not within the range of practical politics. Mr. Bourassa's proposition is doomed to the failure it deserves.