Again, while it would be absurd to undervalue material prosperity, we must constantly remember that its highest value consists as much in the discipline of the powers required for its acquisition as in the acquisition or possession itself. This must be as true of nations as daily experience shows it to be in the case of individuals. When Canadians are told that they must look to political union with the United States for any increase of commercial prosperity, and that such a connection will at once draw them into a tide of greater business energy, I cannot but think that a prosperity purchased by such means is obtained by the sacrifice of that which gives prosperity its greatest worth. Speaking as a Canadian to Canadian audiences, I have sometimes put the argument in this way: 'We have a country with enormous capacity for development. The field is large enough and varied enough to satisfy the greatest energy and every form of it. The consolidation of a national strength, the linking together of our widespread provinces by railway systems, the opening up of our great North-West, seem to have removed the chief obstacles which have hitherto stood in our way. Under such circumstances, or under any circumstances, would it not be infinitely more worthy of us, would it not be a far better national training and discipline, to set ourselves resolutely to work to supply that in which we are deficient, rather than to seek it ignominiously at the hands of our neighbours? Can it be true that we have not the strength of brain or hand to wrest from nature the {141} success and prosperity which others have won? If we have not, then let us not add to our weakness a spirit of mean dependence.' Looking at the question under aspects such as these, I find it impossible to conceive that Canadians, who have for more than a century received their national impulse and development from a political system which they believe the best in the world, for which they have continued to profess the most devoted regard, and to which they are tied by a thousand bonds of affectionate sympathy, will deliberately, in cold blood, and for commercial reasons only, dissolve that connection, and join themselves to a state with the history and traditions of which they have little sympathy, and to whose form of government they object. To take such a course would indicate an extraordinary degradation of public sentiment. When, therefore, I am told that geography and commercial tendencies are strong, I can only reply that the bias of national life and loyalty to the spiritual forces which give a people birth are stronger still. A sensitive regard for public honour is infinitely stronger. But even the question of commercial advantage has two aspects.