The aim of Macdonald, Cartier, and the other great Fathers of Confederation, was to establish broad and deep the foundations of a Canadian nationality, based on the broadest principles of justice, tolerance, and equal rights. All their public utterances during the Confederation negotiations, testify to this fact. Macdonald's conception was that as the Dominion progressed it would become, to use his own words, year by year less a case of dependence on our part, and of overwhelming protection on the part of the Mother Country, and more a case of healthy and cordial alliance, that instead of looking upon us as a merely dependent colony, England would have in us a friendly nation--a subordinate but still a powerful people--to stand by her in North America in peace or war. It is given to some men to have a vision that foresees the future and enables them to provide for momentous developments. Both Cartier and Macdonald were such men. It is in fact the supreme merit of Cartier that whilst always standing firmly for the rights of his French-Canadian compatriots, his vision was not confined to the Province of Quebec. If any one does, Cartier deserves the distinction of being known as a great Canadian. There was nothing narrow or provincial in his views. His idea was a united Canada, stretching from ocean to ocean, in which men of all races, languages and creeds should work together as brethren for the welfare and advancement of their common country. Cartier's desire was that his French-Canadian compatriots should not confine their attention to the Province of Quebec, but should take their full share in the life of the Dominion, that they should above all rejoice in the name "Canadian," be proud of the great Dominion and work for its welfare in co-operation with their English-speaking fellow countrymen. "Objection is made to our project," says Cartier, in his great speech during the Confederation debates, "because of the words 'a new nationality'. But if we unite we will form a political nationality independent of the national origin and religion of individuals. Some have regretted that we have a distinction of races and have expressed the hope that in time this diversity will disappear. The idea of a fusion of all races is utopian, it is an impossibility. Distinctions of this character will always exist, diversity is the order of the physical, moral and political worlds. As to the objection that we cannot form a great nation because Lower Canada is principally French and Catholic, Upper Canada English and Protestant, and the Maritime Provinces mixed, it is futile in the extreme. "Take for example the United Kingdom, inhabited as it is by three great races. Has the diversity of races been an obstacle to the progress and the welfare of Great Britain? Have not the three races united by their combined qualities, their energy and their courage, contributed to the glory of the Empire, to its laws of wise, to its success on land, on sea, and in commerce?