Sir Wilfrid Laurier was a true Canadian, a great British citizen. If he had one aim in life which stood high above all others it was to contrive a happy, a United Canada. “You are aware,” he said, in that superb speech delivered at Quebec in 1894, “that in the eleventh century certain men started out from Normandy, Anjou, Brittany, and Angouleme to capture England. Duke William of Normandy was their leader, and our present sovereign is the last scion of a royal race that dates back to William the Conqueror. In the sixteenth century men started from the same province of Normandy, Anjou, Brittany and Angouleme to colonize the fertile lands on the banks of the St. Lawrence. In the next century the men of both races met here and you know what happened. Well, is it not permissible to hope that a day will come, when, instead of facing each other on hostile purpose intent, the men of the two countries, the descendants of the Britons, Angevins and Normans, who invaded England in the eleventh century, and the descendants of the Angevins, Normans, and Britons, who peopled Canada in the sixteenth, will meet together, not to fight, but to hold the grand assizes of peace and commerce? I may not live long enough to see that day, but if my career should be sufficiently extended to allow me to take part in these assizes, it will be a happy day to me. I shall attend them bearing with me my Canadian nationality, and I believe that I shall continue the work of Mr. Lafontaine and Sir George Etienne Cartier, and that the result will be all to the advantage of French Canada. Gentlemen, our situation as a country is full of difficulties, and those difficulties are no doubt immense. Still, there is nothing desperate about them. What this country needs above all else is peace, concord, and union between all the elements composing its population. Let us show the world that if we reverence the past, we also have a regard for the future. Let us show to the world that union does not mean absorption, and that autonomy does not mean antagonism. Victor Hugo, recalling his double origin, used these fine words: ‘Fidèle au double sang qu’on verse dans ma veine, Mon pere, vieux soldat, ma mere, Vendeenne.’ (“True to the double blood that was poured into my veins by my father, an old soldier, and my mother, a Vendean.”) “Let us also be true to our double origin, true to the memory and the reverence of the great nation from which we have sprung, and true also to the great nation which has given us freedom. And in all the difficulties, all the pains, and all the vicissitudes of our situation, let us always remember that love is better than hatred, and faith better than doubt, and let hope in our future destinies be the pillar of fire to guide us in our career.” * * * * *