‘Well,’ replied this doughty upholder of Imperial Federation, ‘let us discuss the whole question, and we will come to Sir Charles’s criticism, with which I do not at all agree, later on. I was much impressed by the way in which you fought out your Great War. The case was presented in a very strong light. Should such a contingency ever arise, the Canadian Pacific Railway will furnish a most important service to the Empire in providing a special route to India. As an alternative route to India under the British flag from end to end, and bringing England as it does certainly a fortnight nearer to Yokohama than Suez, it evidently may play a very important part in Imperial policy and defence. As has been stated in your paper, not only does the Canadian Pacific furnish a direct line from Quebec on British territory throughout, but in winter, with the Intercolonial Railway to Quebec, the service is made from ocean to ocean by a complete line. It has already been greatly used by the Admiralty. I do not see any force in Sir Charles Dilke’s argument that mercenaries in the States could be engaged to render the line impassable in time of war. Of course we assume we are at peace with the States themselves. We have not only the fact that the line is as capable of being defended against attack as any line here in England would be which might be threatened by dynamiters; but Canada would furnish protection for the line by large bodies of trained militiamen and mounted police in the North-Western Provinces; and there would be the further co-operation of the States in the same direction, just as they came to our aid in the Fenian raids in Canada, when the States heartily seconded us. England would have the entire force of Canada to help to make the protection of the line as complete as it would be between Liverpool and London. And another point is this: By making a _place d’armes_ of Esquimault or Vancouver you could send forward at a few weeks’ notice any number of soldiers you required to those two points, and hold them there at a point as near to India as they are now here, _i.e._ within as easy striking distance of India as they are in England going by Suez. And you may always trust to Canadian loyalty in any struggle in which England might be engaged.’ [Illustration: SIR CHARLES TUPPER IN HIS PRIVATE OFFICE IN VICTORIA STREET, WESTMINSTER. ] ‘I am glad to hear that,’ said I, ‘for when I was in Washington last year I heard much talk of the annexation of Canada by America, and of the pleasure with which the Canadians themselves would receive such a measure.’