As a member of this Institute, and one who has worked most of his life in the interests of the United Empire, I should have very great pleasure in responding to this toast at some little length, but I must be brief at this late hour. This year is one of the most important years of the history of the Empire. We speak of the United Empire, and although we have an Empire which in one sense is united, still in another sense it is not a United Empire. It is not combined in any way, or organised for defence, and I think it is absolutely necessary that steps should be taken at the earliest possible moment to have it properly combined. The coming conference of Premiers will be one of the most important events in the history of the British race. I am under the impression that when this conference meets it will either do some good work in connection with the unification of the Empire, or it may be that either through sloth, or indolence, or lack of appreciation of the extraordinary importance of the occasion, the critical moment may be allowed to lapse, and we may soon see our career as a great and powerful people approaching a close. ("No.") I certainly hope not, but speaking as a Canadian watching closely the trend of affairs in that country, and having had a good deal of work in the fight we had some fifteen years ago against Commercial Union with the United States, I tell you this is a most critical period, and that this Empire must combine for defence and for trade. For defence because every great thinker and every man who has studied the subject knows that we may have war upon us at any moment. Take the last words of that great statesman, Lord Dufferin, when he said that nothing, neither a sense of justice, nor the precepts of religion, nor the instincts of humanity, would prevent any of these foreign nations from attacking us at the first favourable opportunity. Why did Lord Salisbury two years ago, at the Primrose League gathering, say that "The whole thing may come as a wave upon us." Is it not necessary that we should combine the Empire both for trade and defence? Now we have considered this subject carefully in Canada, and held meetings all over the country, and the proposal we wish to see adopted at this conference--a proposal I have been asked by the British Empire League to lay before you--is that at that conference every representative there should agree to a proposal to put from five to ten per cent. duty on all foreign goods at every port in every part of the Empire. What for? Not for Protection or Free Trade, but to form a fund for defence. That is why it has got to be done, and you will require large sums of money to put the thing on a proper footing. We want also to combine for trade. We want some proposal which would help to a certain extent to protect the trade of the Empire in every part, which would tend not only to protect trade in every part, but to stop