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 PRINTED BY REQUEST

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am moved by no mere conventionality, but it is from the very bottom of my heart that I say that I am glad to be here to-night.

I envy my friend Dr. Macdonald his Keltic eloquence and fervor—I must admit that I fear I am but a Sassenach—while, however, I cannot hope wholly to succeed in the pleasant duty imposed upon me, with such a subject and with such an audience, it is impossible that I can wholly fail.

I recognize that I am speaking in large part to those who claim Canada as Fatherland, but who are now dwelling under a flag differing from that whose folds guarded their birth, and some of whom at least now are citizens of a State which is not that to which their ancestors owed allegiance. Yet in the eyes of a Canadian, they have not become foreigners or aliens; nor is that State by any Briton considered foreign or alien. And I, for one, refuse to consider