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PROBLEMS OF EMPIRE. more especially in Queensland, at the treatment by the Home Government of the New Guinea question, the New Hebrides question, and the transportation of French convicts to New Caledonia. There was undoubtedly a large body of Australians at that time, especially amongst the younger men, who looked forward to the creation of an Australian nation independent of the mother country. Nine years later that feeling had passed away, and opinion was practically unanimous that the true line of Australian national development was consistent with her remaining an integral portion of the British Empire. But even in 1896 there was some grumbling at the small contribution made to the cost of the Australian squadron, and no one could then have ventured to predict the sacrifices that would be made in men and money within four years' time to assist the mother country in her time of stress and trouble, not only in South Africa, but in China.

In Canada, in the period between the death of Sir John Macdonald and the defeat of the Conservative party in the election of 1896, there was a considerable and perhaps a growing body of opinion that looked to annexation to the United States as the future destiny of Canada, and as offering the best hope for her industrial development and the prosperity of her people. During that election the Conservatives endeavoured to represent that annexation would be the consequence of the victory of the Liberal party. But Sir Wilfrid Laurier was able to make his position perfectly clear, and the result was a great victory for the Liberals. It is impossible to deny that during Sir Wilfrid Laurier's premiership the relations between Canada 66