Page:The Australian Commonwealth and her relation to the British Empire.djvu/11

 I have never been one of those who think that a country will grow truly great by putting millions of her youths into barracks for two or three years; but the compulsory training in Australia is of the lenient kind, which can be no real hardship to the youngsters. We have got a fleet that gives young Australia a chance of obeying the call of the sea. Do not forget that most of our glory and most of our conquests came from the exploits of our race upon the high seas. (Applause.) We are so prosperous in Australia, and you are so prosperous in Canada, that our young men do not go to the sea as readily as used to be the case; but it would be a sad day for Australia, and perhaps for Canada, if we do not find some young Australians and some young Canadians on the deck of ships that travel the high seas. (Applause.)

That is all I want to say about Australia exclusively. I want now to talk about the Old Country. I want to remind you of what Great Britain did for us. She gave us the right of managing our own affairs. What other empire on the face of the world ever acted so magnanimous a part? Can you remember one? I do not think so. She gave us the right to do that which runs in the veins of the race. Hundreds of years ago, in the ancient boroughs of England, a genius for self-government began to display itself, and it is that to which the greatness of our empire is mainly to be attributed. We not only got the noblest of all Imperial gifts—self-government—but we got more than that. Great Britain gave us another noble Imperial gift—the magnificent continent we possess, with all its resources and all its wealth. (Applause.)

There is another grand thing about Great Britain. In spite of her magnificent gifts she never comes cap in hand to ask us to acknowledge her great generosity and give her something in return. (Hear, hear, and applause.) I think the noblest thing of all about those people in the British Isles is this, that vast multitudes of them are poor, poor beyond the conception of the prosperous Canadians and Australians; they are staggering under the vast responsibilities of this Empire which covers so much of the earth's surface, and whose commerce flies across every ocean on the face of the globe, yet in the midst of their anxieties, in the midst of their troubles, they make