Page:The empire and the century.djvu/420



Thirty years ago Lord Dufferin, speaking, perhaps, to some extent by way of anticipation, said: 'There is not a man in England who does not understand, and to whose imagination it has not been forcibly brought home, that beyond the circuit of the narrow seas which confine this island, are vast territories, inhabited by powerful communities who are actuated by ideas similar to our own, who are proud to own allegiance to the British Crown, whose material resources are greater than those possessed by his own country, and whose ultimate power may perhaps exceed the power of Great Britain.' That is certainly how all Englishmen ought to feel towards their nearest, greatest, most powerful, and most prosperous Colony. And if such language was no more than the facts warranted some thirty years ago, how much more appropriate and forcible must it be held to-day!

It is a charge against Transatlantic habits of thought that too much is apt to be made of mere size; but it will, nevertheless, bear to be stated that the area of the Dominion is thirty-one times that of the United Kingdom, and twice that of Russia in Europe. It embraces 40 per cent. of the entire area of the British Empire.

Throughout this vast territory the outlook is such as to justify the oft-repeated boast that the twentieth century is to be with Canada. Last century was with the United States. And where the United States stood, say, forty years ago, there stands Canada to-day. Indeed, having regard to her splendid resources, to her growing population, to the facilities of transportation by land and sea, and to the increasing pressure on the means of subsistence in European countries, one is justified in considering it possible that within the next half century Canada may even outrival the experience of the United States in the rapidity of her general development. Any reluctance to realize and acknowledge the extent of the present growth of the Dominion