"
They cheered him promptly, and a gathered intensity came
into his face at the note of praise.
"Nothing on earth can hold him now," said Bingham, as he
crossed his arms upon a breast seething with practical
politics, and waited for the worst.
"The question of the hour for us," said Lorne Murchison
to his fellow-townsmen, curbing the strenuous note in
his voice, "is deeper than any balance of trade can
indicate, wider than any department of statistics can
prove. We cannot calculate it in terms of pig-iron, or
reduce it to any formula of consumption. The question
that underlies this decision for Canada is that of the
whole stamp and character of her future existence. Is
that stamp and character to be impressed by the American
Republic effacing"--he smiled a little--"the old Queen's
head and the new King's oath? Or is it to be our own
stamp and character, acquired in the rugged discipline
of our colonial youth, and developed in the national
usage of the British Empire?"...
Dr Drummond clapped alone; everybody else was listening.
"It is ours," he told them, "in this greater half of the
continent, to evolve a nobler ideal. The Americans from
the beginning went in a spirit of revolt; the seed of
disaffection was in every Puritan bosom. We from the
beginning went in a spirit of amity, forgetting nothing,
disavowing nothing, to plant the flag with our fortunes.
Pages:
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380