OR,

OUR NEW CANADIAN DOMINION
FORESHADOWED.

BEING A SERIES OF

Lectures, Speeches and Addresses

BY

THE HON. ALEXANDER MORRIS, P.C., D.C.L.,
Late Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba, the North-West Territories and Keewatin.

Edited, with Notes and an Introduction,

BY A MEMBER OF THE CANADIAN PRESS.

"There is another little book, to which I must refer. It is a pamphlet, which
met with an extraordinary degree of success, entitled Nova Britannia, by my hon-
ourable friend the Member for South Lanark : and as he has been one of the princi-
pal agents in bringing into existence the present Government, which is now carry-
ing out the idea embodied in his book, I trust he will forgive me if I take the op-
portunity, although he is present, of reading a single sentence to show how far he
was in advance, and how true he was to the coming event, which we are now
considering. At page 57 of his pamphlet [pp. 48, 49 of the present volume]--which I
hope wil be reprinted among the political miscellanies of the Provinces when we are
one country and one peop e- I find this paragraph:-The dealing with the destinies
of a future Britannic empire, the shaping its course, the laying its foundations broad
and deep, and the erecting thereon a noble and enduring superstructure, are indeed
duties that may well evoke the energies of our people, and nerve the arms and give
power and enthusiasm to the aspirations of all true patriots. The very magnitude
of the interests involved will, I doubt not, elevate many among us above the de-
mands of sectionalism, and enable them to evince sufficient comprehensiveness of
mind to deal in the spirit of real statesmen with issues so momentous, and to origi-
nate and develop a national line of commercial and general policy, such as will prove
adapted to the wants and exigencies of our position.' There are many other excel-
lent passages in the work, but the spirit that animates the whole will be seen from
the extract I have read."-Speech of the Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee, in the Ca-
nadian Assembly, February 9th, 1865.

Toronto:

PUBLISHED BY HUNTER, ROSE & CO.
1884.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

THE ensuing lectures have been long out of print. Even at this late day I have frequent applications for copies of them, and it is but a short time since I was applied to for copies to be forwarded to the Australian Government. As they deal with questions of permanent importance, I have decided upon their republication. My first intention was to recast and modernize them, but upon reflection I have decided to reissue them in their original form—with the exception of a few unimportant verbal alterations-and accompanied by foot-notes shewing the marvellous progress of our country during the years which have elapsed since the lectures were first prepared. A careful perusal of the text and notes will satisfy any reader that the hopes of Canadians as to the future of the Dominion rest on a solid and substantial basis. It will be seen that much of what I anticipated twenty years ago has come to pass. And the end is not yet. Canada to-day enjoys her full share of participation in the advancement which is so striking a feature of the present age, and I doubt not that she will in the future continue to be what I regarded her in the comparatively remote past-"one of the brightest jewels in the British Crown."

I have added a number of speeches and addresses delivered at various times in the course of my public career, The

notes and running comments distributed here and there throughout the volume sufficiently explain the circumstances to which they relate. "Nova Britannia," the title of Lecture I., has been retained throughout, as equally applicable to the entire volume, and also as characteristic of the position of a country which, as an allied nation, will, I doubt not, become a very important factor in the working out of the future of our ancestral Island Home and its colonial "Greater Britain."

TORONTO, January, 1884.

ALEXANDER MORRIS.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.

THE purpose intended to be served by the republication of the lectures, speeches and addresses which go to make up the present volume are sufficiently indicated in the Author's Preface. The editor's share in the reproduction has been comparatively slight. So far as the two lectures are concerned, his task has been almost entirely restricted to supplying a succession of footnotes, some of which are explanatory of certain passages in the text, while others bring down the history and statistics to recent times. With respect to the speeches and addresses, it has not been deemed advisable to incumber them with prolific notes, as, from their nature, and from the variety of subjects dealt with, a more obvious method of elucidation suggested itself. Wherever it seemed that a note would answer the purpose-that of making the facts clear and intelligible to readers of the present day, or of showing by statistics the great advance made by the country in the interval which has elapsed-that mode has been adopted; but where something more than mere annotation appeared to be called for, a running commentary, explanatory of the attendant circumstances, has been interwoven with the text. It is believed that no matter of importance has been left to conjecture, and that no intelligent reader, with the combined aid of notes and commentary, will encounter any difficulty in grasping the full significance of the argument.