UNITED STATES AND CANADA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 86, 31 May 1911, Page 5

UNITED STATES AND CANADA.

SIR WILFRID °LAURIER ON RECIPROCITY. AN IMPERIAL SERVICE. Just, before ho left for England to attend the Imperial*’ Conference, Sir Wilfrid Laurier concluded a brilliant speech in the Canadian House of Commons on the reciprocity agreement with the United States as follows’:—“If my poor voice could ho heard throughout the length and breadth of this country, and if without any presumption ft could ho heard also beyond the frontier, I would say to our American neighbours, flattering 'as may ho to their pride the idea that the territory of the Republic should extend over the whole continent, from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico to the waters of the Arctic Ocean, remember that we Canadians were horn under the same flag under which, perhaps, you may have suffered some oppression, hut'which to us has boon and is more than ever the emblem of freedom. (Great cheering.) Remember that if you have founded a nation upon separation from the Mother Land, wo Canadians have sot our hearts upon‘building up a nation without separation, and in this task wo arc already far advanced with our ii • vtmpis, with our U'.c.ynal entity as a people, and with even thing that constitutes a nation to whom wo arc "•«»t as demoted as you are to yours. (Cheers.) Remember that the blood ..iiich flows in our veins is uist a.-: good as your own, and rlr.it it v.«;i au a proud people, though we aie rt ol your numbers, wo are just us proud as you are, ami taut rather than (ait with our national existence ve van Id pirt with our lives. v ßonew.]d cheer i»•>».) 'lf inv voice could tic head that far, I would presume to say to i.an American friends, there may be a spectacle perhaps nobijr yr-r, than tne spectacle of a anitvl cr.ntnu-iit, a spectacle which would astound the world by its, novelty and grandeur, the spectacle of two peoples h'v.ug rifle by side for a .instance of • '■ooo miles, a lino which is lumdlv v’sihlo in many quarters, wit a not a cannon, not a gun frowning a.eioss it, with not a fortress on either side, vi’th no irnnunont one against’ I lie other, hut. living in harmony, in nnifal conlidoncQ, and witii no ot'mr rivalry than generous emulation o> commerce; and the arts of peace. ‘Great .Liberal cheers.) To the Canadian people I would say that if it m- possible frr us to obtain such rein turns between those two yoiinn: mil grow-ng nations, Canada would iiave. rendered to Old England, the morlim- of i alions, nay, to the wimle British Empire, .m nervine un.emiallod in its p-es-cort effect, and still more n its farreaching con seo non cos. fI > r longed Liberal cheering.)”