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It is a matter of much satisfaction to me that these gentlemen have reached this wise conclusion. An Intelligence Department, controlling the circle of State telegraph-cables known as the " Empire cables " during a portion of each day for the exchange and transmission of mutual knowledge between all the great political groups of British people, would prove, as I have elsewhere pointed out, to be of the highest practical value. By such means information of common interest collected in all parts of the Empire would be published simultaneously in the daily newspapers of each country. The effect would soon be to remove much of the ignorance which prevails, and gradually bring the whole British people in both hemispheres to a good understanding of each other through an intimacy heretofore quite impossible of attainment. The question of an Intelligence Department comprehending all that I have indicated in my first letter—the completion of the chain of Empire cables and their limited free use by the Press in the interest of the whole people, is no side-issue merely. It is infinitely more. It is a prime necessity in the development of the twentieth-century Empire; without taking this first step 1 doubt if any real progress, any forward advance whatever, can be gained. An Imperial Intelligence Department such as that outlined cannot fail when instituted to prove a distinctly formative influence in working out our destiny. What, then, is our common duty? I enclose an editorial from the Montreal Star of yesterday as a sample of the comments which we may look for generally in favour of the modified proposal of Sir Frederick Pollock and his associates. Yours faithfully, Sandford Fleming.

[Extract from Montreal Star, 25th October, 1905.] Britons should know each Other. The suggestion of Sir Frederick Pollock that there should be an Imperial Intelligence Department, whose task it would be to gather up in all corners of the Empire any information of value to the commercial and merchant leaders in other parts of the Empire, is a capital one. There is, perhaps, no bar to the progress of real Imperial unity to-day so great as our mutual ignorance regarding each other. We are always marvelling at the ignorance of other British subjects respecting us, delightfully unconscious apparently that our ignorance regarding them is quite as sublime — and ridiculous. There are a lot of what might be called strands of Empire, to which we should pay attention, and not make the mistake of tugging all the time at the more conspicuous cables. Mr. Drage called attention, for instance, at the Board of Trade to the fact that a British subject must take out twenty-eight patents in order to protect an invention throughout what we boastfully describe as one nation. Then there is our stupid practice of giving a great postal preference to American over British periodicals which are to be distributed in this country. The blame here does not rest with us in Canada, but it does rest upon a British Government; and surely the influence of an Imperial Intelligence Department, making clear what the effects of such a blunder are, might lead to reform. The nearer the people of the various " Britains " get to each other, the easier it will be for the largest plans of Empire to be pressed to a successful consummation when the hour strikes. If we do not know each other better, we are certain to misunderstand some of the demands which we will each make ; and misunderstanding leads directly to distrust. No Imperial Federation—or whatever it may be called —will be born in a night. It must at least be a growth, and that growth can only be wisely directed when we have an intelligent knowledge of all the surrounding conditions. The extracts which follow are from the responses of well-known gentlemen to the foregoing letters addressed to the Canadian Club. They are arranged in Groups, A, B, C, and D. Group A. — The Views of Statesmen and Students of Political Science. I. From His Honour Sir Henri G. Joly de Lotbiniere, Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia: — There is one thing which I would like to see clearly explained —why is it not possible for our Canadian Press to procure at the true source in England, and to impart to their readers in Canada, an exact knowledge not only of public feeling and opinion in England, but also of such events as serve to form such feeling and opinion ? I have been told that the Canadian Press could not afford the necessary expenditure, and that it is therefore reduced to accept British feeling and opinion in the shape in which the United States Press chooses to interpret them, and in that shape they are given to us readers day by day, year by year. Constant dropping of water will wear the hardest stone. Would it entail such enormous expenditure for our Press to get the news from England wired directly to them ? Would it be beyond the power of Canada to meet that .expenditure, if our Press cannot meet it? I completely agree with you,' and with the opinion expressed in the printed letters you sent me, that of the two modes proposed for the unification of the Empire by Sir Frederick Pollock— viz., a Council of the Empire or an Intelligence Bureau—we ought to resort first to the Intelligence Bureau.