WHAT CANADA THINKS OF BRITAIN [To the Editor of THE
SPECTATOR.] have read with great interest your article, " What Canada thinks of Britain." The writer, Miss Sylvia Stevenson, says that the provinces of Canada are alike only in their hospitality to the visitor. May I draw your attention to the fact that there is at least one other point of similarity, namely, the objection that Canadians, from Halifax to Victoria, have of hearing their native land called a " colony " by people in England ?
I have come back to live in England after fifty years in Canada, and I have, since my arrival four months ago, repeatedly heard the Dominions spoken of as " colonies."
I have before me an Income Tax certificate for Great Britain headed " Foreign and Colonial Securities." When I asked an IncOme Tax official to which class Canadian securities belong he answered " to colonial." Canada not being a foreign country or a colony, I wondered whether I would not be legally justified in suppressing any mention of my dividends from such securities.
In the financial reports of one, if not more, of the great English newspapers Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and South African Government bonds are classified under " Colonial Government Securities." Again a well-known literary hand-
book divides periodicals into British, American and Colonial. Those published in India as well- as in the Dominions are called " colonial."
This matter is not, as it may seem to English people, unim- portant. The Empire is held together partly by sentiment and nothing will weaken that sentiment so certainly as treating the citizens of the Dominions as inferiors. I can testify from lifelong experience that when a Canadian hears Canada called a colony and himself a colonial he feels that his country and he are being treated de haute en bas.—I am, Sir, your obedient
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