Mr. Bryce in reply said that his first resolve on
his appoint- ment was to visit Canada at the earliest moment to learn for himself what were the wishes, thoughts, and feelings of the Canadian people. He was in Canada to listen rather than speak, but he testified to the increasing friendship and respect felt for Canada by all the higher and wiser minds in the United States. At home the great Colonies were regarded as sister-States, and both great parties were united in affection for their Colonial brothers, and in recognising to the full that their self-govern- ment must be complete. If ever there was to be closer connexion between the Mother-country and the sister-States, it must be on the basis of equality, of co-partnership. Nothing could be imposed from Great Britain; everything must come as much with the will of every sister-State as with the will of Great Britain herself. On that in England they were all agreed. At a banquet held in Toronto on Wednesday Mr. Bryce, alluding to a suggestion by the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario that he should take back to Washington the senti- ment that what Canada had she would hold, very properly, in our opinion, asked Canada to suspend judgment on diplomatic affairs till she had beard both sides of the case.
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