The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-10-29 00:00:00

THE MARQUIS OF LORNE ON THE
PROSPECTS OF CANADA.

During his visit to Winnipeg, the Governor-General
of Canada was entertained by the Manitoba Club on
the 11th inst., before starting for Ottawa. Replying
to the toast of his health, his Excellency, in the course
of a brilliant speech, said,—The people of Canada
will always remember that it was in sharing the I
duties incurred in their services that the Princess
Louise received the injuries which have, 1 trust only
temporarily, so much impaired her health. Two
years hence the journey I have undertaken will be an
easy one to accomplish. For a Canadian official a
knowledge of the north-west is indispensable. To be
ignorant of the north-west is to be ignorant of the
greater portion of our country. Our track through
it only enables us to see a very small portion of your
heritage. In returning via Montana it was mostin-
teresting to compare the southern mountains and
prairies with our own.
After paying an appropriate tribute to the memory
of the late President Garfield, Lord .Lorne entered
into a description of the country through which he
had passed. He. said,—We see Winnipeg now with a
population unanimously going in happy concord and
rapidly lifting it to the front rank among the com-
mercial countries of the world. We may look in
vain elsewhere for a situation so favourable and
so commanding as that of the fair regions of which
we can boast, the measureless meadows which com-
mence here and stretch without interruption of
their good soil, westward to your boundary.
The province is a great sea over which the
summer winds pass, with rich grasses and flowers,
and on this vast extent it is only as yet here and there
that a yellow patch shows sorne gigantic wheat field.
Like a great net cast over the whole area, are the
bands and clumps of poplar which are everywhere to
be met, and which, no dcubt when prairie fires are
more carefully guarded against, will, whenever they
are wanted, still adorn the landscape. The meshes of
this wood-netting are never further than 20 or 30
miles apart. Little swamps and sparkling lakelets,
teeming with wild fowl, are always close at hand,
and if the surface water in some of these has alkali,
excellent water can always be had in others, and by
the simple process of digging for it. It is well to re-
member that the men who will succeed here, as in
every growing community, are assuredly the able-
bodied, and that their entry on their new field
of labour should be when they are young.
Men advanced in life and coming from the
old country will find their comfort best consulted
by availing themselves of ready provided acoomoda-
tion, to be obtained by the purchase of farms in the
old provinces. With you the word " annexation " has,
during the last year, only been heard in connexion
with the annexation of more territory to Manitoba. 1
must apologize to a Canadian audience for mentioning
the word in any other connexion. In the United
States the desire for the annexation of this country is
disavowed by all responsible leaders. As it was well
expressed to me lately, the best men in the States
desire only to annex the friendship and goodwill of
Canada. This great part of our great Empire has a
warm feeling for our Republican brethren, whose
fathers parted from us a century ago in anger
and bloodshed. May this natural affection never
die out ! It is like the love which is borne by a
younger brother to an elder, so long as the big
brother behaves handsomely and kindly. I may,
possibly, know something of the nature of such affec-
tion, for, as the eldest of a round dozen, I have had
experience of the fraternal relation as exhibited by an
unusual number of younger brothers. Never have I
known that fraternal tie to fail, but even its strength
has its natural limits. So, likewise, Canada's affection
for hex elder brother may be measured. None of my
younger brothers, however fond of me, would volun-
tarily ask that his prospects should be altogether
overshadowed and swallowed up by mine. So Canada,
in words which our neighbours may understand, ex
presses the wish to be their friend, but does not desire i
to become their foe. She rejoices n her big brother's
strength and stature, but is not anxious to nourish
them by offering up her own body in order that it may
afford him that happy feast he is in the habit of calling
'square meal."