should be informed that the difference between them and the Prime Minister of England is only one of time?  If the British Government has really come to the conclusion that we are a burden to be cast off whenever a favourable opportunity offers, surely we ought to be warned.’

I replied that while I regretted as much as he could do the paragraph to which he referred, I thought he somewhat mistook its import:  that I believed no man living was more opposed to the dismemberment of the Empire than Lord J. Russell:  that I did not conceive that he had any intention of deserting the Colonies, or of inviting them to separate from England; but that he had in the sentence in question given utterance to a purely speculative, and in my judgment most fallacious, opinion, which, was shared, I feared, by very many persons both in England and the Colonies:  that I held it to be a perfectly unsound and most dangerous theory, that British Colonies could not attain maturity without separation, and that my interest in labouring with them to bring into full play the principles of Constitutional Government in Canada would entirely cease if I could be persuaded to adopt it.  I said all this I must confess, however, not without misgiving, for I could not but be sensible that, in spite of all my allegations to the contrary, my audience was disposed to regard a prediction of this nature, proceeding from a Prime Minister, less as a speculative abstraction than as one of that class of prophecies which work their own fulfilment.  I left the Council Chamber disheartened, with the feeling that Lord J. Russell’s reference to the manhood of Colonies was more likely to be followed by practical consequences than Lamartine’s famous ‘quand l’heure aura sonne’ invocation to oppressed nationalities.  It is possible, indeed, that I exaggerate to myself the probable effects of this declaration.  Politicians of the Baldwin stamp, with distinct views and aims, who having struggled to obtain a Government on British principles, desire to preserve it, are not, I fear, very numerous in Canada; the great mass move on with very indefinite purposes, and not much inquiring whither they are going.  Of one thing, however, I am confident; there cannot be any peace, contentment, progress, or credit in this colony while the idea obtains that the connection with England is a millstone about its neck which should be cast off, as soon as it can be conveniently managed.  What man in his senses would invest his money in the public securities of a country where questions affecting the very foundations on which public credit rests are in perpetual agitation; or would settle in it at all if he could find for his foot a more stable resting-place elsewhere?  I may, perhaps, be expressing myself too unreservedly with reference to opinions emanating from a source which I am no less disposed than bound to respect.  As I have the means, however, of feeling the pulse of the colonists