in his own country.  No statesman could be of aspect and utterance less hurried, nor more pleasant, lucid, cautious, disposed to give a friendly caller large and accurate information briefly, while disclosing nothing at variance with or unfindable in his published speeches.  Of some of them he repeated apposite slices; to others he referred for further enlightenment as to his views on imperial federation.  Really he was neither secretive nor newly informative.  The Premier of Canada at any time is governed, much as I have endeavored to show how the electors are, by that natural, instinctive course of the general loyal Canadian mind, which constitutes “the situation” and controls Governmental proceedings on behalf of the public.

Well meaning persons who allege Sir Robert to have either favored or disfavored imperial federation have been inaccurate.  Precisely what imperial federation may be nobody knows, for the simple and sufficient reason that nobody has ever sketched or elaborated a scheme in that regard which appeared or appears desirable as a change from the all-compelling situation.  What has never been adopted as desirable cannot be termed practicable in statesmen’s language.  To declare an untried scheme impracticable might be an error of rashness.

The idea of federating the empire has long attracted Sir Robert, with many other admirable Canadians and Britons, since it connotes or involves the concept of British Union for all worthy and necessary purposes, including maintenance of local autonomy or self-government, surely a most praiseworthy design.  Discussion of that idea is unlikely to be harmful; it may be useful; something may come of it that may seem desirable and practicable to substantially all interests and people concerned.  A consummation devoutly to be wished, but not to be rushed!  One point, frequently specified in Sir Robert’s public speeches, was stated as follows in a recent report, pamphleted for distribution by his own side: 

It is impossible to believe that the existing status, so far as it concerns the control of foreign policy and extra-imperial relations, can remain as it is today.  All are conscious of the complexity of the problem thus presented; and no one need despair of a satisfactory solution, and no one can doubt the profound influence which the tremendous events of the past few months and of those in the immediate future must exercise upon one of the most interesting and far-reaching questions ever presented for the consideration of statesmen.

There Sir Robert was recommending no particular solution.  A little earlier in the same speech he illustrated the deep sense of all experienced British statesmen that there never is or can be in the British system any final solution of any grave problem, the vital essence of the system being flux and change to suit ever-changing circumstance.