120 CANADA AND THE EMPIRE.

my mind, open to the people of Great Britain. They
may use, if they choose, the power which they possess
to enforce reciprocity on the people of the United
States; they may use it to greatly stimulate the food
production of Canada, of Australasia, of India, and of
the Avgentine Republic, and other places; or may use it
to pave the way to something closely approaching a
zollverein between all the English-speaking nations
and subsequently to something like a practical alliance
between all English-speaking nations.
“You want to consider what it means to us. The
United States is an Enlish-speaking nation. Sir, were
such an alliance an actual fact, it would mean that the
allies would control the entire new world. Of North
America they have now possession. South America
they have under protection, and I hope they will use it
well. Of Africa they have the half, all of Australasia,
and probably four-fifths of Asia would be open to them.
I think that is enough for any modest and well-disposed
community.
“This may be accomplished if only the English race
choose to stand together. It may come to this, that
we will all live to see two great world-empires, one
Russian and the other English-speaking, one Saxon
and the other Slav, and without in the slightest degree
doing injustice to other countries. Here is a little sum
in arithmetic which I would advise you to consider,
and all English-speaking people who are in the United
States: 80,000,000 plus 55,000,000 make 135,000,000
and that is a dominating factor in the world’s history.
Eighty million minus 55,000,000 is equivalent to
25,000,000, and that will be a negligible quantity.
That will be an open door for the United States to
extend commerce, that will be the true defence
of England's food supply, and much else beside.
[ grant that until recent events this might fairly have
been considered pious imagination, but very important
things have happened within the last few years, which
have had their lessons for us and for Great Britain and
the United States.”