IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) V /. <>i,. 1^ /J^^ W, i< (/a (/. 1.0 I.I .25 IIM 12.5 W ill 2.2 ills 12,0 .8 lA ill 1.6 V] (^ /i <^3 ^. c^. 3 ^>^ / o 7 //a Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14S80 (716) 872-4503 « iP A^ \ \ "/ / n n n Coloured covers/ Couverture de couleur Covers damaged/ Couverture endommagde Covers restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restaurde et/ou peEliculde Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque Coloured maps/ Cartes g6ographiques en couleur Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur Bound with other material/ Reli6 avec d'autres documents Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/ La fsliure serree peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge intdrieure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. 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Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont film^s en commen9ant par la premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — *> signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film^s d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est filmd d partir de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m6thode. rata lelure. 3 32X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 % am deeply grateful, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, for the ^ compliment you pay me when you invite me to partake of your hospitality tonight and enroll me among the members of the old guard. I appreciate your courtesy, not only because you have furnished me an opportunity of becoming personally acquainted with the representative men of this progressive community, but also that I am in some measure privileged to contribute ray share to the perpetuity of these delightful social meetings. I hold it true that reunions of this nature make for the upbuilding of national character and national unity. There is a hard metallic substance — a species of corundum — employed by lapidaries in cutting gems, and used for polishing iron and steel. It gives to these metals additional value without impairing their sub- stance. So, it seems to me, does the social influence of meetings like this act upon the nature of each of us. The angularities of sectionalism disappear, political and religious animosities, if they do not entirely vanish, are at least clarified and subdued, while the sterling attributes of our manhood take on a refinement and polish that make associa- tion charming and life exceeding pleasant. For forty years I have been intimately identified with the social life of our people in pioneer settlements, in rural districts, in villages and cities, and, while I look back with pardonable complaisancy on the past, I regard the present as immeasurably better. I have noticed a marvellous transformation in these years. Many old prejudices are dead, others are dying, and, in a few more years will have entirely disappeared. The animosities begotten in the old land and transferred honestly but unhappily, to the new, are like unto the ruins of Carnac covered with the dust of decay. We are rising superior to sectional and insular pre 'ices. We say and rightly, let the dead sleep in the grave; we will not open vaults and tombs; we will not roll back the stone from the sepulchre, for out of it there will come, not the benediction SPEECH of Dean Harris, delivered at the "Old Boys" Meeting at Beamsville, Ontario, Monday, September 3rd, 1900 = Our Own Land of Easter morning, but the dreaded spectres of religious bitterness and old country partyism and factionalism. We are sons of this great Dominion — great now, and greater in its possibilities — bound indeed by ties of kinship and love to Great Britain and Ireland, but, while Canada is a daughter in the house of a queen, she is mistress in her own. I remember, when civil war rent asunder our neighboring republic, the national cry of the north was, "The Union must and shall be preserved." The voice was heard from California to Maine and from the northern confines of Minnesota to Kentucky. It was a cry that never died during that fierce struggle of brother against brother, it steeled the army of the north in combat and was never hushed till it was merged in the great shout of victory. So be it with us today and for all time. "The Dominion shall and must be preserved." As a constitutionally united people, we have not yet entered our fortieth year and still at the marvellous exhibition of art and science, of industry and education, now open in the social capital of the world, we have captured, in open competition with the nations of the earth, the Grand Prix — the great national prize for education, first honors for our mineral exhibit, twenty-two medals of the first class, thirty-two of the second, and silver and bronze medals innumerable. Now let us briefly review our history that we may take courage from the past, and like the Schenietic seers of old, rejoice in the victories of the future. Our country has not yet an existence of three hundred years and indeed one hundred and fifty years of these were practically more years of exploration than settlement. The French period was one of colonization and settlement. It began with a shipful of immigrants in tiie beginning of the seventeenth century and ended with a colony of aoout seventy thousand souls in the middle of the last century. » t) O '0 SPEECH of Dean Harris, delivered at the "Old Bovs" Meeting at Beamsville, On^^ario, Monday, September 3rd, 1900 = Our Ow^n Land • ; » a " It was the pioneer settlement in Canada proper and repre- sented a sustained period of domestic hardship and harassing warfare with the native tribes. The French-Canadian did for Canada what the United Empire Loyalists and the early- settlers of thirty years ago did for this province. They pre- pared the way for the foundation of a nation. Scarcely had a score of years passed over the infant colony when Quebec, its rampart and stronghold, was captured by the troops of Great Britain and after three years was again returned to them. Then a period of repose followed for a hundred years until the international struggle known in history as the "Seven Years War," began. In 1759 Quebec was once more captured by the English and in the following year Montreal, which had become a place of some importance, capitulated. For three years the destiny of Canada was undecided. Two towns were lost to the French but the great wilderness and the other French possessions remained as they were. Then, in 1781, Great Britain and France decided on a cessation of hostilities, and the advisors of George III. folded up the map of America and the royal geographers were instructed to draw another. France, Spain and Great Britain split up the North American continent and shared the territory between them. ^0 By the Treaty of Paris, 1763, Canada fell to the share of Great Britain. The great plains and mountains west of the Mississippi went to the French, while Spain received Louisiana, but lost the Floridas. There have been other great deeds of grants such as the cession of Louisiana to the United States in 1803, that of Califor.\ia and New Mexico in '47, but the cession of Canada, with its dependencies, was, and is, the largest grant recorded in history. This grant included all the land lying along the Atlantic sea- board, and known as the old Thirteen Colonies, which were lost to England in 1775 by the Declaration of Independence. SPEECH of Dean Harris, delivered at the "Old Boys" Meeting at beamsville, Ontario, Monday, September 3rd, 1900 \ In 1774 the Imperial Government passed the famous Quebec Act, many provisions of which are in operation to this day. This act created the original Province of Quebec, which included the Province of Ontario and five states of the American Union. Its jurisdiction extended westward far beyond the present City of Chicago, and on the south to the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi. To the north-west it was a law as far as the eastern boundary of Manitoba and, as a fact of law and history, it is still unknown at what point it touched the Hudson Bay on the north. The Province of Ontario as it stands today was a part of the Province of Quebec for over sixteen years. Then began the next change in the domestic history of our country and began also the separate existence of the two Canadas. In 1791 the Imperial Government passed another act which it was hoped would satisfy the French and English settlers who differed in religion, traditions and language. By the Canada Bill of 1791 it was intended to allow one section of the country to remain French and the other to remain English, and probably, to hive both parties. The experi- ment, however well intended, proved disastrous, and shortly after followed the rebellion of Papineau in Lower Canada, and subsequently the rebellion of William Lyon Mackenzie, in this province. It would be tedious to follow the changes of the civil government in these twin provinces with any regard to detail. You know that after Lord Durham's report, the Canadas were re-united in 1840. They were not dissolved, however, into one province, but like husband and wife had each its separate existence, while the bond of marriage remained unbroken. In 1864 the preamble and acts of the Quebec Conference were brought to England for the approval of the Imperial Government and in 1867 the Federation of all the provinces became a solidified and compact unity SPEECH of Dean Harris, delivered at the "Old Boys" Meeting at Bearasvilie, Ontario, Monday, September 3rd, 1 9QQ =^=: - $ o o o $ o known as the Dominion of Canada. At times in the history of Canada there has been a decided antajfonism between the French-Canadian and English-Canadian peoples, but happily it has always, sooner or later, given place to wise counsels of compromise and conciliation and the two races nave been energetic and earnest co-workers in the develop- ment of the noble heritage which they possess on the northern half of this continent. O f C) o As we look back for the one hundred and forty years which have passed since the cession of Canada to England we can see that the political development of the provinces now constituting the Dominion, is owing to the passage of certain measures which stand as so many political milestones by the path of national progress. The Quebec Act of 1774, introduced the principle of religious toleration which relieved Catholics of disabilities that remained afterwards for many a day on the statutes of Great Britain. The right of every subject to the protection of the writ of Habeas Corpus and trial by jury; the adoption of one system of criminal law in French as in English Canada; all made for serenity and harmony. The Imperial Government guaranteed to the French-Canadians the perpetuity of their civil law and language. Our own parliament secured for us the independence of the judiciary and its complete separation from political conflicts, entire provincial control over all local revenues and expenditures, and the right of our provincial legislatures to manage their purely local affairs untrammelled by English or Dominion interference. We have also introduced the principle of responsibility to the state as represented by the people under which a Minis- try can only retain office while they have the confidence of the people's representatives. Both the French and English Canadians agreed to abolish the seignioral tenure of land holding, and have established every man an owner and a SPEECH of Dean Harris, delivered at the "Old Boys" Meeting at Beamsville, Ontario, Monday, September 3rd, 19QQ = J Our Own Land master on hia own farm. All these valuable privileges were not won in a day, but were the results of the struggles of our people from 1792 until the establishment in 1867 of the Federal Union, which invited the provinces on the basis of a central government having control of all matters of general and national import, and of several provinces having jurisdiction over such matters of provincial and local concern as are necessary to their existence as distinct political entities within a confederation. Today, our Dominion of Canada may be regarded as subject to the following authorities, viz: — the Queen as the head of the executive authority; the Imperial parliament; the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the court of last appeal for the whole empire; the government of the Dominion made up of Governor-General, a Privy Council and a Parliament; the government of the provinces, that is to say a Lieutenant- Governor, an Advisory Council and a Legislature or Pro- vincial Parliament. After these the courts of law which determine all disputed questions and all questions affecting the construction of the written constitution. We are not so wholly materialistic, so entirely absorbed in trade ana commerce that we cannot deeply feel the senti- ments of patriotism and nationality, and on the wall laid on these broad foundations, build in the traditions of a brief but glorious past, and surely these traditions deserve our warmest appreciation. Ours is a country that for eighty years has, with a scarcely noticeable exception, been blessed with a peace almost providential in its calmness and dura- tion; a peace that has furnished us ample opportunities of exploring a wondrous territory that stretches from ocean to ocean; a peace that has permitted us to discover the marvellous and incalculable wealth, resting in the womb of our country, to be brought forth by future generations and utilized for thei»' benelit; a peace that has allowed us every §i o SPEECH of Dean Harri-;, delivered at the "Old Boys" Meeting at Beamsville, Ontario, Monday, September 3rd, 1 90Q = - ■ ,1 ' #^ C.) opportunity to study the complex nature of our population and to derive from that study the consoling assurance that the Celt and the Saxon are fast fusing into a solidified body, to be known as the Canadian people — a people actuated by deferential respect for constitutional government and in- fluenced by no other consideration than that which makes for the p».. nanency of our institutions and the stability of our government. There are here no teachers of disintegra- tion, infidelity and destruction, whose field is ignorance and whose recruiting sergeant is distress. Ignorance judges the invisible by the visible, but we have turned on the lights and the propagandist of communistic and anarchical doctrines finds here neither ignorance or distress. What- ever may have been the melancholy causes which conspired to produce the European anarchist and lead him to curse the institutions of his own country it is not our province to discuss tonight. We know for a fact that when he reaches our shores and has felt the benefits of Canadian civilization he experiences an extraordinary change, and from a dangerous member of society is transformed into an upholder of our constitution and a respecter of our laws. When his children leave our schools they are thoroughly grounded in the history, and in the principles and incalculable blessings of Canadian freedom. His boys are turned into soldiers of constitutional government, his daughters into intelligent mothers of freemen, and his sons and grandsons become the bul works of constitutional law. He learns that with us sub- mission to the will of the majority has become universally the accepted faith of the people, and while that faith is un- shaken no party will ever appeal to the alternative of armed protest. This Dominion of ours, mighty in its possibilities, in its educative influences and its prospective strength of brain and hand must not be divided for a house divided against SPEECH of Dean Harris, delivered at the "Old Boys" Meeting at Beamsville, Ontario, Monday, September 3rd, 19QQ == Our Own Land itself shall not stand. There is not now and there cannot be any question that must ever be allowed to go beyond the domain of misunderstanding. Our schools and higher educa. nal institutions have made it impossible for the demagogue to rule cr the agitator to govern. The en- lightened intelligence of our legislators and parliaments asserts itself above the storm of agitation and commands peace that this country may calmly pursue its great destiny. For never was there in the settlement of nations found such splendid material to the building up of a great Dominion as that which Providence has placed upon our territory. Here the daring sons of Japhet, the sons of liberty-loving races, have from the forests carved out their homes and hewed for themselves an abiding place. The stalwart and broad- shouldered Scotch, the slow-thinking but irresistible English, the imaginative and high-spirited Irish, with the cheerful and hospitable French-Canadian, are dally coalescing, and from their loins there is begotten a race that, if true to itself, must be the greatest the world has ever seen. We are practically the last of the Japhetic migrants settling our great western plains and foothills and realizing the vision of the far seeing Bishop Berkley, we exclaim with him "Westward the star of empire takes its vo-.j. The first four acts already passed, The fifth shall close the drama of the day ! Earth's noblest empire is the last." Let us, therefore, gather up the records, the traditions, the writings, the maps and every fragment of historical value, and, when they are spread out for the examination of our people, we will have no reason to be ashamed, but every motive to be proud of our glorious traditions. •5> ♦ I SPEECH of Dean Harri-s, delivered at the "Old Boys" Meeting at Bearasville, Ontario, Monday, September 3rd, 1900 = - u> ♦.) »