Through all the fever, the struggles, the battles, hopes and fears, disappointments and successes, joys and sorrows, anxieties and rewards of those long busy years, this fixed idea of an united Empire was his guiding star and inspiration. I, who can speak with something like authority on this point, declare that I do not think any man's mind could be more fully possessed { 179} of an overwhelming strong principle than was this man's mind of this principle. It was the 'Empire' and 'England's precedent' always, in things great and small--from the pattern of a ceremony, or the spelling of a word, to the shaping of laws and the modelling of a constitution. With a courage at once fierce and gentle, generally in the face of tremendous opposition, often against dangerous odds, he carried measure after measure in the Canadian Parliament, each measure a stone in the edifice of empire which he so passionately believed in and was so proud to help build and rear.[6]
A parliamentary federation of the Empire he considered impracticable. He did not believe that the people of Canada--or of any other dependency of Great Britain--would ever consent to be taxed by a central body sitting outside its borders, nor did he relish the idea that the mother of parliaments at Westminster should be subordinated to any federal legislature, no matter how dignified and important it might be. He believed in allowing Canada's relations with the mother { 180} country to remain as they are. To use his own words, spoken within a year or so of his death:
I am satisfied that the vast majority of the people of Canada are in favour of the continuance and perpetuation of the connection between the Dominion and the mother country. There is nothing to gain and everything to lose by separation. I believe that if any party or person were to announce or declare such a thing, whether by annexation with the neighbouring country, the great republic to the south of us, or by declaring for independence, I believe that the people of Canada would say 'No.' We are content, we are prosperous, we have prospered under the flag of England; and I say that it would be unwise, that we should be lunatics, to change the certain present happiness for the uncertain chances of the future. I always remember, when this occurs to me, the Italian epitaph: 'I was well, I would be better, and here I am.' We are well, we know, all are well, and I am satisfied that the majority of the people of Canada are of the same opinion which I now venture to express here.... I say that it would { 181} bring ruin and misfortune, any separation from the United Kingdom. I believe that is the feeling of the present Parliament of Canada, and I am certain that any party, or the supposed party, making an appeal to the people of Canada, or any persons attempting to form a party on the principle of separation from England, no matter whether they should propose to walk alone, or join another country, I believe that the people of Canada would rise almost to a man and say, 'No, we will do as our fathers have done. We are content, and our children are content, to live under the flag of Great Britain.'[7]