Rodolphe Lemieux
Laurier Liberal
Mr. LEMIEUX:
Just one word about
the Imperial Conference. I said earlier in the evening that the people of this country viewed with alarm the agitation which is going on on both sides of the Atlantic- the agitation carried on by the Round Table Club. For the information of the gentlemen who will represent Canada in England at the coming Imperial Conference, I wish to quote advice given by the late Sir John A. iMacdonald on the question of Imperial Federation:
We are told that we want imperial federation. I will not trouble you with a disquisition on that subject now, but I will tell you (imperial federation is utterly impracticable. We would never agree to send a number of men over to England to sit in Parliament there and vote away our rights and principles. I am, so far as that question goes, up to the handle a home-ruler, We will govern our own country. We will put on the taxes ourselves. If we choose to misgovern ourselves we will do so, and we do not desire England, Ireland or Scotland to tell us we are fools. We will say: If we are fools we will keep our folly to ourselves ; you will not be the worse for it and we will not be the worse for any folly of yours.