than that of Arabia. Comparing it with a standard with which we are familiar, we may call it about twenty-five times that of England and Wales, a mere speck on the map by the side of the great peninsulas of Africa or South America. More respect is due certainly to its population, which is not less than one fifth of the estimated number of inhabitants of the world and ten times that of this country. But in this respect again, what is most worth notice is not the mass, but the extraordinary variety found within the country.

Looking at the range of climate, the different geographical Climate features, the number of different races inhabiting India, and the babel of languages they speak, we can well say that India is not so much a country as a small continent. As regards physical differences, though all India is either tropical or subtropical, in the south and along the coasts the people are certain of a hot but equable climate, with a more or less heavy rainfall once or at most twice a year. In the north, on the other hand, there is a fiercely hot season divided from a piercingly cold one by a few months of rain of uncertain intensity and duration.

One part of India consists of vast plains of rice, another of Agriculture small patches of arable land cleared out of the forest or terraced out of the steep hillside. Here we find acre after acre of wheat, there long stretches of prairie upland producing little but scanty crops of millet. In one tract nothing will come up except under canal irrigation; in another, canal water brings to the surface latent stores of alkaline matter which sterilize the soil.

The life and customs of the people vary accordingly. In The racial the matter of race, too, we range from the comparatively high differences type represented by the martial tribes of upper India and by the Brahmins and chieftains of the central tracts, to the dark colored denizens of the hills and forests which divide the continental part of the country from the peninsula. All along the mountain belt again, which bounds India on the north, and in the lower ranges which separate it from China on the east, the predominant type is that of the yellow or Mongolian races, which is slow in blending with any of the rest. A very brief

ne variety

study of these types will serve to indicate the wide gaps which exist between the different sections of the community in their original purity of race...

A further cause of the want of unity in the population is the languages extraordinary variety of language, which, of itself, is a serious

eligious ifferences

obstacle to the obliteration of social distinctions. In the census of 1891 no less than 150 different tongues were sifted out of the number returned as current in India and recognized as worthy of individual mention in the tables. ... What with real differences of language and local dialects of peculiar vocabulary or pronunciation, the native of any part of India cannot go many miles beyond his birthplace without finding himself at a loss in communicating with his fellows.

Finally, India lacks that important factor in human cohesion, community of religion. It is true that on paper, at all events, three fourths of the people are nominally of one creed, — that which we call Hinduism. This, however, is but a convenient term covering any amount of internal difference, which deprives it of its most material weight as a "nation-making" characteristic. Then again the remaining quarter of the population left outside the general designation is not confined to certain localities except in the case of the Buddhists, who affect Burma and the Himalayas, and Sikhs, who remain in the Punjab, their birth province. The bulk of those who are not Hindus acknowledge the creed of Islam and are scattered all over the country to the number of nearly sixty millions. Our Empress accordingly owns the allegiance of the largest Mussalman population in the world.

Section 89. The Dominion of Canada

The adjustment of the relations between the original French population of Canada and the British subjects who immigrated there was for a long time one of the most serious problems in the government of the colony. During the first half of the nineteenth century the more vodical among the French cherished hopes of throwing

off British rule, and sought to achieve their end by an insurrection in 1837. The revolt failed, however, but it led the English government to attempt to establish more sympathetic relations with their French subjects. Immediately after the rebellion Lord Durham was sent out to examine the situation in Canada, and in his report he gives the following account of the antagonism between the two races, especially in Quebec.

Durhan

Canada

The two races thus distinct have been brought into the same 317. Ex community, under circumstances which rendered their contact from L inevitably productive of collision. The difference of language account from the first kept them asunder. It is not anywhere a virtue Angloof the English race to look with complacency on any manners, rivalry customs, or laws which appear strange to them; accustomed to form a high estimate of their own superiority, they take no pains to conceal from others their contempt and intolerance of their usages. They found the French Canadians filled with an equal amount of national pride, - —a sensitive but inactive pride, which disposes that people not to resent insult, but rather to keep aloof from those who would keep them under.

French

The French could not but feel the superiority of English The En enterprise; they could not shut their eyes to English success in treat th every undertaking in which they came into contact, and to the inferior constant superiority which the English were acquiring. They looked upon their rivals with alarm, with jealousy, and finally with hatred. The English repaid them with a scorn which soon also assumed the same form of hatred. The French complained of the arrogance and injustice of the English; the English accused the French of the vices of a weak and conquered people, and charged them with meanness and perfidy. The entire mistrust which the two races have thus learned to conceive of each other's intentions induces them to put the worst construction on the most innocent conduct; to judge every word, every act, and every intention unfairly; to attribute the

most odious designs, and to reject every overture of kindness or

Religious

ifferences

There is no

ational

ystem

Religion formed no bond of intercourse and union. It is, indeed, an admirable feature of Canadian society that it is entirely devoid of any religious dissensions. . . . But though the prudence and liberality of both parties has prevented this fruitful source of animosity from imbittering their quarrels, the difference of religion has, in fact, tended to keep them asunder. Their priests have been distinct; they have not met even in the same church.

No common education has served to remove and soften the

ommon edu- differences of origin and language. As they are taught apart, so are their studies different. The literature with which each is the most conversant is that of the peculiar language of each; and all the ideas which men derive from books come to each of them from perfectly different sources. Those who have reflected on the powerful influence of language on thought will perceive in how different a manner people who speak in different languages are apt to think; and those who are familiar with the literature of France know that the same opinion will be expressed by an English and French writer of the present day, not merely in different words, but in a style so different as to mark utterly different habits of thought.

18. The pening of he first Dominion

The four provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were federated into the Dominion of Canada by an act of Parliament in 1867. In November of that year the first governor general of the new federation, Lord Monck, delivered the following speech at the opening of the Canadian Parliament at Ottawa. Honorable Gentlemen of the Senate and Gentlemen of the House of Commons:

In addressing you for the first time, parliamentary representatives of the Dominion of Canada, I desire to give expression to my own deep feelings of gratification that it has been arliament my high privilege to occupy an official position which has made 867) it my duty to assist at every step taken in the creation of this great confederation. I congratulate you on the legislative

sanction which has been given by the Imperial Parliament to the Act of Union, under the provisions of which we are now assembled, and which has laid the foundation of a new nationality that I trust and believe will, ere long, extend its bounds from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.

In the discussions which preceded the introduction of this Federal measure in the Imperial Parliament, between the members of and stat rights her Majesty's Government on one side, and delegates who represented the provinces now united on the other, it was apparent to all those who took part in those conferences that while her Majesty's ministers considered and pressed the principle of union as a subject of great imperial interest, they allowed to the provincial representatives every freedom in arranging the mode in which that principle should be applied. In a similar spirit of respect for your privileges as a free and self-governing people, the Act of Union, as adopted by the Imperial Parliament, imposes the duty and confers upon you the right of reducing to practice the system of government which it has called into existence, of consolidating its institutions, of harmonizing its administrative details, and of making such legislative provisions as will secure to a constitution in some respects novel, a full and unprejudiced trial.

enacted

With the design of effecting these objects, measures will be New fed laid before you for the amendment and assimilation of the laws to laws existing in the several provinces relating to currency, customs, excise, and revenue generally; for the adoption of a uniform postal system; for the proper management and maintenance of the public works and properties of the dominion; for the adoption of a well-considered scheme of military organization and defense; for the proper administration of Indian affairs; for the introduction of uniform laws respecting patents of invention and discovery; for the naturalization of aliens and the assimilation of criminal law, and the laws relating to bankruptcy and insolvency.

A measure will also be submitted to you for the performance The Int

of the duty imposed upon Canada under the terms of the Union colonial