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-Ist Day. .] Imperial Council. [23 May, 1911. Sir JOSEPH WARD— cont. tion which welded the 13 colonies into one nation, and it laid the basis of a commonwealth which has grown in unity of population until to-day its population is about double, if not more than double, that of the United Kingdom. The difficulties that confronted them were so great, the differences due to racial and other reasons were so perplexing, that such heroic souls as Franklin began to feel the task hopeless. These were the men who, having almost exhausted patience and human ingenuity, were finally able to bring about a system of cooperation which, though it has faults in constitution no doubt, as is the case with most of the countries which have a constitution —the Old Country has not got one, so it is all right in that respect —yet those faults, whatever they may be, can be looked upon as minor ones, because there is this case of stupendous difficulties overcome by men driven to such a state that the suggestion was made that the great purpose they had in view could only be effected by an appeal to Heaven. At all events they got over the difficulty, and we have the experience of the period of years to which 1 have just referred to show that what was looked upon as an almost insuperable task—the devising of a scheme to bring union about— was successfully accomplished, with the result that under that union one of the most powerful countries in the world exists to-day without any serious trouble having been caused to the individual portions of it. The transference of people from one portion of the Old World to other portions of it, the drawing away of people from the Old Country, though of benefitto those who get the support of people from here, has a side to it which might be said to disturb any spirit of complacency. One can recall the fact that in 1894 one of the leading nations in Europe exported 26 out of every 10,000 of her men, but by 1907 she had succeeded in stopping that and in keeping her population upon her own soil to such an extent that she then exported but four out of every 10,000 of her men. During that same period in 1894 this Old Country exported nine only, as against the 26, out of every 10,000 men; but in 1907 these figures had risen in Great Britain to what 1 call the alarming number of 40 out of every 10,000. These figures impress me to such an extent that I would point out that between 1903 and 1907 the increase of men leaving England for other countries, largely foreign, was 61 per cent. If we had a proper system of Imperial emigration and immigration I believe a large proportion of that 61 per cent, that went away from this country would, in the great majority of cases, have gone to British countries. I use the two terms " emigration " and " immigration " because there is such a thing as emigration from one of the oversea Dominions to another, and there is thus an exchange of people between the different Dominions. Mr. BATCHELOR : Most of them went to the United States. Sir JOSEPH WARD : Yes, the great majority of them went to the United States; some of them went to Mexico, and so on. I cannot possibly finish what I wish to say upon this subject by half past one. The PRESIDENT : Would this be a convenient point for you to break off ? Sir JOSEPH WARD : Yes. Adjourned till Thursday next, at 11.0 o'clock.