Empire Club Speeches Author:William Clark Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IMPERIALISM An Address by the Right Honourable James Bryce, British Ambassador at Washington, before the Empire Club of Canada, 011 May 8, 1911. Mr. Presid... more »ent, Ladies—Daughters of the Empire, Gentlemen of the Empire Club, and of the Press Club,— I have long desired to be able to accept the invitation which, a good while ago, was tendered to me by three of your clubs. It is a very great pleasure to find myself among you this evening. I feel a little odd at the prospect of having to address three separate groups of loyal Canadians, but my stock of loyalty and imperialism is sufficient to hold out. (Applause.) I believe, ladies and gentlemen, that I should not be far wrong in saying that the object of the Empire Club, the Daughters of the Empire, and your other organizations is two-fold—in the first place, constitutional union for all parts of the Empire; and in the second place, to claim for yourselves in Canada a share in the duties, honours, and responsibilities which citizenship in the Empire involves. (Hear! hear!) I think that these clubs are of very great value in calling you from the subjects which occasionally cause differences of opinion among you as Canadian citizens, to those common objects of importance which we all hold with equal zeal. I have always thought that one of the best features of the Canadian and Empire Clubs, is that it enables you to come in personal contact with those differences that occasionally divide men in domestic politics—and after all they are only differences of opinion— and this is the best way of maintaining the interests, which we all hold in common. Now I have these two ideas to present, ladies and gentlemen : the importance of prolonging and strengthening the bonds and ties which hold the different parts of theEmpire togethe...« less