boast of Canadians that as the nineteenth
century was the century of growth and development of the United States,
so the twentieth is to be the century of Canada; and the outstanding
feature of Canadian development in {432} the last decade of the
nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth is the
awakening of her national consciousness. In all her relations with
Great Britain this sense of nationality has been continuously manifest.
In the Colonial Conferences which have been held at intervals in London
since the first Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887, Canada has been
acknowledgedly first among the self-governing colonies. In 1897,
partly as a result of the enthusiasm created by enactment of the
preference for Great Britain by the Dominion Parliament, Sir Wilfrid
Laurier was the foremost figure among the colonial statesmen who were
in London for the Diamond Jubilee. Another evidence of loyalty and of
the close connection between Canada and Great Britain in the Jubilee
year was the institution of two cent postage between Great Britain and
Canada. Canada's domestic rate of letter postage from 1868 had been
three cents, a rate which was extended to the United States by a postal
convention, by which the domestic rate of Canada was made applicable to
all letters and papers entering the United States, and that of the
United States to all mail matter for Canada. This rate of three cents
remained in force until January, 1899, when the two cent rate was made
general for Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. In 1907, the
rate for newspapers and periodicals between Great Britain and Canada
was again lowered, and in August, 1908, a one cent rate for letters
within the area of a town or city was adopted by the Canadian Post
Office.

When the South African War broke out in 1899, {433} Canada was the
first of the colonies to come to the help of the mother country; and
the Canadian contingents, the first of which left Canada for South
Africa in October, 1899, rendered excellent service in the Boer War,
especially in such work as scouting and the guerilla fighting in which
the Boers were so adept.

The treaty-making power is still withheld from the Dominion; but since
the Alaskan boundary treaty Great Britain has given more and more
attention to the demands and needs of Canada when treaties have been in
negotiation, and in 1907 Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Mr. W. S. Fielding,
Minister of Finance, and the Hon. Mr. L