it now was held, hampered more than they helped, even if
costless. But when maintained at heavy expense, at cost of
fortification and diplomatic struggle and war, they became worse than
useless, a drag on the development of both colony and mother country.
So the fetters which impeded trade and navigation were discarded.

There followed, from the forties onward, a period of drift, of waiting
for the coming separation. When the trade monopoly which was the
object of empire ceased, most men in Britain reasoned that the end of
the Empire, {130} in so far as it included colonies settled by white
men, could not be far distant. Yet the end did not come. Though
Radical politicians and publicists urged 'cutting the last link of
connection'; though Conservative statesmen damned 'the wretched
colonies' as 'millstones about our necks'; though under-secretaries
said farewell to one 'last' governor-general after another and the
London _Times_ bade Canadians 'take up your freedom, your days of
apprenticeship are over'; in spite of all, the colonies lingered within
the fold. Some dim racial instinct, the force of momentum, or the grip
of inherited obligations, kept them together until gradually the times
changed and the stage was set for another scene.

Alike in the motherland and in the colonies men had stumbled upon the
secret of empire--freedom. Expecting the end to come soon, the
governing powers in London had ruled with a light rein, consenting to
one colonial demand after another for self-government. In these years
of salutary neglect the twofold roots of imperial connection had a
chance to grow. The colonies rose to national consciousness, and yet,
in very truth because of their freedom, and the absence of the {131}
friction a centralizing policy would have entailed, they retained their
affection and their sympathy for the land of their ancestors. Thus the
way was prepared for the equal partnership which it has been the task
of these later years to work out.

Two lines of development were equally essential. It was necessary to
secure complete freedom for the colonies, to abolish the old relation
of ascendancy and subordination, and it was necessary to develop new
ties and new instruments of co-operation. Nowhere in early years do we
find a more nearly adequate recognition of this twofold task than in
the prophetic words of Sir John Macdonald: 'England, instead of looking
upon us as a merely dependent colony, will h