t to Washington as one of the two British
commissioners in the abortive reciprocity negotiations of that year.
In 1879 the Macdonald Government made Galt ambassador at large to
negotiate treaties in Europe, but he was hampered by being compelled to
'filter' his proposals through the various resident British
ambassadors. When in 1882 Blake moved in the House of {136} Commons a
resolution in favour of direct treaty-making powers, Sir John Macdonald
opposed it as meaning separation and independence, ending his speech
with the declaration, 'A British subject I was born, a British subject
I hope to die.' Yet action moved faster than the philosophy of action.
In 1883 Sir Charles Tupper signed the protocols of the Cable Conference
in Paris on Canada's behalf; and at Madrid, in 1887 and 1889, the same
doughty statesman represented Canada in the conduct of important
negotiations. It was in 1891, only nine years after Sir John
Macdonald's reply to Blake foreboding separation and independence, that
the House of Commons and Senate of Canada, praying for the abrogation
of the Belgian and German treaties, unanimously declared that 'the
self-governing colonies are recognized as possessing the right to
define their respective fiscal relations to all foreign nations.'

The first task had been practically achieved; freedom had been won; but
it still remained to rise through freedom to co-operation, to use the
newly won powers to work out a lasting partnership between the free
states of the Empire. This was the harder task. There was no
precedent to follow. Centralized {137} empires there had been;
colonies there had been which had grown into independent states. But
of an empire which was not an empire, of colonies which had achieved
self-government only to turn to closer union with the parent state, the
world had as yet no instance.

It had not even a model in idea, a theory of how it should be done.
Such a forecast as that already quoted from Sir John Macdonald[2] came
as near as might be, but this long remained a peroration and no more.
No man and no school divined absolutely the present fact and theory of
empire. It has worked out of the march and pressure of events, aided
by the clash of the oppositions which it has reconciled.

In the eighties and nineties four possible futures for the Dominion
were discussed. The first was the continuance of the colonial status,
the second Annexation, the third Independence, and the four