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Canada
THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE WILLIAM RENWICK RIDDELL
King's Bench Division. High Court of Justice for Ontario.
In response to the toast "Canada" at the dinner of the Canadian Society of New York, Delmonico's. Tuesday, 7th December, 1909.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am moved by no mere conventionality, but it is from the very bottom of my heart that I say that I am glad to be here to-night.
I envy my friend Dr. Macdonald his Keltic eloquence and fervor—I must admit that I fear I am but a Sassenach—while, however, I cannot hope wholly to succeed in the pleasant duty imposed upon me, with such a subject and with such an audience, it is impossible that I can wholly fail.
I recognize that I am speaking in large part to those who claim Canada as Fatherland, but who are now dwelling under a flag differing from that whose folds guarded their birth, and some of whom at least now are citizens of a State which is not that to which their ancestors owed allegiance. Yet in the eyes of a Canadian, they have not become foreigners or aliens; nor is that State by any Briton considered foreign or alien. And I, for one, refuse to consider
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