PREFACE. THE following essay is the amplification of an essay written for Canadian readers by a Canadian long resident in the United States. Annexation implies a transaction to which the two sections concerned must be parties, and therefore is of importance, if not equally momentous, to both. To Americans the annexation, not alone of Canada, but of any further territory and its inhabitants, should be considered in the light of the perilous growth of sectionalislu at home. The problem of reconciling local interests and prejudices with the national wellbeing and will, is presenting itself obstinatel y for solution wherever representative government is on its trial, whether under its i most restricted form or its most democratic iii . . FY f a ce . era1 party, should be a Peel a Radical, and a staunch Imperial Federalist, at one time President of the Imperial Federation League, and that Lord Rosebery supports Irish Home Rule, not as a piece of excep tional legislature, but as the first step - - tow-ards the creation of a group of separate English-speaking states in both hemispheres, controlling without interference their own domestic affairs but bound together by common constitutional ties and common interests, each working out its own l individual destiny, while contributing to the strength, the influence, and the prosperity of the whole. J. D. NEW Y ORKA, pril 26, 1894. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I.-THE IMMINE O N F CPOEL ITICACL HANGE DENCE . . 1 1 111.-ANNEXATION A S AN ALTERNATIV T E O INDEPENDENCE 34 1V.-CANADAS SLOWP ROGRES SC OMPARED OF COMPARATIVPOEL ITICS . 83 VII1.-ANNEXATION FROM AMERICAN AND CANADIAPNO INTS O F VIEW . 97 INDEX . . . 111 vii CHAPTER I. CHE IMMINENCE OF POLITICAL CHANGE IN CANADA. THE political future of Canada should and does occupy a foremost plkce in the thoughts of its people, and is a subject of no inconsiderable importance to her neighbor. It may be true that at present there is no widespread discontent with its existing constitution and relations, but some change in the alliance between Canada and the mother-country must, sooner or later, take place, as inevitably the relations betweed parent and child alter when childhood passes into boyhood and boyhood merges into manhood. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.