Mr. Childers, on Tuesday evening, delivered a lecture to his
constituents on Canada and the United States, the main points of which seem to have been these :—He thought the Canadians were beginning to bear to their American neighbours much the position which the Scotch bear to Englishmen, and would succeed in preserving a distinctive national character. They were about, he feared, to pass through a period of com- mercial depression, but they were in the main a most prosperous and well-governed people. The chief alterations he saw in the United States since his visit fifteen years ago were the increased self- reliance of the people—who were ceasing to think what other nations were saying of them—and the increased nationalism. An American now spoke as an American, and not as a citizen of a particular State within the Union. Mr. Childers also remarked that the proportion of foreigners, and more especially of Germans, in the States was much greater than formerly, and might give rise to some religious difficulties. The Germans, for instance, did not see why in a State without an Established Church there should be any Sunday laws, and this was but a specimen of much more serious divergencies of opinion.
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