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THE DOMINION PARLIAMENT IN SESSION

This has been the scene of many eloquent debates, which have drawn forth the finest outbursts of oratory from men who rank among the first of the world's orators. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir John Thompson, Hon. George Brown and a host of others have won fame here.

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BOOK V.

The Distinguished Orators of Canada

TH

HE finer examples of oratory in the American countries have been confined to those inhabited by English-speaking peoples. No citizen of the Spanish-American republics seems to have won a world-wide reputation in this art. Though many of them may have breathed "words that burn,' their thoughts have not flamed high enough to be visible afar. In our selections, therefore, we are confined to the two commonwealths, the United States and Canada. While the history of the former has been marked by great exigencies that called forth noble efforts of oratorical art, the same may be said. of the latter. The history of the Dominion, indeed, has been wrought out with no such mighty conflicts as that of the slavery question, leading to civil war; but it has not passed without its conflicts, internal and external; its strenuous struggles, which were none the less vital from being confined to parliamentary halls, were fought out by able statesmen and orators instead of by the heroes of the tented field. Canada has its Union as has the United States, and it has had to withstand provincial feeling and threats of secession. It has had its bitterness of racial jealousy, its insurrectionary outbreaks, its religious heartburnings, its struggle between British and American. tendencies and influences. Fortunately, the voice of the orator, the wise counsel of the statesman, have healed these dissensions without recourse to harsher measures. An author of the Dominion says: "Canada only needs to be known in order to be great,' and foremost among those who have helped to make her great are her orators.

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