[Cheers,] That is a remarkable and
indeed a unique spectacle.
What is it that stirred the imagination, aroused the conscience,
enlisted the manhood, welded into one compact and irresistible force the
energies and the greatest imperial structure that the world has ever
known? [Cheers.] That is a question which, for a moment at any rate, it
is well worth asking and answering. Let me say, then, first negatively,
that we are not impelled, any of us, by some of the motives which have
occasioned the bloody struggles of the past. In this case, so far as we
are concerned, ambition and aggression play no part. What do we want?
What do we aim at? What have we to gain?
We are a great, worldwide, peace-loving partnership. By the wisdom and
the courage of our forefathers, by great deeds of heroism and adventure
by land and sea, by the insight and corporate sagacity, the tried and
tested experience of many generations, we have built up a dominion which
is buttressed by the two pillars of liberty and law. [Cheers.] We are
not vain enough or foolish enough to think that in the course of a long
process there have not been blunders, or worse than blunders, and that
today our dominion does not fall short of what in our ideals it might
and it ought and, we believe, it is destined to be.
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