page_0002

2.

indefinite expansion. Their borders are closed and the true frontier
now is a spiritual one. He urges his countrymen to push beyond
the old narrow limits to a new and more fruitful world of thought.
That seems to me a truth which ap lies to all the world. Here in
Canada we are still fortunate enough to have a physical frontier.
for there are still great tracts of our land which await actual exploration,
great natural riches which are still unassessed and undeveloped.
A physical frontier is a tremendous asset for any nation,
but still more important is the spiritual frontier of which Mr. Wallace
has written, and it is on that that I would offer you a few
observations this evening.

I had the good fortune to be born a Scottish Borderer.
In the old days dwellers on a border had to be a tough lot to survive.
As the phrase goes, "The hand had to keep the head", for
every day they were looking across the marches to the land of their
ancestral enemies. These times have long gone, but I think that
something remains in the atmosphere of a borderland which marks it
out from other places. History is closer to us; its monuments are
more visible; there is a sharper tang of romance in the air.

Now today we are all dwellers upon a Border. We are all,
in a sense, Wardens of the Marches. The civilisaiton, which we once
thought was so impregnable and secure, we know today to be not in
itself a stable thing, a gift from the gods, but a thing which has
to be fought for and jealously guarded. All our idols are rattling
in their niches, and we are not inclined to look at htem with such
respectful eyes. We are faced with problems so vast, so novel, and