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do not want to see Scotland become merely a northern province of England. We do not want to be like the Jews of the Dispersion, a race with no fatherland behind it. Therefore I would plead with those of Scottish blood to maintain a lively interest not only in their race, but in their fatherland. They can do an enormous amount by their friendly interest to preserve Scotland's individuality. Often the most idomatic things of a country are cherished more reverently by her sons who settle abroad than by her actual inhabitants. I have found, for example, in Canada much to remind me, not of the Scotland of today, but of the Scotland of my boyhood. Scottish Canadians can do a very great deal to preserve the Scottish idiom in literature and in life. We want to realise that Scotland is more than a toast, that it is a real thing, a country, a home; and we must remember her not only when we are dining in her honour on St. Andrews night, or on the birthday of Robert Burns.

There is one final duty, the most important of all. We Scots have always been exponents of unity. We learned from bitter experience in our history the evils of disunion. For hundreds of years we impoverished ourselves fighting the English, until we were fortunate enough to set a Scotsman on the English throne. But there is a greater unifying exploit in our history than even the union with England, important though that was, and that was the union of Scotsmen with each other. Do you realise that until a century or two ago the Highlands and the Lowlands were two separate peoples? Though they were nominally under the same king they had different economic interests, different social traditions, different religious creeds.

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And then, after 1745, and the fall of the Jacobite cause, with immense difficulty and with immense suffering, these two separate races were made one nation.

Today that union is complete. If I meet a man from Badenoch and a man from Northumberland in a foreign land, though I cannot speak the Highlander's tongue, and though the Northumbrian speaks almost with my own accent, yet I know that the first is somehow a kinsman and that the other is only a friend. The Scots tradition, the Scots character has become one and indivisible. This is a fact which we too often forget, and it is one of the miracles of history. Two hostile peoples with utterly different traditions, and with a long record of ill-will behind them, had to wait until a century or two ago before the barriers were broken down. By a happy chance in their mingling they preserved what was best in each tradition. Today when we sorrow for our dead it is all one whether the strain is the Lowland "Flowers of the Forest" or the Highland "Lochaber no More", the burden is the same. It is the Highland pipes that have played our Lowland soldiers into desperate battles, and in hours of recreation it is the words of an Ayrshire ploughman with which everywhere we commemorate friendship. When we praise famous men and great deeds, we do not stop to ask whether they are Lowland or Highland - it is enough for us that they are Scottish.

Gentlemen, having done so much, it is our duty to do more. I do not believe that the unifying power of our race is exhausted. Today unity is the crying need of the world; unity instead of antagonism; co-operation instead of rivalry. We need a union of classes in Canada, and in Britain, and in the Empire. We need, if I may venture to say so, in this Dominion of ours, a closer unity where national interest are supreme above local interests. We need, above all, a

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unity, in spirit, of the nations of the world, for that is the only pathway to peace. Is it fantastic to believe that to help in the achievement of such unity is the first and greatest duty of those of Scottish blood wherever on the globe their lot may be cast? As a race we have learned the folly of division; as a race we have already achieved miracles of comprehension. In the intricate and perilous problems of to-day let us make our Scottish tradition an inspiration and an example.