Newfoundland's Part in Empire Development "The Birth of the Overseas Empire' was the subject of a lecture delivered before the Royal Colonial Institute at the Hotel Victoria, London, recently by Lord Morris, ex-Prime Minister of Newfoundland. In the course of his lecture, which dealt mainly with New-found land, Lord Morris pointed out that from its discovery in the fifteenth century to the first decade of the seventeenth century Newfoundland was the sole foothold of the English in the Western Hemisphere, the one spot of ground they claimed outside the british Isles, Lord Morris claimed that New-found land was the nursery of the Colonial conception—the Precursor of the American Republic, of the Dominion of Canada, of the Australian Commonwealth, of South African Union, as well as of the lesser Colonies where the—civilizing genius of the Anglo-Saxon race ionnd un outlet for its energies. the genesis of the Imperialism of jater days, the instanct of expansion as we now saw it, took shape im that island, then regarded as a lonely rock in the Atlantic but now seen to be a region generously endowed with nature] resources.
The idea that Newfoundland was somewhere near the North Pole, that ice, snow, and fog abounded, that it was a land of "fogs, dogs, and bogs," was described as erroneous. In reality Newfoundland was much less cold than the neighbouring provinces of Canada, and in parts the thermometer rarely dropped below zero, 1t was the only Dominion of the Empire which maintained a Naval Keserve as a branch of the imperial Navy establishment.
"I believe," said Lord Morris, "Newfoundland may yet have a great part to play. Standing upon the threshold of America, its strategic position may become of great importance in some vast world-drama, and as it is the first of the overseas possessions, its destiny should always strongly appeal to the British people."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.