The Marquis Of Normanby^*

Moved the adoption of the foregoing report. Maintaining, as he did, the strongest possible feeling towards the Colonies of this great Empire, he could not, he said, but rejoice to see a movement of this kind taking place. The Colonies were now bound to this country by the bond of affection and loyalty, and, he might add, by self-interest, because there were no communities in the world which possessed such free and independent constitutions as the Colonies of this country did. While he had no fear, therefore, of any immediate likelihood of rupture between the Colonies and the mother country, he thought it was a statesmanlike view to look forward to the future as well as to consider the present, and he could not help feeling that as time rolled by and these great Colonies increased in wealth and population, unless the union was drawn close it would inevitably grow weaker.