The Seattle Post Intelligencer

If we should ever be forced to choose between Canada and the United States (which God forbid), we must choose Canada. But though this is so, and though it is no good to pretend otherwise, Canada must not presume upon the knowledge and press things too far. We shall be absolutely loyal to her, but she must also be loyal, we will not say to us, but to the empire as a whole. She must not think merely of her northwestern boundary, but of Australia, of New Zealand, of South Africa, of India and of all our interests in China and in the Far East, and what is more, of all these mighty interests welded into a conscious whole. Now it is for the welfare of the empire as a whole that the people of the United States should regard us not as foreigners, but as their own kin, and as willing to do things for them which we will not do for foreigners. The Americans found the advantage of this feeling when they were threatened with the constraint of a European coalition, and when the continent was made to understand that they must not forget the existence of the British fleet. The British empire may some day wish for a similar exhibition of feeling. We are perfectly well aware, and perfectly willing to admit, that there we have no need to curry favor with America, and that we are quite strong enough to stand by ourselves; but that is not the question. Even the strongest power may be the better for a certain amount of outside sympathy. If we can be sure of that sympathy in America we need not trouble to cultivate it elsewhere. Therefore we would most earnestly beg Canada to remember that the Alaskan boundary must not be treated as if it were the last transaction with America.