ORDINARY MEMBERS ELECTED DURING THE SESSION. Mr. G. G. Gilchrist, Rev. H. J. Chaytor, M.A., Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Liverpool, Mr. E. G. Narramore, L.D.S., Rev. R. B. Tollinton, M.A., Mrs. Blackledge, Dr. C. G. Lee, M.R.C.S., Rev. T. B. Lancelot, M.A., Ven. Archdeacon Madden, M.A., Miss E. A. Twigge, Miss M. F. Twigge, Prof. L. R. Wilberforce. Attendances at the meetings of the Society were as follows: 56, 62, 47, 60, 49, 76, 36, 50, 87, 31, 37, 43, 46. THE FOLLOWING WERE ELECTED HONORARY MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY DURING THE SESSION : Richard Garnett, LL.D., C.B. Rev. W. W. Skeat, Litt.D. THE BIRTH OF NEW NATIONS DURING THE VICTORIAN REIGN. BY JOHN MURRAY MOORE, M.D., M.R.C.S., F.R.G.S., PRESIDENT. "We are a Nation," I heard the orator of Canada, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, say at the impressive climax of an eloquent speech at the Banquet to the Colonial Premiers, given in our Philharmonic Hall, in June, 1897. This utterance sank deep into my mind, and has given me the text upon which I have founded the title of this address which I have had to compose at rather short notice, owing to the sudden illness of my much respected predecessor in the chair. During the century now drawing to its close, the notable features and events which have made for the progress the true progress of humanity, have been the wonderful discoveries of science and inventions of mechanism; the improved methods of preserving public health and checking epidemics; the resuscitation of small nations; the spread of liberty and fraternity in civil, political, and religious life; the increased intercourse of nations by international exhibitions; the modification of monarchical and imperial governments by democracy; the federation of British Colonies; and last, and most striking of all, as it seems to me, the enormous and stillcontinuing expansion of the British race. The vastness, variety, loyalty, and unity of the glorious heritage of the modern Briton are worthy of our special attention. How is it that we, a mixed race of AngloSaxons, Normans, Danes, French, Kelts, and Teutons, living on two small islands, with the sea for our highway, have utilised for trade and settlement the discoveries of Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and Tasman, and have firmly established ourselves in every part of the globe, while the countries which gave birth to these illustrious men have remained insignificant or dwindled into decay? It is because Providence has endowed us with the best qualities for colonizing of any nation. We ought gratefully to say, as we look upon the parts of the map of the world painted red, in the words of our City of Liverpool motto: "Deus nobis hæc otia fecit." : Though our expansion-latterly, indeed, the necessary consequence of an overflow of population, which is the primitive cause and origin of most colonies-has excited the jealousy and dislike of the European powers, we are not a military nation, with a huge standing army always eager to take the field and extend its sovereign's frontier; nor are we pirates, filibusters, or land-grabbers, as our French neighbours accuse us of being. For history shows that, on good cause shown, Britain can restore legitimately-gained territory as gracefully, as she can hold it firmly. During the last two centuries we have relinquished Minorca, Tangiers, the Ionian Islands, Manilla, Java, Heligoland, and, at various times, all the West Indian Islands now held by other powers. Our governments have refused to accept Hawaii, Samoa, the Transvaal, Delagoa Bay, and other places. Yet it is not a boast, but an actual fact, that we can Anglicise any part of the world—arctic, temperate, or tropical, by settlement-with both immediate and lasting benefit to its original inhabitants. From the planting of our very earliest colony, in Newfoundland, by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in 1583, down to the present year of grace, 1900, when we add 170,000 square miles to Greater Britain by the annexation of the two |