The history of Canada since the close of the French regime falls into three clearly marked half centuries. The third fifty years witnessed the expansion of the Dominion from sea to sea and the endeavor to make the unity of the political map a living reality--the endeavor to weld the far-flung provinces into one country, to give Canada a distinctive place in the Empire and in the world, and eventually in the alliance of peoples banded together in mankind's greatest task of enforcing peace and justice among nations.