lowered the benefit shall be extended to Great Britain. As a matter of fact, they are only lower on a few items of food-stuffs than the preferential rate, and they are articles which Great Britain does not send us at all. Notwithstanding, I think that if this arrangement be confirmed, it would probably lead to some readjustment of our tariff here and there, in order that we may maintain, as we fully intend to do, the principle of the British preference, and that the concessions under the tariff now existing may be maintained under the condition of affairs when the arrangement is made.... The preference is a great and important question. We have dealt with it in the past, we shall deal with it again. I do not want to import into this discussion anything of party color, but I ask my hon. friend if he does not think that the British preference may safely be trusted in the hands of the men who created it?

If any further proof were needed that the "one-sided bargain" proposed by Mr. Chamberlain is not necessary for the maintenance of Canadian loyalty, it would be found in the indignant protests of representative Canadians against the Tariff Reform thesis that their loyalty could only be secured by the payment of a price.

As a matter of fact, it is evident to all those who have followed the development of the Tariff Reform propaganda in this country that their proposals have always been too vague for any business man to base practical calculations upon them. That vagueness and inaccuracy still continue, as may be seen by the statement of the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons on February 6, which in its reference to thirty years during which Canada vainly offered preference to Great Britain, and his suggestion that reciprocity with the United States is a new departure, furnishes an interesting illustration of the "persistent sloppiness" rightly attributed by Mr. Asquith to the whole propaganda.

In Canada the movement in favor of reciprocity with the United States goes back to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It assumed an exceptionally vigorous character in 1846 on the adoption of Free Trade by this country and the concurrent grant of greater fiscal freedom to the British North American provinces, complaints being made that Peel had not on that occasion secured from the United States the free admission of Canadian products. The reciprocity which was then demanded was eventually secured by the ElginMarcy Treaty, which remained in force from 1854 to 1866, when it was brought to a close by the United States. The renunciation of that Treaty, which had greatly stimulated the trade of both countries, was deeply resented in Canada, yet so great was the desire of the Canadian people to restore a similar agreement with the States that both Conservative and Liberal Administrations sent Commissioners to Washington to promote it in 1892 and 1898-99, numerous other attempts being made with the same object both before and after those dates, while for many years the offer of reciprocity retained its place upon the Canadian Statute Book. Indeed, absolute Free Trade both in manufactures and natural products was advocated in the Liberal campaign carried on in 1888 by Sir Richard Cartwright, and it was the reciprocity plank, formally adopted in 1893, which won the election for the Liberals in 1896. It was only the persistent refusal of Washington to consider the suggestion and the decision in 1896 to raise a tariff wall against the Dominion that forced the Canadians into the independent development of their own resources and the search for transoceanic markets east and west.

It should hardly be necessary to recall that preference was introduced by the Laurier Ministry in 1897 in redemp-.. tion of the Free Trade pledges made

by them in the preceding campaign in which they defeated the Conservatives. Those Canadian Conservatives who now, in opposition, are such strong advocates of preferential arrangements with the Mother Country gave no preference whatever to Great Britain from 1887 to 1896, during which period they were in power, any more than the British Conservative Tariff Reform party took any practical steps during their long term of office to grant to Canada the preference which they advocate. Speaking at Lethbridge on August 31 last, Sir Wilfrid Laurier taunted his Conservative opponents with their opposition to reciprocity on the ground that it might endanger the British preference. He recalled that it was the Conservatives who had always opposed that preference, and that on its introduction in April 1897, Sir Charles Tupper, the leader of their party, declared it was going to destroy Canadian manufactures.

They repeated that for one or two years, and then they had to abandon the cry because the manufactures were not destroyed. The tall chimneys did not topple over, but became stronger, and there were more of them. They had another cry, which was that it was not patriotic to give the preference to the trade of the Mother Country unless the Mother Country was prepared to give us the preference in her own markets also.

Why did we give it? First of all, because it suited us to do so.

Here it may be recalled that at an earlier date, between 1879 and 1887, strong protests were made from time to time in this country against the protective policy of Canada against England-among the most noteworthy being that by John Bright at Birmingham in 1885 and those in both Houses of Parliament in 1887.

The subject of a probable reciprocity arrangement was, of course, keenly discussed in the Dominion as well as

in the United States last autumn. It was both advocated and opposed on many different grounds. In Canada, some of the most weighty opinions I heard expressed, while approving of it in principle, merely expressed doubt as to the possibility of ever arriving at anything like a fair bargain with the American negotiators. In fact, it was more a question of terms than of principle that gave rise to doubts on the part of some Canadians as to the wisdom of entering into any negotiations at all. This is not surprising in view of the repeated rebuffs which proposals for reciprocity on the part of the Canadians had formerly met with at Washington.

As usual in protectionist countries, all those sections in both countries who benefit by the tariffs at the expense of the rest of the community are very local. The depressing experience of the Canadians in the past thus led to a kind of blindly fatalistic conviction that it would be impossible ever to find a body of public opinion strong enough to overcome the resistance of the interested advocates of the status quo. Even the Canadian friends of reciprocity were very doubtful whether the negotiations would lead to any practical results. But this time the hands of Sir Wifrid Laurier were undoubtedly much strengthened by the revelation of the force of Free Trade feeling in the growing West of Canada, a force which he had himself had an opportunity of gauging during his tour through those provinces last year, and which found a visible and impressive symbol in the large and important deputation of farmers that came to Ottawa on December 16 to lay their views before the Government.

On the other hand, the swing of the pendulum in a democratic direction at last year's election in the United States -a swing due in the main to a passionate revolt of the American people

against the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, a revolt so universal that it took by surprise even the cleverest electioneers and had to be witnessed on the spot to be thoroughly realized-forced the hands of the Republican Executive. It made obvious to the Republican leaders that they must swim with the tide or be prepared to see their party submerged at the Presidential Election in 1912. The significant fact that not only President Taft but Colonel Roosevelt supports the ratification of the Reciprocity Agreement, and that some of the oldest "standpat" hightariffers among the Republican chiefs have taken the same course, is the best indication of what popular feeling in the United States is believed to be by those who have made it the business of their lives to keep their finger on the public pulse.

This combination makes it practically certain that the Reciprocity Agreement will be ratified in both countries and that little heed will now be paid to those representatives of sectional interests who were formerly allpowerful at Ottawa and Washington. It is not to be expected that when once this breach has been made in the tariff wall it will ever be rebuilt, or even that the barrier will be allowed to remain intact in other directions. Already the farmers' organizations in America are beginning to demand reductions in the tariff on manufactured articles as compensation for the fact that they are themselves to be exposed to the free competition of their Canadian rivals in their own business.

Let us consider for a moment the character of the Reciprocity Agreement which the United States has now been driven to accept by the combined effect of the popular revolt against high prices and the growing needs of her own manufacturers for fresh supplies of cheap raw material. The new arrangement, which does not take the

formal shape of a treaty, but is to come into effect by concurrent legislation at Ottawa and Washington, comprises a comparatively large schedule concerned chiefly with food products of all kinds that are made reciprocally free in both countries. This free list comprises:

Live animals and poultry, corn and fodder, fresh vegetables and fruits, dairy produce, oils, seeds, fish, salt, mineral waters, half-finished timber in various forms, plaster rock, mica, feldspar, asbestos, &c., glycerine, talc, sulphate of soda, carbon electrodes, rolled iron or steel sheets, and plates, steel wire, galvanized iron, &c., type-casting and type-setting machines, barbed fencing wire, &c., coke, wood-pulp and paper.

The second schedule establishes identical rates of duty for a considerable number of semi-manufactured food products: fresh meats, bacon and ham, wheat and other flours, oatmeal, barley malt, pearl barley, &c.; macaroni, biscuits, candied peel, fruits and confectionery of all kinds, pickles and syrups, mineral waters in bottles, essential oils, &c.; a long list of agricultural implements, stone, roofing-slate, asbestos, printing ink, cutlery, clocks and watches, &c.; printer's cases, canoes and small boats, feathers, surgical dressings, plate-glass, motor vehicles, machines for the manufacture of woodpulp, musical-instrument cases, &c.

Special rates of duty are granted for other articles specified in two further schedules, C and D, including aluminum, laths, sawed boards, iron ore, coal, cement, trees, condensed milk, biscuits, canned fruits, &c.

A little consideration of the foregoing categories will show that the concessions granted by Canada to the United States will interfere very little with British imports. During the debate on the Address Mr. Sydney Buxton pointed out that out of the total British trade with Canada of £20,000,000 only about £800,000 is affected by

the Reciprocity Agreement, so far as preference is concerned. Of that amount £477,000 worth of British goods still retain a Preference of 10 to 12 per cent., thus leaving a balance of no more than £316,000, or 11⁄2 per cent., of British imports to Canada, the duties on which will in future be identical with those on American goods. At the same time the reciprocity agreement will afford great relief to the Canadian no less than the American masses, and considerably increase their capacity for the purchase of manufactured articles, which cannot fail to benefit British trade with Canada.

Many of the arguments that have been used in the Press and in the recent discussion in the House of Commons as to the effects of the proposed reciprocity arrangement, if ratified, more especially those dealing with the question of transportation and political results, simply ignore existing conditions. A great deal has been made of the statement, for instance, that the traffic. flowing now from west to east will hereafter flow from north to south, and that this must seriously damage the great transportation lines of Canada as well as our own commercial interests. The best practical answer to this allegation is the fact that great railway men in Canada and the powerful interests which they represent do not share this apprehension. The way in which the enormous traffic now passing from Canada to the United States and vice versa has been ignored, as well as the large transit trade of Canadian corn through American ports in the winter months, reveals a woeful lack of study of the subject. It seems to be entirely forgotten that even under existing conditions the total trade between the United States and Canada considerably exceeds that between Canada and the Mother Country. While in the year ending March 31, 1909, the total trade of Canada

with the United States was $285,265,717, or, say, £59,000,000, that with Great Britain was only $204,302,113, or £42,000,000. A further noteworthy circumstance is that while the total imports of Canada from the United States were $192,661,360, or more than double the amount of Canadian exports taken by the United States, which amounted to $92,604,356, the British imports to Canada were but little over half the amount of the exports from Canada to Great Britain, that is to say, $70,556,738 worth of imports as against $133,745,375 worth of exports. In 1908, 19,768,000 bushels of Canadian wheat were shipped in transit through the following American ports: Baltimore, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Portland, while 506,105 barrels of Canadian flour were forwarded through the same ports in the same year.

No

As a matter of fact, both in Canada and the United States there is naturally a flow from west to east of agricultural products, while water transportation is open from the heads of the lakes down to the seaports on the east coast. The wheat areas of both countries have to a large extent the sameoutlet at the head of Lake Superior. On the other hand, there is a large traffic north and south, not merely in manufactured goods but in such heavy articles as coal, coke, lumber, &c. one who has visited the two countries and realized what a purely artificial and arbitrary line of division the customs tariffs have raised between two peoples who have so much in common in life and thought, will be surprised to find that at a favorable political juncture like the present, old jealousies are being put aside, sectional, selfish interests are being overridden, and common sense is having its way after a lapse of many years. That the industrial population of Maine and Massachusetts should be precluded from

the use of the agricultural produce of Quebec, so suitable for the cultivation of fruit and vegetables; that the wheatgrowers of Alberta and Saskatchewan should be cut off from the American central market, with its growing industrial population; that two countries whose coal deposits are placed by Nature in the case of Canada at the extremities, and in that of the United States mainly in the centre of a line of frontier extending for about three thousand miles,-is a condition of things which could not in reason be expected to continue, and which no amount of artificial straight-waistcoating on the part of our Tariff Reformers could have maintained in the long

run.

If the idea that an extension of trade between Canada and the United States must draw the Dominion into the political orbit of its great neighbor were well founded, this process would already be manifest, as no force in this world could permanently prevent the growth of trade between these two populations. Indeed, there has never been, nor is there now, any political foundation for this hypothesis. The Canadian people are a very distinct political entity, and the sense of Canada's nationhood is what most impresses any visitor to that country. Whatever may have been the fears or hopes of those who years ago looked forward to Canada ultimately entering the Federation of the United States, I do not think that any statesman in either country would to-day, in spite of Mr. Champ Clark's misunderstood joke, seriously consider that eventuality as one worth discussing.

A number of prominent Canadians, some of them supporters of the Tariff Reform standpoint in this controversy, have effectively helped to dispose of the idea that Great Britain is likely to suffer seriously either from an economic or political standpoint in conse

quence of the Reciprocity Agreement. According to the Daily Mail correspondent at Ottawa, in a telegram dated February 7, 1911, several Conservative newspapers in Canada considered that the Agreement was not only a good thing for the Dominion, but would do no harm to the Empire. Sir Donald Mann, Vice-President of the Canadian Northern Railway, goes as far as to say that the arrangement will benefit English trade, while Sir W. Mackenzie, president of that railway, repudiates the idea that the Agreement will throw Canada politically into the arms of the United States. He does not think that it will have any political effect whatever, and asserts that there will be no tendency under it to weaken the ties between the Dominion and the Mother Country. Sir W. Mackenzie does not believe that a large proportion of the Canadian wheat crop will be diverted to the south. The Americans, he says, now produce all the wheat they require, and if they import wheat from Canada, they will themselves have all the more to export.

It is not necessary to conclude, as many here do, that the increase of American trade means a diminution of British trade with Canada. In fact, the figures for the five years 1905-1909 show that the trade of this country and the United States with Canada has increased concurrently within that period. In a great number of products England cannot possibly compete with the United States in the Canadian market, as is evident when it is remembered that to a large extent Canada's imports from the United States consists of commodities such asagricultural produce, including breadstuffs, sugar, and raw tobacco; animal, fishery, and forest products; and minerals comprising coal, oils, and ores. In the matter of manufactures, the fact that the habits and conditions of