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Co Jr "^vej* c»al ■ i^rji

■ .c'-it No. ^. ,

Pi: ,iN TALFS

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.Ggmmf'igial Union

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PLAIN TALKS

— ON-

-RCI

l~j LV

— BETWEEN —

CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES.

BV-

THOMAS SHAW,

Sureiarj, of the Permanent Central Farmer,' /nsti.ute,
HAM I [TON, ONT.

He only is a truly loyal citizen who seeks the {rre.-i
largest number of his own countrymen.

greatest goo.l to the

HAMILTON
Printki. nv GRIITIN & KIDNER, Ki^v. Wm. St.

FOR THE AUTHOR.
1887

fi-

PLAIN TALKS

-ON —

COMMERCIAL UNION

-BETWEEN —

Canada and the United States,

THIS is without a doubt the most momentous (|uestion that agitates the
public mind to-day in the Dominion of Canada. It relates to the wel-
fare of no less than tive millions of people on this si<le of the United
States' northern boundary line, and of fifty-five millions on the other side of it.
Its adoption or rejection will undviubtediy have an important bearing on the
progress of every one of the individual Provinces that go to make up this great
confederation, larger in extent than the entire domain of the United States.
The question is so many-sided that it will alTect all the leading industries of
the country, agricultural or otherwise, in their entirety and in their sub-divisions,
and also the material well-being of the humblest citizen engaged in 'he prose-
cution of these, so that no one who has the welfare of his country at heart can
look upon the subject with cold indifference.

The rapidity with which this youngest and now incomparably the greatest
of the public questions has gained a foothold in the land is very remarknble.
The spontaniety, as it were, with which its first heraldings have been accepted,
afford evidence that the germs of desire to obtain it already existed in the minds
of a very large number, and that it wanted but the gentle showers of a mild
agitation to rouse these into vigorous life. It is not the movement of the noisy
politician, who tries to work upon the emotions of the masses. Its very calm-
ness, and the reasonable nature of the measures ad(jpted in its advocacy, are
significant, bespeaking as they do at once the dignity of the movemert and
the consciousness on the part of its advocates that its advantages only require
to be presented to reasonable men, when it is at once accepted by them. The
leading newspapers in each of the Provinces have very largely espoused the
cause, which is full of promise for its future, and which also very largely accounts

Plain Talks on Comnifrcial Cnion

for the .electric rapidity with which it has spvead throughout all our borders
from sea to sea.

The Origin of the Agitation.

The question was introduced into the 49th American Congress last winter,
by the Hon. Benjamin Butterworth, who represents the city of Cincinnati in the
United States Sieviaie. I. was purposely introduced toward the close of the
session. He tells us himself, it was not his expectation thai the proj)osed
measure would even be discussed, much less adopted, by the United Slates
Legislature before its next sitting. His object in introducing it at such a time
was to fasten public attention upon it, which might lead to public discussion,
and so pave the way for its adoption.

On February 23, Mr. E. Wiman, of New York— who, by the way, is a
Canadian — delivered a most telling speech on the subject before the New York
Board of Trade. Various other addresses were in the meantime delivered on
the subject by Prof. Goldwin Smith, Toronto : the Hon. Mr. Butterworth,
and others, before the Canadian Club in the afore- mentioned city ; and the
opinions of certain prominent public men from the United States and C'lnada
had been expressed publicly by letter and otherwise, prominent amongst which
we may mention those of the Hon. Robert K. (litt, the United States Con-
gress representative for Illinois, and of the Hon. J. \V. JLongley, Attorney-
General of Nova Scotia.

Meanwhile, the farmers of Ontario, chiefly at the instigation of Mr. V.
E. Fuller, the noted Jersey breeder, of Hamilton, Canada, had decided to
move in the direction of representative Provincial organization, and had a
meeting announced in the public press for the promotion of this object on the
lines of the Farmers' Institutes, 'o be held in Toronto, on April 28. On see-
ing this, Mr. Wiman addressed an open letter, on the 26th of April, to Mr.
Fuller, which was published in the Canadian press, setting forth the advantages
of commercial union to the two countries. When the farmers raet in convention,
a Provincial Institute was formed for Ontario, at which the question of commer-
cial union, or unrestricted reciprocity as it was called, was discussed, and the
following resolution anent the subject was carried by a very large majority :

"In the opinion of this Institute, a removal of all restrictions on trade
between the Dominion of Canada and the United States is desirable, either by
reciprocity or otherwise, as may be agreed upon by the respective countries,
and the officers and executive committee of the Institute are hereby au-
thorized to take such action in the premises as shall best promote the object of
this resolution. In the event of fair reciprocity being unattainable, this Insti-
tute shall memorialize the Dominion Government to suggest to the Government
of Great Britain the expediency of entering into a commercial union with her
colonies in regard to food supplies and of imposing a protective tariff against
all foreign countries."

The question was at once taken up by the subordinate Farmers' Institutes,

and since that date it has been discussed in nearly all of these, while several

Bti7i>roi Canada a)ui the United States.

new Institutes hav ■ been called into existence or th»j vry vertjf of harvest
time, the bi:siest season of the yeai. Between the aSth day of April and the
4th day of August, resolutions had been carried in it; favor in no less than
hnentytitio of the Institutes. Kleven of them had not taicen a vote, althouph
only waitiiiq till the harvest should I;e hoirsed for tlie further discussion of the
(luestion, live had nut reported, and only one had cunied a resolution in op-
position, it is alleged in a packed ineetinj^.

At the meeting of the executive of the Central Farmers' Institute, held in
Toronto on the date already referred to, Augu.'t 4, two of the ntiicers of the
Institute had the work delegatinl to them of orguni/in:; Institutes in electoral
districts where they do not now exist, and through the medium of the Institutes
ii was decided to ascertam the minds of the farmers ir the whole Province
in regard to the ijuestion, by the formation of an organization for the purpose,
in each electoral district or county in wliich the Farmers' Institutes had declared
themselves favorable to commercial union.

Shortly after the formation of the Central Farmers' Institute of Ontario,
a representative meeting of the manufacturers was h.astily called in Toronto,
which declared itself by resolution as being adverse to the movement ; and on
the 12th of May the matter was warmly discussed in the s.ime city hy the
Roard of Trade, and again on the igth of the same, af an adjourned meeting,
a resolution unfavornble to the measure was carried by a vo'e of sixty three
to forty — not a very signal victory in a city, the wholesale merchants of whom,
more than those of any other city in Canada, fear the effect? of competitive
trade with New V'ork.

Since thai time it has been the momentous theme in all the secular news-
papers of each of the Provinces, and it is surely an omen of brightest promise,
that a majority of the most iiifluential of these have declared themselves in
favor of the measure, and are advocating it with exceptional earnestness in
their foremost leaders every day. It is now the most fruitful theme of discussion
in the home of the peasant and the legislator, in the railway carriage and the
public house, so that long ago a fitting answer has been given lo the scornful
c|uestion more than once propounded, " Who is this Mr. Butterwcrth? " and
the more sarcastic proposal even, made by a member of the Koard of Trade, to
" rai>e a subscription and send Mr. iV^iman and his projosal back to New
" York." The name of this same Mr. Butterworth will soon be a household
word in every hamlet of our northern Dominion homes, and the proposal of
Mr. Wiman now bids fair to be sent back by our C.overnment to Washington,
rather than New \'ork, for the ratification of ih? Covernment of the United
States.

The measure is thus extending like the resistless advance of the tidal waves
of the great deep. Notwithstanding the prompt measures taken to stay its
progress, like the advance guard of a victorious army, it goes marching on. It
is at least interesting to seek the reasons for this phenomenal advance. It is

Plain Talki on Commercial Union

not that capitii'.ists have taken hold of it and through the potent Inlliience of
their thousands, have forced it upon the attention of the people througl. mercen-
ary workers. It is not that some old veteran politician has ctjme forward and
assunitd its leadership, for as yet the politicians h.nc said nothing; ahoul it on
the platform. Its advoca'es have heen solely from the ranks of the people,
men engaged in the ordinavy pursuits of life. Nv)r is it that some noisy and
talented dcm.i^'oRue hrs come upon the sta^e, and \,^ the vehemence of his
declamatinti has tried i j make it for himself a stepping stone into powei, for its
advowcy hai as yet been sin;»ui.irly calm and di>»nitie.l. It occupies the some*
what unique position in this country of a movement of the people leeking the
ratification of the Government, at least it is heading; in this direction, rather
than that of a movement of one or other of the governmciu parties seeking the
support of the people.

Whatever else a[)out it is obscure, this is plain, that its announcement has
found a wonderful response from the masses of this country, indicative of a
prepaccdness of the soil for the reception of the seed, that has thus been sown
broad-cast in a spring-'ime of unusual brevity. Usu:illy the measures th;it
revolutionize the settled order of things in realms coiujiosed of Provinces,
having both a conimuiiity and a diversity of interest, are the wc rk of long ye irs.
The most potential forces in the realm have to be armyed in their furtherance,
before being received by a majority of the populace. But in reference to com-
mercial union, the progress it has made is no less wonderful than the shortness
of the time for this, and the shortness of the time even less astonishing than the
means used in effecting such results.

There can be but one explanation given, and that is the reasonableness of the
measure, commending itself to the good sense of the people. This, we believe,
is a feature appertaining to it that has never yet been questioned by its bitter-
est .)pponent. Seed that is sown n])on unploughed soil will not prove produc-
tive, hence the fact that the mention of the proposal for commercial union has
already produced such promising results, makes it pretty clear that the minds of
our Canadian farmers and those of various other classes have been ploughed
pielty deeply of laie years with the furrows of aisappomtment, and that the
time has come for a change in our commercial relations. The unanimity of
the testimony of our farmers in this resp..,. has already administered fitting re-
buke to the manufacturers, who at their meeting in Toronto patronizingly told
the farmers that they were ' doing well enough," as though they, the farmers,
had been a race of imljeciles who were unconscious of their own condition.

The present is certainly veiy opportune for the discussion of this m.ovement.
No great political questions distract the public mind at the present time. The
sky of our political hoiizon in this respect has never been more cloudless within
the memory of the living. The rancor of poHtical partizanship is dead or slum-
bering, and there are signs here and there cropping up of a disintegration of
the old party lines, that may help lo introduce a more rational era into the do-

In'tU'Ctii Canada and the UtiiUJ States. <9

main of Canadian politics than we have passed through during the last succes
siiin of decades. We are not on the eve -'t any exciting electiins, so that no
time more fitting could be found than the now present tor the calm consider.i-
lion of tht subject by all classes n! the coniniunity.

In the hope of throwing some additional light upon it, and thu.- makinir the
sturly of it more efTective, the preparation of this series of papers has been un-
dertaken. The(iuesti.)n,.we have already said, is many sided, .^o that ir; sev-
eral of its aspects it is as yet imperfectly i;nders1oo'3 by those even wfio are sat-
isfied that it points in the right direction. If we succeed in any degree in thus
assisting our countrymen to secure a more enlightened fiscal policy we shall be
more than repaid for the labor involved.

What is Implied in Commercial Union ?

Commercial union between Canada and the Uniletl States implies a fret in-
terchange of all the products ' both countries of whatsoever nature, whether
of the watert;, the soil, the ^ea a the mine. It wouM involve {'• ) an assimi-
lation of tarifT rates against at! other countries ; (2) of internal revenue
taxes ; and (3) very probj»b 7 an a -.angem^.ii for pooling receipts and customs,
and distribiilng the same, it wouM be I'^iiowed by the discontinuance of the ser-
vices of a strong forC'^ of custom ) 'mse ofilcials on both sides of the boundary
line of neany 4,(XX3 miles bc;ne<;) the two countries, which is maintained at
a cost to Canada of at lea^t haii a million of dollars anni.ally.

The reasons assigned for its desirability in the preamble to the Bill intro-
duced by Mr. Butterworth into Congress are, (i) T. i:r>)inote and encourage
business and commercial intercoiirs ; iietween the people ol both countries ; (2)
to enable the citizens of each to trade with the citizens of the other as fully and as
freely as though there was no boundary line between the two countries ; (3) to
promote harmony between the two Goveinments which shall be so complete and
effective that ail existing controversies und all causes of controversy in latters
relating to trade may be removed. And the greut reasons assigned as to why
all this is desirable are the contipjiity of the two countries, and the simU-
arity of the interests and occupations of the people thereof. By ilie adoption
of this treaty it is expected that it would atT)>d a solution of the fishery ques-
tion, which, during almost th;: entire period of the past r^entury, has giv^n rise
to the most serious complications.

That such results would follow is exceedingly probable. Trade between two
countries always involves the idea of mutual advantage. Where such is not the
result, trade must cea.se. Where the conditions on which trade is based are
similar or nearly so, the advantages cannot but be mutual, and in the event of
commercial union in the line of the basis indicated, the conditions would be
very similar. Beth countries have products that the other wants, anf^ these
are produced ut.der conditions very similar as regards the price of labor. If

Plain Talks on Conimeraal Union

under tariff disabilities (he volume of trade between tlje two countries is con-
siderable, how much more would it not be with these disabilities removed, and
if the very idea of trade involves that of material advantage, how very largely
would this material acl.antage increase with the increase of trade ?

To leave the boundary line for purposes of trade as nature made it would be
pleasant indeed, and mutually advantageous. To erect a commercial barrier
between British Colanibia and th*^ rest of the Dominion would be much more
rational than to establish one bet»^een Manitoba and Minnesota. There might
be good reasons for establishing .his barrier when bordering nations and States
differ in their aims, degree of ci-'iliration, and language ; but when there is no
danger of contamination in th* evil sense in any form, it does seem a high-
handed step to take, when people are prevented from trading freely with
their neighbors and are in a manner compelled to deal in the same commo-
dities with those living remote from them.

That the harmony of thej two governments would be promoted by this union
should not ue questioned, for the most direct way of insuring the greater har-
mony of communities, as all past experience has taught us, is to promote inter-
course. It is when they have no dealings with one another that their suspi-
cions arise and linger, and that they assume the attitude of the Jews
and the Samaritans. When two individuals disagree and neither one has any-
thing at stake, they are but little disposed to compromise, but where there is
much at stake they are more readily disposed to come to terms, and the de-
gree of their willingness is usually in proportion to the extent of the risks they
hazard. In this way we can easily conceive the commercial interests of the
two countries so increased and su mter-dependent, that there could be little or
no fear of a war arising between them.

Again, if the adoption of this measure would secure an amicable settlement
of the fishery disputes — and we see no good reason why it should not — it would
accomplish in this one line more than all the costly legislation of the past one
hundred years on the s:ubject.

There are some in our midit who favor what they term " unrestricted reci-
" procity '■ between the United States and Canada, harboring a groundlest; fear
that political union will eventually follow in the wake of commercial union.
We will sp>eak of that further on, but may here say that this is purely a ques-
tion of economics, not one of politics. If a full measure of free trade is sure
to be followed by political union, then it follows by logical sequence, that the
chances of political union between bordering nations retaining their in-
dividu-ilily will be in proportion to the degree of their isolation or contiguity
as regards trad<;, and their only absolute safety will consist in complete isola-
tion in matters of trade.

The arguments furnished by the churches also points in the opposite direc-
tion. These are organizations within the State. Now it has been found that
by coming into more fraternal relations their harmony is promoted, even to the

Between Canada and tke United States.

mmmm

extent of agreement on some of the lines by which they seek 'o further interests
common to each ; but this has not been done in a single instance at ihe sacri-
fice oi organic identity. Now, if an organization within the Statq preserves its
organic identity unimpaired while its fraternal relatione are always growing, the
fear, then, is groundless that one State will endanger o: lose its political identity,
because it enters into closer trade relations with another.

There is really no difference between what is implied by the use of the terms
commercial union and unrestricted reciprocity in this case, for the latter involves
an assimilation of tariffs and interna! revenue, as well as the former. The
terms are synonomous and interchangeable. We need not expect to get
unrestricted trade with the United States and deal with outside countries as we
pleas2 ; nor would we be willing that the United States should enjoy this priv-
ilege from us, and deal with other countries as she pleased.

It Is Not a Political Question.

We have already stated that this is not a political question, but one of econo-
vtics. It does not in any way interfere with the principles of government as
such, but confines itself solely to the aspect of the advancement of the mate-
rial condition of the people. It is true that efforts have been made, and very
likely will be made in future, to give it a political aspect, but we most earnestly
ask our countrymen not to allow themselves to be led away from the proper
consideration of the subject by any party cry, but to lock at it mainly in the light
of material advantage. The vital matter is not whether its adoption or reiec-
tion will put one party into power and keep the other out. but will it be on the
whole a material gain to a large majority of the people of this country.

Observe, it does not involve any sacrifice of the foundation principles of
tree trade or of protection, while at the same time it forms a common meeting
ground where the most pronounced advocates of both systems may shake tiands
fraternally and exchange sincerest greetings. It recognizes the two fundamen-
tal principles that should govern all trade, of which the first reads thus — where
the conditions are equal, or nearly so, all trade should be free ; and the second
thus — where the conditions arc not equal, or nearly so, industries, more partic-
ularly infant industries, should be protected. W^here the conditions are equal
and protection still reaches out her covering wings, the re=uU is monopo'y, and
monopoly of the worst kind, for it is monopoly for one class of citizens fed from
the pockets of another class of them. To say that the citizens of the United
States want protection from the competition of the people of Canada is absurd,
and for any Canadian to affirm that her citizens want protection from the com-
petition of the United States, where the conditions are so nearly equal,
is at least a humiliating confession. While the disciples of each of the two
systems have been pitching at each other's throats, nations have been growing
great under both, which surely ought to be conclusive that the measure of each

Plain Talks on Commercial Union

to be adopted should have a reference to conditions. Britain has been grow-
ing magnificently great under a free trade regime, and the United States has
made the most gigantic strides under a protective one. Mr. Butterworth, so
largely responcihle for the present agitation, is a life-long protectionist, as are
<;ome of the most ardent of ns advocates in Canada. We trust, then, that party
politics will not be allowed to make the question of commercial union the ped-
estal on which it will plant the pillar of its hopes, or the grave within which
either of the parties may f nd sepulture. Party politics has its proper ends to
serve, and grand ones 'hey are, when it fulfills its mission, but it is no part of
the latter to fatten or famish in consequence of the success or non-success of
an economic question. We trust rather to find the two parties shaking hands
over the advocacy and ratification of this question, and presenting the sublime
spectacle to the world that for once in its history two political parties are agreed
upon the fact that their common country has interests which it is the duty of
both at the same time to further.

From 1854 to 1866 Canada and the United States had free trade in cer-
tain products, particularly those lelating to agriculture, and so advantageous
did the latter prove to Canada that she has ever since evinced a desire to have free
trade relations renewed, and that desire has been evidenced by the efforts put
forth by politicians, on both sides of politics, to bring about reciprocal trade in
greater or less degree. The benefits of freedom of trade between the two
countries are shown by the great increase in the volume of trade during the re-
ciprocity term. In 1S53 the volume of trade was, in round numbers, but $20,-
000,00c, In 1854, the first year of reciprocity, $33,000,000, and in 1866 it
had more than quadrupled, being no less than $84,000,000, although the popu-
lation of Canada at that time was only in the neighborhood of 3,000,000. Mr.
Turcotte, in his " Le Canada L'Union," a history of the two provinces from 1841
to 1887, states in regard to this treaty, " that it was hif;hly advantageous to the
" whole country." The farmers of the Eastern Townships at the same time freely
acknowledge that while then they lifted mortgages, now they are going back.
The treaty was not renewed IjiCause it was found that under its provisions
Canada had had the advantage, although efforts were made to have it renewed.
In reference to these Mr. John Bright wrote to Mr. Aspinwall, of Detroit, in
1865, in response to an invitation to attend the Reciprocity ("onvention : " It
" will be a miserable thing if, because they (the British North American
"Provinces) are in connexion with the British crown, and you acknowledge
" the President as your chief magistrate at Washington, there should not be
" a commercial intercourse between them and you as free as if you 7vere one
'■'^ people living under one government."' This statement is in keeping with the
recent public utterance of that great English statesman addressed by him to
Canadians, wherein he says ; " If you mean by commercial union, that no
" tarifi should exist between the two countries, such a condition would be
" greatly to their mutual advantage."

Bchvee}! Canada and the Untied States.

III the negotiations carried on by the Macdonald-Cartier Government,
from July, 1869, to March, 1870, with that of the United Stales, the measure
of reciprocity offered l)y the former included the assimilation of our customs
and excise duties, and the concession of an import duty equal to the internal
revenue taxes of the United States, the free interchange of natural products
and certain manufactures, the cession of the use of our fisheries for a term of
years to the Americans, the enlargement of our canals, and the free use of
these and of the navigation of the St. Lawrence by the Americans.

In 1871, the British representatives stated they considered that the reci-
procity treaty of the 5th June, 1854, should be restored in principle.

In 1874 the MacKenzie Government employed Sir Edward Thornton and
the Hun. George Brown to negotiate a commercial treaty with the United
States, The draft treaty embraced ten propositions. We shall not stay to
enumerate these, but may mention they included the enlargement of the Wel-
land and St. Lawrence canals, the construction of the Caughnawaga and
Whitehall canals, the mutual enjoyment of the coasting trade of the great
lakes and the St. Lawrence, the mutual use of the Canadian, New York and
Michigan canals, the reciprocal admission of vessels to registry, a joint com-
mission to protect and propagate fish in the inland waters common to both
countries, the concession to the United States of our fisheries for twenty-one
years, and the admission duty free into both countries of a long list of natural
products and of manufactured goods, such as agricultural implements, cotton
gtious, furniture, carriages and sleighs, iron of all kinds, leather and harness,
and manufactures of wood. Each of these proposals came to naught, because
the United States did not accept them.

It is hence apparent that Canada has never ceased to look and hope for
better facilities for trading with the people of the United States, since the
expiration of the old reciprocity treaty in 1S66. And in her efforts to secure
this, two things are very worthy of note : First, the basis of negotiations as to
articles of free barter has continually enlarged, culminating as it has in the
proposed bill of Mr. liutterworth to sweep away the last remnant of restriction
in the trade of the two countries ; and second, these propositions have
emanated from both sides of politics, first one and then the other.

Sir John Macdonald, the veteran leader of the Conservative party, has
left no doubt as to his views of the advantages of reciprocal trade with the
United States. He is reported, by the then chief Conservative organ, as hav-
ing said in a speech at Napanee, on Sept. lith, 1S77, that he was a Free
Trader if he could get free trade, but it was not his intentioB to have a jug
handled policy. If they could not have reciprocity of trade, they should have
reciprocity of tariffs. Suoh was his policy, and he asked if they would sus-
tain it.

At Cobourg, August 29th, 1877, Sir John Macdonald proved to his own
satisfaction that it was the Canadian farmer, and not the United States brewer,

Plain Talks on Commercial Union

who pays the duty of fifteen cents oer bushel on the grain that is sent to the
United States. The Canadian farmer would raise his barley for say $i.oo a
bushel, but it would not be the brewer who would pay the 15c. He paid $1.00
for his bailey, no matter where ir was grown, but the duty came out of the
pocket of the Canadian farmer ; this state of affairs was not right, and he ap-
pealed to the farmer to support those who pledged themselves to defend their
interests. The mottoes at Cobjurg were. " No compromise,' " Keciprocity or
•' Protection."

At Newmarket, September 14th, he said, " If we cannot get reciprocity
•' of trade, we must get reciprocity of tariff."

At Owen Sound, October 5th, he said the Conservative maxim is, " If
" we cannot get recijtrocity of trade we must have reciprocity of tariffs ;" and at
Hamilton, Septembei t/th, " I want the Canadians to say to the Americans,
"we will have free trade, fair trade or reciprocal trade if you like, but if you
" will not have any of these, we will have a reciprocity of tarilT, What is sauce
" for the goose is sauce for the gander."

It is thus apparent that Sir John Macdonald was at that time in favor of
free trade with the United States, and that a protective tariff was adopted be-
cause the first was unatiainable. What the great leader of a party favors
should not be so very distasteful to his followers, as to cause them to array
themselves in the attitude of uncompromising opposition.

Physical Conditions Call for It

Take a map of the North American continent, examine it carefully, note
well the physical conditions of the two countries, and you cannot but be con-
vinced of the short-sightedness of the men who are trying to keep Canada and
the Lfnited btates apart for purposes of trade. The dividing line is not formed by
impassable mountain barriers, and during the entire land line of nearly three
thousand miles, it could not be k;iown but for the iron pillars which mark its
course. Even the system of lakes which separate certain provinces bring them
into closer proximity by the facilities- which they afford for transit. Certain large
and populous States ate located to the westward of this cfc-iin of water commu-
nication, which would afford to them a natural outlet t(j the sea. On the west,
British Columbia has ready meani; of water communication with all the great
American cities on the Pacific seaboard, but is separated by lofty mountain ranges
from the Northwest territories and by thousands of miles of land transit from
the great commercial centres of. the provinces of the confederation. The im-
mense plams of the Northwest that are being opened up for settlement are
within a short run by rail of the great cities of the Northwestern States, as St.
Paul and Minneapolis, while the most easterly city of Manitoba, Winnipeg, is
1,423 miles from Montreal ; Calgary, at the base of the Rocky Mountains,
2,262 miles, and Victoria, in British Columbia, 2,990 miles. Ontario is sur*

Betiueen Canada and the United States.

•3

rounded by llouiishing cities on her very borders, as Buffalo and Detroit, and
the great manufacturing centres of New England are noi nearly so far distant
from either Ontario or the Maritime Provinces as these are from each other.
The Maritime Provinces are separated from Montreal by more than a thou-
sand miles of rugged territory, where the railway communication is limited in
winter by blockade after blockade of snow, but are at the same time within
easy and cheap communication of the American seaboard. It is plain,
therefore, that nature intended that the British Columbians should trade with
Californians and the people of Oregon, that those of Manitoba should have ac-
cess to the markets of the nourishing cities of Minnesota, yet destined i-, be-
come superlatively great ; that the people of Ontario should have access to all
the markets along her border, that she should have trade communication with
New York rather than with Quebec, and that the people of the Maritime Prov-
inces should trade to their heart's content wih the people of New England.
And so in every instance named, the trade should be reciprocal. The British
Columbian with his coal and fish would get manufactured goods and provi-
sions from a warmer clime ; the Manitobans, in exchany^e for the products of the
soil, could get goods and manufactured articles ; the people of Ontario would
send their live-stock and the products thereof to the markets across the bor-
der, and in return get such manufactures and productions as her climate does
not yield, and also the coal of Pennsylvania ; and those of the Maritime
Provinces would send their fish, their potatoes, their live-stock and their coal
and iron to the New England States, in return for everything they might want.
Any arrangement other than this is nothing short of a crime against nature and
against man, and yet it is a crime that has been perpetrated. British Colui.ibia
paid on June 30th, $2.60 per cwt. for the transit of sugar from Montreal, and
$3 per cwt. for nails, a price in excess of the first cost of the nails at Montreal ;
and at the same date the quotation for the carriage of woof was $4.80 per cwt.
loose, and $2.50 in car lots compressed, from the Pacific to Montreal via the
C. P. R. Freight on flour from Chatham, Ont. , to Halifax on the first of July was
65 cents per barrel, with a rebate of 16 cents for large lots, while transit was
so low from Boston to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick that it was bemg
shipped there in the face ot a duty of 50 cents per barrel.

The physical argument, then. Is unanswerably in favor of commercial union
with the United States. It not only affords the nearest market, which m the
end must be the cheapest, but it gives us access to a country which could sup-
ply us with nearly everything we want.

Before the confederation the Hon. Geo. Brown claimed that New Eng-
land furnished Nova Scotia with breadstuffs to the amount of $4,400,000 an-
nually. He thought that by the construction of the Intercolonial railway this
trade would fall to Ontario and Quebec. Well, it is a costly,way of securing
ii by paying half a million annually by way of subsidy. Nor have the peov;Ie
down by the sea ever taken kindly to the scheme, and who should blame them,

,../

Plain Talks on Commercial Union

since a long line of railway through a desolate country can never compete with a
short water route over an open sea. The Hon. J. W. Longley, the Attorney-Gen-
eral of Nova Scotia, reminds us that the difference in passenger fare from Mon-
treal or Boston was as I to 3 in favor of the latter. And so of traffic, that it is
as much to the advantage rf the Maritime Provinces to buy flour from the
the United States, as for Oi tario to get its coal from Pennsylvania. They are
now in a manner forced to buy flour frcfm Ontario and to pay cash for it,
whereas if it were possible to buy in eastern markets, the buyer would become
a seller. If duty was off coal, the Nova Scotian miner would sell ten tons of
coal in New England where he now sells one in Quebec. It must be patent to
any one who has given the subject study, that there can be but little natural
trade between the Maritime Provinces and Ontario and (Quebec, between the
latter and Manitoba and the N. W., and between these and British Columbia.
As to Quebec Province, it does not matter very much what the physical
conditions of trade are tc her. So long as she retains her present attitude of
isolation, the greater the barriers to trade, physical and otherwise, the better
will she be pleased. It isolation in commerce will make a people great, then
the destiny of Quebec in her present frame of mind is one of superlative great-
ness.

This argument from geographical contiguity is severe on the advocates of
an Imperial Zollverein between Britain and her colonies. Separation makes
this impracticable. With commercial union between Canada and the United
States, anything that the latter could furnish would be more cheaply done by
the United States than by countries far away, unless what might be in the line
of British manufactures, to which free access would be worse for our indus-
tries by far than to go into commercial union with the United States. We are
separated from Britain by 3,000 miles of sea, from New Zealand by many thou-
sands more, and as many thousands intervene before we reach Australia and
India.

It Will Not Discriminate Unfairly Against Great Britain.

It is argued that commercial union between Canada and the United States,
with a common protective tariff against all outside countries, will bean in-
stance of unfair discrimination against England.

We answer that if Britain has a claim on us for preferential discrimination
in the arrangement of our tariffs, she has not got it under our present tariff ar
rangements, and for this the commercial union agitation is not responsible. If
it is the right thing to extend to Britain, then our legislators have not done tnat
right thing. If the relations of Great Britain to Canada give her no claim for
preferential discrimination in her favor over other countries, then it follows rhat
even though she were discriminated against in common with other countries,
she would have no just ground of complaint. The point here is certainly

Beiwren Canada and tht United States.

clear : if Great Britain has special claims upon us in this matter, then those
special claims have not been recognized, and no one in Canada has bhouled
disloyalty notwithstanding. Now, if it be the right thing to discriminate
against Great Britai^ in one degree in matters of trade, it cannot be wrong
to discriminate against her in another degree.

But let us look into the matter. How far has Britain claims upon us in
this line. She cannof hold a closer relationship to us than that of parent to
child. As a parent, what has she done for us in matters of trade i Why, just
what she has done for all the world. The villainous Mahdi, the murderer of
Britain's hero, Ciordon, is just as free to trade with England as any citizen of
Cjnada. But it is objected, she has not discriminated against us. Very true,
but if the relationship should bind us to discriminate m her favor, it should
bind her to ilo the same. She has it in her power to discriminate in our favor,
but she will not, because it would not be to her interest. On the same princi-
ple, then, our interest should govern us in arranging our fiscal relations^ and
this is just the line of argument used by Sir John Macdonald, when he said
that, "as a self-governing people, we have a right ^o consult our own interest
"first."

We may imagine the case of a oarent, whose son has gone to a far away

clime, to do business on his own account. That parent represents England ;

that son, Canada. The boy sets cut v/ith nothing in his hand ; there he has to

fight his way, and ultimately he becomes fairly prosperous. Intercourse

between the son and the parent continues, and it is found mutually advantgeous.

But there comes a time when the son sees his opportunity of making a splendid

bargain, but its acceptance would interfere somewhat with the rich old mati's

future gains, till he had time to readjust his plans. Would it not be cruel on

the part of the old man to say to the son that he must forego the advantage

for his (the father's) sake ; or in other words, that the son must sacrifice the

most si:)lendid prospects of m.aterial gain, that the old man might secure a little

more i;aia ? The relationship between parent and child is very sacred, and we

are reminded that we should honor gr.iy hairs, but this eyen has its limits.

The duty of the child to the parent till he has attained his majority, is that of

unquestioned obedience, unless in things commanded that might be contrary to

the law of heaven. After that period the son is at liberty to direct his own

affairs. Now, it would be very pleasant if the counsels of the father should be

continued in such a way that the son might profit by them, but if the old man

gave counsel that was clearly wronger even impolitic, the son would be in the

line (;f duty ot to accent, and if the old man persisted in thrusting it upon

him, the son would be justilied in resisting it. If opportunity arose, whereby

the son could greatly better his condition, and the old man opposed on the

grounds of some slight injury that v/ould result to his business, would not the

son be justified in pointing to his own children, and saying, father I will do this,

for it is my first duty to provide for those that shall live after me, as it was yours in

•if

Main Talks on Commercial Union

days gone by ? Who will say, who will dare to say, that that son would not be
doing the proper thing ? and if the advantage that was to accrue came from
dealing with an older brother, as is the ca.<e wiih Canada, the opposition of the
old man would be utterly irexcusable. Now the relationship of kingdom and
colony cannot be closer than that of fathei and son, hence in the analagous
parallel Canada should not be faulted for seeking commercial union with the
United Stages, even though it should discriminate against England.

But has Britain tl e right to interfere, ux having that nght, would it be
politic for her to use it ? Clearlv not, is our answer to the second question,
whatever answer may be given to the first. Britain, lilc£ an impolitic old man,
interfered with mattiJB of trade when his first born had set up for himself,
and it cost the former a colony, and though interference at the present time
might be more excusable, it would be clearly impolitic, for as has been pointed
cut elsewhere, " the destiny of Canada is now practically confided to Cana-
" dians. Her fu'.ure is her own, and surely she is in the best position to know
' ' what will be best for herself. " The loyalty of the people uf Canada to-day is
quite as strong as it was prior to the troublous times of 1S37, when she (^^njoyed
much less of liberty and privileges than she does at present, and we feel assur-
ed that Britain under the influence of a more matured statesmanship and with
the advantages of the experience of the p.nst, would not interfere with any of
her colonies in such a way that the relations between them would be abrased.
It IS only natural that those encjaged in the industries in iSritain should
feel somewhat sore. The National Policy was adopted in the face of a violent
protest from the manufacturer and artizan in England, and witness now the
storm raised in reference to the iron interest ; yet m no instance has the Gov-
ernment of Britain interfered. VVhy should it interfere ? It has never yet been
shown that it is the duty of Canadians to seek the welfare of the English man-
ufacturer and artizan first, rather than to attend to the wants of their own
households. The people of Canada are surely in a better position to judge as
to their wants than the people of England.

But it is premature to assert that there would be any discrimination against
England, more injurious than there is now, or that would be more hostile than
present arrangements. The aver.ige diiference between the United States tariff
and that of Canada is about lo per cent., and it is exceedingly probable that
the United States will lower her tariff somewhat, as her sources of revenue are
too great, an affliction not very prevalent amongst the nations of the earth. If
her protective tariffs were reduced but 5 per cent., and those of Canada in-
creased the same, the situation for England would be more favorable all round,
for the volume of her trade with the United States is greater than with Canada,
so that it is not improbable that the arrangement, so far as England is concern-
ed, would be to her advantage. ,

When Mr. John Bright reminds us that "if the present Canadian tariff
•'were maintained for imports other than from the States, England would be

Between Canada and the Unitcl States.

•* at a great disadvantagt- in her irade with Canada," he does not malte allow-
ance for the possibility, nay, even the pruljability, of the other arrangement.
And although we feel like standing uncovered in (lie old hian's presence, we
cannot refrain from giving utteiance to the rejoindei, that if the present Can
adian tariff, or something very like it, is not maintained for imports other th:in
from the States, Canada will be at a great disadvantage in her trade with the
United States, her nearest neighbor.

It is apparent, therefore, that the strongest argument expressed in favor
of the advantages of union in trade with Great Britain consists of j-f«/mt«/.
Now sentiment is mere thought flowing from feeling. It has its place in the
building up of individual and national character, but should never be allowed
to overmaster reason, in which case it always leads to disaster. If sentiment
has a legitimate held anywhere, it is in the arrangement of those delicate rela-
tions that end in matrimony ; but even here, if allowed to run counter, either to
the inexorable logic of facts, or to the faithful teachings of reason, the result is
that too late the interested parties

" Awaken from their dream of joy,
To lead a life of cold alloy. '

If it is a dangerous thing, then, to give full rein to sentiment in the formation
of a union that interests but /7w persons, how much more is it dangerous in
the formation of a union that interests 60,000,000 of people !

It would be L'. sad mistake, if for the sake of the doubtful advantages of a
market beyond 3,000 miles of sea, with something over 30,000,000 of people,
sentiment alone led us to forego the advantages of trade with 55,000,000 of people
just at hand. It is surely a miserable form of sentiment that would, unmoved,
behold the stagnation of the business of one's entire country, the best of hei 3on.s
undergoing self-expatriation, and the most magnificent resources remaining un-
developed, and all because of a feeling that it might seevt like giving a preference
to the United States by seeking a market freedom with her. The real prefer-
ence that we are seeking is material advantage, and sentiment is surely not
fulfilling its mission when it runs counter either to material comfort or niateiia!
advantage. If union in trade between Britain and her colonies would greatly
benefit Britain there might be some reason in this argument, but this has not
been shown, and until it is shown, it h unpatriotic and un-Canadian to ask
Canada to make a sacrifice so great, for no other reason than that of national
sentiment.

Where there has been occasion for Canada to sacritice for Britain's sake,
she has not been slow in furnishing evidence of her willingness to do so. The
country which evinced her readiness to send her sons as soldiers to the Crimea
and as oarsmen to the Nile, will not be slow to manifest her loyalty to the
grand old Monarchy whenever occasion offers. But that is quite different from
asking Canada to be content with leanness in many of the thousands of her
agricultural homes for the sake of sentiment. Sentiment is all very well in its

Plain Talks on Commercial Union

place, bui it should not be allowed to tie the progress of a country to a farmer's
cart, when it might as well go forward at the speed of a chariot.

A Zollverein Between Great Britain and Her Colonies

Not Practicable.

This, as we liave said before, is a dream of I mperial Federationists never
to be realized. When the .subject was brought up at the time of the organiz-
ation of the ( entral Farmers' Institute uf Ontario, along with a good many
others there, ^/e rather liked the idea. There is a sacredness of association
Imgerin;:; aronnd the old Empire that is very dear to her colonial children, and
makes them anxious to do her reverence whenever opportunity offers. The old
flag that has delended ttiem in the hour of their extremity is to them the emblem
of all that is great and noble, and as dutiful children, they are always ready to
fall in with the reasonable wishes of their parent beyond the seas ; but we have
already shown that thert' are limits to filial duty. A parent may even go the
length of exacting too much of the child, and brethren may expect too much of
one of their number. So would it be if Britain and the other colonies were to
go mto commercial Federation and ask of Canada to take a share in the
arrangement, for not one of these colonies is situated regarding neighbors as
vjanada is. Inciia is separated from alien races of a different language and
religion by lofty mountains. Australia and New Zealand are without near
neighbors in a sense, and thecoloniei^> of Africa are in contiguity with heathen
tribes. It is no great sacrifice to tnem not to trade much with their neighbors ;
but not so with Canada, bordering on a country that can supply them
with a great portion of all they want, a country that, like they are, was once a
colony, even now only an older brother that had an unfortunate altercation
with those at the old home, the same in language, interests, religion and aims,
and so situated that the solid land mark lietween them is more than 2,500
miles long. If coming into the proposed compact would shui Canada out from
this country commercially, should the parent or the other members of the
compact compiain though Canada should remai.i outside 'I We answer, No.

Since looking into the matter more carefully, we have concluded that the
proposed Zollverein is impracticable, and have, therefore, though reluctantly,
abandoned the idea altogether.

We look upon it as imptacticaVile :

(1) Because the compact would cost Britain too much.

(2) Because it would cost Canada too much.

(3) Because it would cost the other colonics too much.

It would cost Britain too much. If there is an arrangement entered into
between Britain and her colonies to trade with each other, and at the same
time to erect tariffs that would measurably fence out all the world besides, the
world by way of just retaliation would^measurably fence out theip- Now thQ

Betwcni Canada and th^. United SUttes.

■ |UL'Stion arise? whether the other portion of ihe world wfiuld ^'et alonj: l)etter
without trade with ihein, or they without the oilier naiimis thereof, which form
ihrcefourths and more of the world's population. The Tniteri States far out-
numbers hritain now in her i)opulation, and also in her natural resrurcea. The
former country, provcrhial for her sagacity in bargain inai<ing, would not be
-low to take advantage of this state of affairs, and could readily make such
arrangements as would dif.lodge Britain in p.ijt or altogether from her nold in
many lines of her manufacture in the outside world. This would mean disaster
to the trade of Great Jiritain, for, owing to the excellence and cheapness of her
articles, she forces them into all countries barbarous and civilized, even '. 1 the
face of high tariffs, and of these her colonic^ all told only take a fragmentary
portion. For instance, out of a total export in 1885 of $1, 557,018,470, Can-
ada only took $40,601,199, or about the one^thirty-ninth part of the whole.
Of goods of her own manufacture in that year, amounting to $1,065,222,500,
Canada took of dutiable goods but $30,385,797. Her cu<tcmers now number
14,000,000,000, while iier colonies all told — that is, the English speaking pc'r-
tion of them — do not at the present time number more than twelve or thirteen
millions ; hence, we may judge of the fragmentary nature of that portion of
her exports consumed by her colonies. It is clear that, for long <lecades, her
colonies would not sufilice to consume her goods, providing they made no further
progress in manufactures themselves, which stationary condition would prove
fatal to their prosperity. Again, England cannot aftord to become a protec-
tive country, for the moment she does, she shuts out the breadstuffs of the
world and makes dear the food that feeds her industrial classes, which in turn
enhances the cost of production in a marked degree. While this might help
the agricultural portion of her population, it would harm the industrial classes,
which stand to the former about as twenty is to one. England, therefore,
cannot afford to do it.

It would cost Canada loo much. In one sense it would be a good thing
for the farmers of Canada, but in another sense it might not. it would be gooci
for them in so far as they would get more for their beef anc wheat, at the ex
pense, remember, of the British artizan ; but they would be certain to lose the
American market, which in 1S86 amounted in agricultural products to the sum
of $15,495,783, while the trade with Britain in the same year was but $22,-
543,936. Now if commercial union with the United States was going to cause
Britain to put a tariff on the products she gels from us, we might hesitate to
sacrifice the present market of $41,542,629 with Great Britain for the $36,
578,769 with the United States. Bui if Britain take this step, by so doing she
would vex a very large proportion of her people who work in products of the
mine and the forest, and are dependent on us for supplies of agricultural pro-
ducts and those of the sea. But while it might be a doubtful gain to the far-
mer, it would be disastrous to the manufacturer. Our manufacturers could never
stand before hers, The country that can scale the high larilT walls of the

Phuti Talk' on Commercial Union

United States with her manufactured t;o<xls, would inundate us with these if
wholly unprotected ; and if partially protected they could not have that vigorous
life that would follow openintj up to Canada all the United States market.
British manufacturers have vastly the advantage over ours, (i) In the cheaj)
labor employed. (2) The amount ot capital employed. (3) The rate of in-
terest on capital. (4) The advantage accruin;^ from priority of establishment.
(5) The henetits that tlow from ability to concentrate on the production (a) of
a sint;le line of goods, and (b) of some branch of that line ; and (6) The extent
of the market.

As regards la'jor It is staled by Trofessor Leoni Levi in a work on Kng-
land's sui'remacy, a careful statistician, who has given much thought to the
subject, that the average rate of wages paid by manufacturers in the United
States is 56 per cmt. higher than in Ijritain, and we will show further on that the
price of labor is much the same in the States and Canada. Now, other things
being equal, a very small variation in the price of labor gives the country the
advantage where the labor is cheaper. Canada, then, could never stand before
Britain in her manufactures with such a disparity in the jirice of labor.

As regards the rate of interest, we have already shown that while in Can-
ada the rate is or has been from 6 to 7 per cent., in England it is from 3 to 3/4',
which in itself would constitute a good profit.

As regards the amount of capital employed, Britain has overwhelmingly
the advantage. Her wealth in this respect is simply proverbial, and enables
her to take advantage (a) of the benefits of production on an enormous scale,
and (b) of all the skill, mechanical improvements and trade facilities that
money can command. This the weaker capitalist cannot do.

As regards priority of establishment, the advantages are that better facil-
ities for obtaining supplies have been arranged for, and a market has been
established witii all the advantages that accrue from longer business experience.
It may be argued that newer works have the advantage over old ones, in that
they have all the latest improvements at the outset, but this is not sufficient,
as we deem it. to overcome the advantages of priority of establishment.

As regards concentrating on one Ime of production, when the market has
been sufiFiciently established, it gives the manufacturer a prodigious advantage,
and if concentration can be fastened on one branch of a line, this .<?till enhances
the advantage. Thus it is that some cities in Britain are wholly devoted tt)
the manufacture of one line of goods, as Leeds and Sheffield. In this we
behold concentration of skill in its utmost excellence, and its transmission from
generation to generation, with all the additions that inventive genius can give
to it.

In regard to the market, England practically has the world, while Canada
has herself. She has walled herself in so completely that the exports of her
manufactures, aH told, from the whole I>omin:on, only amount to $2,824,137,
fiithough she has far greater natural resources within herself thai} Britain,

between Cafiuia a>id th.' United States.

though these may be mure wiilelyscattcrfd. I'-ritains market five's her a ttetnen.
dous advantage, so thai the manufactures of Canada cannot hope to stand un-
protected before her. (Janada, therefore, cannot aftbrd it.

It would cost the culnnics too much. This is not so easily sliown with the
data we have at hand, but the same line of r-guiiig will measurably apply to
the colonies, especially in regard to their manufactures ; therefore, the colon-
iei cannot afford to go into such a union.

The Adoption of Commercial Union will Save the

Confederation.

This implies that the Confederation of the Provinces is in dangi^r of
fallmg asunder, \ fact that no one at all skilled in reading the si),'ns of the
times will deny. On the first day of July, 1867, the Piovinrcs of British
North America went into confederation, except the Island of Nt-wfjundland,
the scheme ultimately embracing all the country north of the United States
boundary line, except the Island of Newfoundland, Greenland and A'aska,
thus embracing a territory larger than that of the United States. Hith-
erto the colonies had been bound together politically, unless in the case of Up-
per and Lower Canada, by no other tie than that of their bein^ colonies
of Great Britain. The idea of welding them together into a strong con-
federation was one that pretty generally commended itself to the favorable
consideration of the people, insomuch that it was adopted, and fur a time all
went fairly well ; but of late years things have got .sadly out of joint.

That facilities for trade might be increased, and in the hope of assisting its
outflow from the individual Provinces and turning it into inter- Provincial
channels, public works have been undertaken at great expense, which has
plunged the confederation very deeply in debt, and this debt is still increasing
at the average rate of $10,000,000 a year since the year 1876, the whole of
the Federal debt on the 30th June .summing up $225,o2'j,762, or, not allow-
ing for worthless assets, it would foot up $300,000,000. This latter ium would
hold every individual in the Dominion on an average responsible for the pay-
ment of the sum of $60. Serious as this phase of the situation may appear, it
is not exactly thecause of the discontent that wc speak of. Many of these works
were necessary, and in time we will largely reap the benefits that they are intended
to confer. Give onr people a chance and they will grapple with this indebted-
ness, and in the spirit of emulation not to be outdone by our southern neigh-
b'rs will, like them, hope to look the whole world in the face, owing not any
man.

The cause of the discontent has arisen from the fiscal policy adopted by
our country, necessary perhaps for a lime, but unwise in its prolongation. By
virtually shutting the doors of ingress and egress for the natural channels of
trade, the attempt was made to force them east and west rather than north and

Plain Talks on Commercial tMion

south. Uii 'he onfe side was a country of vast extent, with an average width
of 1,300 nuks, in a manner self-contained in boih developed and undevelopei
resources, and on the other a strip of inhabited country on an average ICX3
miles in width and more than 3,000 miles in length, far from self contained in
either developed or undevf^loped resources, shut out from the privilege of trad-
ing with her southern neighbor unless by climbing over a high tariff wall, and
forced to trade within herself, throughout the discouraging length of her entire
territory.

Why shoulc not the inhabitants in such a position become discontented? Un-
complaining SI bmis.sion in such a case would have heena libel onthespirit and the
independencf of the Anglo-Saxon race. The people of the Provinces were
compelled to pay heavy charges for the transit of goodi over railways which
they were taxed to build, and in many instances to the producers of these goods
for bringing them into existence, and the markets of each of them so narrowed
that a aepression more deep and prolonged has settled down upon the
counLry than was ever known in its hLstory. Nor were they allowed to con-
struct channels of trade for themselves. The Red River Valley railroad, seek-
ing an outlet, has been disallowed, and other railways intended to develop the
inteinol trade of the Northwest has beei'. disallowed. The very questionable
policy has been adopted of allaying the discontent in the different Provinces by
subsidies in one form or another, which can only encourage discontent to make
fresh demands.

It reminds one of the plan of the Athenian citizens after the sun of the
glory of this learned republic had begun to set, who voted to themselves large
sums of money for attending on the great councils of the nation, without first
considering where the large sums should come from, or of the barbarians bor-
dering on Rome after the days of the zenith of her power.' The large sums
paid to them to keep them at bay for the time, only served to ehcourage them
to make fresh incursions.

This feeling of discontent is fast reaching a culminating point, and unless
prompt measures are taken, the conlederation wheel may be broken beyond the
possibility of restoration. The disallowed railway is being built, the tax on
tobacco which the habitani was to pay he refuses to pay. and the people of
Nova Scotia said at the last election that they were anxious to gel out of con-
federation. Why, then, have they not gone out of it? Because it takes two
fjarties to (Ussolve an agreement as well as to make one. It is always easier to
get into a pit than to get out of it again, to tie a knot than to untie it.

That ?uch is the feeling in the Maritime Provinces we have but to quote
the opinions of Nova Scoiians themselves, publicly expressed. Mr. W. F.
MacCloy, the member for Shelburne, stated in the House of Assembly last
winter that they now must buy their supplies in Boston and pay 50 cents per
barrel on (lour and 22 per cent, on other articles, or return with the money
and buy dear Upper Province foods on reaching home. "I ask every fair

Ikhvccn Canadii and the United States. ix^

"minded man in the house," said Mr. ATacCoy, " to answer truly as to our
"present position. Is not our trade being ruined, and is not our real estate 50
" per cent. less than it was ton years ago?"

Re it remembered that at confecreration the tariff of Nova Scotia was only
12^ per cent., and then it was mucli higher than it had been during previous
years. The St. John's Telegraph (N. B.), of June 17th, says : " What have we
" to gain — what have we not to lose by remaining in a union and under a pol-
" icy that has brought us to this condition ? This is not the language of mere
" complaint or fanlt-tinding ; wo are not asking for sops and favors, we a^k for
" justice, a trade policy under which we can live, otherwise the inexorable ne-
" cessity that knows no law must determine our relations with the Dooiinion
" once for all." In the N. V. Times of June 17th, the Hon, J. W. Longley,
the Attorney-General for Nova Scotia, is reported as having said, " The Do-
" minion represents a discontented and almost disconnected siream of Prov-
" inces." In the North-West the Red River Valley road is actually being
built in defiance of the Government. The Winnipeg papers of Tune 22d rep-
resent Mr. Brock, on the Government side of politics, as having said in aildress-
ing the Hon. J, Norquay and colleagues at the close of a speech of no uncer-
tain sound, " The people are ready to go to any extremity if they are forced to it."
He was speaking as one of a deputation sent to interview the Government.

What the Maritime Provinces want is a market for coal, fish and agricul
tural products, and a share in the coasting trade. Give them this and they
will be content ; deny it them, and to get relief everything points in a direc-
tion of the snapping of the commercial cord that binds them in her unconge-
nial union.

It is argued as a reason for opposing commercial union that we should rather
try and get some profit out of the vast sums expended in public works for the
promotion of commerce between the Provinces. What profit will we get if
the confederation cord should snap ? Is it not wiser to adopt a fiscal policy
hat will allay the discontent of the confederates, stimulate commerce in all
her arteries, and thereby make sure of increasing profits as the years revolve ?
But why do we thus run the risk of having the confederation flv to pieces ?
What is it for? Why, for the sake of a limited number engaged in the indus-
tries, th*" product of whose manufactures whea exported summed up $2,-
; 24,137 for the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1S86, out of a grand total of $85, 251,-
.;i4, or aoout the one-thirtieth part of the whole. We admit they manufac-
ture a large amount for home consumption, but to enable them to do this the
h^rmer is first taxed by the country to protect them, and second, by them-
selves ill the high charges they are inus enabled to put upon their goods. Why
sliould we run all this hazard for the sake of a section of the comtnunity rela-
tively so small ? The preservation intact of the whole Dominion is surely a mat-
ter of more moment than the protection of one class of the community, who can
get along well eiiongh without such protection.

Plaiji Talks on Commercial Union

It Will Tend More than Anything Else to Stimulate
Trade and to Develop Our Resources.

Although Canada is larger in territory than the Unitetl States, the latter
has unquestionably the advantage in respect of climate, development, popula-
tion and acquired wealth. The whole of her lerntory is accessible in one way
or another during all the "Mr, while a large portion of that of the Dominion is
covered with uninelting srows. Canada has the advantage in internal means
of water communication and in the possession of a more bracing, nerve-
strengthening, and indu Ury-producing climate, and we conclude we are safe
in saying that Canada has decidedly the advantage in manufacturing facilities
and natural resources. Her resources are the products of the forest, the mine.
the sea and of the soil. In only a very meagre degree are any of these developed.
While the total output from the soil in exports to the United States for the fiscal
year ending June 30th, 1S86, from Ontario alone, was $15,495,935, the min-
eral exi^x)rt from, the same Province was only $3,115,696. Now this is but a
small proportion compared with what it might and would be if there was op-
portunity for developing these resources. As it is, the market is restricted,
and '.he duty of .?6 to $7 a ton on pig iron shuts us out of the United States
market. In Ontario we have no native coal for smelting, and on the bitumin-
ous from the United Stales, which would have to be used for the purpose,
there has been a duty, till recently, which has added very much to the expense *
of thi.< work. Notwithstanding that we have fine deposits of mac;netic iron m
Crosby, Madoc, Marmora, Belmont and Seymour townships, and in the re-
gions around Port Arthur and the Lake of the Woods, for the present it must
lie there, for there is a heavy duty on the ore if exported, and if but one
smelting establishment, such as that at Cleveland, were to be sustained in
Canada, it alone would suffice to supply the present wants of the country,
which is but 250,000 tons annually. In such a case, our iron mines, remote
from coal, will not pay the working, as in other parts iron and coal are found
in conjunction. In the absence of a market all above this quantity must
lie where nature has placed it, until we give up the ruinous policy of leaving
our magnificent resources undeveloped for the sake of the interests of a frag-
mentary portion of bur population. As it is with iron, so it is with copper and
others of our precious metals. Bestowed upon us in value in uncounted mil-
lions,, there ihey must lie, rather than be made the means of adding thousands
to our population in minmg them and manufacturing them for (be various uses
of life. And as it is with our mines, so it is with our fisheries. We have a
home market for only a certain quantity, and the way is barred to the south of
us. In the magnificent inheritance which Providence has left us, it is uncer-
tain whether our treasurer, of the .sea are much inferior to those of the mine,
and those jf the mine will not outweigh in value the products of the soil. The
location of our great highways, natural md artificial, in reference to these

Between Canada and the United States. 25

storehouses of agricultural and mineral wealth would furnish wonderful facili-
ties for transporting these to any desired extent, if we only had an enlarged
market for them, and the same holds true of the products of the forest.

The wonderful advantages of unrestricted trade between the two countries
and the increase th;it might be expected to follow are shadowed forth by what
took place during the old reciprocity period of iS^.^ and 181 f), as already stated,
when the volume of trade increased from $20,000,000 m 1S53 to $84,000,000
in 1S66. The volume of the trade fell off after 'he abrogation of the treaty to
such an extent that not till some years after, in 1875, did ii ove'take the sum
of the trade done in 1866— in 1S75 ^^ amounted to prol)ai'ly $S6,6oo,cxx). It
is further illustrated liy the trade in egg>. Until January 1, 1S71, there was a
duty of 10 per cent on eggs going into the United States, ar wi.ich time it was
removed, Duiin::;; the half year preceding, that is, from {st July to 3rst De-
cember, 1870, the total value of eggs imported into the United States firom
all countries amounted to only $5,403. During the next half yoar the imports
admitted free amounted to $290,820, We now give a .--tatement from the
United States tables of the quantity and value of eggj imported from Canada,
ending with June 30th of each year :

Dozen. Price.

f874 5.422.516 $ 735,284

1S80 7,662,068 894,349

1881 9,471,391 1,199,157

1882 11,728.518 '.793.167

1883 14,683.061 2.584,279

1884 14,688,338 2,356,313

1SS5 13,067.474 '-J,<-T95.437

1886 14,469,764 1,893,672

This argument of the eggs is a very significant one. It informs us that
without free trade in the last half of 1870 our export of eggs to the United
States was less than $5,403, and that with free trade in 18S3 our export of
eggs to the same country was no less than $2.584,279 — that is, that from 1870
to 1883, a period of only thirteen years, it had multiplied itself no less than
two hundred and thirty-nine times. During the six years ending with 1886
they have brought us no less than $11,922,025 from that country, which, ac-
cording to the ratio for the half year already quoted, under the 10 per cent,
tariff, would have amounted to $64,836, or the one hundred an.l eighty-fourth
part as much.

The trade in phosphates, almost the only mineral allowed to enter the
United States free, also furnishes another illustration. The Union Mining
Company, an American company, owning two thousand acres up the Ottawa,
sjjent $100,000 in plant, and after one year's oj.erations declared a dividend of
30 per cent. , and thousands of tons were sent across the border. Sweep away
the restrictions on trade between the two countries and the hills that now are
desolate, where one starts at the sound of his own voice, would be covered

Plain Talks on Commncial VnioH

lis

with the villages of miners, the lines of transit would awaljen to new life, tett
thousand energies woiiid be developed in turning the hidden nuggets of tht
mine into so many forms of usefulness, and an influx of population would come
to us to stay, such as this country has never beheld in ali its history.

The commercial union between England and Scotland in 1707 forms 1
parallel, with this ditTerence, that the border line between the two countries
by its conformation is much less favorable to the development of trade. While
a narrow strip of mounta n range separated these two countries, there are great
stretches of water comm inication leading into the very center of the confeder-
ated Provinces, bringin.^ them closer, as it were, to the difTerent States of
the Union for purposes of trade. There was the further difference, that Eng-
land and Scotland were politically united, but this need not in any way affect
the results flowing from the reciprocity they adopted. Prior to 1707 Scotland
was excluded from free trade with England and her colonies. Goods must first
be landed in England and duty paid there, and then he taken in English ships
to Scotland. Leckey tells us that the only important industry at that period in
Scotland was that of linen, and many of the Sc>, tch people of the time said
this trade would be destroyed and the Scotch shipping trade would be ruined ;
the poor people crushed by the richer, and the whole country would *■ "come
one vast grazing ground. The English peojile said Scotch cattle and coals and
linen, which were cheap, would sink their markets, and that Scotch labor
would swamp the labor market of England.

But what were the results ? Why, Paisley rose, and Greenock grew, end
Glasgow rushed on apace ; and such a tide of prosperity set in such as
Scotland never dreamed of, making the Scotch people man for man, if we
mistake not, the richest people in Europe, while England at the same time
prospered all the more for the increasing prosperity of Scotland, and this is
without a. doubt what we might expect, in degree at least, from commercial
union between (.!anada and the United States.

Why, we ask, is it that one city of New England has a population almost
as large as the whole of Ontario and that the entire Dominion does not possess
a single city with more than 200,000 inhabitants ? Montreal has all the facilities
lor making a city great. She has abundance of water communication, is
easy of access to the foresty of the North, has communication by ships of the
largest si^e with all the nation.s of the earth, if she so desires it, and can send
her steamboats to the farthest shores of Lake Superior for purposes of
inland trade. Her natural facilities for trade are far ahead of those of New .
York, an ! yet the one city can take the other easily under the shadow of her
branches. Why must a Canadian stand in an unthrifty town at Windsor and
look across the river at a city larger than any in Ontario, unless it be Toronto,
and why is there but a collection of hamlets at Fort Erie, and a city nearly
twice as large as Toronto across the river, the Canadian lake shore opposite
being bought up for miles fr)r summer residences for Buffalo's merchant princes ?
Will the opponents of commercial union tell us why ?

Between Catiada and the United S/ates.

It has teen said that "trade, in order to increase and iie profitabie, must
"be reciprocal." But there is one species of trade between the United States
and Canada in which there is little or no jeciprncity, nor will there be till we
change our policy somewhere. We refer to the outflov? of the most valuable
commodity that we possess — the most enterprising of our people, (or which we
get no compensation. It speaks well of our social, educational and religious
institutions, that our countrymen are so much in demand in the United States ;
but it speaks ill for our fiscal relations, that in a land superior to the United
States in many of its natural resources, we cannot find employment for
them at home. We have given New York one business man, of whom we
heard it stated by a United States Senator that he was worth ten thousand.
The business branches of this same individual number 1 14, most of them in the
United States, and more than half the number of those employed in them, j.ooo
in all, are Canadians. So it is in all the Union, many of the brightest and most
promising of our men have gone over to the United States, Iiecause it gives
them there a chance to rise on the stepping stones of opportunity. While this is
all the lietter for them, it is all the worse for us, nor can we expect to liecome
superlatively great till we find some means of keeping our most enterprising
citizens at home. A process akin to this has left our farmers, compared to the
other classes, in too many instances, hewers of wood and drawers of water, and
so it will be down to the end of time, so long as they allow the most brilliant
of their sons to leave the farm for other pursuits. Our Canadians, like tlie Jews
amongst merchants and Scotchmen amongthe nations, have, amongst the Ameri-
cans with equal chances, come to the front, which should be all the more matter
of regret to us that we 16se such n- en. But those who leave us are not to blame.
When there is not work for all the sons at the old homestead, some of them
m"st go, and feel assured whoever may see fit to go, it is not the laggards of
the lot.

What a startling revelation is that of the American census returns since
i860. In that year the number of Canadians in the United States was 249,-
970, in 1S70 it had increased to 493,464, in x88o to 7 [7, 157, and in 18S5 the
estimate was 95o,cx>o, so that now in 1S87, there are mure than i.ooo.oajof
our people in the United States, while we, at the same time, have our agents
ransacking Europe, and are even giving assistance to bring a much less useful
class of emigrants to fdl the blanks made by those who leave us.

The Winnipeg Stm of 17th July, says : " There arc in Dakota this day
" upwards of 30,000 Canadians who have filtered through from Maniioba and
" the North- West." And the reasons given for this state of affairs as the
result of personal enquiry were, (i) lack of railway facilities for the develop-
ment of the country ; (2) the pressure of high freight tariffs, and (3) the hope-
lessness of immediate relief from railway monopoly. The Athenians of old
user! to banish their fellow citizens by a vote of the people, but ours xs a more
w dern and far less troublesome method.

Plain Talks on Commercial Union

Open up a market for our goods and we will not only keep o\ix sons at
home, but our resources will, at the same time, attract energy, industry, capital
and skill, and there need be no doubt as to what would follow.

It will Greatly Benefit the Farmers.

That commercici union with the United istates would be an unquestioned
benefit to all the farners in all the Dominion, few can be so uncandid as to
deny. The farmers A the reciprocity period look back with lingering regrets at
that golden age foi them, when they sent their produce to the United States
and brought back gold, which laid the foundation of their success. It is true
that the American civil war was raging during a part of that period, which en-
hanced agricultural values, but allowing for this, it was a period of agricul-
tural advancement such as they have not seen since, beyond all comparison.

Commercial union would benefit the farmer ( i ) by cheapening the cost of liv-
ing ; (2) by delivering hirn from the power o{ monopoly ; {3) by giving him ac-
cess to the markets of the United States, thus enlarging his present market
twelve-fold.

When a tariff is levied on imports coming into any country, the price is
enhanced to the consumer. It is argued that the artizan gets his compensa-
tion in surer employment, and it may be, increased wages, and that the farmer
gels h'- in the building up of new centers of population, and the enlargement
of old ones, thus creating an increased demand fur the products which he has
to sell. How far this is operative in Canada we have already 'shown.
The census returns for 18S0-1 give the whole number employed by the indus-
tries as 254,935. ^ow we must bear in mind that in the term industries is in-
cluded all lines of material production other than agriculture. Many of them
apply to lh° preparation of the necessities of life and to ordinary trades, as
baking and blacksmithng, which are necessary in a country under any condi-
tions, and are not in the strict sense of the term prcxlucers. And a large num-
ber are also engaged in handUng agricultural products, as factory cheese and
creamery butter -makers, meat-cureri and others, to enable them to do which
succf-'ssfully re(]uires no special tax. These, then, should not be counted in.
Leaving them out, and allowmg that many of the workmen have families, the
whole ». umber thus engaged, including employers and their families, cannot
exceed 500,000, for a very large number of those engaged in manufactories are
under r6 years of age, and a still larger number are unmarried. Take, for
instance, the cotton factories. These together gave employment in 1880-81 to
975 men and 1,443 women— together, 2,420; and to 542 boys under 16, and
565 girls— together, 1,107. Now of the first class, a large per centage would
be single, as this computation takes in all over sixteen, which makes it clear thit
our estimate of 500,000 is a reasonable one. Now the entire population of the
Lominion at that date was 4,324,810. It follows, then, that all except the 500,-

Between Canada and the United States

000 had the cost of their living increased lor the benefit of the latter. Whether
they got any adequatecompensation for this has never yet beensatisfactori'y shown.
We can conceive conditions where they might get this compensation by a
vastly increased population, but thi, does not hold true of us. In 18S1 the
total arr.ount of dutiable goods entered for consumption was $91,61 1 "^'04, and
the tarifT collected on the same War, $18,500,785. The rural portion of the
conimuiiily alone largely outnumbers the entire urban population. The pro-
portions are at least as 3 to 2 in favor of the rural populations, as we will show
further on. We leave it for our readers then to judge what proportion of this
increased cost of living is paid by the farmer.

But it is argued that the manufacturers are rapidly adding to the wealth of
the country by the increased value that they are giving to raw materials, and
to make this the more impressive, they are quoted as having produced good.s
at that time to the value of $309,676,068, but the amount in raw materials,
$179,918,593, plus $59,429,002 in wages, must be deducted, making
a grand total of $239,347,593. The difference between this output and
the value of the entire products, $70,328,473, is an increase in wealth
to the country so far. W^e must acknowledge this is a very good showing
so far as the manufacturers are concerned. But it should nut be forgot-
ten that the farmers were taxed some 20 to 25 per cent, on many articles of con -
.sumption to bring this about, which modifies its value to the country. It is
not only an increase of wealth to the country, but a very substantial in-
crease to the wealth oftho.se engaged in the iuilustries, a return of more than
^2 per cent. 1 less running expenses, on the money invested. Allowing 6 per
cent, on capital and deducting this .-imount, $9,918,157, from the $70,328,473,
the gains, with the balance, $60,410,316, those engaged in the industries made
a clear profit of $237 out of every one of the 254,935 work-hands employed,
whether man, woman or child, and to whom they had paid on an average $233
in wages. The interest allowed on capital will serve as an offset to the
labor performed by those possessing the industries. When the farmers learn
to handle labor so advantageously, our cities will be so completely drained
of their populations that grass will grow in the streets and unbroken silence
brood over the market places.

The farmers are in no way envious of the prosperity of the industries, or
if they are, they should not be. But if they purchase this ;)rosperily for the lat-
ter at a cost of more than two thirds of the sum of $18,505,785 customs duties,
as we have shown they do, they have a right to ask the reason why, as we have
made it clear that the only compensation they get is the purchn e of their pro-
ducts by the 500,000 representing the industrial classes, a large portion of
whom would be engaged in these occupations without a protective tariff. If
the farmer must toil laboriously with a return sometimes not over i per cent,
on the money invested, and must be taxed to afford the manufacturer a return of
^^ercent.tht is surely justified in asking the reason why. He has this reflection^

Iff

Plain J^\ilks on Commercial Union

however, to console him, that he has put himself in this position, and the further
refloction that he will remain in it until he lifts himself out. This state of aHairs
is indeed addinj^ to the wealth of the country, and it is adding 10 the wealth of
the mannfacturer, although it is only fair to add that il is hi£;hly probable that
the proportionate ?ai is of manufacturers is less now than at the period to which
we refer. We feel tl at our illustrations of fact here will be deemed extravagant.
If so, we reier any vho may conclude thus, to the census returns of Canada for
1S81-82, vol. iii. paper 505, and ask them to make the calculation for themselves.
Commercial unior. would not remove this entire tax, for there would still be a
])rotective tariff against other countries, but it would greatly lessen it, and if an
additional tax were wanted for managing the gc/vernment of the country, it
would be distributed on th>^ shoulders of all who should bear it. We may
conclude, then, that it would cheapen the cost of living for the farmer, by giv-
ing him opportunity to buy through his merchant in the cheapest markets of
the continent, and at a lower price because of removed tariffs.

It would deliver him from the power of monopoly. Monopoly is one of
the greatest curscb that can come upon any country, and its evils are in pro-
portion to its extent. It finds no countenance in any system of ethics as yet
given to the world, and could not exist in any country where the sanctions of
the golden rule, that most perfect regulator of all trade, holds universal sway.
Yet even as regards monopoly, we must be careful to discriminate. It is often
charged upon undertakings where enterprise is the more suitable qualifying
word. The term will not fully apply to any business, however gigantic, that
does not so control prices as to make them unfairly dear. It does exist in Can-
ada and in grievous forms. Almost the only classes in the community not
chargeable with this crime, for we regard it as such, are the rural portion of
the community. We are not saying that this is the result of any clearer views
of the obligations of human brotherhood that they possess, so much as the re-
sult of disabilities of opportunity. Owing to tbt?ir isolation and numbers it is
dilticult for tijtm to combine, while I'or opposite reasons, owing to their conti_^-
uity and restricted numbers, it is easy for those engaged in the various indus-
tries to combine. It is not wrong for any class to combine for the furtherance
of common interests, providing this does not relate to a fixity of price. This
should in every case be regulated by the natural law of supply and demand.
The moment the demand will not justify continuance in a business on the basis
of natural values, it is time to get out Ji it. Monopoly is one of the most gigan-
tic cancers of the nineteenth century, which is preying upon the life tissues of
one class of the community for the a 1 vantage of another cLiss, without any cor-
responding weal to the general interests of the country We have it in Canada
in its worst form, owing to the restricted nature of our market and the limited
number of our producers in the industrial lines. These ^monopolies, and even
more those of the railway systems, are the famous Gordian knot that is going
to puzzle the ingenuity of the farmers of this century.

Iipt7i>een Canada and the United States.

There is no denying it, our industries have combined, almost every one of
tiiem. Some of these combinations have fallen asunder, not from ihe pres-
sure of any outside opposition, but throuj^h the force of greed outcropping from
wiihin the combination itself. Combination is not easy in businesses that re-
quire but small outlay of capital to set the ?oing. It is when large capital is
required to their successful prosecution. And it is not necessary that thosw
engaged in them have any written code formally drawn up and ratified. It is
sufficient often to have a tacit understanding, with such variations as stringent
customers must have before they will deal. In new lines of industries the con-
sumers are liable to suffer most severely. When the manufacture of self hind-
ers was introduced, the price asked and paid was $300 and upwards. This
was not tbe result of formal combination, but of that tacit understanding that
we referred to, and in all probability was brought about without any previous
consultation, one knowing what the other was asking, and he asking as much.
Better binders were sold last year in vast numbers for, many of them, $125 each.
They probably contained less material and less work than those which came out
first and cost less to make them, but the firms making binders did weli last
season ; their business flourished and the preparations for a still larger output
the coming season are already going on. Nov/ it follows that if $125 to $150,
the latter the average price paid the manufacturers, pays, the $300 charge for an
article not much more costly, and in every way inferior, was extortion. .Some
argue that it is justifiable for one to ask and to take all that he can get. In
such a case there could be no such a thing as extorrion in the world, and the
people would not be justified in cursing him who withheld corn when it was
dear. Now as it was with self-binders, so has it been in numerous other lines, the
farmers have been charged two prices, which could lot have been had they
had access to all the markets of the American continent. It is thus that ihe
manufacturers have been enabled to lay aside their dividend of 42 per cent.
(less running expenses) in 18S1, and the vexatious feature is that the farmers
have been taxed to put the industries in the position thus to extort from them.

It should not be overlooked, however, that in a sense the farmers are
deeply indebted to that section of the manufacturers who have improved so
imniensely the implements of tillage. The manufacturers ot these deserve to
prosper, but there is a reasonable limit to the price that the farmer should pay.
If the manufacturers of farm implements would content themselves with this,
the farmers would be obligated to make them a magnificent feast at the annual
recurrence of the Dominion harvest home, thus proclaiming it to the world
that these were the men whom they delighted to honor, and whom they felt in
duty bound to honor.

See the game of the sugar monopolists. We have but two refineries in
Canada. The other portions of the community have been taxed to enable
these men (i) to build palaces in Britain, (2) to enable them to enter into an
ini(|uitous combiqation to raise the price. The arrangement raq thus : The

Plain Talks on Commercial Union

refiners would sell to the wholesale men .mly at a fixed price, the wholesale
men to the retailers only at a lixed puce, and iheoe to the consumers only at a
fixed price. Thus the consumers were bound with a three fold cord of com-
bination to enable those two gigantic tirms of monopoly to put their hands in
their pockets and extract money to enable them to build palaces beyond the
seas. But two of the wholesale tirms of Montreal, those of Lightbound, Ral-
ston & Co., and Maihewson & Co., refused to be partners to an arrangement
so infamous, ani all Canada and jrosterity will honor them for the noble stand
which they have taken. About the 20th August last they threw a bomb into
the enemy's camp which filled it with consternation, by the importation of vast
quantities or sugar from Scotch refineries, which was brought in over the high
tariff wall against sugar in the hope of bringing the refiners to their senses,
and we trust it will have the desired efiect ; but no credit to us farmers for
this happy consummation.

The recent duties on iron are in the same direction, and the one firm in
the Dominion, operating at Londonderry, Nova Scotia, have but to fix their
prices only a hair's breadth below the prices of imported iron brought in in the
face of the duties, and every blacksmiiii i i Canada, and every farmer, is nt the
mercy of this monopoly. In spite of themselves they must bow down and wor-
ship this great image which is being set uji in our midst.

The railway monopoly is the worst of all. Take the C. P. R. for illus
tration, and in but one instance. In June last the Manitoban was charged for
the transit of wheat from Winnipeg to Montreal, 1,423 miles, 50 cents per ico
lbs. From St. Paul to New York, a distance of 1,420 miles, the rate was y2%
cents, a difference of IT% cents per 100 lbs. in favor of the Minnesota or Da-
kota farmer over tlie Manitoban. The through rail and boat, rates discriminate
even more against the latter. While the rate from Winnipeg to Montreal, via
P'ort William, was 43 cents per 100 lbs., the same from St. Paul, via Dululh
to Montreal or to New \ ork was 17 cents, a difference considerably more than
one half in favor of the Minnesota settler. The through rate from Minneapolis
to Liverpool, via Duluth, was 29 cents per 100 lbs., while the same from
Winnipeg to Liverpool, via Port Arthur and Montreal, was 55 cents, or 26
cents per 100 lbs., or 15^ cents per bushel against the Manitoban.

Let us show how this applies. We know a farmer of Cannington, Ont.
(we can give the name), whose three sons have settled in Cass Co., Dakota,
who grew 15,000 bushels of wheat in 1886. The seed reservation was 1,500
bu.shels, aliowiiig 13,500 bushels to be sent to market. Now to send this
amount from Si. Paul to New York by all rail would have cost the owners less
by $1,417.50, as compared with tht transit from Winnipeg by all rail ; to have
sent it by boat and rail, $1,377.00 less to Montreal or New York, and to have
sent it through to Liverpool, $2, 106.00 less, making a dividend in favor of each
son in the item of wheat alone of $472.50 in the first instance, $459.00 in the
becond and $702.00 in the third. Now the cost of transit west from Winnipeg

Between Canada and the United States.

M. AND M 11.

C. V. R.

4 CIS. per lOO lbs.

cts. per 100 lbs.

lO '1 "

17K "

30 " "

and St. Paul puts the Manitoban and his neit»h1)or in the territories in a still
worse plight, as the following comparison of rates will .show :

A haul of ho miles
<• 100 "
" 500 "

Who should blame the Canadian who goes west for jireferring to pitch his tent
beneath the Stars and Stripes, rather than under the llap of the Union Jack
that he loves so well ?

In the matter of agricultural implements the Manitoban is no better off,
for in 18S6, according to the report of the Minister of Agriculture, p. loi, he
had to pay from $170 to $105 for those of Ontario manufacture, or pay 35 per
cent, duty for those of American manufacture. Now it is certainiy a hardship
for the Manitoban to be com|)elIerl to pay from $.55 to $50 extra for every
American binder he uses in that timberless country of his, because the binder is
made beyond an imaginary line by his neighbor just to the south of him. Even
this strong wall could not keep American macuines out, for to-day in Manito-
lia they are very numerously used. We are glad to know that a numner of our
firms who manufacture binders do not fear American competition, and so are
ready for commercial union, believing that they will get ample compensation for
lower prices in the wider market.

Commercial union would bring the farmer an enlarged market, with all
the advantages appertaining thereto. It would do this in almost every line cf
agriculture, unless in the items of corn in cereal produce, and pork in the line
of animal produce. It is estimated that the United States exports agricultural
produce annually to the extent of $500,000,000, and it is concluded, therefore,
that in the event of commercial union not only would the Americans not
buy from us, but their goods would come down upon us in a deluge,
and the competition would be more than our farmers could stand. But
that this argument is easily refutable is clear from the fact that, notwith-
standing the height of the existing tariff wall, the Americans climb over it and
do buy from us in enormous quantities. In 18S6 they bought from us to the
extent of $15, 495, 935, and in 1885 a still larger amount. The explanation is
to be found largely in the excellence of our agricultural products, and their
contiguity to the American markets where they are consumed. Now the fence
is as high on their side as on curs, and if under a tariff that gives us no advan-
tage on the whole, we can hold our own, why should we fear (Jhrnpetition when
these tariffs are removed ?

The most substantial benefits would flow to us. In 18S5 and '86 Ontario
alone exported to the United States 27,794 head of horses, valued at $3,628,-
378 ; 93,096 head of horned cattle, valued at $2,044,736 ; of swine, 4,004
head, valued at $11,720 ; 588,163 head of sheep, valued at Si, 603, 375, anrl
of poultry and other animals to the value of $291,516 ; in the aggregate sum-

Plain Talks on Commercial Union

ming up $7,579,725. The duty of 20 per cent, collected on this iimounts to,
in the case of the horses, $7:25,665 ; cattle, ^408, 947 ; swine, $2,344 ; sheep,
$320,675, .and other animals, 858934; snmminj; up $I,5I5,9;,4 in the lAt;
years. Add to this the duty of 10 cents per bushel collected 0:1 the 20, 178,-
877 bushels o' barley for the same two years, sent from Ontario to the United
States, Thi' wa-- valued at $13,696,224, and ^;ave a duly of $2,017,887. We
have, theref( re, a total piid in duty on live stock and bailey sent frotn Ontario
cf $3,533,8:;! in the years 1S85 and 1886, or an .iverage of $1,766,910 in one
year lost to the Ontario farmers in their sales of live stock and barley ; a lar-
ger sura than is brought into the whole Dominion by all the manufacturers
through jales to the United Stales of their products. Hut thii by no
means represents the total loss to the Province. If the restrictions were re-
moved the sales woukl incrcise, it m.iy be m an untold ratio, and in addition
to the increased sales the price would rise of what was not sold, owing to the
increased 'ieinand.

That we are warranted in this statement is apparent from the stimulus
given to the trade in eggs by the removal of the duty, which was about one
cent, on each egg. The trade multiplied itself in value by 82, by the time that
it had reached the tenth year of its unfettered life, and by 239 by the time
that it had reached the thirteenth year — that is, the year 1883. It is unsafe to
fix a limit which our trade with this people would not overrun, could we get
free access to their markets ? There might not be another line of the live-stock
industry which would grow in equal proportion, but if many of the lines had
but one-twentieth part of its growth, our exports would be enormous. If our
trade in aorses alone increased but the one-s;xteenth part as fast as that in eggs,
our export of horses would amount in the year 19CX), or 13 years hence to 55,588
head ; valued at, according to present prices, $7,256,756. And if the export
of all our live-stick increased at the same; ratio, we would send to the United
States in the year 1900 live-stock, to the value of $15,159,450, to say nothing
of live-stock products. Now, if the 10 per cent, duty on eggs had been made
but 15 per cent., that raagnificient trade, which is as beneficial to the customers
in New \ ork as to the Canadian producers, had never been. See what an
enormous trade we might hiV° in fowls. In Ontario we have at the present
time no less than 6,o68;9.'5 znimals. What a grand market would the
manufacturing centres of Nev England make for these if we had access to
them, but we are virtualy ai?at out ! At his speech at Dufterin Lake, July 1st,
1887, Mr. Wiman referred to the price frequently paid for broilers in New
York as being $2.00 to $2.50 per pair. iVIany of the newspapers of Canada
made the statement a subject of jest for days afterwards. As we think of this,
we are reminded of the advice given by the sloth to the squirrel, when he said
to the latter : " Hold, not so fast," for not only is wisdom always justified
of her children, but also the converse.

In looking into a number of the VVashngton Farmer^ bearing date of Feb.

J^etwcen Canada and tiie United States.

22, 1SS7, for information not at all connected wiih purposes of commercial union,
our attention was arrosted by an article on raising j-'ouitrv in connection, wiih
an e-^tablishment in Michigan. That aiticlv h id no connection with commer
cial union at all, as the date of the paper is prior to any real agitation of this
nature ; and wai written for the juirpose of advertising the paper, as it was a
.special number, and hud a<:ut of a poultry house. It incidentally stated that some
of the compartments were intemied to raise "broilers" for the >(ew York
market, as they readily brought there wholesale from 40 to 45 cents per lb.
>Jow with such a wealth of fowls as we possess, and 200 to 300 miles nearer
New York ihnn Michigan, how much might we not make in rearing and ship-
ping ■' broilers'" ?

There are many agricultural products that we have not named to which
Ontario conditions apply, to say nothing of the agricultural productions (.f the en-
tire Dominion. There is the article of butter of which we exported to the United
SmIcs for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1SS6, only m,jSS lbs , which was
sold fr)r the humiliating price of a little more ihan fifteen cents per lb. In 1883,
the quantity of creamery butter made in Ontario was 823,^53, and the creamery
business in Ontario, as well as in all Canada, is only in its infancy. There is
no saying what c.mensions it may ultimately assume, for our facilities,
particularly in Ontario and Quebec, for the production of good butter are simply
unrivalled. The conditions essential to the production of good butter are abun-
dant pastures in summer, with full supply of clean water and shade, protection
in winter, and a nutritious and varied diet, and skill on the part of the maker.
Viewed in the light of these essentials, Ontario and Quebec Provinces stand
out unrivalled amongst butter producing di:itricts of Nortn America. We
may claim these two provinces as the dairymen's paradise. In Lower
Canada in the month of June, where green pastures slope upwud on the long
swells that never seem to get to the top, the very grasses speak of milk and
butter, and one almost envies the cows the purity of the waters that the danc-
;ng rills furnish them to drink. And what are these two provinces doing
in the line of butter making for the American market ? Nothing I and why?
Because the market of thg New England cities — the best butter market in the
world — is shut out against them. We heard the largest butter make: in Can-
ada remark not long since, that for every pound of butter he cc^uld make,
if we had commercial union with the United States, he could get 40 cents
per pound in the wholesale market, if made similar in quility to what he makes
at present. Even thoug;h we got but 20 cents per pounl and access to the
market, what a magnificent trade would at once spring up in butter ! The
United States market would always have this advantage over the English : that
It is near, and butter is rather a delicate article to ship long distances ; and so
it is with cheese. So long as we produced cheese as good as that which
has captured and held the Engli-h market, we could get a market in the United
States. Give us a chance, and as our hens have captured a creditable share

3^'

Plain Talks on Coinnicnial Union

of the New York trade, and as our meat has forced itself over the United States
rpriff wall, so would our cows give us a place on the shambles of all New Eng-
land c'ties *'nr our butter.

We have not said anything as to our wool. The total clip for the Province
in l8S6 was 6, .38,347 lbs., of which we exported to the United States but
1,287,084 lbs., crfued at .'?26S,362, or not quite 21 cents per lb. With no duty
every pound of this would have brought 10 cents more, and with the facilities
iliat we posse.^.i for producing wool of a very tine (juality, our market in wool
would no doubt assume huge dimensions.

But some take the singular ground here that the Canadians do not lose the
amount of tne duty. The case is as clear as noonday. A Canadian at Fort
Erie has n horse which across the river wou'd bring $120. A buyer from
Buffalo steps over and oilers him $i'jo, alleging as the ground of his inability
to give more, that he must pay $20 to get that horse over the river.. If there
was no tariff" line that horse could be taken over the river at a cost of the ferry
charges, and the Canadian would have $120 as the price, instead of $100 as
now, and the effect would be on all the horses sold in the country, that the
price would rise, all of which would be to the advantage of the farmer. But
there might come a time when the advantages would not be relatively so great.
For instance, the United States imports at the present time 48,000,000 pounds
of wool annually. Now, until the growers in the United States and Canada
together produced enough annually, the prices would keep up, the cost of
manufacturing and the price of the fabrics remaining; the same. There would
come, as in the egg trade, a limit to the export, but that limit would be so far
ahead of what it is now that every farmer in the country who thinks earnestly
about the matter must long for the consummation of this treaty. But even in
the egg trade, we do not know that it has reached its outside limit. In 1897
it may be twice as much as it is at present.

Hut the relative strength of the farmer numerically, and the extent of his
interest in the ccnintry, should eniilie his claims to fair consideration. lu 1S85
ihe farmers of Ontario were the owners of 21,775,299 acres of land, as returned
by the assessors of that year. The total population of the Province was 1,784,-
960, and the urban population 369,152 outside oi cities ; the cities contained
289,254, so that the who.e urban population then numbered 6 ^8,406 ; the
.ural population was 1,126,96^, so that the country contained more than two-
thirds of the whole population of the Province. In the same year the invest-
ment of the farmers, consisting of land, buildings, implements and live-stock,
amounted to $95''^,i59>74'3. We do not know the amount of capital invested
by the manufacturers in Ontario in 1885, but we do know that in the whole
Dominion in 1880 and 1881, it was but $165, 302, b23, so that now it cannot
be more in Ontario perhaps, th.-.i $100,000,000. We have, then, a total farm
population of 1,126,960, ' against a totr' urban population of 658,406,
and an investment of $958,159,740, against a probable investment of the man-

■

■J

: -_i

»J.U.i,^.JJ .JIIJ. a.'_!JK!KS'->«:-

Between Canada and the United States.

ufacturets of $100,000,000, nor should it be over!ooketl that of this urban
jioi ulalion, no! one-half perhaps are engaged in manufactures, ff the Ontario
farmerb' claims do not get due consideration, he knows who only is to blame
for it, and it is highly probable that the ratio of population iu the entire Do-
minion is equally favorable to the farmer.

But it is objected that the faimers who have such large investments are
doing " well enough," and therefore should be content. The time was when
ihey did well enough ; the time of the reciprocity treaty was one of ihose periods,
and prior to that when the potash of consumed forests were feeding their lands, iiut
these days are gone, and what with restricted markets and impoverished soils,
taxes to make other people /ich, and combinations taking advantage of them,
with the depressed market prices, they are not doing well enough. They are
not doing more than holding their own, unless ii be in the improvements put
upon their lands. If they were not hard-working and frugal and economical
in every way, along with their canoe, the farm., they would go down the
stream. The representation of the farmer in the cartoon of the humorous
Toronto weekly was the <3:rim 'rony of reality. The old man stootl in his hay
field garments, with a manufacturer on his head, a m.^rchant on one shoulder
and a middleman on the other, and a lawyer era ling out of his pocket. We
say it was the cruel irony ofwhat is too real ; but so long as he remains in this
]rosi'don, he has himself to blami?. He has past the stage of childhood and is
not in his dotage, and if his ma.di od allows him to rest under disabilities, the
more shame for his manhood. In 1SS2, the farmers of Ontario were worth
$862,624,610, in iS:6 they were worth $989,497,911. The advance in these
four years has been $106,873,301, or an advance on the averai^e capital in-
vested for the four years, , 94S,;o?,8o5, or .02S per cent., while the manufac-
turers of the Dominion made an advance of 42 per cent., less running expenses
exclusive of wages, in the years iSSo and 1881 ; and yet they tell the farmer
that he is doing well enou^^'h. Now anyone who knows anything about farming
and the ways of farmers, mast kno'" that by the impiovement of his lands,
he makes the most of this advance. And it is iule to say t'rat he h-as large
sums of invested cash capital, for the farmer, above all other men, is prone
to invest his money in real <;state. The conclusion is irresistible, that com-
mercial union with ihe United States will greatly help the farmer, by giving
him a larger markev,

It will Benefit the Fishe u n.

No country in the whole eaT^th is so well situated as <.,'anadrt, in relation
to the extent and value of either her fresh water fisheries, or those ol the
l>riny deep. The Dominion has more than 2,500 miles of sea coast on tue east
and on the west a line much longer, s.nd in addition numerous inland seas and
lakes, the fisheries of which are very valuable. In many places these haunts

Plain Talks on Commercial Union

cf the finny inhabitants of the deep extend for miles from the shore. Indeed,
so far away from land do they extend that they support a fleet of fishermen
from the United States every year beyond the three mile limit, n-.ore numerous
than used to constilute the armaments and merchant ships of >.he mos; power-
ful nations of the past century. These vast cultivable areas of the sea are in
themselves a mine of wealth if properly farmed, and unlike areas of the soil,
they will never bee jme impoverished if only tilled at the proper seasons. The
cold currents frcm the Arctic washing the shores of our maritime provinces,
teem wilh minute forms of animal life which sustain these fishing grounds in
undiminished richness, and are forever in their flow, so that while rains fail on
the land and fertility fails, sterility on those vast, sea meadows is unknown.
Like the palm tree li ey are not only the emblem of perpetual productiveness,
but the embodiment of it.

A people possessing such a heritage is indeed fortunate, for the harvest is
prepared yeav after year without any effort on the part of men. The abcients
used to say that in the golden age the earth produced spontaneously. With
our fisheries it is always the golden age, for the harvest is always there with
unfailing regularity, and the only precaution required is to make sure that the
reaping does not take place at improper seasons. One acre of such fishing
grounds is worth a hundred miles of unproductive rock, and very many acres
ot finest prairie s-oil. the deposit of the richest food producing material of past
ages. There is little wonder, then, that covetous eyes have been turned to
those sea mines of constant wealth, and that the bordering nations have had
great searchings of heart regarding their share of the spoil of these ocean
treasures.

But of what avail is this magnificent inheritance of sea-food, unless

there is a productive market for it ? \^'e might fancy a man on a lonely islnnd,

possessing a hill of solid gold, and yet, if the inhabitants of that island were few, it

would avail him nc hing, for gold would be of little or no service to them.

In food products, if we have enough to eat, all beyond that limit is only a

source of anxiety ; if we cannot g've them in exchange for something else, they

are only vanity and vexation of spirit. The time was when people bordering on

those seas could catch to their heart's content, and sell all they caught in the

markets of New England, if they so desired, and get goods such as they wanted

in exchange, buying in the cheapest market ; but all this is changed. Now

they can sell their fish there only in the face of a tariff of 7,0 per cent., and

luing back goods again in exchange in the face of a 20 per cent, tariff, thus

giving one-half of all they sell to the vStates, for the privilege of selling the other

half. Theie is only one alternative, that is, to sell their (fish for cash, and send

the cash virtually 1,500 miles aw.-iy to get dearer goods, the carriage of which

they must pay for all that distance. They have a third course, and that

is to leave their fish in the sea, nail up the doors of their fishing cabins, and

move away to more propitious climes, or, if they do not move away them-

ft*

.Ul^

BeUveen Canada and the Lnited Slates.

^he

selves, encourage their sons and daughters to do so at the earliest oppf)rtunity,
and that such is the ahernative adopted by many of them is made pretty
cleir by the expenditure of $150,000 a year to bribe the young fishermen to
remain. Can we wonder that the people of those provinces have announced
their decision to go out of the Confederation, if they can get out, and docs it
not sound ominous indeed, when any governnient resorts to the giving of a
bounty to fishermen, or to men of any calling, to encourage them to continue
in that calling ? Mines of weaUh lie beneath the Atlantic brine that laves the
shores of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, and
yet the fishermen are paid $150,000 a year by way of bounty, to encourage
them to persevere in fishing it out. We know hundreds and hundreds of our
fellow farmers on a comparatively barren soil, who have paid for the privilege
of farming it, in striking contrast to the fishermen, who were paid to till the
sea. Give them access to a market, and they will need no bojinty to induce
them to continue in a profitable industry. The value of these fisheries is some-
thing enormous, . The amount caught in the Dominion last year was valued at
$18,679,288, and including the 25,000,000 pounds used by the Indians of
British Columbia, and the home consumption of Manitoba and tha North- west
Territories, would foot up $22,000,000. The kinds of these fish are almost
without number. In addition to some twentyolle kinds of commercial fish,
enumerated in the report of the Department of Fisheries for the Dominion for
1886, there are numerous other varieties that are making rapid strides in the
item of food consumption furnished by the sea. Fur seal skins, in which little
was done till of late in Canadian waters, were obtained last year 10 the value
of $419,846, and the extent to which this trade might grow is practically with
out limit, so far as the supplies are concerned.

The nature of the Atlantic fisheries anci their productiveness are too well
known to justify dwelling upon them here, but we may notice that so important
are they, that under present conditions they amply justify the expenditure of
$37,613 a year in their protection alone. Our fisheries, all told, employ a
fleet p.unually of 1,113 vessels and tugs, of 44,605 tons, and no less than
rij,!^'/ boats, the wh.le manned by 55,731 fishermen, tht major portion of
wh'oh belong to the Atlantic seaboard, and the capita! invested in the business
is $6,814,295, The fisheries of the Atlantic Provmces last year summed up
^5- 3.737, 579, and there is no saying to what extent these may not be increased
by a judicious protection, while the fisheries of the Pacitic may yet equal those
of the Atlantic.

The fisheries of British Columbia are literally without liniit along the en-
tire Pacific coast, which is so studded with inlets that it gives no less than
7,500 miles of seashore, along which are numerous and safe harbors, the shore.
Inspector Mowit says, is " studded with numerous islands, and lined with bays
ai;d fiords, some of which extend many miles inland, making harbors numer
ous, and safe for all sized crafts." The west coasts of Vancouver and Queen

f ■•'

Plain Talks on Commercial Union

Charlotte Islands teem with valuable food fishes," says Mr. Yondall, of New
Westminster, " as well as with others which are valuable for various purposes
of comnieicc.' A boat can often be filled \\\\.\\ black cod in a few minutes ;
a fish the fle^h of which is excellent, but not much known to commerce. Then
there are immense runs of herring, with halibut, octapus, trout, clams and
mussels in myriads. The fur seals abound In immense numbers in many parts of
Behring's Sea, insomuch that the numbers on the hauling grounds of St. George
and St. Paul Islands is estimated by Mr II. VY. Elliott at 5,000,000, ranging in
Wvigiit from 400 to 6o( ll>s each. So immense is their numbers that it would
lake 25,000,000 lbs. o live fish to supply them with one day's food. It is pro-
posed, in order to de\ elop these fisheries to place colonies of fishermen, and
encourage them with a bounty. It will all be in vain unless there is a market
ubtiined, and the nearest market, and the best, because the nearest, is the
United States. Halibut fish abound in these waters, but are not 30 good
salted, and should ^i)^;.";fore be sold aear at hand.

The lakes and '" - Manitoba and the North-west Territories teem
with fish, and, of the >:." ' 18S0, by far the laigest portion, amounting to

$51,589, went to Buffalo, in-.apolis, Cliicago, Detroit and St. Paul.

'J'be rivers running into Hudson's Bay teem with salmon, and walruses are
very numerous in the Bay, each one being worth $6o.>oo. The AnSjUcans are
very busy prosecuting fishing in this bay, no doubt because they have a mar-
ket in which to di.spose of their goods. With reference to Canada, Lieuten
ant A. R. Gordon, in his report significantly says : "At the present moment, no
Canadian is deriving profit from the resources of Hudson's Bay, except the few
who may be shareholders in the Hudson's Bay Company." Why, we ask?
So far as Canada is concerned, the walrus may revel in his home of urine, and
the whaie play in the whue sea foam, or fall into the hands of the American
fishermen, who have a market for their returns.

The temperature of the .vaters that abound in every part of the Dominion
is peculiarly favorable to the breeding and production of fibh on a stupendous
scale. The tepid waters of Southern American rivers produce alligators and
.such like, while ours furnish whitefish and hundreds of other valuable kinds,
which, if rightly guarded and developed, will prove worth millions upon millions
annually. With whiiefish eggs captured at the rate of one cent per thousand,
and those oi the pickerel, at one and a quarter cents, and scores of othei kinds,
at a somewhat similar ratio, and favorable feeding grounds for the young fry,
the limit of production in our inland fisheries is bounded only by the limit of
human application. Give us a Southern market for our fish, and the impulse
will at once be felt ihroughout the entire fishing grounds of the whole
Dominion,

Our country, with commendable zeal, is encouraging the propagation of
fish in all our waters ; would that we could say she showed a like zeal in the open-
i.ig up of a market. Last year she .spent $44,038 in the promotion of fish

Betivecu Canada and the Uniteii States.

breeding, and with the most gratifying results, and when we reflect that the
average number of egj;s furnished by a sahnun ranges from 4570 to 10,720
eggs, and other kinds ui prop ition, we need have wo fear but that our fish-
eries will continually advance with proper management.

Of our fish, the Americans are by far the largest consumers. Of the
$6,843,388 exported during the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1S86, $2,'587,548
went to the United States, or more than 37 per cent, of the whole, forcing their
way over a larififwall of 30 (ler cent., ami costing the poor fishermen, as we
have already said, no IcsS than 50 per cent, by the time he gets his goods back
again. For 20 years the Nova Scotians have been trying to impress upon us
the disadvantages of their position, and failing to get the desired redress, they
are now threatening to take it into their own hands. And is there any won-
der Listen to the testimony of an intelligent eye-witness, on the spot, a
resident of New Glasgow for years, whose name we can give. He says : —

" The real fact is, that luiless we can get some measure ot reciprocity with
the United States, we will be forced 'mo annexation. We cannot go on under
the present strain; the thing will br'.ak ; we might as well open a steam bakery to
feed a mouse as to expect to develop even the iron mines of Picti u County,
by supplying the market offering in Canada for iron. If it was not for the
market we have in the United States at present, even in the face of 15 cents
per bu.shel on potatoes, 20 per cent, on horses, etc., and for the money sent
home by the young men and women who have left the old folks on the farms,
and gone to the United States to work — if it were not for these, our land would
soon be desolate."

Partial depopulation cannot but follow such a state of affairs. If young
men and women are constrained to leave the land of their nativity to sup[iort
the old folks at home in the steading or the cabin, "unoccupied" will be found
written on the old farm house and cabin door when the old folks are gone, for
young men and maidens are not goin^ to return to rear the pillar of their
jiomes in a country, the commercial disabilities of which forced them into ban-
ishment before they had reached their majority. The land which furnishes
them with the means to smooth the declining pathway for the old folks, as they
journey toward the realm of the setting sun, will be the land in which they
themselves will live and die, and be buried, far away from the country that con-
tains their fathers' and their forefathers' graves.

The question of the Fisheries is one that has vexed the currents of treaty
stipulations between the United States and Canada, and more than once has
almost plunged the elder and younger brothers of our revered parent beyond
the sea into the horrors of a fratricidal war. There is less danger of this now
than in the years gone by, for the Anglo Saxon world is getting far wiser in
this respect, as she advances in age, yet the relations on this' question are
always strained, and we grow no nearer to a basis of a satisfactory settlement,
pther than that which commercial union affords, than we were a century ago,

Plain Talks on Commercial Union

Give the people of the Maritime Provinces and British Columbiaa free market for
their fish info the United States, and the privilege of trading there, and give
the Americans the privilege of access to our fishing grounds, on equitable terms,
and the problem is solved. And we have many reasons for believing that in
this way it would be solved by the people of those countries if permitted to
solve it^ or themselves.

A 30 per cent, tariff one way, and a 20 per cent, the other is not enough
to bar the trade between the Maritime Provinces and the United States. Like
the higher and lower currents of ingre-ss and egress of the waters of the Atlan-
tic into the Mediterran'.an through the Straits of Gibraltar, the currents of
ingress and egress from those provinces flows over and under the intervening
tariff walls in a ceaseless stream, thus draining the sources of their material pros-
perity, till these have well nigh become shattered cisterns, broken and dry.
For the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1886, Nova Scotia imported from the
United States in the following items of breadstuffs for home consumption :

VALUE. DUTY.

Beans $ 1262 $ 100

Indian Corn 54.224 8,433

Products lT Indian Corn 202,801 33.642

Wheat Flour 58,765 7,291

$317,052 $49,466

Quebec even fared worse. The flour she imported from the United States
for home consumption cost her $427,255, on which she paid a duty of
$54,323. Now, Ontario could have furnished all the.se save the Indian meal,
but the opponents of commercial union fail to perceive that commerce, like
water, will not flow upstream, and that where this is attempted, as in the case
of water, it can be done only at an enormous outlay.

It Will Benefit the Lumbermen.

Canada will be famous for her lumbering when the timber supply of all
other countries to the south of her shall have been almost completely removed.
It is not that the supi^ly in itself is exhaustless, but that the nature of the soil
and climate where much of this timber is grown preclude cultivation that is
profitable, so that when one crop is removed it is only a question of time and
of protection from the vandalism of man and beast, until a slaughtered
forest will resurrect itself, and reclaim its ancient domain. There are thousands
of acres now, where the starving settler vainly tries to digout a livelihood between
large stones that are in everlasting possession, which would furnish a handsome
rental to some proprietor wise enough to allow it to reclothe itself, and patient
enough to wait for a return. She has her timber limits now, where every few
years a crop of the largest trees are removed, soon to be replaced by young
brethren. The day is coming when men will stand sentry in those lonely places

Between Canada and the United States.

guarding tiiis precious heritage from all intruders with a jealous care. The areas
of cuuntiy that can thus be devoted to the raising of timber are numbered by
hundreds of thousands of square miles, so that it will always be a matter of first
importance to Canada to have an unblockaded market for herexports of timber.

Although the giant trees— the pride of Ontario— are gone, and the lordly
pines of the Ottawa Valley are no more, trees of nobler stature and forests
equally magnificent and vast await the axe of the lumberman to the extent of
thousands of miles on Rocky Mountain slopes, and in the recesses of British
Columbia, where forests to the extent of probably 200,000 square miles are yet
undisturbed. Across the region ascending to the height of land between
Quebec and Ontario and Hudson's Bay, interminable forests still shade the
rocks in summer, though the trees are less in stature than those of the south in
other years. Lower Canada, south of the St. Lawrence, is pretty well stripped,
it is true, but she his the capacity for growing thousands of acres ; and the
streams of New Brunswick still teem with logs of commerce in the rafting sea-
son. Within the domain of Canada there are no less than ninety-five species
of foi?st trees, most of which may be utilized in civilized life, and hundreds of
thousands of these are annually cut down to rot or to be consumed by the flames
in clearing and other processes, because there are no manufactories sufficiently
near to turn them into furniture, and this lack of mafriufactories is largely owing
to the lack of a market for the furniture when made.

The lumbermen of Canada still drive an enormous business. The exports
to the United States for the fiscal >. •^r, ending June 30th, 1886, were no less
than $8,545,406, and this was sent over in the face of a duty of $2.00 per
thousand, which was lost to the lumbermen of Canada. This is nearly the
price of sawing the lumber, so that comparing the present state of things with
a free market for lumber into the United States, the thousands and tens of
thousands paid to the workhands, who sawed this lumber, were all or nearly all
thrown away. If the manufacturers of lumber know the cost of putting their
logs into lumber after they are at the mill, and doubtless they do, they will
then have an approximate idea of what they lose every year by not having free
access to the United States markets.

It would Give a Great Stimulus to the Mining In-
dustry.

The mineral wealth of Canada is simply enormoii;:. The amount of coal,
iron, copper, nickel and other minerals deposited in her hills are beyond all es-
timate. It is very probable that the wealth of this country buried beneath its
surface will outweigh the value of the surface soils, rich as the? are over wide
areas, and well adapted as they are to produce bountifully for man and
beast. To read a summary of our geological reports sounds more like some
fairy tale than the logic of sober fact, and yet we know the men who made the

■Mi

ifi.

Plain Taik^ on Commercial Union

surveys, Sir William K. Logan, Alfred R. C. Selwyn, Geo. M. Davidson, Al-
exander Murray, and their associ.iles, held their reputation far too dear to risk
its abrasion by the publishing of reporu intended simply to excite and dazzle
the imngioation.

ISot miiiy years gone by, even we as a people nior^" than half believed that
vhcn we gvit a little way to the north of the St. Lawrence in Queliec, and the
l.e fiht of land in Central Ontario, and that when we reached the north shores of
Lakes Huron and Superior there was little else to he found than the dreary
wilderness, which Divine Providence had given forever to the wild fox in his
rambles and to the red Jeer as a browsing ground, but lo f instead we find
mountains of imn and nils of copper. I"he rocks of the wilderness are im-
pregnated with a wealth so profuse that the treasures of a Crresus sink into in-
significance when comrjared to the wealth of a single square mile of this rocky
surface, that can be picked up for $2 per acre by any one desirous of investing.
Why, then, is all this magnificence of wealth, a thousand times more than the
national debt of the confederation, allowed to be undisturbed? Yes, that is
it, will the opponents ofcommercial union tell us^ why? A man might die a pauper
and be buried by his neiglibors, although he owned miles of this mineral
wealth, so long as the market of the coantry would not pay him for disembow-
elling and preparing it for the market, which is just about our position as a
country in relation to our minerals.

Let us look at this matter more minutely. Take the item of coal. The
availaiile coal of Cape Breton alone, not much larger than a good-sized county,
is estimated at 800,000,000 tons. In Nova Scotia the seams of the coal, as
Mr. G. Johnsori tells us, are in some parts from six to more than thirty-four feet
thick, and the area of the coal region of the Maritime Provinces is no less than
tS.ooo souare miles. As to the N. W. Provinces, Dr. Geo M. Dawson,
of the geological survey, says, "The known area of true lignite coals of the
'• ijest quality extends along the base of the Rocky Mountains from the 49th
" parallel to the vicinity of the Peace River, a distance of 500 miles, with an
" av^r-ige width of, say 100 miles, giving a total area of 50,000 square miles."
An additional area of 15,000 square miles, ex'ending east as far as the Souris
River, and Turtle Mountains, yields lignite of good quality. The estimated
outcrop of eighteen miles of coal banks on the Belly River is 99,000,000 tons.
The workable coal in the vicinity of Medicine Hat is estimated at 150,000,000
tons, the Horse Shoe Bend seam is put at 49,01x3,000 tons, and the Blackfoot
Crossing seam at 270,000,000 tons. In the vicinity of the Bow River at Grassy
Island, the esiimnle for one mile in width is 330,000,000 tons, or " equivalent
" to an output of i,ooo,coo tons for a period of 300 years," and much of it
lying so near the surface that the seams have been laid open and bare by cur-
rents of th: rivers, and in hundreds of thousands of other instances the out-
crops reach the surface along the Bow, Belly, St. Mary, Red Deer, and Old
Man rivers, and throughout the intervening country. Nor should it be forgottea

Between Canada and the Vniicd States.

that in the United States across the border there is a dearth of this material.
Many Suctions of tlic Rocky Mountains aro serrated \\ith coal seams, which
.some d ly will be of inestimable value in smelting the metalliferous deposii.-;
which are known to be numerous there, nnd much of the coal is anthracite of
the btst quality. The Vancouver Island bituminous coal is the best in quality
on the Pacific coast, and practically unlimited in (juantiry ; and the tertiary
lignite-beaiing rocks of British Columbia are estiuiaied at 12,000 si|uare miles.
The estimates of the coal areas as yet known put them at about 100,000
square miles, or covering a country more than 300 miles square, which gives
us a coal iield co:isiderably larger than the whole of England and Scotland,
and of greater extent than all the inhabited country in the Province of Ontario,
while our consumption at the present time is only 3,515,769 tons per annum,
Canada has coals enough to smelt all her mountains of iron and hills of cop-
per, and to warm a hundred generations yet to be ; but why should it be used
in preparing iron or copper for a market which does not exist ?

Iron is found in great abundance in many parts of the Dominion, The
iron ores of Clreat Britain are, as a rule, less rich and not so easy of access as
those of Nova Scotia, *vhere the coal for smelting is found in close proximity,
and limestone in great abundance. In the hills of central Ontario magnetic
ores literally abound, one of which in South Crosby forms a bed 200 feet thick,
but the silence of death reigns around them, for the duty on the export of the
ore, and the carriage, are prohibitory. In the Province of Quebec are large and
valuable deposits. There is a hill of, iron not far from the city of Ottawa,
which it is estimated would yield 100 tons a. day for 150 years, and still be un-
exhausted. At the Hull or P)aldwin mines not far from Ottawa on the Sague-
ney, the estimate is put at 100,000,000 tons, with 67 per cent, of iron in the
ore. This would yield 100 tons of ore during every working day for 3,194
years. Hills of iron are found on Big Island in Lake Winnipeg. Cireat
masses of iron ore exist in British Columbia, and lying in close proximity to
the coal fields of Nanaimo. Magnetic, hematite and titanic ores of this pre-
cious metal abound in nC'arly all the Provinces, so that there can be but little
doubt now that in this valuable metal Canada is to-day the richest country in
the world. And yet in 18S1, in smelting furnaces and steel making, we had
but $490,000 invested, and employed but 778 workmen, with an output of only
$914,769, while in a single state, Michigan, and by one iron mining company
in that State, the Menominee company, the output m the one year of 1883 was
$24,000,000.

In the possession of copper ore, Canada ranks first amongst the nations.
It is found in New Brunswick. Nova Scotia contains it in large quantities,
'• oeven times as rich as the ore of the famous Plecla mires," and in conjunc-
tion with more than safficient coal to smell it. In the Eastern townships
it has been traced in 557 locations. It abounds in many placts ak-ng the
Kingston and Pembroke line of railway. {Masses of it are found in

Plain Talki on Commercial Union

various parts of British Columbia, and the region north of I^ikes Huron and
Superior are supposed to contain more of this valuat'le mettl than the whole of
the I'nited States. Vet the mo^-t of this stupf;ndous wealth is lying undisturb-
ed ill the mines. A tariff of 7.],2. cents per pound on the ore on entering the
United States, is a rather effectual barrier, and hence we read that operations in
some of the mines in the Eastern townships " have been suspended."

While there is the siillrtess of the grave in many parts of that magnificent
region on the north sho es of Lakes Huron and Superior, witness the activity
on the south shores i \ the State of Michiijan. There the hills have been
serrated and honeycor ibed ; and the amount of ore crushed every day by the
Calumet and Hecla craipany is no less than 2,200 tons. Although the ore
yitlds but 4/2 to 5 per cent, of copper, not half so rich as that upon the north
shore, the company during its existence of about 20 years has paid a dividend
of some $3o,(KK),oofJ, on an invested capital of less for many years than $1,-
200,000. With all this wonderful activity, which is mainly responsible for the
calling into existence of the town of Calumet, containing 10,000 inhabitants,
the copper mines of the whole Dominion exported but 5,^24 tons of ore to the
United States last year, or less than would be crushed by the machinery of the
Hecla mine in three days.

But it is not in these alone that our mineral wealth consists. Hundreds
of millions of tons of nickel ore are found on the north shores of Lake Huron
and in other parts of the Dominion ; while the whole supply in the United
States has been obtained from one deposit, owned by a single individual near
Philadelphia, and yielding but .02 per cent, of the metal^ Canada possesses
enough of this metal to supply the continent for generations, but it must nearly
all lie in the mmes in the meantime, for the United States duty on it is
15 cents per pound.

At Thunder Bay and the Nepigon region north of Lake Superior and in
British Columbia are valuable lead mines, also along the Kingston and Pem-
broke and Central Ontario railways, but it is left to lie where the past ages
placed it, for the United States tariff against lead is more than half its
value. Our mines of apatite are numerous and rich, particularly in Ontario
and Quebec, and are the purest in the world. The United States admits this
free, and a splendid trade has sprung up. Gypsum abounds in Nova Scotia,
New Brunswick, Ontario and the North-West territories. The Ottawa
Valley is a *' huge storehouse of mica," and for this metal a variety of uses are
being discovered. Salt abounds in Western Ontario, and on the Slave River
in the North-West territories is a tract of country, which would take half a day
to cross, supposed to be one vast deposit of salt. Then we have minerals, used
as pigments, minerals for building, for grinding and polishing, and for a hun-
dred other purposes in a profusion that is almi^st bewildering. We have
marble and granite to build palaces for the living, and to stand sentinel by the
dead. Minerals, such as are used in all or nearly all the arts requiring them,

Between Canada and the United States.

that are known to any country, to say nothing of the immense wealth vjf our
mines of {,'nld and silver.

iJut wliat will all this avail us if we are shut ^ut from a market ? We can
use these lavish gifts so lavishly bestowed, only up to the limit of our wants,
beyond which they must lie in the mines where the agitated elements placed
them, the only consolation left to us beinj; the tnought that they will noi
perish there, and that they will better serve those who will live after us, >
may be wise enough to utilize the markets of a continent rather than of a sec-
tion of it. Multiply our present market by twelve, and what unparalleled
activity would manifest itself over those wilderness regions I

E, Coste, M. E., in his observations on "The mining laws and mining in
Canada " (see Geological and Natural History Survey of Canada for (885)
mourns over the want of development of our mines in the following language :
*' Why so little mining activity in this country, so rich in mmeral resources, and
'* in which so many mining regions have long since been discovered ? Why have
"so many mining schemes failed, and why, in several parts of Canada, have
"good mines been abandoned, which will eventually be again worked with
"profit? How explain that several mining districts, where splendid discov-
" eries were made years ago, are yet comparatively unexplored ? " He endeav-
ers to account for it in the fact that large tracts have been bought up by specu-
lators, and held. It never seems to have occured to the mind of Mr. Coste,
that the true reason was a restricted market. Speculators always sell when
there is a brisk demand. Thousands of acres of valuable mineral areas at the
time of that writing were still unsold by the Government.

An attempt has been made by our legislature to stimulate the iron industry,
but it can prove only partially successful. The degree of its success will bs up
to that limit, the extent of home consumption, beyond which it cannot go. We
can ascertain that limit. In 18S6, the imports of iron and steel and manufac-
tures thereof, for home consumption, amounted to $11,053, 365 ; and we have
already shown that the annual output of the Menominee Mming Company m
1S83, was $24,ooo,ocxD, which did not include the after manufactures from the
iron it produced. The total annual consumption of iron at the present time,
is put by the minister of Finance at 250,000 tons, which would require to pro-
duce it 750,000 tons of ore, or but 2,396 tons per day ; and we have already
shown that the Menominee Mining Company reduces 2,200 tons of ore per day.
The company, at present operating at Londonderry, have but to place their
operations on a scale equal to those of the Michigr '■ mpany already referred
to, and the output will supply the whole of Can.ad^ . ' his, they may easily do,
for the capital employed by the former company has at no time exceeded $2,-
500,000, ncjt withstanding the enormous dividends which they have made.

It is true, another company may start up in some other region, but the
output can be no more than the requirements of the country, and so no more
work will be done, and no more hands employed than if all were done by the

Plain Talks on Commercial Union

one company. But, give us access to the Ignited States, which as yet largely
imports iron, and we would have roum for half-a-dozen such piRantic industries.
Giveusa iiiaike*, and nur nianutacturers of iron c«ndd more than hold theii
own with the Americans, for coal and iron in immoasuraLle quantity occupy
different compartir eiits of the same house in Canada, on the shores of both the
Allantic and the "acific, while the Americans liave to convey their iron ore
from Michigan tc Httsburg to get the coal to manufacture it, or vice versa.

f]y the charge made in the tarift last winter, in the removal of o' - ''nty on
anthracite coal for smelting, with a view to the development of the ire .siry

in Ontario, the revenue of $497,000 was lost. The change may have been a
step in the right direction, but until we get a wider market it will not avail, for
our iron products cannot climb the United States tariff wall. The duty into
that country on pi^j iron is $6 per ton :• puddled bars, $16.00 ; bar iron spike
rod, $16.00 to $22.00 ; thick hoops and sheets, $20.00 ; thin hoops and .sheets,
$28.00 per ton.

Not only must tliis stimulus soon reach its limit, as in the case with the
cotton industry, Ijiit see who will pay for it, every consumer of iron in the
country. The manufacturers of iron will have the regulation of the price, and
all the additional duty, or nearly all of it, will be paid by the consumers; or, in
other words, one industry of the country will flourish at the expense of a large
proportion of the community at large.

The farmeis are very large consumers of iron. It enters into th' imposi-
tion of almost every implement they use, and hence, as usual, th istries
are made to flourish very largely at their expense. But care is tak^. . A the
machinery used in the construction of the works employed in those industries
is admitted free. In this way, machinery to the extent of $2,950,000 has been
admitted free during the last two decades, while the farmer must pay full tale
for the machinery which he may require, equally useful in its way.

The iron industry in the United Slates has made gigantic strides. The
number of workhands employed yearly is 140,775 ; wages' paid, $65,000,000.
the value of raw material, $191,000,000, and the product $296,ooo,fX)0, while
in Canada our workhands have barely got into the thousands, and cur total
output is as yet probably not more than one-thirtieth to the one-sixtieth part,
for we have already stated that in 1881 our output in the manufacture of iron
was but $914,769.

This difTerence should not exist. During the last nineteen years we have
paid out no less than $13,326,869 a year for iron and steel, and the manufac-
tures thereof, and we did all this, while millions and millions of tor.s of it lay
undisturbed in the mines, coal in abundance, fluxes, labor, and half a dozen
kinds of ore, hut we labored under a fatal disability, that of a circumscribed
market, and therefore the requisite capital in manufacturing has not come.
Sir Charles Tupper, in hiji budgetspeechof last session, says : "The develop-
ment of this industry in supplying the wants of Canada, will give employment

Bftiveen Canada and the I'nikd Si dis.

4«;

to :!0,ooo men, and increase the population trom 8u,cxx> to loo.noo, not In
cludiiij.; *' the manufacturer of caslinjjs, forginjis, cutlc-ry and edgtd tools, liard-
ware, machinery, engines or steel rail^)." [fe goes on losay, "were we tomanu-
fadure these articles now imporltKl — and there is no reason why we should not
steadily pro;'ress to that puint-the population I have mentioned of ioo.uckj
souls would be no less than trebled." Sir Charles is doubtless right. Add to
ti.is number the additional tlumsands that might be engaged in the mimufacture
of copper and nickel, under comn)ercial union, in extracting petroleum from
its cr.verns, and refining it, hont-ycombing the earth fur marbles, soapstone,
emery and one thousand uthe; things. We niight fairly look for an impetus to
be given to manufactures such as this generation could never have hoped for
under present conditions, and millions added to our population.

Its Effects upon the Industries Not Prejudicial.

Some persons argue that the adoption of commercial union with the
United States will affect our industries adversely. Others maintain just as
stoutly that it will be beneficial to them ; that on account of the development
of resources that will follow the opening up of a large market, such a stimulus
would be given to them as had never been known before. Very probably both
are right in a sense. There is but little doubt that there would be some de-
Vangement of our industries as thev exist at present, or those who represent
ihcm, more especially those who represent the manufacturing portion of them
would not be so strongly in opposition. Many of them have grown up under
the shadow of a protective system, and like a son setting out in life who has
learned to rely upon the successive instalments that come from home rather
than upon his own efforts, they n.itura'/ drt;ad the withdrawal of this foster-
ing or pampering hiand, we scr.cely know which, and therefore array them-
selves in opposition. But it is not so with all of them. There is a strong and in-
fluential minority (we can give the names), embracing in their number some of
the foremost, and we need scarcely add the most self-reliant, of our manufac-
turers. This is an argument that has not as yet entered very largely into the
discussion, although it is one of much signifi-'ance. If a strong contingent of
the manufacturers would rather have commercial union for the sake of the
larger market, then one of the strongest arguments of those who oppose the
movement is removed. The secretary of the Manufacurers' Association of
Ontario gathered statistics in reference to this feature. Why has he not
published the:ie ? Are we not justified in inferring that so many of the answers
were unfavorable that he concluded it wouid be impolitic to take this step ?

The protective system can only operate beneficially under certain condi-
tions. It is not equally well adapted to all countries. The economic history
of Great Britain and the United Stares has made this unanswerable for all
time. Protectionists who ignore these facts and try to make their system

V I

Plain Talh'^ on Commercial Union

eqmlly applicab!' to all and to any conditions make a great mistake, for, car-
rying their argument to its logical conclusions in this aspect of it would rendeir
it advisable for each province within a State to adopt the system of protecting
itself against each and all of the other provinces. In its application to the
Dominion, the Maritime Provinces would erect a <;arift*waU agiinst Quebec
and ugainst each other ; Quebec against Ontario and Ontario against Quebec ;
and so of all the others The policy of our Government has been the veiy op-
posite of this. It has constructed highways for trade in the form of railways
and canals, at enormous expense, that the different pmvinces might be enabled
to uade with one another ; and, so far, it ".-u.s in the line of duty. And did
we possess a country lying geographically as the United States, almost any
portion of it inhabitable, and self contained as it were in its resources, it might
be profitable to continue the policy that shuts out the trade of outside nations.
The United States furnishes the best example in all the world of the beneficial
effects of a protective system and of one of free trade, in that she has protected
herself against the outside world and niospered amazingly, and has at the same
time enjoyed the utmost freedom in her inter-state trade, and the individuals
of which she is composed have flouiished equally well Now the
different Provi>ices of Canadi, owing to their geographical location,
contiguity to certain of the States of the Union, and remoteness from other
members of the confederation, make it as clear as day that the natural chan-
nels of trade lie between them and the former, rather than between them and
the latter. Such being the case, the conclusion is irresistible, that if a tariff'
wall around the United Sip.tes, and the utmost freedom in trade between the
States themi;elve?'., has led to the most wonderful prosperity of each State and of
the country as a whole, by extending that wall around the Dominion, and
allowing the same freedom of trade between the Provinces and the Sates of the
Union Individually and collectively, it would equally conduce to the pros-
jierity of the wliole country, especially when the natural resources of the one
country are as good as those of the other.

The protective system can be operative only under certain conditions :

1. There must be a necessity for protecting industries against the compe-
tition of cheap labor.

2. There must be a similar necessity loi protecting them fr.>m the power
of large investments of capital, enabling those who have so invested to
produce more cheaply through the extent of their production.

3. There must be a market.

Where the natura' resources arc equal or nearly so, and the labor
conditions are very similar, the argument for the necessity for protec-
tion ceases. This argument shows the wisdom of keeping up our pro-
tective wr;!i against E^ngland and throwing U down on the United States
northen^ boundary line, for while wages of workmen in England are 25
to 50 per cent, less than \-\ Canada, they are not in advance of those of the

■ \

Between CanCiJa and the United States

United States, as will appear fmm the following comparison : In 1S80 in the
Ea^itern States, composing Maine, Conncciicut, Massachusetts, New Yoric,
New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, the average wages paid and materials used in a
product amounting to $100 was $81. u. In the '^ameyeai in the western States,
including Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri Ohio and Wisconsin, the averager
was $81.50, while in Ontario in 18S1, the figures uot being attainable for 1S80,
the average paid was $77.05, so that in cost of production in producing goods to
the amount o{ $100 our people had the advantage over the States named of
$4.25, in itself a very satisfactory profit. Why, then, with materials which
cuit less, labor no dearer, better transit facilities, manufactories nearer the
base of supplies, and a people whose natural chilities have enabled them fully
to hold their own upon American soil, can our manufactories as a whole not
hold their own agpmst those of the United States?

The second reason is not so easily set aside. For a time it might react un-
favorably to the weaker of our manufacturers, but only for a time, for as nrms
grow strong, and there is opportunity, it is th- tendency of things for them to
create branches where a mark'::t opens, and Sf> save the expense of transit long
distances. Thus it is that Scotch firms have planted manufactories in the
United States and Canada to supply the trade in sewing cottons, and it is an
open secret that even now some of our largest establishments are run by Amer-
ican capital. There is no saying to what extent this would be done in this
country under our protective system, were it not that the absence of a market
forbids it.

Certain it is, that this difficulty has been overcome in the western Siatts,
and also in those of the South, where, since the war, manufactures are
rapidly growing. The New England States were strongly entrenched behind
their flourishing manufactories long before those of the western States had a
being, yet it cannot b^i denied thit those of the west and s.iu.h aie now flour-
ishing beyond those of the east. It is idle to say that eastern capital has dene
all this, for, though it had, the benefits of the manufactories established in
these new centres flow out in all directipns all the same. The matter of prime
importance is to get manufactories, let the capital come whence it will, where
tiiereisa market to sustain them.

Compare the growth of Ontario with that of Michigan, and it will be found
that Michigan has a decided advantage in tne tale of development she has to
toll, althoMgh Ontario has a long way the advantage in her natural resc.urces.
In 1810 the popu'ation of Michigan was 4.762, that of Ontario.) ■j'j.Oiyx In
i88i the population of M chigan was 1,636,937, and of Ontario 1,920,337 ;
but observe that while the increase of population from 1840-50 in Michigan
was 185,000 against 518,000 in Ontario, from 1870-80, the increase was 452,-
oc;o. as against 302,000 in the latter. The manufactures of the two States
during the same period compare \..ms :

Value of manufactures in Ontario in :

Plain Talhs on OmiDiercial Cnion

i88;
1871,

h 57,989,870
114,706,799

Increase 43,282,071

Michigan.

1S81 $150,715,025

1871 94,716,741

Inciease 55,998,284

In Ontario th" rAte of increase was but 38 per cent.; in Michigan 59 per
cent. In Ohio during the same derade, 61 per cent., and in Ihiuois 152 pet
cent. Now all these Stales had no protp-ticn the one apjair.st the other, nor
had those«cf the west as a w hole any prelection against the older sections of
the east, and yet they left our banner Province so ^-r behind in the race, that
the comparison must bring the crimson to the cht of any high-minded Can-
adian.

Now while it may not be an exact parallel to single out one State from the
other Slates of the Union, as it might be objected that there are phe-
nomenal reasons for its growth, there can be no such objection in comparing
growth in one group of States with growth in another of them. Yet in the
comparison we have made between Michigan and Ontario, the latter had the
advantage in almost every sense of the term. A comparison of the progress of
the manufaciures of the Western States, with those of the east, which had
grown strong in the developnent of a full manhood before the others had been
born, will show how little Ontario has to fear from American competition, for
it cannot be said that the industries of Ontario are in their infancy now. We
shall represent the Eastern States by Massachusetts, New York and Pennsyl-
vania, ami those of the west by Illinois, Ohio and Michigan. The compari-
son stands thus :

VALUE OK MATERIALS.

Eastern States.

1S30 $ 307,718,822

i860 503,344,480

1S70 966,141,686

1880 i,5:^i,6"5,763

VAUE OK PRODUCTS.
Eastern States.

1850 $ 550,386,153

i860 924,538,049

1870 1,640,801,251

1880 2,456,050.325

PER CENT. OK INCREASE IN J'KODU' :l S.

Eastern States. Western States

1850-60 66 134

1860-70 77 124

187U-80 30 92

Western States,

$ 49,773,674
122,994,663
282,299,431
598,078,434

Western States.

$ 90,3'AS,553
211,840,390
474,.)84,i67
913,878,088

Betiveen CiiiiaJa arid the United States.

The reason for this state of things, is surely plain. In the west there was
a large market, wnich the descending ratio of the»per centage ofincrease in the
west proves, for we have no doubt but that if the facts were fully known the
ratio of increase in pjpulalion, or in other words, the au;i of the market, has
not kept pace wi.h the development of the uianuractures.

It is idle, then, to expect any very great development in our industries,
other than we possess, unless we get a market, It can only keep pace with
the slow development of the country under present conditions. Progress,
then, must be laboriously slow, fur while our population is filtering away haif
as fast as it comes ir, our country cannot develop rapidly. So long as in our
inter-provincial trade we are content to journey over the two sides of the
triangle rather than take the third side, we must sutler the consequences.
Manufacturers in the Western 'Stales must leave those of ours in the North-
west quite in the shade, when the rate of increase in the population is so diiler-
ent. Six years ago it is said that the population of IJakota and the North-west
were equal, now that of Dakota is 600,000, and of our North-west about
150,000. Amid such conditions plant manufactures in the North west and
protect them with a wall over which none can climb, and feed them with
bonuses until they are nauseated, and tax the farmers to enable ihem to add
monopoly to the bonuses, but give them no outside market, and manufacturer
planted in a State developing like Dakota \^ ill leave them nowT'jre.

No, we must draw the line carefully between orotecting an industry and
fostering a monopoly. It is the mission of protection, as has l.iecu well said
by one of itr, best friends on the continent, the Hon. Mr. Butterworth, "it is
" the mission of protection to guard infant industries against unequal conditions
of comp'jti'iryn, but not those full grown and able to take care of themselves."
The principle of protection is only oper.ative until the demand 13 tilled, then
the manufacturer must stay his hand until more is wanted. We have amole
evidence of this in our midst. This has already led to periods of suspension
in the operations of our cotton mills, and to the adopcion of the plan of running
on partial time in others of our uidusiries. F'lant but one estaDlishmenl such as
the Cleveland Iron Works in our midsi, and the product is sutiicient for the
wants of the whole Dominion. In a market that is easily glutted there is small
encouragement for capitalists to invest their money, knowing they can only go
so far, when the limit of profitable production is reached. The Protectionist
should not forget that " when he shuts out a competitor by his walls, he shuts
"in his own market, and the walls may soon become too narrow," Prof.
Goldwin Smith has said "the necessary eflecis of tht prut(jclive system in
•' Canada rre misdirection of capital and industry, financial delicit, dearncss of
'• living, and conse(|uent depopulation," conclusions which are amply verified
in the (Condition of our country to-day.

Until the doors of the other markets are thrown wide open iu us, wc need
not expect a large inflow of capital, nor the planting o'" new industries m our

^,-„— l.^^^-

Plain Talks on Commercial Union

midst, especially those of a character which can easily supply the market under
the present contliiions. Tal^ the manufacture of ntedles^ (or instance. One
establishment of this kind, wtll equipped, would suffice to supply the whole
Dominion in the couvse of three months, and would have to shut down for the
remaining; nine months of the year. Where is the capitalist in the face of this
fact who would care to invest his money in the manufacture of needles, and so of
other br inches of manufacture ?

The strong arguments adduced infavor of protecting our industriesare(i)that
they increase population by affording employment for the workmen, and (2) that
they thus benefit the farmer by causing an increased demand for his products,
or in other words, by furnishing him with a better home market. There can
be no question of the truth of the first proposition up to a certain limit. So
long as it can be shown that protection has a tendency to increase our manufac-
tures, this argument is so far valid, but if there come a time when it can be shown
that protection has the opposite effect, then it may legitimately be used as a
weapon against itself, a gun that may be employed in the demolition of tne
protection wall* We hold that that point has been reached in the history of
protection in this country. It has already fulfilled its mission, and, like the
swaddling clothes that protect the infant, should be thrown aside when it
has outgrown their use. Stagnation is brooding over the waters of our manu-
factu.'ing stream ; open to us the markets of the United States ; a tirst effect
would be motion on those stagnant waters ; a second, life, as the result of
motion, and a third the influx of u stream of prosperity as the result of life, and
the influx of a busy population in numerous centres as the result of prosperity.

That they benefit the farmer in a sense is evident, Lut it is a benefit for which
he may be made to pay too dear. If he is made to pay 25 per cent, more for
what he buys from abroad, then his gain is a very doubtful one, and if, by do-
ing this, he is putting the manufacturer in a position to tax him, it may be this
amount extra on the goods he sells him, or even half this amount through com-
bination to fix a price, and only gets in compensation the small increase in
price for his products, which the small increase in population gives him, his
gains are must assuredly on the wrong side.

To illustrate in another way : In 1881, the number of farmers in the Dom-
inion was 464,025. The number of servants employed by them could not have
beenlesslhar. twice that rmmoer, and, allowing in addition for children, the rural
population, acccrding to the proportion based uj on Ontario returns for 1885,
could not have been less than 2,729,546, out of a total population 014,324,810,
or more than two-thirds of the whole.

The number of workmen employed by the industries of all kinds wa^
254i935- Now, without protection this number would still have been pretty
large, for we had manufacturers who had become millionaires before the intro-
duction of protection, and who employed large numbers of men. The advan-
tage to the farmer, then, would be the increased purchasing power of the

JJiiiveen Ccuiaaa and the Uniied States.

additional workhands which protection brought, and their families, so far as the
farmer's products were concerned. The revenue collected that yenr from goods
imported from the United States for home consamption, aMounting lo
$36,704,1 12, was $5,657,292. If our estimate of the rural portion il the pop.
ulation is correct, it paid more than two-thirds of thiy sum for the protection of
the manufacturer, and was shut out from a market to the extent of $36,86(3,225,
unless by climbmg over a high tariff wall to get access to it. There need be no
doubt here as to who had the advantage.

Protecting the industries of a country where the market is prescribed,
gives them every opportunity of combining. This is one of its most pernicious
features. With the increased duty on iron, |the smelters thereof owing to their
limited number, can easily combine and put up the price of their goods to the line
of tariff admission, and who shall say that they must not ? So it is in a hun-
dred other lines. The rutal portion of the population is taxed to support all
this, and worse than all, in the outlying Provinces a double lax is put upon
them in extortionate rates, which they are forced to pay, because of the lack of
competition. It is, therefore, absolutely indefensible to say that a customs line
is necessary from sea to sea, to sustain our industries, when results so injurious
to the rural populations are the result. Thecunsumersof any one article should
not be made to pay an artiticiallv enhanced price for it, unless you give some
adequate compensation, which shall increase the purchasing power of the con-
sumer. This has not been done in the case of our rural populations, who,
owing to their numbers and the importance of their work, are surely entitled
to as much consideration as the other class.

Why talk about "sacrificing" our industries by the adoption of commercial
union ? Is not the sacrifice nearly all the other way ? The exports of Ontario
in 1886 to the United States, are as bei- v :

Products of the Mine $3,115,696

" " Sea .... 2,587,548

'< " Forest 8,545,406

Animals and their food 6,742.789

Agricultural p-oducts 8,753,140

Manufactures 1,758, 7^*7

$3i..S03.2<)-^

Here, then, we have those who export to the extent of $20,744,38^ taxed
to uphold those who ex [)ort to the extent i)f $1,758,707.

It m.iy be urged that the manufacturers produce very much more largely
than they export to the United States, for home con:,umption. ."^o do the other
classes, notably the farmers, who ai the same time have tc pay the manufactur-
ers more for their goods than if there was no Southern customs lint a! aU, for
in such an event they would have things less their own way.

We want the industries We wan! ihem two-fold more than wo liave

Plain Talks on Commercial Unioti

them ; yes, three fold. No country can thrive so well without them. We want
them protected where it is necessary, as against cheap European labor, but do
not want them at the expense of the sacrifice of the interests of another class
which far outnumbers them, and which have at least an equal right lo a fair
share in the prosperity of the commonwealth.

If the farmers of Ontario are not afraid of the competition of the farmers
of the Un ted Slates, why should manufacturers be more faint hearted than the
farmers ''

The total value of the live-stock of the United States on January ist,
1887, wf.s $2,400,586,9.38. That of the live-stock of the Province of Ontario at
the same date, was $107,208,935 ; and yet not a man amongst the (armerj is
dismayed at the prospect of competition with the United States in live-stock,
althouj^h the interest of the former is more than twenty-two times that of the
;hc latter.

Again, the United States had, on the 1st day of .January, 1887, cattle to the
'value of $29,216,900, and to the number of 48,033,833 head. Ontario farmers do
not for a moment fear this competition, although their bovines all told numbered
only 2,018,173 ^^^"^ ^^ ^hat date. Notwithstanding, in the two previous years,
the farmers of the Province sent over to the United States no less than 93,096
head, valued at $2,044,736, in the face of a tariff of 20 per cent., and they are
quite confident that if they can do this in the face of a tariff, they can do a
good deal better in its absence. Are the manufacturers of Ontario, who breathe
the same air as the farmers, feed upon the same products, are nourished by the
same institutions, are protected by the same civil privileges, and have comparative
advantages in every way equal to those of the farmers, going to acknowledge
thai the courage of the sturdy farmer is to be allowed to put them to sliame ?
All hono .■ to our sturdy Canadian yeomanry, that they have demonstrated to
the world, that under all th# disadvantages that press upon them, they are able
to hold their own. How much better would they not do if they had equal
chance.'. ? While the minority have their rights, they should never overshadow
those of the majority. If commercial union should injure the interests of some
of the manufacturers, we should be sorry indeed ; but if by not gv^tting it, we
shall injure the interests of a far larger number of the farmers, then the way
of duty is clear. If there is no other way to arrange matters, it would be better
by far to give I ,chx> of those controlling certain industries a liberal pension, than
to tax all tlie consumers in the state to sustain them at the expense of barring
the way to freedom of trade with no less than 60 millions of people.

The Charge of Disloyalty Untrue.

This charge has been borne down upon those who favor commercial union,
with a persistence worthy of a better cause. When we think of the character
pf the men against whom it is urged, we cannot but conclude that those who

BpJweeii Canada and t/tc l.htitcd States,

bring it know very well that it is only a hollow cry. Can it, be true tnat the
president of the Central Farmer's Institute of Ontario, a m-tn who has done
more for the honor of Canada in the live-stock interest, than it may be any
other man in it, is disloyal ? Are the farmers who uave declared in favor of
the measure, including in their numbers many of the most intelligent of the
guild, disloyal? Why, these men have helped to make tlie country what it is.
Can we conceive it possible that these have no concern for the individuality of
the structure they have helped to buiid, and fur its highest prospeiity ?
Are the forty gentlemen of the Toronto Board of Trade who declared them-
selves in favor of commercial union, all unloyal to Canada, any more than the
sixty-three who voted against it ? This cannot be, for the minority includes the
names of some of our most active and influential citizens, and if the supporters
of commercial union are all disloyal, woe unto Canada, for the infection has
become most widely spread. It extends to all the provinces, and the foremost
of our public prints are the gravest offenders ? Viewing the matter in the as-
pect of provinces, can it be that the only province truly loyal to British con-
nection and to federation is Lower Canada, for she is the only jjrovince as-
such which has shown any unanimity in the extent of her opposition. Her
newspapers, with one single exception, a solitary "ght m a .sombre sky, are op-
posed to it, and there can be but little doubt that these voice the sentiment of
the people. How changed the times ! The descendant.s of those whc- bled
and died to give Britain the brightest gem in the crown of her queen are dis-
loyal, and the only loyal province in the whole Dominion vi that inhabited by
a people alien in race, in religion, and in their ultimate aims. vSide by side
with these, the opponents of commercial union may take their stand as the only
true representatives of Canadian loyalty. We shall not grudge them their
position.

But what is disloyalty ? Those who are so expert at Hinging the term as
a stigma in the face of all who favor commercial union should lirst ascertain
what it means. In this sense all will be agreed, that loyalty implies fidelit> to
one's country. It is only ahalf delinition which would constitute it fidelity to
one's sovereign and government, for the true interests of a country are of'.en an-
tagonistic to the policy adopted for the time being by the rulers of the
land. If this is not true, then John Hampden ar.d all his followers were
traitors, and the Royalist parly were the only patriotic men in England, and the
leaders of the American Revolution were execrable men. It follows, then, that
the only truly loyal citizen is he who seeks, .so far as in him lies, the true pros-
perity of his country. A man may be disloyal to the exi.stmg state of things
in the land in which he lives, and yet in no sense disloyal to that land. Were
it otherwise, reforms could not be brought about, nor would progress be made.
Now disloyalty is the converge of all this, hencj in this disloyal cry the com
mercial union advocates are charged with not .seeking the advancements of the
true interests of the country. Let us see.

Plain Talks on Commercial Union

We have shf'wn that commercial union, if obtained, would help all oui
farmers from sea to sea, that it would send such a life throbbing through all the
arteries of trade as was never felt before, that it would give our lumbermen one
fifih more than they now obtain on the products of the forest, that it would
tend to the development of our minerals in a degree beyond what the mo^t san-
guine are n )W looking for ; that it would calm the disturbed waters of the fishery
seas : that it would add fresh strands to the confederation rope that is now
strained ai.uost to the point of snapping ; that it would bring in fresh industries,
and build up new centres of manufactures ; that it would give the Canadian
farmer lo cents more on every bushel of barley he sells to the United States,
and add one fifth to the price of every cattle beast, sheep and lamb sent across
the line and that it would cheapen very materially for him many articles which
he needs must purchase, and yet for seeking to obtain these great advantages
which must prove a great blessing lo the State, and to nearly every person
within it, our people are called disloyal. Surely when that cry 15 heard
again it will emanate from some hidden covert, where a sound wrill be heard,
but nothing visible will appear.

If loyalty implies that the Canadian farmer must be taxed to help to
build up the incustries of Canada, and then taxed in turn by the industries for
doing it, and be shut out from one of the best markets in the world
to accomplish this, thus placing his bark upon a current so adverse that he can-
not make headwr.y against the tide, who would blame him for being disloya: ?
If loyalty means that the lumber men of Canada must not seek to obtain an
addition of $2 per thousand on the $8,545,406 in the products of the forest
which they are now sending to the United States annually, then who should
blame the lumberman for being disloyal ? If loyalty impHes that the fishermen
must content themselves with 30 per cent, less on the $2, 597,548 in fish which
they send annually to the United States, then why should the fishermen not be-
corre disloyal ? And likewise the miners who sent to the United States in
1 886 products of the mine to the extent of $3, 1 2 1 ,696. If loyalty signifies that
our manufactures must be confined to a market so narrow that, like a cancer,
it is preying upon their energies and debars development, then why should not
these become disloyal and try to move away from beneath the upas tree where
they are now sitting ? If disloyalty implies that the Maritime Provinces must
trade with Ontario and likewise Manitoba, coming 1,500 miles for goods that
could as well bo had within one third of the distance, and that there must be
an inter-trade between all the Pro\ inces in channels that were never intended
by nature, then why should not all the people of the Dominion become dis-
loyal ? Nay, these men who are lourlest in the cry of disloyalty, know very
well that they are using the term disloyalty instead of patriotism, that there is
hypocrisy in the very tone in which it is uttered. If one party is loyal, the
other must be disloyal. Now which is it ? We have shown that those
who arc jeeking commercial union seek their country's good, therefore thejr

Beiivcen Canada and the Unitrd States.

cannot be disloyal. We have thus parried the blow aimed at the commercial
unionists, and it sliould be given back on those who send it. Read in the light
of futurity, the eflbrts of those who are striving to build hij^h the temple of
! heir country's true prosperity will be regarded as true patriots, while those
who are trying to thwart them in their efforts will have graven deep upon
their headstones, disAoyzXiy — when it shall ho be\ ond their power to erase the
stigma that will go down with them ^o all generations.

The Annexation Cry Foundationless.

Those who are seeking commercial union with the United States have
been charged with seeking what will in the end lead to annexation. The
argu'nent stands thus : The party opposing commerci."! union say that its
adoption is certain to lead to annexation. That favoring it asserts as stoutly
that commercial union will indefinitely postpone annexation ; nay, that it i: the
only thing that will avert it. So that in enunciation of statement, the parties
are equal : not so in the presumptive evidence supporting these views, as we
shall see, and most of the evidence is of this class.

If this must follow commercial union as a matter of course, then it is a
dangerous thing for the political stability of States to have intercourse with one
another in matters of trade. It is a common occurrence to incorporate States
by the sword or by purchase, but we cannot call to mind a single instance
where one State merged into another, as the sole result of commercial inter-
course. If this is the sure result, it is certainly a cheap and a humane way of
securing incorporation, and the great pity is that the worK did not find it out
ages ago. The ties that bind people together politically are not those of com-
merce, but a common language, relationship, and a similarity in religion, 01 1
serve that political union is not essential to the happiness or prosperity oi
nations, but commercial union is essential to both, when the conditions are
very similar. *' All the advantages that would be possible to a political union
" would be possible to a commercial union, and henre the cau^-d for a political
" change is entirely removed."' And this is one principal reason why the advo-
cates of annexation look coldly upon the commercial union movement : it takes
the stock argument away from them — the commercial benefits that would bo
sure to follow.

If the people of the United States showed a craving for enlargement of ter-
ritory, there would not even then be a shadow oi reason fo» believing that Canada
would lose her political identity, for no State can pacifically lose ito identity with-
out the consent of a ni3Jorii> of its own people. The United States ha.s shown no
such desire, but on the contrary they not long ago refused tiie rich and populous
island of St. Thomas and I'le republic of San Domingo, in both of which thp
people had voted for annexation. So that we have no guarantee that the
United States would take us in, were w? to vote for annexation to-morrow.

Plain Talks on Commercial I'nion

Alaska was only reluctantly accepted, as stated by Senator R. R, Hit;, of
Illinois, after the United States had bound herself in a compact with Russia.
They, no doubt, feel that the work they already have in hand in assimilating
the diverse elements in their mids., will be ample for them. It is conchidid
by most who have given the question serious thought, that commercial union
would end very much to promote the prosperity of Canada. Now, the effect
of pro' perity is to make people contented with their condition. Why increased
prosperity should make the people of Canada disloyal to Great Britain is not
very f.lear, and why it should make them desire to be annexed to the United
.States is equally oliscure.

It is well that we should look this matter straight in the face. Those who
so histily join in the annexation cry would be much better employed in taking
soundings to ascertain how near the rocks we are already. The physician finds
it useful to feel the pulse of his patient ; so it may be useful to the physicians
of our nationality to feel the pulse of disaffection, which process cannot but
alarm them as to the welfare of their patient.

During the reciprocity period, from 1 854 to 1866, there was no word of
annexation. At the time of the Fenim Raid, about the close of the period, a
man was heard in a Western town of Ontario to utter sentiments that savored
of annexation. The first result was a shower of brickbats, and the second that
the newspapers all over the country held him up to execration. What are the
facts now ? Why, in all the Provinces, men are found who take no pains to
conceal their annexation views. Not long since we heard one of the shrewd
est business men in Hamilton, Ontario, remark, that if a vote were taken in
that city and men all voted in accordance with their convictions, a majority
would vote for annexation. That gentleman may be mistaken in his opinion,
but allowing this, its expression goes far to show ^le extent of the annexation
sentiment in that i /. The Farm and HoViC^ Springfield, Mass., recently asked
ts subscribers to vole yea and nay in regard to the question of annexation.
Out of 910 answers, 210 were cast yea and 700 nay. There are newspapers
in our mi>l^t who openly advocate annexation, and their proprietors, instead
of faring like the poor unfortunate at the time of the Fenian Raid, arc being
honored.with seats in Parliament.

We need not shut our eyes to the fact that, if the Maritime Provinces go
out of confederation, and at the last local elections Nova Scotia clearly expressed
her mind in this matter, they will go into the Union if they can get there.
If Manitoba and British Columbia are not allowed to build railways which
will give them ingress to the great republic, the confederation is Hkely to be
split in twain at Lake Stnerior, and the Provinces will seek that political con-
nection which will best suit their interests mdividually. Now commercial
union cannot be responsible for this. It has been a development not of a day,
but of years, and like every other development proceeds from a cause. And
what is that cause? Will the opponents of commercial union tell us? if not,

Behveen Canada and the Unittd States.

we will allow the Emerson International of July 2isl to answer, for there is no
doubt that it y;ive.s us the true key of solution, when U s.iys . "Theop-
" position to free channels of trade is rapidly engendering a strong and wide
'•spread feeling in favor of annexation."

The extent of this uneasiness should lead our rulers to ascertain its cause.
Why has a desire so widely spread, so deeply rooted, and that is propagating
itself with race horse speed, got so Hrm a hold upon the people of Cunada ?
When people are prospering,' fairly well, thi.v are usually contented. It is
when they are laboring under disibilities that 'hey get uneasy and desire
change. There cin be no slionger evidence than this growing desire for an-
nexation affords, that the trade relaiions of this country are out of joint and
vvatiL readjusting. Hence all p.iuiotic citizens, and all who 'desire the integ-
rity of the confederation, and the continuance of present political relations with
Britain, cannot be too prompt in seeking and applying a remedy.

It would be strange indeed if a desire for annexation, that had become
deep rooted and widespread because of the want of commercial union, would
be fanned into an irreiiressible blaze which would entirely consume our distinct
nationality, because of the possession of commercial union. The material
which forms a bar can never be made the material to form a channel.

There can be no reasonable doubt, then, that if the grand oKi British Lion
is to retain his position where he keeps vigil at Quebec, there nuut be
some change. The feeling of disaffection has nearly all grown up since the
time of the Fenian Raid, but mo^^t of all in recent years. While our rulers have
substantially remained the same, our fiscal system has chanrjed, and instead of
quieting the politically discontented, it has had the opposite effeci.

Commercial union with the L nited States seems to us the only measure
that will stave off annexation, and it is most likely it will stave it off for all
time. The annexation party perceive this, and they are therefore not over en-
thusiastic in their advocacy of commercial union.

Mr. Ellis, editor and proprietor of the Clok, .St. John, N. B., was elect-
ed as a lepresentative of that city to the Dominion Parliament in February
last, although prior to his election his views favorable to annexation had been
publicly proclaimed in the columns of his paper. In its issue of July 30th,
the Globe says :

" I'ossibly the effect of commercial union would be to retard the
progress of any annexation sentiment which is based on mere material con-
siderations, inasmuch as those considerations would be satisfied by commercial
union. The more ardent annexationists may therefore be expected t-» look
with indifference upon it, if they do not really .appose that union, since it will
not satisfy their aspirations."

We have thus made it clear : —
^(l) That a wide-spread desire for annexation does exist in the Dominion
at tiie present time.

Plain Talk^ on Commercial Union

(2) That it lias grown, not as a result of commercial luiioii, but witli
out it, ami in all probability because of the lack >l" it.

(3)' Thai commercial union couKl not at the same time be a help and a
hindrance.

(4) That it is the opinion of prominent annexationists that it would pre-
vent antaxaiion. We therefore l'<:'-'! jastitieil \\\ appealing to fjvery (jitizcn wh.i
loves hi' country, and who desires :x continuance of tliR old-limi; and justly
revered British connexion, and who wishes to sec a pond Dominion grow
strong in the northern clime, to do his utmost to secure coramerciiil union.

Four Objections Considered.

(l) Some of the fruit-growers of the Niagnra Peninsula, and it may be
elsewhere, oppose commercial union on the ground thai it will allecL their busi-
ness adversely. They argue that A.mcrican fruits ripen earlier to the south-
wa»^'' ; that those fruits would in such an event be rushed Imu our Canadian
cities, in which case the cream in prices would be skimmed before our fruits
would reach the market. If there is any force in this ar}.Tument it wouid etjually
apply to the present condition of New York State. The fruit growers of this
State have to compete with those of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and other
States to the south of them. These Southern regions are a long way ahead of
New York State in the maturing of their fruits, notwithstanding which, this
State is pre-eminent for its fruit production. Its people not only hold
their own against the States south of them, but tJie fruil industry is in a

flourishing condition. Were it otherwise, our fruit growers woald have nothing
to fear, as we shall see.

The climate of the Niagara Peninsula is much the same as that of
New Yo.-k Stale, and the ripening period is not very different If, there-
fore, the people of that Stale hold their own and Hourish in the face of South-
ern competition, why may not the frui*: groweis of the Niagara Peninsula in the
face of New York competition? It should not be forgotten that there
may be a later as well as an earlier market. We know of a Quebec
grower of strawberries who makes well out of the production of these
late in the season. Why may not the same be achieved with other
fruits? Why should our fruit growers seek special protection? If the
advantages of location are worth anything, the? ^^eo^ lave them in
a marked degree. Buffalo with its 250,000 '^'' -y^ *ice as large as Toronto,
is nearer the County of Lincoln than Tore j as near as '^Tamilton with

but 40,000 inhabitants, and Rochester is i much further b^ rail than the
Ontario metropolis. In early fruits, contiguii> > a '^ rket is of great vaiue,
they are so perishable in their nature. Hence, in the e^. f nt of commercial union,
our great centres would be as now fat away from the base of American ^n-
plies, and our Canadian producers, in the very middle of consuming centtes

Behvecn Canada and tlw United Stalca.

'^3

and those near at hand, so that if our CanmHati fruit growers in the
Niii^^'ara Peninsula could nut hold their own in the race, at least as well
as the people of New York Stale, it would not be for lack of equal oppor-
tunities.

Hut there is another side to this question. The consumer has his rights as
well as the producer. The consumers of fruii in Canada number about
5,cx)o,ooo of people, while the producers are liut a fra^jmentary portion of the
population. We cannot j^ive 'he numbers but they are relatively small, as the
entire population of Lincoln, the greatest fruit producing county in Ontario, is
only 20,025, of which it is probable that not more than one in ten is a fruit
grower. The major portion of the Dominion will not grow the more delicate
kinds iQ advantage, yet the jjopulations of these will be ronsamers if they can
get them. The people of the Dominion imported during the liscp.l year ending
June 30th, 1S86, from the United States, in the item of green fruits alone, to
the value of $50i,6'')9, and paid in duty for tho privilege, $101, 4;i. In the
item of green ajjple.s alone, ihestaplefruit of the Dominion, our people liought
from the United States to the value of $63,366, payini; 40 cents duly on every
one of the 31,278 barrels imported. It is not more fair that the consumers of
fruit should pay this sum, for the special advantage of the fruit growers, than
that the farmers should pay a heavy annual tax for the special advantage of
those engaged in manufacturing, nor have the fruic growers of Canada any more
right to tax the manufacturers a higher price for their products, than the latter
have to tax the former a higher price for theirs. This brings us back to a
fundamental principle of ail tnie legislation, which never seeks the welfare of
the few to the disadvantage of the many. Wi.; are aware that certain fruits are
!\draitted free into the United States, and this fact proves amongst other
things that if fruit growing here gives the Americans no concern as to fencing
it out of their country, it will not pay us to fence it into our? with a tariff wall.

(2) Some oppo.se commercial union on the ground that it will involve diffi-
culties in the adjustment of the taritV. No important change can be made in the
trade policy of any country without some trouble, and we must not look for the
completion of this union without some differences of opinion between the con
trading parties to be reconciled. No treaty was ever made where such wa.s
not the case. In the completion of this union the contracting [dirties would
require to fix uppn a uniform tariff— this would V)e a matter of ai;reement be-
tween the countries. The tariffs could be pooled and re-distributed on the
basis of population, or on some othe: basis, the excise tax in the two countries
also being uniform, to prevent any undue advantage either wsy. In case of a
deficiency of revenue in either country, direct taxation might be resorted to.
It may be objected that this system would not succeed. Who can be sure of
this untilit is tr'.ed ? The world is getting wiser. When men are being bled,
it is better for them to be conscious than unconscious of the fact. When a res-
ponsibility of $60.00 per head hangs over every man, woman and child in the

Plain Talks oti Commercial Union

Dominion of a public debt, if taxed directly ior its payment, they, will be care-
ful to know that more is uot incurred.

In all this, where is there any surrender of indeptndence on the part of
Canada as some urge ? It is a bargain between two contracting parties, ami
becuuse one of these is twelve times stronger than the other numerically, and
it may be twelve times as rich, is no more ieason why they should not enter
into an agreement mutually beneficial, than that one man should not deal with
another at all because the latter v/as twelve times as wealthy.

(3) Some are very much exercised over this agitation because the United
States has not as yet asked commercial \mion v/ith Canada, nor do we expeci
that she will. It is by no means likely that a country of 55,000,000 of people,
rich and prosperous, and largely self-contained, is going to ask such a thing 01
a country of but 5,000,000 of people. It should satisfy the demands of those
who are the must expectant on this score, if she signify her willingness to eniei
into such a union, or to accede to the request for it when such request has
been duly made. The treaty can never be consummated unless one govern-
, merit first approaches the other. No government will take this step unless
in the avowed interests of the people, and the wishes of the people on a great
commercial question cannot be ascertained without agitation and discussion ;
unless one of two contracting parties first approaches the other, no bargain
can possibly be made of any kind. One country must take the initia-
tive, and in the present instance Canada cannot reasonably expect this of the
United Statf^

The objection is being well answered that the people of the United
States are not stirring themselves in the matter. Resolutions in favor of the
measure have been passed by the Detroit and Buffalo boards of trade, with
overwhelming majorities, and the evidences are abundant that the frontier Statt>;
are ready to give the movement a most hearty support. In the United States
Congress Mr. Butler worth is already assured of a strong support, and from many
parts of both countries the ii\ost cheering reports are coming in of widespread
desire for a consummation of this union.

(4) Others object, as Canada now pays more per capita on imports,
that in the re-distribution of the pooled receipts, if done on the per capita
basis, the Canadians would not get a share in proportion to their output.
There need be no difficulty here, as (a) it is not a settled fact that the per cap-
ita basis of distribution of pooled revenue receipts would be adopted, and (b)
it IS exceedingly probable that Canada would then import less per capita from
abroad than the United States would under comrr.ercial union, for home con-
sumption, .as the latter country would supply Canada with a large portion ot
what she now gets from abroad, so that the advantage would remain with us.

Behvceti Canada and the United Stales.

Its Importance Demands Careful Consideration.

The subject of commercial union is one of the utmost gravity, and should
be discussed in a manner worthy of the issues at stake, which none can say are
not of the most momentous nature. It must be a matter of deep regret to the
thoughtful and fair-minded portion of the communiiy, that it has been handle^!
by its opponents in many instances in a very different manner. Amongst the
most powerful arguments that have been used against it in a considerable sec
tion of the Canadian press is that of calling Mr. Wiman " Ras," Mr. Butter-
worth, " Ben," and Mr. Fuller " Dairyman Fuller," a feat that could be
equalled by the illiterate, Vioorish schoolboy, playing with his schoolmates on
the street. What is the estimate that those journalists can put upon the intel-
ligence of their readers when thty give them that sort of thing for logic ?
Should they not rather feel that iu the great work in which they are engaged,
of teaching the people and moulding the thought of the nation, the use
of methods ignoble as these are unworthy of their countenance, .and do they
not perceive that intelligence insulted in this way will have its revenge in the
long run, and that the ridicule which they now pour out upon men whose
shoe-latchet thev have shown themselves unworthy to unloose, will recoil
upon themselves, by a retributive law that reacts in all the lines of human
intercourse? This course has been graphically depicted by a sketch that we
have seen, representing a man going about with a pot of paint in one hand
labelled "abuse," and a brush in the other, throwing it about right and left upon
all who chanced to cross his path. What will history say to this style of deal-
ing with the gravest question of economics that has ever been broached on the
continent of America, a question that affects the welfare of 60,000,000 of peo-
ple now, and it may be 100,000,000 before many years shall come and go ?
But we need not give ourselves com em on this score, for it is not this style of
men and argument that figure on the page of history. Oblivion has a common
cell wide enough to afford an asylum to all such heroes of the press for all
time. Why should a movement that is sweeping over the country like the
waters of a mighiy torrent be arrested in i's course by a dam of such mate-
rials ? We have no anxiety lest it will, but some concern for the honor of our
country in the eyes of foreigners, in the nature of the effusions that come forth
from day to day from the avowed teachers of the people.

Who are the men who are being thus held up to ridicule ? Erastus Wi-
man left Canada, his birth place, some 25 ye.xrs ago, an adventurer in a coun-
try that held out to him better prospects than his own. His way to his pres-
ent eminence has been fought on the stepping-stones of a business career where
every foot of ground has been contested in a competition open to every man in
the Republic, and now the name of Erastus Wiman is a household word in
every hamlet almont, from Hudson Bay to the Ciulf of Mexico. He has built
a business of proportions so gigantic that in the prosecution of it no less than

Plain Ta.ks on Commercial Union

20,000 correspondents have become peisonally acquainted with its owner,
and although 25 years a resident of the United States, he has during all that time
retained his loyalty to the British crown, and has been deemed a woitliy reci-
pient of the special thanks of Her Majesty for the active part he took in the
jubilee celebration last summer at New York. Whether Her Majesty's esti-
mate of his services to Britain or that of those who brand him and all his asso-
ciates ill this movement with disloyalty is the correct one, we leave it for an
impartial public ;o decide. The Hon. Benjamin Butterworth represents Cin-
cinnati, one of the most populous cities in the Union, in the United States
Congress. His career has been in keeping with his title, and his |>owers of ora-
tory are such that his opponents in either country find it much more convenient
to use the brush and paint pot, than to overthrow his arguments. Valancey E.
Fuller has done more for the honor of Canada in the line of stock improve-
ments than half the pressmen which she contr-".s, and his fame in this line is
only circumscribed by the limit cf the world's knowledge of his country. Two
of these men are Canadians, upon whose patriotic efforts for the improvement
of their country, posterity will put a seal very different from that which it will
place upon those who, from their obscure caverns, are shouting after them,
much after the manner of the heroes of the school-ground.

The folly is supreme of pronouncing upon a question of this nature before it
has been examined, and this is what has been done by a section of the Canadian
press. We are justified in making tiiis statement by the character of the as-
saults made upon it. This mistake has been made more than once in the pro-
gress of the most '■<r-reaching questions relatin^j to the welfare of nations.
The progress of the grandest movement for the amelioration of the race that the
world ever saw was fiercely assailed in its early days by those in power. In the
haat of one of those bitter attacks a sensible man stood up and gave advice.
He said, if this movement be of men, it will come to naught ; but if from a
Higher power, ye cannot overthrow it. And the wisdom of that advice has
I'ot only sounded through the intervening ages, but more than ever it was be-
fore is justiiied by the state of the world to-day. " Take heed what ye do
" unto lliose men," continued the sensiiile man, "lest haply ye be found op-
" posings the designs of Him in whose hands are the destinies of men." This ad-
vice is as applicable to-day as it was eighteen centuries ago, and there is room
fur its application we are convinced in relation to this movement. It cannot
be that a mighty continent, divided between two peoples, similar in origin,
ancestry, sympathies, aims and religion, with a boundary line that rather
brmgs them together than otherwise, and possessing resources that will be mu-
tually helpful, are to be forever separated and debarred from trade by a tariff
wall of man's devising.

The question has two sides — it would be strange if it hadn't — and it is the
rightful mission of tliu opposition press to show the other side, but let them
do it m the spirit worthy of their position and of the subject. Let them give

ill

Beiween Canada and the United States.

us argument rather than invective, and if, as patriotic citizens, they feel that
there are strong reasons why Canada should not go into commercial union
with the United States, all true sympathizers with the movement will be the
first to thank them for the light thus cast upon a grandly important subject.

We have endeavored to make plain what is implied in commercial
union. We have traced the origin and progress of the agitation ; we have
shown that it is not a political question ; that its adoption will not discrimin-
ate against Great Britain to her hurt ; that the idea of an Imperial ZoUverein
between Britain and her colonies is utterly impracticable ; that the adoption of
this union will save the confederation ; and that it will tend more than anything
else to stimulate trade and to develop our resources. We have made it clear
that it will greatly benefit the farmers, the fishermen and the lumbermen, and
that it would give a great stimulus to the mining business ; that its effects
upon manufactures will not be prejudicial ; that the annexation cry is founda-
tionless, and that the charge of disloyalty is not true. We have considered
the objections offered by the fruit growers, of those solicitious as to the manner
of handling the revenues, and of those who are concerned over the relative
strength of the agitation in Canada and the United States, and answered them,
and have shown that the importance of these questioos demands the most careful
consideration on the part of every citizen of the State. We have made it
clear that it would impel this country in the line of progress at a rate that
we ourselves had not hitherto dared to hope for r that it would in the end be
fraught with material blessings to every citizen of the commonwealth ; that
without it our industries must languish and our progress must be painfully
slow, and that there are not necessarily any insuperable difficulties in the way of
obtaining it, and now we ask you, reader, in the name of reason, is not allthat
we have said true? If it is not true, as a loyal citizen of t!ie State, it is your
duty to try and expose the fallacy ; but if true, it is equally your duty to try
and bring about this union at the earliest possible moment. True loyalty in
matters relating to the welfare of the State makes no provision for indifference.

And now a word of caution to our brother farmers. Think out this mat-
ter for yourselves. Decide as to its merits without the counsel of those en-
gaged in manufactures, who are forever feeling your pulse and telling you how
you .ire, and what course will be best for you to adopt. Show to the world
that you lealize that you have interests not essent.ally connected with politics,
and that you are prepared (o stand by them at all hazards.

In the endeavor to secure this greatest possible material boon, let there
be' such unanimity of action amongst the farmers as was never witnessed before.
Let them stand shoulder to shoulder and rank to rank, not a man of them in
all the provinces but shall be ready to go down to battle. Though some
are by the Atlantic and some beyond the Rockies, the cause is one, and tlie
ties of a common calling and a common interest should bind all into a com-

Plain Talks on Com?ncrdal Unio7i

pact unity, that in the deciding of 'his matter must prove invincible. While
the Ontario farmers j^o down to battle those by the oceans must not tarry, and
those in the North-west and (Quebec, every man of them, should be at the post
of duty. If this cause is lost, it is the farmers who will lose it, and if it is nion
it is the compact unity of the farmers that will win it. Wliere tiie farmers are
not organized they should organize at once, and, under leaders of their own
choosing, march onward rank upon rank, and cohort after cohort, determined
to make no compromise, and sound no truce until victory is inscriij^d upon
their banners, and commercial union between Canada and the United States
is a consummated fact.

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