CANADA AND IMPERIAL PREFERENCE.

§ Mr. ALFRED LYTTELTON

I wish to make clear what, I think, was made abundantly clear yesterday, what the purpose of the Opposition in moving that part of the Amendment which relates to Colonial Preference is: It is not to criticise the Canadian Government. It is not to criticise the Government of the United States. Our object is, and it is best to state it with perfect frankness, that a censure should be pronounced upon His Majesty's Government for their loss of a great opportunity. I may be asked what that great opportunity was. The opportunity was that of making between the United Kingdom and Canada, both, be it observed, fiscally independent nations, a commercial treaty based on mutual preference. That is the opportunity we say His Majesty's Government missed, and it is for that that we invite an expression of the deepest regret from the House. I say that position was substantially established yesterday—the position I mean that we have not sought to criticise either the United States or the Canadian Government.

4.0 P.M.

I think that that was accepted in substance by the responsible speakers on the Government Benches, and by the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Buxton). There were two sensitive spirits on the opposite Benches, the hon. Member for East Northamptonshire (Mr. Chiozza Money), and the hon. Member for Swansea (Sir Alfred Mond), who were oppressed by the belief that our attitude had not been and was not correct towards the Canadian Government, and that we had trespassed upon what was due and fitting towards that great dominion. I do not take that objection very seriously. It was not stated by the representative of the Government on the Bench opposite. I understand that the hon. Member for Swansea has had a recent, though brief, experience of Canada, and has made during the course of his tour a great many Free Trade speeches. I do not think that that has aroused any very great agitation. The Canadians, who are fiscally independent, and who have been declared by this country to have absolute autonomy in regard to their own affairs, are not sensitive 458 of discussion in this House on affairs which relate to our business as well as to theirs. I have often had to deal with Colonial matters during the last eight or nine years. I am well aware that in regard to some questions they are justly and properly very sensitive, but they know perfectly well that no party and no individual in this country seeks to abate by one jot or tittle their fiscal independence. They are, I am convinced, a wise people, with a sense of proportion, people with a good knowledge of history, people who study our debates and the course of proceedings here, and who are perfectly willing to allow us, without the slightest sensitiveness, to discuss matters upon which, as citizens of the Empire, we are deeply and vitally interested. I therefore think I may pass from the objection of the hon. Member for Swansea. I will not dwell upon his tour in Canada. He was received, I believe, in a spirit of kindly amusement by most of our kinsmen overseas. I think he was reminded on one or two occasions that he was a somewhat singular emissary of Free Trade inasmuch as in his own businesses, he was a party to an arrangement which had been made between very large groups of capitalists, whereby, I think, in the case of the Mond Nickel Company 15 per cent. was paid in Canada and in this country, whereas, by this arrangement, a less sum was paid in the protected United States. However, that is merely in passing. I think it is an observation which may be made after his speech of last night, which was not heard by many people. Perhaps it is well to observe to the public of this country, as well as the public of Canada, that in their own affairs and their own businesses. Free Trade orators who advocate the natural flow of trade and hold the maxim, "Let nature decide," when confronted in practical matters with this maxim are very often found to be exceedingly reluctant to put their theories into force.

I think the hon. Member for East Northamptonshire correctly stated the issue between us here, when he asked whether the acceptance of the Canadian offer, and of the counter-gift by us of Colonial Preference would have arrested reciprocity with the United States. I think that is the question to which I must now address myself. In other words, it is said by the other side—it was said, I think, by the Prime Minister the other day—that this arrangement which has taken place between the Dominion and the United States is inevitable, and was at the time 459 in 1907 when the last offer was made. That is the position which I have to traverse. What was the mood of Canada when that offer was rejected in 1907 and rejected by the speeches of Ministers continually after that period? What mood had Canada towards reciprocal arrangements with the United States? Like many who have taken great interest in Colonial affairs, I have been a student of Canadian history, and what are the facts with regard to the attitude of Canada towards American reciprocity? We know that in 1854 Lord Elgin negotiated a treaty of reciprocity between the United States and the Dominion of Canada, and that the treaty was received with great acceptance in Canada until 1866. Then it was denounced by the United States, who, undoubtedly then believed that Canada would be compelled in order to regain the reciprocity lost in 1866, to come into a political union. Against that many Canadians protested, and for a period preceding 1878, Sir John MacDonald, advocated throughout the country, and eventually succeeded in carrying a national policy. The national policy was a protective policy against America, and it was certainly aided by the railway policy of which we heard shortly afterwards, whereby the first great steel channel was laid from East to West. I mean the Canadian Pacific Railway. That railway system has been added to substantially within recent years, so much so, that there are now three great through trunk lines from East to West in Canada, and a fourth, the Hudson Bay line, is now projected, and indeed, I believe it is begun.

That shows immense progress in the direction which, I think, nobody now denies of the East and West business. It did not stop with the organisation of railways. There was also, I think I might say with accuracy, great organisation of finance. This country is, of course, and has been, one of the wealthiest, perhaps the wealthiest of all countries, and during this period of which I have been speaking, not merely has this great organisation of railways taken place, and this great organisation of business taken place between Canada and this country, East and West, but there was also passing from this country great loans. Great financial assistance was given to Canada for putting into operation the development of the young country—loans which I do not for a moment say were not highly profitable to this country, but loans which immensely 460 increased the prosperity of Canada. That organisation of finance has also been a means of augmenting the organisation of business of which I have already spoken. Throughout the years between 1878 and 1891, Sir John MacDonald pushed with the utmost energy the East and West policy, though it is perfectly true, as was urged by Mr. Fielding the other day, that in the earlier part, and even, I think, in the later part of that period. Sir John MacDonald would have been willing to accept a certain treaty of reciprocity with the United States. But as business organisation became more and more completed, as railways became more and more extended, as finance flowed more and more in one channel, so it became also the case that the attitude of Canada, generally favourable and originally strongly favourable towards American reciprocity, cooled very sensibly. In 1891, almost on his deathbed, a very few months before his death, Sir John MacDonald fought his last election. His last election address contained a passionate protest against anything approaching commercial union with the United States, and not merely did he, with the immense authority which attached to his position, succeed on that occasion in persuading the majority of the country that the views which they had held for the thirteen years preceding were right, but he also was so fortunate as to persuade his opponent, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Blake, whom many of us knew in this House, and who up to this time had been opposing Sir John Mac-Donald's party in Canada.

It is worth while mentioning that Mr. Blake the Leader of the Opposition, the Liberal party in Canada, wrote a letter in which he used these words:— Assuming that absolute Free Trade with the United States, best described as commercial union, may and ought to come I believe that it can and should come only as an incident, or, at any rate, as a well understood precursor of political union, for which indeed we shall be able to make better terms before than after the surrender of our commercial independence. The position, therefore, in 1891, was that a long contest had largely weaned Canada from her originally desired reciprocity with the United States. It had taught the majority of the Canadians to look and hope for an eastern outlook to their business rather than a southern one, and a vast organisation had been created to that end. But there was a greater power behind it than these material interests, great though they were. The national consciousness was instinctively opposed to the commercial union which was held 461 by Mr. Blake and a great many people to imperil national integrity. Canadians had long been taught, at that time, and have been taught since, that commercial union spelt political union; though I think it would not be right to say in view of the splendid and majestic development of Canada at the present moment, that the danger of political union is anything like the character it was in those days. But even though I believe Canadians, rightly, do not fear political union now still hon. Gentlemen opposite know perfectly well that when for years, for a great number of years, it has been preached to a country that commercial union is identical with political union, it takes a very long time before that notion subsides and perishes. As I have stated, in my view, the mood of Canada was in 1891, and was up to 1907, against reciprocity with the United States. But, after all, the decisive word on this question must not be with an Englishman, but must be with a Canadian. The hon. Member for East Northamptonshire (Mr. Chiozza Money), referring to a copy of the Canadian official Parliamentary Report, traversed the quotation of Sir Wilfrid Laurier which was made by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain). I have not had access to that Report, and, of course, I accept the word of the hon. Member that he has been unable to find the quotation in that report. That is quit" immaterial because it is in a report of the speech made in the great Debate on commercial preference in 1907, which report was gathered together in proof and was corrected by all those who took part in the Debate. What did Sir Wilfrid Laurier say on this question? He said:— There was at one time wanted reciprocity with the United States, but our efforts and our hopes were negatived and put aside, and we have said goodbye to that trade and we have put all our hopes upon the British trade now. I care not if in the report which the hon. Member for East Northamptonshire had he has not been able to find it; I care not whether that remark was made by Sir Wilfrid or not. It is now perfectly clear that at the crucial period in 1907, when His Majesty's Government refused the Canadian offer finally, Sir Wilfrid said that they did not want the United States' reciprocity. Their hopes were then in 1907 upon this country. Their eyes were directed towards Great Britain. If this is so, is it not clear that His Majesty's Government in refusing the offer then, at any rate, if I may put it in the most mode- 462 rate terms, precipitated by at least five or ten years the acceptance by Canada of the United States offer, an acceptance the probability of which was the subject of specific warnings upon numbers of occasions by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Joseph Chamberlain) and by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Balfour) so lately even as last year? I wish to ask is this present time a period in which we can afford to loosen the nexus which binds us now to Canada, and to contemplate with equanimity what will happen on a great scale, not at present, but as it undoubtedly will be in the future, as a development from this bargain which is now taking place between the Dominion and the United States? I understood the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Sydney Buxton) to say yesterday that as regards competition between this country and her rivals in the markets of protected countries this country had nothing to fear, and that recent experience showed we had nothing to fear. This was directly contradicted by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham sitting behind me.

I have had figures before me which prove as conclusively as I think it is possible that the President of the Board of Trade is labouring under a very great mistake in this matter. These figures give a comparison of exports to protected markets by Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom for 1895 and 1907. In 1895 the United States exported £10,000,000 worth of manufactured goods to protected markets. In 1907 these had increased be £43,000,000. In 1895 Germany exported £58,000,000 worth of manufactured goods, and in 1907 these had increased to £122,000,000. In 1895 the United Kingdom exported £78,000,000 worth of manufactured goods, and in 1907 these had increased to £107,000,000. So we see that between 1895 and 1907 the increases of our two great rivals were—United States, £33,000,000; and Germany £64,000,000; while the United Kingdom was only £29,000,000. On those figures how can it be contended for a moment by the operation of the most-favoured-nation clause or by the operation of any other virtues of Free Trade that we have not lost substantially in the competition as between ourselves, the United States, and Germany in the exports of manufactured goods to protected markets? If we eliminate Germany and the United States from the totals I have just given you have an even greater contrast. The United Kingdom only shows an increase of £17,000,000 463 between 1895 and 1907; Germany shows an increase of £53,000,000, and the United States shows an increase of £23,000,000. Whether you take in under either calculation it is perfectly clear there is an immense progress in favour of our rivals in the increase of their exports to protected markets. I was very much surprised when I heard the figures put forward by the President of the Board of Trade yesterday, because I had before seen collected by a gentleman of great ability and acknowledged merit the figures for 1907. I should like to give what those figures are. They seem to me most remarkable. The classification of the world's markets is made in this way. Take Europe and the United States, and roughly you get in that area the greatest and most efficient industrial and competitive area. Then you have in the second place intermediate countries, such as the Argentine and Turkey, in which a fully competitive system is not developed. And then you have tropical countries, in which there is practically no manufacture and no competition. The first area, the united States and Europe without Turkey, comprises a population of 550,000,000. Now mark the figures in that area, which is the great competitive and industrial area. Into that area, out of a total export of her goods of the value of £340,000,000, Germany exports £290,000,000. In other words, 85 per cent. of her whole export, obtains entrance in the most highly protected competitive market. No greater possible test of industrial efficiency could be by any chance supplied. Out of a total export of £420,000,000 from this country only £190,000,000 go to this highly competitive area. The whole balance of the £420,000,000—that is, £230,000,000—go to the Tropics and the intermediate countries which I may call the neutral markets.

I submit to the House that no more conclusive proof could be given than these figures afford. We have, first, Germany, which is well equipped to succeed in the most highly competitive and most difficult markets. Secondly, though it is probable but not certain that we are less well-equipped, because it may be, and is, our interest to send goods at present to neutral markets and to the tropics—which we now hold by prescription and by virtue, no doubt, of our long and great oversea preeminence—is it possible to expect in the future that Germany and the United States, Germany especially, who has given such signal proof of her industrial 464 efficiency in the great competitive markets of the world—is it conceivable that they will not compete, and compete with the greatest possible keenness, if we are not well worthy of the greatest possible success in the tropical markets? I venture to ask, in this state of things, not a state of things, I think, that warrants undue alarm, but which does warrant great vigilance, whether this is a time in which, after the repeated solicitations and the repeated suit of Canada and the other great self-governing Dominions, we can lightly turn away from one neutral market, or, rather, intermediate market, in which we have already a substantial interest by virtue of the preference given to us? I submit to the House that the figures show very conclusively that this time ought to be of all others the time in which we should look ahead—look to the greatness of the Dominions, and make that strong fiscal nexus with them which we fear is now going to be greatly jeopardised. Above all, and for the reasons which have existed in the past, now is the time when we should not relax our efforts towards that end, but should rather increase them. The question of defence, which does relate largely to this matter, I put to the House in this way: We all know that the Prime Ministers of the Great Dominions have a difficult task when they are recommending the payment of taxes for an Imperial Navy to many of their constituents, who are busy in the very arduous task of developing new countries. Would not the position be greatly easier for them if they were able to say, when they were asking for taxation for an Imperial Navy, for a Navy in Canada, a Navy in Australia, and a Navy in New Zealand, that this Navy is destined primarily to protect, not so much the trade from the Argentine, the trade from Russia, or the trade from the United States with the United Kingdom, but the trade which has been bound to you by agreements of mutual Preference. I saw this morning a letter from my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham, in which he dwelt on the great and paramount importance of the subject which I have so imperfectly brought before the House. I hope I may, without presumption, on behalf of myself and my friends, venture to convey to him the affectionate assurance that we have not abandoned the cause of which he was for so long the central and inspiring figure, to which he devoted so much labour, and for which he has done, and, I may say, has suffered so much. We are, indeed, powerless at the 465 present moment to affect anything for the triumph here and now of our cause, but this much we can at least do—and I trust every member of our party will join me—we can record in the most emphatic manner our protest at the inaction of the Government and the irreparable loss of a great opportunity.

§ The PRIME MINISTER

The Amendment which is now before the House says—humbly expresses regret at "the persistent refusal of your Majesty's Government to modify the fiscal system of the country," which has led to disastrous consequences. That Amendment in terms, and I suppose in intention, is a vote of censure on His Majesty's Government, but as has already been pointed out in the course of this Debate, in substance and in fact, it is an indictment of the electors of this country who sent us here. The House of Commons are positively asked to censure the Government for not doing that which the electors of the country never desired them to do, and that which they have given most solemn pledges to the electors to abstain from doing—the most paradoxical vote of censure in the annals of this House. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, on the first night of the Session, drew a very lurid, and also a somewhat pathetic picture of the inaction and lethargy of His Majesty's Government, which year after year, and indeed, with a happy indifference to the prosaic fetters of chronology, he described as decade after decade, had turned a deaf ear to the clamorous supplications of their Colonial fellow subjects. The right hon. Gentleman's chronology can take care of itself, but, as a matter of fact, as has been indicated already by previous speakers, that Colonial Preference began in 1897, when the right hon. Gentleman sat on this bench. What happened? For eight years he and his colleagues continued in possession of power, with an undisputed majority, not only in this House, but elsewhere. What response was made during all those years to the appeals and petitions and demands of our Colonial fellow subjects? Not a word. And when in the year 1903, after six years of indifference, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham started his campaign, and very honourably and properly left the Government for the purpose of doing so with greater freedom, the Leader of the Opposition, who says we are turning a deaf ear to this Colonial appeal, spent two years in this House in evading debate, and still more in avoid- 466 ing any declaration of policy. Why? Upon the plea, which those who were Members of that Parliament, as I was, remember well, the plea repeated over and over again, that no Government could possibly initiate so far-reaching and so fundamental a change in the traditional system of this country unless it had the declared approval of the electors of the country. It was a sort of dim and prophetic adumbration of the Referendum. Well, we had the Referendum.

We went to the country in the month of January, 1906, but in answer to the right hon. Gentleman's request to the country to give its instructions as to whether or not it desired its fiscal system to be fundamentally transformed, the electorate returned the most crushing parliamentary majority that has ever been known in our history. The disproportionate size of that majority has, I agree, been somewhat modified in subsequent Parliaments, but here we are, nevertheless, after two more General Elections, a solid and unbroken phalanx. It is under these conditions, and with that parliamentary and electoral record that the right hon. Gentleman has the courage to get up on that bench and ask the House of Commons to censure the constituencies who have sent us here. Before I come to the one new fact, the Canadian-American Agreement, since our Debate a year ago on the same topic—a new fact around which, not unnaturally, a great deal of this discussion revolves—I should like to say one or two words in regard to the topic which was brought forward at the beginning of his speech by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain)—I mean our supposed disability in consequence of our adherence to Free Trade, our relative impotence, as compared with protected countries, in commercial negotiations in regard to tariffs. We have had the old picture, the picture of this country with its empty armoury, its revolver without any ammunition, and its unfortified markets. And owing to our having, as we are told, divested ourselves of the armour and equipment which other nations possess, we are at a standing disadvantage as compared with those other countries that have kept their armour bright, and equipped themselves even with the latest and most murderous form of fiscal armour, the automatic pistol, in negotiations and in admission to foreign markets. I should like one tittle of evidence in support of that argument.

§ Mr. BIGLAND

Japan.

§ The PRIME MINISTER

The hon. Member is bold enough, and I think rash enough, to interrupt by referring to Japan. The right hon. Gentleman opposite yesterday mentioned Japan. Would not it be wise for hon. Gentlemen to wait until they see what is the result of our negotiations with Japan? What do they know about our negotiations? Absolutely nothing, except the announcement made in the Gracious Speech from the Throne that in the opinion of His Majesty's advisers there is likely to be a satisfactory result. Hon. Members, therefore, had better postpone what they have to say about Japan until they know what happens. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the figures?"] The figures the right hon. Gentleman gives have nothing whatever to do with the point I am making. The point I am making is this: It is alleged that foreign countries, through the possession of fiscal weapons of which we have deprived ourselves—namely, Tariffs—find admission upon easier terms to foreign markets than we do. I deny that. I ask with some confidence for some support of the allegation, for the burden of proof lies undoubtedly on those who make it. It is perfectly true that foreign countries like Germany—we having started far in advance—have organised their industries, and have organised, I am sorry to say, with greater promptitude and effect than we have their technical and business education, and have equipped themselves for the industrial competition of the world in every possible direction. It is perfectly true that they show a greater percentage of increase in their relatively small figures than we do in our relatively high figures. That is not the point. The point is whether the possession of tariffs, the possession of the power of retaliation, the existence of a "loaded revolver," enables them to get admission to foreign markets upon fairer and freer terms than us. I say there is not a shred of evidence in favour of that proposition.

I want to come now to what is, after all, the main point in this Debate: What is the charge which is made against His Majesty's Government, and, through them and behind them, against the intelligence of the electors of Great Britain and Ireland. The charge is this. That during all these years the Colonies, the Dominions, have been knocking at our doors, and that we have turned deaf ears on their appeal, and that the first fruits of our indifference and neglect are to be found in this Canadian-American agreement, which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the 468 Opposition told us on the first night of the Session if it is ratified by the two contracting parties will be a disaster to the Empire. Have they been knocking at our doors? What do they say themselves? I venture to quote only two or three statements, and they are the latest of the most eminent Canadian politicians. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, speaking on 13th August last, said:— It is not the policy of the Canadian Government to ask Great Britain to change her fiscal policy one iota. We make our own fiscal arrangements to suit our own interests. So it is with Great Britain. And Mr. Lemieux, another of the Canadian Ministers, speaking still later in London on the 5th October last, said:— The duty of Canada was to maintain her British Preference against all comers. They asked nothing in return from the Mother Country. It is absurd in the face of statements like that to say that our Colonial fellow subjects have been knocking at our doors. When Canada gave us her Preference, the value of which in some departments of British trade I and others have always been ready to recognise, it was suggested that we should impose a duty on foreign food. Why did we refuse that request? We did so for a great many reasons, but for two main reasons, the one domestic, the other Imperial, which, in my judgment are now, and I hope in the judgment of the House of Commons just as valid to-day as they were eight years ago. The domestic reason was this; we could not tax our main source of supply. After all, Canada is not our main source of supply; the Empire is not our main source of supply. We could not tax the main source of our present supply without raising, at any rate for a time, and, possibly, for a long time, the cost to the consumer of the first necessaries of life. It was agreed then, it was common ground then, though we have discovered a great many things since, that that would be the effect of taxing our foreign source of supply of corn. Is that denied? [HON. MEMBER: "Yes."] I must refresh the memories of some of those recent recruits. To go back to the fountain head, if it was not so, what was the meaning of speaking of the taxation of foreign corn as, primâ facie, a sacrifice. Why was the sacrifice unless on the ground that the consumer would have to pay more if the corn was taxed? What was the meaning of exempting from the scope of the new taxes certain commodities on the ground that they were the food of the poorest classes of the people? Why was that done unless the effect of imposing a tax on corn would be 469 to raise the price? What is the meaning, and I am still going back, as I must remind these novices of what their master taught us less than ten years ago, what was the meaning of proposing compensatory reductions in other articles of general consumption like tea and sugar and the rest? What were they to compensate unless there was to be a rise of price of corn and bread?

Therefore, I say it was then common ground, admitted quite as much by the advocates of Preference as by us who were opposed to them that the immediate effect, possibly the continuous effect, for some time to come of this new policy, would be to impose on the consumers of this country higher prices for the first necessaries of life. That was our domestic ground. What was our Imperial ground? It was one which is equally unanswerable and equally true to-day. I venture myself to say, and I took some considerable part in the controversy, that you could not possibly establish a system of Preference between different parts of the Empire without friction, without inequality, without embitterment in particular Colonies and Dominions with particular classes of produce. We have said from the first, if you would exclude raw material it is quite plain in Canada, for instance, there is a very large class of producers who would gain no benefit from Preference, and it is still more plain when you come to Colonies and Dominions like South Africa, which send us no food supply at all, that they would get no advantage, so that Canada and Australia would be preferred to them. I am afraid these are rather old and familiar arguments. There is nothing novel about them. The novelty would be if anybody could supply a reply, but I have never heard any yet.

What is the new thing? What is the new tact, the one new fact which is produced here to-day as an illustration, or what is called the object lesson of the folly of this policy of refusal. It is the agreement that has been provisionally entered into between Canada and the United States. I will deal first with the question which was put by the right hon. Gentleman yesterday, and that is, what is the effect of this agreement, or what would be its effect, if ratified, on British trade—first of all British trade with Canada, and next upon British trade with the United States? The agreement was a perfectly independent agreement entered into between Canada and the United States, in 470 pursuance on the part of Canada of that fiscal autonomy which she has long enjoyed and on which nobody proposes to trespass. Conclusions of the various stages of the negotiations were carefully watched by our British Ambassador, who was in constant communication with the Canadian negotiators, and who very properly kept his eyes on the special interests of British trade. I need not say it was not necessary for him to urge upon his Canadian colleagues the necessity of safeguarding those interests. They were always most ready to accept and anticipate, or if not to anticipate at any rate to consider, if not to accede to, his suggestions. But what happened? In the first place they assured him, and that assurance has been repeated by Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the Canadian Parliament, that so far as our materials to Canada were concerned the British preference would be carefully maintained. When you put articles on the free list the possibility of preference ceases to exist, but in so far as duties remain in respect of a particular class of commodity the British preference will be scrupulously maintained. I think the anxiety of the right hon. Gentleman was rather with regard to what might happen on the other side of the border—namely, as to British importation into the United States. It is quite true that owing to the reductions which this agreement provides for certain commodities going from Canada will enter into the United States upon lower terms than corresponding commodities imported from this country. Mr. Bryce pointed that out to the Canadian negotiators in the course of the negotiations.

We have got a most-favoured-nation treaty, but as is common knowledge, and the right hon. Gentleman referred to it yesterday, the United States does not place on the most-favoured-nation clause in commercial treaties quite the same interpretation as we do. It is quite possible, and I think it is probable, having regard to what has happened in the past, that the United States would say that the most-favoured-nation clause in our treaty, as a matter of treaty right, would not entitle British goods to come into the American market on the same terms as has been accorded to Canadian goods. Therefore, it becomes important to see what the goods are and how they affect British interests. We have examined the matter carefully. As a matter of fact the manufactured goods, and I am not speaking of the effect on raw material, the manufactured 471 goods affected by the agreement are in almost every case goods of which the Canadians have so small a share of the trade as to render probably the effect on them as infinitesimal, if not non-existent. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire referred to two commodities in particular, one was motor-cars and the other cutlery. As regards motorcars the importation from the United Kingdom into the United States is a very small affair. It amounts to £47,000 and into Canada £4,000, so that I do not think we need trouble ourselves very much about that item. As regards cutlery, the total value of cutlery of all kinds imported by us into the United States was £75,000, and the total value of the cutlery into Canada was £7,000.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

Does the right hon. Gentleman put that forward as an excuse for the Government's not attempting to secure for British manufacturers the advantages which the Canadian Ministers have secured for Canada?

§ The PRIME MINISTER

I should be extremely glad if we could get in on the same terms. What I am pointing out is that the matter is a case de minimibus. The particular articles in regard to which Canada gets preference are articles in which our trade is very small, and in which Canada's trade is infinitesimal.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

I am afraid I did not make my meaning clear I was not complaining of Canada having an advantage; I was complaining that we, under our system, do not get a similar advantage. It is immaterial from my point of view whether the Canadian trade is big or small. My complaint is that the Government has not used its powers to get these advantages.

§ The PRIME MINISTER

What I am pointing out is that the proposed agreement does not affect a single article in which we are seriously concerned. Having disposed of that question of fact, I come to another matter. It is alleged against us that if we had been wise enough to put a tax upon foreign food coming into this country—in other words, to give what is called a preference to the Colonies—we might have stopped the conclusion of this agreement, or, at any rate, postponed it for many years to come. In whose interest were we to do that? Was it in our own interest, to increase the price of 472 food to the population of this country, in order that the wall of tariffs might still remain between Canada and the United States? Was it in the interest of Canada? Surely Canada is the best judge of her own interest. Was it in the interest of the Empire? I do not think the matter can be better put than it was put in a speech by Sir Wilfrid Laurier—a speech which he actually did make. In the House of Commons in Canada, as late as 21st November last, he said:— Ever since we have been in office, the last fourteen years, it has been our constant endeavour to force Canadian trade in all possible directions, north and south as well as east and west, and to find an outlet for the energy of our people, and for the great and accumulating volume of our business. We have spared no efforts to find new markets. There is at our doors, alongside of us, a nation of nearly 100,000,000 people to-day, which man to man is perhaps the wealthiest to be found on earth, which man for man consumes more of the necessities and luxuries of life than any other nation on earth, which by deliberate policy up to the present moment has refused to have friendly commercial intercourse with us. That is the position in which Canada found herself. When she had an offer from the United States to lower the wall and open the door, was she to continue, in her own interest, or in the interest of this country, or in any supposed interest of the British Empire, to refuse to her manufacturers the natural outlet for their products and the natural inlet for the things which they need? Sir Wilfrid Laurier goes on in the same speech to say:— I think that a great deal would be gained both for Canada and the British Empire if our relations with the United States were more friendly than they are. Having referred to Sir Wilfrid Laurier's speech, and having read the declaration made by Mr. Fielding in yesterday's paper that for fifty years it had been the common policy of all parties in Canada to seek for reciprocity with the United States and to find access to this great market at their own door, I listened with very great surprise, with something like bewilderment, to the quotation which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) read yesterday from a supposed speech of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. I will quote his exact words. Having alluded to what I said on the first night of the Session, he said:— There is an even higher authority on that subject, and that is the Prime Minister of Canada. Instead of the Prime Minister of this country after the event, let us have the Prime Minister of Canada speaking before the event. Speaking in the Canadian House of Commons on November 22nd, last year, Sir W. Laurier said: "If the result of the British elections should prove to be a victory for Tariff Reform, there would be little prospect of any large measure in favour of reciprocal lowering of tariffs with the United States."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th February, 1911, col. 305.] 473 I confess I listened to that quotation with very considerable surprise. It seemed to me so totally different, not only from Mr. Fielding's declaration of yesterday morning, but from the passages I have already quoted from Sir Wilfrid Laurier's actual speech, that I thought there must be some mistake. Where did the right hon. Gentleman get his quotation from?

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

I got the quotation from a despatch of the Ottawa correspondent of the "Standard," published in the "Standard" of the 24th of the same month. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to say that I was informed that it had been confirmed by a private cable as well.

§ The PRIME MINISTER

From the "Standard"? I am not sure whether the right hon. Gentleman gives the full title. I think it is the "Standard of Empire."

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

The "Standard."

§ The PRIME MINISTER

I have here the "Standard of Empire." It is quite true, as I subsequently learnt—because I have investigated the matter closely—that the sentence quoted by the right hon. Gentleman does appear in what purports to be an abbreviated report by a correspondent of a speech made by the Prime Minister of Canada. I and others have searched with the utmost care in the speech of the Prime Minister, which is here—in the official "Hansard" report of the House of Parliament in Canada—accessible to the right hon. Gentleman, accessible to anybody who would take the pains to look it up, and there is not a syllable in that speech which corresponds, or has the remotest resemblance to the passage which the right hon. Gentleman quoted yesterday when he said, "Let us appeal to the Prime Minister of Canada." This is a very serious matter, because I am lectured by great organs of opinion this morning, and asked how I am going to explain or explain away—as if it were my business to do so—Sir Wilfrid Laurier's declaration. Am I to explain or to explain away something Sir W. Laurier did not say? This is a very serious matter. The quotation which it is said was confirmed by a cable is from the correspondent of a paper called the "Standard of Empire." Was the simple precaution taken to compare what the correspondent said with the authentic official report of the Prime Minister's speech? I am the 474 last person in the world, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, to accuse him of any intention of deliberately misleading the House. I am not suggesting it for a moment; but I do say that this incident is of a piece with the persistent and incurable sloppiness which has characterised this Tariff Reform agitation from its inception down to the present moment. I venture to say that Sir W. Laurier never said anything of the kind. I shall be very much surprised if he did.

Now let us see what the situation is which right hon. Gentlemen opposite are asking the House to censure us for not having brought about. Supposing we had given not what the Colonies have demanded but what right hon. Gentlemen have demanded on behalf of the Colonies, and put a tax on the food of the people of this country; what would have been the situation as they themselves now represent? It is said that we should have stopped this agreement—this fatal disastrous agreement—which opens the markets of the United States to the Canadian farmer and the Canadian manufacturer. Just think what would have happened and what a splendid result would have followed the Canadian farmer ex hypothesi—I am following the right hon. Gentleman'-e argument—would have been getting less for his corn, because he would have been sending it to the English market, and he would not have been allowed to send it to the American market. The Canadian farmer would have been getting less for his corn—that is result No. 1. The Canadian farmer would have been paying more for his agricultural machinery, which he is now going to get in from the United States free [An HON. MEMBER: "At a reduced duty."] Yes; he is going to get it cheaper any way. He would have been paying more for his agricultural machinery—that is result No. 2. The British consumer here would have been paying more for the necessaries of life—result No. 3. That is the way to cement the Empire! That is the way in which, if only we had pursued this great Imperial policy, we should have drawn together in bonds of common interest and common affiction the producers of Canada and the consumers of the United Kingdom!

I do not think it is necessary to say much more. I will, however, add this one consideration, which, I think, must have become abundantly apparent in the course of this debate. Supposing you had entered into this bargain, supposing you had given 475 Colonial Preference, supposing you had put a tax upon foreign food, and the whole thing was working smoothly. Is it not obvious from what has happened that any day of the week or any month of the year, without any reciprocity at all, the ninety or 100 millions of people in the United States could have toppled the whole fabric over? It was not necessary for them, when their own interests and their own wants dictated to them the importance of having free sources of supply of food and raw material in Canada to enter into any bargain with Canada at all. They had only to lower their own tariff wall; American manufactures go into Canada, Canadian corn goes into the United States, and the very foundation of your edifice of Imperial Preference is completely undermined. A more crazy structure, resting upon a more unstable basis, and more certainly doomed by the inevitable play of economic forces, to decay, was never created by the imagination of politicians! I am not foolish enough to suppose that the Protection movement is dead in this country. It appeals to so many fallacies which are dear to the ordinary and uninstructed mind, and it appeals to the support of so many interests, that it will take a very long time to give it its coup de grâce. But I think we are celebrating the obsequies of that which used to be called Imperial Preference. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) yesterday said we want a man of courage and resolution. I do not know to whom he was particularly referring. I suppose to his own leader?

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

I said "at the head of the Government."

§ The PRIME MINISTER

I presume a Government to the right hon. Gentleman's own liking? The right hon. Gentleman needs courage and resolution! What is his motto then? I read with great interest a night or two ago a speech of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour). It was on this subject, and the only motto, the only rallying, the only war-cry, I could extract from it was: "While there is life there is hope." I make the party opposite a present of that inspiring watchword. Meantime, we should be thankful for the common-sense and political instinct of the electors of this country, which has saved it from an invitation to adopt what would have been one of the greatest and most disastrous political impostures of modern times.

§ Mr. BALFOUR

The right hon. Gentleman spent the greater part of his speech in defending Canadian statesmen from what he seemed to regard as unfounded aspersions made upon them by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Chamberlain) and others on this side of the House. But the most violent attack I have ever heard on Canadian statesmanship was contained in the very last words that the right hon. Gentleman uttered as he sat down. "A crazy imposture," I think he called it. He sat down telling us that the whole scheme of Imperial Preference was one of the craziest impostures that ever occurred to the minds of deluded politicians. That crazy imposture has occurred, not only to the minds, but it has received the earnest endorsement of every one of our Colonial Prime Ministers. That crazy imposture has been earnestly recommended to the right hon. Gentleman face to face with Sir Wilfrid Laurier himself, and deliberately rejected by him. Very strong language was used even in 1907 in regard to the policy of Imperial Preference by the present Home Secretary and by others. But certainly "crazy imposture" was not a word——

§ The PRIME MINISTER

I never said "crazy imposture." I said "greatest political imposture."

§ Mr. BALFOUR

Well, greatest political imposture. The words "political imposture" were not luckily used by the Prime Minister of Great Britain to the Prime Minister of those great Dominions across the seas, who came across the sea to urge this "great imposture" upon you. We know there are worse rhetorical faults than "incurable sloppiness." There is nothing sloppy about the final epithets of the Prime Minister. They are perfectly unmistakable: their outline is cut in the clearest manner. They accuse not merely a great party which contains about half the population of these islands of not only being parties to a great political imposture, but they associate with that charge every great party in every great self-governing Colony throughout the whole of this Empire.

What justification has the right hon. Gentleman for either the terms of his peroration or for the arguments which appeared in his speech? He began by telling us that there was no evidence whatever for the suggestion that the possession of something to bargain with helped you in bargaining with foreign nations. I 477 should have thought that the figures given by the right hon. Gentleman to-day were sufficient. But surely you need not go to figures! I speak to a party which certainly contains many business men and claims to be a business party. Have they ever found in any transaction of life that they could make a better bargain with anybody from whom they had only got to receive, and to whom they had nothing to give? But this does not depend upon nice considerations of figures; it depends upon the broad facts of human nature. These are as true of individuals as of great business firms and of nations as they are of individuals. Of course, you get better terms if those with whom you are bargaining think that they will gain if they yield to your representations than if it is a matter of absolute indifference. I did not suppose that any man living still thought that the provisions of the "most-favoured-nation" clause could be a substitute for direct arrangements between Government and Government. I do not underrate the benefits of the "most-favoured-nation" clause. It does offer to this country a considerable share of advantage. But the idea that people when they are negotiating their tariffs will so arrange that what is best for them will also be best for you, who are the common rival of both, really shows—if I may say so—an ignorance of the broad facts of human nature, whether shown in the relations of Governments or individuals, which certainly is the sloppiest thing that I have ever heard seriously presented by a responsible statesman. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to complain that we had brought up this Motion at all. Why, he says, it is a vote of censure on the Government; the Government are in a majority, and therefore you are censuring the majority. How audacious! He did not say it, but I almost understood the implication was: How unconstitutional! That is quite a new view of the duties of the Opposition. If we were not in a minority we would not be the Opposition. If we were in the majority and the right hon. Gentleman was in the minority—as he has been and perhaps may be again—he would not be prevented from censuring us. To do him justice, I should say he would be quite unfitted for his position if he hesitated to censure us merely because we happened to have won a General Election. Of course, I admit we are in a minority. I quite admit when the right hon. and learned Gentleman goes into the Lobby on the Amendment, because 478 it is in the nature of a vote of censure, he will have the support of a great many gentlemen who probably are in much closer agreement with us than with him on this point; who are much more nearly holding than otherwise those economic heresies on which he has poured such invective and scorn. For reasons which, if not sufficient are intelligible to all of us, the right hon. Gentleman will get on this occasion the support of people who do not agree with his economic views, and do not desire to see carried out his economic policy. All that will not absolve us from doing what we are doing—that is to lay our views, which we hold strongly, as to the Imperial difficulties which the neglect of the Government have involved us, before the House or before the country—whatever be the result of the division. And when the right hon. Gentleman tells us, as he has told us to-night, that it is almost audacious on our part to bring this subject before the House after three elections decided against us, I want to know whether it is his view that the last election was on his side! In a different connection the right hon. Gentleman has always urged that the verdict of the country was on the Constitutional issue. You cannot imagine two questions in the sphere of politics which are more widely separated, and which are supported or opposed by arguments belonging more completely to different spheres of discussion, than the economic and political considerations involved in Tariff Reform and the Constitutional issues involved in the Parliament Bill. Is the same tribunal supposed to have given a conclusive verdict upon, at the same time, and by the same acts to causes so utterly different and so widely separated? If the right hon. Gentleman chooses, as he did choose, to say to-night, to suit the purpose of this immediate Debate, that the verdict of the country was given upon the fiscal issue, then I hope he will not urge that the verdict of the country was given upon the constitutional issue when we come to later, and perhaps even more heated, arguments in the course of the Session. The right hon. Gentleman used some of the old arguments, quite right of course, and again brought out of the Free Trade armoury the old argument that these kind of bargains and preferences between us and our Colonies would be a cause, not of closer union, but of perpetual friction, controversy, and difficulty. I 479 think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Russell Rea) told us that these sort of arrangements were not cement—they were dynamite. But a little later in the Debate we had a speech from the hon. Baronet the Member for Swansea (Sir Alfred Mond), and what did he tell us? He said you are looking forward, you Tariff Reformers, with your narrow vision, merely to the closer union of Great Britain and her self-governing Dependencies. With imagination of a bolder sweep, the hon. Member said this new arrangement between Canada and the United States was to be the prelude of an Anglo-Saxon agreement in which shall be embraced all the English-speaking countries of the world. [AN HON. MEMBER: "It was to be universal."] No, not so wide as that! Well, Sir, may I ask why that which is dynamite when it takes place, or if it takes place, between Great Britain and Canada, is cement when it takes place between Canada and the United States. Whenever there is an arrangement of tariffs between two foreign countries hon. Gentlemen opposite are loud in their plaudits of the progress of civilisation, the movement of friendly feeling, the new treaty bond that bring together great civilised communities, but when it is between the Mother Country and the Dominions, you would think that, next to a declaration of war, there could not be a prelude to controversy more clear and more decisive than that of coming to a friendly arrangement between the Mother Country and the Dominions, though the Dominions ask for it, and though a vast section of our own population ask for it also. I really cannot imagine on what this is founded. The right hon. Gentleman has repeated again the old fallacy, as I venture to think it—he is quite consistent with the repetition of it at all events—he says: "How can you have a friendly arrangement with your Colonies when you cannot give to each Colony the same terms as you give to others; will not that inevitably produce jealousies and difficulties between the two?"

This exact point was raised, and necessarily raised in the Colonial Conference of 1907, when Dr. Jameson, now Sir Andrew Jameson, at that time Prime Minister of Cape Colony, pointed out that the Colonies were not so unreasonable as to suppose that the same terms and the same preferences were to be given to them all, considering that their economic conditions 480 were so different, their products so various, and the trade relations necessarily so varied. That surely is the answer. But do let the House mark what the present Prime Minister said upon that occasion. Pressed by the arguments of Dr. Jameson, and unable to find an answer to it, the right hon. Gentleman at last took refuge in this. He said of this policy, which was to give preference, not necessarily the same kind or amount of preference to each of the Colonies: It means that we are to consider the question whether we shall treat the foreigners and the Colonies as it were differently, and that we conceive we are not able to do. There you have got it. There you have got the real root objection which the Government of 1907, and presumably the Government of 1911, and presumably also the battalions which support them, really are moved by. They will not treat the Colonies better than they treat foreign nations, and that is the broad difference between us. We think that it would be for the benefit of the Empire as a political whole, for the benefit of the Empire as an economic whole, if we did treat our self-governing Colonies better than we treat the foreigners. That is the difference between the Government and ourselves, and upon that difference I am perfectly certain that in the long run the good sense of the people to which the right hon. Gentleman man appeals, certainly the verdict of history will be on our side.

There is only one other point of an argumentative character raised by the right hon. Gentleman's speech, on which I shall say a word. Talking of this arrangement, of the proposed reciprocity treaty between Canada and the United States, and drawing a picture of the evil consequences that would follow had we obtained preference—had our policy been carried out and the present Canadian and American policy not been brought upon the tapis, he said, "How dreadful the consequences would have been." "Now," he said, "the Canadian farmer will get his machinery cheaper and will be able to sell his corn dearer." Had we carried out our wicked will, I presume his idea is the Canadian farmer would have to pay much more for his agricultural machinery, which I greatly doubt, but the British consumer would have suffered by the increase in the price of corn due to the preference. I cannot quite understand these two alternatives about corn. Apparently he thinks that the British consumer is going to have his corn cheaper under the new system than he would have had it 481 under the system that we propose. How is that consistent with the idea that under the system now proposed between Canada and the United States, he admits the Canadian farmer is going to get more from his wheat? The right hon. Gentleman drew a picture with these three dreadful consequences.

§ The PRIME MINISTER

I took the hypothesis of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] I certainly did not put it myself in that way.

§ Mr. BALFOUR

I thought the whole of the passage of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, which was developed with his usual force and lucidity, consisted in pointing out three things. Firstly, that under the new treaty the Canadian farmer will get more for his corn; secondly, that under the new treaty he would pay less for his machinery; and, thirdly, that if instead of these things we had preference with the Colonies the unhappy British consumer would have paid more for his corn. Then is it not quite clear that if the Canadian farmer is to get more for his corn under the new treaty than he would have got under Preference, the British consumer is going to pay more?

§ The PRIME MINISTER

It does not follow in the least.

§ Mr. BALFOUR

It seems, at all events, a conclusion of some plausibility. If the Canadian farmer is going to get more under the reciprocity treaty with America than he would have got under Preference with England the British consumer would pay more under the reciprocity treaty than under the other. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] I think if hon. Members will follow my deductions from the right hon. Gentleman's speech, they will see that there is a great deal to be said for it. I rose immediately that the right hon. Gentleman sat down, I had not meditated over his aphorisms, but, it seems to me, in dealing with his argument, that the conclusion to which I have ventured to call the attention of the House follows rigorously from the premises he laid down. I must just again call the attention of the House to the position of the Canadian Government and of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, its eminent head, on this question. It seems, according to the right hon. Gentleman, that my right hon. Friend near me in doing what I rather believe ninety-nine out of every hundred Gentlemen opposite are in the habit of doing—that is, relying upon 482 the newspaper reports of speeches—I believe the right hon. Gentleman led the House to think that the doctrine attributed by my right hon. Friend to Sir Wilfrid Laurier is one absolutely inconsistent with the general views of that statesman. I do not doubt that Sir Wilfred Laurier is quite glad to have good commercial relations, and desired to have good commercial relations, and properly desired to have good commercial relations with the United States, I do not quarrel with that at all. There is also no doubt that Sir Wilfrid Laurier did say:— We shall be glad to treat with them. It never was intended nor thought at the time that the intermediate tariff would apply to the United States.

§ The PRIME MINISTER

That was at the Colonial Conference.

§ Mr. BALFOUR

Yes, it is because you have done nothing since the Colonial Conference of 1907 that we are now quarrelling with you. Sir Wilfrid Laurier proceeded:— There was at one time wanted reciprocity with them; but our efforts and offers were negatived and put aside. We have said goodbye to the trade, and we put all our hopes upon the British trade now. There is nothing "sloppy" about that, because it is in the Blue-book. That I have no doubt accurately represented the attitude of Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1907, and it certainly represents in its general terms the minds of all the Colonial Premiers who were here in 1907. What we say is that had you made a response to the appeal which Canada made, and which all the Premiers made in 1907; had you, when Canada said to you: "We put all our hopes upon British trade now," replied: "We will second your efforts," had that stream of trade from East to West been passing to our shores, do you believe there would have been the least chance at the present time of Canada making such an arrangement. Under these circumstances—we do not know what future economic forces may produce—do you think we should have heard of any far-reaching agreement at the present time between the United States and Canada. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] I do not think so, and all the evidence we have is against it. Some hon. Gentlemen opposite have talked as if we were almost impious in desiring that trade should flow along routes and in directions which in their view are not pre-arranged by the immutable laws of nature, and what they conceive to be the natural and inevitable effects of geographical position. I do not think we ought to consider great Imperial problems 483 in a fatalistic spirit. I do not say dogmatically—of course nobody could say it dogmatically—that the condition of any community is merely and solely the result of the human factor in that community. Like all great results it is a combination of many causes. But, Sir, that we should be merely the slaves of space and time in this sense seems to me utterly absurd. The British Empire has not been built up by men holding those fatalistic views, and it will not be preserved by men who preach fatalistic doctrines.

May I appeal to hon. Members opposite, in conclusion, to make one reflection, and it is that you must not be led away by such arguments as were laid before us by the hon. Member for South Glamorgan, who spoke, I believe, on behalf of the Labour party. He derides those who attempt to look ahead, and who see that the horizon extends far beyond the immediate and present necessities of the moment. As long as steam coal is exported, or, as he says, "dumped" in foreign countries, he is content; but you cannot deal with the great and varied interests of an Empire if each hon. Member who comes down to this House thinks solely of the immediate commercial position of his own particular constituency. A wider and more distant outlook is required of every man who wishes to do his duty as a representative of his country in this great Assembly of the nation. After all, the merits of our actions are really not determined by what happens in the Division Lobby, nor is the Division Lobby the real test. Of course, you are going to get a majority when you divide to-night. I do not know how far it will come up to the nominal majority of those who do not agree with us upon broad constitutional questions, but you will get a majority I do not doubt. I go further and I say it is true that so far we have not convinced the majority of the country that our fiscal policy is right, although that is a very difficult thing to prove one way or the other so long as the issues of our elections are of the mixed character which is almost necessary and is inevitable under existing circumstances. But we are acting and working now not merely for the duration of a Parliament, but we are working—I say this in spite of what the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Glamorgan said—for distant years, and the effect of our policy on distant years cannot, and will not, be decided by what happens on this or that day. History, and history alone, is the tribunal 484 before which such actions as we take now must be judged, judged in the light of events, judged in the manner on which an Empire, possessing many great sources of strength, but threatened with many obvious weaknesses, deals with a new situation and adapts itself to new necessities. The criticism that we pass upon the Government and upon those who support the Government is that they have relied too much on these old and worn-out for mulæ, and have not sufficiently adapted themselves to new circumstances. They have not shown that flexibility which every organisation must show as the circumstances under which it is thrown change. I greatly fear the decision which the House takes to-night will postpone for a long time, or at all events for some time, that change which I believe to be absolutely necessary to meet the changing conditions of environment in which the British Empire now finds itself, and for that reason I regret this renewed refusal of His Majesty's Government to take advantage of the opportunity which our colonial brethren have so persistently laid before them.

§ Mr. HAMAR GREENWOOD

I speak to-night not so much as a Member of the House of Commons but as a Canadian who cannot be accused of want of experience in the Dominion of Canada, of want of loyalty to Canadians, or of a want of knowledge concerning a country with which I have been so intimately connected. I shall not attempt to follow the Leader of the Opposition in his Debate with the Prime Minister, but I do wish to deal with a sentence the right hon. Gentleman used on the opening day of the Session. He referred to the agreement between Canada and the United States as an Imperial disaster. You cannot say that the result of the action of any statesman in Canada is an Imperial disaster unless you accuse those responsible for it of being traitors to the Empire. While the Government here is being arraigned for a refusal to carry out the impossible, Canada is also being arraigned for doing what she thinks is best in her own interests and in the interests of the Empire. The underlying thought of this Amendment to the Address, the underlying motive for 10,000 speeches in the country against the Imperial Government is that unless you link up Canada by fiscal bonds the Canadians will drift into the capacious maw of the United States. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Unless that be the danger what 485 is the object of this Amendment? Unless hon. Members opposite are doubtful of the loyalty of their Canadian kinsmen, why complain of the refusal of the Government to do what it is impossible for them to do?

6.0 P.M.

Speaking as a Canadian, I approach this subject in no party spirit. As the majority of hon. Members have never seen Canada because they have not sufficient leisure to take a trip there, allow me to inform the House that Canadians have two great policies, one political and one commercial. The political policy is to maintain the most intimate connections with the Home Country as long as the Home Country wishes that connection to be maintained, and as long as the Home Country is worthy of the connection. The second great sphere of Canadian activity is the commercial policy, and that is a policy which ever since the introduction of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's Government in 1896, has been steadily tending towards Free Trade. Sir Wilfrid Laurier was returned in 1896 as a Free Trader. He did his best to lower the tariffs in Canada against the world, and he certainly lowered them under the name of Preference in favour of the Home Country. I will quote to the House the view which this great Canadian Minister expressed in 1897, at the time when Preference was granted to England. At that time Sir Wilfrid Laurier said:— If England were willing to give us a preference over other nations, taking our goods on exceptionally favourable terms, I should not object. But for how long would it last? Would it be an advantage in the long run? That is what men who think beyond the passing moment have to ask themselves. Supposing England did such a thing and abandoned her Free Trade record, she would inevitably curtail the purchasing power of her people. And do you not think we should suffer from that—we who alone have natural resources enough to feed millions from our fertile lands? I have too great a belief in English common sense to believe they will do any such thing. What we have done in the way of tariff preference to England we have done out of gratitude to England, and not because we want her to enter upon the path of protection. That was the opinion of this distinguished Minister when the preference was granted, and he came fresh from a victory for Free Trade in Canada after the General Election of 1896. Canada is not only prepared to give a preference to England; Canada is prepared to give a preference to any country in the world in the interests of Canadian commercial development, and that development surely makes for the well-being of the Dominion. The Canadiana, at any rate, think so, and I think they are right. Whatever strengthens them commercially, in my opinion 486 strengthens the British Empire politically. Their commercial policy is entirely separate from their political policy. I am amazed to hear, untravelled men, I admit, on the other side of the House, talk about the danger of eight millions and an ever growing number of Canadians falling into the orbit—I believe that is the word—of American Continentalism.

I do urge the House to remember that in dealing with the Dominion of Canada the mind of the people of this country must not be affected by too constant contemplation of the petty states of Europe. Canada is not a Belgium, or a Holland, or some German principality. Canada is an enormous country being more rapidly peopled than any other country in the world, and has possibly the most virile population of any part of the world. [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] If the compliment is to me, I am but a humble and modest example of the human product of the Dominion. Nothing is more offensive to a Canadian, and nothing is more offensive to Mr. Fielding, the Minister of Finance, who is primarily responsible for this agreement with the United States, than the remark of the Leader of the Opposition when he referred to this agreement as "an Imperial Disaster." I admit that the Canadian people are sensitive on this question of loyalty, but ever since 1903 they have been subject to what an hon. Member considers bribes in the hope of bringing them into some fiscal scheme that originates with the Mother Country. This constant suspicion of Canadian loyalty, this constant imputation of the desire of the Canadians to drift from the British Flag to the Stars and Stripes is unworthy of the Mother Parliament and cannot work for good. Within my short life, I have seen the antagonism to annexation by the United States grow stronger and stronger. There is not a sign of such annexation now, but there is a sign of the growing strength of the commercial life of the Dominion, and I for one am glad to welcome an agreement between two kindred nations, which strengthens, and can only strengthen, the commercial power of Canada, and, in the long run, the power of the Old Country.

Let me pass from that to a speech dealt with by the Prime Minister in his most smashing address—if I may use the term—this afternoon. I refer to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) quoted, or was alleged to quote, from 487 a speech of Sir Wilfrid Laurier which was in fact never made. It was also quoted by the hon. Member for East Birmingham (Mr. Steel-Maitland) as the last and final nail in the coffin of the Government. Let me say here, if it is possible for men to use quotations unverified but easily verifiable from papers that are known to be strongly partisan, accuracy in debate is bound to go to the winds. This is an example, and, singularly enough, it comes from Birmingham, of all places, of what not only Canadians but Members who disagree with the Opposition have to put up with throughout the country. These quotations of a distinguished minister in Canada, quite contrary to the whole tenor of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's life and career, are given in the House of Commons, without any attempt to verify them, and they are being used, I doubt not, upon hundreds of platforms to-night throughout the whole of the realm.

Speaking of one who knows Canada intimately, let me just expose, if I may, the methods of some right hon. Gentlemen opposite on this question of Tariff Reform. Ever since 1903 miles of newspaper columns have been distributed free to all the papers in the Outer Empire. Those columns contain everything that can be said against the Government of the day, and in depreciation of the Old Country, including exaggerated stories of unemployment, and things of that sort. On the other hand, salaried correspondents have been appointed in all the great cities of the oversea Dominions, and especially in Canada. I know many of them. They write to me privately, and their private communications differ vastly from the communications which they are paid to send to the newspapers. These men have instructions to send everything and nothing but those things that will be helpful to the Tariff Reform party in this country. What an extraordinary thing it is that the salaried correspondent of Canada for "The Standard of Empire" is now quoted as a greater authority than the Canadian Hansard. I submit that such methods cannot and have not had a unifying effect between the Oversea Dominions and the Old Country. I for one, speaking with a greater intimacy than anyone in the House, know that Tariff Reform is the most tiresome subject in the Dominion of Canada to-day. It is not taken seriously. The Tariff Reformer is looked upon as a man who is using the great Oversea Dominions as pawns in a domestic party game. 488 That is exactly as they are being used. During this Debate speaker after speaker has quoted Sir Wilfrid Laurier as if he were in favour of Protection in England—he, a member of the Cobden Club himself; he, a man who holds up England as the shining example in the fiscal systems of the world; he, a man who said at Winnipeg on August 12 last year:— I am a Free Trader of the English school, but Gladstone, Cobden, and Bright are my models. They are not the models of any hon. Gentleman opposite. When I find the name of Sir Wilfrid Laurier quoted by hon. Members opposite, I am bound to confess I regret that there is not a place in this House for a distinguished Minister like Sir Wilfrid Laurier, so that his name should not be quoted without his having an opportunity of replying.

Just one word as to what I call the tin-sheet argument of the hon. Member for East Birmingham. He addressed the House on the necessity of dealing seriously with this question. I am in full accord with him. So serious do I consider this discussion, that I think it would have made for better feeling between the Mother of Parliaments and the Dominion Parliament if the discussion had not taken place at all. Let us see what we are doing. After a Bill has been introduced into the Canadian Parliament, and before it has had its second reading, it is being discussed in this Parliament where divergent views are being expressed by different Members, and I submit that the arguments from that side of the House show a tendency to criticise the loyalty of the Canadians in making this agreement. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] If that be not the basis of this Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire, why is it put down at all? If there is no doubt about the continuance of Canada within the Empire as the strong right arm of the Empire, then I say why debate the question at all? Let us come to the speech of the hon. Member for East Birmingham, whose hectoring and lecturing way I am bound to say did not appeal to me at any rate. When urging us to treat the matter seriously, this is the best argument he can bring against the schedule now before the Dominion House of Commons. He says: Returns show Canada imported £300,000 value galvanised sheets during 1910. Fear withdrawal of 5 per cent. duty would very gravely jeopardise this business."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th February, 1911. col. 336.] There is an hon. Member urging this Imperial House to object to the Canadians 489 passing legislation with the object of breaking down tariff walls between Canada and the United States, because it interferes with some tin sheet business of one of his friends. If ever there was a flimsy basis for criticising the great Dominion Colony, it strikes me the tin sheet basis is the flimsiest of all.

I should like to say a word or two about the actual agreement which, as far as I know, has not been dealt with in the House at all It is perfectly true says Mr. Fielding, that for 50 years the Canadians have been ambitious to enter the American market, as they are ambitious to eater any market in the world, It is a singular thing that in the House today we have the hon. Member for Newmarket (Sir C. D. Rose), whose father was one of the pilgrims who went from Ottawa to Washington to arrange a reciprocal treaty with the United States, and also the hon. Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) whose distinguished father, now, I am sorry to say, out of the fray, also went, in 1889, to Washington to arrange a reciprocal treaty between Canada and the United States. That treaty, still known as the Bayard treaty, was never promulgated, because the Senate of the United States, urged by the politicians of America, declined to pass a treaty which had anything in it friendly either to Canada or the United Kingdom. Is not the friendliness of the United States now due to the fact that, happily, bitterness against Ireland in this realm is declining, and that the political hopes of the Irish people of this country, of the United States, and of the Colonies have made it easier, indeed have made it possible, for without their support it would be impossible, to arrange this agreement, which will undoubtedly be consummated between the United States and Canada. The Chamberlain-Bayard Treaty did not become law, but everything within that treaty is now contained in the Fielding agreement. Just a word as to the course of this agreement. A communication was first made by President Taft to Mr. Bryce asking him, as Foreign Minister of the Crown, if he could open negotiations with Canada for making reductions in the Tariff. Mr. Bryce, as a lover of democracy, sent the communication to the Foreign Office, and I believe that nothing further has been heard of it there, and nothing, I hope, will be done. But he also sent a duplicate of the communica- 490 tion to the Canadian Government, and Mr. Fielding, on behalf of that Government, met the President of the United States, with the result of the drawing up of schedules upon scores and scores of articles which will be admitted into the United States and Canada either free or at a reduced duty. There is no treaty in the business in the ordinary acceptance of the term, but concurrent Bills including the schedules have been introduced into the democratic Houses of both the United States and Canada, These Bills contain the schedules, and I want to read the official paragraph in reference to the effect generally:— There is no entanglement in regard to the British Preference. The reductions in Canada's tariffs are mostly in food stuffs, farm implements, printing machinery, coal, and certain sorts of iron and steel products in which Great Britain does little or no trade with Canada. The great import trade from Britain is in textiles, particularly woollens, linens and cotton, and in a wide range of highly finished manufactured iron and steel—these things are not touched under the arrangement, And Mr. Fielding, with that splendid loyalty that characterises all Canadians, went into the arrangement on the understanding that no question should arise to affect the British preference. He said in his speech in the Canadian House of Commons in introducing the Bill:— The general result of these schedules in reference to the Home Country may be summarised in these four sentences. First, there is no discrimination against the Home Country in favour of the United States: Secondly, a great majority of the articles scheduled in the concurrent bills are not and cannot be sent to Canada by the Home Country; Thirdly, the Home Country continues to enjoy the present Preferential rates; Fourthly, further Preference in favour of the Home Country is possible. Indeed, Mr. Fielding, the Finance Minister of Canada, in answer to a question in the House of Commons, led that House to understand that he contemplated not less but more preference to the Old Country, carrying out thereby the accepted policy of the Laurier Government since 1896—a policy which makes for Free Trade with all the world, with Preference as one step in that direction.

An appeal was made by the Leader of the Opposition—I think a most unworthy appeal from a right hon. Gentleman who has been Prime Minister of this country and may be again, in spite of many of his supporters. He suggested that Tariff Reformers in the Old Country should ally themselves with those in the oversea colonies. I say the most serious thing that could happen for the integrity of the British Empire is to interfere by political organisation with the absolute self-governing integrity of the colonies over the seas. 491 I stand in this House to-night a great-grandson of a rebel who fought in 1837 in Canada against an attempt to maintain the preferential rates of those days, and to maintain an autocratic Government in that country; and I confess that my blood runs a little hot in my self-governing colonial veins when I hear suggestions made that the great Conservative party in the Old Country is going to take an active interest in the political affairs of the Radical Home Rule Colonies of our great Empire. Nothing could be fraught with more serious results. You cannot treat growing dominions like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand as if they were Uganda or Zulu-land or, say, Burmah with its sullen, semi-civilised population. The greatest danger that could happen to this old Empire is for the Conservatives or any other party to endeavour to link up political forces there. And I believe the same danger would follow in trying to link up the commercial system there with any forces or systems in the Old Country. The opposition to the Fielding-Taft arrangement in Canada is practically nil. I admit that the correspondents for certain Tariff Reform papers still say that the opposition to the agreement is growing. It is their business to say that, and they will keep on saying it as long as the funds hold out.

But let us come to the serious position. A very able Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Borden, held a meeting of the Members of his party the other day. They passed no resolution but left the members free to vote as they thought fit. When a party caucus holds a meeting without passing a resolution you may depend upon it that it was not unanimous. The plain fact is that the feeling in Canada, as well as in the United States, against tariffs is rolling up; it is rolling higher and higher, and as these schedules in the main affect foodstuffs and the necessary implements of agriculture, no member of any rural constituency—and most of the constituencies in Canada are rural—could go before his Constituents and justify his opposition to this agreement. It will pass through the House of Commons of Canada without the slightest doubt, and the Upper House in Canada is so constituted by the chastenings of the past that they will never attempt to upset the decisions of the Lower House.

I hope this House will forgive me if I endeavour to substantiate this fact that the great prosperity of Canada is not due to the Protection established in that 492 country in 1878. I know it is a common thing in this House, and in somewhat stronger language outside, for speakers to state that the Dominion of Canada owes all her prosperity to the protective tariff. I can remember living in Canada from 1878 to 1895 when there was no prosperity and no great emigration into the Dominion. The great tide of emigration was southwards into the United States and the three great maritime provinces scarcely held their natural increase of population, although there was protection there then as there is now, but in a lesser degree. I may say that these three great Eastern provinces will specially benefit by this free exchange of raw materials and foodstuffs between the United States and Canada. Canada's prosperity dates from 1896 or 1897 with the emigration policy of the Laurier Government, a policy which started most strongly in 1900. Since then nearly 1,500,000 men and women have come into the Dominion and have settled on the land. The prosperity of Canada is not due to her protective system. It is due to this organised system of emigration which has placed people from all parts of the world on selected lands from this country, from the Scandinavian districts of Europe and from the United States. To-day the whole tendency is against tariffs, and I myself look forward to seeing a sweeping reduction in the United States tariffs as soon as the Democratic party come into full power. They now control the majority in the House of Representatives, but not the majority in the Senate. I look forward to still further reductions in the Canadian tariff, and especially to further preference to goods from this old country. I am one of those who believe that preference has done a great deal for the traders of this country. Preference was given to the old country first because it made for free trade in Canada, and secondly as a token of gratitude for the protection afforded by the Army and Navy. I thank the House for having thus listened to me. I repeat that unless there is some unreasonable meddling with the Home Rule of the Dominion of Canada, her commercial exports, be they to the United States or elsewhere, have nothing to do with her political entity as the greatest daughter within the ambit of the British Empire. I have heard with amazement a suggestion to-day about the courses of trade north and south, east and west, a form of argument that lends itself to ready gesticulation. I should like to 493 ask those hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite can one of them tell me how many lines there are running southward in Canada? As I expected, no one can. Ever since Canada started to develop southwards it has been essential, owing to climatic and other reasons, to have exits southwards. The Canadian Pacific Railway has three different lines running south of the United States, to the eastern and Atlantic coast, and the Grand Trunk Railway has two great lines in the United States. In fact it is impossible for any railway to carry on its business unless it has the direction and control of lines running through parts of the United States. No one could quote any distinguished railway man in Canada as complaining of this alleged diversion of traffic by reason of this agreement, and further than that I have seen no shrinkage in the value of shares in any of the Companies, which, after all, is one of the best tests. I believe the ideals of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are the same as mine. We want a strong and united Empire We all start from that basis. I say that the loyalty of Canadians is more certainly assured by allowing them to develop themselves commercially as they see fit, and instead of calling their arrangements with a friendly Power an Imperial disaster, welcoming it as a source of strength to this great Dominion over the seas and a source of strength to the whole British Empire.

§ Mr. MACMASTER

The hon. Gentleman who has just addressed the House has said a good deal about the loyalty of the Canadians, but, in the first place, that is not in question, and, secondly, it is not the subject before the House. In connection with the general discussion on tariffs and preference there has been considerable debate upon the agreement entered into between the United States and Canada, but is it not singular that the agreement has not been submitted to this House, and that we are proceeding now on the second day to discuss an agreement whose contents we have to take from the newspapers. While we have been discussing that agreement a general discussion has also proceeded as to the value of Free Trade and Protection, which I use as conveniently short terms. There is one thing that would strike anyone going from this country to our great Colonies, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada. I might almost include South Africa, but I will not do so on this occasion—the first thing which Strikes one on going to those Colonies is 494 that everyone of them is prosperous, and the next is that every one of them is Protectionist. That is to say, every one of them has adopted the economic policy which is so much condemned by hon. Gentlemen opposite. This is an object lesson to us. The right hon. Gentleman who first addressed the House this evening gave a very succinct and accurate description of the development of events in Canada up to the present time in connection with fiscal matters, but there is one thing additional which I would say, and that is that the national policy of Canada was not adopted in 1878, but in the following year. That, however, is a matter of comparatively trifling importance. But under what circumstances was it adopted? The national policy was a policy of moderate Protection—incidental Protection—a species of Protection which was intended to encourage industrial development and give employment to the people of the country.

For some years before it was effected the people were deserting the country. They could not make a living in the country—I know that of my own personal knowledge. I know that the young men of the country looked forward to no prospect whatever, and many of them, including a number of my own friends, went away to the United States of America in order to earn a living there as best they could. In other words, they fled from a country which had no tariff, or a very low one, to a country with a high Protection. Some remained in the States, but some returned to Canada. But when did they return? They did not return until after the adoption in Canada—after 1879—of what was known as the national policy—that policy which first instituted the fiscal change of granting a moderate degree of Protection. Subsequently there was added to it, a few years afterwards, what is known as the railway policy, and the two are known together as the national policy. The railway policy could never have taken place had it not been for the fact that hope and confidence and a reasonable degree of prosperity was restored to the country by a moderate measure of Tariff Reform in that country. My hon. Friend who is sitting near me (Mr. Hamersley) was in the country with me at that time, and these facts must be familiar to him and to others. Indeed I do not think there is anyone to-day in the Canadian House of Commons, though there may be a few in this House, who will deny that the foundation of the prosperity 495 of Canada was the national policy introduced by Sir John MacDonald. For years that national policy was in operation, and during that time it was condemned by its political opponents—by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Mr. Richard Cartwright and others in the House of Commons and throughout the country. It was styled legalised robbery; it was said that it was a policy of making the rich richer, and the poor poorer—words with which we are very familiar in this country.

But events belied all these predictions, and the men who had condemned the policy so emphatically and determinedly, when they themselves came into power in 1896—when they came to look about and see whether they would carry out their threats of uprooting the last vestige of Protection in Canada and restoring a reasonable degree of Free Trade—what did they do? They quietly adopted the policy of their predecessors, and with a slight modification they have gone on under it through these fourteen years of prosperity that they are so proud of boasting of to day. So that the system of so-called Protection or moderate Protection, as I should call it, has received the approbation of both political parties in Canada. I am not speaking from text-books, or from the words of theorists. I am speaking of facts, and they have been established by the verdict of history. From the depths of despair and the lack of hope Canada has risen and risen through this policy to the position of prosperity that it has attained to-day. Now although Sir Wilfrid Laurier came into power and thought he was wise to go on with the policy of his predecessors, something remained to be done. I am not going to disparage the value that Preference has been to this country. Too many people are not aware—I will not say in this House, but outside of it—that this Preference, which was called a Colonial Preference, was a free Preference given to the Mother-country, that it reached about 33 per cent., and that in the case of Germany, it amounted, as regards its relations with this country, to an advantage of double that amount. The question arose here last night as to why Canada had adopted this Preference in favour of the Mother-country? It was said, and it has been said elsewhere, that it was out of gratitude to the Mother-country. That may or may not be so, and at all events it is a very convenient umbrella under which to take cover in re- 496 spect to certain incidents that occurred a few years previously when the party which is now in power in Canada somewhat suffered in general estimation in respect of that word which I regret my hon. Friend has referred to here, namely, loyalty.

I do not think myself that the reproach is properly applicable to them, but this much is certain, that they were in favour of unrestricted reciprocity with the United States. They were in favour of commercial union with the United States, and even the leader of the present Canadian Government said at a great meeting at Boston that the American dollar was quite as good for the Canadian as the English shilling. So when they came into power they had a record which was not very savoury, and this suggestion of a Colonial Preference came in very conveniently to deodorise the conditions under which they existed. It was also said last night that this Preference was given to this country in order that the party might keep its pledge in regard to Free Trade, but that is not a correct statement. They have never adopted Free Trade; they have never practised Free Trade; they are Free Traders in theory, but Protectionists in practice. An hon. Member said last night that Sir Wilfrid Laurier was a Free Trader, but that is not the case. He is nominally a Free Trader, but really he is a Protectionist. He is a Protectionist while he is in power, and a Free Trader when he is out of office. It is quite true that Mr. Fielding stated in his letter that there was a traditional policy in Canada favouring the interchange of natural products between the united States and Canada, but not of manufactures. That was the policy up to a certain time—that was the traditional policy, not for the full time, that Mr. Fielding mentioned in his letter. It was the policy up to the time that Preference was given to the Mother-country, namely, 1897, but from 1897 the national policy was the traditional policy. To that they added the railways and it continued from that day until a few days ago, when we were informed that an agreement had been arrived at between the United States and Canada. So that there was a departure from the traditional policy—the policy of building up and developing the resources of the country by the railways running eastwards and westwards, in order that the great western part of the country might by railways 497 through the sterile section north of Lake Superior be brought into contact with the highly settled and advanced eastern part.

That was the object of the railway policy—to unite the country east and west. The hon. Gentleman who last addressed the House said that there were a certain number of railways running now southward from Canada. It is quite true. For instance, there is the railway running from Montreal to the border line, fifty or sixty miles, and the Grand Trunk continues south and finds its exit, and goes to Portland, but these are not the roads which would endanger the existence of Canadian trade. The real roads which would endanger the existence of Canada by this agreement coming into operation are railways which would tap the great central plain of Canada, at Winnipeg, 500 miles west of the great Jakes, and other western points, and then running southward. That is where the danger is of tapping the enormous fertile country that is west of Winnipeg, so as to throw the trade from north to south, and by sending out of the country the products of the soil and the mines to promote the trade which will naturally arise from the United States, instead of that trade going eastward and westward, and contributing to the development of the country on lines that were originally intended. My hon. Friend stated that no railway men had taken exception to this policy, but if he will only read a speech delivered about six or eight months ago by Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, the President of the Canadian Pacific Railway, he will see that he pointed out that the interests of Canada were inextricably committed to the development of the country east and west; that the policy adopted was a wise policy, and nothing could be more detrimental to the country than to divert the trade of it north and south, and tap the country at its very centre, and throw the trade into American channels. I think Sir Thomas Shaughnessy will be accepted as an authority on that subject. What is to happen to the railways to the north of that, the Canadian Northern Company, and others? I saw an interview the other day with Sir Wm. McKenzie in which he said the scheme was unnecessary, but that he was not clear whether it would benefit or injure the country or the railways. This must always be remembered—that when people have railways to build they come to England to get the money, and in order to 498 get the money they have to float their bonds and securities, and I think there is not a man in the House who will not agree that those who are coming here to get money through the flotation of their securities and their mortgages upon railways will have either to maintain a very considerable silence with regard to the subject of this treaty or gloss over it as lightly as possible. I imagine this treaty may have very serious consequences, possibly not to a great railway like the Canadian Pacific, but to other railways which are more in their infancy.

Now I come to another b