liminary survey of the relations which had naturally arisen between two adjacent countries with a common language. The points of contact between the United States and British America may be considered first under the heading of commercial relations, involving a study of the questions of annexation and reciprocity. The first division of the study is largely an economic phase, but not wholly, for even here the influence of the mother land and the affection of many of the inhabitants for the British Crown cannot be ignored.

For many years the commercial policy of the colonies had been largely determined by Great Britain, whose old colonial system had involved the passage of almost one hundred parliamentary statutes.1 Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the restrictions that Great Britain, in accordance with the mercantilistic doctrines then prevalent, imposed upon her colonies in an attempt to control their trade, were light in comparison with those enforced by other European countries throughout their dependencies. Great Britain was, however, desirous of creating an empire commercially independent of any other country, a self-sufficing economic unit. To further this trade policy, the early royal governors upon their appointment received instructions with regard to the various trade statutes with which they must be familiar.* So far was Great Britain successful in accomplishing her purpose that the period from 1650 to 1830 has been called "the period

2

3

1 George Louis Beer, British Colonial Policy 1754-65, chap. x, p. 193. 'Political Science Quarterly, 1917, R. L. Schuyler, "Preference and Sir Robert Peel," p. 430.

Herbert L. Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, vol. iii, p. 193.

4 George Louis Beer, British Colonial Policy 1754-65, chap. x, footnote p. 193, Trade Instructions to John Reynolds, governor of Georgia, August 6, 1754.

1

2

3

of trade ascendancy ". In 1651 a Navigation Act was passed with a two-fold object in view, the encouragement of English shipping and manufacturing. By this measure foreigners were restricted in their commercial intercourse with the colonies since all goods exported from the colonies must be carried in English or colonial built ships, owned by English subjects, and manned by a crew of whom the majority had to be English. This Act was aimed directly at the Dutch, then the sole rival of England as carriers of goods, not as manufacturers; for in Holland, ships were built at a lower cost than in England. At the expense, therefore, of the Dutch, England built up her merchant marine. The Navigation Act of 1660, called by contemporary writers the "Sea Magna Charta " or " Charta Maritima ", excluded foreign built ships also. A violation of this act meant the loss of both ship and cargo; moreover, it provided that certain "enumerated" articles produced in the English colonies, including sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo, ginger, fustic or other dyeing woods, could be shipped only to England, Ireland, and the British colonies. The Governors of the British Colonies were instructed to insist upon the strict enforcement of the Navigation Acts. Three years later all foreign-built ships were declared alien. By the Act of 1673 export duties were levied on the enumerated articles when shipped from one colony to another. If the reply of the Massachusetts General Court in 1665 to the remonstrances of the Royal Commissioners concerning infringements of the act in which the court, after its declaration that it had been misrepresented to the king,

4

1 H. E. Egerton, A Short History of British Colonial Policy, bk. ii, p. 55. 2 H. L. Osgood, American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, vol. iii, p. 205.

3 Ibid., pt. i, vol. i, chap. ii, p. 58.

Ibid., pt. i, vol. ii, chap. xi, p. 248.

declared that "we are not conscious that we have greatly violated the same ", may be considered indicative of the temper of the colonies, the enforcement of the Navigation. Acts even in the period of trade ascendancy must have been an extremely difficult matter.

Although certain features of the Navigation Acts formed one of the grievances of the American people in 1776, the termination of the Revolutionary War did not bring their abolition, for through them Great Britain still sought to control the trade of her remaining colonies. The arguments advanced in Great Britain for their maintenance were in accordance with the old mercantilistic theory that colonies existed primarily for the benefit of the Mother Country. The prevalent conception of the Navigation Acts in the early nineteenth century in Great Britain may be found in the explanation given by Huskisson,1 in the House of Commons, May 12, 1826: "Our Navigation laws have a twofold object. First, to create and maintain in this country a great commercial marine; secondly (an object not less important in the eyes of statesmen) to prevent any one other nation from engrossing too largely a portion of the navigation of the rest of the world. Acting upon this system, the general rule of our policy has been to limit as much as possible the right of importing the productions of foreign countries into this country, to ships of the producing country, or to British ships." The motives for adopting that system were, first, that such portion of the carrying trade of foreign countries as did not fall to Great Britain's shipping, should be divided as equally as possible among the other Maritime States, and not enjoyed by any one of them in particular; and, secondly, that countries entertaining relations of commerce with this country, and not possessing shipping of their own, should export their produce to Eng

In 1826, Huskisson was President of the Board of Trade; in 1827, he was Colonial Secretary.

land in British ships only, instead of employing the ships of any third Power.1

3

The old colonial system from time to time extended the so-called enumerated articles until in 1840 more than eighty articles were listed.2 Sir Robert Peel further extended the principle of colonial preference by his tariff schedule of 1842 which levied differential duties in favor of 375 colonial products. In 1843 Peel's Corn Act admitted Canadian wheat and flour at a merely nominal duty. In return for this preference in the British market the Canadian legislature agreed to impose a duty of three shillings a quarter, on all American grain crossing the Canadian frontier. On this condition the British government further promised that “all grain cleared from Canadian ports, whether native grown or imported from the United States, would be admitted at fixed duty of one shilling" instead of at the existing rate, which, depending upon English prices, varied from one shilling to five shillings. The natural result was the fostering, the building up, of certain industries in Canada on an unstable foundation, and especially the investment of considerable capital in Canada in the erection of flour mills and the construction of canals. Much of the money went into canals, for the idea that the St. Lawrence system would drain the Middle West was an old one. It was also believed that the Welland and St. Lawrence canals largely nullified the purpose of the Erie Canal.

4

5

The following year, however, there was a relaxation in the preferential system, a foreshadowing of free trade, for

1 Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., vol. 105, p. 103.

'Political Science Quarterly, Sept., 1917, R. L. Schuyler, "Preference and Sir Robert Peel,” p. 432.

Johns Hopkins University Studies, 1922, Tansill, Charles C., "The Canadian Reciprocity Treaty of 1854," p. 12.

▲ Ibid., p. 13.

♪ Ibid., p. 10.

by the customs act of 1844 the duties on foreign wool were repealed and the preference granted hitherto to colonial coffee was greatly reduced. This system was not, however, greatly relaxed until the Corn Act of 1846, which brought bankruptcy to the owners of the newly erected mills by abolishing the preference to colonial corn, and the resultant commercial depression, especially in Montreal, was acute. The Earl of Cathcart, Governor-General of Canada, in 1846, wrote a letter to Gladstone, then secretary of state for the colonies, in which he stated that "the successful operation of the newly completed canal system depended upon the continuance of colonial preference." Since the American route via the Erie Canal was shorter, and not blocked by ice for several months each year, he declared, some preference must be given to the grain shipped by the St. Lawrence route if the debt incurred in the construction of the Canadian canals was not to be repudiated.1 In his reply of March 3, 1846, Gladstone deprecated the injury to Canadian trade, but declared that cheap food was a prime necessity for Great Britain.2 Lord Elgin who became Governor-General of Canada, January, 1847, rightly diagnosed the cause of the distress in Canada: "It is the inconsistency of Imperial Legislation, and not the adoption of one policy rather than another, which is the bane of the colonies." 3

By the Corn Act of June 26, 1846, colonial grain was to continue" to receive a preference until February, 1849, after which date all importations of oats, barley, and wheat wherever grown were to pay only a nominal duty of one shilling per quarter." The same day a tariff act which reduced

1 Ibid., p. 15.

2 Ibid., p. 15.

Theodore Walrond, Letters and Journals of Lord Elgin, August 18, 1848, p. 16.

Johns Hopkins University Studies, 1922, Tansill, Charles C., "The Canadia Reciprocity Treaty of 1854," pp. 13-14.