He there described Canada's fiscal system as the cause of rural young people going to the cities of Ontario, rural school attendance falling off, and farm-help being so scarce; he declared that Canada was too young a country to compete with older countries in manufacturing pursuits and should, therefore, “develop agriculture instead of manufacturing "; he claimed as an axiom that Protection raised the price of all home and imported manufactured goods to the price of the foreign article plus the duty; and stated that free-trade between England and Canada would do more to strengthen the Imperial tie than a fleet of Colonial battleships. "We farmers will ask that our duties be lowered irrespective of the reductions granted by other nations. This free-trade movement is spreading over the country. It is strong with the strength of righteousness and it will sweep everything before it." Mr. H. J. Logan, K.C., ex-M.P., of Amherst, N.S., was pronounced in a Montreal Herald interview on Feb. 8th: "Do those," he inquired indignantly," who oppose this arrangement realize the tide which is rising so fast, not only in Canada but in the United States, against high tariff legislation? This tide will be stayed for a considerable length of time if the proposed Reciprocity arrangement is consummated; but if defeated what then? Surely we can see that within a very few years the tide will come on us with so great a flood that no party will be strong enough to resist the demand that there shall be Reciprocity not only in natural products but that the tariff wall must come down all along the line." There must be a compromise Reciprocity in natural products.

The Halifax Chronicle was rather strenuous on Mch. 10 in denouncing the alleged fight of the privileged classes against the people and in its reference to Mr. Borden and his personal friends, "who from time immemorial in Canada have stood where they stand to-day-firmly back of the wealthy manufacturers and malefactors when it comes to a line-up between them and the people." Senator W. C. Edwards of Ottawa, an uncompromising and well known Free-trader, spoke on May 30 at a Rockland meeting with Hon. Charles Murphy and declared himself a supporter of Reciprocity as "the nearest thing he had seen to free-trade." The Conservatives were fighting it because they feared the consequences. "They know that if it goes into operation its effects will be so conspicuously beneficial that the Liberals will be in power for the next fifty years." Mr. T. C. Norris, the Manitoba Provincial Leader, stated at Manitou on June 2nd that he was "in favour of reciprocity because it is an extension of free-trade. That is the policy of the Mother-country and, therefore, the Reciprocity Agreement is British from the beginning." Before passing from these general lines of Liberal thought up to the time of Parliamentary Dissolution, three further quotations may be given:

THE HON. CHARLES JOSEPH DOHERTY, K.C., LL.D., D.C.L., M.P.

Minister of Justice.

THE HON. WILLIAM THOMAS WHITE, B.A., M.P.
Minister of Finance.

In the new Borden Government, 1911.

Jan. 28.-George Tanguay, ex-M.L.A. and one-time President of the Quebec Board of Trade: Quebec will largely benefit by Reciprocity. The Province exports hundreds of thousands of tons of hay and the change means $4 a ton more for farmers. As for pork the reduction of the tariff will work no injury, because the large fat pork imported cannot be advantageously raised in Canada, requiring a corn feed which is not economically produced here. Its free entry will mean much to lumber operators who use this pork in the woods. Farmers will profit by the cheapening of timothy seed, which cannot be advantageously raised here. The admission of eggs and poultry will probably lead to greater production here."

Feb. 16.-Duncan Ross, ex-M.P., at Victoria, B.C.: "An analysis of the Schedules would lead one to the conclusion that so far as the application of a tariff affects the cost of living, the saving to the people of British Columbia should be at least 25 per cent. The passage of the Reciprocity Agreement must be followed by a still greater British Preference, and this will again help to materially reduce the cost of living in this country." Mar. 2.-At Richmond Hill, N. W. Rowell, K.C., argues as follows: If Canada had the great British market entirely for herself we could sell only 275,000,000 bushels of wheat or flour. Saskatchewan will grow that amount three times over in ten years, and have enough left over for herself. We need both the American and the British market. I agree that a home market is the best. Reciprocity will give us a home market enlarged from 8 millions to 90 millions of people by a stroke of the pen."

Conservative Policy and Opposition to Reciprocity

The Conservative view was not formed in an hour; it crystallized as a result of natural tendencies in thought working with practical reasons adduced by individuals, constituencies and protesting Liberals. It is safe to say that while Reciprocity was a reasonable principle for the Government party to urge it was not so for either old-time Tories or modern Imperialistswhatever the technical and historical record of political advocacy may have been. The modern Conservative party in Canada never had any real leanings toward Reciprocity-apart from exigencies of the moment-and always had a tendency to look toward Great Britain rather than the United States. The question in this case, however, was sprung so suddenly that it took a little time for the party feeling and instinctive sentiments of antagonism to become focussed upon what at first appeared a desperate and somewhat hopeless struggle. When this was done the issue soon became clear.

As time passed on the Conservative Opposition rang the varied tunes of British Empire music against an alleged Continentalism; of moderate protection, stable tariffs, assured industrial development, urban progress and prosperous workmen, against free-trade in natural products as a probable stepping-stone to a wider and more dangerous application of the principle; of guarding the Canadian farmer against the competition and pressure of production by a 90-million nation in the home market of a 7-million people; of protest against the contention sometimes heard that prices under Reciprocity could be higher for farm products and

lower for the much-pressed consumer in the cities; of Imperial reciprocity and British trade union as against United States complications and continental entanglements. It was claimed that the Agreement restricted and might destroy Canada's fiscal autonomy; that it was Reciprocity between peoples producing similar products and competitive by nature rather than complementary; that it was destructive of Canada's natural resources with the lowest possible returns and for the benefit of the United States manufacturer; that any such arrangement hampered Canada in dealing with the quick and incessant change of conditions natural to its great growth; that it affected transportation interests and vitiated the national credit through injuring present investments; that it tended to separate still further the East and the West and to create widely divergent interests within the Dominion; that it killed the possiblity of a Preferential trade union of the Empire.

Mr. R. L. Borden, the Opposition Leader, in a corrected report of a Toronto interview-Star, Jan. 10-early spoke of the coming Agreement as follows: "I said that a commercial treaty must necessarily be presented to Parliament for ratification; that the fate of such a treaty involves the fate of the Government which has negotiated it; that for this reason supporters of the Ministry are apt to vote for it even if they do not approve it. I said that the Government ought to submit to Parliament a clear statement of the principles upon which they propose to negotiate." Of the Leader, on Jan. 25th, the Toronto News said: "Mr. Borden deserves to be esteemed and honoured by his own party, and has earned by rich personal qualities and splendid public services the great and increasing regard in which he is held by the whole country. Moreover he leads a party in the House of Commons that will bear comparison with any Opposition that Parliament has known since Confederation and entirely equal to the responsibilities of government when these shall fall upon its shoulders." During the succeeding two or three months Mr. Borden assumed the burden of much fighting in the House of Commons and was said, also, to have had trouble of different kinds with divergent elements in his own Party. The Liberal press got so far in March as to describe a crisis in the Conservative management, to declare that certain prominent Montreal interests wanted a new Leader and to announce Ottawa correspondence of Montreal Heraldon Mch. 28th that Mr. Borden had decided to resign. It was stated on the 29th, however, that he had changed his mind on receipt of a "declaration of allegiance" signed by nearly every member of the Opposition-except a few French-Canadians and six English members.

Whatever trouble there may have been soon passed away in presence of a great issue and with the recognition of the obvious fact that without Mr. Borden at this juncture there would be no