THE CANADIAN

ANNUAL REVIEW

I.-RECIPROCITY WITH THE UNITED STATES.

Development

and Historical Environment

of the Issue

The great question of the year 1911 was that of Limited Reciprocity with the United States-just as the proposal for Unrestricted Reciprocity with that country had been the vital issue of 1891 and the question of Protection had been the problem of 1878 and immediately preceding years. The issue was an obvious and not unnatural one for discussion and consideration. Closer trade relations with a dominating and expanding community such as the vastly-growing population of the United States could not but be a subject of importance to the people of Canada-whatever the national sentiment and national interests of the latter might be amid the ever-changing conditions of a youthful country with immense and developing resources. The subject was of importance in 1846 when Great Britain abrogated her Preferential and Protective policy and these scattered, almost insignificant, Colonies were thrown upon their own resources; it was still more so in 1849 when the leaders of public opinion in Montreal sought Annexation to the United States as a relief from existing commercial and financial conditions; it was of extreme interest in 1854 when Lord Elgin obtained a measure of limited Reciprocity after declaring, in correspondence since published,* that without it the worst might be feared and with it would come contentment and material progress."

These two matters of history-the Annexation Manifesto of 1849 and the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 which was abrogated by the United States in 1866-were matters of much discussion in 1911. The former document was thrown at the heads of the Conservatives with the statement that it was largely signed by that party and was urged by the same element which burned the Parliament Buildings in Montreal. The facts are that the Manifesto was the outgrowth of general discontent amid a deplorable local deadness of trade, inertia in business, lack of confidence in the

• NOTE.-Walrond's Life and Letters of Lord Elgin.

future of the country, and frequent comparison with the prosperity existing across the borders. It was signed by such non-political leaders in the community as the Torrances, Molsons, Workmans and Redpaths; by men who afterwards became Conservative leaders such as Sir John Rose, Sir John Abbott, and Sir D. L. McPherson; by afterwards prominent Liberals such as Sir A. A. Dorion, Hon. Luther H. Holton, J. B. E. Dorion and his fiery, fighting brethren, Hon. James McShane and Senator E. Goff Penny. As to the Reciprocity Treaty itself every kind of opinion had been and was expressed. The United States claimed that it was too favourable to the British Provinces; the Canadian Liberals in 1891 and 1911 declared it to have been of transcendent importance and value to the farmers of the country; the Conservatives up to 1891 were, in the main, willing to admit its profitable character and, after that date, to claim that what was good for a small country in 1854 was not necessarily good for a greater people three or four decades after. Incidentally, also, it was obvious that war prices and, therefore, prosperity would necessarily prevail in Canada during the Crimean War and during the American Civil War -treaty or no treaty. The exact terms of this famous arrangement admitted into the United States and the British Provinces, respectively, free of duty, the following articles or products:

Grain, flour, and breadstuffs of all kinds; animals of all kinds; fresh smoked, and salted meats; cotton wool, seeds and vegetables; undried fruits, dried fruits; fish of all kinds, products of fish, and of all other creatures living in the water; poultry, eggs, hides, furs, skins or tails undressed; stone or marble in its crude or unwrought state and slate; butter, cheese, tallow; lard, horns, manures, ores of metals of all kinds and coal; pitch, tar, turpentine, ashes; timber and lumber of all kinds, round, hewed and sawed, unmanufactured in whole or in part; firewood, plants, shrubs and trees; pelts, wool, fish, oil; rice, broom-corn and bark; gypsum, ground or unground; hewn or wrought or unwrought burr or grindstones; dyestuffs; flax, hemp and tow, unmanufactured; unmanufactured tobacco; rags.

It received Legislative sanction by the United States on August 15, 1854; by Canada (Ontario and Quebec) on Sept. 23rd; by Prince Edward Island on Oct. 7th, New Brunswick on Nov. 3rd and Nova Scotia on Dec. 13th. It came into operation on March 16th, 1855, and was abrogated by Resolution of the United States. Congress on Jan. 18th, 1865-this action taking effect on March 17th, 1866. Many and varied efforts were made to obtain its renewal by Conservatives and Liberals alike. In 1868 a standing offer of Reciprocity along the lines of the Treaty was incorporated in the Tariff law of confederated Canada, renewed in a modified form under the National Policy Tariff of 1879, again expressed, though in very general terms, in 1894, and eliminated by the Laurier Government from the Tariff Bill of 1897. Missions to Washington, or informal negotiations seeking renewal, began before the Treaty was abrogated and were continued in 1869 by

Sir John Rose, Minister of Finance, and by Sir John Macdonald in the Washington High Commission of 1871; by George Brown in 1874 when a Treaty was negotiated (including a selected List of manufactures) which the United States Senate rejected; by Sir Charles Tupper in 1887-8 and by representatives of the Macdonald Government in 1892 when Mr. J. G. Blaine, U. S. Secretary of State, declared that only a system of Commercial Union would be admissible; by the Laurier Government in 1896 (unofficially) and in 1898, officially, at the Joint High Commission of that year.

There was, therefore, no question as to both parties having publicly sought Reciprocity in some form or other. The actual results of the Treaty were variously defined and described during 1911. Recently published official figures of the United States Bureau of Statistics showed the total imports from Canada (Ontario and Quebec) into the United States in 1850 to have been $5,179,500, in 1860 $23,572,796 and in 1870 $35,354,247, while the exports from the United States to Canada were, respectively, $9,515,991, $22,695,968 and $21,852,226. During the whole period, 1854-66, inclusive, according to Canadian figures, there was a total export from British America (including Newfoundland) of $267,612,131 worth of products (chiefly agricultural) to the United States while the imports included $35,433,213 worth of animals and their products, $112,058,473 worth of breadstuffs, and $88,649,787 worth of manufactured goods.

During 1911 history was freely and variously quoted by the two Parties in Canada. The Liberals claimed that the Conservatives had always supported a limited Reciprocity and should do so now; the Conservatives replied that in 1891, and at other periods, the Liberal leaders had shown grave doubt of their opponents' sincerity and had often declared that the Government of Sir John Macdonald was never really in favour of Reciprocity. There could be no doubt as to the situation prior to the later Eighties. The combination of legislation and Washington missions proved Conservative support. In the Commons in 1884 (Hansard, Pages 1186-7) Sir John Macdonald eulogized the Treaty of 1854 and described its initiation by the Government of Sir Francis Hincks as of great merit and "a great service to Canada." In a letter to S. J. Ritchie of Akron, Ohio, on July 30, 1890, Sir John said: “I am fully assured that the Parliament of Canada will be ready to take off all the customs' duty on coal, ores, and lumber imported. from the United States, whenever Congress makes those articles free of duty." As late as Dec. 13, 1890, when the wider issue of Unrestricted Reciprocity had shown great and unexpected strength in the country, the Government sought to meet the situation by negotiation of a moderate trade treaty with the United States and, in a despatch from the Governor-General to the British Colonial Secretary, it was stated that his Ministers were prepared for a Joint Commission such as that of 1871 to deal with various mat

ters and to seek "renewal of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, with the modifications required by the altered circumstances of both countries and with the extensions deemed by the Commission to be in the interests of Canada and the United States."

The succeeding Elections of 1891 were fought upon the issue of Unrestricted Reciprocity promised by a Liberal party of which the majority probably favoured the restricted variety; against it was a Government supporting Reciprocity in natural products though not, probably, very enthusiastic about any form of the policy. It was from an 1891 Manifesto of Sir John Thompson, then Minister of Justice, that this quotation was largely used in 1911: "We have made to the Government of the United States, through the Government of Great Britain, proposals for reciprocity in trade which we have good reason to believe will result in an arrangement by which the markets of the United States will be re-opened to the products which our people desire most to send there. A fair measure of reciprocity is what we desire and we have no doubt that that can be obtained without undue sacrifices." So largely did the feeling in favour of limited Reciprocity still exist in 1891 that a Montreal mass meeting held on Feb. 11th, 1891, with the late Sir George Drummond in the chair and upon motion of A. F. Gault and Mr. (now Sir) H. M. Allan, passed a Resolution in favour of "a fair and wide measure of reciprocal trade with the United States." In the Commons on May 1st of this year, also, Mr. J. Douglas Hazen, who was 20 years later Premier of New Brunswick, said: "I believe that if a fair Reciprocity Treaty can be effected along the lines of the old Treaty of 1854, it will be of considerable benefit to both countries and that it will meet with favour from all parties in the Dominion of Canada." All this and much more was said in those years and widely quoted in 1911. It only proved, of course, that new conditions create changed convictions and fresher ideals, but it served, nonethe-less, as justifiable party literature.

Meanwhile, what of the Conservative appeal to history? They claimed that, while both parties up to a certain period in Canadian development had deemed Reciprocity desirable and helpful, the Conservatives had never been willing to give much for little, or to put Canadian interests in jeopardy, or in competition with the greater forces of the United States. They declared that the Liberals had been willing to go any length to obtain closer trade relations with the United States and quoted Mr. Laurier's speech at the Hotel Vendome, Boston, on Nov. 17th, 1891, when, after repudiating the idea of closer Empire relations, he was asserted to have said: "It is absolutely absurd. I prefer the Yankee dollar to the British shilling, especially when the dollar is so near and the shilling is so far away." They instanced, in New Brunswick, the Hon. William Pugsley's statement of Feb. 12th, 1891, made at a banquet to Mr. Costigan when, after reviewing the possible conse