rates for Britain, the British colonies and other countries prepared to give fair terms. But any policy of tariff discrimination was barred by the existence of British treaties binding on Canada and conferring on foreign countries rights to equal treatment. These treaties were survivals from colonialism. In early days Britain had made colonial tariffs and bound the colonies by her treaties. Slowly the larger colonies, with Canada leading, had been emerging from this subordinate status. Galt and Macdonald had made it clear that Canada could and would make her own tariffs. In treaty-making, negative freedom for the future had been attained in 1878 when the Colonial Office had agreed to make colonial adherence to British commercial treaties optional; a beginning in positive freedom had come with the inclusion of Canadian with British plenipotentiaries in drafting trade treaties affecting Canada. But the old treaties survived. Some, as with France or Argentina, entitled these powers to any tariff privilege accorded any other foreign power. The treaties concluded with Belgium in 1862 and the German Zollverein in 1865 were still more burdensome, as they called for the granting of any tariff privilege accorded even to British goods. Repeated requests from Canada, in 1881, 1890, 1891, had failed to induce the British government, which admitted the impolicy of the latter treaties, to denounce them and so face the prospect of a tariff war for no certain return.

The new government determined to satisfy imperial sentiment and keep its lower tariff pledges by granting

a tariff reduction on the exports of Britain and other low-tariff countries. If the treaties stood in the way, they would first try to get round them, and if that failed, to break them down. The Fielding tariff provided that a reduction of one-eighth, to be increased a year later to one-fourth, should be granted on imports from "any country" which admitted the products of Canada on terms equally favourable. It was expected that as a matter of fact Great Britain and New South Wales would be the only countries which could so qualify. Sir Charles Tupper at once denounced the proposal as futile, the device of blundering amateurs: the act would be disallowed in Britain; Germany would demand its rights; the government could not play fast and loose with solemn imperial obligations. That the position taken by the government was legally precarious was obvious, but, as Sir Richard Cartwright declared in answer, "we were not born yesterday."

The position taken by the Laurier government is best summarized in a memorandum of council in May, sent in response to a request from the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain. It was contended that the Belgian and German treaties did not apply to Canada, since by 1859 the old province of Canada had been taken out of the category of the colonies referred to in those treaties by A. T. Galt's declaration of tariff independence; that in any case, while "Canada had undoubtedly been actuated by the fact that the mother country was the only nation in a position to enjoy the advan

tages to be reaped from the minimum tariff,' yet it was also true that the offer was made to the whole world, no favour was extended to any special country, and if Belgium or Germany could not share, the fault lay with them, since at any moment they could qualify simply by complying with the conditions; if, however, a different view of the effect of the treaty bonds was taken by the British authorities, it would be necessary to ask that "the treaties be denounced in so far as Canada is concerned."

Whatever doubts there might be as to the legal soundness of the government's arguments, there were none as to the popularity of its policy alike in Canada and in Great Britain. In Canada, it was welcomed by free or freer traders as a first step toward Britain's policy, and by imperialists as a return for British protection and a pledge of closer unity. In the mother country, Lord Farrer and the Cobden Club hailed it as an advance on Canada's part toward free trade while Sir Howard Vincent, the veteran Fair Trader, hoped it marked the beginning of inter-imperial preferences and the commercial federation of the Empire. The London correspondent of the "New York Times" fairly summarized British opinion when he declared:

For the first time in my experience, England and the English are regarding Canadians and the Dominion with affectionate enthusiasm. .. The spirit of preference for the Mother Country appeals to the imagination here. This change will

1 A sentence inserted in the draft memorandum, in Mr. Laurier's hand.

make Mr. Laurier, when he comes here in June, far and away the most conspicuous and popular of all the visiting premiers of the Empire.

The government had done all that could be done in Canada. The next step must be taken in London. When in June, 1897, Mr. Laurier sailed for England to take part in the Jubilee demonstrations, his first task was to ensure that in one way or another the preference should stand, and that the "rash and amateur" policy of the government in acting first and consulting later should be justified.

CHAPTER XI

THE FLOOD TIDE OF IMPERIALISM

The New Imperialism-From Disraeli to Chamberlain-Imperial Sentiment in Canada-Laurier's Imperialist Trend-The Jubilee Pageants-An Unwelcome Title Laurier and the British PublicThe Colonial Conference-The Denunciation of the Treaties-A Pilgrimage to Hawarden-Canada and France-Imperial Military Organization-Boer and Briton-Agitation in Canada- Canadian Contingent-Laurier and Tupper-Laurier and Bourassa-The Elections of 1900.

'HEN Wilfrid Laurier sailed for England

W

on June 5, 1897, a new stage in Canada's development had begun. For thirty years Canada had been preoccupied with her internal tasks of railway-building and settler-planting, and except for line-fence disputes with her great neighbour, had taken little part in world affairs. Now, with a fair measure of unity and consolidation attained at home, and with prosperity giving new confidence to her own people and new importance in the eyes of the outer world, the Dominion entered upon that unknown way which was to bring her sons in the next twenty years to the battlefields of Flanders and the council chambers of Geneva. For the first part of this way, Canada was to follow closely in the wake of Britain, under the flag of imperialism. The next three years were to witness the floodtide of imperial sentiment. In the gorgeous pageants of the Jubilee year, in the business discussions of the