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 LKCTURE 
 
 DBLIVERED BY 
 
 HON. CHARLES FITZPATRICK 
 
 SOLICITOR-OENERAL. OF CANADA 
 
 ON TEE 
 
 
 ilpL POLICY 
 
 OF THE LIBERAL PARTY 
 
 QUEBEC 
 
 PRESS OF THE " DAILY TELEGRAPH 
 1898 
 
 1^ 
 

 
 W 
 
 \ 
 
 .\ 
 
Al^t^' 
 
 ^H 
 
 I^ECTCJRE 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 ■ \1- 
 
 HON. CHABIES FITZPATRICK 
 
 SOLICITOR-QENERAL, OP CANADA 
 
 ON THE 
 
 COLONIAL POLICY 
 
 OF THE LIBERAL PARTY 
 
 QUEBEC 
 
 PRESS OF THE " DAILY TELEGRAPH " 
 1898 
 
Xj HI O T TJ K; fiJ 
 
 DEHVEUED BY 
 
 HON. CHARLES FITZPATRICK 
 
 SOLICITOR-GERBRAL OF CANADA 
 
 ON THE 
 
 COLOxNIAL POTJCY OF THE LIBERAL PARTY 
 
 The following is the full text of the lecture delivered by Hon. Cha8. 
 Fitzpatrick, at the Collegiate Institute, Lindsay, Ontario, on Thursday 
 November 17, 189&:— 
 
 To try, and with unresting activity, to extend the trade relations of the 
 country will always be one of the foremost duties of a Canadian GovernnS 
 The traditional policy of the Liberal party hi.s led its leaders always toTe 
 mindful of the needs of the less articulate portion of the community, of the 
 great mass of the people. While carefully adjusting a revenue tariff so as to 
 secure the greatest possible measure of consideration for local industries, the 
 first object of the party has been to lighten the burdens for the bulk of tfee 
 nation— that is, for the consumers. They can never forget that so long as 
 men engaged in the greatest of the national industries, agriculture, have to 
 Bee the price of their produce ruled by the markets of free trade England, it 
 is a hardship and a grievous injustice if all that they have to buy for their 
 household wants and the needs of their farms is made artificially and unne- 
 cesearily dear by legislation designed to put money into the pockets of » 
 
 I 
 
^ 4 — 
 
 comparatively small section of th«J commuuity. Meti may talk eloquently 
 about the advantages of protection and the advantages of free trade, but it 
 has been left for the farmers of Canada, for men who live their lives upon 
 the soil they till, to experience and to illustrate the evils of both systems. 
 When they sell the fruits of their toil, the prices are lowered to the level o* 
 the most open market in the world, but when they want to buy, the prices 
 are raised against them by Canadian legislation. It was not a case in which 
 any violent or instant remedy could be applied, but it was the business of the 
 Liberal Government to redress the inequality as far as was possible without 
 suddenly dislocating other industries. 
 
 "'to seek freer trade relations with the United States, to obtain for 
 Canada the advantages of a market of seventy millions of people, twenty-five 
 millions of whom lie close against the frontier, was a policy dictated as 
 plainly by common sense as by party traditions. The two peoples speak the 
 same language, understand one another's wants and feelings, in many respects 
 have the same tastes, and finally the Americans are our only neighbors. If 
 the phrase "natural market" has any meaning at all, it is essentially applic- 
 able to this case of Canada and the United States. But it takes two to make a 
 bargai n as well as a quarrel. The day has gone by when Canada could stand 
 as Tsuppliaht at the door of any people under the sun. The statesmen of the 
 Dominion were not likely to treat with any power except on terms of perfect 
 equality and reciprocal concession, and were not in the least likely to offer 
 trade privileges to a people unwilling to deal with tliem. It goes without 
 saying that when the Uingley tariff put the coping stones upon the Chinese 
 wall of exclusion which successive American Governments have built up 
 against Canadian produce and Canadian manufactures, it was a grievous 
 disappointment to those whose earnest wish it had been to see something of 
 the pleasantness of neighborly treatment mark all the relations of the two 
 peoples. At the same time, it must, of course, be admitted that the Amer- 
 ican Government has acted well within its rights, and was entitltd, and 
 indeed bound, to take whatever steps seemed in its eyes best calculated to 
 safeguard the interests entrusted to it. Admitting this, we may take note 
 that even such an evil as a hostile tariff wall along four thousand miles of 
 frontier may have its compensations. Perhaps nothing less than actual 
 experience could have effectively convinced some of our people that Canada 
 s strong enough to walk alone. If the United States had adopted another 
 
— 5 — 
 
 commercial policy towards Canada, it is quite possible that in time a certain 
 sense of dependence would have grown up, which could hardly have been 
 otherwise than weakening and emasculating to the national feeling. A 
 sense of commercial dependence might easily have slipped into something 
 like a feeling of political dependence, and from that peril, if it were a peril, 
 we have been effectively saved by the gentlemen who constructed the 
 McKinley and the Dingly tariffs. We see that an immense voBime of trade 
 still continues to pass between the two countrieg in spite of all barriers, and 
 that Canada can go her way and prosper in spite of the most hostile tarifts. 
 
 The apparent impossibility of obtaining freer trade relations with the 
 United States at the time being fully established, there was imposed on the 
 Government the duty of seeking over-seas what was denied them n earer home. 
 The thing was not easy, but for resolute men difficulties ar e made to be 
 overcome. Naturally, the first thought was of Great Britain, whose com- 
 merce is second only to that with the United States in importance to Canada 
 and of course incomparably greater than that with any European power. 
 Here was a kindred people, bound to us by many and most intimate tiee, and 
 united to us by 3,000 milesof the Atlantic, I say united rather than separated 
 by the Atlantic advisedly. Matthew Arnold, in one of the most beautiful 
 of his poems, speaks of the " salt unplumbed, estranging sea, " but time has 
 made the epithet seem singularly ill-chosen. The sea is still " salt," though 
 the fact is not very relevant ; parts of it may still be " unplumbed," but what 
 of " estranging " ? Say rather the " embracing " sea, the " uniting " sea, or 
 the " connecting " sea ; anything but "estranging." The sea to-day is the 
 great high-way of the people, it offers the cheapest means of transit and com- 
 munication between nations, it has become the bond, as well as the symbol 
 of all the wide dominions of tlje Queen. Assuredly then, it was not because 
 of the leaguer, of '' estranging sea" that Canadian statesmen did not turn 
 sooner to the motherland when seeking to extend the commerce of Canada. 
 The difficulty was of another kind, and of British making. To the FJnglish, 
 liberty has no .estricted meaning, and the love of freedom is not so finely 
 qualified that it must be tabooed whenever it is mentioned in connection 
 with trade. The great free trade market of the world, England, has, one 
 by one, struck off all the shackles of her trade, and now retains no import 
 duties, except the few that are needed to safeguard her excise revenue, or 
 are imposed f^olely* for revenue purposes upon articles not produced in the 
 British Islee. How then were there any opportunities for trade arrange- 
 
 I 
 
w 
 
 ^ 6 — 
 
 menta, or negotiations, or give-and take, or reciprocal concessions? Qreat 
 Britain could como to the bargain only with empty hands, having nothing 
 to ofter. . 
 
 For many years before the present Government of the Dominion came 
 into power, the country has been kept familiar with schemes and suggestions 
 for promotinf closer trade relations with Great Britain, but they' have all 
 been " in the air," and baaed on the assumption which all men in their hearts 
 knew to be unreal, that the British people were ready to turn their backs 
 upon the policy of free trade, and, instead, to adoj)! didcriminating duties 
 against all peoples outside the Empire, England, to whom cheap bread is a 
 necessity ; England to whom cheap raw materials is the vital condition of 
 her manufacturing supremacy, was invited to surrender both these things in 
 exchange for preferential treatment in regard to the merest fraction of her 
 trade. We may regret that the conditioiis of English trade are what they are, 
 but there is no use pretending not to know that they are immovable, and still 
 less is there any use in posing as though one had a monopoly of loyalty on 
 the strength of offers to Great Britain, which it is perfectly well known she 
 is not in a position to accept. Lord Ripon put the case in a nut shell in hie 
 despatch of June 28th, 1895, when referring to the proposals ot the Ottawa 
 Conference, and in particular to the suggestions that Great Britain should 
 discriminate against goods coming from foreign countries in return for favor- 
 able treatment for her own goods in colonial harbors, he said : — 
 
 " It is obvious that as the trade of the Empire with foreign countries 
 " far exceeds the, trade between the various members constituting the Empire' 
 *' the volume of trade, upon which taxation is to be placed, exceeds the 
 *' volume which would be partially relieved. The reeult would not only 
 " necessitate increased taxation, but would involve a serious net loss of trade 
 *' the burden of which in both cases would full with greatest severity on 
 *' those parts of the Empire which have the lar<^^0!*t proportion of foreign 
 *' trade, and the loss to those parts would more thiin outweigh the gain to 
 " the other parts. The material results of this proposal would be even moie 
 " prejudicial than appears from the general statement of its more obvious 
 " results. In the case of thi-* country (Great 13' itain) the bulk of the imports 
 " from foreign countries, and almost the whole of our imports from the 
 " colonies, consist of food or raw materials for inanufiifture. To impose a 
 " duty on food means at once a diminution of the real wages of the work- 
 
— 7 — 
 
 *t 
 
 man. If, in addition to this, a duty were impoaod on raw materials, a 
 ** further encroachment would have to be made on the wagea to enable the 
 " manufacturer to compete with hia rivals in countries where there are no 
 *' such duties." 
 
 Wuatever may be thought of the cogency of this maxim, it may cer- 
 tainly bo taken as representing tho profound and settled convictions of almost 
 «very school of English statesmen, and for the present, at least, must be 
 accepted as final. There is certainly one other way in which the coramer- 
 <5ial relations of the whole Empiro might be consolidated and that without 
 any difficulty on the score of principle on the part of Great Britain, but, 
 unfortunately, it is not within the sphere of practical politics. A British 
 zoUverein, which would sweep away all trade barriers within the Empire, 
 and then, pooling the common customs revenue, divide it proportionally, 
 is an ideal which may some day be realized, but the delegates at the Ottawa 
 Conference wore unanimously of opinion that the difficulties in the way are 
 at present insurmountable. 
 
 The only possible way, therefore that remained of offering further faci- 
 lities for trade between England and Canada was to ofler advantages to the 
 mother country without seeking any direct gain in return. I say direct gaiu, 
 because no country can be indifferent to the prosperity or misfortunes of its 
 best customers. Among individual citizens the failure of a wealthy man, 
 accustomed to spend his money in the neighborhood is at once recognized as 
 a misfortune to the district, and the shop keepers and others who did business 
 with him feel that his loss is theirs. It is not otherwise with nations. The 
 greater the purchasing power of Great Britain the more ohe can aflford to 
 buy of Canadian products. The Government, therefore, decided to at once 
 introduce legislation, the efl'ect of which would be to give the imports from 
 Great Britain a preference amounting to a 25 per cent reduction on the 
 ordinary tariff. By so doing they, at the same time, cheapened many of the 
 conveniences of life for all Canadians, and made a graceful and generous 
 acknowledgement of the warm ties of kinship and affection which bind 
 Canada to Great Britain. It is unnecessary to speak of the loud acclamations 
 with which the mere announcement of this proposal was received in England. 
 It shall suffice to say that it was received by all classes of the nation with an 
 enthusiasm which was out of alt proportion to the material value of the favor 
 ■conferred. I say the mere rumor of the proposal, because much had to be 
 
— 8 
 
 done before the intentions of the Government could be realized. From the 
 outset, it was recognized that the scheme would have to run the gauntlet of the 
 Belgian and German treaties, and might result in a request to the Imperial 
 Government for their denunciation. We wished as f-^ as might be, to avoid 
 doing anything which would cause embarrassment to the Government in 
 London, and tried to shape and amend our proposals in such a way as to 
 enable them to get through the meshes of the German net, but all the while 
 we were resolved that if, in spite of all we could do, the treaties still got in 
 the way, then, as in the case of Stephenson's cow, it should be so much 
 the worse for the treaties. During the debate the speakers on the Oppo- 
 sition side of the House told us many times that the preference offered 
 to Great Britain was no preference at all, because by the Belgian and 
 German treaties we were bound to accord similar privileges to both 
 thoae countries, and, by reason of the most-favored nation clauses, through 
 Ihem, to some twenty other nations as well. The possibility that in 
 that event the treaties would be ended was treated with ridicule. For, as 
 Sir Charles Tupper plaintively reminded his friends, had not the Tory party 
 tried in vain for sixteen years to get those treaties denounced. It was not 
 very strenuous trying. The secret of the failure was written large across the 
 record of the party, so that he who ran might read. To find the explanation 
 we need go no farther than Lord Eipon's despatch already referred to. 
 After dwelling on the risks to which both Canada and the Mother Country 
 would be exposed to by a denunciation of the treaties the then Colonial 
 Secretary went on to say : — " No scheme has been proposed which fore- 
 shadowed any precise advantages to be secured to the export trade, etc., 
 amounting to thirty-five millions, from the United Kingdom to the British 
 colonies, in the event of the determination of these treaties. " It is hardly 
 surprising that the Imperial Government declined to take a course of action 
 the precise advantages of which were not even foreshadowed. The Liberal 
 party never had the slightest doubt but that if properly approached 
 with a carefully thought-out and business-like scheme, the home authorities 
 would hasten to relieve the thirty millions of the trammels of which its 
 people complained. The event showed that tnat confidence was not mis- 
 placed, and you know that what Sir Charles complained he had not 
 succeeded in doing in sixteen years, Sir Wilfrid Laurier achieved in less than 
 as many months. 
 
 But I am anticipating the course of events. 
 
— 9 — 
 
 "We were anxious to obtain our end, the establishment of a preferential 
 treatment for British imports with a minimum of disturbance of international 
 relations, and quite read}, provided they did not conflict with that, to let the 
 treaties stand. 
 
 The articles in the Belgian and German treaties of 1862 and 1865 
 respectively, which were thought to bar the way to any scheme for granting 
 commercial advantages to Great Britain, run as follows : — 
 
 Article XV. (Belgium) : — *• Articles the produce of manufactures of 
 Belgium shall not be subject in the British colonies to other or higher duties 
 than those which are or may be imposed upon similar articles of British 
 origin." 
 
 Article VII. (ZoUverein, German Empire) : — " The stipulations of the 
 preceding (Articles 1 to VI) — they contain the whole treaties — shall also be 
 applied to the colonies and foreign possessions of Her Britannic Majesty. lu 
 those colonies and possessions the produce of the States of the ZoUverein 
 shall not he subject to any higher or other import duties than the produce of 
 the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland or of any other country 
 of the like kind, nor shall the exportation from those colonies or possessions 
 to the Zolverein be sub.ject to any higher or other diities than the exporta- 
 tion of the United Kingdom." 
 
 Lord Ripon, in his despatcli in connection with the Ottawa Conference, 
 thus summarizes the opinion of the British law officers as to thu effect of 
 these articles in the Belgian and Gorman treaties : — (1) They do not pre- 
 vent differential ti'oatment by the United Kingdom in favor of the British 
 Colonies. — (2) They do not prevent differential treatment by British Colonies 
 in favor o1 each other. — (3) They do prevent differential treatment by 
 British colonies in favor of the United Kingdom. Assuming that the 
 treaties were binding upon Canada, there was no disposition to cpiarrel 
 with the correctness of the views here laid down. At the same time there 
 seemed grave reason for doubting whether Canada was under any cou- 
 stitutioiial obligation to respect treaties which had been fastened upon her 
 without eitlier previous consultation or subsequent consent. It is an ad- 
 mitted principle of constitutional law that the power of the Crown to con- 
 clude treaties binding on all communities of British subjects is subject to this-- 
 limitation, that if they affect the taxation of the people, they require the 
 
 I 
 
— 10 — 
 
 ■ 
 
 ratification of Parliament. In every such case the Legislature of a colony 
 enjoying responsible Government is entitled to give or withold its con- 
 sent, and upon that consent the validity of the treaty to that extent, and 
 as far as it affects the colony, must depend. And let this be remembered 
 that in the case of a distant .olony the right of the Legislature to decide 
 whether the people shall be subjected to new charges or fiscal restric- 
 tions is vastly more important, and needs to be far more jealously safe- 
 guarded than can possibly be the case in Great Britain. There the control of 
 Parliament over the Ministry, over the men who negotiate treaties with 
 foreign powers, is a living and effective force, while no vote of a Colonial 
 Parliament could unseat them. Years before the date of either the German or 
 Belgian treaty, Canada had achieved her fiscal independence, and established 
 an unchallenged right to regulate her customs in the interests of her own 
 people, without regard to the wishes of the Parliament of Britain. And 
 yet we have this undisputed fact that neither of the treaties in question, 
 though they place restrictions upon the fiscal liberties of the country, has 
 ever received the ratification or the sanction of the Parliament of Canada. 
 
 Let us examine this question a little more closely. The general proposition 
 that the prerogative of the Crown to contract treaties which involve the taxa- 
 tion of the people or what is the same thing, interfere with their fiscal liberty, 
 or their power to manage their own customs, is subject to the limitation that 
 such treaties depend for their binding effect upon the sanction of the Parliament 
 of the people concerned, is too well established to need any lengthy array of 
 authorities in its support. Sir William Anson, in his well-known work on 
 the Constitution, puts the case thus:— "This much appears to be certain, that 
 where a treaty either involves a charge on the people or a change in the law 
 of the land, it may be made, but cannot be carried into effect without the 
 sanction of Parliament. Such treaties are therefore made subject to the 
 approval of Parliam^^nt and are submitted for its approval before ratification, 
 or ratified under condition. Such are treaties of commerce which might 
 required a change in the character or the amount of duties charged on 
 exported or imported goods." 
 
 Todd, in his work on Parliamentary Government in the Colonies, lays 
 down the still more general proposition that "the Legislature in any colony 
 is free to determine whether or not to pass laws necessary to give effect to a 
 treatv entered into between the Imperial Government or any foreign power, 
 
— 11 — 
 
 but in v/hich such oolony has a direct interest." Finally in his despatch to 
 the Australian colonies, dated 19th April, 1872, Lord Kimberley says : — 
 "Her Majesty's Government apprehend that the constitutional right of the 
 Queen to conclude treaties binding on all parts of the jsirapire, cannot be 
 questioned, subject to the discretion of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, 
 or the Colonial Parliaments, as the case may be, to pass any laws Avhich may 
 be required to bring such treaties into operation." 
 
 In the light of these authorities it becomes apparent that the issue is 
 narrowed down to the question : — Had Canada in 1862 and 1865 such a 
 measure of fiscal independence, such liberty to regulate her own customs that 
 the prohibition clauses of the Belgian and German treaties were such an 
 infringement of her rights as to require the sanction of her Parliament. As 
 far back as 1854, Canada successsuUy asserted her right to establish reciprocal 
 trade relations with a foreign power, and to grant to that power commercial 
 advantages denied to the United Kingdom. The Imperial Customs Act of 
 1857 still further streiigthened the position of fiscal autonomy claimed by 
 the people of Canada. Two years later a complaining despatcli from the 
 Duke of Newcastle drew from the Canadian Priv^y Council a declaration of 
 rights on this whole subject which has never since been challenged, and is deci- 
 sive of the position of Canada at the time. It will suffice to quote the follow- 
 ing passage : — " Self-Government would be entirely annihilated if the views 
 of the Imperial Government were to be preferred to those of the people of 
 Canada. It is therefore the duty of the present Goverinneut distinctly to 
 affirm the right of the Canadian Legislature to adjust the taxation of the 
 people in the way they deem beot, even if it should unfortunately happen to 
 meet the disapproval of the Imperial Ministry. Her Majesty cannot be 
 advised to disallow such acts unless her advisers are prepared to assume the 
 administration of the affairs of the colony, irrespective of the views of its 
 inhabitants." That being the position of Canada years before either of the 
 treaties under discussion were negotiated, it would seem to follow that if the 
 clauses limiting her fiscal liberty are really binding, they are operative 
 because the prerogative of the Crown enables it to put charges upon the 
 people of a self-governing colony without the concurrence or assent of its 
 Parliament. 
 
 The position of Canada will appear still stronger if we contrast it with 
 the case of the Australian Colonies. In their Constitution Acts there used 
 
 ■ 
 
— 12 -- 
 
 to be a clause oxprossly forbidding them to grant preferential treatment to 
 any power, it such privilege was at variance with any treaty concluded by 
 Her Majesty. Why was that specific enactment necessary if the same object 
 was already attained by the general principles of constitutional law ? If Cana- 
 da without such a prohibition clause was still prohibited, this clause in the 
 Australian acts was mere idle surplusage. Then note that it was to this clause 
 and this clause alone, that Lord Kimberly appealed in his despatch of April 
 1872, when replying to the claim of the Australian colonies to disregard the 
 German treaty. Admitting in the frankest possible way that the constitu- 
 tional right of the Queen to conclude treaties binding on ail parts of the 
 Empire is subject to the discretion of the British or of the Colonial Parlia- 
 ments, as the case might be, to pass any laws necessary to bring them into 
 operation, he pointed out that in the case of the Gorman treaty no Australian 
 Act was required, in as much as the Australian colonies were already prohi- 
 bited by their Constitution Acts from the giving of preference or the imposi- 
 tion of duties inconsistent with Her Majesty'? treaties with foreign powers. 
 When, therefore, Lord Kimberley confined himself to saying that in the case 
 of the German treaties no Australian ratification was necessary by reason of 
 the clause in the Constitution Act, it may be fairly inferred that in the absence 
 of such a clause, as in the case of Canada, ratification by the Colonial Legis- 
 lature would have been required. 
 
 I have already stated that it was the desire of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and 
 his colleagues to cause as little embarrassment to the Home Government as 
 possible and to follow the line of least resistance. It is obvious that much 
 friction would be saved if the object we had in view could be attained without 
 raising the question whether or not the two treaties were binding on Canada. 
 Accordingly the resolution as it was finally presented to Parliament was in 
 these words : — " That when the customs tarifi:" of any country admits the 
 products of Canada, on terms which, on the whole, are as favorable to Canada 
 as the terms of the reciprocal tarift" herein referred to are to the countries to 
 which it may apply, articles which are the growth, produce, or manufac- 
 ture of such country, when imported direct therefrom, may then be imported 
 direct into Canada, or taken out of warehouse for consumption therein at 
 the reduced rates of duty provided in the reciprocal tariff set forth in 
 schedule D." 
 
 This on the face of it was a square oft'er made impartially to all the 
 world. There was no discrinuJiaiion in favor of ( ne power or agains 
 
— 18 
 
 another. It was dimply as though Canada had announced that she would 
 levy a lower rate of duties upon all goods arriving, packed in a particular 
 sort of crate, selected for the convenience of Canadian importers. Would it 
 have then been open to German merchants to complain that their British 
 rivals were getting an unfair advantage because they used the specified form 
 of packing case, while they themselves continued to use the clumsy old 
 crates their fathers had been aacuetomed to ? The instant answer would 
 have been that this benefit of the lowered duties was confined to no par- 
 ticular nationality, but was open to all who would take the trouble to pack 
 in the required way. The Canadian resolution acted in precisely the same 
 way, and certainly did not differentiate upon national lines. It offered lower 
 duties, not to those who consulted Canadian convenience by packing well, 
 but to those whose Governments granted admission to Canadian goods on 
 terms as favorable as those offered by Canada. It happens that the British 
 tarif? satisfies the conditions under which the reduced duties may be claimed, 
 and' that the German tarifiT does not; but it was just as open to the Ger- 
 man people to share in the advantage by rectifying their tariff^, as it 
 would have been in the other case ot mending their methods of packing. 
 This seems so clear that during the discussion in Parliament the opponents of 
 the Government were reduced to quoting the words of the German treaty 
 and insisting that they must be taken in their most literal sense at any cost 
 of absurdity or violence to common sense. They recalled that t-he treaty eays 
 that "the produce of the States of the Zollverein shall not be subject to any 
 " higher duties than the produce of the United Kingdom " and argued that 
 as under the resolution, as a matter of fact, British goods would be let -in 
 with lower duties than the produce of countries which did not comply 
 with the conditions of the Reciprocal Tariff", the treaty would be violated. 
 To these literal gentlemen it mattered not at all that if German merchants 
 continued upon the old and higher scale it was solely because their Govern- 
 ment declined to take the steps which would entitle them to the lower. To 
 further illustrate our position, take this hypothesis— suppose that both 
 England and Germany were in the habit of exporting large quantities of wall 
 papers to Canada, and that we decided to impose a prohibitory duty on all 
 wall-papers, in the manufacture of which arsenical coloring had been used. 
 The fact that such a duty would be imposed for sanitary reasons is abs'lutely 
 irrelevant to the argument. Now if it happened that Germany had prac 
 tically a monopoly of these arsenically colored wall-papers, would it be open 
 
— 14 — 
 
 to her Government to complain that the treaty had been violated becauae in 
 fact the manufactures of Germany were now subjected to a higher duty than 
 those of Great Britain— and if not, why not ? Germany could not complain, 
 for this reason that ex-hypothosi the Canadian legislation had been perfectly 
 impartial in its application, and that if wall-papers made in Germany were 
 hard hit, the manufacturers had the remedy in their own hands, and had 
 only to desist from the use of poisonous paints at once to stand on a footing 
 of equality with their British rivals. 
 
 But while feeling obliged to set forth the reasons for this belief that 
 Canada was not legally bound by the German and Belgian treaties', the 
 Government never concealed from themselves that there were grave grounds 
 of policy which might probably constrain Imperial authorities to differ from 
 that view, or at least, to decline to give it effect. In the same way, while we 
 did our best to shape our legislation in such a way as to avoid raising any 
 question under the treaties, v»'e knew that the Home Governmet might be 
 very unwilling to adopt an iuterpietation of them which might conflict with 
 that of the German and Belgian authorities. It might well be, for instance, 
 that as between England and Canada, the treaties lacked that sanction and 
 ratification which was constitutionally necessary to make them binding 
 against the Dominion, but how would that concern a foreign power ? What 
 oflficial cognizance could Germany take of the intricate constitutional relations 
 between Great Britain and her great colony ? The question whether or not 
 the assent of the Parliament of Canada was necessary to bring into force the 
 clauses in the treaty that concerned her was a purely domestic issue. The 
 power of making treaties is vested in the Crown alone, and to the Crown 
 and not to a colony a foreign power would look for satisfaction in the event 
 of any infraction of the international agreement. But don't let anyone jump 
 to the conclusion that, this being so, it was an idle and irrelevant thing to 
 urge the constitutional question as between Canada and the United Kingdom. 
 That issue might have no interest for a German Chancellor, but it had a very 
 direct hearing upon the question whether the treaties should be denounced — 
 in fact it is not too much to say that it was the decisive influence which 
 turned the scales, and secured the emancipation of Canada from the bonds 
 that vexed her. And however, cogent the reasoning by which we might sup- 
 port the contention that oven if binding on us, the treaties were not infringed 
 by the new Reciprocal Tarif, the fact remained that Germany took another 
 
— 15 — 
 
 view and had indeed oflScially protested before the matter had been oon- 
 aidered by the law officers of the Crown. To have insisted on the correctness 
 of the Canadian view therefore would havo meant a grave misunderstanding 
 between the contracting powers, and, undoubtedly exposed British commerce 
 to reprisals in the future legislation of Germany. Obviously it would have 
 been more courteous afid more in accordance with diplomatic usage, for 
 Great Britain to get rid of the difficulty simply by giving the usual notice to 
 terminate the treaties — it was more civil, and it came to the same thing in 
 the end. 
 
 From a Canadian point of view that was a consummation most devoutly 
 to be wished for. We should have been content to succeed in creeping 
 through the treaties, but we all felt that it would be infinitely more satis- 
 factory to see England use her right to fling it to all the winds. If it was a 
 choice of evading the treaty or ending it, all Canada was for ending 
 it. Of course we knew that our political opponents had been trying 
 to get this done, trying, they told us in the House, for an eighth of a 
 <!entury, and in vain. On all hands we were met with dismal prophecies 
 that our proposals were certain to be disallowed by the representative 
 of the Crown as incompatible with treaties prized by Great Britain. 
 "We listened and knew it was unnecessary to answer. We were confi- 
 dent from the beginning tliat if the case against the treaties was put 
 fairly to Great Britain, and at the same time a definite proposal was 
 made — for all these sixteen years of dallying with the question the Conserv- 
 atives had never got as far as that — our request would not be refused. We 
 felt pretty sure what the result would be, when Johnny Bull once under- 
 stood that it was only a German treaty, which could be ended at any time, 
 that barred the acceptance by England of a signal mark of Canadian good 
 will which came accompanied by opportunities for profit. You know gen- 
 tlemen, what happened, that our confidence was not misplaced, and that 
 the treaties have disappeared. The emancipation of Canada from the last 
 of her fiscal fetters has been achieved by the Liberal party. For the first 
 time in the long story of Britain, a foreign treaty has been wiped from the 
 record at tho direct invitation of a Colonial Parliament. And if that does 
 not in itself mako anew epoch, it certainly shall mark one in the gradual 
 development and growth of the relations between the sundered yet united 
 communities which together make up the British Empire. 
 
— 16 — 
 
 I need not tell you that while pro ad of our achievement, and beMeving 
 that the preferential tariff would prove a substantial benefit to the Mother 
 Country, we never supposed that it was going to effect an economic revolu- 
 tion, or suddenly to turn the tides of trade. Some have recently been writing 
 as though they were under the impressioi. that we had succeeded in taking 
 off 26 per cent from the total cost of British goods instead of from a duty 
 which is a tiny fraction of that cost We had no such foolish illusions ; 
 we hoped that this slight tariff preference might do something to compensate 
 for the disadvantages of distance, and to balance the natural protection which 
 their proximity to our borders confers on the United States. Wo knew 
 that Canadian imports from Great Britain had shown a decided tendency 
 to decrease, and we thought that tendency might be checked, and per- 
 haps reversed. That is precisely what has happened, 
 
 TRADE WITH GREAT BRITAIN" 
 
 ^898 SI07,228,906 
 
 1895 92,988,727 
 
 1898 137,185,947 
 
 During the last fiscal year the new * riff was in operation for soma 
 months-- and what do we find ? That already the tendency to decrease has 
 disappeared, and that on the contrary the imports from Great Britain have 
 increased by three million dollars. But this quickened commercial intercourse 
 with Great Britain has had another and still more striking result. KiUgland 
 has reciprocated our good will, and met us more than half waj'. While we 
 have taken an extra three million dollars worth of goods from her, she has 
 taken an extra twenty-four millions from us. That was a satisfactory but 
 also a natural and inevitable result of the preferential tariff. It was simply 
 not possible that the eyes of the British people should be fixed upon Canada 
 as they have been during the past year without the gain of some new know- 
 ledge of the resources and products of the Dominion. Their closer familiarity 
 with what our fields and mines can produce was all that was needed to extend 
 the commercial relations of the two peoples and to the exceeding advantage 
 of both : We all. Liberals and Conservatives alike, ask for nothing bettor than 
 that this policy should be judged by its results. 
 
 The estabMshment of a preferential tariff in favor of the Mother Country 
 was only one of the steps taken by the present Government to draw the ties 
 
- 17 — 
 
 of Empire closer, and to facilitate trade with the people most willing to deal 
 with us. Much has been written of that other measure of reform in which 
 Canada gave a lead to the rest of the Empire — the Imperial Penny Post. It 
 may be doubted, however, whether the commercial, as distinguished from 
 the political, aspects of the subject have received the attention to which they 
 are entitled. That u heavy postage rate is a tax upon commerce, and a griev- 
 ous commercial difjability to the peoples subjected to it, is too obvious to be 
 insisted upon. It acts as a barrier keeping communities apart, and may 
 become not only a burden but an actual discrimination against a particular 
 nation. Consider the respective positions of an Englieh and an American 
 merchant having business relations with Cariada. The American can send 
 an ounce letter to Canada for two cents, and receive a letter of the same 
 ■weight in reply for three cents. The Englishman for an ounce letter to 
 Canada has to pay ten cents, and his correspondent has to pay as much 
 to send a similar letter in reply. The letter and reply cost in the Ameri- 
 can case five cents, and in the case of the Englishman twenty cents. 
 Have you ever reflected that this, in fact, amounts to a discrimination 
 against Great Britain of exactly four hundred per cent. A discrimination 
 of four hundred per cent against the Mother Country as compared with 
 the treatment of United States every time an ounce letter and reply 
 were sent between England and Canada — was that the w^ay to draw the 
 people closer, or promote a policy of imperial unity ? Even when people 
 on both sides of the Atlantic carefully kept their letters down to the half 
 ounce weight the discrimination against Great Britain was a hundred per 
 cent, and a Canadian doing business with the United States had still the 
 further advantage of sending and receiving letters twice the weight that 
 would be allowed if he had been corresponding with England. In a word, 
 as compared with an American, an English merchant for the half ounce 
 letter had to pay twice as much for half the matter. The present adminis- 
 tration believing that these inequalities represented a restraint upon the 
 freedom of both social and commercial intercourse with Great Britain resolved 
 to amend the anomaly, and our representative at the recent Postal Confer'' ce 
 in London announced that Canar^a was in favor of Penny Postage through 
 all the Queen's Dominions as a broad meacure of Imperial policy. The 
 Canadian offer was at once welcomed and reciprocated, and from Christmas 
 Day onward the Imperial penny will rule the seas. Nor is there much reason 
 to doubt that the precedent set by Canada, already followed by Sonth Africa, 
 
— 18 — 
 
 will prove a vivifying example which before long will load the Empire, and 
 make postal communication between all its members as cheap and as easy as 
 it is to-day between one Canadian town and another. I, for one, believe 
 that this freeing the communications of the Empire, this abolition of a postal 
 inequality which ?h effect was a protective tariff for the commerce of the 
 foreigner, is destined to have far-reaching effects upon the destinies of the 
 Dominion. The want of Canada in field, and forest, and stream, and mine, 
 is men to work the wealth with which nature has endowed her. A hundred 
 rivers are now runnmg waste to the sea, just because hands are wanting to 
 harness the power which aome day will set in motion a thousand busy 
 industries in every corner of the land. While riches beyond the dreams of 
 avarice await the coming of labor to woe them from the bosom of the rocks, 
 the value of our forests will be doubled when they cease to be solitudes. 
 Turn to the great plains of the West and you will see uncounted acres now 
 abandoned to the antelope and the prairie-dogs which want only the touch 
 of the h\iman hand to break into plenty, and to become a land flowing with 
 milk and honey. All that is needed to enable Canada to take her right 
 place among the foremost countries of the world is the populatioJi necessary 
 for the proper development of her magnificent rc30urces. I suppose we are 
 all agreed that no immigrants are more desirable than those from the old 
 land, if only because the process oi educating them to become good Canadians 
 is comparatively short. If it be true then that the great need of Canada is 
 the filling of the land, and, if possible, with people from Great Britain and 
 Ireland, it certainly follows that the question of Imperial penny postage has 
 an intimate and obvious bearing upon the prosperity of the Dominion. The 
 most effective emigration literature in the world is the letters of the con- 
 tented settler, simple tales of peace and happiness and successful work sent 
 from the new homes to the old. AVas it a wise policy which in the past 
 presumed upon this feeling of family affection to levy a tax upon it through 
 the Tost Office, aud so penalized communication within the Empire, that 
 to day not one letter a year per head of the people of Canada goes back 
 to the old land ? We at any rate thought it bad policy, bad for 
 England and bad for Canada, and so swept away an impost which 
 pressed with special severity upon the poor, and made them suffer in exact 
 proportion to the love they bore to the friende they had left. For my 
 part I believe that when the history of the closing years of the 19th 
 century cowes to be written, it will be recognized that not the least of its 
 
— 19 — 
 
 achievements was this freeing of the letters of the Empire from an undqual 
 tax, and assuredly it is a reform with which the Government presided over 
 by Sir Wilfrid Lauricr is proud to be associated. But there is another branch 
 of this general question of improving the trade communication of the country 
 which has earnestly engaged the attention of the Government. We want to 
 keep for Canadians the handling of Canadian loods whether travelling- by sea 
 or rail. Apart altogether from the important consideration of the carrier's 
 profits, it is clearly impossible as long os our grain ana fruit and cheese go 
 abroad through American ports, for us to preserve their separate identity in 
 the markets of Great Britain. Our agricultural exports will never command 
 the price over seas which their natural excellence entitled them to until they 
 cease tob? 'confounded and confused in the public mind with inferior and pos- 
 sibly adulterated articles produced elsewhere. And what opportunities are 
 ours ! When ever was a people endowed with so royal a waterway as the St. 
 Lawrence provides for us ? At Quebec, 846 miles from the gates of Canada 
 at Belle Isle, a dozen Great Fasterns could ride at anchor in perfect safety ; 
 at Montreal, 180 miles further up the river, we are still only at the beginning 
 of the wonderful chain of water-ways whicli, at-king little from the hand of 
 man, stretch right into the heart of the continent. 
 
 Nature has been prodigal in her goodness to Canada, and clamorously 
 invites us to use and improve the means she has placed in our hands. Cer- 
 tainly there is no permanent reason why in the near future the largest freight 
 ships afloat should not lie along the wharves of Quebec, there to loud all the 
 grain of all the west and carry it without transhi[iment to the ports of Europe. 
 Surely, on the face of it, it is a thing not to be endured that while Q""bec is 
 actually GOO miles nearer to Liverpool than is New- York, if we measure by 
 time, Quebec is two days further away. In modern commerce it is time that 
 counts and not distance, and the standard of measurement is not the mile 
 but the hour. The sea and the river on the Canadian route are all rig-ht : 
 what is wanted is a faster service. To provide a faster line and so give to 
 Quebec and Montreal the advantage which their situation on the St. Law- 
 rence seems to claim for them, is a problem which the Government under- 
 takes to solve, and, gentlemen, you may rest assured that having put their 
 hands to the plough they are not in the least likely either to pause or look 
 back. In justice to my colleagues, however, 1 must not let schemes even of 
 the immediate future overshadow or make us unmindful of what is being 
 done in the present. Even if we could put vessels of the newest and swiftest 
 
 I 
 
— 20 
 
 type on the Belle Isle route to-morrow, the capacities of Quehcc as a freight 
 loading port would still remain undeveloped and iimufficient, and an over- 
 whelming proportion of the produce of the Canadian North- West would still 
 continue to go to Europe through alien porta. We got hold of the right end 
 of ihe stick when we undertook, first of all, to improve the water communi- 
 cations above Montreal, connecting it with the Great Lakes. As you know, 
 enormous sums of money have been spent in deepening the Wellimd Canal, 
 but unfortunately, just as the strength of the chain is the strength of its 
 weakest link, so the usefulness of a canal, considered as a connecting high- 
 way, is the usefulness of its shallowest section. To get a depth of fourteen 
 feet between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, was a futile thing if you were 
 going to leave the canals above I>tontreal with a depth of only nine feet. 
 Barges can now use the Welland Canal which have a grain carrying capacity 
 five times as great as those which can go through the waterways of the St. 
 Lawrence rapids, but it is a paper advantage only, for the neck of the bottle 
 ir still to be passed. To give all the canals a uniform depth, therefore, was 
 work which had to be undertaken before the millions of money poured into 
 the Welland Canal could be made to fructify. That work is now in hand, 
 and is being vigorously pressed to completion. But we have not made the 
 mistake of deepening the canals only to find that our object is frustrated 
 because the ports of Montreal and Quebec are not equipped for handling and 
 storing the additional quantity of freight. Hand in hand with the work 
 upon the canals has gone the task of preparing these ports for the new 
 demands upon them. And is it too sanguine a view of the national possi- 
 bilities if believing, as we do believe, that the route of the St. Lawrence can 
 be made cheaper than that through Buffalo and New York, we look forward 
 to the time when on the breast of the national river shall be borne to the sea 
 not only the produce of the farms of Canada, but also a lion's share of the 
 traffic from Duluth and Chicago ? 
 
 At any rate, gentlemen, you may take it that to un^'t'/^;- '.; • extend 
 the commerce of Canada is the first purpose and the dearest wish of your 
 Government of to-day. 
 
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