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 ■ .c'-it No. ^. , 
 
 Pi: ,iN TALFS 
 
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 .Ggmmf'igial Union 
 
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PLAIN TALKS 
 
 — ON- 
 
 -RCI 
 
 l~j LV 
 
 — BETWEEN — 
 
 CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 BV- 
 
 THOMAS SHAW, 
 
 Sureiarj, of the Permanent Central Farmer,' /nsti.ute, 
 HAM I [TON, ONT. 
 
 He only is a truly loyal citizen who seeks the {rre.-i 
 largest number of his own countrymen. 
 
 greatest goo.l to the 
 
 HAMILTON 
 Printki. nv GRIITIN & KIDNER, Ki^v. Wm. St. 
 
 FOR THE AUTHOR. 
 1887 
 
 fi- 
 
PLAIN TALKS 
 
 -ON — 
 
 COMMERCIAL UNION 
 
 -BETWEEN — 
 
 Canada and the United States, 
 
 THIS is without a doubt the most momentous (|uestion that agitates the 
 public mind to-day in the Dominion of Canada. It relates to the wel- 
 fare of no less than tive millions of people on this si<le of the United 
 States' northern boundary line, and of fifty-five millions on the other side of it. 
 Its adoption or rejection will undviubtediy have an important bearing on the 
 progress of every one of the individual Provinces that go to make up this great 
 confederation, larger in extent than the entire domain of the United States. 
 The question is so many-sided that it will alTect all the leading industries of 
 the country, agricultural or otherwise, in their entirety and in their sub-divisions, 
 and also the material well-being of the humblest citizen engaged in 'he prose- 
 cution of these, so that no one who has the welfare of his country at heart can 
 look upon the subject with cold indifference. 
 
 The rapidity with which this youngest and now incomparably the greatest 
 of the public questions has gained a foothold in the land is very remarknble. 
 The spontaniety, as it were, with which its first heraldings have been accepted, 
 afford evidence that the germs of desire to obtain it already existed in the minds 
 of a very large number, and that it wanted but the gentle showers of a mild 
 agitation to rouse these into vigorous life. It is not the movement of the noisy 
 politician, who tries to work upon the emotions of the masses. Its very calm- 
 ness, and the reasonable nature of the measures ad(jpted in its advocacy, are 
 significant, bespeaking as they do at once the dignity of the movemert and 
 the consciousness on the part of its advocates that its advantages only require 
 to be presented to reasonable men, when it is at once accepted by them. The 
 leading newspapers in each of the Provinces have very largely espoused the 
 cause, which is full of promise for its future, and which also very largely accounts 
 
 V 
 
Plain Talks on Comnifrcial Cnion 
 
 for the .electric rapidity with which it has spvead throughout all our borders 
 from sea to sea. 
 
 The Origin of the Agitation. 
 
 The question was introduced into the 49th American Congress last winter, 
 by the Hon. Benjamin Butterworth, who represents the city of Cincinnati in the 
 United States Sieviaie. I. was purposely introduced toward the close of the 
 session. He tells us himself, it was not his expectation thai the proj)osed 
 measure would even be discussed, much less adopted, by the United Slates 
 Legislature before its next sitting. His object in introducing it at such a time 
 was to fasten public attention upon it, which might lead to public discussion, 
 and so pave the way for its adoption. 
 
 On February 23, Mr. E. Wiman, of New York— who, by the way, is a 
 Canadian — delivered a most telling speech on the subject before the New York 
 Board of Trade. Various other addresses were in the meantime delivered on 
 the subject by Prof. Goldwin Smith, Toronto : the Hon. Mr. Butterworth, 
 and others, before the Canadian Club in the afore- mentioned city ; and the 
 opinions of certain prominent public men from the United States and C'lnada 
 had been expressed publicly by letter and otherwise, prominent amongst which 
 we may mention those of the Hon. Robert K. (litt, the United States Con- 
 gress representative for Illinois, and of the Hon. J. \V. JLongley, Attorney- 
 General of Nova Scotia. 
 
 Meanwhile, the farmers of Ontario, chiefly at the instigation of Mr. V. 
 E. Fuller, the noted Jersey breeder, of Hamilton, Canada, had decided to 
 move in the direction of representative Provincial organization, and had a 
 meeting announced in the public press for the promotion of this object on the 
 lines of the Farmers' Institutes, 'o be held in Toronto, on April 28. On see- 
 ing this, Mr. Wiman addressed an open letter, on the 26th of April, to Mr. 
 Fuller, which was published in the Canadian press, setting forth the advantages 
 of commercial union to the two countries. When the farmers raet in convention, 
 a Provincial Institute was formed for Ontario, at which the question of commer- 
 cial union, or unrestricted reciprocity as it was called, was discussed, and the 
 following resolution anent the subject was carried by a very large majority : 
 
 "In the opinion of this Institute, a removal of all restrictions on trade 
 between the Dominion of Canada and the United States is desirable, either by 
 reciprocity or otherwise, as may be agreed upon by the respective countries, 
 and the officers and executive committee of the Institute are hereby au- 
 thorized to take such action in the premises as shall best promote the object of 
 this resolution. In the event of fair reciprocity being unattainable, this Insti- 
 tute shall memorialize the Dominion Government to suggest to the Government 
 of Great Britain the expediency of entering into a commercial union with her 
 colonies in regard to food supplies and of imposing a protective tariff against 
 all foreign countries." 
 
 The question was at once taken up by the subordinate Farmers' Institutes, 
 
 and since that date it has been discussed in nearly all of these, while several 
 
Bti7i>roi Canada a)ui the United States. 
 
 5 
 
 new Institutes hav ■ been called into existence or th»j vry vertjf of harvest 
 time, the bi:siest season of the yeai. Between the aSth day of April and the 
 4th day of August, resolutions had been carried in it; favor in no less than 
 hnentytitio of the Institutes. Kleven of them had not taicen a vote, althouph 
 only waitiiiq till the harvest should I;e hoirsed for tlie further discussion of the 
 (luestion, live had nut reported, and only one had cunied a resolution in op- 
 position, it is alleged in a packed ineetinj^. 
 
 At the meeting of the executive of the Central Farmers' Institute, held in 
 Toronto on the date already referred to, Augu.'t 4, two of the ntiicers of the 
 Institute had the work delegatinl to them of orguni/in:; Institutes in electoral 
 districts where they do not now exist, and through the medium of the Institutes 
 ii was decided to ascertam the minds of the farmers ir the whole Province 
 in regard to the ijuestion, by the formation of an organization for the purpose, 
 in each electoral district or county in wliich the Farmers' Institutes had declared 
 themselves favorable to commercial union. 
 
 Shortly after the formation of the Central Farmers' Institute of Ontario, 
 a representative meeting of the manufacturers was h.astily called in Toronto, 
 which declared itself by resolution as being adverse to the movement ; and on 
 the 12th of May the matter was warmly discussed in the s.ime city hy the 
 Roard of Trade, and again on the igth of the same, af an adjourned meeting, 
 a resolution unfavornble to the measure was carried by a vo'e of sixty three 
 to forty — not a very signal victory in a city, the wholesale merchants of whom, 
 more than those of any other city in Canada, fear the effect? of competitive 
 trade with New V'ork. 
 
 Since thai time it has been the momentous theme in all the secular news- 
 papers of each of the Provinces, and it is surely an omen of brightest promise, 
 that a majority of the most iiifluential of these have declared themselves in 
 favor of the measure, and are advocating it with exceptional earnestness in 
 their foremost leaders every day. It is now the most fruitful theme of discussion 
 in the home of the peasant and the legislator, in the railway carriage and the 
 public house, so that long ago a fitting answer has been given lo the scornful 
 c|uestion more than once propounded, " Who is this Mr. Butterwcrth? " and 
 the more sarcastic proposal even, made by a member of the Koard of Trade, to 
 " rai>e a subscription and send Mr. iV^iman and his projosal back to New 
 " York." The name of this same Mr. Butterworth will soon be a household 
 word in every hamlet of our northern Dominion homes, and the proposal of 
 Mr. Wiman now bids fair to be sent back by our C.overnment to Washington, 
 rather than New \'ork, for the ratification of ih? Covernment of the United 
 States. 
 
 The measure is thus extending like the resistless advance of the tidal waves 
 of the great deep. Notwithstanding the prompt measures taken to stay its 
 progress, like the advance guard of a victorious army, it goes marching on. It 
 is at least interesting to seek the reasons for this phenomenal advance. It is 
 
 u/ 
 
Plain Talki on Commercial Union 
 
 not that capitii'.ists have taken hold of it and through the potent Inlliience of 
 their thousands, have forced it upon the attention of the people througl. mercen- 
 ary workers. It is not that some old veteran politician has ctjme forward and 
 assunitd its leadership, for as yet the politicians h.nc said nothing; ahoul it on 
 the platform. Its advoca'es have heen solely from the ranks of the people, 
 men engaged in the ordinavy pursuits of life. Nv)r is it that some noisy and 
 talented dcm.i^'oRue hrs come upon the sta^e, and \,^ the vehemence of his 
 declamatinti has tried i j make it for himself a stepping stone into powei, for its 
 advowcy hai as yet been sin;»ui.irly calm and di>»nitie.l. It occupies the some* 
 what unique position in this country of a movement of the people leeking the 
 ratification of the Government, at least it is heading; in this direction, rather 
 than that of a movement of one or other of the governmciu parties seeking the 
 support of the people. 
 
 Whatever else a[)out it is obscure, this is plain, that its announcement has 
 found a wonderful response from the masses of this country, indicative of a 
 prepaccdness of the soil for the reception of the seed, that has thus been sown 
 broad-cast in a spring-'ime of unusual brevity. Usu:illy the measures th;it 
 revolutionize the settled order of things in realms coiujiosed of Provinces, 
 having both a conimuiiity and a diversity of interest, are the wc rk of long ye irs. 
 The most potential forces in the realm have to be armyed in their furtherance, 
 before being received by a majority of the populace. But in reference to com- 
 mercial union, the progress it has made is no less wonderful than the shortness 
 of the time for this, and the shortness of the time even less astonishing than the 
 means used in effecting such results. 
 
 There can be but one explanation given, and that is the reasonableness of the 
 measure, commending itself to the good sense of the people. This, we believe, 
 is a feature appertaining to it that has never yet been questioned by its bitter- 
 est .)pponent. Seed that is sown n])on unploughed soil will not prove produc- 
 tive, hence the fact that the mention of the proposal for commercial union has 
 already produced such promising results, makes it pretty clear that the minds of 
 our Canadian farmers and those of various other classes have been ploughed 
 pielty deeply of laie years with the furrows of aisappomtment, and that the 
 time has come for a change in our commercial relations. The unanimity of 
 the testimony of our farmers in this resp..,. has already administered fitting re- 
 buke to the manufacturers, who at their meeting in Toronto patronizingly told 
 the farmers that they were ' doing well enough," as though they, the farmers, 
 had been a race of imljeciles who were unconscious of their own condition. 
 
 The present is certainly veiy opportune for the discussion of this m.ovement. 
 No great political questions distract the public mind at the present time. The 
 sky of our political hoiizon in this respect has never been more cloudless within 
 the memory of the living. The rancor of poHtical partizanship is dead or slum- 
 bering, and there are signs here and there cropping up of a disintegration of 
 the old party lines, that may help lo introduce a more rational era into the do- 
 
In'tU'Ctii Canada and the UtiiUJ States. <9 
 
 main of Canadian politics than we have passed through during the last succes 
 siiin of decades. We are not on the eve -'t any exciting electiins, so that no 
 time more fitting could be found than the now present tor the calm consider.i- 
 lion of tht subject by all classes n! the coniniunity. 
 
 In the hope of throwing some additional light upon it, and thu.- makinir the 
 sturly of it more efTective, the preparation of this series of papers has been un- 
 dertaken. The(iuesti.)n,.we have already said, is many sided, .^o that ir; sev- 
 eral of its aspects it is as yet imperfectly i;nders1oo'3 by those even wfio are sat- 
 isfied that it points in the right direction. If we succeed in any degree in thus 
 assisting our countrymen to secure a more enlightened fiscal policy we shall be 
 more than repaid for the labor involved. 
 
 What is Implied in Commercial Union ? 
 
 Commercial union between Canada and the Uniletl States implies a fret in- 
 terchange of all the products ' both countries of whatsoever nature, whether 
 of the watert;, the soil, the ^ea a the mine. It wouM involve {'• ) an assimi- 
 lation of tarifT rates against at! other countries ; (2) of internal revenue 
 taxes ; and (3) very probj»b 7 an a -.angem^.ii for pooling receipts and customs, 
 and distribiilng the same, it wouM be I'^iiowed by the discontinuance of the ser- 
 vices of a strong forC'^ of custom ) 'mse ofilcials on both sides of the boundary 
 line of neany 4,(XX3 miles bc;ne<;) the two countries, which is maintained at 
 a cost to Canada of at lea^t haii a million of dollars anni.ally. 
 
 The reasons assigned for its desirability in the preamble to the Bill intro- 
 duced by Mr. Butterworth into Congress are, (i) T. i:r>)inote and encourage 
 business and commercial intercoiirs ; iietween the people ol both countries ; (2) 
 to enable the citizens of each to trade with the citizens of the other as fully and as 
 freely as though there was no boundary line between the two countries ; (3) to 
 promote harmony between the two Goveinments which shall be so complete and 
 effective that ail existing controversies und all causes of controversy in latters 
 relating to trade may be removed. And the greut reasons assigned as to why 
 all this is desirable are the contipjiity of the two countries, and the simU- 
 arity of the interests and occupations of the people thereof. By ilie adoption 
 of this treaty it is expected that it would atT)>d a solution of the fishery ques- 
 tion, which, during almost th;: entire period of the past r^entury, has giv^n rise 
 to the most serious complications. 
 
 That such results would follow is exceedingly probable. Trade between two 
 countries always involves the idea of mutual advantage. Where such is not the 
 result, trade must cea.se. Where the conditions on which trade is based are 
 similar or nearly so, the advantages cannot but be mutual, and in the event of 
 commercial union in the line of the basis indicated, the conditions would be 
 very similar. Beth countries have products that the other wants, anf^ these 
 are produced ut.der conditions very similar as regards the price of labor. If 
 
8 
 
 Plain Talks on Conimeraal Union 
 
 under tariff disabilities (he volume of trade between tlje two countries is con- 
 siderable, how much more would it not be with these disabilities removed, and 
 if the very idea of trade involves that of material advantage, how very largely 
 would this material acl.antage increase with the increase of trade ? 
 
 To leave the boundary line for purposes of trade as nature made it would be 
 pleasant indeed, and mutually advantageous. To erect a commercial barrier 
 between British Colanibia and th*^ rest of the Dominion would be much more 
 rational than to establish one bet»^een Manitoba and Minnesota. There might 
 be good reasons for establishing .his barrier when bordering nations and States 
 differ in their aims, degree of ci-'iliration, and language ; but when there is no 
 danger of contamination in th* evil sense in any form, it does seem a high- 
 handed step to take, when people are prevented from trading freely with 
 their neighbors and are in a manner compelled to deal in the same commo- 
 dities with those living remote from them. 
 
 That the harmony of thej two governments would be promoted by this union 
 should not ue questioned, for the most direct way of insuring the greater har- 
 mony of communities, as all past experience has taught us, is to promote inter- 
 course. It is when they have no dealings with one another that their suspi- 
 cions arise and linger, and that they assume the attitude of the Jews 
 and the Samaritans. When two individuals disagree and neither one has any- 
 thing at stake, they are but little disposed to compromise, but where there is 
 much at stake they are more readily disposed to come to terms, and the de- 
 gree of their willingness is usually in proportion to the extent of the risks they 
 hazard. In this way we can easily conceive the commercial interests of the 
 two countries so increased and su mter-dependent, that there could be little or 
 no fear of a war arising between them. 
 
 Again, if the adoption of this measure would secure an amicable settlement 
 of the fishery disputes — and we see no good reason why it should not — it would 
 accomplish in this one line more than all the costly legislation of the past one 
 hundred years on the s:ubject. 
 
 There are some in our midit who favor what they term " unrestricted reci- 
 " procity '■ between the United States and Canada, harboring a groundlest; fear 
 that political union will eventually follow in the wake of commercial union. 
 We will sp>eak of that further on, but may here say that this is purely a ques- 
 tion of economics, not one of politics. If a full measure of free trade is sure 
 to be followed by political union, then it follows by logical sequence, that the 
 chances of political union between bordering nations retaining their in- 
 dividu-ilily will be in proportion to the degree of their isolation or contiguity 
 as regards trad<;, and their only absolute safety will consist in complete isola- 
 tion in matters of trade. 
 
 The arguments furnished by the churches also points in the opposite direc- 
 tion. These are organizations within the State. Now it has been found that 
 by coming into more fraternal relations their harmony is promoted, even to the 
 
Between Canada and tke United States. 
 
 mmmm 
 
 extent of agreement on some of the lines by which they seek 'o further interests 
 common to each ; but this has not been done in a single instance at ihe sacri- 
 fice oi organic identity. Now, if an organization within the Statq preserves its 
 organic identity unimpaired while its fraternal relatione are always growing, the 
 fear, then, is groundless that one State will endanger o: lose its political identity, 
 because it enters into closer trade relations with another. 
 
 There is really no difference between what is implied by the use of the terms 
 commercial union and unrestricted reciprocity in this case, for the latter involves 
 an assimilation of tariffs and interna! revenue, as well as the former. The 
 terms are synonomous and interchangeable. We need not expect to get 
 unrestricted trade with the United States and deal with outside countries as we 
 pleas2 ; nor would we be willing that the United States should enjoy this priv- 
 ilege from us, and deal with other countries as she pleased. 
 
 It Is Not a Political Question. 
 
 We have already stated that this is not a political question, but one of econo- 
 vtics. It does not in any way interfere with the principles of government as 
 such, but confines itself solely to the aspect of the advancement of the mate- 
 rial condition of the people. It is true that efforts have been made, and very 
 likely will be made in future, to give it a political aspect, but we most earnestly 
 ask our countrymen not to allow themselves to be led away from the proper 
 consideration of the subject by any party cry, but to lock at it mainly in the light 
 of material advantage. The vital matter is not whether its adoption or reiec- 
 tion will put one party into power and keep the other out. but will it be on the 
 whole a material gain to a large majority of the people of this country. 
 
 Observe, it does not involve any sacrifice of the foundation principles of 
 tree trade or of protection, while at the same time it forms a common meeting 
 ground where the most pronounced advocates of both systems may shake tiands 
 fraternally and exchange sincerest greetings. It recognizes the two fundamen- 
 tal principles that should govern all trade, of which the first reads thus — where 
 the conditions are equal, or nearly so, all trade should be free ; and the second 
 thus — where the conditions arc not equal, or nearly so, industries, more partic- 
 ularly infant industries, should be protected. W^here the conditions are equal 
 and protection still reaches out her covering wings, the re=uU is monopo'y, and 
 monopoly of the worst kind, for it is monopoly for one class of citizens fed from 
 the pockets of another class of them. To say that the citizens of the United 
 States want protection from the competition of the people of Canada is absurd, 
 and for any Canadian to affirm that her citizens want protection from the com- 
 petition of the United States, where the conditions are so nearly equal, 
 is at least a humiliating confession. While the disciples of each of the two 
 systems have been pitching at each other's throats, nations have been growing 
 great under both, which surely ought to be conclusive that the measure of each 
 
i 
 
 10 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial Union 
 
 to be adopted should have a reference to conditions. Britain has been grow- 
 ing magnificently great under a free trade regime, and the United States has 
 made the most gigantic strides under a protective one. Mr. Butterworth, so 
 largely responcihle for the present agitation, is a life-long protectionist, as are 
 <;ome of the most ardent of ns advocates in Canada. We trust, then, that party 
 politics will not be allowed to make the question of commercial union the ped- 
 estal on which it will plant the pillar of its hopes, or the grave within which 
 either of the parties may f nd sepulture. Party politics has its proper ends to 
 serve, and grand ones 'hey are, when it fulfills its mission, but it is no part of 
 the latter to fatten or famish in consequence of the success or non-success of 
 an economic question. We trust rather to find the two parties shaking hands 
 over the advocacy and ratification of this question, and presenting the sublime 
 spectacle to the world that for once in its history two political parties are agreed 
 upon the fact that their common country has interests which it is the duty of 
 both at the same time to further. 
 
 From 1854 to 1866 Canada and the United States had free trade in cer- 
 tain products, particularly those lelating to agriculture, and so advantageous 
 did the latter prove to Canada that she has ever since evinced a desire to have free 
 trade relations renewed, and that desire has been evidenced by the efforts put 
 forth by politicians, on both sides of politics, to bring about reciprocal trade in 
 greater or less degree. The benefits of freedom of trade between the two 
 countries are shown by the great increase in the volume of trade during the re- 
 ciprocity term. In 1S53 the volume of trade was, in round numbers, but $20,- 
 000,00c, In 1854, the first year of reciprocity, $33,000,000, and in 1866 it 
 had more than quadrupled, being no less than $84,000,000, although the popu- 
 lation of Canada at that time was only in the neighborhood of 3,000,000. Mr. 
 Turcotte, in his " Le Canada L'Union," a history of the two provinces from 1841 
 to 1887, states in regard to this treaty, " that it was hif;hly advantageous to the 
 " whole country." The farmers of the Eastern Townships at the same time freely 
 acknowledge that while then they lifted mortgages, now they are going back. 
 The treaty was not renewed IjiCause it was found that under its provisions 
 Canada had had the advantage, although efforts were made to have it renewed. 
 In reference to these Mr. John Bright wrote to Mr. Aspinwall, of Detroit, in 
 1865, in response to an invitation to attend the Reciprocity ("onvention : " It 
 " will be a miserable thing if, because they (the British North American 
 "Provinces) are in connexion with the British crown, and you acknowledge 
 " the President as your chief magistrate at Washington, there should not be 
 " a commercial intercourse between them and you as free as if you 7vere one 
 '■'^ people living under one government."' This statement is in keeping with the 
 recent public utterance of that great English statesman addressed by him to 
 Canadians, wherein he says ; " If you mean by commercial union, that no 
 " tarifi should exist between the two countries, such a condition would be 
 " greatly to their mutual advantage." 
 
Bchvee}! Canada and the Untied States. 
 
 II 
 
 III the negotiations carried on by the Macdonald-Cartier Government, 
 from July, 1869, to March, 1870, with that of the United Stales, the measure 
 of reciprocity offered l)y the former included the assimilation of our customs 
 and excise duties, and the concession of an import duty equal to the internal 
 revenue taxes of the United States, the free interchange of natural products 
 and certain manufactures, the cession of the use of our fisheries for a term of 
 years to the Americans, the enlargement of our canals, and the free use of 
 these and of the navigation of the St. Lawrence by the Americans. 
 
 In 1871, the British representatives stated they considered that the reci- 
 procity treaty of the 5th June, 1854, should be restored in principle. 
 
 In 1874 the MacKenzie Government employed Sir Edward Thornton and 
 the Hun. George Brown to negotiate a commercial treaty with the United 
 States, The draft treaty embraced ten propositions. We shall not stay to 
 enumerate these, but may mention they included the enlargement of the Wel- 
 land and St. Lawrence canals, the construction of the Caughnawaga and 
 Whitehall canals, the mutual enjoyment of the coasting trade of the great 
 lakes and the St. Lawrence, the mutual use of the Canadian, New York and 
 Michigan canals, the reciprocal admission of vessels to registry, a joint com- 
 mission to protect and propagate fish in the inland waters common to both 
 countries, the concession to the United States of our fisheries for twenty-one 
 years, and the admission duty free into both countries of a long list of natural 
 products and of manufactured goods, such as agricultural implements, cotton 
 gtious, furniture, carriages and sleighs, iron of all kinds, leather and harness, 
 and manufactures of wood. Each of these proposals came to naught, because 
 the United States did not accept them. 
 
 It is hence apparent that Canada has never ceased to look and hope for 
 better facilities for trading with the people of the United States, since the 
 expiration of the old reciprocity treaty in 1S66. And in her efforts to secure 
 this, two things are very worthy of note : First, the basis of negotiations as to 
 articles of free barter has continually enlarged, culminating as it has in the 
 proposed bill of Mr. liutterworth to sweep away the last remnant of restriction 
 in the trade of the two countries ; and second, these propositions have 
 emanated from both sides of politics, first one and then the other. 
 
 Sir John Macdonald, the veteran leader of the Conservative party, has 
 left no doubt as to his views of the advantages of reciprocal trade with the 
 United States. He is reported, by the then chief Conservative organ, as hav- 
 ing said in a speech at Napanee, on Sept. lith, 1S77, that he was a Free 
 Trader if he could get free trade, but it was not his intentioB to have a jug 
 handled policy. If they could not have reciprocity of trade, they should have 
 reciprocity of tariffs. Suoh was his policy, and he asked if they would sus- 
 tain it. 
 
 At Cobourg, August 29th, 1877, Sir John Macdonald proved to his own 
 satisfaction that it was the Canadian farmer, and not the United States brewer, 
 
 / 
 
13 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial Union 
 
 u 
 
 who pays the duty of fifteen cents oer bushel on the grain that is sent to the 
 United States. The Canadian farmer would raise his barley for say $i.oo a 
 bushel, but it would not be the brewer who would pay the 15c. He paid $1.00 
 for his bailey, no matter where ir was grown, but the duty came out of the 
 pocket of the Canadian farmer ; this state of affairs was not right, and he ap- 
 pealed to the farmer to support those who pledged themselves to defend their 
 interests. The mottoes at Cobjurg were. " No compromise,' " Keciprocity or 
 •' Protection." 
 
 At Newmarket, September 14th, he said, " If we cannot get reciprocity 
 •' of trade, we must get reciprocity of tariff." 
 
 At Owen Sound, October 5th, he said the Conservative maxim is, " If 
 " we cannot get recijtrocity of trade we must have reciprocity of tariffs ;" and at 
 Hamilton, Septembei t/th, " I want the Canadians to say to the Americans, 
 "we will have free trade, fair trade or reciprocal trade if you like, but if you 
 " will not have any of these, we will have a reciprocity of tarilT, What is sauce 
 " for the goose is sauce for the gander." 
 
 It is thus apparent that Sir John Macdonald was at that time in favor of 
 free trade with the United States, and that a protective tariff was adopted be- 
 cause the first was unatiainable. What the great leader of a party favors 
 should not be so very distasteful to his followers, as to cause them to array 
 themselves in the attitude of uncompromising opposition. 
 
 Physical Conditions Call for It 
 
 Take a map of the North American continent, examine it carefully, note 
 well the physical conditions of the two countries, and you cannot but be con- 
 vinced of the short-sightedness of the men who are trying to keep Canada and 
 the Lfnited btates apart for purposes of trade. The dividing line is not formed by 
 impassable mountain barriers, and during the entire land line of nearly three 
 thousand miles, it could not be k;iown but for the iron pillars which mark its 
 course. Even the system of lakes which separate certain provinces bring them 
 into closer proximity by the facilities- which they afford for transit. Certain large 
 and populous States ate located to the westward of this cfc-iin of water commu- 
 nication, which would afford to them a natural outlet t(j the sea. On the west, 
 British Columbia has ready meani; of water communication with all the great 
 American cities on the Pacific seaboard, but is separated by lofty mountain ranges 
 from the Northwest territories and by thousands of miles of land transit from 
 the great commercial centres of. the provinces of the confederation. The im- 
 mense plams of the Northwest that are being opened up for settlement are 
 within a short run by rail of the great cities of the Northwestern States, as St. 
 Paul and Minneapolis, while the most easterly city of Manitoba, Winnipeg, is 
 1,423 miles from Montreal ; Calgary, at the base of the Rocky Mountains, 
 2,262 miles, and Victoria, in British Columbia, 2,990 miles. Ontario is sur* 
 
Betiueen Canada and the United States. 
 
 •3 
 
 rounded by llouiishing cities on her very borders, as Buffalo and Detroit, and 
 the great manufacturing centres of New England are noi nearly so far distant 
 from either Ontario or the Maritime Provinces as these are from each other. 
 The Maritime Provinces are separated from Montreal by more than a thou- 
 sand miles of rugged territory, where the railway communication is limited in 
 winter by blockade after blockade of snow, but are at the same time within 
 easy and cheap communication of the American seaboard. It is plain, 
 therefore, that nature intended that the British Columbians should trade with 
 Californians and the people of Oregon, that those of Manitoba should have ac- 
 cess to the markets of the nourishing cities of Minnesota, yet destined i-, be- 
 come superlatively great ; that the people of Ontario should have access to all 
 the markets along her border, that she should have trade communication with 
 New York rather than with Quebec, and that the people of the Maritime Prov- 
 inces should trade to their heart's content wih the people of New England. 
 And so in every instance named, the trade should be reciprocal. The British 
 Columbian with his coal and fish would get manufactured goods and provi- 
 sions from a warmer clime ; the Manitobans, in exchany^e for the products of the 
 soil, could get goods and manufactured articles ; the people of Ontario would 
 send their live-stock and the products thereof to the markets across the bor- 
 der, and in return get such manufactures and productions as her climate does 
 not yield, and also the coal of Pennsylvania ; and those of the Maritime 
 Provinces would send their fish, their potatoes, their live-stock and their coal 
 and iron to the New England States, in return for everything they might want. 
 Any arrangement other than this is nothing short of a crime against nature and 
 against man, and yet it is a crime that has been perpetrated. British Colui.ibia 
 paid on June 30th, $2.60 per cwt. for the transit of sugar from Montreal, and 
 $3 per cwt. for nails, a price in excess of the first cost of the nails at Montreal ; 
 and at the same date the quotation for the carriage of woof was $4.80 per cwt. 
 loose, and $2.50 in car lots compressed, from the Pacific to Montreal via the 
 C. P. R. Freight on flour from Chatham, Ont. , to Halifax on the first of July was 
 65 cents per barrel, with a rebate of 16 cents for large lots, while transit was 
 so low from Boston to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick that it was bemg 
 shipped there in the face ot a duty of 50 cents per barrel. 
 
 The physical argument, then. Is unanswerably in favor of commercial union 
 with the United States. It not only affords the nearest market, which m the 
 end must be the cheapest, but it gives us access to a country which could sup- 
 ply us with nearly everything we want. 
 
 Before the confederation the Hon. Geo. Brown claimed that New Eng- 
 land furnished Nova Scotia with breadstuffs to the amount of $4,400,000 an- 
 nually. He thought that by the construction of the Intercolonial railway this 
 trade would fall to Ontario and Quebec. Well, it is a costly,way of securing 
 ii by paying half a million annually by way of subsidy. Nor have the peov;Ie 
 down by the sea ever taken kindly to the scheme, and who should blame them, 
 
 ,../ 
 
If 
 
 H 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial Union 
 
 since a long line of railway through a desolate country can never compete with a 
 short water route over an open sea. The Hon. J. W. Longley, the Attorney-Gen- 
 eral of Nova Scotia, reminds us that the difference in passenger fare from Mon- 
 treal or Boston was as I to 3 in favor of the latter. And so of traffic, that it is 
 as much to the advantage rf the Maritime Provinces to buy flour from the 
 the United States, as for Oi tario to get its coal from Pennsylvania. They are 
 now in a manner forced to buy flour frcfm Ontario and to pay cash for it, 
 whereas if it were possible to buy in eastern markets, the buyer would become 
 a seller. If duty was off coal, the Nova Scotian miner would sell ten tons of 
 coal in New England where he now sells one in Quebec. It must be patent to 
 any one who has given the subject study, that there can be but little natural 
 trade between the Maritime Provinces and Ontario and (Quebec, between the 
 latter and Manitoba and the N. W., and between these and British Columbia. 
 As to Quebec Province, it does not matter very much what the physical 
 conditions of trade are tc her. So long as she retains her present attitude of 
 isolation, the greater the barriers to trade, physical and otherwise, the better 
 will she be pleased. It isolation in commerce will make a people great, then 
 the destiny of Quebec in her present frame of mind is one of superlative great- 
 ness. 
 
 This argument from geographical contiguity is severe on the advocates of 
 an Imperial Zollverein between Britain and her colonies. Separation makes 
 this impracticable. With commercial union between Canada and the United 
 States, anything that the latter could furnish would be more cheaply done by 
 the United States than by countries far away, unless what might be in the line 
 of British manufactures, to which free access would be worse for our indus- 
 tries by far than to go into commercial union with the United States. We are 
 separated from Britain by 3,000 miles of sea, from New Zealand by many thou- 
 sands more, and as many thousands intervene before we reach Australia and 
 India. 
 
 It Will Not Discriminate Unfairly Against Great Britain. 
 
 It is argued that commercial union between Canada and the United States, 
 with a common protective tariff against all outside countries, will bean in- 
 stance of unfair discrimination against England. 
 
 We answer that if Britain has a claim on us for preferential discrimination 
 in the arrangement of our tariffs, she has not got it under our present tariff ar 
 rangements, and for this the commercial union agitation is not responsible. If 
 it is the right thing to extend to Britain, then our legislators have not done tnat 
 right thing. If the relations of Great Britain to Canada give her no claim for 
 preferential discrimination in her favor over other countries, then it follows rhat 
 even though she were discriminated against in common with other countries, 
 she would have no just ground of complaint. The point here is certainly 
 
Beiwren Canada and tht United States. 
 
 tS 
 
 clear : if Great Britain has special claims upon us in this matter, then those 
 special claims have not been recognized, and no one in Canada has bhouled 
 disloyalty notwithstanding. Now, if it be the right thing to discriminate 
 against Great Britai^ in one degree in matters of trade, it cannot be wrong 
 to discriminate against her in another degree. 
 
 But let us look into the matter. How far has Britain claims upon us in 
 this line. She cannof hold a closer relationship to us than that of parent to 
 child. As a parent, what has she done for us in matters of trade i Why, just 
 what she has done for all the world. The villainous Mahdi, the murderer of 
 Britain's hero, Ciordon, is just as free to trade with England as any citizen of 
 Cjnada. But it is objected, she has not discriminated against us. Very true, 
 but if the relationship should bind us to discriminate m her favor, it should 
 bind her to ilo the same. She has it in her power to discriminate in our favor, 
 but she will not, because it would not be to her interest. On the same princi- 
 ple, then, our interest should govern us in arranging our fiscal relations^ and 
 this is just the line of argument used by Sir John Macdonald, when he said 
 that, "as a self-governing people, we have a right ^o consult our own interest 
 "first." 
 
 We may imagine the case of a oarent, whose son has gone to a far away 
 
 clime, to do business on his own account. That parent represents England ; 
 
 that son, Canada. The boy sets cut v/ith nothing in his hand ; there he has to 
 
 fight his way, and ultimately he becomes fairly prosperous. Intercourse 
 
 between the son and the parent continues, and it is found mutually advantgeous. 
 
 But there comes a time when the son sees his opportunity of making a splendid 
 
 bargain, but its acceptance would interfere somewhat with the rich old mati's 
 
 future gains, till he had time to readjust his plans. Would it not be cruel on 
 
 the part of the old man to say to the son that he must forego the advantage 
 
 for his (the father's) sake ; or in other words, that the son must sacrifice the 
 
 most si:)lendid prospects of m.aterial gain, that the old man might secure a little 
 
 more i;aia ? The relationship between parent and child is very sacred, and we 
 
 are reminded that we should honor gr.iy hairs, but this eyen has its limits. 
 
 The duty of the child to the parent till he has attained his majority, is that of 
 
 unquestioned obedience, unless in things commanded that might be contrary to 
 
 the law of heaven. After that period the son is at liberty to direct his own 
 
 affairs. Now, it would be very pleasant if the counsels of the father should be 
 
 continued in such a way that the son might profit by them, but if the old man 
 
 gave counsel that was clearly wronger even impolitic, the son would be in the 
 
 line (;f duty ot to accent, and if the old man persisted in thrusting it upon 
 
 him, the son would be justilied in resisting it. If opportunity arose, whereby 
 
 the son could greatly better his condition, and the old man opposed on the 
 
 grounds of some slight injury that v/ould result to his business, would not the 
 
 son be justified in pointing to his own children, and saying, father I will do this, 
 
 for it is my first duty to provide for those that shall live after me, as it was yours in 
 
 •if 
 
i6 
 
 Main Talks on Commercial Union 
 
 days gone by ? Who will say, who will dare to say, that that son would not be 
 doing the proper thing ? and if the advantage that was to accrue came from 
 dealing with an older brother, as is the ca.<e wiih Canada, the opposition of the 
 old man would be utterly irexcusable. Now the relationship of kingdom and 
 colony cannot be closer than that of fathei and son, hence in the analagous 
 parallel Canada should not be faulted for seeking commercial union with the 
 United Stages, even though it should discriminate against England. 
 
 But has Britain tl e right to interfere, ux having that nght, would it be 
 politic for her to use it ? Clearlv not, is our answer to the second question, 
 whatever answer may be given to the first. Britain, lilc£ an impolitic old man, 
 interfered with mattiJB of trade when his first born had set up for himself, 
 and it cost the former a colony, and though interference at the present time 
 might be more excusable, it would be clearly impolitic, for as has been pointed 
 cut elsewhere, " the destiny of Canada is now practically confided to Cana- 
 " dians. Her fu'.ure is her own, and surely she is in the best position to know 
 ' ' what will be best for herself. " The loyalty of the people uf Canada to-day is 
 quite as strong as it was prior to the troublous times of 1S37, when she (^^njoyed 
 much less of liberty and privileges than she does at present, and we feel assur- 
 ed that Britain under the influence of a more matured statesmanship and with 
 the advantages of the experience of the p.nst, would not interfere with any of 
 her colonies in such a way that the relations between them would be abrased. 
 It IS only natural that those encjaged in the industries in iSritain should 
 feel somewhat sore. The National Policy was adopted in the face of a violent 
 protest from the manufacturer and artizan in England, and witness now the 
 storm raised in reference to the iron interest ; yet m no instance has the Gov- 
 ernment of Britain interfered. VVhy should it interfere ? It has never yet been 
 shown that it is the duty of Canadians to seek the welfare of the English man- 
 ufacturer and artizan first, rather than to attend to the wants of their own 
 households. The people of Canada are surely in a better position to judge as 
 to their wants than the people of England. 
 
 But it is premature to assert that there would be any discrimination against 
 England, more injurious than there is now, or that would be more hostile than 
 present arrangements. The aver.ige diiference between the United States tariff 
 and that of Canada is about lo per cent., and it is exceedingly probable that 
 the United States will lower her tariff somewhat, as her sources of revenue are 
 too great, an affliction not very prevalent amongst the nations of the earth. If 
 her protective tariffs were reduced but 5 per cent., and those of Canada in- 
 creased the same, the situation for England would be more favorable all round, 
 for the volume of her trade with the United States is greater than with Canada, 
 so that it is not improbable that the arrangement, so far as England is concern- 
 ed, would be to her advantage. , 
 
 When Mr. John Bright reminds us that "if the present Canadian tariff 
 •'were maintained for imports other than from the States, England would be 
 
 
Between Canada and the Unitcl States. 
 
 ^7 
 
 •* at a great disadvantagt- in her irade with Canada," he does not malte allow- 
 ance for the possibility, nay, even the pruljability, of the other arrangement. 
 And although we feel like standing uncovered in (lie old hian's presence, we 
 cannot refrain from giving utteiance to the rejoindei, that if the present Can 
 adian tariff, or something very like it, is not maintained for imports other th:in 
 from the States, Canada will be at a great disadvantage in her trade with the 
 United States, her nearest neighbor. 
 
 It is apparent, therefore, that the strongest argument expressed in favor 
 of the advantages of union in trade with Great Britain consists of j-f«/mt«/. 
 Now sentiment is mere thought flowing from feeling. It has its place in the 
 building up of individual and national character, but should never be allowed 
 to overmaster reason, in which case it always leads to disaster. If sentiment 
 has a legitimate held anywhere, it is in the arrangement of those delicate rela- 
 tions that end in matrimony ; but even here, if allowed to run counter, either to 
 the inexorable logic of facts, or to the faithful teachings of reason, the result is 
 that too late the interested parties 
 
 " Awaken from their dream of joy, 
 To lead a life of cold alloy. ' 
 
 If it is a dangerous thing, then, to give full rein to sentiment in the formation 
 of a union that interests but /7w persons, how much more is it dangerous in 
 the formation of a union that interests 60,000,000 of people ! 
 
 It would be L'. sad mistake, if for the sake of the doubtful advantages of a 
 market beyond 3,000 miles of sea, with something over 30,000,000 of people, 
 sentiment alone led us to forego the advantages of trade with 55,000,000 of people 
 just at hand. It is surely a miserable form of sentiment that would, unmoved, 
 behold the stagnation of the business of one's entire country, the best of hei 3on.s 
 undergoing self-expatriation, and the most magnificent resources remaining un- 
 developed, and all because of a feeling that it might seevt like giving a preference 
 to the United States by seeking a market freedom with her. The real prefer- 
 ence that we are seeking is material advantage, and sentiment is surely not 
 fulfilling its mission when it runs counter either to material comfort or niateiia! 
 advantage. If union in trade between Britain and her colonies would greatly 
 benefit Britain there might be some reason in this argument, but this has not 
 been shown, and until it is shown, it h unpatriotic and un-Canadian to ask 
 Canada to make a sacrifice so great, for no other reason than that of national 
 sentiment. 
 
 Where there has been occasion for Canada to sacritice for Britain's sake, 
 she has not been slow in furnishing evidence of her willingness to do so. The 
 country which evinced her readiness to send her sons as soldiers to the Crimea 
 and as oarsmen to the Nile, will not be slow to manifest her loyalty to the 
 grand old Monarchy whenever occasion offers. But that is quite different from 
 asking Canada to be content with leanness in many of the thousands of her 
 agricultural homes for the sake of sentiment. Sentiment is all very well in its 
 
 ^ 
 
i8 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial Union 
 
 place, bui it should not be allowed to tie the progress of a country to a farmer's 
 cart, when it might as well go forward at the speed of a chariot. 
 
 A Zollverein Between Great Britain and Her Colonies 
 
 Not Practicable. 
 
 This, as we liave said before, is a dream of I mperial Federationists never 
 to be realized. When the .subject was brought up at the time of the organiz- 
 ation of the ( entral Farmers' Institute uf Ontario, along with a good many 
 others there, ^/e rather liked the idea. There is a sacredness of association 
 Imgerin;:; aronnd the old Empire that is very dear to her colonial children, and 
 makes them anxious to do her reverence whenever opportunity offers. The old 
 flag that has delended ttiem in the hour of their extremity is to them the emblem 
 of all that is great and noble, and as dutiful children, they are always ready to 
 fall in with the reasonable wishes of their parent beyond the seas ; but we have 
 already shown that thert' are limits to filial duty. A parent may even go the 
 length of exacting too much of the child, and brethren may expect too much of 
 one of their number. So would it be if Britain and the other colonies were to 
 go mto commercial Federation and ask of Canada to take a share in the 
 arrangement, for not one of these colonies is situated regarding neighbors as 
 vjanada is. Inciia is separated from alien races of a different language and 
 religion by lofty mountains. Australia and New Zealand are without near 
 neighbors in a sense, and thecoloniei^> of Africa are in contiguity with heathen 
 tribes. It is no great sacrifice to tnem not to trade much with their neighbors ; 
 but not so with Canada, bordering on a country that can supply them 
 with a great portion of all they want, a country that, like they are, was once a 
 colony, even now only an older brother that had an unfortunate altercation 
 with those at the old home, the same in language, interests, religion and aims, 
 and so situated that the solid land mark lietween them is more than 2,500 
 miles long. If coming into the proposed compact would shui Canada out from 
 this country commercially, should the parent or the other members of the 
 compact compiain though Canada should remai.i outside 'I We answer, No. 
 
 Since looking into the matter more carefully, we have concluded that the 
 proposed Zollverein is impracticable, and have, therefore, though reluctantly, 
 abandoned the idea altogether. 
 
 We look upon it as imptacticaVile : 
 
 (1) Because the compact would cost Britain too much. 
 
 (2) Because it would cost Canada too much. 
 
 (3) Because it would cost the other colonics too much. 
 
 It would cost Britain too much. If there is an arrangement entered into 
 between Britain and her colonies to trade with each other, and at the same 
 time to erect tariffs that would measurably fence out all the world besides, the 
 world by way of just retaliation would^measurably fence out theip- Now thQ 
 
Betwcni Canada and th^. United SUttes. 
 
 19 
 
 ■ |UL'Stion arise? whether the other portion of ihe world wfiuld ^'et alonj: l)etter 
 without trade with ihein, or they without the oilier naiimis thereof, which form 
 ihrcefourths and more of the world's population. The Tniteri States far out- 
 numbers hritain now in her i)opulation, and also in her natural resrurcea. The 
 former country, provcrhial for her sagacity in bargain inai<ing, would not be 
 -low to take advantage of this state of affairs, and could readily make such 
 arrangements as would dif.lodge Britain in p.ijt or altogether from her nold in 
 many lines of her manufacture in the outside world. This would mean disaster 
 to the trade of Great Jiritain, for, owing to the excellence and cheapness of her 
 articles, she forces them into all countries barbarous and civilized, even '. 1 the 
 face of high tariffs, and of these her colonic^ all told only take a fragmentary 
 portion. For instance, out of a total export in 1885 of $1, 557,018,470, Can- 
 ada only took $40,601,199, or about the one^thirty-ninth part of the whole. 
 Of goods of her own manufacture in that year, amounting to $1,065,222,500, 
 Canada took of dutiable goods but $30,385,797. Her cu<tcmers now number 
 14,000,000,000, while iier colonies all told — that is, the English speaking pc'r- 
 tion of them — do not at the present time number more than twelve or thirteen 
 millions ; hence, we may judge of the fragmentary nature of that portion of 
 her exports consumed by her colonies. It is clear that, for long <lecades, her 
 colonies would not sufilice to consume her goods, providing they made no further 
 progress in manufactures themselves, which stationary condition would prove 
 fatal to their prosperity. Again, England cannot aftord to become a protec- 
 tive country, for the moment she does, she shuts out the breadstuffs of the 
 world and makes dear the food that feeds her industrial classes, which in turn 
 enhances the cost of production in a marked degree. While this might help 
 the agricultural portion of her population, it would harm the industrial classes, 
 which stand to the former about as twenty is to one. England, therefore, 
 cannot afford to do it. 
 
 It would cost Canada loo much. In one sense it would be a good thing 
 for the farmers of Canada, but in another sense it might not. it would be gooci 
 for them in so far as they would get more for their beef anc wheat, at the ex 
 pense, remember, of the British artizan ; but they would be certain to lose the 
 American market, which in 1S86 amounted in agricultural products to the sum 
 of $15,495,783, while the trade with Britain in the same year was but $22,- 
 543,936. Now if commercial union with the United States was going to cause 
 Britain to put a tariff on the products she gels from us, we might hesitate to 
 sacrifice the present market of $41,542,629 with Great Britain for the $36, 
 578,769 with the United States. Bui if Britain take this step, by so doing she 
 would vex a very large proportion of her people who work in products of the 
 mine and the forest, and are dependent on us for supplies of agricultural pro- 
 ducts and those of the sea. But while it might be a doubtful gain to the far- 
 mer, it would be disastrous to the manufacturer. Our manufacturers could never 
 stand before hers, The country that can scale the high larilT walls of the 
 
 y 
 
30 
 
 Phuti Talk' on Commercial Union 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 United States with her manufactured t;o<xls, would inundate us with these if 
 wholly unprotected ; and if partially protected they could not have that vigorous 
 life that would follow openintj up to Canada all the United States market. 
 British manufacturers have vastly the advantage over ours, (i) In the cheaj) 
 labor employed. (2) The amount ot capital employed. (3) The rate of in- 
 terest on capital. (4) The advantage accruin;^ from priority of establishment. 
 (5) The henetits that tlow from ability to concentrate on the production (a) of 
 a sint;le line of goods, and (b) of some branch of that line ; and (6) The extent 
 of the market. 
 
 As regards la'jor It is staled by Trofessor Leoni Levi in a work on Kng- 
 land's sui'remacy, a careful statistician, who has given much thought to the 
 subject, that the average rate of wages paid by manufacturers in the United 
 States is 56 per cmt. higher than in Ijritain, and we will show further on that the 
 price of labor is much the same in the States and Canada. Now, other things 
 being equal, a very small variation in the price of labor gives the country the 
 advantage where the labor is cheaper. Canada, then, could never stand before 
 Britain in her manufactures with such a disparity in the jirice of labor. 
 
 As regards the rate of interest, we have already shown that while in Can- 
 ada the rate is or has been from 6 to 7 per cent., in England it is from 3 to 3/4', 
 which in itself would constitute a good profit. 
 
 As regards the amount of capital employed, Britain has overwhelmingly 
 the advantage. Her wealth in this respect is simply proverbial, and enables 
 her to take advantage (a) of the benefits of production on an enormous scale, 
 and (b) of all the skill, mechanical improvements and trade facilities that 
 money can command. This the weaker capitalist cannot do. 
 
 As regards priority of establishment, the advantages are that better facil- 
 ities for obtaining supplies have been arranged for, and a market has been 
 established witii all the advantages that accrue from longer business experience. 
 It may be argued that newer works have the advantage over old ones, in that 
 they have all the latest improvements at the outset, but this is not sufficient, 
 as we deem it. to overcome the advantages of priority of establishment. 
 
 As regards concentrating on one Ime of production, when the market has 
 been sufiFiciently established, it gives the manufacturer a prodigious advantage, 
 and if concentration can be fastened on one branch of a line, this .<?till enhances 
 the advantage. Thus it is that some cities in Britain are wholly devoted tt) 
 the manufacture of one line of goods, as Leeds and Sheffield. In this we 
 behold concentration of skill in its utmost excellence, and its transmission from 
 generation to generation, with all the additions that inventive genius can give 
 to it. 
 
 In regard to the market, England practically has the world, while Canada 
 has herself. She has walled herself in so completely that the exports of her 
 manufactures, aH told, from the whole I>omin:on, only amount to $2,824,137, 
 fiithough she has far greater natural resources within herself thai} Britain, 
 
between Cafiuia a>id th.' United States. 
 
 31 
 
 though these may be mure wiilelyscattcrfd. I'-ritains market five's her a ttetnen. 
 dous advantage, so thai the manufactures of Canada cannot hope to stand un- 
 protected before her. (Janada, therefore, cannot aftbrd it. 
 
 It would cost the culnnics too much. This is not so easily sliown with the 
 data we have at hand, but the same line of r-guiiig will measurably apply to 
 the colonies, especially in regard to their manufactures ; therefore, the colon- 
 iei cannot afford to go into such a union. 
 
 The Adoption of Commercial Union will Save the 
 
 Confederation. 
 
 This implies that the Confederation of the Provinces is in dangi^r of 
 fallmg asunder, \ fact that no one at all skilled in reading the si),'ns of the 
 times will deny. On the first day of July, 1867, the Piovinrcs of British 
 North America went into confederation, except the Island of Nt-wfjundland, 
 the scheme ultimately embracing all the country north of the United States 
 boundary line, except the Island of Newfoundland, Greenland and A'aska, 
 thus embracing a territory larger than that of the United States. Hith- 
 erto the colonies had been bound together politically, unless in the case of Up- 
 per and Lower Canada, by no other tie than that of their bein^ colonies 
 of Great Britain. The idea of welding them together into a strong con- 
 federation was one that pretty generally commended itself to the favorable 
 consideration of the people, insomuch that it was adopted, and fur a time all 
 went fairly well ; but of late years things have got .sadly out of joint. 
 
 That facilities for trade might be increased, and in the hope of assisting its 
 outflow from the individual Provinces and turning it into inter- Provincial 
 channels, public works have been undertaken at great expense, which has 
 plunged the confederation very deeply in debt, and this debt is still increasing 
 at the average rate of $10,000,000 a year since the year 1876, the whole of 
 the Federal debt on the 30th June .summing up $225,o2'j,762, or, not allow- 
 ing for worthless assets, it would foot up $300,000,000. This latter ium would 
 hold every individual in the Dominion on an average responsible for the pay- 
 ment of the sum of $60. Serious as this phase of the situation may appear, it 
 is not exactly thecause of the discontent that wc speak of. Many of these works 
 were necessary, and in time we will largely reap the benefits that they are intended 
 to confer. Give onr people a chance and they will grapple with this indebted- 
 ness, and in the spirit of emulation not to be outdone by our southern neigh- 
 b'rs will, like them, hope to look the whole world in the face, owing not any 
 man. 
 
 The cause of the discontent has arisen from the fiscal policy adopted by 
 our country, necessary perhaps for a lime, but unwise in its prolongation. By 
 virtually shutting the doors of ingress and egress for the natural channels of 
 trade, the attempt was made to force them east and west rather than north and 
 
 ./ 
 
22 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial tMion 
 
 
 south. Uii 'he onfe side was a country of vast extent, with an average width 
 of 1,300 nuks, in a manner self-contained in boih developed and undevelopei 
 resources, and on the other a strip of inhabited country on an average ICX3 
 miles in width and more than 3,000 miles in length, far from self contained in 
 either developed or undevf^loped resources, shut out from the privilege of trad- 
 ing with her southern neighbor unless by climbing over a high tariff wall, and 
 forced to trade within herself, throughout the discouraging length of her entire 
 territory. 
 
 Why shoulc not the inhabitants in such a position become discontented? Un- 
 complaining SI bmis.sion in such a case would have heena libel onthespirit and the 
 independencf of the Anglo-Saxon race. The people of the Provinces were 
 compelled to pay heavy charges for the transit of goodi over railways which 
 they were taxed to build, and in many instances to the producers of these goods 
 for bringing them into existence, and the markets of each of them so narrowed 
 that a aepression more deep and prolonged has settled down upon the 
 counLry than was ever known in its hLstory. Nor were they allowed to con- 
 struct channels of trade for themselves. The Red River Valley railroad, seek- 
 ing an outlet, has been disallowed, and other railways intended to develop the 
 inteinol trade of the Northwest has beei'. disallowed. The very questionable 
 policy has been adopted of allaying the discontent in the different Provinces by 
 subsidies in one form or another, which can only encourage discontent to make 
 fresh demands. 
 
 It reminds one of the plan of the Athenian citizens after the sun of the 
 glory of this learned republic had begun to set, who voted to themselves large 
 sums of money for attending on the great councils of the nation, without first 
 considering where the large sums should come from, or of the barbarians bor- 
 dering on Rome after the days of the zenith of her power.' The large sums 
 paid to them to keep them at bay for the time, only served to ehcourage them 
 to make fresh incursions. 
 
 This feeling of discontent is fast reaching a culminating point, and unless 
 prompt measures are taken, the conlederation wheel may be broken beyond the 
 possibility of restoration. The disallowed railway is being built, the tax on 
 tobacco which the habitani was to pay he refuses to pay. and the people of 
 Nova Scotia said at the last election that they were anxious to gel out of con- 
 federation. Why, then, have they not gone out of it? Because it takes two 
 fjarties to (Ussolve an agreement as well as to make one. It is always easier to 
 get into a pit than to get out of it again, to tie a knot than to untie it. 
 
 That ?uch is the feeling in the Maritime Provinces we have but to quote 
 the opinions of Nova Scoiians themselves, publicly expressed. Mr. W. F. 
 MacCloy, the member for Shelburne, stated in the House of Assembly last 
 winter that they now must buy their supplies in Boston and pay 50 cents per 
 barrel on (lour and 22 per cent, on other articles, or return with the money 
 and buy dear Upper Province foods on reaching home. "I ask every fair 
 
Ikhvccn Canadii and the United States. ix^ 
 
 "minded man in the house," said Mr. ATacCoy, " to answer truly as to our 
 "present position. Is not our trade being ruined, and is not our real estate 50 
 " per cent. less than it was ton years ago?" 
 
 Re it remembered that at confecreration the tariff of Nova Scotia was only 
 12^ per cent., and then it was mucli higher than it had been during previous 
 years. The St. John's Telegraph (N. B.), of June 17th, says : " What have we 
 " to gain — what have we not to lose by remaining in a union and under a pol- 
 " icy that has brought us to this condition ? This is not the language of mere 
 " complaint or fanlt-tinding ; wo are not asking for sops and favors, we a^k for 
 " justice, a trade policy under which we can live, otherwise the inexorable ne- 
 " cessity that knows no law must determine our relations with the Dooiinion 
 " once for all." In the N. V. Times of June 17th, the Hon, J. W. Longley, 
 the Attorney-General for Nova Scotia, is reported as having said, " The Do- 
 " minion represents a discontented and almost disconnected siream of Prov- 
 " inces." In the North-West the Red River Valley road is actually being 
 built in defiance of the Government. The Winnipeg papers of Tune 22d rep- 
 resent Mr. Brock, on the Government side of politics, as having said in aildress- 
 ing the Hon. J, Norquay and colleagues at the close of a speech of no uncer- 
 tain sound, " The people are ready to go to any extremity if they are forced to it." 
 He was speaking as one of a deputation sent to interview the Government. 
 
 What the Maritime Provinces want is a market for coal, fish and agricul 
 tural products, and a share in the coasting trade. Give them this and they 
 will be content ; deny it them, and to get relief everything points in a direc- 
 tion of the snapping of the commercial cord that binds them in her unconge- 
 nial union. 
 
 It is argued as a reason for opposing commercial union that we should rather 
 try and get some profit out of the vast sums expended in public works for the 
 promotion of commerce between the Provinces. What profit will we get if 
 the confederation cord should snap ? Is it not wiser to adopt a fiscal policy 
 hat will allay the discontent of the confederates, stimulate commerce in all 
 her arteries, and thereby make sure of increasing profits as the years revolve ? 
 But why do we thus run the risk of having the confederation flv to pieces ? 
 What is it for? Why, for the sake of a limited number engaged in the indus- 
 tries, th*" product of whose manufactures whea exported summed up $2,- 
 ; 24,137 for the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1S86, out of a grand total of $85, 251,- 
 .;i4, or aoout the one-thirtieth part of the whole. We admit they manufac- 
 ture a large amount for home consumption, but to enable them to do this the 
 h^rmer is first taxed by the country to protect them, and second, by them- 
 selves ill the high charges they are inus enabled to put upon their goods. Why 
 sliould we run all this hazard for the sake of a section of the comtnunity rela- 
 tively so small ? The preservation intact of the whole Dominion is surely a mat- 
 ter of more moment than the protection of one class of the community, who can 
 get along well eiiongh without such protection. 
 
 / 
 
24 
 
 Plaiji Talks on Commercial Union 
 
 It Will Tend More than Anything Else to Stimulate 
 Trade and to Develop Our Resources. 
 
 Although Canada is larger in territory than the Unitetl States, the latter 
 has unquestionably the advantage in respect of climate, development, popula- 
 tion and acquired wealth. The whole of her lerntory is accessible in one way 
 or another during all the "Mr, while a large portion of that of the Dominion is 
 covered with uninelting srows. Canada has the advantage in internal means 
 of water communication and in the possession of a more bracing, nerve- 
 strengthening, and indu Ury-producing climate, and we conclude we are safe 
 in saying that Canada has decidedly the advantage in manufacturing facilities 
 and natural resources. Her resources are the products of the forest, the mine. 
 the sea and of the soil. In only a very meagre degree are any of these developed. 
 While the total output from the soil in exports to the United States for the fiscal 
 year ending June 30th, 1S86, from Ontario alone, was $15,495,935, the min- 
 eral exi^x)rt from, the same Province was only $3,115,696. Now this is but a 
 small proportion compared with what it might and would be if there was op- 
 portunity for developing these resources. As it is, the market is restricted, 
 and '.he duty of .?6 to $7 a ton on pig iron shuts us out of the United States 
 market. In Ontario we have no native coal for smelting, and on the bitumin- 
 ous from the United Stales, which would have to be used for the purpose, 
 there has been a duty, till recently, which has added very much to the expense * 
 of thi.< work. Notwithstanding that we have fine deposits of mac;netic iron m 
 Crosby, Madoc, Marmora, Belmont and Seymour townships, and in the re- 
 gions around Port Arthur and the Lake of the Woods, for the present it must 
 lie there, for there is a heavy duty on the ore if exported, and if but one 
 smelting establishment, such as that at Cleveland, were to be sustained in 
 Canada, it alone would suffice to supply the present wants of the country, 
 which is but 250,000 tons annually. In such a case, our iron mines, remote 
 from coal, will not pay the working, as in other parts iron and coal are found 
 in conjunction. In the absence of a market all above this quantity must 
 lie where nature has placed it, until we give up the ruinous policy of leaving 
 our magnificent resources undeveloped for the sake of the interests of a frag- 
 mentary portion of bur population. As it is with iron, so it is with copper and 
 others of our precious metals. Bestowed upon us in value in uncounted mil- 
 lions,, there ihey must lie, rather than be made the means of adding thousands 
 to our population in minmg them and manufacturing them for (be various uses 
 of life. And as it is with our mines, so it is with our fisheries. We have a 
 home market for only a certain quantity, and the way is barred to the south of 
 us. In the magnificent inheritance which Providence has left us, it is uncer- 
 tain whether our treasurer, of the .sea are much inferior to those of the mine, 
 and those jf the mine will not outweigh in value the products of the soil. The 
 location of our great highways, natural md artificial, in reference to these 
 
Between Canada and the United States. 25 
 
 storehouses of agricultural and mineral wealth would furnish wonderful facili- 
 ties for transporting these to any desired extent, if we only had an enlarged 
 market for them, and the same holds true of the products of the forest. 
 
 The wonderful advantages of unrestricted trade between the two countries 
 and the increase th;it might be expected to follow are shadowed forth by what 
 took place during the old reciprocity period of iS^.^ and 181 f), as already stated, 
 when the volume of trade increased from $20,000,000 m 1S53 to $84,000,000 
 in 1S66. The volume of the trade fell off after 'he abrogation of the treaty to 
 such an extent that not till some years after, in 1875, did ii ove'take the sum 
 of the trade done in 1866— in 1S75 ^^ amounted to prol)ai'ly $S6,6oo,cxx). It 
 is further illustrated liy the trade in egg>. Until January 1, 1S71, there was a 
 duty of 10 per cent on eggs going into the United States, ar wi.ich time it was 
 removed, Duiin::;; the half year preceding, that is, from {st July to 3rst De- 
 cember, 1870, the total value of eggs imported into the United States firom 
 all countries amounted to only $5,403. During the next half yoar the imports 
 admitted free amounted to $290,820, We now give a .--tatement from the 
 United States tables of the quantity and value of eggj imported from Canada, 
 ending with June 30th of each year : 
 
 Dozen. Price. 
 
 f874 5.422.516 $ 735,284 
 
 1S80 7,662,068 894,349 
 
 1881 9,471,391 1,199,157 
 
 1882 11,728.518 '.793.167 
 
 1883 14,683.061 2.584,279 
 
 1884 14,688,338 2,356,313 
 
 1SS5 13,067.474 '-J,<-T95.437 
 
 1886 14,469,764 1,893,672 
 
 This argument of the eggs is a very significant one. It informs us that 
 without free trade in the last half of 1870 our export of eggs to the United 
 States was less than $5,403, and that with free trade in 18S3 our export of 
 eggs to the same country was no less than $2.584,279 — that is, that from 1870 
 to 1883, a period of only thirteen years, it had multiplied itself no less than 
 two hundred and thirty-nine times. During the six years ending with 1886 
 they have brought us no less than $11,922,025 from that country, which, ac- 
 cording to the ratio for the half year already quoted, under the 10 per cent, 
 tariff, would have amounted to $64,836, or the one hundred an.l eighty-fourth 
 part as much. 
 
 The trade in phosphates, almost the only mineral allowed to enter the 
 United States free, also furnishes another illustration. The Union Mining 
 Company, an American company, owning two thousand acres up the Ottawa, 
 sjjent $100,000 in plant, and after one year's oj.erations declared a dividend of 
 30 per cent. , and thousands of tons were sent across the border. Sweep away 
 the restrictions on trade between the two countries and the hills that now are 
 desolate, where one starts at the sound of his own voice, would be covered 
 
 / 
 
26 
 
 Plain Talks on Commncial VnioH 
 
 lis 
 
 with the villages of miners, the lines of transit would awaljen to new life, tett 
 thousand energies woiiid be developed in turning the hidden nuggets of tht 
 mine into so many forms of usefulness, and an influx of population would come 
 to us to stay, such as this country has never beheld in ali its history. 
 
 The commercial union between England and Scotland in 1707 forms 1 
 parallel, with this ditTerence, that the border line between the two countries 
 by its conformation is much less favorable to the development of trade. While 
 a narrow strip of mounta n range separated these two countries, there are great 
 stretches of water comm inication leading into the very center of the confeder- 
 ated Provinces, bringin.^ them closer, as it were, to the difTerent States of 
 the Union for purposes of trade. There was the further difference, that Eng- 
 land and Scotland were politically united, but this need not in any way affect 
 the results flowing from the reciprocity they adopted. Prior to 1707 Scotland 
 was excluded from free trade with England and her colonies. Goods must first 
 be landed in England and duty paid there, and then he taken in English ships 
 to Scotland. Leckey tells us that the only important industry at that period in 
 Scotland was that of linen, and many of the Sc>, tch people of the time said 
 this trade would be destroyed and the Scotch shipping trade would be ruined ; 
 the poor people crushed by the richer, and the whole country would *■ "come 
 one vast grazing ground. The English peojile said Scotch cattle and coals and 
 linen, which were cheap, would sink their markets, and that Scotch labor 
 would swamp the labor market of England. 
 
 But what were the results ? Why, Paisley rose, and Greenock grew, end 
 Glasgow rushed on apace ; and such a tide of prosperity set in such as 
 Scotland never dreamed of, making the Scotch people man for man, if we 
 mistake not, the richest people in Europe, while England at the same time 
 prospered all the more for the increasing prosperity of Scotland, and this is 
 without a. doubt what we might expect, in degree at least, from commercial 
 union between (.!anada and the United States. 
 
 Why, we ask, is it that one city of New England has a population almost 
 as large as the whole of Ontario and that the entire Dominion does not possess 
 a single city with more than 200,000 inhabitants ? Montreal has all the facilities 
 lor making a city great. She has abundance of water communication, is 
 easy of access to the foresty of the North, has communication by ships of the 
 largest si^e with all the nation.s of the earth, if she so desires it, and can send 
 her steamboats to the farthest shores of Lake Superior for purposes of 
 inland trade. Her natural facilities for trade are far ahead of those of New . 
 York, an ! yet the one city can take the other easily under the shadow of her 
 branches. Why must a Canadian stand in an unthrifty town at Windsor and 
 look across the river at a city larger than any in Ontario, unless it be Toronto, 
 and why is there but a collection of hamlets at Fort Erie, and a city nearly 
 twice as large as Toronto across the river, the Canadian lake shore opposite 
 being bought up for miles fr)r summer residences for Buffalo's merchant princes ? 
 Will the opponents of commercial union tell us why ? 
 
Between Catiada and the United S/ates. 
 
 27 
 
 It has teen said that "trade, in order to increase and iie profitabie, must 
 "be reciprocal." But there is one species of trade between the United States 
 and Canada in which there is little or no jeciprncity, nor will there be till we 
 change our policy somewhere. We refer to the outflov? of the most valuable 
 commodity that we possess — the most enterprising of our people, (or which we 
 get no compensation. It speaks well of our social, educational and religious 
 institutions, that our countrymen are so much in demand in the United States ; 
 but it speaks ill for our fiscal relations, that in a land superior to the United 
 States in many of its natural resources, we cannot find employment for 
 them at home. We have given New York one business man, of whom we 
 heard it stated by a United States Senator that he was worth ten thousand. 
 The business branches of this same individual number 1 14, most of them in the 
 United States, and more than half the number of those employed in them, j.ooo 
 in all, are Canadians. So it is in all the Union, many of the brightest and most 
 promising of our men have gone over to the United States, Iiecause it gives 
 them there a chance to rise on the stepping stones of opportunity. While this is 
 all the lietter for them, it is all the worse for us, nor can we expect to liecome 
 superlatively great till we find some means of keeping our most enterprising 
 citizens at home. A process akin to this has left our farmers, compared to the 
 other classes, in too many instances, hewers of wood and drawers of water, and 
 so it will be down to the end of time, so long as they allow the most brilliant 
 of their sons to leave the farm for other pursuits. Our Canadians, like tlie Jews 
 amongst merchants and Scotchmen amongthe nations, have, amongst the Ameri- 
 cans with equal chances, come to the front, which should be all the more matter 
 of regret to us that we 16se such n- en. But those who leave us are not to blame. 
 When there is not work for all the sons at the old homestead, some of them 
 m"st go, and feel assured whoever may see fit to go, it is not the laggards of 
 the lot. 
 
 What a startling revelation is that of the American census returns since 
 i860. In that year the number of Canadians in the United States was 249,- 
 970, in 1S70 it had increased to 493,464, in x88o to 7 [7, 157, and in 18S5 the 
 estimate was 95o,cx>o, so that now in 1S87, there are mure than i.ooo.oajof 
 our people in the United States, while we, at the same time, have our agents 
 ransacking Europe, and are even giving assistance to bring a much less useful 
 class of emigrants to fdl the blanks made by those who leave us. 
 
 The Winnipeg Stm of 17th July, says : " There arc in Dakota this day 
 " upwards of 30,000 Canadians who have filtered through from Maniioba and 
 " the North- West." And the reasons given for this state of affairs as the 
 result of personal enquiry were, (i) lack of railway facilities for the develop- 
 ment of the country ; (2) the pressure of high freight tariffs, and (3) the hope- 
 lessness of immediate relief from railway monopoly. The Athenians of old 
 user! to banish their fellow citizens by a vote of the people, but ours xs a more 
 w dern and far less troublesome method. 
 
 i 
 
^8 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial Union 
 
 Open up a market for our goods and we will not only keep o\ix sons at 
 home, but our resources will, at the same time, attract energy, industry, capital 
 and skill, and there need be no doubt as to what would follow. 
 
 It will Greatly Benefit the Farmers. 
 
 That commercici union with the United istates would be an unquestioned 
 benefit to all the farners in all the Dominion, few can be so uncandid as to 
 deny. The farmers A the reciprocity period look back with lingering regrets at 
 that golden age foi them, when they sent their produce to the United States 
 and brought back gold, which laid the foundation of their success. It is true 
 that the American civil war was raging during a part of that period, which en- 
 hanced agricultural values, but allowing for this, it was a period of agricul- 
 tural advancement such as they have not seen since, beyond all comparison. 
 
 Commercial union would benefit the farmer ( i ) by cheapening the cost of liv- 
 ing ; (2) by delivering hirn from the power o{ monopoly ; {3) by giving him ac- 
 cess to the markets of the United States, thus enlarging his present market 
 twelve-fold. 
 
 When a tariff is levied on imports coming into any country, the price is 
 enhanced to the consumer. It is argued that the artizan gets his compensa- 
 tion in surer employment, and it may be, increased wages, and that the farmer 
 gels h'- in the building up of new centers of population, and the enlargement 
 of old ones, thus creating an increased demand fur the products which he has 
 to sell. How far this is operative in Canada we have already 'shown. 
 The census returns for 18S0-1 give the whole number employed by the indus- 
 tries as 254,935. ^ow we must bear in mind that in the term industries is in- 
 cluded all lines of material production other than agriculture. Many of them 
 apply to lh° preparation of the necessities of life and to ordinary trades, as 
 baking and blacksmithng, which are necessary in a country under any condi- 
 tions, and are not in the strict sense of the term prcxlucers. And a large num- 
 ber are also engaged in handUng agricultural products, as factory cheese and 
 creamery butter -makers, meat-cureri and others, to enable them to do which 
 succf-'ssfully re(]uires no special tax. These, then, should not be counted in. 
 Leaving them out, and allowmg that many of the workmen have families, the 
 whole ». umber thus engaged, including employers and their families, cannot 
 exceed 500,000, for a very large number of those engaged in manufactories are 
 under r6 years of age, and a still larger number are unmarried. Take, for 
 instance, the cotton factories. These together gave employment in 1880-81 to 
 975 men and 1,443 women— together, 2,420; and to 542 boys under 16, and 
 565 girls— together, 1,107. Now of the first class, a large per centage would 
 be single, as this computation takes in all over sixteen, which makes it clear thit 
 our estimate of 500,000 is a reasonable one. Now the entire population of the 
 Lominion at that date was 4,324,810. It follows, then, that all except the 500,- 
 
Between Canada and the United States 
 
 29 
 
 000 had the cost of their living increased lor the benefit of the latter. Whether 
 they got any adequatecompensation for this has never yet beensatisfactori'y shown. 
 We can conceive conditions where they might get this compensation by a 
 vastly increased population, but thi, does not hold true of us. In 18S1 the 
 total arr.ount of dutiable goods entered for consumption was $91,61 1 "^'04, and 
 the tarifT collected on the same War, $18,500,785. The rural portion of the 
 conimuiiily alone largely outnumbers the entire urban population. The pro- 
 portions are at least as 3 to 2 in favor of the rural populations, as we will show 
 further on. We leave it for our readers then to judge what proportion of this 
 increased cost of living is paid by the farmer. 
 
 But it is argued that the manufacturers are rapidly adding to the wealth of 
 the country by the increased value that they are giving to raw materials, and 
 to make this the more impressive, they are quoted as having produced good.s 
 at that time to the value of $309,676,068, but the amount in raw materials, 
 $179,918,593, plus $59,429,002 in wages, must be deducted, making 
 a grand total of $239,347,593. The difference between this output and 
 the value of the entire products, $70,328,473, is an increase in wealth 
 to the country so far. W^e must acknowledge this is a very good showing 
 so far as the manufacturers are concerned. But it should nut be forgot- 
 ten that the farmers were taxed some 20 to 25 per cent, on many articles of con - 
 .sumption to bring this about, which modifies its value to the country. It is 
 not only an increase of wealth to the country, but a very substantial in- 
 crease to the wealth oftho.se engaged in the iuilustries, a return of more than 
 ^2 per cent. 1 less running expenses, on the money invested. Allowing 6 per 
 cent, on capital and deducting this .-imount, $9,918,157, from the $70,328,473, 
 the gains, with the balance, $60,410,316, those engaged in the industries made 
 a clear profit of $237 out of every one of the 254,935 work-hands employed, 
 whether man, woman or child, and to whom they had paid on an average $233 
 in wages. The interest allowed on capital will serve as an offset to the 
 labor performed by those possessing the industries. When the farmers learn 
 to handle labor so advantageously, our cities will be so completely drained 
 of their populations that grass will grow in the streets and unbroken silence 
 brood over the market places. 
 
 The farmers are in no way envious of the prosperity of the industries, or 
 if they are, they should not be. But if they purchase this ;)rosperily for the lat- 
 ter at a cost of more than two thirds of the sum of $18,505,785 customs duties, 
 as we have shown they do, they have a right to ask the reason why, as we have 
 made it clear that the only compensation they get is the purchn e of their pro- 
 ducts by the 500,000 representing the industrial classes, a large portion of 
 whom would be engaged in these occupations without a protective tariff. If 
 the farmer must toil laboriously with a return sometimes not over i per cent, 
 on the money invested, and must be taxed to afford the manufacturer a return of 
 ^^ercent.tht is surely justified in asking the reason why. He has this reflection^ 
 
Iff 
 
 30 
 
 Plain J^\ilks on Commercial Union 
 
 il 
 
 however, to console him, that he has put himself in this position, and the further 
 refloction that he will remain in it until he lifts himself out. This state of aHairs 
 is indeed addinj^ to the wealth of the country, and it is adding 10 the wealth of 
 the mannfacturer, although it is only fair to add that il is hi£;hly probable that 
 the proportionate ?ai is of manufacturers is less now than at the period to which 
 we refer. We feel tl at our illustrations of fact here will be deemed extravagant. 
 If so, we reier any vho may conclude thus, to the census returns of Canada for 
 1S81-82, vol. iii. paper 505, and ask them to make the calculation for themselves. 
 Commercial unior. would not remove this entire tax, for there would still be a 
 ])rotective tariff against other countries, but it would greatly lessen it, and if an 
 additional tax were wanted for managing the gc/vernment of the country, it 
 would be distributed on th>^ shoulders of all who should bear it. We may 
 conclude, then, that it would cheapen the cost of living for the farmer, by giv- 
 ing him opportunity to buy through his merchant in the cheapest markets of 
 the continent, and at a lower price because of removed tariffs. 
 
 It would deliver him from the power of monopoly. Monopoly is one of 
 the greatest curscb that can come upon any country, and its evils are in pro- 
 portion to its extent. It finds no countenance in any system of ethics as yet 
 given to the world, and could not exist in any country where the sanctions of 
 the golden rule, that most perfect regulator of all trade, holds universal sway. 
 Yet even as regards monopoly, we must be careful to discriminate. It is often 
 charged upon undertakings where enterprise is the more suitable qualifying 
 word. The term will not fully apply to any business, however gigantic, that 
 does not so control prices as to make them unfairly dear. It does exist in Can- 
 ada and in grievous forms. Almost the only classes in the community not 
 chargeable with this crime, for we regard it as such, are the rural portion of 
 the community. We are not saying that this is the result of any clearer views 
 of the obligations of human brotherhood that they possess, so much as the re- 
 sult of disabilities of opportunity. Owing to tbt?ir isolation and numbers it is 
 dilticult for tijtm to combine, while I'or opposite reasons, owing to their conti_^- 
 uity and restricted numbers, it is easy for those engaged in the various indus- 
 tries to combine. It is not wrong for any class to combine for the furtherance 
 of common interests, providing this does not relate to a fixity of price. This 
 should in every case be regulated by the natural law of supply and demand. 
 The moment the demand will not justify continuance in a business on the basis 
 of natural values, it is time to get out Ji it. Monopoly is one of the most gigan- 
 tic cancers of the nineteenth century, which is preying upon the life tissues of 
 one class of the community for the a 1 vantage of another cLiss, without any cor- 
 responding weal to the general interests of the country We have it in Canada 
 in its worst form, owing to the restricted nature of our market and the limited 
 number of our producers in the industrial lines. These ^monopolies, and even 
 more those of the railway systems, are the famous Gordian knot that is going 
 to puzzle the ingenuity of the farmers of this century. 
 
 
Iipt7i>een Canada and the United States. 
 
 31 
 
 There is no denying it, our industries have combined, almost every one of 
 tiiem. Some of these combinations have fallen asunder, not from ihe pres- 
 sure of any outside opposition, but throuj^h the force of greed outcropping from 
 wiihin the combination itself. Combination is not easy in businesses that re- 
 quire but small outlay of capital to set the ?oing. It is when large capital is 
 required to their successful prosecution. And it is not necessary that thosw 
 engaged in them have any written code formally drawn up and ratified. It is 
 sufficient often to have a tacit understanding, with such variations as stringent 
 customers must have before they will deal. In new lines of industries the con- 
 sumers are liable to suffer most severely. When the manufacture of self hind- 
 ers was introduced, the price asked and paid was $300 and upwards. This 
 was not tbe result of formal combination, but of that tacit understanding that 
 we referred to, and in all probability was brought about without any previous 
 consultation, one knowing what the other was asking, and he asking as much. 
 Better binders were sold last year in vast numbers for, many of them, $125 each. 
 They probably contained less material and less work than those which came out 
 first and cost less to make them, but the firms making binders did weli last 
 season ; their business flourished and the preparations for a still larger output 
 the coming season are already going on. Nov/ it follows that if $125 to $150, 
 the latter the average price paid the manufacturers, pays, the $300 charge for an 
 article not much more costly, and in every way inferior, was extortion. .Some 
 argue that it is justifiable for one to ask and to take all that he can get. In 
 such a case there could be no such a thing as extorrion in the world, and the 
 people would not be justified in cursing him who withheld corn when it was 
 dear. Now as it was with self-binders, so has it been in numerous other lines, the 
 farmers have been charged two prices, which could lot have been had they 
 had access to all the markets of the American continent. It is thus that ihe 
 manufacturers have been enabled to lay aside their dividend of 42 per cent. 
 (less running expenses) in 18S1, and the vexatious feature is that the farmers 
 have been taxed to put the industries in the position thus to extort from them. 
 
 It should not be overlooked, however, that in a sense the farmers are 
 deeply indebted to that section of the manufacturers who have improved so 
 imniensely the implements of tillage. The manufacturers ot these deserve to 
 prosper, but there is a reasonable limit to the price that the farmer should pay. 
 If the manufacturers of farm implements would content themselves with this, 
 the farmers would be obligated to make them a magnificent feast at the annual 
 recurrence of the Dominion harvest home, thus proclaiming it to the world 
 that these were the men whom they delighted to honor, and whom they felt in 
 duty bound to honor. 
 
 See the game of the sugar monopolists. We have but two refineries in 
 Canada. The other portions of the community have been taxed to enable 
 these men (i) to build palaces in Britain, (2) to enable them to enter into an 
 ini(|uitous combiqation to raise the price. The arrangement raq thus : The 
 
32 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial Union 
 
 
 refiners would sell to the wholesale men .mly at a fixed price, the wholesale 
 men to the retailers only at a lixed puce, and iheoe to the consumers only at a 
 fixed price. Thus the consumers were bound with a three fold cord of com- 
 bination to enable those two gigantic tirms of monopoly to put their hands in 
 their pockets and extract money to enable them to build palaces beyond the 
 seas. But two of the wholesale tirms of Montreal, those of Lightbound, Ral- 
 ston & Co., and Maihewson & Co., refused to be partners to an arrangement 
 so infamous, ani all Canada and jrosterity will honor them for the noble stand 
 which they have taken. About the 20th August last they threw a bomb into 
 the enemy's camp which filled it with consternation, by the importation of vast 
 quantities or sugar from Scotch refineries, which was brought in over the high 
 tariff wall against sugar in the hope of bringing the refiners to their senses, 
 and we trust it will have the desired efiect ; but no credit to us farmers for 
 this happy consummation. 
 
 The recent duties on iron are in the same direction, and the one firm in 
 the Dominion, operating at Londonderry, Nova Scotia, have but to fix their 
 prices only a hair's breadth below the prices of imported iron brought in in the 
 face of the duties, and every blacksmiiii i i Canada, and every farmer, is nt the 
 mercy of this monopoly. In spite of themselves they must bow down and wor- 
 ship this great image which is being set uji in our midst. 
 
 The railway monopoly is the worst of all. Take the C. P. R. for illus 
 tration, and in but one instance. In June last the Manitoban was charged for 
 the transit of wheat from Winnipeg to Montreal, 1,423 miles, 50 cents per ico 
 lbs. From St. Paul to New York, a distance of 1,420 miles, the rate was y2% 
 cents, a difference of IT% cents per 100 lbs. in favor of the Minnesota or Da- 
 kota farmer over tlie Manitoban. The through rail and boat, rates discriminate 
 even more against the latter. While the rate from Winnipeg to Montreal, via 
 P'ort William, was 43 cents per 100 lbs., the same from St. Paul, via Dululh 
 to Montreal or to New \ ork was 17 cents, a difference considerably more than 
 one half in favor of the Minnesota settler. The through rate from Minneapolis 
 to Liverpool, via Duluth, was 29 cents per 100 lbs., while the same from 
 Winnipeg to Liverpool, via Port Arthur and Montreal, was 55 cents, or 26 
 cents per 100 lbs., or 15^ cents per bushel against the Manitoban. 
 
 Let us show how this applies. We know a farmer of Cannington, Ont. 
 (we can give the name), whose three sons have settled in Cass Co., Dakota, 
 who grew 15,000 bushels of wheat in 1886. The seed reservation was 1,500 
 bu.shels, aliowiiig 13,500 bushels to be sent to market. Now to send this 
 amount from Si. Paul to New York by all rail would have cost the owners less 
 by $1,417.50, as compared with tht transit from Winnipeg by all rail ; to have 
 sent it by boat and rail, $1,377.00 less to Montreal or New York, and to have 
 sent it through to Liverpool, $2, 106.00 less, making a dividend in favor of each 
 son in the item of wheat alone of $472.50 in the first instance, $459.00 in the 
 becond and $702.00 in the third. Now the cost of transit west from Winnipeg 
 
Between Canada and the United States. 
 
 %% 
 
 M. AND M 11. 
 
 C. V. R. 
 
 4 CIS. per lOO lbs. 
 
 cts. per 100 lbs. 
 
 lO '1 " 
 
 17K " 
 
 30 " " 
 
 39 
 
 and St. Paul puts the Manitoban and his neit»h1)or in the territories in a still 
 worse plight, as the following comparison of rates will .show : 
 
 A haul of ho miles 
 <• 100 " 
 " 500 " 
 
 Who should blame the Canadian who goes west for jireferring to pitch his tent 
 beneath the Stars and Stripes, rather than under the llap of the Union Jack 
 that he loves so well ? 
 
 In the matter of agricultural implements the Manitoban is no better off, 
 for in 18S6, according to the report of the Minister of Agriculture, p. loi, he 
 had to pay from $170 to $105 for those of Ontario manufacture, or pay 35 per 
 cent, duty for those of American manufacture. Now it is certainiy a hardship 
 for the Manitoban to be com|)elIerl to pay from $.55 to $50 extra for every 
 American binder he uses in that timberless country of his, because the binder is 
 made beyond an imaginary line by his neighbor just to the south of him. Even 
 this strong wall could not keep American macuines out, for to-day in Manito- 
 lia they are very numerously used. We are glad to know that a numner of our 
 firms who manufacture binders do not fear American competition, and so are 
 ready for commercial union, believing that they will get ample compensation for 
 lower prices in the wider market. 
 
 Commercial union would bring the farmer an enlarged market, with all 
 the advantages appertaining thereto. It would do this in almost every line cf 
 agriculture, unless in the items of corn in cereal produce, and pork in the line 
 of animal produce. It is estimated that the United States exports agricultural 
 produce annually to the extent of $500,000,000, and it is concluded, therefore, 
 that in the event of commercial union not only would the Americans not 
 buy from us, but their goods would come down upon us in a deluge, 
 and the competition would be more than our farmers could stand. But 
 that this argument is easily refutable is clear from the fact that, notwith- 
 standing the height of the existing tariff wall, the Americans climb over it and 
 do buy from us in enormous quantities. In 18S6 they bought from us to the 
 extent of $15, 495, 935, and in 1885 a still larger amount. The explanation is 
 to be found largely in the excellence of our agricultural products, and their 
 contiguity to the American markets where they are consumed. Now the fence 
 is as high on their side as on curs, and if under a tariff that gives us no advan- 
 tage on the whole, we can hold our own, why should we fear (Jhrnpetition when 
 these tariffs are removed ? 
 
 The most substantial benefits would flow to us. In 18S5 and '86 Ontario 
 alone exported to the United States 27,794 head of horses, valued at $3,628,- 
 378 ; 93,096 head of horned cattle, valued at $2,044,736 ; of swine, 4,004 
 head, valued at $11,720 ; 588,163 head of sheep, valued at Si, 603, 375, anrl 
 of poultry and other animals to the value of $291,516 ; in the aggregate sum- 
 
 C 
 
34 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial Union 
 
 ming up $7,579,725. The duty of 20 per cent, collected on this iimounts to, 
 in the case of the horses, $7:25,665 ; cattle, ^408, 947 ; swine, $2,344 ; sheep, 
 $320,675, .and other animals, 858934; snmminj; up $I,5I5,9;,4 in the lAt; 
 years. Add to this the duty of 10 cents per bushel collected 0:1 the 20, 178,- 
 877 bushels o' barley for the same two years, sent from Ontario to the United 
 States, Thi' wa-- valued at $13,696,224, and ^;ave a duly of $2,017,887. We 
 have, theref( re, a total piid in duty on live stock and bailey sent frotn Ontario 
 cf $3,533,8:;! in the years 1S85 and 1886, or an .iverage of $1,766,910 in one 
 year lost to the Ontario farmers in their sales of live stock and barley ; a lar- 
 ger sura than is brought into the whole Dominion by all the manufacturers 
 through jales to the United Stales of their products. Hut thii by no 
 means represents the total loss to the Province. If the restrictions were re- 
 moved the sales woukl incrcise, it m.iy be m an untold ratio, and in addition 
 to the increased sales the price would rise of what was not sold, owing to the 
 increased 'ieinand. 
 
 That we are warranted in this statement is apparent from the stimulus 
 given to the trade in eggs by the removal of the duty, which was about one 
 cent, on each egg. The trade multiplied itself in value by 82, by the time that 
 it had reached the tenth year of its unfettered life, and by 239 by the time 
 that it had reached the thirteenth year — that is, the year 1883. It is unsafe to 
 fix a limit which our trade with this people would not overrun, could we get 
 free access to their markets ? There might not be another line of the live-stock 
 industry which would grow in equal proportion, but if many of the lines had 
 but one-twentieth part of its growth, our exports would be enormous. If our 
 trade in aorses alone increased but the one-s;xteenth part as fast as that in eggs, 
 our export of horses would amount in the year 19CX), or 13 years hence to 55,588 
 head ; valued at, according to present prices, $7,256,756. And if the export 
 of all our live-stick increased at the same; ratio, we would send to the United 
 States in the year 1900 live-stock, to the value of $15,159,450, to say nothing 
 of live-stock products. Now, if the 10 per cent, duty on eggs had been made 
 but 15 per cent., that raagnificient trade, which is as beneficial to the customers 
 in New \ ork as to the Canadian producers, had never been. See what an 
 enormous trade we might hiV° in fowls. In Ontario we have at the present 
 time no less than 6,o68;9.'5 znimals. What a grand market would the 
 manufacturing centres of Nev England make for these if we had access to 
 them, but we are virtualy ai?at out ! At his speech at Dufterin Lake, July 1st, 
 1887, Mr. Wiman referred to the price frequently paid for broilers in New 
 York as being $2.00 to $2.50 per pair. iVIany of the newspapers of Canada 
 made the statement a subject of jest for days afterwards. As we think of this, 
 we are reminded of the advice given by the sloth to the squirrel, when he said 
 to the latter : " Hold, not so fast," for not only is wisdom always justified 
 of her children, but also the converse. 
 
 In looking into a number of the VVashngton Farmer^ bearing date of Feb. 
 
J^etwcen Canada and tiie United States. 
 
 35 
 
 22, 1SS7, for information not at all connected wiih purposes of commercial union, 
 our attention was arrosted by an article on raising j-'ouitrv in connection, wiih 
 an e-^tablishment in Michigan. That aiticlv h id no connection with commer 
 cial union at all, as the date of the paper is prior to any real agitation of this 
 nature ; and wai written for the juirpose of advertising the paper, as it was a 
 .special number, and hud a<:ut of a poultry house. It incidentally stated that some 
 of the compartments were intemied to raise "broilers" for the >(ew York 
 market, as they readily brought there wholesale from 40 to 45 cents per lb. 
 >Jow with such a wealth of fowls as we possess, and 200 to 300 miles nearer 
 New York ihnn Michigan, how much might we not make in rearing and ship- 
 ping ■' broilers'" ? 
 
 There are many agricultural products that we have not named to which 
 Ontario conditions apply, to say nothing of the agricultural productions (.f the en- 
 tire Dominion. There is the article of butter of which we exported to the United 
 SmIcs for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1SS6, only m,jSS lbs , which was 
 sold fr)r the humiliating price of a little more ihan fifteen cents per lb. In 1883, 
 the quantity of creamery butter made in Ontario was 823,^53, and the creamery 
 business in Ontario, as well as in all Canada, is only in its infancy. There is 
 no saying what c.mensions it may ultimately assume, for our facilities, 
 particularly in Ontario and Quebec, for the production of good butter are simply 
 unrivalled. The conditions essential to the production of good butter are abun- 
 dant pastures in summer, with full supply of clean water and shade, protection 
 in winter, and a nutritious and varied diet, and skill on the part of the maker. 
 Viewed in the light of these essentials, Ontario and Quebec Provinces stand 
 out unrivalled amongst butter producing di:itricts of Nortn America. We 
 may claim these two provinces as the dairymen's paradise. In Lower 
 Canada in the month of June, where green pastures slope upwud on the long 
 swells that never seem to get to the top, the very grasses speak of milk and 
 butter, and one almost envies the cows the purity of the waters that the danc- 
 ;ng rills furnish them to drink. And what are these two provinces doing 
 in the line of butter making for the American market ? Nothing I and why? 
 Because the market of thg New England cities — the best butter market in the 
 world — is shut out against them. We heard the largest butter make: in Can- 
 ada remark not long since, that for every pound of butter he cc^uld make, 
 if we had commercial union with the United States, he could get 40 cents 
 per pound in the wholesale market, if made similar in quility to what he makes 
 at present. Even thoug;h we got but 20 cents per pounl and access to the 
 market, what a magnificent trade would at once spring up in butter ! The 
 United States market would always have this advantage over the English : that 
 It is near, and butter is rather a delicate article to ship long distances ; and so 
 it is with cheese. So long as we produced cheese as good as that which 
 has captured and held the Engli-h market, we could get a market in the United 
 States. Give us a chance, and as our hens have captured a creditable share 
 
3^' 
 
 Plain Talks on Coinnicnial Union 
 
 of the New York trade, and as our meat has forced itself over the United States 
 rpriff wall, so would our cows give us a place on the shambles of all New Eng- 
 land c'ties *'nr our butter. 
 
 We have not said anything as to our wool. The total clip for the Province 
 in l8S6 was 6, .38,347 lbs., of which we exported to the United States but 
 1,287,084 lbs., crfued at .'?26S,362, or not quite 21 cents per lb. With no duty 
 every pound of this would have brought 10 cents more, and with the facilities 
 iliat we posse.^.i for producing wool of a very tine (juality, our market in wool 
 would no doubt assume huge dimensions. 
 
 But some take the singular ground here that the Canadians do not lose the 
 amount of tne duty. The case is as clear as noonday. A Canadian at Fort 
 Erie has n horse which across the river wou'd bring $120. A buyer from 
 Buffalo steps over and oilers him $i'jo, alleging as the ground of his inability 
 to give more, that he must pay $20 to get that horse over the river.. If there 
 was no tariff" line that horse could be taken over the river at a cost of the ferry 
 charges, and the Canadian would have $120 as the price, instead of $100 as 
 now, and the effect would be on all the horses sold in the country, that the 
 price would rise, all of which would be to the advantage of the farmer. But 
 there might come a time when the advantages would not be relatively so great. 
 For instance, the United States imports at the present time 48,000,000 pounds 
 of wool annually. Now, until the growers in the United States and Canada 
 together produced enough annually, the prices would keep up, the cost of 
 manufacturing and the price of the fabrics remaining; the same. There would 
 come, as in the egg trade, a limit to the export, but that limit would be so far 
 ahead of what it is now that every farmer in the country who thinks earnestly 
 about the matter must long for the consummation of this treaty. But even in 
 the egg trade, we do not know that it has reached its outside limit. In 1897 
 it may be twice as much as it is at present. 
 
 Hut the relative strength of the farmer numerically, and the extent of his 
 interest in the ccnintry, should eniilie his claims to fair consideration. lu 1S85 
 ihe farmers of Ontario were the owners of 21,775,299 acres of land, as returned 
 by the assessors of that year. The total population of the Province was 1,784,- 
 960, and the urban population 369,152 outside oi cities ; the cities contained 
 289,254, so that the who.e urban population then numbered 6 ^8,406 ; the 
 .ural population was 1,126,96^, so that the country contained more than two- 
 thirds of the whole population of the Province. In the same year the invest- 
 ment of the farmers, consisting of land, buildings, implements and live-stock, 
 amounted to $95''^,i59>74'3. We do not know the amount of capital invested 
 by the manufacturers in Ontario in 1885, but we do know that in the whole 
 Dominion in 1880 and 1881, it was but $165, 302, b23, so that now it cannot 
 be more in Ontario perhaps, th.-.i $100,000,000. We have, then, a total farm 
 population of 1,126,960, ' against a totr' urban population of 658,406, 
 and an investment of $958,159,740, against a probable investment of the man- 
 
 ■ 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 
 ■J 
 
 : -_i 
 
»J.U.i,^.JJ .JIIJ. a.'_!JK!KS'->«:- 
 
 Between Canada and the United States. 
 
 37 
 
 ufacturets of $100,000,000, nor should it be over!ooketl that of this urban 
 jioi ulalion, no! one-half perhaps are engaged in manufactures, ff the Ontario 
 farmerb' claims do not get due consideration, he knows who only is to blame 
 for it, and it is highly probable that the ratio of population iu the entire Do- 
 minion is equally favorable to the farmer. 
 
 But it is objected that the faimers who have such large investments are 
 doing " well enough," and therefore should be content. The time was when 
 ihey did well enough ; the time of the reciprocity treaty was one of ihose periods, 
 and prior to that when the potash of consumed forests were feeding their lands, iiut 
 these days are gone, and what with restricted markets and impoverished soils, 
 taxes to make other people /ich, and combinations taking advantage of them, 
 with the depressed market prices, they are not doing well enough. They are 
 not doing more than holding their own, unless ii be in the improvements put 
 upon their lands. If they were not hard-working and frugal and economical 
 in every way, along with their canoe, the farm., they would go down the 
 stream. The representation of the farmer in the cartoon of the humorous 
 Toronto weekly was the <3:rim 'rony of reality. The old man stootl in his hay 
 field garments, with a manufacturer on his head, a m.^rchant on one shoulder 
 and a middleman on the other, and a lawyer era ling out of his pocket. We 
 say it was the cruel irony ofwhat is too real ; but so long as he remains in this 
 ]rosi'don, he has himself to blami?. He has past the stage of childhood and is 
 not in his dotage, and if his ma.di od allows him to rest under disabilities, the 
 more shame for his manhood. In 1SS2, the farmers of Ontario were worth 
 $862,624,610, in iS:6 they were worth $989,497,911. The advance in these 
 four years has been $106,873,301, or an advance on the averai^e capital in- 
 vested for the four years, , 94S,;o?,8o5, or .02S per cent., while the manufac- 
 turers of the Dominion made an advance of 42 per cent., less running expenses 
 exclusive of wages, in the years iSSo and 1881 ; and yet they tell the farmer 
 that he is doing well enou^^'h. Now anyone who knows anything about farming 
 and the ways of farmers, mast kno'" that by the impiovement of his lands, 
 he makes the most of this advance. And it is iule to say t'rat he h-as large 
 sums of invested cash capital, for the farmer, above all other men, is prone 
 to invest his money in real <;state. The conclusion is irresistible, that com- 
 mercial union with ihe United States will greatly help the farmer, by giving 
 him a larger markev, 
 
 It will Benefit the Fishe u n. 
 
 No country in the whole eaT^th is so well situated as <.,'anadrt, in relation 
 to the extent and value of either her fresh water fisheries, or those ol the 
 l>riny deep. The Dominion has more than 2,500 miles of sea coast on tue east 
 and on the west a line much longer, s.nd in addition numerous inland seas and 
 lakes, the fisheries of which are very valuable. In many places these haunts 
 
 m 
 

 38 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial Union 
 
 n 
 
 cf the finny inhabitants of the deep extend for miles from the shore. Indeed, 
 so far away from land do they extend that they support a fleet of fishermen 
 from the United States every year beyond the three mile limit, n-.ore numerous 
 than used to constilute the armaments and merchant ships of >.he mos; power- 
 ful nations of the past century. These vast cultivable areas of the sea are in 
 themselves a mine of wealth if properly farmed, and unlike areas of the soil, 
 they will never bee jme impoverished if only tilled at the proper seasons. The 
 cold currents frcm the Arctic washing the shores of our maritime provinces, 
 teem wilh minute forms of animal life which sustain these fishing grounds in 
 undiminished richness, and are forever in their flow, so that while rains fail on 
 the land and fertility fails, sterility on those vast, sea meadows is unknown. 
 Like the palm tree li ey are not only the emblem of perpetual productiveness, 
 but the embodiment of it. 
 
 A people possessing such a heritage is indeed fortunate, for the harvest is 
 prepared yeav after year without any effort on the part of men. The abcients 
 used to say that in the golden age the earth produced spontaneously. With 
 our fisheries it is always the golden age, for the harvest is always there with 
 unfailing regularity, and the only precaution required is to make sure that the 
 reaping does not take place at improper seasons. One acre of such fishing 
 grounds is worth a hundred miles of unproductive rock, and very many acres 
 ot finest prairie s-oil. the deposit of the richest food producing material of past 
 ages. There is little wonder, then, that covetous eyes have been turned to 
 those sea mines of constant wealth, and that the bordering nations have had 
 great searchings of heart regarding their share of the spoil of these ocean 
 treasures. 
 
 But of what avail is this magnificent inheritance of sea-food, unless 
 
 there is a productive market for it ? \^'e might fancy a man on a lonely islnnd, 
 
 possessing a hill of solid gold, and yet, if the inhabitants of that island were few, it 
 
 would avail him nc hing, for gold would be of little or no service to them. 
 
 In food products, if we have enough to eat, all beyond that limit is only a 
 
 source of anxiety ; if we cannot g've them in exchange for something else, they 
 
 are only vanity and vexation of spirit. The time was when people bordering on 
 
 those seas could catch to their heart's content, and sell all they caught in the 
 
 markets of New England, if they so desired, and get goods such as they wanted 
 
 in exchange, buying in the cheapest market ; but all this is changed. Now 
 
 they can sell their fish there only in the face of a tariff of 7,0 per cent., and 
 
 luing back goods again in exchange in the face of a 20 per cent, tariff, thus 
 
 giving one-half of all they sell to the vStates, for the privilege of selling the other 
 
 half. Theie is only one alternative, that is, to sell their (fish for cash, and send 
 
 the cash virtually 1,500 miles aw.-iy to get dearer goods, the carriage of which 
 
 they must pay for all that distance. They have a third course, and that 
 
 is to leave their fish in the sea, nail up the doors of their fishing cabins, and 
 
 move away to more propitious climes, or, if they do not move away them- 
 
 ft* 
 
 .Ul^ 
 
BeUveen Canada and the Lnited Slates. 
 
 39 
 
 ^he 
 
 selves, encourage their sons and daughters to do so at the earliest oppf)rtunity, 
 and that such is the ahernative adopted by many of them is made pretty 
 cleir by the expenditure of $150,000 a year to bribe the young fishermen to 
 remain. Can we wonder that the people of those provinces have announced 
 their decision to go out of the Confederation, if they can get out, and docs it 
 not sound ominous indeed, when any governnient resorts to the giving of a 
 bounty to fishermen, or to men of any calling, to encourage them to continue 
 in that calling ? Mines of weaUh lie beneath the Atlantic brine that laves the 
 shores of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, and 
 yet the fishermen are paid $150,000 a year by way of bounty, to encourage 
 them to persevere in fishing it out. We know hundreds and hundreds of our 
 fellow farmers on a comparatively barren soil, who have paid for the privilege 
 of farming it, in striking contrast to the fishermen, who were paid to till the 
 sea. Give them access to a market, and they will need no bojinty to induce 
 them to continue in a profitable industry. The value of these fisheries is some- 
 thing enormous, . The amount caught in the Dominion last year was valued at 
 $18,679,288, and including the 25,000,000 pounds used by the Indians of 
 British Columbia, and the home consumption of Manitoba and tha North- west 
 Territories, would foot up $22,000,000. The kinds of these fish are almost 
 without number. In addition to some twentyolle kinds of commercial fish, 
 enumerated in the report of the Department of Fisheries for the Dominion for 
 1886, there are numerous other varieties that are making rapid strides in the 
 item of food consumption furnished by the sea. Fur seal skins, in which little 
 was done till of late in Canadian waters, were obtained last year 10 the value 
 of $419,846, and the extent to which this trade might grow is practically with 
 out limit, so far as the supplies are concerned. 
 
 The nature of the Atlantic fisheries anci their productiveness are too well 
 known to justify dwelling upon them here, but we may notice that so important 
 are they, that under present conditions they amply justify the expenditure of 
 $37,613 a year in their protection alone. Our fisheries, all told, employ a 
 fleet p.unually of 1,113 vessels and tugs, of 44,605 tons, and no less than 
 rij,!^'/ boats, the wh.le manned by 55,731 fishermen, tht major portion of 
 wh'oh belong to the Atlantic seaboard, and the capita! invested in the business 
 is $6,814,295, The fisheries of the Atlantic Provmces last year summed up 
 ^5- 3.737, 579, and there is no saying to what extent these may not be increased 
 by a judicious protection, while the fisheries of the Pacitic may yet equal those 
 of the Atlantic. 
 
 The fisheries of British Columbia are literally without liniit along the en- 
 tire Pacific coast, which is so studded with inlets that it gives no less than 
 7,500 miles of seashore, along which are numerous and safe harbors, the shore. 
 Inspector Mowit says, is " studded with numerous islands, and lined with bays 
 ai;d fiords, some of which extend many miles inland, making harbors numer 
 ous, and safe for all sized crafts." The west coasts of Vancouver and Queen 
 
f ■•' 
 
 40 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial Union 
 
 Charlotte Islands teem with valuable food fishes," says Mr. Yondall, of New 
 Westminster, " as well as with others which are valuable for various purposes 
 of comnieicc.' A boat can often be filled \\\\.\\ black cod in a few minutes ; 
 a fish the fle^h of which is excellent, but not much known to commerce. Then 
 there are immense runs of herring, with halibut, octapus, trout, clams and 
 mussels in myriads. The fur seals abound In immense numbers in many parts of 
 Behring's Sea, insomuch that the numbers on the hauling grounds of St. George 
 and St. Paul Islands is estimated by Mr II. VY. Elliott at 5,000,000, ranging in 
 Wvigiit from 400 to 6o( ll>s each. So immense is their numbers that it would 
 lake 25,000,000 lbs. o live fish to supply them with one day's food. It is pro- 
 posed, in order to de\ elop these fisheries to place colonies of fishermen, and 
 encourage them with a bounty. It will all be in vain unless there is a market 
 ubtiined, and the nearest market, and the best, because the nearest, is the 
 United States. Halibut fish abound in these waters, but are not 30 good 
 salted, and should ^i)^;.";fore be sold aear at hand. 
 
 The lakes and '" - Manitoba and the North-west Territories teem 
 with fish, and, of the >:." ' 18S0, by far the laigest portion, amounting to 
 
 $51,589, went to Buffalo, in-.apolis, Cliicago, Detroit and St. Paul. 
 
 'J'be rivers running into Hudson's Bay teem with salmon, and walruses are 
 very numerous in the Bay, each one being worth $6o.>oo. The AnSjUcans are 
 very busy prosecuting fishing in this bay, no doubt because they have a mar- 
 ket in which to di.spose of their goods. With reference to Canada, Lieuten 
 ant A. R. Gordon, in his report significantly says : "At the present moment, no 
 Canadian is deriving profit from the resources of Hudson's Bay, except the few 
 who may be shareholders in the Hudson's Bay Company." Why, we ask? 
 So far as Canada is concerned, the walrus may revel in his home of urine, and 
 the whaie play in the whue sea foam, or fall into the hands of the American 
 fishermen, who have a market for their returns. 
 
 The temperature of the .vaters that abound in every part of the Dominion 
 is peculiarly favorable to the breeding and production of fibh on a stupendous 
 scale. The tepid waters of Southern American rivers produce alligators and 
 .such like, while ours furnish whitefish and hundreds of other valuable kinds, 
 which, if rightly guarded and developed, will prove worth millions upon millions 
 annually. With whiiefish eggs captured at the rate of one cent per thousand, 
 and those oi the pickerel, at one and a quarter cents, and scores of othei kinds, 
 at a somewhat similar ratio, and favorable feeding grounds for the young fry, 
 the limit of production in our inland fisheries is bounded only by the limit of 
 human application. Give us a Southern market for our fish, and the impulse 
 will at once be felt ihroughout the entire fishing grounds of the whole 
 Dominion, 
 
 Our country, with commendable zeal, is encouraging the propagation of 
 fish in all our waters ; would that we could say she showed a like zeal in the open- 
 i.ig up of a market. Last year she .spent $44,038 in the promotion of fish 
 
Betivecu Canada and the Uniteii States. 
 
 41 
 
 breeding, and with the most gratifying results, and when we reflect that the 
 average number of egj;s furnished by a sahnun ranges from 4570 to 10,720 
 eggs, and other kinds ui prop ition, we need have wo fear but that our fish- 
 eries will continually advance with proper management. 
 
 Of our fish, the Americans are by far the largest consumers. Of the 
 $6,843,388 exported during the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1S86, $2,'587,548 
 went to the United States, or more than 37 per cent, of the whole, forcing their 
 way over a larififwall of 30 (ler cent., ami costing the poor fishermen, as we 
 have already said, no IcsS than 50 per cent, by the time he gets his goods back 
 again. For 20 years the Nova Scotians have been trying to impress upon us 
 the disadvantages of their position, and failing to get the desired redress, they 
 are now threatening to take it into their own hands. And is there any won- 
 der Listen to the testimony of an intelligent eye-witness, on the spot, a 
 resident of New Glasgow for years, whose name we can give. He says : — 
 
 " The real fact is, that luiless we can get some measure ot reciprocity with 
 the United States, we will be forced 'mo annexation. We cannot go on under 
 the present strain; the thing will br'.ak ; we might as well open a steam bakery to 
 feed a mouse as to expect to develop even the iron mines of Picti u County, 
 by supplying the market offering in Canada for iron. If it was not for the 
 market we have in the United States at present, even in the face of 15 cents 
 per bu.shel on potatoes, 20 per cent, on horses, etc., and for the money sent 
 home by the young men and women who have left the old folks on the farms, 
 and gone to the United States to work — if it were not for these, our land would 
 soon be desolate." 
 
 Partial depopulation cannot but follow such a state of affairs. If young 
 men and women are constrained to leave the land of their nativity to sup[iort 
 the old folks at home in the steading or the cabin, "unoccupied" will be found 
 written on the old farm house and cabin door when the old folks are gone, for 
 young men and maidens are not goin^ to return to rear the pillar of their 
 jiomes in a country, the commercial disabilities of which forced them into ban- 
 ishment before they had reached their majority. The land which furnishes 
 them with the means to smooth the declining pathway for the old folks, as they 
 journey toward the realm of the setting sun, will be the land in which they 
 themselves will live and die, and be buried, far away from the country that con- 
 tains their fathers' and their forefathers' graves. 
 
 The question of the Fisheries is one that has vexed the currents of treaty 
 stipulations between the United States and Canada, and more than once has 
 almost plunged the elder and younger brothers of our revered parent beyond 
 the sea into the horrors of a fratricidal war. There is less danger of this now 
 than in the years gone by, for the Anglo Saxon world is getting far wiser in 
 this respect, as she advances in age, yet the relations on this' question are 
 always strained, and we grow no nearer to a basis of a satisfactory settlement, 
 pther than that which commercial union affords, than we were a century ago, 
 

 1 
 
 42 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial Union 
 
 Give the people of the Maritime Provinces and British Columbiaa free market for 
 their fish info the United States, and the privilege of trading there, and give 
 the Americans the privilege of access to our fishing grounds, on equitable terms, 
 and the problem is solved. And we have many reasons for believing that in 
 this way it would be solved by the people of those countries if permitted to 
 solve it^ or themselves. 
 
 A 30 per cent, tariff one way, and a 20 per cent, the other is not enough 
 to bar the trade between the Maritime Provinces and the United States. Like 
 the higher and lower currents of ingre-ss and egress of the waters of the Atlan- 
 tic into the Mediterran'.an through the Straits of Gibraltar, the currents of 
 ingress and egress from those provinces flows over and under the intervening 
 tariff walls in a ceaseless stream, thus draining the sources of their material pros- 
 perity, till these have well nigh become shattered cisterns, broken and dry. 
 For the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1886, Nova Scotia imported from the 
 United States in the following items of breadstuffs for home consumption : 
 
 VALUE. DUTY. 
 
 Beans $ 1262 $ 100 
 
 Indian Corn 54.224 8,433 
 
 Products lT Indian Corn 202,801 33.642 
 
 Wheat Flour 58,765 7,291 
 
 $317,052 $49,466 
 
 Quebec even fared worse. The flour she imported from the United States 
 for home consumption cost her $427,255, on which she paid a duty of 
 $54,323. Now, Ontario could have furnished all the.se save the Indian meal, 
 but the opponents of commercial union fail to perceive that commerce, like 
 water, will not flow upstream, and that where this is attempted, as in the case 
 of water, it can be done only at an enormous outlay. 
 
 It Will Benefit the Lumbermen. 
 
 Canada will be famous for her lumbering when the timber supply of all 
 other countries to the south of her shall have been almost completely removed. 
 It is not that the supi^ly in itself is exhaustless, but that the nature of the soil 
 and climate where much of this timber is grown preclude cultivation that is 
 profitable, so that when one crop is removed it is only a question of time and 
 of protection from the vandalism of man and beast, until a slaughtered 
 forest will resurrect itself, and reclaim its ancient domain. There are thousands 
 of acres now, where the starving settler vainly tries to digout a livelihood between 
 large stones that are in everlasting possession, which would furnish a handsome 
 rental to some proprietor wise enough to allow it to reclothe itself, and patient 
 enough to wait for a return. She has her timber limits now, where every few 
 years a crop of the largest trees are removed, soon to be replaced by young 
 brethren. The day is coming when men will stand sentry in those lonely places 
 
Between Canada and the United States. 
 
 43 
 
 guarding tiiis precious heritage from all intruders with a jealous care. The areas 
 of cuuntiy that can thus be devoted to the raising of timber are numbered by 
 hundreds of thousands of square miles, so that it will always be a matter of first 
 importance to Canada to have an unblockaded market for herexports of timber. 
 
 Although the giant trees— the pride of Ontario— are gone, and the lordly 
 pines of the Ottawa Valley are no more, trees of nobler stature and forests 
 equally magnificent and vast await the axe of the lumberman to the extent of 
 thousands of miles on Rocky Mountain slopes, and in the recesses of British 
 Columbia, where forests to the extent of probably 200,000 square miles are yet 
 undisturbed. Across the region ascending to the height of land between 
 Quebec and Ontario and Hudson's Bay, interminable forests still shade the 
 rocks in summer, though the trees are less in stature than those of the south in 
 other years. Lower Canada, south of the St. Lawrence, is pretty well stripped, 
 it is true, but she his the capacity for growing thousands of acres ; and the 
 streams of New Brunswick still teem with logs of commerce in the rafting sea- 
 son. Within the domain of Canada there are no less than ninety-five species 
 of foi?st trees, most of which may be utilized in civilized life, and hundreds of 
 thousands of these are annually cut down to rot or to be consumed by the flames 
 in clearing and other processes, because there are no manufactories sufficiently 
 near to turn them into furniture, and this lack of mafriufactories is largely owing 
 to the lack of a market for the furniture when made. 
 
 The lumbermen of Canada still drive an enormous business. The exports 
 to the United States for the fiscal >. •^r, ending June 30th, 1886, were no less 
 than $8,545,406, and this was sent over in the face of a duty of $2.00 per 
 thousand, which was lost to the lumbermen of Canada. This is nearly the 
 price of sawing the lumber, so that comparing the present state of things with 
 a free market for lumber into the United States, the thousands and tens of 
 thousands paid to the workhands, who sawed this lumber, were all or nearly all 
 thrown away. If the manufacturers of lumber know the cost of putting their 
 logs into lumber after they are at the mill, and doubtless they do, they will 
 then have an approximate idea of what they lose every year by not having free 
 access to the United States markets. 
 
 
 It would Give a Great Stimulus to the Mining In- 
 dustry. 
 
 The mineral wealth of Canada is simply enormoii;:. The amount of coal, 
 iron, copper, nickel and other minerals deposited in her hills are beyond all es- 
 timate. It is very probable that the wealth of this country buried beneath its 
 surface will outweigh the value of the surface soils, rich as the? are over wide 
 areas, and well adapted as they are to produce bountifully for man and 
 beast. To read a summary of our geological reports sounds more like some 
 fairy tale than the logic of sober fact, and yet we know the men who made the 
 
 ■Mi 
 
 ifi. 
 
im 
 
 44 
 
 Plain Taik^ on Commercial Union 
 
 surveys, Sir William K. Logan, Alfred R. C. Selwyn, Geo. M. Davidson, Al- 
 exander Murray, and their associ.iles, held their reputation far too dear to risk 
 its abrasion by the publishing of reporu intended simply to excite and dazzle 
 the imngioation. 
 
 ISot miiiy years gone by, even we as a people nior^" than half believed that 
 vhcn we gvit a little way to the north of the St. Lawrence in Queliec, and the 
 l.e fiht of land in Central Ontario, and that when we reached the north shores of 
 Lakes Huron and Superior there was little else to he found than the dreary 
 wilderness, which Divine Providence had given forever to the wild fox in his 
 rambles and to the red Jeer as a browsing ground, but lo f instead we find 
 mountains of imn and nils of copper. I"he rocks of the wilderness are im- 
 pregnated with a wealth so profuse that the treasures of a Crresus sink into in- 
 significance when comrjared to the wealth of a single square mile of this rocky 
 surface, that can be picked up for $2 per acre by any one desirous of investing. 
 Why, then, is all this magnificence of wealth, a thousand times more than the 
 national debt of the confederation, allowed to be undisturbed? Yes, that is 
 it, will the opponents ofcommercial union tell us^ why? A man might die a pauper 
 and be buried by his neiglibors, although he owned miles of this mineral 
 wealth, so long as the market of the coantry would not pay him for disembow- 
 elling and preparing it for the market, which is just about our position as a 
 country in relation to our minerals. 
 
 Let us look at this matter more minutely. Take the item of coal. The 
 availaiile coal of Cape Breton alone, not much larger than a good-sized county, 
 is estimated at 800,000,000 tons. In Nova Scotia the seams of the coal, as 
 Mr. G. Johnsori tells us, are in some parts from six to more than thirty-four feet 
 thick, and the area of the coal region of the Maritime Provinces is no less than 
 tS.ooo souare miles. As to the N. W. Provinces, Dr. Geo M. Dawson, 
 of the geological survey, says, "The known area of true lignite coals of the 
 '• ijest quality extends along the base of the Rocky Mountains from the 49th 
 " parallel to the vicinity of the Peace River, a distance of 500 miles, with an 
 " av^r-ige width of, say 100 miles, giving a total area of 50,000 square miles." 
 An additional area of 15,000 square miles, ex'ending east as far as the Souris 
 River, and Turtle Mountains, yields lignite of good quality. The estimated 
 outcrop of eighteen miles of coal banks on the Belly River is 99,000,000 tons. 
 The workable coal in the vicinity of Medicine Hat is estimated at 150,000,000 
 tons, the Horse Shoe Bend seam is put at 49,01x3,000 tons, and the Blackfoot 
 Crossing seam at 270,000,000 tons. In the vicinity of the Bow River at Grassy 
 Island, the esiimnle for one mile in width is 330,000,000 tons, or " equivalent 
 " to an output of i,ooo,coo tons for a period of 300 years," and much of it 
 lying so near the surface that the seams have been laid open and bare by cur- 
 rents of th: rivers, and in hundreds of thousands of other instances the out- 
 crops reach the surface along the Bow, Belly, St. Mary, Red Deer, and Old 
 Man rivers, and throughout the intervening country. Nor should it be forgottea 
 
 
Between Canada and the Vniicd States. 
 
 45 
 
 that in the United States across the border there is a dearth of this material. 
 Many Suctions of tlic Rocky Mountains aro serrated \\ith coal seams, which 
 .some d ly will be of inestimable value in smelting the metalliferous deposii.-; 
 which are known to be numerous there, nnd much of the coal is anthracite of 
 the btst quality. The Vancouver Island bituminous coal is the best in quality 
 on the Pacific coast, and practically unlimited in (juantiry ; and the tertiary 
 lignite-beaiing rocks of British Columbia are estiuiaied at 12,000 si|uare miles. 
 The estimates of the coal areas as yet known put them at about 100,000 
 square miles, or covering a country more than 300 miles square, which gives 
 us a coal iield co:isiderably larger than the whole of England and Scotland, 
 and of greater extent than all the inhabited country in the Province of Ontario, 
 while our consumption at the present time is only 3,515,769 tons per annum, 
 Canada has coals enough to smelt all her mountains of iron and hills of cop- 
 per, and to warm a hundred generations yet to be ; but why should it be used 
 in preparing iron or copper for a market which does not exist ? 
 
 Iron is found in great abundance in many parts of the Dominion, The 
 iron ores of Clreat Britain are, as a rule, less rich and not so easy of access as 
 those of Nova Scotia, *vhere the coal for smelting is found in close proximity, 
 and limestone in great abundance. In the hills of central Ontario magnetic 
 ores literally abound, one of which in South Crosby forms a bed 200 feet thick, 
 but the silence of death reigns around them, for the duty on the export of the 
 ore, and the carriage, are prohibitory. In the Province of Quebec are large and 
 valuable deposits. There is a hill of, iron not far from the city of Ottawa, 
 which it is estimated would yield 100 tons a. day for 150 years, and still be un- 
 exhausted. At the Hull or P)aldwin mines not far from Ottawa on the Sague- 
 ney, the estimate is put at 100,000,000 tons, with 67 per cent, of iron in the 
 ore. This would yield 100 tons of ore during every working day for 3,194 
 years. Hills of iron are found on Big Island in Lake Winnipeg. Cireat 
 masses of iron ore exist in British Columbia, and lying in close proximity to 
 the coal fields of Nanaimo. Magnetic, hematite and titanic ores of this pre- 
 cious metal abound in nC'arly all the Provinces, so that there can be but little 
 doubt now that in this valuable metal Canada is to-day the richest country in 
 the world. And yet in 18S1, in smelting furnaces and steel making, we had 
 but $490,000 invested, and employed but 778 workmen, with an output of only 
 $914,769, while in a single state, Michigan, and by one iron mining company 
 in that State, the Menominee company, the output m the one year of 1883 was 
 $24,000,000. 
 
 In the possession of copper ore, Canada ranks first amongst the nations. 
 It is found in New Brunswick. Nova Scotia contains it in large quantities, 
 '• oeven times as rich as the ore of the famous Plecla mires," and in conjunc- 
 tion with more than safficient coal to smell it. In the Eastern townships 
 it has been traced in 557 locations. It abounds in many placts ak-ng the 
 Kingston and Pembroke line of railway. {Masses of it are found in 
 
46 
 
 Plain Talki on Commercial Union 
 
 various parts of British Columbia, and the region north of I^ikes Huron and 
 Superior are supposed to contain more of this valuat'le mettl than the whole of 
 the I'nited States. Vet the mo^-t of this stupf;ndous wealth is lying undisturb- 
 ed ill the mines. A tariff of 7.],2. cents per pound on the ore on entering the 
 United States, is a rather effectual barrier, and hence we read that operations in 
 some of the mines in the Eastern townships " have been suspended." 
 
 While there is the siillrtess of the grave in many parts of that magnificent 
 region on the north sho es of Lakes Huron and Superior, witness the activity 
 on the south shores i \ the State of Michiijan. There the hills have been 
 serrated and honeycor ibed ; and the amount of ore crushed every day by the 
 Calumet and Hecla craipany is no less than 2,200 tons. Although the ore 
 yitlds but 4/2 to 5 per cent, of copper, not half so rich as that upon the north 
 shore, the company during its existence of about 20 years has paid a dividend 
 of some $3o,(KK),oofJ, on an invested capital of less for many years than $1,- 
 200,000. With all this wonderful activity, which is mainly responsible for the 
 calling into existence of the town of Calumet, containing 10,000 inhabitants, 
 the copper mines of the whole Dominion exported but 5,^24 tons of ore to the 
 United States last year, or less than would be crushed by the machinery of the 
 Hecla mine in three days. 
 
 But it is not in these alone that our mineral wealth consists. Hundreds 
 of millions of tons of nickel ore are found on the north shores of Lake Huron 
 and in other parts of the Dominion ; while the whole supply in the United 
 States has been obtained from one deposit, owned by a single individual near 
 Philadelphia, and yielding but .02 per cent, of the metal^ Canada possesses 
 enough of this metal to supply the continent for generations, but it must nearly 
 all lie in the mmes in the meantime, for the United States duty on it is 
 15 cents per pound. 
 
 At Thunder Bay and the Nepigon region north of Lake Superior and in 
 British Columbia are valuable lead mines, also along the Kingston and Pem- 
 broke and Central Ontario railways, but it is left to lie where the past ages 
 placed it, for the United States tariff against lead is more than half its 
 value. Our mines of apatite are numerous and rich, particularly in Ontario 
 and Quebec, and are the purest in the world. The United States admits this 
 free, and a splendid trade has sprung up. Gypsum abounds in Nova Scotia, 
 New Brunswick, Ontario and the North-West territories. The Ottawa 
 Valley is a *' huge storehouse of mica," and for this metal a variety of uses are 
 being discovered. Salt abounds in Western Ontario, and on the Slave River 
 in the North-West territories is a tract of country, which would take half a day 
 to cross, supposed to be one vast deposit of salt. Then we have minerals, used 
 as pigments, minerals for building, for grinding and polishing, and for a hun- 
 dred other purposes in a profusion that is almi^st bewildering. We have 
 marble and granite to build palaces for the living, and to stand sentinel by the 
 dead. Minerals, such as are used in all or nearly all the arts requiring them, 
 
Between Canada and the United States. 
 
 47 
 
 that are known to any country, to say nothing of the immense wealth vjf our 
 mines of {,'nld and silver. 
 
 iJut wliat will all this avail us if we are shut ^ut from a market ? We can 
 use these lavish gifts so lavishly bestowed, only up to the limit of our wants, 
 beyond which they must lie in the mines where the agitated elements placed 
 them, the only consolation left to us beinj; the tnought that they will noi 
 perish there, and that they will better serve those who will live after us, > 
 may be wise enough to utilize the markets of a continent rather than of a sec- 
 tion of it. Multiply our present market by twelve, and what unparalleled 
 activity would manifest itself over those wilderness regions I 
 
 E, Coste, M. E., in his observations on "The mining laws and mining in 
 Canada " (see Geological and Natural History Survey of Canada for (885) 
 mourns over the want of development of our mines in the following language : 
 *' Why so little mining activity in this country, so rich in mmeral resources, and 
 '* in which so many mining regions have long since been discovered ? Why have 
 "so many mining schemes failed, and why, in several parts of Canada, have 
 "good mines been abandoned, which will eventually be again worked with 
 "profit? How explain that several mining districts, where splendid discov- 
 " eries were made years ago, are yet comparatively unexplored ? " He endeav- 
 ers to account for it in the fact that large tracts have been bought up by specu- 
 lators, and held. It never seems to have occured to the mind of Mr. Coste, 
 that the true reason was a restricted market. Speculators always sell when 
 there is a brisk demand. Thousands of acres of valuable mineral areas at the 
 time of that writing were still unsold by the Government. 
 
 An attempt has been made by our legislature to stimulate the iron industry, 
 but it can prove only partially successful. The degree of its success will bs up 
 to that limit, the extent of home consumption, beyond which it cannot go. We 
 can ascertain that limit. In 18S6, the imports of iron and steel and manufac- 
 tures thereof, for home consumption, amounted to $11,053, 365 ; and we have 
 already shown that the annual output of the Menominee Mming Company m 
 1S83, was $24,ooo,ocxD, which did not include the after manufactures from the 
 iron it produced. The total annual consumption of iron at the present time, 
 is put by the minister of Finance at 250,000 tons, which would require to pro- 
 duce it 750,000 tons of ore, or but 2,396 tons per day ; and we have already 
 shown that the Menominee Mining Company reduces 2,200 tons of ore per day. 
 The company, at present operating at Londonderry, have but to place their 
 operations on a scale equal to those of the Michigr '■ mpany already referred 
 to, and the output will supply the whole of Can.ad^ . ' his, they may easily do, 
 for the capital employed by the former company has at no time exceeded $2,- 
 500,000, ncjt withstanding the enormous dividends which they have made. 
 
 It is true, another company may start up in some other region, but the 
 output can be no more than the requirements of the country, and so no more 
 work will be done, and no more hands employed than if all were done by the 
 
48 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial Union 
 
 one company. But, give us access to the Ignited States, which as yet largely 
 imports iron, and we would have roum for half-a-dozen such piRantic industries. 
 Giveusa iiiaike*, and nur nianutacturers of iron c«ndd more than hold theii 
 own with the Americans, for coal and iron in immoasuraLle quantity occupy 
 different compartir eiits of the same house in Canada, on the shores of both the 
 Allantic and the "acific, while the Americans liave to convey their iron ore 
 from Michigan tc Httsburg to get the coal to manufacture it, or vice versa. 
 
 f]y the charge made in the tarift last winter, in the removal of o' - ''nty on 
 anthracite coal for smelting, with a view to the development of the ire .siry 
 
 in Ontario, the revenue of $497,000 was lost. The change may have been a 
 step in the right direction, but until we get a wider market it will not avail, for 
 our iron products cannot climb the United States tariff wall. The duty into 
 that country on pi^j iron is $6 per ton :• puddled bars, $16.00 ; bar iron spike 
 rod, $16.00 to $22.00 ; thick hoops and sheets, $20.00 ; thin hoops and .sheets, 
 $28.00 per ton. 
 
 Not only must tliis stimulus soon reach its limit, as in the case with the 
 cotton industry, Ijiit see who will pay for it, every consumer of iron in the 
 country. The manufacturers of iron will have the regulation of the price, and 
 all the additional duty, or nearly all of it, will be paid by the consumers; or, in 
 other words, one industry of the country will flourish at the expense of a large 
 proportion of the community at large. 
 
 The farmeis are very large consumers of iron. It enters into th' imposi- 
 tion of almost every implement they use, and hence, as usual, th istries 
 are made to flourish very largely at their expense. But care is tak^. . A the 
 machinery used in the construction of the works employed in those industries 
 is admitted free. In this way, machinery to the extent of $2,950,000 has been 
 admitted free during the last two decades, while the farmer must pay full tale 
 for the machinery which he may require, equally useful in its way. 
 
 The iron industry in the United Slates has made gigantic strides. The 
 number of workhands employed yearly is 140,775 ; wages' paid, $65,000,000. 
 the value of raw material, $191,000,000, and the product $296,ooo,fX)0, while 
 in Canada our workhands have barely got into the thousands, and cur total 
 output is as yet probably not more than one-thirtieth to the one-sixtieth part, 
 for we have already stated that in 1881 our output in the manufacture of iron 
 was but $914,769. 
 
 This difTerence should not exist. During the last nineteen years we have 
 paid out no less than $13,326,869 a year for iron and steel, and the manufac- 
 tures thereof, and we did all this, while millions and millions of tor.s of it lay 
 undisturbed in the mines, coal in abundance, fluxes, labor, and half a dozen 
 kinds of ore, hut we labored under a fatal disability, that of a circumscribed 
 market, and therefore the requisite capital in manufacturing has not come. 
 Sir Charles Tupper, in hiji budgetspeechof last session, says : "The develop- 
 ment of this industry in supplying the wants of Canada, will give employment 
 
Bftiveen Canada and the I'nikd Si dis. 
 
 4«; 
 
 to :!0,ooo men, and increase the population trom 8u,cxx> to loo.noo, not In 
 cludiiij.; *' the manufacturer of caslinjjs, forginjis, cutlc-ry and edgtd tools, liard- 
 ware, machinery, engines or steel rail^)." [fe goes on losay, "were we tomanu- 
 fadure these articles now imporltKl — and there is no reason why we should not 
 steadily pro;'ress to that puint-the population I have mentioned of ioo.uckj 
 souls would be no less than trebled." Sir Charles is doubtless right. Add to 
 ti.is number the additional tlumsands that might be engaged in the mimufacture 
 of copper and nickel, under comn)ercial union, in extracting petroleum from 
 its cr.verns, and refining it, hont-ycombing the earth fur marbles, soapstone, 
 emery and one thousand uthe; things. We niight fairly look for an impetus to 
 be given to manufactures such as this generation could never have hoped for 
 under present conditions, and millions added to our population. 
 
 Its Effects upon the Industries Not Prejudicial. 
 
 Some persons argue that the adoption of commercial union with the 
 United States will affect our industries adversely. Others maintain just as 
 stoutly that it will be beneficial to them ; that on account of the development 
 of resources that will follow the opening up of a large market, such a stimulus 
 would be given to them as had never been known before. Very probably both 
 are right in a sense. There is but little doubt that there would be some de- 
 Vangement of our industries as thev exist at present, or those who represent 
 ihcm, more especially those who represent the manufacturing portion of them 
 would not be so strongly in opposition. Many of them have grown up under 
 the shadow of a protective system, and like a son setting out in life who has 
 learned to rely upon the successive instalments that come from home rather 
 than upon his own efforts, they n.itura'/ drt;ad the withdrawal of this foster- 
 ing or pampering hiand, we scr.cely know which, and therefore array them- 
 selves in opposition. But it is not so with all of them. There is a strong and in- 
 fluential minority (we can give the names), embracing in their number some of 
 the foremost, and we need scarcely add the most self-reliant, of our manufac- 
 turers. This is an argument that has not as yet entered very largely into the 
 discussion, although it is one of much signifi-'ance. If a strong contingent of 
 the manufacturers would rather have commercial union for the sake of the 
 larger market, then one of the strongest arguments of those who oppose the 
 movement is removed. The secretary of the Manufacurers' Association of 
 Ontario gathered statistics in reference to this feature. Why has he not 
 published the:ie ? Are we not justified in inferring that so many of the answers 
 were unfavorable that he concluded it wouid be impolitic to take this step ? 
 
 The protective system can only operate beneficially under certain condi- 
 tions. It is not equally well adapted to all countries. The economic history 
 of Great Britain and the United Stares has made this unanswerable for all 
 time. Protectionists who ignore these facts and try to make their system 
 
V I 
 
 50 
 
 Plain Talh'^ on Commercial Union 
 
 eqmlly applicab!' to all and to any conditions make a great mistake, for, car- 
 rying their argument to its logical conclusions in this aspect of it would rendeir 
 it advisable for each province within a State to adopt the system of protecting 
 itself against each and all of the other provinces. In its application to the 
 Dominion, the Maritime Provinces would erect a <;arift*waU agiinst Quebec 
 and ugainst each other ; Quebec against Ontario and Ontario against Quebec ; 
 and so of all the others The policy of our Government has been the veiy op- 
 posite of this. It has constructed highways for trade in the form of railways 
 and canals, at enormous expense, that the different pmvinces might be enabled 
 to uade with one another ; and, so far, it ".-u.s in the line of duty. And did 
 we possess a country lying geographically as the United States, almost any 
 portion of it inhabitable, and self contained as it were in its resources, it might 
 be profitable to continue the policy that shuts out the trade of outside nations. 
 The United States furnishes the best example in all the world of the beneficial 
 effects of a protective system and of one of free trade, in that she has protected 
 herself against the outside world and niospered amazingly, and has at the same 
 time enjoyed the utmost freedom in her inter-state trade, and the individuals 
 of which she is composed have flouiished equally well Now the 
 different Provi>ices of Canadi, owing to their geographical location, 
 contiguity to certain of the States of the Union, and remoteness from other 
 members of the confederation, make it as clear as day that the natural chan- 
 nels of trade lie between them and the former, rather than between them and 
 the latter. Such being the case, the conclusion is irresistible, that if a tariff' 
 wall around the United Sip.tes, and the utmost freedom in trade between the 
 States themi;elve?'., has led to the most wonderful prosperity of each State and of 
 the country as a whole, by extending that wall around the Dominion, and 
 allowing the same freedom of trade between the Provinces and the Sates of the 
 Union Individually and collectively, it would equally conduce to the pros- 
 jierity of the wliole country, especially when the natural resources of the one 
 country are as good as those of the other. 
 
 The protective system can be operative only under certain conditions : 
 
 1. There must be a necessity for protecting industries against the compe- 
 tition of cheap labor. 
 
 2. There must be a similar necessity loi protecting them fr.>m the power 
 of large investments of capital, enabling those who have so invested to 
 produce more cheaply through the extent of their production. 
 
 3. There must be a market. 
 
 Where the natura' resources arc equal or nearly so, and the labor 
 conditions are very similar, the argument for the necessity for protec- 
 tion ceases. This argument shows the wisdom of keeping up our pro- 
 tective wr;!i against E^ngland and throwing U down on the United States 
 northen^ boundary line, for while wages of workmen in England are 25 
 to 50 per cent, less than \-\ Canada, they are not in advance of those of the 
 
 ■ \ 
 
Between CanCiJa and the United States 
 
 51 
 
 United States, as will appear fmm the following comparison : In 1S80 in the 
 Ea^itern States, composing Maine, Conncciicut, Massachusetts, New Yoric, 
 New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, the average wages paid and materials used in a 
 product amounting to $100 was $81. u. In the '^ameyeai in the western States, 
 including Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri Ohio and Wisconsin, the averager 
 was $81.50, while in Ontario in 18S1, the figures uot being attainable for 1S80, 
 the average paid was $77.05, so that in cost of production in producing goods to 
 the amount o{ $100 our people had the advantage over the States named of 
 $4.25, in itself a very satisfactory profit. Why, then, with materials which 
 cuit less, labor no dearer, better transit facilities, manufactories nearer the 
 base of supplies, and a people whose natural chilities have enabled them fully 
 to hold their own upon American soil, can our manufactories as a whole not 
 hold their own agpmst those of the United States? 
 
 The second reason is not so easily set aside. For a time it might react un- 
 favorably to the weaker of our manufacturers, but only for a time, for as nrms 
 grow strong, and there is opportunity, it is th- tendency of things for them to 
 create branches where a mark'::t opens, and Sf> save the expense of transit long 
 distances. Thus it is that Scotch firms have planted manufactories in the 
 United States and Canada to supply the trade in sewing cottons, and it is an 
 open secret that even now some of our largest establishments are run by Amer- 
 ican capital. There is no saying to what extent this would be done in this 
 country under our protective system, were it not that the absence of a market 
 forbids it. 
 
 Certain it is, that this difficulty has been overcome in the western Siatts, 
 and also in those of the South, where, since the war, manufactures are 
 rapidly growing. The New England States were strongly entrenched behind 
 their flourishing manufactories long before those of the western States had a 
 being, yet it cannot b^i denied thit those of the west and s.iu.h aie now flour- 
 ishing beyond those of the east. It is idle to say that eastern capital has dene 
 all this, for, though it had, the benefits of the manufactories established in 
 these new centres flow out in all directipns all the same. The matter of prime 
 importance is to get manufactories, let the capital come whence it will, where 
 tiiereisa market to sustain them. 
 
 Compare the growth of Ontario with that of Michigan, and it will be found 
 that Michigan has a decided advantage in tne tale of development she has to 
 toll, althoMgh Ontario has a long way the advantage in her natural resc.urces. 
 In 1810 the popu'ation of Michigan was 4.762, that of Ontario.) ■j'j.Oiyx In 
 i88i the population of M chigan was 1,636,937, and of Ontario 1,920,337 ; 
 but observe that while the increase of population from 1840-50 in Michigan 
 was 185,000 against 518,000 in Ontario, from 1870-80, the increase was 452,- 
 oc;o. as against 302,000 in the latter. The manufactures of the two States 
 during the same period compare \..ms : 
 
 Value of manufactures in Ontario in : 
 
52 
 
 Plain Talhs on OmiDiercial Cnion 
 
 i88; 
 1871, 
 
 h 57,989,870 
 114,706,799 
 
 Increase 43,282,071 
 
 Michigan. 
 
 1S81 $150,715,025 
 
 1871 94,716,741 
 
 Inciease 55,998,284 
 
 In Ontario th" rAte of increase was but 38 per cent.; in Michigan 59 per 
 cent. In Ohio during the same derade, 61 per cent., and in Ihiuois 152 pet 
 cent. Now all these Stales had no protp-ticn the one apjair.st the other, nor 
 had those«cf the west as a w hole any prelection against the older sections of 
 the east, and yet they left our banner Province so ^-r behind in the race, that 
 the comparison must bring the crimson to the cht of any high-minded Can- 
 adian. 
 
 Now while it may not be an exact parallel to single out one State from the 
 other Slates of the Union, as it might be objected that there are phe- 
 nomenal reasons for its growth, there can be no such objection in comparing 
 growth in one group of States with growth in another of them. Yet in the 
 comparison we have made between Michigan and Ontario, the latter had the 
 advantage in almost every sense of the term. A comparison of the progress of 
 the manufaciures of the Western States, with those of the east, which had 
 grown strong in the developnent of a full manhood before the others had been 
 born, will show how little Ontario has to fear from American competition, for 
 it cannot be said that the industries of Ontario are in their infancy now. We 
 shall represent the Eastern States by Massachusetts, New York and Pennsyl- 
 vania, ami those of the west by Illinois, Ohio and Michigan. The compari- 
 son stands thus : 
 
 VALUE OK MATERIALS. 
 
 Eastern States. 
 
 1S30 $ 307,718,822 
 
 i860 503,344,480 
 
 1S70 966,141,686 
 
 1880 i,5:^i,6"5,763 
 
 VAUE OK PRODUCTS. 
 Eastern States. 
 
 1850 $ 550,386,153 
 
 i860 924,538,049 
 
 1870 1,640,801,251 
 
 1880 2,456,050.325 
 
 PER CENT. OK INCREASE IN J'KODU' :l S. 
 
 Eastern States. Western States 
 
 1850-60 66 134 
 
 1860-70 77 124 
 
 187U-80 30 92 
 
 Western States, 
 
 $ 49,773,674 
 122,994,663 
 282,299,431 
 598,078,434 
 
 Western States. 
 
 $ 90,3'AS,553 
 211,840,390 
 474,.)84,i67 
 913,878,088 
 
Betiveen CiiiiaJa arid the United States. 
 
 53 
 
 The reason for this state of things, is surely plain. In the west there was 
 a large market, wnich the descending ratio of the»per centage ofincrease in the 
 west proves, for we have no doubt but that if the facts were fully known the 
 ratio of increase in pjpulalion, or in other words, the au;i of the market, has 
 not kept pace wi.h the development of the uianuractures. 
 
 It is idle, then, to expect any very great development in our industries, 
 other than we possess, unless we get a market, It can only keep pace with 
 the slow development of the country under present conditions. Progress, 
 then, must be laboriously slow, fur while our population is filtering away haif 
 as fast as it comes ir, our country cannot develop rapidly. So long as in our 
 inter-provincial trade we are content to journey over the two sides of the 
 triangle rather than take the third side, we must sutler the consequences. 
 Manufacturers in the Western 'Stales must leave those of ours in the North- 
 west quite in the shade, when the rate of increase in the population is so diiler- 
 ent. Six years ago it is said that the population of IJakota and the North-west 
 were equal, now that of Dakota is 600,000, and of our North-west about 
 150,000. Amid such conditions plant manufactures in the North west and 
 protect them with a wall over which none can climb, and feed them with 
 bonuses until they are nauseated, and tax the farmers to enable ihem to add 
 monopoly to the bonuses, but give them no outside market, and manufacturer 
 planted in a State developing like Dakota \^ ill leave them nowT'jre. 
 
 No, we must draw the line carefully between orotecting an industry and 
 fostering a monopoly. It is the mission of protection, as has l.iecu well said 
 by one of itr, best friends on the continent, the Hon. Mr. Butterworth, "it is 
 " the mission of protection to guard infant industries against unequal conditions 
 of comp'jti'iryn, but not those full grown and able to take care of themselves." 
 The principle of protection is only oper.ative until the demand 13 tilled, then 
 the manufacturer must stay his hand until more is wanted. We have amole 
 evidence of this in our midst. This has already led to periods of suspension 
 in the operations of our cotton mills, and to the adopcion of the plan of running 
 on partial time in others of our uidusiries. F'lant but one estaDlishmenl such as 
 the Cleveland Iron Works in our midsi, and the product is sutiicient for the 
 wants of the whole Dominion. In a market that is easily glutted there is small 
 encouragement for capitalists to invest their money, knowing they can only go 
 so far, when the limit of profitable production is reached. The Protectionist 
 should not forget that " when he shuts out a competitor by his walls, he shuts 
 "in his own market, and the walls may soon become too narrow," Prof. 
 Goldwin Smith has said "the necessary eflecis of tht prut(jclive system in 
 •' Canada rre misdirection of capital and industry, financial delicit, dearncss of 
 '• living, and conse(|uent depopulation," conclusions which are amply verified 
 in the (Condition of our country to-day. 
 
 Until the doors of the other markets are thrown wide open iu us, wc need 
 not expect a large inflow of capital, nor the planting o'" new industries m our 
 
^,-„— l.^^^- 
 
 54 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial Union 
 
 midst, especially those of a character which can easily supply the market under 
 the present contliiions. Tal^ the manufacture of ntedles^ (or instance. One 
 establishment of this kind, wtll equipped, would suffice to supply the whole 
 Dominion in the couvse of three months, and would have to shut down for the 
 remaining; nine months of the year. Where is the capitalist in the face of this 
 fact who would care to invest his money in the manufacture of needles, and so of 
 other br inches of manufacture ? 
 
 The strong arguments adduced infavor of protecting our industriesare(i)that 
 they increase population by affording employment for the workmen, and (2) that 
 they thus benefit the farmer by causing an increased demand for his products, 
 or in other words, by furnishing him with a better home market. There can 
 be no question of the truth of the first proposition up to a certain limit. So 
 long as it can be shown that protection has a tendency to increase our manufac- 
 tures, this argument is so far valid, but if there come a time when it can be shown 
 that protection has the opposite effect, then it may legitimately be used as a 
 weapon against itself, a gun that may be employed in the demolition of tne 
 protection wall* We hold that that point has been reached in the history of 
 protection in this country. It has already fulfilled its mission, and, like the 
 swaddling clothes that protect the infant, should be thrown aside when it 
 has outgrown their use. Stagnation is brooding over the waters of our manu- 
 factu.'ing stream ; open to us the markets of the United States ; a tirst effect 
 would be motion on those stagnant waters ; a second, life, as the result of 
 motion, and a third the influx of u stream of prosperity as the result of life, and 
 the influx of a busy population in numerous centres as the result of prosperity. 
 
 That they benefit the farmer in a sense is evident, Lut it is a benefit for which 
 he may be made to pay too dear. If he is made to pay 25 per cent, more for 
 what he buys from abroad, then his gain is a very doubtful one, and if, by do- 
 ing this, he is putting the manufacturer in a position to tax him, it may be this 
 amount extra on the goods he sells him, or even half this amount through com- 
 bination to fix a price, and only gets in compensation the small increase in 
 price for his products, which the small increase in population gives him, his 
 gains are must assuredly on the wrong side. 
 
 To illustrate in another way : In 1881, the number of farmers in the Dom- 
 inion was 464,025. The number of servants employed by them could not have 
 beenlesslhar. twice that rmmoer, and, allowing in addition for children, the rural 
 population, acccrding to the proportion based uj on Ontario returns for 1885, 
 could not have been less than 2,729,546, out of a total population 014,324,810, 
 or more than two-thirds of the whole. 
 
 The number of workmen employed by the industries of all kinds wa^ 
 254i935- Now, without protection this number would still have been pretty 
 large, for we had manufacturers who had become millionaires before the intro- 
 duction of protection, and who employed large numbers of men. The advan- 
 tage to the farmer, then, would be the increased purchasing power of the 
 
JJiiiveen Ccuiaaa and the Uniied States. 
 
 55 
 
 additional workhands which protection brought, and their families, so far as the 
 farmer's products were concerned. The revenue collected that yenr from goods 
 imported from the United States for home consamption, aMounting lo 
 $36,704,1 12, was $5,657,292. If our estimate of the rural portion il the pop. 
 ulation is correct, it paid more than two-thirds of thiy sum for the protection of 
 the manufacturer, and was shut out from a market to the extent of $36,86(3,225, 
 unless by climbmg over a high tariff wall to get access to it. There need be no 
 doubt here as to who had the advantage. 
 
 Protecting the industries of a country where the market is prescribed, 
 gives them every opportunity of combining. This is one of its most pernicious 
 features. With the increased duty on iron, |the smelters thereof owing to their 
 limited number, can easily combine and put up the price of their goods to the line 
 of tariff admission, and who shall say that they must not ? So it is in a hun- 
 dred other lines. The rutal portion of the population is taxed to support all 
 this, and worse than all, in the outlying Provinces a double lax is put upon 
 them in extortionate rates, which they are forced to pay, because of the lack of 
 competition. It is, therefore, absolutely indefensible to say that a customs line 
 is necessary from sea to sea, to sustain our industries, when results so injurious 
 to the rural populations are the result. Thecunsumersof any one article should 
 not be made to pay an artiticiallv enhanced price for it, unless you give some 
 adequate compensation, which shall increase the purchasing power of the con- 
 sumer. This has not been done in the case of our rural populations, who, 
 owing to their numbers and the importance of their work, are surely entitled 
 to as much consideration as the other class. 
 
 Why talk about "sacrificing" our industries by the adoption of commercial 
 union ? Is not the sacrifice nearly all the other way ? The exports of Ontario 
 in 1886 to the United States, are as bei- v : 
 
 Products of the Mine $3,115,696 
 
 " " Sea .... 2,587,548 
 
 '< " Forest 8,545,406 
 
 Animals and their food 6,742.789 
 
 Agricultural p-oducts 8,753,140 
 
 Manufactures 1,758, 7^*7 
 
 $3i..S03.2<)-^ 
 
 Here, then, we have those who export to the extent of $20,744,38^ taxed 
 to uphold those who ex [)ort to the extent i)f $1,758,707. 
 
 It m.iy be urged that the manufacturers produce very much more largely 
 than they export to the United States, for home con:,umption. ."^o do the other 
 classes, notably the farmers, who ai the same time have tc pay the manufactur- 
 ers more for their goods than if there was no Southern customs lint a! aU, for 
 in such an event they would have things less their own way. 
 
 We want the industries We wan! ihem two-fold more than wo liave 
 
56 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial Unioti 
 
 them ; yes, three fold. No country can thrive so well without them. We want 
 them protected where it is necessary, as against cheap European labor, but do 
 not want them at the expense of the sacrifice of the interests of another class 
 which far outnumbers them, and which have at least an equal right lo a fair 
 share in the prosperity of the commonwealth. 
 
 If the farmers of Ontario are not afraid of the competition of the farmers 
 of the Un ted Slates, why should manufacturers be more faint hearted than the 
 farmers '' 
 
 The total value of the live-stock of the United States on January ist, 
 1887, wf.s $2,400,586,9.38. That of the live-stock of the Province of Ontario at 
 the same date, was $107,208,935 ; and yet not a man amongst the (armerj is 
 dismayed at the prospect of competition with the United States in live-stock, 
 althouj^h the interest of the former is more than twenty-two times that of the 
 ;hc latter. 
 
 Again, the United States had, on the 1st day of .January, 1887, cattle to the 
 'value of $29,216,900, and to the number of 48,033,833 head. Ontario farmers do 
 not for a moment fear this competition, although their bovines all told numbered 
 only 2,018,173 ^^^"^ ^^ ^hat date. Notwithstanding, in the two previous years, 
 the farmers of the Province sent over to the United States no less than 93,096 
 head, valued at $2,044,736, in the face of a tariff of 20 per cent., and they are 
 quite confident that if they can do this in the face of a tariff, they can do a 
 good deal better in its absence. Are the manufacturers of Ontario, who breathe 
 the same air as the farmers, feed upon the same products, are nourished by the 
 same institutions, are protected by the same civil privileges, and have comparative 
 advantages in every way equal to those of the farmers, going to acknowledge 
 thai the courage of the sturdy farmer is to be allowed to put them to sliame ? 
 All hono .■ to our sturdy Canadian yeomanry, that they have demonstrated to 
 the world, that under all th# disadvantages that press upon them, they are able 
 to hold their own. How much better would they not do if they had equal 
 chance.'. ? While the minority have their rights, they should never overshadow 
 those of the majority. If commercial union should injure the interests of some 
 of the manufacturers, we should be sorry indeed ; but if by not gv^tting it, we 
 shall injure the interests of a far larger number of the farmers, then the way 
 of duty is clear. If there is no other way to arrange matters, it would be better 
 by far to give I ,chx> of those controlling certain industries a liberal pension, than 
 to tax all tlie consumers in the state to sustain them at the expense of barring 
 the way to freedom of trade with no less than 60 millions of people. 
 
 The Charge of Disloyalty Untrue. 
 
 This charge has been borne down upon those who favor commercial union, 
 with a persistence worthy of a better cause. When we think of the character 
 pf the men against whom it is urged, we cannot but conclude that those who 
 
BpJweeii Canada and t/tc l.htitcd States, 
 
 57 
 
 bring it know very well that it is only a hollow cry. Can it, be true tnat the 
 president of the Central Farmer's Institute of Ontario, a m-tn who has done 
 more for the honor of Canada in the live-stock interest, than it may be any 
 other man in it, is disloyal ? Are the farmers who uave declared in favor of 
 the measure, including in their numbers many of the most intelligent of the 
 guild, disloyal? Why, these men have helped to make tlie country what it is. 
 Can we conceive it possible that these have no concern for the individuality of 
 the structure they have helped to buiid, and fur its highest prospeiity ? 
 Are the forty gentlemen of the Toronto Board of Trade who declared them- 
 selves in favor of commercial union, all unloyal to Canada, any more than the 
 sixty-three who voted against it ? This cannot be, for the minority includes the 
 names of some of our most active and influential citizens, and if the supporters 
 of commercial union are all disloyal, woe unto Canada, for the infection has 
 become most widely spread. It extends to all the provinces, and the foremost 
 of our public prints are the gravest offenders ? Viewing the matter in the as- 
 pect of provinces, can it be that the only province truly loyal to British con- 
 nection and to federation is Lower Canada, for she is the only jjrovince as- 
 such which has shown any unanimity in the extent of her opposition. Her 
 newspapers, with one single exception, a solitary "ght m a .sombre sky, are op- 
 posed to it, and there can be but little doubt that these voice the sentiment of 
 the people. How changed the times ! The descendant.s of those whc- bled 
 and died to give Britain the brightest gem in the crown of her queen are dis- 
 loyal, and the only loyal province in the whole Dominion vi that inhabited by 
 a people alien in race, in religion, and in their ultimate aims. vSide by side 
 with these, the opponents of commercial union may take their stand as the only 
 true representatives of Canadian loyalty. We shall not grudge them their 
 position. 
 
 But what is disloyalty ? Those who are so expert at Hinging the term as 
 a stigma in the face of all who favor commercial union should lirst ascertain 
 what it means. In this sense all will be agreed, that loyalty implies fidelit> to 
 one's country. It is only ahalf delinition which would constitute it fidelity to 
 one's sovereign and government, for the true interests of a country are of'.en an- 
 tagonistic to the policy adopted for the time being by the rulers of the 
 land. If this is not true, then John Hampden ar.d all his followers were 
 traitors, and the Royalist parly were the only patriotic men in England, and the 
 leaders of the American Revolution were execrable men. It follows, then, that 
 the only truly loyal citizen is he who seeks, .so far as in him lies, the true pros- 
 perity of his country. A man may be disloyal to the exi.stmg state of things 
 in the land in which he lives, and yet in no sense disloyal to that land. Were 
 it otherwise, reforms could not be brought about, nor would progress be made. 
 Now disloyalty is the converge of all this, hencj in this disloyal cry the com 
 mercial union advocates are charged with not .seeking the advancements of the 
 true interests of the country. Let us see. 
 
;8 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial Union 
 
 \ 
 
 We have shf'wn that commercial union, if obtained, would help all oui 
 farmers from sea to sea, that it would send such a life throbbing through all the 
 arteries of trade as was never felt before, that it would give our lumbermen one 
 fifih more than they now obtain on the products of the forest, that it would 
 tend to the development of our minerals in a degree beyond what the mo^t san- 
 guine are n )W looking for ; that it would calm the disturbed waters of the fishery 
 seas : that it would add fresh strands to the confederation rope that is now 
 strained ai.uost to the point of snapping ; that it would bring in fresh industries, 
 and build up new centres of manufactures ; that it would give the Canadian 
 farmer lo cents more on every bushel of barley he sells to the United States, 
 and add one fifth to the price of every cattle beast, sheep and lamb sent across 
 the line and that it would cheapen very materially for him many articles which 
 he needs must purchase, and yet for seeking to obtain these great advantages 
 which must prove a great blessing lo the State, and to nearly every person 
 within it, our people are called disloyal. Surely when that cry 15 heard 
 again it will emanate from some hidden covert, where a sound wrill be heard, 
 but nothing visible will appear. 
 
 If loyalty implies that the Canadian farmer must be taxed to help to 
 build up the incustries of Canada, and then taxed in turn by the industries for 
 doing it, and be shut out from one of the best markets in the world 
 to accomplish this, thus placing his bark upon a current so adverse that he can- 
 not make headwr.y against the tide, who would blame him for being disloya: ? 
 If loyalty means that the lumber men of Canada must not seek to obtain an 
 addition of $2 per thousand on the $8,545,406 in the products of the forest 
 which they are now sending to the United States annually, then who should 
 blame the lumberman for being disloyal ? If loyalty impHes that the fishermen 
 must content themselves with 30 per cent, less on the $2, 597,548 in fish which 
 they send annually to the United States, then why should the fishermen not be- 
 corre disloyal ? And likewise the miners who sent to the United States in 
 1 886 products of the mine to the extent of $3, 1 2 1 ,696. If loyalty signifies that 
 our manufactures must be confined to a market so narrow that, like a cancer, 
 it is preying upon their energies and debars development, then why should not 
 these become disloyal and try to move away from beneath the upas tree where 
 they are now sitting ? If disloyalty implies that the Maritime Provinces must 
 trade with Ontario and likewise Manitoba, coming 1,500 miles for goods that 
 could as well bo had within one third of the distance, and that there must be 
 an inter-trade between all the Pro\ inces in channels that were never intended 
 by nature, then why should not all the people of the Dominion become dis- 
 loyal ? Nay, these men who are lourlest in the cry of disloyalty, know very 
 well that they are using the term disloyalty instead of patriotism, that there is 
 hypocrisy in the very tone in which it is uttered. If one party is loyal, the 
 other must be disloyal. Now which is it ? We have shown that those 
 who arc jeeking commercial union seek their country's good, therefore thejr 
 
Beiivcen Canada and the Unitrd States. 
 
 59 
 
 cannot be disloyal. We have thus parried the blow aimed at the commercial 
 unionists, and it sliould be given back on those who send it. Read in the light 
 of futurity, the eflbrts of those who are striving to build hij^h the temple of 
 ! heir country's true prosperity will be regarded as true patriots, while those 
 who are trying to thwart them in their efforts will have graven deep upon 
 their headstones, disAoyzXiy — when it shall ho be\ ond their power to erase the 
 stigma that will go down with them ^o all generations. 
 
 The Annexation Cry Foundationless. 
 
 Those who are seeking commercial union with the United States have 
 been charged with seeking what will in the end lead to annexation. The 
 argu'nent stands thus : The party opposing commerci."! union say that its 
 adoption is certain to lead to annexation. That favoring it asserts as stoutly 
 that commercial union will indefinitely postpone annexation ; nay, that it i: the 
 only thing that will avert it. So that in enunciation of statement, the parties 
 are equal : not so in the presumptive evidence supporting these views, as we 
 shall see, and most of the evidence is of this class. 
 
 If this must follow commercial union as a matter of course, then it is a 
 dangerous thing for the political stability of States to have intercourse with one 
 another in matters of trade. It is a common occurrence to incorporate States 
 by the sword or by purchase, but we cannot call to mind a single instance 
 where one State merged into another, as the sole result of commercial inter- 
 course. If this is the sure result, it is certainly a cheap and a humane way of 
 securing incorporation, and the great pity is that the worK did not find it out 
 ages ago. The ties that bind people together politically are not those of com- 
 merce, but a common language, relationship, and a similarity in religion, 01 1 
 serve that political union is not essential to the happiness or prosperity oi 
 nations, but commercial union is essential to both, when the conditions are 
 very similar. *' All the advantages that would be possible to a political union 
 " would be possible to a commercial union, and henre the cau^-d for a political 
 " change is entirely removed."' And this is one principal reason why the advo- 
 cates of annexation look coldly upon the commercial union movement : it takes 
 the stock argument away from them — the commercial benefits that would bo 
 sure to follow. 
 
 If the people of the United States showed a craving for enlargement of ter- 
 ritory, there would not even then be a shadow oi reason fo» believing that Canada 
 would lose her political identity, for no State can pacifically lose ito identity with- 
 out the consent of a ni3Jorii> of its own people. The United States ha.s shown no 
 such desire, but on the contrary they not long ago refused tiie rich and populous 
 island of St. Thomas and I'le republic of San Domingo, in both of which thp 
 people had voted for annexation. So that we have no guarantee that the 
 United States would take us in, were w? to vote for annexation to-morrow. 
 
6o 
 
 Plain Talks on Commercial I'nion 
 
 Alaska was only reluctantly accepted, as stated by Senator R. R, Hit;, of 
 Illinois, after the United States had bound herself in a compact with Russia. 
 They, no doubt, feel that the work they already have in hand in assimilating 
 the diverse elements in their mids., will be ample for them. It is conchidid 
 by most who have given the question serious thought, that commercial union 
 would end very much to promote the prosperity of Canada. Now, the effect 
 of pro' perity is to make people contented with their condition. Why increased 
 prosperity should make the people of Canada disloyal to Great Britain is not 
 very f.lear, and why it should make them desire to be annexed to the United 
 .States is equally oliscure. 
 
 It is well that we should look this matter straight in the face. Those who 
 so histily join in the annexation cry would be much better employed in taking 
 soundings to ascertain how near the rocks we are already. The physician finds 
 it useful to feel the pulse of his patient ; so it may be useful to the physicians 
 of our nationality to feel the pulse of disaffection, which process cannot but 
 alarm them as to the welfare of their patient. 
 
 During the reciprocity period, from 1 854 to 1866, there was no word of 
 annexation. At the time of the Fenim Raid, about the close of the period, a 
 man was heard in a Western town of Ontario to utter sentiments that savored 
 of annexation. The first result was a shower of brickbats, and the second that 
 the newspapers all over the country held him up to execration. What are the 
 facts now ? Why, in all the Provinces, men are found who take no pains to 
 conceal their annexation views. Not long since we heard one of the shrewd 
 est business men in Hamilton, Ontario, remark, that if a vote were taken in 
 that city and men all voted in accordance with their convictions, a majority 
 would vote for annexation. That gentleman may be mistaken in his opinion, 
 but allowing this, its expression goes far to show ^le extent of the annexation 
 sentiment in that i /. The Farm and HoViC^ Springfield, Mass., recently asked 
 ts subscribers to vole yea and nay in regard to the question of annexation. 
 Out of 910 answers, 210 were cast yea and 700 nay. There are newspapers 
 in our mi>l^t who openly advocate annexation, and their proprietors, instead 
 of faring like the poor unfortunate at the time of the Fenian Raid, arc being 
 honored.with seats in Parliament. 
 
 We need not shut our eyes to the fact that, if the Maritime Provinces go 
 out of confederation, and at the last local elections Nova Scotia clearly expressed 
 her mind in this matter, they will go into the Union if they can get there. 
 If Manitoba and British Columbia are not allowed to build railways which 
 will give them ingress to the great republic, the confederation is Hkely to be 
 split in twain at Lake Stnerior, and the Provinces will seek that political con- 
 nection which will best suit their interests mdividually. Now commercial 
 union cannot be responsible for this. It has been a development not of a day, 
 but of years, and like every other development proceeds from a cause. And 
 what is that cause? Will the opponents of commercial union tell us? if not, 
 
Behveen Canada and the Unittd States. 
 
 6i 
 
 we will allow the Emerson International of July 2isl to answer, for there is no 
 doubt that it y;ive.s us the true key of solution, when U s.iys . "Theop- 
 " position to free channels of trade is rapidly engendering a strong and wide 
 '•spread feeling in favor of annexation." 
 
 The extent of this uneasiness should lead our rulers to ascertain its cause. 
 Why has a desire so widely spread, so deeply rooted, and that is propagating 
 itself with race horse speed, got so Hrm a hold upon the people of Cunada ? 
 When people are prospering,' fairly well, thi.v are usually contented. It is 
 when they are laboring under disibilities that 'hey get uneasy and desire 
 change. There cin be no slionger evidence than this growing desire for an- 
 nexation affords, that the trade relaiions of this country are out of joint and 
 vvatiL readjusting. Hence all p.iuiotic citizens, and all who 'desire the integ- 
 rity of the confederation, and the continuance of present political relations with 
 Britain, cannot be too prompt in seeking and applying a remedy. 
 
 It would be strange indeed if a desire for annexation, that had become 
 deep rooted and widespread because of the want of commercial union, would 
 be fanned into an irreiiressible blaze which would entirely consume our distinct 
 nationality, because of the possession of commercial union. The material 
 which forms a bar can never be made the material to form a channel. 
 
 There can be no reasonable doubt, then, that if the grand oKi British Lion 
 is to retain his position where he keeps vigil at Quebec, there nuut be 
 some change. The feeling of disaffection has nearly all grown up since the 
 time of the Fenian Raid, but mo^^t of all in recent years. While our rulers have 
 substantially remained the same, our fiscal system has chanrjed, and instead of 
 quieting the politically discontented, it has had the opposite effeci. 
 
 Commercial union with the L nited States seems to us the only measure 
 that will stave off annexation, and it is most likely it will stave it off for all 
 time. The annexation party perceive this, and they are therefore not over en- 
 thusiastic in their advocacy of commercial union. 
 
 Mr. Ellis, editor and proprietor of the Clok, .St. John, N. B., was elect- 
 ed as a lepresentative of that city to the Dominion Parliament in February 
 last, although prior to his election his views favorable to annexation had been 
 publicly proclaimed in the columns of his paper. In its issue of July 30th, 
 the Globe says : 
 
 " I'ossibly the effect of commercial union would be to retard the 
 progress of any annexation sentiment which is based on mere material con- 
 siderations, inasmuch as those considerations would be satisfied by commercial 
 union. The more ardent annexationists may therefore be expected t-» look 
 with indifference upon it, if they do not really .appose that union, since it will 
 not satisfy their aspirations." 
 
 We have thus made it clear : — 
 ^(l) That a wide-spread desire for annexation does exist in the Dominion 
 at tiie present time. 
 
62 
 
 Plain Talk^ on Commercial Union 
 
 (2) That it lias grown, not as a result of commercial luiioii, but witli 
 out it, ami in all probability because of the lack >l" it. 
 
 (3)' Thai commercial union couKl not at the same time be a help and a 
 hindrance. 
 
 (4) That it is the opinion of prominent annexationists that it would pre- 
 vent antaxaiion. We therefore l'<:'-'! jastitieil \\\ appealing to fjvery (jitizcn wh.i 
 loves hi' country, and who desires :x continuance of tliR old-limi; and justly 
 revered British connexion, and who wishes to sec a pond Dominion grow 
 strong in the northern clime, to do his utmost to secure coramerciiil union. 
 
 Four Objections Considered. 
 
 Si 
 
 (l) Some of the fruit-growers of the Niagnra Peninsula, and it may be 
 elsewhere, oppose commercial union on the ground thai it will allecL their busi- 
 ness adversely. They argue that A.mcrican fruits ripen earlier to the south- 
 wa»^'' ; that those fruits would in such an event be rushed Imu our Canadian 
 cities, in which case the cream in prices would be skimmed before our fruits 
 would reach the market. If there is any force in this ar}.Tument it wouid etjually 
 apply to the present condition of New York State. The fruit growers of this 
 State have to compete with those of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and other 
 States to the south of them. These Southern regions are a long way ahead of 
 New York State in the maturing of their fruits, notwithstanding which, this 
 State is pre-eminent for its fruit production. Its people not only hold 
 their own against the States south of them, but tJie fruil industry is in a 
 
 flourishing condition. Were it otherwise, our fruit growers woald have nothing 
 to fear, as we shall see. 
 
 The climate of the Niagara Peninsula is much the same as that of 
 New Yo.-k Stale, and the ripening period is not very different If, there- 
 fore, the people of that Stale hold their own and Hourish in the face of South- 
 ern competition, why may not the frui*: groweis of the Niagara Peninsula in the 
 face of New York competition? It should not be forgotten that there 
 may be a later as well as an earlier market. We know of a Quebec 
 grower of strawberries who makes well out of the production of these 
 late in the season. Why may not the same be achieved with other 
 fruits? Why should our fruit growers seek special protection? If the 
 advantages of location are worth anything, the? ^^eo^ lave them in 
 a marked degree. Buffalo with its 250,000 '^'' -y^ *ice as large as Toronto, 
 is nearer the County of Lincoln than Tore j as near as '^Tamilton with 
 
 but 40,000 inhabitants, and Rochester is i much further b^ rail than the 
 Ontario metropolis. In early fruits, contiguii> > a '^ rket is of great vaiue, 
 they are so perishable in their nature. Hence, in the e^. f nt of commercial union, 
 our great centres would be as now fat away from the base of American ^n- 
 plies, and our Canadian producers, in the very middle of consuming centtes 
 
Behvecn Canada and tlw United Stalca. 
 
 '^3 
 
 and those near at hand, so that if our CanmHati fruit growers in the 
 Niii^^'ara Peninsula could nut hold their own in the race, at least as well 
 as the people of New York Stale, it would not be for lack of equal oppor- 
 tunities. 
 
 Hut there is another side to this question. The consumer has his rights as 
 well as the producer. The consumers of fruii in Canada number about 
 5,cx)o,ooo of people, while the producers are liut a fra^jmentary portion of the 
 population. We cannot j^ive 'he numbers but they are relatively small, as the 
 entire population of Lincoln, the greatest fruit producing county in Ontario, is 
 only 20,025, of which it is probable that not more than one in ten is a fruit 
 grower. The major portion of the Dominion will not grow the more delicate 
 kinds iQ advantage, yet the jjopulations of these will be ronsamers if they can 
 get them. The people of the Dominion imported during the liscp.l year ending 
 June 30th, 1S86, from the United States, in the item of green fruits alone, to 
 the value of $50i,6'')9, and paid in duty for tho privilege, $101, 4;i. In the 
 item of green ajjple.s alone, ihestaplefruit of the Dominion, our people liought 
 from the United States to the value of $63,366, payini; 40 cents duly on every 
 one of the 31,278 barrels imported. It is not more fair that the consumers of 
 fruit should pay this sum, for the special advantage of the fruit growers, than 
 that the farmers should pay a heavy annual tax for the special advantage of 
 those engaged in manufacturing, nor have the fruic growers of Canada any more 
 right to tax the manufacturers a higher price for their products, than the latter 
 have to tax the former a higher price for theirs. This brings us back to a 
 fundamental principle of ail tnie legislation, which never seeks the welfare of 
 the few to the disadvantage of the many. Wi.; are aware that certain fruits are 
 !\draitted free into the United States, and this fact proves amongst other 
 things that if fruit growing here gives the Americans no concern as to fencing 
 it out of their country, it will not pay us to fence it into our? with a tariff wall. 
 
 (2) Some oppo.se commercial union on the ground that it will involve diffi- 
 culties in the adjustment of the taritV. No important change can be made in the 
 trade policy of any country without some trouble, and we must not look for the 
 completion of this union without some differences of opinion between the con 
 trading parties to be reconciled. No treaty was ever made where such wa.s 
 not the case. In the completion of this union the contracting [dirties would 
 require to fix uppn a uniform tariff— this would V)e a matter of ai;reement be- 
 tween the countries. The tariffs could be pooled and re-distributed on the 
 basis of population, or on some othe: basis, the excise tax in the two countries 
 also being uniform, to prevent any undue advantage either wsy. In case of a 
 deficiency of revenue in either country, direct taxation might be resorted to. 
 It may be objected that this system would not succeed. Who can be sure of 
 this untilit is tr'.ed ? The world is getting wiser. When men are being bled, 
 it is better for them to be conscious than unconscious of the fact. When a res- 
 ponsibility of $60.00 per head hangs over every man, woman and child in the 
 
64 
 
 Plain Talks oti Commercial Union 
 
 Dominion of a public debt, if taxed directly ior its payment, they, will be care- 
 ful to know that more is uot incurred. 
 
 In all this, where is there any surrender of indeptndence on the part of 
 Canada as some urge ? It is a bargain between two contracting parties, ami 
 becuuse one of these is twelve times stronger than the other numerically, and 
 it may be twelve times as rich, is no more ieason why they should not enter 
 into an agreement mutually beneficial, than that one man should not deal with 
 another at all because the latter v/as twelve times as wealthy. 
 
 (3) Some are very much exercised over this agitation because the United 
 States has not as yet asked commercial \mion v/ith Canada, nor do we expeci 
 that she will. It is by no means likely that a country of 55,000,000 of people, 
 rich and prosperous, and largely self-contained, is going to ask such a thing 01 
 a country of but 5,000,000 of people. It should satisfy the demands of those 
 who are the must expectant on this score, if she signify her willingness to eniei 
 into such a union, or to accede to the request for it when such request has 
 been duly made. The treaty can never be consummated unless one govern- 
 , merit first approaches the other. No government will take this step unless 
 in the avowed interests of the people, and the wishes of the people on a great 
 commercial question cannot be ascertained without agitation and discussion ; 
 unless one of two contracting parties first approaches the other, no bargain 
 can possibly be made of any kind. One country must take the initia- 
 tive, and in the present instance Canada cannot reasonably expect this of the 
 United Statf^ 
 
 The objection is being well answered that the people of the United 
 States are not stirring themselves in the matter. Resolutions in favor of the 
 measure have been passed by the Detroit and Buffalo boards of trade, with 
 overwhelming majorities, and the evidences are abundant that the frontier Statt>; 
 are ready to give the movement a most hearty support. In the United States 
 Congress Mr. Butler worth is already assured of a strong support, and from many 
 parts of both countries the ii\ost cheering reports are coming in of widespread 
 desire for a consummation of this union. 
 
 (4) Others object, as Canada now pays more per capita on imports, 
 that in the re-distribution of the pooled receipts, if done on the per capita 
 basis, the Canadians would not get a share in proportion to their output. 
 There need be no difficulty here, as (a) it is not a settled fact that the per cap- 
 ita basis of distribution of pooled revenue receipts would be adopted, and (b) 
 it IS exceedingly probable that Canada would then import less per capita from 
 abroad than the United States would under comrr.ercial union, for home con- 
 sumption, .as the latter country would supply Canada with a large portion ot 
 what she now gets from abroad, so that the advantage would remain with us. 
 
Behvceti Canada and the United Stales. 
 
 65 
 
 Its Importance Demands Careful Consideration. 
 
 The subject of commercial union is one of the utmost gravity, and should 
 be discussed in a manner worthy of the issues at stake, which none can say are 
 not of the most momentous nature. It must be a matter of deep regret to the 
 thoughtful and fair-minded portion of the communiiy, that it has been handle^! 
 by its opponents in many instances in a very different manner. Amongst the 
 most powerful arguments that have been used against it in a considerable sec 
 tion of the Canadian press is that of calling Mr. Wiman " Ras," Mr. Butter- 
 worth, " Ben," and Mr. Fuller " Dairyman Fuller," a feat that could be 
 equalled by the illiterate, Vioorish schoolboy, playing with his schoolmates on 
 the street. What is the estimate that those journalists can put upon the intel- 
 ligence of their readers when thty give them that sort of thing for logic ? 
 Should they not rather feel that iu the great work in which they are engaged, 
 of teaching the people and moulding the thought of the nation, the use 
 of methods ignoble as these are unworthy of their countenance, .and do they 
 not perceive that intelligence insulted in this way will have its revenge in the 
 long run, and that the ridicule which they now pour out upon men whose 
 shoe-latchet thev have shown themselves unworthy to unloose, will recoil 
 upon themselves, by a retributive law that reacts in all the lines of human 
 intercourse? This course has been graphically depicted by a sketch that we 
 have seen, representing a man going about with a pot of paint in one hand 
 labelled "abuse," and a brush in the other, throwing it about right and left upon 
 all who chanced to cross his path. What will history say to this style of deal- 
 ing with the gravest question of economics that has ever been broached on the 
 continent of America, a question that affects the welfare of 60,000,000 of peo- 
 ple now, and it may be 100,000,000 before many years shall come and go ? 
 But we need not give ourselves com em on this score, for it is not this style of 
 men and argument that figure on the page of history. Oblivion has a common 
 cell wide enough to afford an asylum to all such heroes of the press for all 
 time. Why should a movement that is sweeping over the country like the 
 waters of a mighiy torrent be arrested in i's course by a dam of such mate- 
 rials ? We have no anxiety lest it will, but some concern for the honor of our 
 country in the eyes of foreigners, in the nature of the effusions that come forth 
 from day to day from the avowed teachers of the people. 
 
 Who are the men who are being thus held up to ridicule ? Erastus Wi- 
 man left Canada, his birth place, some 25 ye.xrs ago, an adventurer in a coun- 
 try that held out to him better prospects than his own. His way to his pres- 
 ent eminence has been fought on the stepping-stones of a business career where 
 every foot of ground has been contested in a competition open to every man in 
 the Republic, and now the name of Erastus Wiman is a household word in 
 every hamlet almont, from Hudson Bay to the Ciulf of Mexico. He has built 
 a business of proportions so gigantic that in the prosecution of it no less than 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 Plain Ta.ks on Commercial Union 
 
 i 
 
 20,000 correspondents have become peisonally acquainted with its owner, 
 and although 25 years a resident of the United States, he has during all that time 
 retained his loyalty to the British crown, and has been deemed a woitliy reci- 
 pient of the special thanks of Her Majesty for the active part he took in the 
 jubilee celebration last summer at New York. Whether Her Majesty's esti- 
 mate of his services to Britain or that of those who brand him and all his asso- 
 ciates ill this movement with disloyalty is the correct one, we leave it for an 
 impartial public ;o decide. The Hon. Benjamin Butterworth represents Cin- 
 cinnati, one of the most populous cities in the Union, in the United States 
 Congress. His career has been in keeping with his title, and his |>owers of ora- 
 tory are such that his opponents in either country find it much more convenient 
 to use the brush and paint pot, than to overthrow his arguments. Valancey E. 
 Fuller has done more for the honor of Canada in the line of stock improve- 
 ments than half the pressmen which she contr-".s, and his fame in this line is 
 only circumscribed by the limit cf the world's knowledge of his country. Two 
 of these men are Canadians, upon whose patriotic efforts for the improvement 
 of their country, posterity will put a seal very different from that which it will 
 place upon those who, from their obscure caverns, are shouting after them, 
 much after the manner of the heroes of the school-ground. 
 
 The folly is supreme of pronouncing upon a question of this nature before it 
 has been examined, and this is what has been done by a section of the Canadian 
 press. We are justified in making tiiis statement by the character of the as- 
 saults made upon it. This mistake has been made more than once in the pro- 
 gress of the most '■<r-reaching questions relatin^j to the welfare of nations. 
 The progress of the grandest movement for the amelioration of the race that the 
 world ever saw was fiercely assailed in its early days by those in power. In the 
 haat of one of those bitter attacks a sensible man stood up and gave advice. 
 He said, if this movement be of men, it will come to naught ; but if from a 
 Higher power, ye cannot overthrow it. And the wisdom of that advice has 
 I'ot only sounded through the intervening ages, but more than ever it was be- 
 fore is justiiied by the state of the world to-day. " Take heed what ye do 
 " unto lliose men," continued the sensiiile man, "lest haply ye be found op- 
 " posings the designs of Him in whose hands are the destinies of men." This ad- 
 vice is as applicable to-day as it was eighteen centuries ago, and there is room 
 fur its application we are convinced in relation to this movement. It cannot 
 be that a mighty continent, divided between two peoples, similar in origin, 
 ancestry, sympathies, aims and religion, with a boundary line that rather 
 brmgs them together than otherwise, and possessing resources that will be mu- 
 tually helpful, are to be forever separated and debarred from trade by a tariff 
 wall of man's devising. 
 
 The question has two sides — it would be strange if it hadn't — and it is the 
 rightful mission of tliu opposition press to show the other side, but let them 
 do it m the spirit worthy of their position and of the subject. Let them give 
 
 ill 
 
Beiween Canada and the United States. 
 
 67 
 
 us argument rather than invective, and if, as patriotic citizens, they feel that 
 there are strong reasons why Canada should not go into commercial union 
 with the United States, all true sympathizers with the movement will be the 
 first to thank them for the light thus cast upon a grandly important subject. 
 
 We have endeavored to make plain what is implied in commercial 
 union. We have traced the origin and progress of the agitation ; we have 
 shown that it is not a political question ; that its adoption will not discrimin- 
 ate against Great Britain to her hurt ; that the idea of an Imperial ZoUverein 
 between Britain and her colonies is utterly impracticable ; that the adoption of 
 this union will save the confederation ; and that it will tend more than anything 
 else to stimulate trade and to develop our resources. We have made it clear 
 that it will greatly benefit the farmers, the fishermen and the lumbermen, and 
 that it would give a great stimulus to the mining business ; that its effects 
 upon manufactures will not be prejudicial ; that the annexation cry is founda- 
 tionless, and that the charge of disloyalty is not true. We have considered 
 the objections offered by the fruit growers, of those solicitious as to the manner 
 of handling the revenues, and of those who are concerned over the relative 
 strength of the agitation in Canada and the United States, and answered them, 
 and have shown that the importance of these questioos demands the most careful 
 consideration on the part of every citizen of the State. We have made it 
 clear that it would impel this country in the line of progress at a rate that 
 we ourselves had not hitherto dared to hope for r that it would in the end be 
 fraught with material blessings to every citizen of the commonwealth ; that 
 without it our industries must languish and our progress must be painfully 
 slow, and that there are not necessarily any insuperable difficulties in the way of 
 obtaining it, and now we ask you, reader, in the name of reason, is not allthat 
 we have said true? If it is not true, as a loyal citizen of t!ie State, it is your 
 duty to try and expose the fallacy ; but if true, it is equally your duty to try 
 and bring about this union at the earliest possible moment. True loyalty in 
 matters relating to the welfare of the State makes no provision for indifference. 
 
 And now a word of caution to our brother farmers. Think out this mat- 
 ter for yourselves. Decide as to its merits without the counsel of those en- 
 gaged in manufactures, who are forever feeling your pulse and telling you how 
 you .ire, and what course will be best for you to adopt. Show to the world 
 that you lealize that you have interests not essent.ally connected with politics, 
 and that you are prepared (o stand by them at all hazards. 
 
 In the endeavor to secure this greatest possible material boon, let there 
 be' such unanimity of action amongst the farmers as was never witnessed before. 
 Let them stand shoulder to shoulder and rank to rank, not a man of them in 
 all the provinces but shall be ready to go down to battle. Though some 
 are by the Atlantic and some beyond the Rockies, the cause is one, and tlie 
 ties of a common calling and a common interest should bind all into a com- 
 
68 
 
 Plain Talks on Com?ncrdal Unio7i 
 
 %\ 
 
 pact unity, that in the deciding of 'his matter must prove invincible. While 
 the Ontario farmers j^o down to battle those by the oceans must not tarry, and 
 those in the North-west and (Quebec, every man of them, should be at the post 
 of duty. If this cause is lost, it is the farmers who will lose it, and if it is nion 
 it is the compact unity of the farmers that will win it. Wliere tiie farmers are 
 not organized they should organize at once, and, under leaders of their own 
 choosing, march onward rank upon rank, and cohort after cohort, determined 
 to make no compromise, and sound no truce until victory is inscriij^d upon 
 their banners, and commercial union between Canada and the United States 
 is a consummated fact. 
 
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