The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 1911. CANADA AND AMERICA.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1082, 22 March 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 1911. CANADA AND AMERICA.

The 'hiost recent cable messages relating to the proposed reciprocity treaty between Canada and the United States appear to indicate a growing revulsion of feeling in the Dominion- against the agreement; but the variety and abundance of the opinions reported at enormous length in the British newspapers to hand by yesterday's mail convince us that the utmost conscientiousness on tac part of the cable agent in London will not make his cables a "perfectly reliable guide to the true position. Nobody knows what is the true, position. In the meantime there is much interest in the London press comments and in the opening. debates upon the subject in the House of Commons. The Liberal view is simple enough: it welcomes the provisional agreement as a thing agreeable to the Free-trade view and also as what the Liberals regard as a deadly blow to Tariff Reform. In the second of these ideas tho Liberals are for once at one with the Morning Post, which laboured heroically to represent the issue as so important that the constitutional crisis was nothing. Day after day it headed its first editorial "The Imperial Crisis." ''Before, tho danger which confronts the Empire," it said, "all dissensions within the [Unionist] party sink into insignificance." The Unionists were told that "if they would save the heritage Over which they have.watched so long and so jealously, they must act without hesitation or delay," for "a growing solidarity of economic interests'! would link America and Canada so closely that the bonds uniting the ' daughternation to the Mother Country would grow steadily weaker: The Post expressed ifcsalf confident that the danger was not past remedy, that the Unionists would sink all issues in the face of it and "fight to the death for Imperial and national union." The response to the eloquent appeals of the great Tariff Reform paper were not encouraging. It was alone in its excitement. The Times, while distrustful of the agreement went no further than to say the fact must be faced that ratification would come in due course, and that it was therefore time "to consider how far the policy of Tariff Reform and Preference requires readjustment to meet the new situation." The Times admitted, moreover, that a consolidation of the friendship between Canada and the United States would be "an Imperiai advantage." Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, who no longer attends at Westminster, issued a manifesto in which he reproved Canada for its "premature"action, and urged that the fight for Tariff Reform must be carried on with "unabated vigour and confidence." The agreement was discussed in both Houses on the opening day of the session, but the most interesting spee'ehes were delivered on February 9, when Mr. Austen Chamberlain's fiscal amendment to the Address was defeated. Mr. Asquith taunted Me. Balfour with having done nothing in the way of Preference between 1903 and 1906, proceeded to deal with Britain's supposed disability in consequence of her adherence to Free-trade, in commercial negotiations in regard to tariffs, and then set out the "two main reasons" for his Government's opposition to Tariff Reform. One was domestic— a refusal to increase the price of food, and the other Imperial—an objection to a policy that would create "friction, inequality, and embitterment." As to the agreement itself, he claimed that the particular articles in regard to which Canada gets preference from America are articles in which Britain's trade with Canada is very small and Canada's trade with Britain infinitesimal. It had been alleged against the Government that if it had put a tax on foreign food the conclusion of the agreement could have boon stopped. But what interest would that have served 1 The results would have been: (1) that tho Canadian farmer would have been less for his corn; (2) that the British consumer would have been paying more for his food; (3) that the Canadian farmer would have been paying more for his machinery. In any case, Mr. Asquith pointed out, the 90 or 100 millions of people in the United States could have toppled the whole fabric over by simply taking down their tariff wall at any time. He concluded by referring to Tariff Reform as "one of the greatest political impostures of modern times." It was upon this statement that Mr. Balfol'r opened his attack. This "imposture," he pointed out, had been' endorsed by all the colonies, and Mb. Asquith had therefore made a violent attack on colonial statesmen .slue- The most interesting passage

in Mn. Bautovtvs speech was this curious and duggostivc statement: Some \ mi , gctlemen opposite hnvo luaOi. ns ,t , vo , vcre a ] |110!)i; j lU pi olls j u (hat trade should flow along rmle-s which, in their view, were not prearranged by the immutable laws of nature. 1 do not think (hat wo ought to consider great Imperial problems in that fatalistic spirit. Xoborly can sav, dogmatically, that the condition of any community is simply the result of the human factor. It is, like all great results, due to many causes, but that in such matters we should bu merely the slaves of space and time is utterly" absurd. The British Empire has not been built by men holding such fatalistic views, and will not be preserved by men who preach tnern. You cannot deal with the great iiml varied interests of an Kmpire like this if each member of (he Homo thinks only of the immediate commercial position of his own particular constituency. A-wider outlook is required. The merits pi our action are really not determined tffi, what happens in the division lobl>y. Of course, you will got a majority toMight'. It may be true that fio far we have not convinced the majority of the people that our fiscal policy is right, although that is a difficult thing to prove one way or the other so long as the issues at our elections are of the mixed character inevitable in existing circumstances. But ive are working not.merely with a view to the duration of one Parliament. \Vc are working for distant years, and the effect of our policy will not be decided by what happens this day or that in the lobby of the House of Commons. History alone is the tribunal by which such action rs we take now must bo judged. . ' " During the discussion a statement was cabled to Lokd Strathcona by Mr. W. S. Fielding,' the Canadian Minister for Finance, upon the bearings of the agreement on the existing Canadian preference to Britain. Mr. Fielding pointed out that reciprocal trade relations with the United States had been the policy of all parties in Canada for generations, and that the expressed fear that the agreement would seriously affect imports from Great Britain was groundless: "The greater part of the agreement deals with natural products which Great Britain does not send us. The . range of manufactures affected is comparatively small, and in most cases the reductions are small. It appears to be assumed in some quarters that the tariff rates agreed upon discriminate in favour of tho United Slates and against Great Britain. There is no foundation for this. In every case Great Britain will still have the same rate or a lower one. Canada's right to deal with the British preference as she pleases remains untouched by the agreement. The adoption of the agreement will probably lead to sonic further revision of the Canadian tariff, in which the Canadian Parliament will be entirely free to fix the British preferential tariff at any rates that may be deemed proper." We cannot think that any movement towards Free-trade by any colony that yet maintains its preference to Britain can possibly injure the Empire commercially. The only danger is that close economic solidarity may lead ultimately to political solidarity—to the political absorption of Canada by her great neighbour. That is a conceivable result, but the real cement binding the Empire is a sentiment that is almost absolutely independent of tariffs and trade bargains.