AMERICA AND ENGLAND.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10719, 18 March 1911, Page 2

AMERICA AND ENGLAND.

"RECIPROCITY CANADIAN ANTIPATHY. [By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.] (Per Pbess Association.) Received March IS, at 9.20 a.mi London, March 17. The Times Toronto correspondent, who reflects the opinion of the eastern section of Canada, says that nothing is more remarkable in Canadian political history than the revolt against reciprocity. . The country was momentarily | stunned at the unexpected realisation i of almost lialf a century's aspirationfor freer access to the. American .market, but deeper reading.of the compact revealed its revolutionary character. < An agitation against it .then, set in with surprising vigor and volume, and is making amazing headway -throughout the country. THE MAN WHO DID IT. CHARACTER SKETCH OF THE ' CANADIAN CHANCELLOR. ■The Hon. William Stevens Fielding, tne Canadian Finance Minister, possesses a record unchallenged, at least, within the history of the British Empire. • He has been the Dominion's Chancellor of the Exchequer since Sir Wilfrid Lanrier. first assumed office in 1896. Even William Pitt had no such record. In those-fifteen years the annual revenue lias risen by some fifteen million pounds, and Canada has proclaimed itself as the land of tomorrow.

Mr Feilding belongs to Nova Scotia, the province of Sir Charles Tupper and Mr R. L. Borden, who leads the Opposition in the Canadian Parliament. He began to earn his own living when he was sixteen, when lie became a junior clerk in the office of the Halifax Morning Chronicle, of which paper he was afterwards editor-in-chief. Ho remained an active journalist until 1882, when ho was thirty-eight. ■ In that year lie was elected to the Nova Scotia Assembly, and (another almost unprecedented event in the life of a-politician) he was offered the Pre-, miership of the province in the'.same year as lie first entered Parliament. This lie declined, entering the Administration, however, as a Minister without portfolio. Tito .years later lie was Prime Minister, and he remained the executive head of his native State for twelve years, only resigning in order to join Sir Wilfrid Laurier's Dominion Administration.

During the many years in which Canada remained under the late- Sir John Maodonald and the Conservatives, it was common to regard the Canadian Liberals as Free Traders, and even 110w our Cohdenite Press is eager to acclaim Sir Wilfrid Laurier as a sharer -gf its peculiar beliefs. But during his long term of office Mr Fielding has shown 110 desire to destroy the protection given to the Canadian manufacturer and the Canadian workmen against foreign competition. It can never be forgotten that his first Budget in 1897 was the first occasion 011 which British goods were given a preference in the Canadian market, and it has often been suggested that this jubilee Budget of Mr Fielding's was the basis of the whole doctrine of Imperial Preference.

In interview in 1905 Mr Fielding declared that "we in Canada believe that the preference has operated for mutual advantage since it was introduced. We wish to extend the scope of the principle if circumstances should warrant extension." Unfortunately the devotion of the British Liberal party to the doctrines of the late Mr Cobden have slammed and banged the door 011 possible extensions and Canada has now negotiated with countires outside the Empire who are not in the unfortunate position of being able to give nothing in return for anything that they receive. Mr Fielding has entered into financial arrangements with France and Germany. as well as with Great Britain and the United States, and this direct dealing between Dominion Minister and foreign Government has justified tl>B contention that within the' last decade Canada has become a nation among the nations