AMERICA AND CANADA

Otago Witness, Issue 3034, 8 May 1912, Page 27

AMERICA AND CANADA

LONDON, May 2. In the House of Commons questions ore to be asked whether Mr Bryce was aware of Mr Taft'e intention to make Canada an adjunct of the United States when he recommended tlxe acceptance of reciprocity ? The Evening News, repeating current reports, suggests that Mr Eryoe'e departure for Australia is a prelude to a peerage and his re-fptry to British politics. His American position has become impossible, since his failure to carry the treaty. Three-quarters of Mr Bryce's time was occupied with Canadian affairs. The Westminster Gazette describes the attack on Mr Bryce as disgraceful. It does not believe that Mr Taft had any political designs, though he sought to bring Canada under the United States. May 4. The Pall Mall Gazette comments on President Taft's blazing indiscretion in making Americans ask themselves whether Mr Roosevelt is more acceptable for political sobriety. The President's friends are endeavouring to represent that President Taft only desired that commercially Canada and America should be adjuncts of each other; but a dog is not an adjunct of its tail, and President Taft explicitly wrote that a treaty would transfer all important Canadian "business to Chicago and New York. It is useless to pretend that President Taft's scheme was anything but a deliberate plot to destrov Canada's economic independence, and the credit for its defeat belongs to Canadian patriotism. The humiliation of being duped is distributed among the Liberal leaders here and* in the Dominion. May 5. Sir Gilbert Parker says that since the time of Blaine certain Americans had greatly desired a commercial treaty leading to the political annexation of Canada. It was painful to have all the possible presidential candidates supporting this doctrine of absorption. Mr Taft's letter was a blot on the high traditions of American foreign policy.