RECIPROCITY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 87, 1 June 1911, Page 4

RECIPROCITY.

Apropos of the vexed question of reciprocity between America and Canada. a sound financial authority asks: What are the principal concessions which reciprocity .gives Canada ? I 1 ’roc admission into America of lumber, wood pulp, paper, and natural foodstuffs and reductions of the American duties on prepared foods. Wiiai have been the centres of attack in the Payne tariff? The duties on lumber wood pulp, paper, natural and prepared foods, and wool. (Wool, not being a Canadian product, of course, has no place in the reciprocity agree- 1 meat). The unpopularity of (ho Payne law is duo exclusively to the rates imposed on these commodities, and Congress must change tlicso schedules. ’J ho necessity is the most urgent known to American politicians—a general demand by the voters, coupled with a Presidential election coming next year. If the rates are lowered in exchange for Canadian concessions, America will say, “Welland good” ; if Canada refuses to make an exchange, the reductions will be enacted into law just the same. Should Canada desire to pay for crossing a hi idgo soon to be free the American victory will be stupendous. America will have won the battle with blank cartridges, a _ battle in which Free Trade, as such, plays no part. There will lie no appreciable benefit to the rest of the world, excluding woolgrowing nations, because of the American tariff reductions. The only important changes in the Payne Bill that arc contemplated, apart' from wool, concern those commodities that Canada alone, because of her natural resources and her geographical position, is able to soli advantageously to the United States. Canada only has to remain quiescent, and from the necessity of the situation access to the Ainci ica.n markets must he given to her. Reciprocity is a needless payment. Masterly inactivity (the writer concludes) should ho Canada’s policy.