The Canadian Commonwealth

by Agnes C. Laut

[1] Charles Gordon's Black Rock, pirated from his own publisher, sale half a million; Kirby's Chien d'Or, sale one million.

CHAPTER V

WHY RECIPROCITY WAS REJECTED

I

If American capital and American enterprise dominate Canadian mines, Canadian timber interests, Canadian fisheries; if American elevators are strung across the grain provinces and American flour mills have branches established from Winnipeg to Calgary; if American implement companies and packing interests now universally control subsidiaries in Canada—why was reciprocity rejected? If it is good for Canada that American capital establish big paper mills in Quebec, why is it not good for Canada to have free ingress for her paper-mill products to American markets? The same of the British Columbia shingle industry, of copper ores, of wheat and flour products? If it is good for the Canadian producer to buy in the cheapest market and to sell in the highest, why was reciprocity rejected? Implements for the farm south of the border are twenty-five per cent. cheaper than in the Canadian Northwest. Canadian wheat milled in Minneapolis enjoys a lower freight rate and consequently a higher market than Canadian wheat milled in Europe, as sixteen and twenty-two are to forty and fifty cents—the former being the freight cost to a Minneapolis mill; the latter, the freight cost to a European mill. Why, then, was reciprocity rejected?

From 1867, Canada had been intermittently seeking reciprocity with the United States. Now, at last, the offer of it came to her unsolicited. Why did she reject it by a vote that would have been unanimous but for the prairie provinces? Though the desire for reciprocity with the United States was exploited politically more by the Liberals—or low-tariff party—than by the Conservatives—the high-tariff party—both had repeatedly sent official and unofficial emissaries to Washington seeking tariff concessions. Tariff concessions were a plank in the Liberal platform from the days of Alexander MacKenzie. They were not a plank in the platform of the Conservative party for the sole reason that the high tariff on the American side forced a high tariff in self-defense on the Canadian side. Close readers of Sir John Macdonald's life must have been amazed to learn that one of his very first visits to Washington—contemporaneous with the Civil War period, when the United States were just launching out on a high-tariff policy—was for the purpose of seeking tariff favors for Canada. Failing to obtain even a favorable hearing, he observed the high-tariff trend at Washington, took a leaf out of his rival's book and returned to Canada to launch the high-tariff policy that dominated the Dominion for thirty years. Alexander MacKenzie, Blake, Mowat, George Brown, Laurier, Cartwright, Fielding—all the dyed-in-the-wool ultra Whigs of the Liberal party—practically held their party together for the thirty lean years out-of-office by promises and repeated promises of reciprocity with the United States the instant they came into office. They never seemed to doubt that the instant they did come into office and proffered reciprocity to the United States the offer would be accepted and reciprocated. It may be explained that all these old-line Liberals from MacKenzie to Laurier were free-traders of the Cobden-Bright school. They believed in free trade not only as an economic policy but as a religion to prevent the plundering of the poor by the rich, of the many by the few. One has only to turn to the back files of the Montreal Witness and Toronto Globe from 1871 to 1895—the two Liberal organs that voiced the extreme free-trade propaganda—to find this political note emphasized almost as a fanatical religion. The high-tariff party were not only morally wrong; they were predestinedly damned. I remember that in my own home both organs were revered next to the Bible, and this free-trade doctrine was accepted as unquestionably as the Shorter Catechism.

II

Well—Laurier came to power; and he gathered into his Cabinet all the grand old guard free-traders still alive. As soon as the Manitoba School Question was settled Laurier put his Manchester school of politics into active practice by granting tariff concessions on British imports. The act was hailed by free-trade England as a tribute of statesmanship. Laurier and Fielding were recognized as men of the hour. The next step was to carry out the promises of reciprocity with the United States. One can imagine Sir John Macdonald, the old chieftain of the high-tariff Conservatives, turning over in his grave with a sardonic grin—"Not so fast, my Little Sirs!" When twitted on the floor of the House over a high tariff oppressing farmers and favoring factories, Sir John had always disclaimed being a high-tariff man. He would have a low tariff for the United States, if the United States would grant Canada a low tariff—he had answered; but the United States would not grant Canada any tariff concessions. And the grand old guard of Whigs had jeered back that he was "a compromiser" and "a trimmer," who tacked to every breeze and never met an issue squarely in his life.

If the Liberals had not been absolutely sincere men, they would not have ridden to such a hard and unexpected fall. They would, like Sir John, have trimmed to the wind; but they believed in free trade as they believed in righteousness; and they furthermore believed all they had to do was to ask for it to get it. Blake had retired from Canadian politics. George Brown of the Globe was dead; Alexander MacKenzie had long since passed away; but the old guard rallied to the reciprocity cry. International negotiations opened at Quebec. They were not a failure. They were worse than a failure. They were a joke. High tariff was at its zenith in the United States. Every one of the American commissioners was a dyed-in-the-wool high-tariff man. It would be an even wager that not one man among them had ever heard of the Cobden-Bright Manchester School of Free Trade, by which the Laurier government swore as by an unerring Gospel. They had heard of McKinley and of Mark Hanna, but who and what were Cobden and Bright? What relation were Cobden and Bright to the G. O. P.? The negotiations were a joke to the United States and a humiliation to Canada. They were adjourned from Quebec to Washington; and from Washington, Fielding and Cartwright returned puzzled and sick at heart. They could obtain not one single solitary tariff concession. They found it was not a case of theoretical politics. It was a case of quid pro quo for a trade. What had Canada to offer from 1893 to 1900 that the United States had not within her own borders? Canada wanted to buy cheaper boots and cheaper implements and cheaper factory products generally. She wanted a higher market for her wheat and her meat and her fish and her crude metals and her lumber. She would knock off her tariff on American factory products, if the United States would knock off her tariff against Canadian farm products. One can scarcely imagine Republican politicians going to American farmers for votes on that platform. What had Canada to offer? She had meat and wheat and fish and timber and crude metals. Yes; but from 1893 to 1900 Uncle Sam had more meat and wheat and fish and timber and crude metals than he could digest industrially himself. Look at the exact figures of the case! You could buy pulp timber lands in the Adirondacks at from fifty cents to four dollars an acre. You could buy timber limits that were almost limitless in the northwestern states for a homesteader's relinquishment fee. Kansas farmers fed their wheat to hogs because it did not pay to ship it. Texas steers sold low as five dollars on the hoof. Crude metals were such a drug on the market that the coinage of free silver was suggested as a panacea. Canada hadn't anything that the United States wanted badly enough for any quid pro quo in tariff concessions.

This was the time that Uncle Sam rejected reciprocity.