"Tariffs are not properly sentiment. They are business."
"But Joe Chamberlain sentimentalized the tariff. He was even willing to have free trade in the Empire to get an Imperial zollverein against the rest of the world."
"Why mention Chamberlain? Are you—twitting me?"
"Because he afterwards wanted an Imperial Cabinet. And if I'm not
mistaken you began to learn parliamentary speeches from one George
Eulas Foster only a few years after he stumped England for the
Chamberlain idea."
Meighen smiles; that wan but wholesome illumination of a thought-harassed face.
"Hasn't the old flag been some sort of issue in every Federal election since Confederation?" he is asked.
"Of course. No Federal election can be held in this nation, except by virtue of the B.N.A. Act, and every election carries with it an inferential challenge to amend the Act. Macdonald settled that—by a grand compromise with Quebec."
"But—as a Canadian first."
"Granted. But he also said in 1891—mm—now what did he say?"
"A British subject I was born——"