This closed the episode.
[CHAPTER XXVIII]
CONGRESS OF CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE OF THE EMPIRE
In 1906 I went to England again, and once more the Toronto Board of Trade appointed me as one of their delegates to the Sixth Congress of Chambers of Commerce of the Empire to be held in London. I arrived in London on the 27th June, and the next evening, at the Royal Colonial Institute Conversazione, I met Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain, and it was arranged that my wife and I were to lunch with them a few days later. Mr. Chamberlain had wished that we should be alone. After lunch the ladies went upstairs, and Mr. Chamberlain had a quiet talk with me for about an hour. He gave me the whole history of the difficulties he had encountered and explained how it was that he was not able to carry out the arrangement we had discussed in 1902, just before the conference. He told me that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach objected to throwing off the one shilling a quarter on wheat in favour of the colonies, because he had put it on only a short time before as a necessary war tax to raise funds for the South African War, that the expenses were still going on, and that it would be inconsistent in him to agree to it at the time.
Shortly after Sir Michael Hicks-Beach resigned from the Cabinet and Mr. C. T. Ritchie (afterwards Lord Ritchie) was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the autumn it was considered advisable, so Mr. Chamberlain told me, that he should pay a visit to South Africa, which would take him away for some months, and he went on to say: “On my return from South Africa we called at Madeira, and I found there a cablegram from Austen saying the corn tax was to be taken off. When I arrived in London the Budget was coming up very soon. I could not do anything for many reasons. I did not wish to precipitate a crisis, and I had to wait.” He was evidently annoyed at the matter, and explained it to me, because he had held out hopes to me that if Sir Wilfrid Laurier would meet him with further preferences, he would give us the preference in wheat. This he had been unable to do.
I asked him if he could explain why Ritchie acted as he did. He did not seem to know. I suggested that I thought either Mr. Choate, the United States Ambassador, or some other United States emissary, had frightened him and he had taken off the tax to head off any movement for imperial trade consolidation. Mr. Chamberlain asked me why I thought so, and I drew his attention to the fact that shortly after the corn tax was taken off Mr. Ritchie went down to Croydon to address his constituents, and in justifying his action used the argument—apparently to his mind the strongest—that a preferential corn tax against the United States would be likely to arouse the hostility of that country and be a dangerous course to pursue. The audience seemed at once to be struck with the cowardice of the argument, and there were loud cries of dissent, and then they rose and sang “Rule Britannia.” Mr. Ritchie did not contest Croydon in the next election, but was moved to the House of Lords shortly before his death. Mr. Chamberlain apparently had not thought of that influence.
Mr. Chamberlain was then looking in perfect health, and left the next day for Birmingham, where great demonstrations were made over his 70th birthday. He told me he was anxious to have a rest, as the burden of leading a great movement was very heavy. I urged him strongly to take a holiday, and I had pressed the same idea upon Mrs. Chamberlain as I sat next to her at lunch. He took ill, however, before a week had passed. The strain at Birmingham was very heavy.
The meeting of the Congress of Chambers of Commerce of the Empire took place on the 10th, 11th and 13th July. We had but little hope of doing anything to help the preferential trade policy, for the General Elections had gone so overwhelmingly against us that it seemed impossible that in England our Canadian delegation could carry the resolution they had agreed upon in favour of Mr. Chamberlain’s policy. We expected to be badly defeated, but decided to make a bold fight. After the discussion had gone on for some time, Sir Wm. Holland and Lord Avebury, who led the free trade ranks, approached Mr. Drummond, who had moved the Canadian resolution, and suggested that if we would compromise by the insertion of a few words which would have destroyed the whole effect of what we were fighting for, the resolution might be carried unanimously. Mr. Drummond said he wished to consult his colleagues, and he called Mr. Cockshutt, M.P., and me out of the room and put the proposition. I said at once, “I would not compromise to the extent of one word. Let us fight it out to the very end, let us take a vote. We will likely be beaten, but let us take our beating like men. We will find out our strength and our weakness, we will find out who are our friends and who are our enemies, and know exactly where we stand.”