Mr. Cockshutt said immediately, “I entirely agree with Denison.” Drummond said, “That is exactly my view. I shall consult with no others but will tell them we will fight it to the end.”
I spoke that afternoon as follows as reported in the Toronto News, 23rd August, 1906:
There were a few remarks, said Col. Denison, which had fallen from previous speakers, to which he desired to call attention. In the first place, his friend Mr. Cockshutt, said that Canada had given England the benefit of five million dollars annually in the reduction of duties, in order to help the English manufacturer to sell English manufactured goods in Canada, and stated that that was a contribution in an indirect way towards helping the defence of the Empire. Mr. Cockshutt, however, left out one important point. If Canada had put that tax on, collected the money, and handed over the five million dollars to England in hard cash, what would have been the result? The greater portion of the trade would have gone to Germany, would have given work to German workmen, would have helped to build German ships, and it would have taken more than the five million dollars annually to counterbalance the loss thereby caused to this country. He felt that every day the British people were allowing the greatest national trade asset that any nation ever possessed, the markets of Great Britain, to be exposed to the free attack of every rival manufacturing nation in the world without any protection, without any possibility of preserving those great national assets for the use of their own people, and in his opinion such a policy was exceedingly foolish.
He had heard a gentleman from Manchester say that it was all very well for Canada, and that Canada wanted it. He was one of the very earliest of Canadians who advocated preferential tariffs. In 1887 he began with a number of other men who were working with him, to educate the people of Canada on the subject. When they first began they were laughed at; they were told it was a fad, and it was contrary to the principles of free trade. When he came to England years ago he could find hardly a single man anywhere who would say anything against free trade. He was perfectly satisfied that for years English people would have listened much more patiently to attacks upon the Christian religion than they would have to attacks upon free trade.
Why did they advocate the system of preferential tariffs in Canada? Because the country was founded by the old United Empire Loyalists, who stood loyal to this country in 1776, who abandoned all their worldly possessions, who left the graves of their dead, and came away from the homes where they were born into the wilderness of Canada, and who wanted to carry their own flag with them. They wanted to be in a country where they were in connection with the Motherland, and it was the dream of those loyalists to have a united Empire. Canadians were not advocating preferential tariffs for the benefit of Canada.
He said, further, that if England would not give Canada a preference, although Canada had already given England one, at least it was advisable that England should have some tariff reform which would prevent the wealth which belonged to this great Empire being dissipated among its enemies. That was the reason they were advocating the resolution. It was said that they desired to tax the poor man’s food. He said it was of the utmost importance to have food grown in their own country. England in the past had had no reserves of food. Fortunately they were now in such a position that, if they kept the command of the sea, Canada would be able to grow enough in a year or two for the needs of the United Kingdom. Seven years ago England was in such a position that, if a combination of two nations had put an embargo on food, she would have been brought to her knees at once. Australia and Canada were now growing more wheat, but everything depended upon the navy; and if England allowed her trade and her markets, and the profits which could be made out of the markets, to be used by foreign and rival Powers to build navies, they were not only helping those foreign nations to build navies at their own cost, but at the same time the people of this country had to be taxed to build ships to counterbalance what their enemies were doing.
Canadians felt that they were part of the Empire. They had helped as much as their fathers did; but after all, they had only added to the strength of the Empire, because their fathers went abroad to other nations, carrying the flag and spreading British principles and ideas into other countries. He therefore contended that Canadians had a great right to urge upon the people of England to do all they could to preserve the Empire, as Canadians were doing in their humble way.
As had been already said, Canada was giving preferences. For instance, she was giving a preference to the West Indies, so that nearly every dollar that was paid for sugar in Canada went to the West Indies. A few years ago it all came from Germany, and the profits that were made out of Canadian markets went to Germany, and, although they were not comparable with the profits made out of the English markets, such as they were they helped Germany. The trade gave her people employment; gave her navy money, and enabled her still further to build rival battleships. Was that wise? (No.) Canada asked England to remedy that; but Canada did not want it if England did not, because England wanted it five, ten, fifteen, or thirty times more than Canada did. Free trade at one time existed in Canada. When he was a very young man he was a free trader, but he was now older and wiser. What was the condition of the country then? It was a country with the greatest natural resources in the world, with the most magnificent agricultural prospects, with mineral and every other resource, such as he believed had not been paralleled anywhere else on the globe. Yet, for twenty years, when they had only a revenue tariff, what happened? The Yankees in 1871 put on a large protective duty, and commenced to build up their manufactures. The result to Canada was that in a few years, in 1875, 1876, and 1877, the Americans not only made for themselves but introduced their goods into Canadian markets. The result was that Canadian manufactories were closed up, the streets of the cities were filled with unemployed, and during that early period of their history nearly one million Canadians left the country. It was so well known that it was called “the exodus.” People used to wonder what was the matter, and enquired whether there was a plague in the country. They used to enquire how it was that Canadians could not succeed, and how it was there were so many people starving in the streets.
An agitation was started for a national policy—a protective agitation. Canadians decided that they must protect their own manufactures, and they had done so since 1878, with the result that there were now no starving people in the streets, no want in the country, no submerged tenth, and no thirteen million people on the verge of starvation. The exodus had ceased from Canada to the States, and Canadians were now coming back in their tens and twenties of thousands. Canada was now prosperous. A great deal had been done in the last twenty years. For instance, Canada had to come to England to get an English company to build the Grand Trunk Railway. They did not do it wonderfully well, but still they did it, and it was now a fine railroad. But what had Canadians done? They had built the Canadian Pacific Railway to the other side; two gentlemen in Toronto were building another trans-continental railroad right across the continent, and the Government were assisting a third project, the Grand Trunk Pacific. The Canadian Pacific Railroad, a Canadian institution, managed in Canada, had its vessels on the western coast at Vancouver, carrying goods and passengers through to Japan, to the Far East, and Australia and New Zealand. All that had been done since Canada took up the policy which enabled it to prevent the enemy from bleeding it to death.