The movement was planned and launched with remarkable skill. Mr. Wiman, who was posing as a true-hearted Canadian, was, I believe, working for great financial interests in the States, headed by Jay Gould. Of course, of this there is no proof, but only the deduction that can be drawn from a close study of all the information that can be had. The first step was to establish the Canadian Club of New York, to be a home for welcoming Canadians visiting that city. The next was still more ingenious. A number of the most prominent Canadians, principally literary men, orators, &c., were invited to New York as guests of the Club, to address the members. These visitors were treated with the warmest hospitality, and no indication given that Mr. Wiman had any ulterior motives. About the same time, in 1886, Mr. Wiman gave some public baths to the citizens of Toronto, at a cost of about $6,000, as a proof of his warm feeling towards the city in which his early life had been spent.
After all this preparation he came to Canada in the spring of 1887, and aided by Goldwin Smith, Valancy Fuller, Henry W. Darling, President of the Toronto Board of Trade, and a few others, he proposed in the interests of Canada a scheme of Commercial Union between Canada and the United States which he claimed would be a great boon and lasting advantage to Canada. During the whole summer of 1887 an active campaign was being conducted, meetings were held in many places, and addressed by Mr. Goldwin Smith, Mr. Wiman, Congressman Butterworth, of Ohio, and others. The members of the Canadian Parliament were furnished with circulars, articles, and reports of speeches in profusion. Mr. Wiman, as a member of the firm of Dun, Wiman and Company, had an influence over the business men of Canada that could hardly be overestimated. It would have been a serious thing for any ordinary business man in any city, town, or village in Canada, if dependent upon his credit for the profitable conduct of his business, to incur the hostility of the mercantile agency, on whose reports his credit would largely depend.
The result was that at first the plausible speeches of its advocates, and the friendly assistance of some newspapers, caused the movement to acquire a considerable amount of success. It was not thoroughly understood. It had been inaugurated as in the direct interest of Canada by a friendly and successful Canadian, and was being discussed in a friendly way, and many good men at first supported the idea, not suspecting any evil, and not fearing that it might result in annexation. I was away on a visit to England from the 19th May until the 21st August, 1887, and heard very little of what was going on, and not enough to understand the details or real facts of the scheme. After my return to Canada I asked my brother, the late Lt.-Colonel Fred C. Denison, then a member of the House of Commons for West Toronto, what it all meant. He was not at all favourably impressed. He had been supplied with copies of the literature that was distributed, and I read it over, and we discussed the question very fully during some weeks. We both agreed that it was a very dangerous movement, likely to bring about the annexation of Canada to the United States, and designed for that purpose by its originators, and we considered very carefully how it could be met and defeated. I felt that, in view of the way in which it was being taken up at the time by the people, it would be hopeless to attack the scheme and endeavour to check its movement by standing in front of it and fighting it. I was afraid we might be overrun and probably beaten. I felt that the only way to defeat it was to get in front, and lead the movement in another direction. My brother agreed with me in this, and we decided to take a course of action based on those lines.
[CHAPTER XI]
IMPERIAL FEDERATION LEAGUE IN CANADA
The progress the Commercial Union movement was making, and the great danger arising from it, led my brother and me to discuss it with a number of loyal men, and on all sides the opinion seemed to be that active steps should be taken at once to work against it. The principal active workers at first were officers of my regiment and a few other personal friends, and small meetings were held in my brother’s office to discuss the matter, and it was decided that the best policy was to advocate a Commercial Union of the British Empire as the alternative to the proposition of a Commercial Union with the United States, and that a scheme of Imperial Federation based upon a Commercial Union of the various parts of the Empire would be the best method of advocating our views. By advocating Imperial Federation it enabled us to appeal to the old dream of the United Empire Loyalists of the Revolution. It gave the opportunity of appealing to our history, to the sacrifices of our fathers, to all the traditions of race, and the ties of blood and kindred, to the sacrifices and the victories of the war of 1812, and to the national spirit of our people, to preserve our status as a part of the British Empire. G. R. R. Cockburn, J. M. Clark, D’Alton McCarthy, John Beverley Robinson, Wm. Hamilton Merritt, Lt.-Colonel Fred C. Denison, Casimir Dickson, Commander Law, John T. Small, D. R. Wilkie, John A. Worrell, Henry Wickham, and James L. Hughes were the moving spirits in organising the Toronto Branch of the Imperial Federation League, and it was accomplished during the last two or three months of 1887 and the beginning of 1888.
In October, 1887, Erastus Wiman sent a circular to the Members of the House of Commons, asking them for their views upon his scheme. Lt.-Col. F. C. Denison sent the following reply, and forwarded a copy to the newspapers:
Toronto, 12th Oct., 1887.