It was otherwise with the newcomers from Japan. Their competition was more serious. Aggressive and enterprising, filled with a due sense of the greatness of Japan, aspiring to not merely menial but controlling posts, they took firmer root in the country than did the migratory Chinaman. At the same time Japan's rising power, her obvious sensitiveness, and her alliance with Great Britain made it expedient to treat her subjects more warily than those of quiescent China. There was practically no Japanese immigration until 1904-5, when three hundred entered. In 1905 the Dominion Government decided to adhere to the Anglo-Japanese treaty in order to secure favourable terms in Japan's market. A clause of this treaty provided for the free entrance of each country's subjects into the other country. When asked by the colonial secretary whether they wished to reserve the right to restrict immigration, as Queensland had done, the Dominion authorities declared that they would accept the treaty as it stood, relying upon semi-official Japanese assurances of willingness to stop the flow in Japan itself. Then suddenly, in 1906 and 1907, a large influx began, amounting to seven thousand in a single year. This immigration, which was prompted by Canadian mining and railway companies acting in co-operation with Japanese societies, came via the Hawaiian Islands. Alarm rose rapidly in British Columbia, and was encouraged by agitators from the United States. The climax came in September 1907, when mobs attacked first the Chinese and later the Japanese quarters in Vancouver, doing much damage for a time, but being at last routed by Banzai-shouting bands of angry Japanese. The Dominion Government at once expressed its regret and in due time compensated the sufferers from the riot. To solve the larger question, Mr Lemieux was sent to Japan as a special envoy. Cordially supported by the British ambassador at Tokio, he succeeded in reaching a very satisfactory agreement. The Japanese Government itself agreed to restrict immigration direct from Japan, and to raise no objection to Canadian prohibition of immigration by way of Hawaii. This method was much more acceptable to Japan's pride than direct Canadian restrictions would have been, and proved equally effective, as the number of Japanese entering Canada averaged only six hundred in the following years. The Dominion Government's course was open to criticism in some points, but its earnest endeavour to safeguard imperial as well as national interests, and the success of Mr Lemieux's diplomacy, were indications that the Dominion was rising to the demands of its new international position. Incidentally it was the Government's unwillingness to agree to complete Japanese exclusion that in 1908 brought the loss of every seat, save one, in British Columbia.
After the Alaskan boundary had been settled, no critical issue arose between the two North American democracies for several years. There were still questions outstanding which in earlier days would have given opportunity for tail-twisting or eagle-plucking politicians to make trouble, but in the new era of neighbourliness which now dawned they were settled amicably or allowed to fall into blessed oblivion.
A remarkable change in the spirit in which the two peoples regarded each other came about in this period. The abandonment by the United States of its traditional policy of isolation, its occupation of the Philippines, its policy of the open door for China, its participation in the Morocco dispute, effected a wonderful transformation in the American attitude towards questions of foreign policy and compelled a diplomacy more responsible and with more of give and take. This led to incidents—such as that in Manila Bay, when a British admiral lined up alongside the American fleet against a threatening German squadron—which made it clear that Great Britain was the one trustworthy friend the United States possessed. The steady growth of democratic feeling in Britain, her daring experiments in social betterment, her sympathetic treatment of the Irish and South African questions, increased the friendliness and the interest which the majority of Americans felt at bottom for what was their motherland. Canada's prosperity awakened respectful interest. A country which fifty or a hundred thousand good Americans every year preferred to their own must be more than the negligible northern fringe it once was thought to be.
Canada reciprocated this more friendly feeling. Prosperity mended her querulous mood and made her too busy to remember the grievances of earlier days. Her international horizon, too, had widened; the United States was no longer the sole foreign power with which she had to deal, though still the most important. Yet this friendlier feeling did not lead to a general desire for freer trade relations. Quite the contrary; confident in her own newly realized resources and in the possibility of finding markets elsewhere, dominated by protectionist sentiment and by the growing cities, Canada became on the whole indifferent to what had once appeared an essential goal. In Sir Wilfrid Laurier's phrase, the pilgrimages from Ottawa to Washington had ceased: the pilgrimages must come, if at all, from Washington to Ottawa.
Washington did come to Ottawa. Notable was the visit of Secretary Root in 1907, to discuss outstanding issues. Notable too, in another direction, was the increased interest of the British ambassador at Washington in Canadian affairs. This was particularly true of Mr Bryce, who made it a point to visit Ottawa every year of his term, and declared that he was really more the Canadian than the British ambassador. His skilful diplomacy and his intimate knowledge of American politics served Canada in good stead, and quieted the demand which had frequently been voiced for a separate Canadian representative at Washington.
Among the fruits of the new friendliness and the more direct diplomatic discussion was the settlement of two long-standing fishery disputes. The much discussed Convention of 1818, in respect to the Atlantic fisheries, was referred to the Hague Tribunal in 1910, where it was finally set at rest. The controversy as to fur-sealing on the Pacific was settled by international agreement in 1911. Less success was met in dealing with the fisheries of the Great Lakes. A comprehensive treaty for the protection and development of these fisheries, drawn up in 1908, was not ratified because of the opposition of some private interests in the United States.
The most significant achievement of these years, however, was a broad provision for the settlement of all disputes as to boundary waters. The pressure for the use of boundary rivers for the development of power, with all the difficult questions arising as to division of the power or obstruction to navigation, made necessary such a provision. In accordance with a suggestion from the United States a temporary Waterways Commission was set up (1905); and in 1910 a treaty was ratified providing for a permanent International Joint Commission, to consist of three Canadians and three Americans. The treaty provided, further, that any matter whatever in dispute between the two countries, quite aside from boundary-water issues, might be referred to the commission for settlement, with the consent on the one hand of the United States Senate, and on the other of the Governor-General in Council—the Dominion Cabinet. Quietly, with little public discussion, the two countries concerned thus took one of the most advanced steps yet made towards the peaceful settlement of all possible sources of conflict.
The revival of the tariff issue was the most spectacular and most important episode in the new relationship. The revival started in the Republic. For some years a steadily growing agitation in favour of reciprocity with Canada had been carried on in the New England and Northwest states. Nothing might have come of the agitation, however, had not the Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 compelled official negotiation and opened up the whole broad issue. Under that tariff the system of maximum and minimum schedules was adopted, the maximum designed to serve as a club to compel other nations to yield their lowest rates. The president was directed to enforce these higher duties against all countries which had not agreed by April 1910 to grant the concessions demanded. The proposal partook of the highwayman's methods and ethics even more than is usual in protectionist warfare; and it was with wry faces that one by one the nations with maximum and minimum tariffs consented to give the United States their lower rates. France and Germany were the last of European nations to accept. Canada alone remained. It was admitted that the preference granted other parts of the Empire did not constitute discrimination against the United States, but it was contended that the concessions made to France should be given to the United States.
Canada resented this demand, in view of the fact that the minimum tariff of the United States stood much higher than the maximum of Canada, and it was proposed to retaliate by a surtax on American goods. In the United States there was wide sympathy with this attitude; but under the act the president had no option but to enforce the higher duties if the concessions were not given. Fortunately he was left to decide as to the adequacy of such concessions, and this made agreement possible at the eleventh hour. President Taft proposed a conference at Albany; the Dominion Government accepted, and an agreement was reached on the 30th of March, the last day of grace but one. Canada conceded to the United States its intermediate rates on a few articles of minor importance—china-ware, window-glass, feathers, nuts, prunes, and other goods—and the United States accepted these as equivalent to the French concessions. Then, to complete the comedy, Canada at once made these lower rates part of its general tariff, applying to any country, so that the United States in the end was where it started—enjoying no special concessions whatever. Canada had gone through the motions of making a concession, and that sufficed.