but it could not be compared for a moment with that of the great northwestern and some of the middle states. The fifth proposition--for the construction of the Caughnawaga canal—would be also an immense boon to the United States. It would open up to the dense manufacturing population of New England, for the first time, a direct water communication of their own with the great west: it would enable them to load ships of 1.000 tons at their Lake Champlain ports with merchandise for the prairie states, and bring them back freighted with farm produce; and when the Whitehall Canal should be enlarged to Troy, and the improvements of the Upper Hudson completed to deep water, where in the wide world could be found so grand a system of internal water navigation as that, stretching, as it then would, in one continuous ship channel from New York on the Atlantic to the west end of Lake Superior, and possibly, ere long, to the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains? Canada, too, would have her share of profit in all this. Her great lumber interests on the Ottawa and its branches would find full advantage from it, and the enterprising farmers of the middle and eastern counties of Ontario would have the New England market, with its three and a half millions of manufacturing population, opened to their traffic. The sixth proposition is the concession to each other of the inland coasting trade, and nothing could be done more sensible or more profitable to both parties. Our season of navigation on the lakes is short-the pressure for vessels in particular trades at special times is very great on both sides of the lakes, and freights advance to unreasonable rates. Cheap transportation is a foremost question in this western industrial world, and what can be conceived more absurd than to see, as is often seen, large quantities of produce lying unshipped for want of vessels, because foreign bottoms cannot take freight from one port to another in the same country? What the United States could fear from the competition of our limited marine, with the 5,576 vessels of all kinds, and an aggregate tonnage of 788,000 tons, it is difficult to imagine. The eighth proposition-for the reciprocal admission of vessels built in either country to registry in the other is generally regarded as highly advantageous to this country, and no doubt such is the fact. But I confess I cannot see why it ought not to be regarded as infinitely more advantageous to the United States. During the civil war the merchant vessels of the republic were sold in large numbers to foreign owners, and acquired foreign registers; and notwithstanding that ship-building had almost disappeared from the United States in consequence of an extreme protectionist policy, the law absolutely forbade their being brought back or vessels of foreign build being purchased in their room. The consequence is, that at this moment nearly the entire passenger traffic of the Atlantic is in the hands of foreigners—a vast proportion of the freight of merchandise from and to foreign countries is also in the hands of foreigners-and only two months ago we had the startling statement made officially by Mr. Bristow, the very able secretary of the United States treasury, that no less a sum than one hundred millions of dollars is paid annually by the people of the United States to foreign ship-owners for freights and fares. Now, a large portion of these

ships, which the people of the United States require so urgently, can be as well built in St. John and Halifax and Quebec, and at less cost than in any other country. Why then deprive American citizens of the privilege of buying them from us, and sailing them as their own? We are told that American ship-building is reviving, but were it to revive with all the rapidity the most sanguine could desire, it could not keep pace with the wear and tear of the present reduced marine and the annually increasing demand, much less begin to supply the vacuum created since the war. The ninth and tenth proposals are for the appointment of joint commissions for the care of the lighthouses and the fisheries of the inland waters common to both countries; but as to these there is no difference of opinion, and no doubt of the great mutual advantage that might flow from the proposed concerted action in regard to them.

These, then, are the whole of the items; and now let us return to the one we passed by-the list of manufactures.

I shall not allege for one moment that there is no ground whatever for the loud outcries we have heard from protectionist manufacturers against the admission of their wares to the free list of the treaty. That Some would have suffered by the competition it would have entailed I readily admit, for in all avocations there are men whose want of experience, or want of energy, or deficiency of capital, unfit them for such a contest. But while all our sympathies must have gone heartily with such men in these circumstances, had the treaty been consummated, I cannot think that this great measure, affecting advantageously as it would have done so large a proportion of our industrial population, ought to have been given up simply because some among us might have suffered from its provisions. Are there not always sufferers by every new measure of taxation, by every change of the tariff, by every new municipal assessment scheme? And yet who dreams of rejecting a great measure of public policy because such individual hardships unfortunately attend them? I cannot, however, help thinking that many of the gentlemen who have been complaining most loudly of their threatened ruin would have been more frightened than hurt had it gone into effect. It cannot be an unmixed evil to exchange a market of four millions of buyers for one of forty millions, and I know some shrewd manufacturers among us who heard with deep regret of the action of the American senate. It is not to be doubted, however, that a great deal of the alarm which has been professed in reference to this section of the scheme has arisen from the parties not knowing exactly what the treaty proposed. I have myself met many persons who supposed that they would be most injuriously affected by it, but who found on a little inquiry that their articles were not in the slightest degree affected. A curious instance of this was seen in the exciting meeting of New York druggists to denounce the injurious influence of the treaty on their trade, though not an article in their business was touched by its provisions. Only within the last few days I met a most intelligent gentleman who was positive that his business was to be very much injured, if not destroyed;

but it turned out, after a little conversation, that the article he mainly manufactured was not at all affected by the treaty. And there have been many such cases among those loudest in their protestations. A great deal of the indignation, too, and a great deal of the eloquence has proceeded from parties who were angry, not because their wares were included in the scheme, but because they were excluded from it.

But I am ready to meet all objections to this part of the proposed treaty on higher and broader grounds. I contend that there is not one article contained in the schedules that is a fit object of taxation; not one that ought not to be totally free of duty, either in Canada or the United States, in the interest of the public. I contend that the finance minister of Canada who-treaty or no treaty with the United States-was able to announce the repeal of all customs duties on the entire list of articles in schedules A, B and C-even though the lost revenue was but shifted to articles of luxury-would carry with him the hearty gratitude of the country. I call the attention of the senate earnestly to this fact, that nearly every article in the entire list of manufactures is either of daily consumption and necessity among all classes of our population, or an implement of trade, or enters largely into the economical prosecution of the main industries of the Dominion. Let me read to you the whole list: Agricultural implements, all kinds; axles, of all kinds; boots and shoes, of leather; boots and shoemaking machines; buffalo robes, dressed and trimmed; cotton grain bags; cotton denims; cotton jeans, unbleached; cotton drillings, unbleached; cotton plaids; cotton ticking; cottonades, unbleached; cabinet-ware and furniture, or parts thereof; carriages, carts, waggons, and other wheeled vehicles and sleighs, or parts thereof; fireengines, or parts thereof; felt covering for boilers; gutta percha belting and tubing; iron-bar, hoop, pig, puddled, rod, sheet, or scrap; iron nails, spikes, bolts, tacks, brads, or springs; iron castings; india rubber belting and tubing; locomotives for railways, or parts thereof; lead, sheet or pig; leather, sole or upper; leather, harness and saddlery; mill or factory or steamboat fixed engines and machines, or parts thereof; manufactures of marble, stone, slate, or granite; manufactures of wood solely, or of wood nailed, bound, hinged, or locked with metal materials; mangles, washing machines, wringing machines, and drying machines, or parts thereof; printing paper for newspapers; paper making machines, or parts thereof; printing type, presses and folders, paper cutters, ruling machines, page numbering machines, and stereotyping and electrotyping apparatus, or parts thereof; refrigerators, or parts thereof; railroad cars, carriages, and trucks, or parts thereof; satinets of wool and cotton; steam engines, or parts thereof; steel, wrought or cast, and steel plates and rails; tin-tubes and piping; tweeds, of wool solely; water-wheel machines and apparatus, or parts thereof. These articles were selected with a triple object. The first was, as I have already stated, that they should be articles of common daily use among the people or affecting the prosecution of our leading; industries; the second was that they should be of such a character as to

24

be difficult to smuggle across the lines, and easy of identification as the genuine production of Canada or the States; and the third was that they should be as far as possible the production of branches of industry natural to Canada or the United States, and in which a considerable intertraffic between the two countries might reasonably be expected. And if the list is carefully examined, I think it will be admitted that the articles fairly fulfil these three conditions. Could anything be more impolitic than the imposition of customs duties on such articles as these? Time was in Canada when the imposition of duty on any article was regarded as a misfortune, and the slightest addition to an existing duty was resented by the people. But increasing debt brought new burdens; the deceptive cry of "incidental protection" got a footing in the land; and from that the step has been easy to the bold demand now set up by a few favoured industries, that all the rest of the community ought to be, and should rejoice to be, taxed 17 per cent. to keep them in existence. And it is remarkable how small a portion of the community are concerned in the maintenance of this injustice. I hold in my hand an accurate return of the men, women and children personally employed in all the industries that could possibly have been affected either advantageously or injuriously by the treaty had it gone into operation, and it appears that the entire number is 68,813. Of these, a considerable number would practically not be affected at all, for they have no protection now and do not want any; a large number would only be affected in a small part of their business; and a very large number would be advantageously affected by the treaty. The number who could honestly declare that "ruin" to them would be the result would be small indeed. And it is not unworthy of note how very small are the contributions of the industries that might be affected by the treaty to the foreign exports of the country. In the year ending 30th of June, 1874, the exports of domestic products were as follows:

The amount of manufactures imported that year was, therefore, a little over two millions of dollars; but I hold in my hand a return of the articles that made up this amount, and I find that several hundred thousand dollars of it could not fairly be classed as manufactures at all; that more than half of the remaining amount is made up of articles not protected now; and that the contributors who are protected now and could injuriously be affected by the treaty, are few in number and very small exporters. And now let us place in contrast with this the great agricultural interest with its half

million of hardy workers, which has no protection, which feeds the whole people, and contributes besides annually to the foreign exports of the Dominion commodities to the value of thirty-four millions of dollars. I hold in my hand a return of the customs duties levied on agricultural products going into the United States; and to show the advantage that would have accrued to our farmers from the operation of the treaty, I will now read some of the items: Animals, 20 per cent.; beef, lc. per lb.; butter, 4c. per lb.; cheese, 4c. per lb.; honey, 20c. per gallon; lard, 2c. per lb.; meats smoked, &c.), 35 per cent.; pelts, 10 per cent.; pork, lc. per lb.; sheepskins, 3 per cent.; tallow, lc. per lb.; wool (worth 32c. and under), 10c. per lb. and 11 per cent.; wool (worth over 32c.), 12c. per lb. and 10 per cent.; barley, 15c. per bushel; beans, 10 per cent.; bran, 20 per cent.; flax (undressed), $5 per ton; flax (dressed), $20 per ton; flax-seed, 20c. per bushel; flour, 20 per cent.; fruit (green), 10 per cent.; hay, 20 per cent.; hops, 5c. per lb.; Indian corn, 10 per cent.; malt, 20 per cent.; maple sugar, 20 per cent.; meal (oat), fc. per lb.; meal (corn), 10 per cent.; oats, 10c. per bushel; peas (seed), 20 per cent.; peas (vegetable), 10 per cent.; peas (split), 20 per cent.; rye, 15c. per bushel; seeds, 20 per cent.; tobacco, 35c. per lb.; vegetables, 10c. per lb.; wheat, 20c. per bushel. All these duties would have been swept away, and the American market thrown freely open for all farm products. The great lumber interest, too-in which 100,000 men are said to be engaged-which has no protection, which not only supplies our home market, but sends twenty-seven millions of dollars worth of lumber annually to foreign countries, and employs a large fleet of vessels in its traffic-how would it have been affected by the operation of the treaty? Why, it would have swept away an average duty of 20 per cent. from the entire exportations to the States. And just so would it have been with our great mineral interest. Seventy-five cents per ton now levied on Cape Breton and Pictou coal would have been abolished, and the New England markets would have been freely opened to our coal trade. Twenty per cent. on iron ore and one and a half cents per lb. on lead ore would also have disappeared. The great coast fishery interest would also have been largely benefited, for the American market would have been secured to it for twenty-four years to come. On the whole, therefore, I think it will be safe to come to the conclusion that however a portion of our manufacturing interests might have been affected by the treaty, the result on the large industries of the Dominion could not have failed to be beneficial.

I come now to the objections which have been urged against the treaty from such quarters as entitle them to a formal answer. The first of these is the allegation that the treaty discriminated against Great Britain in favour of the United States. Nothing could be more unfounded than this. It was perfectly understood from the opening of the negotiations that no article could be free from duty in regard to the United States that was not also free with regard to Great Britain, and nothing else was ever contemplated for a moment.