Part 11 (2/2)

But elections are not won y hich they are fought, or the weight of the interests vitally concerned, ument And in this contest the Opposition had the far er appeal Mr Borden's followers fought with the eager enthusias exclusion from office, while the ministerialists--save only the veteran priht feebly, as if dulled by the satiety which co possession of the loaves and fishes

Outside the party bounds the situation was the saanized and articulate body on the side of reciprocity, while opposed to it were the powerful and well-equipped forces of the manufacturers and the closely allied transportation and financial interests Through the press and from a thousand platfors of the people Quite effective was the appeal founded on the doctrine of protection In twenty years Canada had becoe city-dweller had come to believe that his interests were bound up with protection--a belief not unnatural in the {268} absence for a decade of any radical discussion of the issue, and not to be overcome at the eleventh hour But the patriotic appeal was still more effective Here was a chance to express the accuhbourly policy of the United States, now suddenly reversed The chance could safely be seized, for Canada was prosperous beyond all precedent 'Let well enough alone' was in itself a vote-co cry In fact, 'Laurier prosperity' proved its own Ne waxed fat, kicked An American philosopher, Artemus Ward, has recorded that his patriotis the Civil War that he consented to send all his wife's relations to the front Many an Ontario patriot in 1911 was prepared to sacrifice the interests of his fellow-Canadians to prove his independence of the United States And in Quebec the working arrangement between the Conservatives and Mr Henri Bourassa and his party told heavily against the Government

The result of the elections, which were held on the 21st of Septe defeat of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's Ministry In Ontario the Liberals saved only thirteen seats out of eighty-six In the rest of the {269} country they had a majority, but not sufficient to reduce substantially this adverse Ontario vote The coave 133 Conservatives to 88 Liberals As usual, the popular vote was more equally divided than the parliamentary seats, for the Liberals secured 625,000 and the Conservatives 669,000 votes The Liberal majority of only 5000 in Quebec, 3000 in the maritime provinces, and 20,000 in the prairie provinces was overcome by the Conservative majority of 63,000 in Ontario and 9000 in British Colunation to the governor-general and Mr Borden formed his Government

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CHAPTER XIII

NATION AND EMPIRE

Imperial preferential trade--Political relations--Defence

Neither new relations with foreign lands across the sea nor new-old relations with the United States bulked as large in these later years as relations with the other parts of the British Empire The question of the Empire's future was a constant theress in each and all the British states Great Britain's vast strides towards social justice, Canada's growth and economic activity, the similar, if lesser, expansion of Australia and New Zealand, the unification of South Africa, all bespoke the strength and soundness of each of the Five Nations The steady growth of co and of practical co-operation in ress did not mean disunion

Yet there were many at home, and in Great Britain and the other lands overseas, ere far from content with the trend of events, who {271} were convinced that the Ee in policy should be effected To soer; to others it was the steady growth of self-government in the Dominions Imperial preferential trade, political federation, colonial contributions to a central ared as res came to pass in the years under survey, and yet when the testing-time arrived the Empire proved one in heart and soul

Great Britain's free-trade policy was first called in question

Scarcely ended were the Boer War and the disappointing Conference of 1902 when Mr Chah South Africa, launched his great cah protection and retaliation later became more important phases of the tariff-reform movement, at the outset it was its imperial side which was eed, were certain to drift apart unless bound by links of material interest

Give the colonies a preference on their wheat or wool in Britain, give British {272} manufacturers a real preference in colonial markets, and the Empire would cease to beup a protective tariff in order to make reductions in favour of such colonies as would reciprocate, Mr Chareat advantages It would aid British agriculture and British industry, would protect both farmer and ly unable to bear, and would give a weapon for forcing foreign countries to tear down their tariff barriers The colonial n ained, and none too soon, if the complete decay of British industry and the triuhest point,' declared Mr Chamberlain 'Our fate will be the fate of the eone, silk has gone, iron is threatened, wool is threatened, cotton will coer first We are third We shall be fifth or sixth if things go on as they are at present The trade of this country, as n countries and to British possessions, {273} has during the last twenty or thirty years been practically stationary; our export trade to all these foreign countries which have arranged tariffs against us has enormously diminished, and at the same time their exports to us have enormously increased'

For a time it seemed that the tariff reformers would sweep all before them Their chief was the most skilful and popular leader of his tirowth of other countries inhad excited the alarm of the Britishthe landowners, though scotched, had not been killed The aln countries and the other colonies appeared to prove obsolete the doctrines of Cobden and Bright

It seeland itself had left free trade a traditional dog belief To the poor, tariff refor of heavy taxation from their shoulders; to the imperialist, the indissoluble eainst Mr Chaely unfounded, and gave new life to the principles of free trade They {274} were shown not to be obsolete dogmas, but reasoned deductions frodo tax on food and on raw materials for no adequate return The share of colonial markets which British manufacturers did not have, for which they could compete, and which colonial producers did not desire to keep themselves, was very s illness, and of the younger men of capacity who came upon the scene practically all were on the side of free trade The stars in their courses fought against hian to flourish as never, or rarely ever, before In the elections of 1906, though other issues were also factors in the result, the sweeping victory of the Liberals was mainly a triumph for free trade

In Canada, also, at the outset, Mr Chamberlain's proposals idely welcomed He was personally popular The majority of Canadians believed in protection Sonize the value of a preference in the British market Yet as the full implications of the proposal becaood his case, opinion in Canada became {275} as divided as in Great Britain It was realized that it was one thing for Canada to give a reduced tariff, leaving the fiscal system protective still, and quite another for Great Britain to abandon entirely her free-trade policy in order to be able to give preferential rates to colonies or to low-tariff foreign states Canadian ue welcome; it soon beca they were prepared to relinquish any corner of the Canadian market to British manufacturers

They declared officially that they would not favour an increase in the British preference even on articles not made in Canada: 'ere not prepared to admit that there was any article that could not at some point in Canada, and in time, be successfully ive British manufacturers lower rates than Ah The farer for the boon of a preference in the British anizations represented his view He would be glad {276} to have higher prices for his wheat or stock, but did not want the British workman to pay a halfpenny a loaf to bribe him to remain in the Empire

To some extent opinion followed party lines The Conservative party had consistently supported reciprocal preference and opposed the Laurier-Fielding free gift The Liberals had defended that preference as in itself a benefit to the Canadian consu with Great Britain They would be glad to receive a preference in Great Britain if Britain felt it in her own interest

Convinced believers in self-govern that the United Kingdoe, and declined to intervene in the British can Mr Borden took the same stand as to intervention; but many of his folloere not hampered by such scruples, and Mr Foster land on Mr Chamberlain's behalf

The Conference of 1907 was essentially an appendix to the Chaorous advocates a colonial prime ministers, notably Dr Jameson of the Cape, Mr Ward of New Zealand, and especially Mr Deakin of Australia, {277} whose eloquent appeal was one of the chief features of the Conference All expressed thedom to set up a protective and preferential systeood; but with ht to prove that it would be for her good, and especially to show that prices to the English consumer would not be increased, and yet that colonial producers would gain

The representatives for the United Kingdom, ministers in the British Government, fresh from a three-year discussion of the whole issue and backed by the largest parliamentary majority on record, were equally frank in their rebuttal of the arguments advanced and their refusal to lead Britain to commit what they considered commercial suicide Mr Asquith and Mr Churchill were especially uncoe showed more temperamental sympathy with protection in the abstract, but was equally clear that free trade had been proved best for Great Britain beyond question

Sir Wilfrid Laurier was the doyen of the Conference, the only orous part than in the previous er {278} lions roar He had opened the debate by announcing his intention to ain the preference resolutions of 1902, and did so in a brief speech at the close, iven a free preference to British goods deliberately, and had not repented If it had not done for the British manufacturer all that he would like, more could be done by a system of mutual preference 'Yet this is a ether in the hands of the British people, and if they think on the whole that their interests are better served by adhering to their present syste ever so little, it is a matter for the British electorate I think the best way of serving the whole is by allowing every part to serve and recognize its own immediate interests' On histhe value of preferential trade, declaring free trade between the different parts of the E the colonies to follow Canada's exa the United Kingdo a preference to colonial products, either by an exemption from or reduction of duties now or hereafter imposed--were adopted by {279} all the Do Sir Wilfrid laid more stress upon the proposal for an All-Red line of steamers for faster and better service on the Atlantic and on the Pacific, with joint subsidies, urging that the best way to bind the Eether was to facilitate intercourse The proposal was received with enthusiash its advocacy was continued by Lord Strathcona and Mr Sifton, little progress was made towards its adoption

After the Conference of 1907 preferential trade ceased for a tiet controversy, the struggles with the House of Lords, Ho place on the stage Four years later, at the Conference of 1911, the subject was not even ed to protection on manufactures, but the tax on food, essential to effective colonial preferences, had been thrown overboard by a large section of the party The British farmer was promised land reform instead of protection on foodstuffs Even Mr Bonar Law, speaking in 1912, declared that he did not wish to impose food duties, and would impose them only if, in a conference {280} to be called, the colonies declared them to be essential This endeavour to throw on the colonies the onus and responsibility of lishman pay food taxes was denounced on every side, and aftera compromise was reached to the effect that 'if when a Unionist Government has been returned to power it proves desirable, after consultation with the Dominions, to impose new duties upon any articles of food, in order to secure the most effective system of preference, such duties should not be imposed until they have been subeneral election'

Thus, after ten years of ardent agitation for tariff reforreat party in the state was as resolutely opposed to the scheme as ever, and, while the other was committed to it, the duty on foodstuffs, once declared essential to save the Eiven second place to protection of ig of ti to the front food taxes and imperial preference Yet as far as the early years of the century went, the years within which Mr Chamberlain declared that the decision had to be made, no step towards preference had {281} been taken by Great Britain, and still the E apart As avalue of tariff preference was greatly exaggerated by its advocates The Laurier-Fielding preference was a real bond of iiven from motives of sentiment, not of profit A systeht possibly be a good business arrangement for one or all of the countries concerned, but it could have little force as eain, on a par with the sien countries There would be nothing exclusive about it

Good caitation It compelled a bed-rock consideration of British business and social conditions, and proved that if free trade had reat wealth, it had not been enough to ensure its fair distribution This searching inquest was largely responsible for the great series of democratic and social reforave the United Kingdom the world's leadershi+p in {282} democracy and won fresh sy words Mr Asquith gave (1909) a definition of Liberalism which awoke immediate sympathy in every Dominion It expressed in concentrated fore of all the Empire, particularly in those Dominions, such as Australia and Canada, where all parties are alressive: