U.S. Congress During the same year (1806), Congress prohibited prohibits

trade with

trade with Great Britain, and her colonies, in leather, Great Britain. silk, hemp or flax, tin, brass, woollens, window-glass, silver, paper, nails and spikes, hats, clothing, millinery, playing-cards, beer, ale, porter, pictures and prints. * And in 1809 commercial intercourse with Great Britain and her dependencies, and also with France, was interdicted. †

U. S. retalia- In 1818, a retaliatory law closed the ports of the tory law against Cana. United States against British vessels coming from a dian vessels. port in a British colony which, by its ordinary laws of

Not to land
US goods

in

navigation, had closed its ports against vessels from the United States; and declared that such British vessel touching at or clearing from a port in another British colony which was open to vessels of the United States, should not be held to remove the interdict. It also required that British vessels taking on board articles of the growth, produce or manufacture, of the United States, should give bonds not to land them in such inhibited British colony, on pain of forfeiture; but in legislative irony it was declared that such interdiction should not be construed to violate the Treaty Violation of of Commerce of 1815, which provided that the Treaty of 1818. inhabitants of the two countries should have liberty, freely and securely, to come, with their ships and cargoes, to all places, ports and rivers in their respective territories, and to hire and occupy houses and warehouses, and enjoy the most complete protection and security for the purposes of their commerce.

In 1820, a further retaliatory law closed the ports of the United States against British vessels coming from Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and other named British Possessions. *

statute.

And in 1887, Congress, in a minatory spirit of retalia- U. S. assumes to interpret tion against Canada, and in the assumption of a right Treaties by a to interpret a Treaty, as judge and party, in the absence retaliatory of the other party to it, † passed a law authorizing the President, in certain eventualities, to deny to Canadian vessels, their masters and crews, any entrance into the waters, ports, or places within the United States, except in cases of distress, etc., and to prohibit the entry of Canadian fresh or salt fish, or any other product of, or other goods coming from, the Dominion of Canada into the United States.‡

Tariffs.

Of the early policy of discrimination, the McKinley McKinley and Dingley tariffs may be cited as the more modern and Dingley developments; for they contain many provisions framed to hamper Canadian trade with the United States. The latter tariff puts a high duty on Canadian timber imported into that country, -to which is tacked an automatic rider, that if Canadas should Automatic rider against impose an export duty on saw-logs, or other specified Canada. timber product, going from it into the United States,

* Ibid, v. 3, p. 602. The law was modified in 1823, and repealed in 1830.

† Aliquis non debet esse judex in proprid causâ, quia non potest esse judex et pars. Co. Lit. v. 1, p. 15. See Canada Sessional Papers (1878), p. 63.

‡ United States Statutes at Large (1887), v. 24, c. 339, p. 475. No occasion for the enforcement of this law has ever been given by Canada.

§ The words in the United States Statute are: any country or dependency."

Attempt against British and

the prescribed high duty on Canadian timber should be increased by an additional sum, equal to the amount of such Canadian export duty.

An attempt to prejudicially affect the British and Canadian carrying trade with the United States was, Canadian car- by an amendment, surreptitiously introduced into the

rying trade.

Retaliatory law of 1892

Dingley tariff, by which a discriminating duty of ten per cent.-in addition to the high customs duties therein imposed-should be levied on all goods carried into the United States by the Canadian railways or British ships. Owing to the bungling phraseology used, the obnoxious amendment failed of the purpose since avowed by its promoters.*

Again, in 1892, another retaliatory law was added respecting St. to the samples of unfriendly legislation against Canada Mary Canal.

which are contained in the United States Statutes at Large, by which the President was authorized, whenever the passage of United States vessels through the Canadian Canals was "made difficult or burdensome by the imposition of tolls or otherwise," to suspend or prohibit the free passage of Canadian vessels through the United States canal at Sault Ste. Marie. It appeared that the Canadian Government had, for some years, imposed a uniform rate of toll for all vessels passing through the Canadian Canals; but in 1892, in order to encourage the ocean carrying trade, had allowed a rebate of tolls on freight, limited to farm products only, going to Montreal for ocean export; † but not on freight of similar farm products, or other merchandise, going to Toronto, Kingston or to any intervening Canadian port on Lake Ontario, or the St.

Canada non

Lawrence River, between the Welland Canal and U. S. and Montreal; placing all non-ocean exporting ports in ocean ports Canada and the United States on an equal footing, not affected. Thereupon the President issued a Proclamation imposing a toll of twenty cents per ton on all kinds of freight carried by Canadian vessels passing through the St. Mary Canal. The following year the Canadian Government, so as to avoid all possible ground of complaint, readjusted the canal tolls, and imposed a uniform rate of ten cents per ton on all freight passing Canada's through the Canadian Canals. The United States conciliatory thereupon revoked the Proclamation of 1892 imposing tolls on Canadian freight. *

action.

laws in Great

These unneighbourly and retaliatory laws of Con-No similar gress, restricting and prejudicially affecting the trade Britain or fo Canada with the United States, have, happily, no Canada. duplication, or counterpart, in the legislation, or in the Executive acts, of either Great Britain or Canada.

The acts of armed hostility, and international and Effect of these cunfriendly commercial unneighbourliness, on the part of some of acts on the dominant politicians of the United States, instanced Canadians. above, and others, have, at the times, naturally roused a spirit of irritation and resistance, even a threatened lex talionis, in Canada, which has severely tried the forbearance and political discretion of the resourceful and courageous people who, for over a century, have maintained untarnished the supremacy and honour of Great Britain over one-half of the North American continent. With such experiences it would, perhaps, be wrong to deny that sometimes a stricter policy, or perhaps a subtile form of retaliation, has been adopted by

Reasonable self-defence.

Golden rule offered by Canada.

Canada-partly as a means of reasonable self-defence,
and partly to suggest a re-consideration of their un-
friendly policy towards their northern neighbour.*
But the many suggestions for reciprocal trade, and
attempts at treaty-making, show that the offer of the
golden rule has been more frequently made by Canada,
than by the United States.

Accounta-
The moral accountability of the United States to
bility of the
U. S. to other their own people, as well as to foreign nations, (and

nations.

this must be considered as applying to Canada as well), necessarily involves some restraint on their political actions, that, as a nation, they may so deal with another nation as they would reasonably expect Political

Political acts such other nation should deal with them. tending to

actions of a nation tending to degrade another, and the nation's studied neglect of that courtesy of expression which Governments are wont to observe in discussing international questions, mar diplomatic intercourse, and induce petty international disputations, and mean reprisals, where the nation affected is not prepared to submit