back upon us again. Let honourable gentlemen look at the question in this view, and what one of them will take the responsibility of casting his vote against the measure? The future destiny of these great provinces may be affected by the decision we are about to give to an extent which at this moment we may be unable to estimate, but assuredly the welfare for many years of four millions of people hangs on our decision. Shall we then rise equal to the occasion?-shall we approach this discussion without partisanship, and free from every personal feeling but the earnest resolution to discharge conscientiously the duty which an overruling Providence has placed upon us? It may be that some among us will live to see the day when, as the result of this measure, a great and powerful people may have grown up on these lands-when the boundless forests all around us shall have given way to smiling fields and thriving towns —and when one united government, under the British flag, shall extend from shore to shore; but who would desire to see that day, if he could not recall with satisfaction the part he took in this discussion?

I have done. I leave the subject to the conscientious judgment of the House, in the confident expectation and belief that the decision it will render will be worthy of the parliament of Canada.

THE RECIPROCITY NEGOTIATIONS.

The following speech was delivered in the senate during the session of 1875, being the one immediately following the reciprocity negotia tions at Washington in 1874, and was intended to be a semi-official account of these negotiations-conducted by Sir Edward Thornton and Mr. Brown as joint plenipotentiaries—and also a general review of the whole trade relations of Canada with the United States, and a history of the former negotiations, including the Washington treaty of 1871 The speech also contains many statistical statements which Mr. Brown had prepared for his work at Washington.

MR. BROWN said: In rising to make the motion of which I have given notice, I am sure you will all feel that it is right and fitting, and will be expected by the country, that I should take this earliest opportunity of laying before the House such a statement of the recent negotiations between the United States government and Great Britain in regard to commercial reciprocity between the United States and Canada, as may be in the public interest and befitting my position. I have the more pleasure in doing so because I feel that in dealing with this matter before the senate, I shall be sustained by the honourable gentlemen who compose this body in taking an enlarged view of the whole question, in leaving aside many frivolous criticisms that have been made by political partisans, and in contending that because a commercial treaty is very advantageous for one party it does not follow that it may not be equally good for the other. It is very easy to fancy things that might advantageously have been included or omitted in any such arrangement, but it must be always borne in mind that when two parties sit down to make a bargain the result arrived at cannot be what each desires to obtain, but what both will consent to. The merit or demerit of every such compact must there. fore be tested by looking at it in its bearings as a whole, and not by minute dissection of minor points.

I shall not waste time by entering into any elaborate argument as to the advantages which must flow from throwing down the barriers in the way of international commerce between two countries so contiguous to each other as are the United States and this Dominion. We have ample proof of this in the commercial history of Great Britain since the union of the three kingdoms. We have it still more markedly in the great material results directly flowing from the free interchange of products between the several states of the neighbouring republic. And nowhere can be found a more gratifying illustration of the grand results that flow from commercial

freedom than we have in the progress of our own Dominion since the accomplishment of confederation. Though the customs barriers against intertraffic between the British North American provinces have only been removed since July, 1867, the united foreign commerce of the provinces has risen from an annual average, for thirteen years before confederation, of $115,000,000, to the enormous amount, in the seventh year after it, of $240,000,000. Twenty-five years ago the subject of commercial reciprocity was, I believe, quite as well if not better understood by the people of Canada than it is now. It is twenty-one years since the treaty of 1854 went into operation; but it took six years to negotiate it, and during that time the people of the provinces became thoroughly conversant with the various advantages which flow from such arrangements; and if the statesmen who conducted the negotiations of those years were present to-day they would hear with astonishment that any member of this chamber entertained a doubt as to the enormous advantage which must accrue to both countries from the consummation of such a treaty as that which has been recently discussed. It is only nine years since the old treaty of 1854 was brought to a close by the action of the United States government. The wonderful success which attended that treaty is shown by the fact that the interchange of traffic between the United States and the British North American provinces, during the thirteen years of its continuance, increased from $33,000,000 in the year immediately preceding that in which the treaty went into operation, to no less than $84,000,000 in 1866—the year in which it was repealed. Since 1866 there have been several negotiations with the United States for the renewal of the old treaty.

I will briefly refer to each of them, not for the purpose of drawing invidious comparisons-for I hope nothing will cross my lips to-day to excite party feeling-but simply for the purpose of showing clearly the past history and present position of the reciprocity question. Such questions as this should, I think, be regarded from a higher point than that of mere partisanship. We are all alike concerned in the prosperity of our foreign commerce, and in securing good relations with our powerful neighbours, and to these ends we should all heartily contribute, whatever party may be in power, or charged with the negotiations. In the negotiations of 1865-6 for a renewal of the treaty, offers were made to the American government by our then Finance Minister, Sir A. T. Galt, which in my opinion ought not to have been made. The government then existing in Canada was the coalition government formed in 1864 for the special purpose of carrying confederation of the whole British North American provinces. I was a member of that government and, as is well known, it was in consequence of the policy adopted by my colleagues in the conduct of the reciprocity negotiation that I felt compelled to resign my position as President of the Executive Council. I resigned because I felt very strongly that though we in Canada derived great advantage from the treaty of 1854, the American people derived still greater advantage from it. I had no objection to that, and was quite ready to renew the old treaty, or even to

extend it largely on fair terms of reciprocity. But I was not willing to ask for renewal as a favour to Canada; I was not willing to offer special inducements for renewal without fair concessions in return; I was not willing that the canals and inland waters of Canada should be made the joint property of the United States and Canada, and be maintained at their joint expense; I was not willing that the customs and excise duties of Canada should be assimilated to the prohibitory rates of the United States; and very especially was I unwilling that any such arrangement should be entered into with the United States, dependent on the frail tenure of reciprocal legislation, repealable at any moment at the caprice of either party. I firmly believed that good as the reciprocity treaty had been for Canada, in the event of repeal, we had a commercial policy of our own open to us for adoption not greatly inferior to that we would be deprived of; and unless we got a treaty for a definite term of years, and conditions of fair reciprocity, without such embarrassing entanglements as were proposed, I was willing that the treaty of 1854 should be repealed, and each country left to follow its own course. My colleagues determined to proceed in the manner I deprecated; I could not be responsible for such a policy; and to avoid responsibility for it, I resigned office. The government sent deputies to Washington to obtain, if possible, legislative reciprocity-they did all they could to obtain it, but without success, and the treaty of 1854 came to an end on the 17th of March, 1866. I have not changed my opinions from what they were in December, 1865. I still believe that Canada largely profited by the treaty of 1854, but that the Americans profited by it still more; and we all know now-for we have tested it--that Canada has a commercial policy of her own but little if at all inferior to that she was deprived of in 1866. Notwithstanding this I am still strongly in favour of a commercial treaty with the United States for a definite number of years; and so long as it was just and profitable to Canada, I should be all the better pleased the more profitable it proved to our American friends. It is always well to have two strings to one's bow; it cannot possibly be injurious to secure access to a market of forty millions of people at the price of permitting our own people to buy some of their wares from them free from customs duties. Treaties of the comprehensive character of that proposed with the United States ought not to be-cannot be-adjusted by ounce scales, By the removal of all artificial barriers in the way of a fair exchange of the products of industry, both parties must benefit. No man sells unless he benefits by doing so, and no one buys unless he finds advantage in it. And who shall tell, when two countries throw open their respective markets to each other, which of them derives most advantage from the arrangement? It takes years of practical experience to obtain data for such a comparison; and the ramifications of commercial interchanges are so far-reaching, and so various and complicated, that it is hardly possible to judge with accuracy on which side the balance turns.

More than one effort was made by the late government for the renewal of the old treaty between 1866 and 1869. In 1869 formal negotiations

were entered into with the American government, and the projet of a treaty was presented for discussion. The negotiations continued from July, 1869, to March, 1870. This projet included the cession for a term of years of our fisheries to the United States; the enlargement and enjoy. ment of our canals; the free enjoyment of the navigation of the St. Lawrence River; the assimilation of our customs and excise duties; the concession of an import duty equal to the internal revenue taxes of the United States; and the free admission into either country of certain manufactures of the other. This negotiation ended abruptly in March, 1870, but it is instructive to observe-and I refer to it for the purpose of pointing out that, from the repeal of the old treaty in 1866 up to the recent negotiations, the government of Canada has always held the most liberal views as to the considerations that might be included in a treaty with the United States.

The negotiation of 1870 was soon followed by the high joint commission, nominally for the adjustment of our fishery disputes, but in reality for the settlement of the Alabama embroglio. We all know what was the cost to Canada of that negotiation. The fisheries of the St. Lawrence went from us for twelve years; the navigation of the St. Lawrence was presented to the United States in perpetuity; the use of our canals was ceded to them for twelve years. And to show exactly the position to which the relations of the two countries were then reduced, it will not be deemed unfitting that I should read a few short extracts from the official protocols of the high joint commissioners. And first as to our invaluable sea-coast fisheries.

The question of the fisheries was discussed at the conference of the 6th of March, 1871, when the British commissioners stated that "they considered that the reciprocity treaty of the 5th of June, 1854, should be restored in principle. The American commissioners declined to assent to a renewal of the former reciprocity treaty." They said, "That that treaty had proved unsatisfactory to the people of the United States, and consequently had been terminated by notice from the government of the United States, in pursuance of its provisions. Its renewal was not in their interest, and would not be in accordance with the sentiments of their people."

At conferences held on the 7th, 20th, 22nd and 25th of March, the American commissioners stated: "That if the value of the inshore fisheries could be ascertained, the United States might prefer to purchase, for a sum of money, the rights to enjoy in perpetuity the use of these inshore fisheries in common with British fishermen, and mentioned $1,000,000 as the sum they were prepared to offer. The British commissioners replied that this offer was, they thought, wholly inadequate, and that no arrangement would be acceptable of which the admission into the United States, free of duty, of fish the produce of the British fisheries, did not form a part; adding that any arrangement for the acquisition by purchase of the inshore fisheries in perpetuity was open to grave objections." During these