into the country under the preference. If the Government would only investigate this question and learn of some of the dangers to which they are exposing the people of this country who are compelled to wear cheap clothing, we feel satisfied that they would take measures to put a stop to the importation of such trash, even to the extent of prohibiting it as they would a plague.'

Chambers of Commerce at Batley, Birstall, Dewsbury and Leeds, convened in special meeting, indignantly protested against this attack on the Yorkshire industry. Questions were asked in the House of Commons at Westminster. There was correspondence between the Colonial Office and Ottawa; and on September 4, 1908, the secretary of the Manufacturers' Association, in a cablegram from Toronto to the Batley Chamber of Commerce, expressed regret for any injustice that may have been done British woollen manufacturers by the publication of the article in "Industrial Canada" reflecting on the quality of Yorkshire woollens.'* Two weeks later the Manufacturers' Association held its annual convention in Montreal. While increased duties on British woollens were again urged, no reference was made to the article in Industrial Canada,' and there was no resolution identifying the Association with the cablegram of regret sent to Batley.

No success attended this second agitation for higher duties on British woollens. The game, in fact, was overplayed in this agitation of 1907-8; and, when the Laurier Government went out of office in October 1911, the preferential tariff stood exactly as it had been left by the revision of 1906–7. The final agitation of the preference during the Laurier régime was in 1910 and 1911. This time the movement was for lower duties on all British manufactures. Sir W. Laurier made his memorable tour of the prairie provinces in the summer of 1910. At every stopping-place between the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains, at almost every town in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, the Premier was met by deputations from grain-growers' associations, urging reciprocity with the United States, lower duties in the general tariff, and an immediate reduction by 50 per cent. of all duties under the preferential tariff. Over 23,000 grain-growers

'Witness,' Montreal, September 8, 1908.

were represented by these deputations; and in December 1910, the Premier was waited upon at Ottawa by a great deputation representing the grain-growers' associations of the West and the granges of Ontario, which reiterated these demands. As a counter-movement, the Manufacturers' Association sent a deputation to Sir W. Laurier in January 1911. The deputation referred to the farmers' agitation, and stated that, 'having regard to present conditions, we consider that any increase in the existing preference is inadvisable, and would imperil the existence of many Canadian industries.' * So far as the Laurier Government was concerned, this was the last word on the British preference.

For exactly ten years-from the Halifax convention in 1901 to the Toronto convention of 1911-the Manufacturers' Association worked continuously against the preference; and, as has been shown, most of the agitation for curtailment between 1901 and 1906 met with some success. The Association also worked between 1901 and 1911 to keep down by other methods the quantity of British manufactures imported into Canada. At the convention in Winnipeg in 1906, it was decided that all advertisements of British manufacturers should be excluded from 'Industrial Canada'; and at the convention in Montreal in 1908, complaint was made by the commercial intelligence committee of the Association that, in the weekly bulletin of the Department of Trade and Commerce at Ottawa, enquiries were published from British and foreign houses anxious to find purchasers or agents for their goods in Canada.'

'It is scarcely right' (continued this report) that our money should be used to furnish a free advertising medium to the outsider whose object is to displace us in our own home market. The attention of the Department has been called to this point, and assurance has been given that the various commissioners shall be instructed not to encourage enquiries of the kind referred to; but we regret to state that thus far no improvement has been noticed.' †

This statement at the Montreal convention was ad

'Industrial Canada,' November 1911, p. 422.

+ Canadian Manufacturers' Association, 1908; Reports of Standing Committees, p. 89.

versely criticised in the Press. At the Hamilton convention in 1909, the commercial intelligence committee in its report recalled this criticism, and justified the strictures on the weekly bulletin which had been made at the Montreal convention. It was conceded that Canadian importers had some claims on the Department of Trade and Commerce. But,' continued the report,

'there is a vast difference between serving the needs of a Canadian who desires to find out where he can obtain a specific article for a specific purpose, and serving the needs of a foreigner who has a surplus production that he wants to unload on the Canadian market.'

British manufacturers who, since 1897, have made efforts to increase their trade with Canada have not lacked discouragement. Apart from the many curtailments of the preference in 1904 and 1907, the Laurier Government, at the instance of the Manufacturers' Association, was increasingly rigid in its regulations as to the proportion of British labour in imports entitled to the benefit of the preference. It imposed and continuously collected a duty of 15 cents a pound on catalogues and price-lists sent to Canada by British manufacturers and exporters. Manufacturers who tried to push trade with Canada from 1900 to 1911, when the first chapter in the history of the preference came to an end, had to encounter not a few obstacles. The most serious of these obstacles after 1904 were created by the Government. But the Manufacturers' Association was behind the Government in the curtailment of the preference; and the co-operation of the Government and the Manufacturers' Association in whittling down the preference from the level of 1904 partly accounts for the fact that, while dutiable imports from Great Britain were of a total value of $24,366,179 in 1896, they had not reached a higher figure than $84,511,835 in 1911, notwithstanding the increase of two and a half millions in the population of the Dominion, the larger spending power

* Canadian Manufacturers' Association, 1909: Reports of Standing Committees, pp. 85, 86.

† Canadian Manufacturers' Association, 1908 and 1910: Reports of Standing Committees, pp. 77, 78, 39; 'Commercial Intelligence,' London, March 9, 1910,

of the well-to-do, and the great increase in the price of commodities since 1898.

It is impossible to gauge the part played by the preference in this increase. That the preference has been helpful to British exporters in some lines of trade may reasonably be assumed, especially as there has been no such increase in the exports from Germany and France to Canada as there has been in English exports. German trade with Canada was disturbed for several years by the imposition of a surtax by each Government-German and Canadian; and only in 1911 did the imports into Canada from Germany, which had been greatly decreased, reach again the value of ten million dollars—a figure that had been passed in 1902. French imports into Canada have never been large. They amounted in 1902 to six million dollars, and in 1911, after much careful nursing by means of a reciprocity treaty, to ten million dollars. Under conditions so complicated as these, not much can be learned from a study of the French and German figures.

More enlightening are the statistics of trade with the United States-a trade which has not been disturbed either by a reciprocity treaty or by a surtax. In 1891, when dutiable imports from Great Britain were of the value of $24,300,000, those from the United States amounted to $29,790,000. By 1911, when British dutiable imports had increased to $84,511,835, those from the United States reached the value of $153,167,000, while of duty-free imports Canada imported from Great Britain to the value of $25,422,830 and from the United States to the value of $121,777,000. It will thus be seen that, while British imports, with all the supposed advantages of the preference, increased almost three and a half times in value, American imports increased more than five times. In 1896 British imports, free and dutiable, formed 31.15 per cent. of all imports into Canada, while American imports amounted to 50 80 per cent. In 1911 the proportion of British imports, free and dutiable, had decreased to 24.34 per cent., while the percentage of the whole import trade of the Dominion held by the United States had risen to 60.84.

The aim of this article is to record the history of Preference since it was first enacted in 1897, to recall the political conditions under which it was conceived, and to

describe the changes which it has undergone since 1904, when the Laurier Government, in consequence of pressure from the manufacturers, began to weaken on the policy it had adopted in 1897. An endeavour has been made to explain the forces that have been working against Preference since it was first adopted, and also the forces that have combined since 1905 to secure its maintenance and if possible to extend it and to widen the market for British manufactures in the Dominion. The interests hostile to Preference are solely those of the manufacturers. Consumers generally are heartily in favour of it; but the only organised forces that have made any fight for it are the farmers of Ontario and the graingrowers of the three western provinces. The graingrowers will become a much stronger factor in Dominion politics after the redistribution of electoral power that is now due following the census of 1910. The prairie provinces, which now have 27 members in the House of Commons, will have at least 42 after the redistribution; and, however much the manufacturers may press for further curtailment of preference and for increases in the duties in the general list, any government, Conservative or Liberal, must pay heed to the growing demand of the West for lower duties in the general tariff and for the increase of the British preference to fifty per cent. Canada for half a century has been much influenced by the tariff legislation of the United States. It may now be assumed that duties in the American tariff have reached their climax. The tendency is now in the direction of lower duties; and any general reduction in the duties in the American tariff, such as is expected at the coming revision, will react on Canada and strengthen the demand for freer trade with the United States and for further reductions in the duties on imports from Great Britain.

EDWARD PORRITT.

PENGE PUBLIC LIBRARY.