is falling. It is nearly three times as large as theirs per head, though we have had no great Civil War, and our necessary taxation is fifty per cent higher than theirs. The value of farms in Canada is everywhere going down."1

For this situation the only adequate remedy is commercial union. There is no greater error than that which assumes that the situation of our neighbors is a matter of indifference to ourselves. We cannot help sharing in their prosperity and their misfortunes. We are poorer because Canada is poor; with the increase of Canadian wealth we shall grow richer.

Commercial union would give on the best terms the great and growing trade of Canada to our merchants and manufacturers, our railroads and canals, our seaports and interior commercial centers, and, what is not less important, cheaper food and lumber to our people. Moreover, the removal of the tax on Canadian timber and lumber would check appreciably the too rapid destruction of our own forests. The fisheries' question would be settled. There would be no occasion for the petty and belittling quarrels in which we and our northern kinsmen too frequently engage. A reciprocity treaty would be better than the present arrangement; but our experience has shown that such a treaty does not exclude jealousies, and may be temporary. Full commercial union once established could not be easily overthrown and would afford little chance for bickerings. Commercial union would stimulate, it is true, the development of Canada more than that of the United States; but her gains would be ours as ours would be hers.

The fact is, that nature and history have made the Canadians and ourselves economically one people; and the loss which the denial of this fact entails, Canada is less able to bear than we. Our developed and available resources are continental, hers are those of a narrow, very irregular, and vastly extended borderland. One way by which the injurious tendencies of the existing situation can be made clear, is to suppose a line drawn from Portland, Maine, to some point on Puget's Sound so as to cut off a narrow strip of territory with 1 Goldwin Smith, Letter to The London Times, Nov. 4, 1887.

a population equal to that of the Dominion, say about five millions. Such a line would pass through Southern New Hampshire and Vermont, central New York, and from there quite close to the boundary line between the United States and Canada, until it reached its western terminus. Would it be profitable for the inhabitants of this narrow immensely extended belt or for the people of the main division of the United States to have custom-house barriers set up between them? It is evident that such a step would impoverish the smaller section and seriously lessen the wealth of the larger. The people on either side of the line would find themselves excluded from the best markets. Rochester and Buffalo would have to deal with Portland instead of New York and the natural lines of traffic would generally have to be disregarded. The northern section in order to secure industrial independence would need to diversify its industry and build up a home market by means of heavy protective duties; and these would divert labor and capital to relatively unprofitable employments. In no way, in an economic sense, could either section be benefited; and in several ways each would suffer heavy loss. But in what essential respect does the supposed case differ from that of the United States and Canada? In one respect it would be more favorable, for it is considerably shorter from Eastport to Puget's Sound than from Cape Breton to Vancouver's Island. If our Revolutionary ancestors had succeeded in their efforts to induce Canada to make common cause with the thirteen colonies, or if the hopes of annexing Canada by conquest, entertained by many Americans in 1812, had been realized, we would now be approving free trade between the provinces and the United States, as we do approve it between New York and New England.

But the political services of commercial union would perhaps outweigh its economic benefits it would at least lead both peoples to consider without prejudice the great issue of political union.

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INDEX