A FAR-REACHING PROBLEM.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 86, 12 April 1911, Page 6

A FAR-REACHING PROBLEM.

The proposed agreement for fiscal reciprocity between Canada and the United States continues to constitute one of the most interesting, exciting, and farreaching problems that the Empire has ever had to consider. It was towards the end of January that the announcement was made that a provisional agreement had been arrived at between tho Commissioners representing the two countries primarily concerned. Yet the final issue is still uncertain, and with every week of the long delay tho interest has giown keener. On neither side of tho frontier ig the confirmation of tho arrangement by the Legislature a certainty, though on both the cliancea appear to be in favour of it. There is, however, a, material difference between the two cases. In the United States the issue seems to be mainly in ths hands of tho politicians, who arc, of courec, pulkd this way and that by tho op-

posing business interests affected. In Canada, not only are the manufacturers, the merchants, and tho producers raoro deeply moved, but. there is ar intense stirring of patriotic sentiment on the part of the people as a whole to which the United States can offer but a very faint parallel. This difference is as natural as it is profound. The population of Canada is about 8,000.000, while that of tho United States is over 90,000,000, and, except in regard to extent of territory and undeveloped natural resources, the disparity between tha two countries in the other elements of national power is on much the same scale. Either a partnership or a competition between two nations which are so unequally matched is necessarily a very much more serious matter for the smaller and weaker nation than for the other. Tlierß is an ancient fable which tells how a cock nestling in the straw of a. siaWe was in. sore peril from the stamping and kicking of the rightful 00- j cupants. So he gravely admonished the horses, saying, "Pray, my good friends, let us have a care that we don't tread j upon one another." The moral of j which, drawn and expressed in the good old .style, ie that "unequal convcrsa- \ tions aro dangerous and inconvenient to the weaker side in many respects, | whether it be in regard of quality, fortune, or the like." If Canada elects to share a stable with her colossal neighbour, she wiil need. to be as careful as the cock that they do not tread on one another. { Whatever may be the immediate outcome, we feel satisfied that in the long run tho present agitation must make for the good of Canada and the Empire. It has brought the oldest and most powerful of the oversea Dominions face to face with tho ultimate Imperial problem in a, vivid and striking way which has set many thinking who were thoughtless before. There has been a decided disposition on the paa-fc even of many of tho genuine supporters of Imperialism in Canada to both eat their cake and have it. This tend-ancy was exhibited in a very 6ignal fashion in the course of the discussion of the Navy Bill which was introduced in the Canadian Parliament at the beginning of last year. Tho theory that Canada could remain a part of the British Empire and yet be at peace while the rest of the Empire was at war is too .absurd to stand the test of exact analysis for a moment, yet consciously or unconsciously it has coloured a very large part of Canada's Imperial thinking. To have tho fallacy exposed by the cruel stress of war would have been a bitter and possibly a disastrous experience, but the present discussion should have served this purpose with a minimum of heart-burning and inconvenience. There are three |»cesible dc«tinics for Canada— to amalgamate with the United States, to set up as a nation on her own account after severing the last of her formal ties with tho Britioh Empire, or to strengthen those ties and assume an active paxt in some organic Imperial union. It is the first of these assucfi that has been directly raised by tha proposed agreement with the United States, but both tho critics and the supportera of the agreement have been inovitably driven to a discussion of the other two. The result is that there has been a fuller discussion in Canada of her ultimate destiny than there has ever been since the completion of federation set her foot on the road to nationhood, and the Imperial spirit has been quickened to a remarkable extent in the one of the daughter States which has hitherto been the least disposed to tighten tho Imperial bond. All partite in Canada are agreed to oppose absorption In the United States, and the discussion of the reciprocity agreement has enabled them all to appreciate the true perspective of her relations with tho Empire better than ever before.