CANADA AND AMERICA

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 224, 16 January 1911, Page 5

CANADA AND AMERICA

THE PREMIER'S VIEW. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. Received 18, 1.5 a.m. Ottawa, January 15. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Canadian Premier, replying to a deputation of Canadian manufacturers, declared his firm belief that the reciprocity agreement with the United States would not injure any Canadian Interests.

COST OF RECIPROCITY. Sir George Ross, in a striking speech on the Canadian Board of Trade in November, set forth the reasons why Canada does not want reciprocity with the United States. He pointed out that the old reciprocity treaty, according to a United States authority, was repealed in order to force Canada into annexation, and the present movement, fostered by President Taft, <was entirely the outcome of political exigency. It was well to consider, Sir George said, whether the general advantage of reciprocity in natural products might not be more , than counter-balanced by the loss to Canada in transportation. If the natural products of this country were freely admitted to the American market the railways of the United States would do a large amount of their transportation to the markets of the world. Under such an arrangement Canadian grain would be diverted from the great systems of transcontinental railways east and west which Canada has built, or is building, at enormous expense, to United States railways, and the elevators at Chicago, Buffalo, New York and Boston would be substituted for the elevators at Winnipeg, Fort William, Midland, Port Colborne, and Montreal. The speaker emphasised the unquestionably prosperous condition ot Canada without a treaty and the "freedom we enjoy of adapting our own tariff from year to year as circumstances may warrant." If a treaty were made that liberty would be lost. In ffve years Britain's investments in Canada nad been half a million dollars. Would British capitalists be as likely to decide for Canada in the future if the trade of the Dominion were directed toward the United States, for that was what reciprocity meant. An adjustment of the trade relations between the two countries by the independent) legislation of both, rather than by treaty," concluded Sir George, "is the only safe course as- it affords publicity in the first instance and admits of perfect freedom of action thereafter."