New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-09-07
0nR TARLEE FOR CANADA.

Our esteemed contemporary 1.-The Toronto
Globe " appears to think it necessary to attack
the American system of Protection in order to
enforce it's attacks upon the Canadian system
as embodied in Sir John Macdona,dS So-called
National Policy. In this, as we think, 1.-The
Globe" makes a serious mistake. 1t ms!cads
its readers and exercises an influence which
tends to retard rather than promote free trade
with Canada. Methods of customs taxation are
matters of policy What may be meat for one
country may be poison for another. The argu-
ments that sustain Protection here, where we
have every variety of soil and climate, and
where. as a first-cass Nation, we cannot afford
to depend on foreigners for any article neceS-
sary to our subsistence and independence that
we can ourselves produce do not apply to
Canada The United States are natural union
and they cover a continent, and with free
trade among themselves their people can grow
in prosperity with small regard to what goes
on beyond the oceans that bound their shores.
II does not follow that foreign trade is I'M
desirable, but experience has abundantly shown
that that industrial policy is wiSest for them
which, while opening their ports widely and
freely to all those foreign products that they do
not and cannot themselves create, holds in
check such importations as compete with their
own productions.
The situation in Canada is different. 1t is
not a natural union. 1t is political league of
communities widely separated by intervening
deserts, and the natural avenues of exchange
for each community are invariably to the south
and not to the east and west. They ale small
communities They have but one climate, and
their natural range of production is narrow.
To them the policy of Protection is an attempt
to make four geographical divisions of country
with substantially the same climate and re-
sources prosper by trading with one another in
the things Of which each produces a surplus
No wonder it has failed. The policy of Pro
lection TO us is an entirely different matter, and
1.-THE Globe" will be a long time opening our
markets 10 Canadian goods unless il cOntriveS
to appreciate that Circumstance. How different
il is finds demonstration in the fact that while
Canada has been gaining 49S,534 people, we
have gained 1246G, 4G7 while the Maritime
Provinces and the Upper st. Lawrence country
have remained practically stationary in people
and wealth. New England and New-York of
which they are northern extensions, have in
creased enormously in both while Canada, at
an expense OF S3,UOO,OUu mas secured SOO,OOO
immigrants, the most of whom have escaped
into this country, we have received, without
expense and in the face of restrictive laws,
1000, 600; and while we have developed our
country with a comparatively small public ex-
pense and paid off thousand millions of debt
Canada has added 100000 900 to her debt
with no substantial returns, and has contributed
fully million of her most progressive citizens
TO our population.
Now comes the point. THE Globe" and
THE TRIBUNE both favor free trade between
Canada and the United States" The Globe
pasSionately, TIE TRIBUNE in1iffennty !;
and the difference in tho degree of our re-
spective dispositions on this subject illustrates
the sad fact in human nature that what men
want from a selfish motive thew want a vast