The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-08-21
CANADAINDIFFEREN1
Difficult to Get Public Men to Talk
Of Aught but the Railroad
Question.
Mckinley and Dingley Tariffs Hurt
Canada Bitterly for a Time
Conditions Adjusted Now.
From a Staff Correspondent.

From Staff Correspondent.
Ottawa, Aug. 21.-The people Of Canada
are not paying serious attention to reel
procity or to any other question not oil
rectly connected with the fate Of the pend
ing railway bill and it's probable effect on |
the liberal ministry. / have labored ear
nestly to induce public men to discuss
reciprocity with me, but with only par
tial success. They start out we'll, ana
with fair intentions, but before going far
they nearly always turn to the Grand
Trunk Pacific proposition, and with that
as an opening, proceed to analyze the
present political situation as related to
that measure exhaustively. By the time
l am able to get them back on the reel
procity track again it Is time for them
to attend to some matter OF business, or
they are called away by messenger. Once
parliament is out of the way however,
reciprocity, in government circles at least,
will press to the fore front, and then we
ought to know whether it Is the purpose
Of the premier to reopen the correspond
ence with Senator Fairbanks and assent
to a reconvening Of the joint high com
mission in Washington during the 1ail
months. AS I have previously stated, the
correspondence will be opened unless there
Is shortly to be an appeal to the country
The question of appeal will hinge entlrely
on events not yet clearly Defined ana
there the matter must rest for some time.
teri than it was last week. It has been
estimated that the Grand Trunk Pacific
bill may be debated in the house for the
most of this week. It's passage thru that
body is conceded, but there are many
members who desire to be heard, ana
since there is no such thing here as leave
to print remarks not actually delivered
on the floor. the only way members can
get before their constituents with printed
speeches is by actually delivering those
speeches. In the senate the bill will also
be debated at some length 1t will pass
that body, also, so the leading conserva-
tives now concede. The probable date for
propagation has been pushed ahead several
notches since my first reports were made,
and while it is still possible, and per-
| haps probable, that the end will come as
early as the first week in September, there
are many who now incline to fix October
first as the date. There are several I'M
portant matters to come up following the
! passage of the railway bill, chief among
| them being the bill to reapportion the
| membership Of the house. Several Of the
! budgets are also to be completed. 1t will
| thus be seen that adjournment will not
| come as early as has been expected in the
| United States.
Canadians on Reciprocity.
In one of the restaurant rooms in the
basement of parliament house at luncheon
| to-day were several members of the house
and several politicians not members. The
| party was largely conservative, but there
! were several liberals present. The con-
versation turned for time on the United
| States, and her desire to establish reci-
| procity relations with Canada. The talk
| was not altogether friendly to the United
States, but what was said was without
malice. It showed that In Canada, as IN
the United States, public men are not
wholly agreed regarding the immediate
| need for reciprocity, and are not as a
whole prepared to accept it without reser-
walton. I shall put the table talk into
| quotation marks, al If coming from one
| man:
I'm 1891. to go back no farther, there
| was a strong sentiment in Canada IN FAVOR
of closer trade relations with the United
| States, which was our near nelghDor, anu
as we had supposed, our good friend, with
which we were already doing large and
| increasing business. When the charge
| was made at that time that reciprocity
| would probably mean annexation, there
was still a. very large element OF our peo-
pie which did not protest. Reciprocity
was an issue in an election held at about
that time, and so favorably. was 1t re-
| garded that Sir John Mcdonald retained
control Of the government by a very slen-
der margin And he would not have done
that had it not been for his tremendous
personal popularity. He threw the entire
weight Of that popularity into the scale
against reciprocity, adding that he was
soon ito retire from public life, and the
| parliament then to be, chosen
would probably be his last.
well remember his words 'wher
speaking of closer trade relations with the
| American nation and ultimate annexation
.As for me, my course is clear; English
am by birth; English shall remain unit
the last II
Effect Of American Tariffs.
while this friendly sentiment was al
| flood tide here, came the Mckinley tariff
law, and on top of that we have the pres
ent Dingley law, which, while they may
have been passed without any thought O.
US, were regarded here by the majority o.
the people as a deliberate attempt at CO.
erc1on. .*....-.
"Those tariffs hurt us tremendously
| temporarily. We had been trading almos
exclusively with the United States, and ir
| fact had then no other markets worthy
the name. Our larger trade with the
mother country came thru dire necessity
as the direct result of those tariff enact
ments. For time, as I have said, we
had no market for the hay of Quebec, the
dairy products and the lumber of Ontario