President Taft realized that he had antagonized the growing low-tariff sentiment of the country by his support of the Payne-Aldrich tariff and was eager to set himself right.A week before the March negotiations were concluded, a Democratic candidate had carried a strongly Republican congressional district in Massachusetts on a platform of reciprocity with Canada.The President, therefore, proposed a bold stroke.He made a sweeping offer of better trade relations.Negotiations were begun at Ottawa and concluded in Washington.In January, 1911, announcement was made that a broad agreement had been effected.
Grain, fruit, and vegetables, dairy and most farm products, fish, hewn timber and sawn lumber, and several minerals were put on the free list.A few manufactures were also made free, and the duties on meats, flour, coal, agricultural implements, and other products were substantially reduced.The compact was to be carried out, not by treaty, but by concurrent legislation.Canada was to extend the same terms to the most favored nations by treaty, and to all parts of the British Empire by policy.
For fifty years the administrations of the two countries had never been so nearly at one.More difficulty was met with in the legislatures.In Congress, farmers and fishermen, standpat Republicans and Progressives hostile to the Administration, waged war against the bargain.It was only in a special session, and with the aid of Democratic votes and a Washington July sun, that the opposition was overcome.In the Canadian Parliament, after some initial hesitation, the Conservatives attacked the proposal.
The Government had a safe majority, but the Opposition resorted to obstruction; and late in July, Parliament was suddenly dissolved and the Government appealed to the country.
When the bargain was first concluded, the Canadian Government had imagined it would meet little opposition, for it was precisely the type of agreement that Government after Government, Conservative as well as Liberal, had sought in vain for over forty years.For a day or two that expectation was justified.
Then the forces of opposition rallied, timid questioning gave way to violent denunciation, and at last agreement and Government alike were swept away in a flood of popular antagonism.
One reason for this result was that the verdict was given in a general election, not in a referendum.The fate of the Government was involved; its general record was brought up for review; party ambitions and passions were stirred to the utmost.Fifteen years, of office-holding had meant the accumulation of many scandals, a slackening in administrative efficiency, and the cooling by official compromise of the ardent faith of the Liberalism of the earlier day.The Government had failed to bring in enough new blood.The Opposition fought with the desperation of fifteen years of fasting and was better served by its press.
Of the side issues introduced into the campaign, the most important were the naval policy in Quebec and the racial and religious issue in the English-speaking provinces.The Government had to face what Sir Wilfrid Laurier termed "the unholy alliance"of Roman Catholic Nationalists under Bourassa in Quebec and Protestant Imperialists in Ontario.In the French-speaking districts the Government was denounced for allowing Canada to be drawn into the vortex of militarism and imperialism and for sacrificing the interests of Roman Catholic schools in the West.
On every hand the naval policy was attacked as inevitably bringing in its train conscription to fight European wars a contention hotly denied by the Liberals.The Conservative campaign managers made a working arrangement with the Nationalists as to candidates and helped liberally in circulating Bourassa's newspaper, Le Devoir.On the back "concessions" of Ontario a quieter but no less effective campaign was carried on against the domination of Canadian politics by a French Roman Catholic province and a French Roman Catholic Prime Minister.In vain the Liberals appealed to national unity or started back fires in Ontario by insisting that a vote for Borden meant a vote for Bourassa.The Conservative-Nationalist alliance cost the Government many seats in Quebec and apparently did not frighten Ontario.
