sent to any. Some of these facts were developed by me before the executive council of the state board of trade on the 21st of January, but not until all the boards whose delegates were present had acted on the subject.

Every one knows how easy it is to get petitions signed, but I doubt if one in one hundred of the signers knew anything of the subject beyond the fact that there is a large trade between the United States and Canada, and that reciprocity would probably increase it, and promote the conveniences of both peoples. If this were all of the subject, every one of us could petition for reciprocity.

But the fact is that in 1898 the subject was committed to the joint high commission, and negotiations came to a standstill, because the Canadians demanded the cession of a slice of Alaska as the price for reciprocity, or rather as a prerequisite to any further attempt to agree on the subject. They had previously almost ended the discussion by insisting that whatever concessions should be made to the United States must be made to Great Britain also, and they already give Great Britain a preference of 33 1-3 per cent.

The Canadian government having thus acted, and the joint high commission having separated, to be convened again whenever the governments should wish, it seemed to some of us undignified and against the interests of the United States, not to say disrespectful to our commissioners, to petition Congress on the subject.

When Senator Hoar presented the petitions he took occasion to remark that he was afraid they might embarrass the American commissioners and put this country at a disadvantage in trading for good terms, because the Canadians could reply, "You cannot be too particular, for your people are clamorous, and you must heed their cry." He did not think this was a shrewd Yankee way of trading, and he was clearly right.

Moreover, the only suggestions for reciprocity heard from the Canadians

confine it to natural products. They do not propose to take our manufactures on favored terms. This would hurt our farmers and fishermen, and not benefit the great manufacturing interests of New England. It is a onesided affair, such as the business organizations of Massachusetts would never have thought of petitioning for if they had been informed of the facts.

The House of Representativesthanks largely to such a good business man as Mr. Bemis of Foxboro-informed itself, and when, later, it was seen that the resolution was especially championed by the Democratic leader of the House and supported by his associates as a party matter, they defeated it by increasingly heavy votes.

Now this does not warrant the Herald's inference that these representatives or any others are opposed to reciprocity with Canada. The opposite is the truth. We are all in favor of it if it can be shaped so as to be fair, and we believe that the only way we can ever get it is to first give the Canadians to understand that it is to be purchased at no cost of territory and no sacrifice of one industry for the benefit of another. ALBERT CLARKE.

Boston, June 5, 1902.

THE HERALD'S REPLY.

Colonel Albert Clarke's letter, which we print in another column, on the question of Canadian reciprocity, is an added illustration of his inability to rightly gauge existing industrial conditions. It is pretty clear, from the intimate knowledge that he appears to possess of the method in which the Canadian reciprocity resolution defeated in the lower branch of our Legislature, that Colonel Clarke, as Secretary of the Home Market Club, made himself specially active in his efforts to bring about that result. The friends of Canadian reciprocity, representing several of our great commercial organizations, made their statement be

was

fore the joint committee on federal relations, and as the result of their presentations had a favorable report made by the committee. They did not at that time at these public hearings find any difficulty in meeting the adverse arguments raised and in convincing a majority of the committee of the soundness of their position. But the opponents of the measure apparently then transferred their activity to the lobbies of the Legislature for the purpose of making it out that this was a political device, and that, by acting as a majority of the committee had recommended, the Republicans of the Legislature would be playing into the hands of their political opponents, although the resolution in question was drawn on the lines of President McKinley's last address at Buffalo.

We have before this pointed out, what we are prepared to maintain, that the joint high Anglo-American commission has adjourned never to reconvene, and hence to assume that a resolution in favor of Canadian reciprocity passed at the present time would be "disrespectful to our commissioners" is a ridiculous instance of false pleading. The subject matter at the present time is as open to agitation and petition as it ever was, and is by no means like a case in court which should not be discussed until the verdict has been given. Colonel Clarke affirms that he is in favor of reciprocity, but he has never yet been willing to point out in what way he proposes to attain this result.

Hitherto such propositions as have materialized into definite official action have come from the Canadian government, and some time ago the Canadian premier made the official statement that, as all of the initiative on these lines had been the work of Canada, as no forward progress had been made, he did not propose to again make the first step in this direction, and hence, unless the other side was willing to take up the matter, Canada must be prepared to fashion her trade policy to suit her own interests. This was nothing more

than was to be expected. We cannot continue to shut the door of friendly negotiation in the face of people of our own blood without in time provoking from them action of retaliation similar to that which we should resort to if our national wishes were somewhat contemptuously considered by foreigners. It takes two to make a trade as well as to make a quarrel, and if, following out the broad, statesmanlike ideas of Colonel Clarke, we insist that we will not trade or make any voluntary effort toward negotiating an agreement, then we must be prepared to accept the other alternative.

What this will be we shall probably discover before the next twelve months are over. In the last five years, by such blind leadership as that of which Colonel Clarke is the exponent, we have succeeded in converting the party of the political majority in Canada from their wish to form intimate relations with the American people-a wish so strong that a few years ago the Canadian Conservatives accused them of wishing to annex the Dominion to the United States-into devoted friends and supporters of the strongest possible connection with England. If the policy of the United States government had been properly shaped for the attainment both of diplomatic and commercial results, we should by this time have bound Canada so closely to us with trade ties as to have made her industrially and, to a large degree, politically independent of Great Britain. The interests of her people would then have centred in the United States, and whatever seemed best for us would have appeared obviously best for them. Such a line of action requires on the part of those who are developing it broad and farsighted conceptions of national interests, but those who see nothing in a great international negotiation but its effect upon a dozen of eggs or a peck of pota toes are hopelessly incapable of realizing the needs of the hour. As President McKinley said in his Buffalo speech of September 5: