and the period of our complete emancipation from that country in these two lines is near at hand. The export of agricultural products and of animals and their produc', the produce of Canada, to Great Britain for the year 1896 were as follows: Export of agricultural products, the produce of Canada, to Great $9,551,316 Export of animals and their products, the produce of Canada, to 32,528,071 $42,074,387 It would of course be advantageous to Canada to obtain access to the American market for barley, beans, vegetables, live stock, and various other items of farm products, but if debarred from such entry the Canadian farmer can simply turn his attention to the production of other articles suitable for the English trade, and perhaps on the whole he will be nearly as well off as he would be with an open American market. At the present time there is good ground for the assertion that the Canadian farmer is in a better position than is the farmer of the United States. It was anticipated that the reciprocity section of the Dingley bill would contain provisions opening the way for entering upon negotiations with the Executive and the Senate of the United States for a broad and liberal reciprocity treaty. When the reciprocity provision was inserted, after the bill had been reported to the Senate by the Finance Committee, it provided : "For the transfer during such period (five years) from the dutiable list of this Act to the free list thereof, of such goods, wares, and merchandise, being the natural products of such foreign country or countries, and not of the United States." Representations were at once made to the Conference Committee, to the President, and to the Secretary of the Treasury, that the natural products of Canada and of the United States were the same so far as Canada was concerned, and that under the provision above quoted Canada was barred from even attempting to enter upon negotiations for a reciprocity treaty that would cover a single natural product of the country. The provision was nevertheless retained, and now Canadian statesmen will ruminate upon the question whether the United States government is to be understood as shutting the door in the face of Canada, and telling her to be gone, and to cease from pestering men who have more important matters to attend to, with senseless twaddle about better feeling and more liberal com. mercial relations. It seems probable, in view of the fact that intimate trade relations between Canada and the United States would obviously be so highly advantageous to both countries, that, acting under the mistaken idea that the American market is absolutely necessary to Canada, repression and high duties have been resorted to for the purpose of convincing the Canadian that if his country desires the great advantages which an immense market close at hand would confer, it must surrender its political autonomy and come into the American Union. If this motive has dictated the policy pursued, the fruits are certain to be diametrically opposite to the result it has been sought thereby to attain. No more potent influence than the Dingley bill can be called into action for the purpose of rendering harmony, good will, and, much more, political union impossible. The Anglo-Saxon does not respond readily to coercive measures. The average Canadian can have no knowledge other than theoretical as to the advantages in a commercial or material sense that political union would confer upon him, for the period of commercial intimacy and broad liberal trade relations between the two countries passed away thirty-one years ago, and he has had no object lesson to impress his mind with the advantages to be derived from continental free trade. As to the political benefits arising from political union, he is sceptical beyond the power of conviction, believing that his own form of government, founded upon the British model, is the best that exists upon this continent. Any idea that the Dominion can be starved into an aspiration for different political conditions is utterly chimerical. The Liberal leaders of Canada desire most cordial and friendly relations of a social, political, and business character with the United States. They are prepared to meet that country half way in the liberal arrangement of duties and adjustment of commercial relations. They sincerely desire to make use of the influence of Canada for the purpose of promoting better relations between the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon family. They do not believe that political union is essential to the promotion of the best interests of the Anglo-Saxon race upon the American continent. They do believe that all the commonwealths springing from the English stock, and speaking the English language, may with advantage to themselves and to humanity at large act in concert; and that no diversity of interests exists of a character that need in the slightest degree interfere with the consummation of such a relationship between the British Empire and America. We ask American public men to consider carefully the conditions that confront the United States and Canada as concerns their relations with each other; to meet us in a spirit of friendliness, and to remember that their great superiority in wealth, population, and power gives to them such advantage in position and influence that they can afford to treat us with generosity, with the well-grounded assurance that the fruits of such a policy will in the future be abundant and satisfactory. JOHN CHARLTON. ANOTHER VIEW OF THE UNION LABEL. BY STARR HOYT NICHOLS. In an article published in a recent number of this REVIEW Miss M. E. J. Kelley sets forth the value and importance of the device of the union label as an instrument for improving the conditions of work among laborers. Like all its advocates, she approves of it as a means for insuring the production of goods under circumstances favorable to the health and comfort and proper wage-remuneration of artisans. She believes that its adoption tends to abolish the miseries of the sweat-shop, tenementhouse production, the employment of children, danger of infection from contact with disease, and all other undesirable proximities. Seeing in the union label a working instrument available for such excellent uses, she naturally lauds it and hopes great things from an increase of its use by manufacturers of every kind. Some misgivings, however, as to other purposes to which the label is put seem to flit like thin clouds over the sky of her hopes, and to darken the prospect, though she makes but light account of those in comparison with its array of benefits. She seems not to be aware that the real value of the label in the eyes of its supporters and users lies not so much in alleged benevolences derivable from its general adoption, as in its force as a weapon to bring business and business men under the control of trade unions as representing working men. This is quite in accordance with the general assumption of many, if not of most artisans, of some of the newspapers, and of a large body of the public, that the working classes would be better managers of business, if they could once really get hold of it, than are the men who create, extend, and dominate all larger concerns, as a matter of fact; their sincere belief being that if all who are not capitalists could sequester the property of those who are, they both could and would apply it to the general profit and benefit better and more effectually than do the greedy appropriators of opportunities who now misarrange the resources of the world to their own selfish aggrandizement alone. With that end in view, they prize the union label as an effective weapon to bring more business under the control of the working classes. The real virtue of the label in their eyes is that it is a fighting instrument in the hands of trade unions to advance their own power and secure their own ends. It is not, as Miss Kelley avers, a substitute for the strike and the boycott, but it is a device to make the boycott more efficient, wider in its range, and more easily applied. All other advantages which it may possess are secondary to its coerciveness in this direction. A little examination of the methods used by its promoters will show how essentially warlike its intentions and purposes are. In the first place, the union label would have no force at all if it were used, as its advocates pretend, simply to indicate that the goods to which it is attached have been made under conditions suitable to the well-being of the workmen. Not one consumer in a thousand would ever buy an article for such a reason. The consumer buys because he wants the thing he purchases, and because he is satisfied with its quality and price. He no more thinks of asking how its maker lives than he thinks of asking about the living of the farmer of whom he buys his wheat, or the condition of the men who grew his sugar or tea. Such inquiries reach too far beyond the possible circle of business activities to be prescribed to any great extent. One has too much to do to keep one's own conditions satisfactory to oneself to ask about the concerns of people who make his soap and shoes and hats and starch and nails and bicycles and boats, nor could any society or union, or group of societies or unions, make sure beyond a very narrow circle that all kinds of goods were produced under conditions the best for their producers. If they did do this, the supervision itself would be so expensive as to make a serious addition to the price of the goods. It would put them out of the reach of ordinary buyers, who can only afford what they buy when rates are low. In fact, as matters now stand, it is stoutly asserted by men who have personally examined the facts that union labels have been found on tenement-house made cigars and sweat-shop clothing. And it is plain that until work |
