donald had been
held successively by Sir J. J. C. Abbott, Sir John Thompson, who died
at Windsor, where he had gone to take the oath of office of privy
councillor, Sir Mackenzie Bowell, and Sir Charles Tupper.

[Illustration: Sir Wilfrid Laurier (_From a photograph by Ernest H.
Mills._)]

The following year (1897) the Liberal Government revised the tariff,
retaining the protective features, and enlarging the system of bounties
for the encouragement of industry which had been commenced in 1883.
The tariff was modified, however, by the establishment of a preference
for Great Britain, which, beginning at a reduction of one-eighth from
the general tariff, was increased to one-fourth, and finally in 1900 to
one-third. This reduction remained in force until 1906-7, when the
tariff was again revised and arranged in three lists--general,
intermediate, and British preference. The intermediate tariff was
intended as a basis of negotiation whereby Canada might obtain
concessions from foreign countries. After the concession of the
British preference in 1897, Great Britain, at the request of Canada,
denounced her commercial treaties with several foreign countries, under
the terms of which concessions granted by the colonies to the mother
country would have had to be extended to the treaty countries. Germany
was one of these countries, and on the expiration of the treaty Germany
showed her resentment by applying her maximum tariff to Canada. Canada
retaliated by the imposition of a surtax on German goods, and a tariff
war ensued, which resulted in a much higher degree of {416} protection
for Canadian manufacturers whose products came into competition with
imports from Germany. The British preference was extended by Canada to
other British colonies, which in return granted advantages to Canada,
and in 1908, with the consent of Great Britain, Canada negotiated a
commercial treaty with France on the basis of the intermediate tariff,
though with numerous further concessions.

Railway building in Canada had begun as far back as 1836, when a short
length of line from La Prairie to St. John's, in the Province of
Quebec, was opened for traffic. The first link in what is now known as
the Grand Trunk Railway was constructed in 1845, when Montreal was
connected with the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railway, now the Portland
(Maine) Division of the Grand Trunk System. In 1851 the Grand Trunk
Railway Company was incorporated, and took ove