boundary in the far North-west. In 1898 a joint High
Commission was created, whose duties were to settle a number of
questions which had long caused friction between Canada and the United
States. The sessions of this Commission extended over eight months
without accomplishing anything. No formal ending was made to the work
of the Commission, but it never re-assembled after its adjournment in
February, 1899.

It was not until 1903 that an agreement was reached between Great
Britain and the United States concerning the Alaskan boundary line. In
that year a treaty was concluded by which this long-disputed question
was relegated to a Commission of six jurists, three British and three
American, who by a majority vote were empowered to determine the
boundary line. The British members of the Commission were Lord
Alverstone, Chief Justice of England, who was made president, with a
casting vote in case of a tie, and two Canadians, Sir Louis Jette and
Mr. A. B. Aylesworth, both eminent jurists. The American members were
Mr. Henry C. Lodge, Mr. Elihu Root, and Mr. George Turner. The {431}
report of the Commission, which was transmitted to the Governments of
the United States and Great Britain in October, 1903, was somewhat
disappointing to Canadians, as, on the whole, the Americans gained
their contentions. Canada was shut out from water communication with
the Yukon as far south as Portland Channel. The treaty in which this
report was incorporated, and which was finally ratified in 1905, was,
however, beneficial in removing a long-standing cause of irritation
between the two nations, and Canada's need for a port was met in some
degree by bonding concessions at the American ports on the Alaskan
coast. An International Commission to mark out the boundary line was
at work in Alaska in the summer of 1908.

Serious disturbance to a number of Canadian interests, especially those
of the lumbermen, was caused by the passing of the Dingley Act, with
its high duties on all Canadian exports except some raw materials. To
the attack on Canadian lumber Ontario replied by prohibiting the export
of saw logs cut on Crown timber limits, a step which led to the
transfer of a considerable number of saw mills to the Canadian side of
the border line. Another cause of complaint against the United States
has been the strict and harsh enforcement of the contract labour laws
on the American side of the boundary line.

It is the not unfounded