fic, for the treaty drawn up in 1911 by the experts from both
countries failed to pass the United States Senate.

But the most striking development of the decade was the businesslike
and neighborly solution found for the settlement of the boundary waters
controversy. The growing demands for the use of streams such as the
Niagara, the St. Lawrence, and the Sault for power purposes, and of
western border rivers for irrigation schemes, made it essential to take
joint action to reconcile not merely the conflicting claims from the
opposite sides of the border but the conflicting claims of power and
navigation and other interests in each country. In 1905 a temporary
waterways commission was appointed, and four years later the Boundary
Waters Treaty provided for the establishment of a permanent Joint High
Commission, consisting of three representatives from each country,
and with authority over all cases of use, obstruction, or diversion of
border waters. Individual citizens of either country were allowed to
present their case directly before the Commission, an innovation in
international practice. Still more significant of the new spirit was
the inclusion in this treaty of a clause providing for reference to
the Commission, with the consent of the United States Senate and the
Dominion Cabinet, of any matter whatever at issue between the two
countries. With little discussion and as a matter of course, the two
democracies, in the closing years of a full century of peace, thus made
provision for the sane and friendly settlement of future line-fence
disputes.

The chief barrier to good relations was the customs tariff.
Protectionism, and the attitude of which it was born and which it bred
in turn, was still firmly entrenched in both countries. Tariff bars, it
is true, had not been able to prevent the rapid growth of trade; imports
from the United States to Canada had grown especially fast and Canada
now ranked third in the list of the Republic's customers. Yet in many
ways the tariff hindered free intercourse. Though every dictate of
self-interest and good sense demanded a reduction of duties, Canada
would not and did not take the initiative. Time and again she had
sought reciprocity, only to have her proposals rejected, often with
contemptuous indifference. When Sir Wilfrid Laurier announced in 1900
that there would be no more pilgrimages to Washington, he voiced the
almost unanimous opinion of a people whose pride had been hur