that freer trade should be sought with all the world, and particularly
with Great Britain and the United States.

It was about this time, too, that D'Alton M'Carthy, who was mellowing
in religious matters and growing more radical on other issues, voiced a
demand for a reduction of customs burdens and for the adoption of
maximum and minimum schedules, the minimum rates to be given Great
Britain and British colonies and foreign countries which offered
equivalent terms, and the maximum rates to be applied to countries like
the United States which maintained prohibitive tariffs against Canadian
products. The Patrons of Industry, an organization of farmers which
for a few years had much power {158} in Ontario, also demanded tariff
reform. Even the Government went a little with public opinion and
lopped away a few 'mouldering branches' in 1894. Thus the tariff
remained an issue during the last five years of the Conservative regime.

A more burning question, however, was the revival of the old contest
over provincial rights and denominational privileges. This was the
offspring of the Equal Rights agitation, which had spread to Manitoba.
In August 1889 Joseph Martin, a member of the Manitoba Cabinet,
following D'Alton M'Carthy at a public meeting, announced that his
government would establish a non-sectarian system of education. A few
months later this was done.

When Manitoba entered Confederation, in 1870, there had been no
state-supported system of education. Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and
Presbyterians maintained denominational schools, supported by fees and
church grants. The settlers were about equally divided between
Catholics and Protestants. The Manitoba Act, Manitoba's constitutional
charter, gave the new province in most respects the same powers as the
older provinces. The province was given control of {159} education,
subject, first, to the provision that no law should be passed
prejudicially affecting any right or privilege, with respect to
denominational schools, which any class of persons had by law or
practice at the union, and subject, secondly, to an appeal to the
federal authorities from any provincial act or decision affecting the
rights of any minority, Protestant or Catholic. In 1871 a school
system much like that of Quebec was set up. Protestant schools and
Catholic schools were established, and each was granted half the
provincial appropriation. Later, as the Protestant population grew