n to power, and presently their new tariff
out-M'Kinleyed the M'Kinley Act of 1890, raising the duties, which the
Democrats had lowered, to a higher level than formerly. Little had yet
occurred to change the provincial bumptiousness of the American
attitude towards other nations--though there had been a reaction in the
country from President Cleveland's fulminations of 1895 on the
Venezuelan question--or to arouse towards Great Britain or Canada the
deeper feelings of friendship {209} which common tongue and common
blood should have inspired. Moreover, the special difficulty that
faces all negotiations with the United States, the division of power
between President and Congress, remained in full intensity, for
President M'Kinley made the scrupulous observance of the constitutional
limits of his authority the first article in his political creed. In
Canada a still rankling antagonism bred of the Venezuelan episode made
the situation all the worse. Yet the many issues outstanding between
the two countries made negotiation imperative.

A Joint High Commission was appointed, which opened its sessions at
Quebec in August 1898. Lord Herschell, representing the United
Kingdom, acted as chairman. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Sir Richard
Cartwright, Sir Louis Davies, and John Charlton represented Canada.
Sir James Winter sat for Newfoundland and Senator Fairbanks, Senator
Gray, Congressman Dingley, General Foster, Mr Kasson, and Mr Coolidge
for the United States. The Commission sat at Quebec until October and
adjourned to meet at Washington in November. There it continued its
sessions and approached a solution of most of the difficulties. It
seemed possible to give {210} permanence to the existing unstable
arrangements for shipping goods through in bond, to abolish the
unneighbourly alien labour laws, to provide that Canadian sealers
should give up their rights in Bering Sea for a money payment, and to
arrange for a measure of reciprocity in natural products and in a
limited list of manufactures. But the question of the Alaskan boundary
proved insoluble, and the Commission broke up in February 1899.

Step by step the long and often uncertain border between Canada and the
United States proper had been defined and accepted. Only the boundary
between Canada and Alaska remained in dispute. There was a difference
of opinion as to the meaning of certain words in the treaty of 1825
which defined, or purported to define, the bounda