rates on Canadian products, imposing the much
higher general rates. The Laurier Government protested that the
British preference was a family affair, and that so long as Germany was
given the same rates as other foreign countries she had no excuse for
retaliation. But this soft answer did not turn away Teutonic wrath; so
in 1903 Canada retorted in kind, by levying a surtax of one-third on
German goods. The war of tariffs lasted seven years. While it
hampered the trade of both countries, German exports were much the
hardest hit. Germany took the initiative in seeking a truce, and in
1910 an agreement was reached between Mr Fielding and the German
consul-general. Germany dropped her protest against the British
preference, and gave the Dominion the {252} minimum rates on the most
important dutiable exports in return for, not the intermediate, but the
general tariff rates. So ended one of the few instances of successful
retaliation in all the chequered annals of tariff history.

Secondly, as to men. This was the issue with Asiatic powers. The
opposition to Asiatic immigration, so strong in Australia and South
Africa as well as in the United States, prevailed in Western Canada.
Working men demanded protection against the too cheap--and too
efficient--labour of the Asiatic as validly as manufacturers objected
to the importation of the products of European 'pauper labour.'
Stronger, perhaps, was the cry for a White Canada based on the
difficulty of assimilation and the danger to national unity of huge
colonies of Asiatics in the thinly peopled province beyond the
mountains.

Chinese navvies first came to Canada to aid in building the government
sections of the Canadian Pacific Railway. An immediate outcry
followed, and in 1885 a head-tax of $50 was imposed on all Chinese
immigrants not of the official, merchant, or scholar classes. During
the nineties slightly over two thousand {253} a year paid the price of
admission to the Promised Land. Then growing prosperity attracted
greater swarms. Doubling the tax in 1901 only slightly checked the
flow, but when it was raised to $500 in 1904 the number willing to pay
the impost next year fell to eight. But higher wages, or the chance of
slipping over the United States border, soon urged many to face even
this barrier, and the number paying head-tax rose to sixteen hundred
(1910) and later to seven thousand (1913). These rising numbers led
British Columbia to demand to