ratified providing for a permanent International Joint Commission, to
consist of three Canadians and three Americans. The treaty provided,
further, that any matter whatever in dispute between the two countries,
quite aside from boundary-water issues, might be referred to the
commission for settlement, with the consent on the one hand of the
United States Senate, and on the other of the Governor-General in
Council--the Dominion Cabinet. Quietly, with little public discussion,
the two countries concerned thus took one of the most advanced steps
yet made towards {260} the peaceful settlement of all possible sources
of conflict.

The revival of the tariff issue was the most spectacular and most
important episode in the new relationship. The revival started in the
Republic. For some years a steadily growing agitation in favour of
reciprocity with Canada had been carried on in the New England and
Northwest states. Nothing might have come of the agitation, however,
had not the Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 compelled official negotiation
and opened up the whole broad issue. Under that tariff the system of
maximum and minimum schedules was adopted, the maximum designed to
serve as a club to compel other nations to yield their lowest rates.
The president was directed to enforce these higher duties against all
countries which had not agreed by April 1910 to grant the concessions
demanded. The proposal partook of the highwayman's methods and ethics
even more than is usual in protectionist warfare; and it was with wry
faces that one by one the nations with maximum and minimum tariffs
consented to give the United States their lower rates. France and
Germany were the last of European nations to accept. Canada {261}
alone remained. It was admitted that the preference granted other
parts of the Empire did not constitute discrimination against the
United States, but it was contended that the concessions made to France
should be given to the United States.

Canada resented this demand, in view of the fact that the minimum
tariff of the United States stood much higher than the maximum of
Canada, and it was proposed to retaliate by a surtax on American goods.
In the United States there was wide sympathy with this attitude; but
under the act the president had no option but to enforce the higher
duties if the concessions were not given. Fortunately he was left to
decide as to the adequacy of such concessions, and this made agre