such bondage by revising the tariff. The matter concerns not merely
Canada, but the South American Republics; and it is safe to say that the
present policy of blind protection is an absolute bar to the realization
of that improved American political system which is the correlative in
foreign affairs of domestic individual and social amelioration.

The desirable result of the utmost possible commercial freedom between
Canada and the United States would be to prepare the way for closer
political association. By closer political association I do not mean the
annexation of Canada to the United States. Such annexation might not be
desirable even with the consent of Canada. What I do mean is some
political recognition of the fact that the real interests of Canada in
foreign affairs coincide with the interests of the United States rather
than with the interests of Great Britain. Great Britain's interest in
the independence of Holland or in the maintenance of the Turkish power
in Europe might involve England in a European war, in which Canada would
have none but a sentimental stake, but from which she might suffer
severe losses. At bottom Canada needs for her political and commercial
welfare disentanglement from European complications just as much as does
the United States; and the diplomacy, official and unofficial, of the
United States, should seek to convince Canada of the truth of this
statement. Neither need a policy which looked in that direction
necessarily incur the enmity of Great Britain. In view of the increasing
cost of her responsibilities in Europe and in Asia, England has a great
deal to gain by concentration and by a partial retirement from the
American continent, so far as such a retirement could be effected
without being recreant to her responsibilities towards Canada. The need
of such retirement has already been indicated by the diminution of her
fleet in American waters; and if her expenses and difficulties in Europe
and Asia increase, she might be glad to reach some arrangement with
Canada and the United States which would recognize a dominant Canadian
interest in freedom from exclusively European political vicissitudes.

Such an arrangement is very remote; but it looks as if under certain
probable future conditions, a treaty along the following lines might be
acceptable to Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. The American
and the English governments would jointly guarantee the independence of
Ca