had never converted anybody to anything, and
never would, possibly because the governing principle of his life was
the terror of being converted to anything himself. If an important
nonentity is an imaginable thing, perhaps it would stand for Mr Milburn;
and he found it a more valuable combination than it may appear, since
his importance gave him position and opportunity, and his nonentity
saved him from their risks. Certainly he had not imposed his view upon
his fellow-members--they would have blown it off like a feather--yet
they found themselves much of his mind. Most of them were manufacturing
men of the Conservative party, whose factories had been nursed by high
duties upon the goods of outsiders, and few even of the Liberals among
them felt inclined to abandon this immediate safeguard for a benefit
more or less remote, and more or less disputable. John Murchison
thought otherwise, and put it in few words as usual. He said he was more
concerned to see big prices in British markets for Canadian crops than
he was to put big prices on ironware he couldn't sell. He was more
afraid of hard times among the farmers of Canada than he was of
competition by the manufacturers of England. That is what he said when
he was asked if it didn't go against the grain a little to have to
support a son who advocated low duties on British ranges; and when he
was not asked he said nothing, disliking the discount that was naturally
put upon his opinion. Parsons, of the Blanket Mills, bolted at the first
hint of the new policy and justified it by reminding people that he
always said he would if it ever looked like business.

"We give their woollen goods a pull of a third as it is," he said,
"which is just a third more than I approve of. I don't propose to vote
to make it any bigger--can't afford it."

He had some followers, but there were also some, like Young, of the
Plough Works, and Windle, who made bicycles, who announced that there
was no need to change their politics to defeat a measure that had no
existence, and never would have. What sickened them, they declared, was
to see young Murchison allowed to give it so much prominence as Liberal
doctrine. The party had been strong enough to hold South Fox for the
best part of the last twenty years on the old principles, and this
British boot-licking feature wasn't going to do it any good. It was fool
politics in the opinion of Mr Young and Mr Windle.

Then remained the retail trades, th