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think it is clear that no two countries in such close natural juxtaposition, interlocked by lakes, railroads, and canals, could become commercially a unit, and still remain politically separate and dis tinct. The fact is there is a good deal of jugglery with the terms "commercial" and "political." Lincoln's definition of politics is the truest I have ever read. He said: "Politics is the commercial idea carried into the affairs of the nation. Politics and commerce are indissolubly linked together, though often divorced by politicians who make a commerce of politics. A country cannot present a commercial attitude to the world different from its political attitude.

If the tariff wall was removed from across the continent, and internal free trade adopted, it is not supposable that in the consideration, or adoption, of commercial treaties with foreign nations either Canada or the United States could long act independently of the other. As a commercial unit they would be compelled to be a political unit. There is not very much doubt in the minds of many sane men in Canada, that once the Dominion has succeeded in throwing off the sentimental tie to Great Britain, annexation must quickly follow on the heels of independence and free trade with the United States. One thing is incontrovertible: if the United States declared itself in favor of free trade to-morrow, and threw its markets open to the world, as Great Britain has done, unless the people of Canada were desirous of committing commercial suicide, they would at once seek admission to the Union. Canada can hold her own fairly well, with an enormous national debt, as long as the Congress of the United States continues a policy of protection; but Canada could not manage at all with a great free trade nation of sixty-five millions on her southern border, Free trade would bring the Canadians to their knees, while such measures as the McKinley Bill only serve to arouse a bitter spirit of retaliation and dislike. For Canadians are apt to believe such legislation is intended as a blow at their trade; and are not aware of its true motive; viz., the squeezing of the purse of the American consumer for the enrichment of a clique of millionnaire monopolists. It is well to remember, in considering the future of Canada, that Bismarck secured German unity by welding all the states into a commercial whole, which he easily converted into a solid empire.

I would not for a moment disparage the potentiality of national sentiment in international questions. This article is intended simply as a criticism of the "straw loyalists" who are paraded by the party papers in Canada as the true representatives of Canadian sentiment. As a Canadian journalist, I have visited every province of the Dominion, and gauged the public feeling in each, and I may safely say that the Canadians as a people laugh to scorn any idea of closer political relations with England. The whole trend of public opinion is in the opposite direction. The most popular and influential leaders in Canada are already openly looking forward to a severance of the tic with Great Britain. The Conservative Government only retains power by a curious compound of loyalty and nationalism, which, reduced to plain English, means: Canada for the Canadians. Sir John Macdonald, in the discussion over the national policy, was warned by the Imperial Conservatives that a protective policy for Canada would injure the British connection; and his emphatic response was, "So much the worse for the British connection." Those friends of unrestricted reciprocity who are dubbed "traitors" by the government organs retort by reminding them of Sir John's famous and popular reply to the Imperial croakers.

Canadians are essentially democratic in their ideas. The English, Scotch, and Irish emigrants who have built up Canada were not recruited from the aristocratic classes, and they came here disgusted with the social gulfs and poverty of Europe, with the determination to establish homes in the New World, where aristocratic and monarchical institutions would not grind them into the Slough of Despond forever. There is nothing in common between the descendants of these people and the newly arrived Britisher, except, of course, an Anglo-Saxon speech,