276 THE GROWTH OF CANADA 



and laboriously building up a purely Canadian 

 economy. The spirit that sustains such sac 

 rifices, however noble and exalted it undoubtedly 

 may be in some aspects, is notoriously not the 

 spirit that most promotes cordial friendships 

 among neighboring peoples. The simultaneous 

 renascence of protectionism in the United States 

 and Canada had a very close relation to the 

 friction that became spectacular in the eighties 

 and the early nineties. The immediate source 

 of the friction was the very familiar old ques 

 tion of the inshore fisheries on the Atlantic 

 coast, with later a less familiar but no less troub 

 lesome dispute over the seal fisheries of the far 

 northwestern ocean. 



The Treaty of Washington of 1871, as we 

 have seen, admitted Americans to the inshore 

 fisheries on the coast of the Dominion, in return 

 for the admission of fish and fish-oil free of 

 duty to the United States and such additional 

 compensation as should be awarded by arbi 

 trators. This arrangement went into effect July 

 i, 1873, and a year later Newfoundland became 

 a party to it. The award of $5,500,000 by 

 the Halifax commission practically sounded the 

 knell of this arrangement. The amount was 

 deemed exorbitant by most Americans com- 



