296 THE GROWTH OF CANADA 



and the United States. The basis of the move 

 ment was the despair of ever securing other 

 wise such trade relations with the powerful 

 neighbor as would bring real prosperity to the 

 people of the Dominion. The rejection of 

 reciprocity of the old sort in 1888 and the 

 triumph of the protectionists in the presiden 

 tial elections of that year were held to have 

 ended all hope of escaping the ruthless extinc 

 tion of Canada s industrial independence. With 

 out ill feeling toward the mother-land and with 

 out desire to sever the political ties uniting the 

 colony to her, the advocates of commercial 

 union frankly declared that to Canadians, as 

 conditions had developed, the economic bur 

 den of the British connection had become too 

 great to be borne. Goldwin Smith, the lit 

 erary high priest of this creed, sustained it with 

 all the frigid doctrinaire logic of Manchesterism 

 in its best estate, contending that geography 

 made physically inevitable, and political econ 

 omy made morally necessary, the annexation of 

 Canada to the United States. Federation with 

 the far-flung fragments of English-speaking 

 humanity was to him a ridiculous dream. The 

 Liberal Party in the Dominion, with its tradi 

 tion of free trade, showed some tenderness for 



