34 THE STORY OF THE U.F.O. 



would overthrow ultimately the policy of pro- 

 tection in Canada, had something to do with it. 

 At any rate the protected interests decided to 

 oppose the Reciprocity Agreement. The writer 

 has a distinct recollection of riding some miles 

 on a train in Ontario in early February of 1911 

 with a prominent Conservative member of 

 parliament, and engaging him in a conversation, 

 in which the latter was asked what he thought of 

 the proposed reciprocity arrangement. He 

 replied, "It is what we have sought for and 

 needed ever since Confederation." Five or six 

 weeks later the writer heard the same member 

 of , parliament denouncing, before a specially 

 called meeting, the same reciprocity pact, as an 

 agreement which would ruin Canada and sell her, 

 body and soul, to the United States. Thus is 

 seen the insincerity in the organized opposition 

 to this thing which had been sought by the 

 farmers, but which the protected interests 

 decided must be defeated, because it might 

 possibly prove encouraging to those who would 

 sweep away the stranglehold which these inter- 

 ests had upon the wealth of Canada. With the 

 course of that campaign the public of Canada 

 are familiar. The farm organization was com- 

 mitted to an issue; it had indeed been the force 

 which gave rise to that issue. They found that 

 issue beclouded, obscured by a mass of entirely 



