HALIBURTON ON COAL TRADE OF THE :N'EW DOAIINIOX. 87 



added to the foreign market for flour, the Canadian grain growers 

 would be " starved into annexation.^' He says ; — 



" To me it seems self-evident that now^ we must either be 

 drifted by industrial necessity into Annexation, even in the ab- 

 sence of any disloyalty in these provinces, or must find markets for 

 .our industry, and an outlet for our trade through means of an 

 intimate and indissoluble union of all the provinces comprising 

 British North America. 



" I believe, let me repeat, that the Provinces of British Am- 

 erica have within them the elements of independent greatness 

 and prosperity, but that these can only be reduced from chaos by 

 a certain most energetic policy immediately gone into, in respect 

 to our Provincial industry. Such a policy, I believe, would 

 have the eifect of saving to British America the advantages of 

 the continuance of the Eeciprocity Treaty with the United 

 States, in the only way this can be done, viz : — by rendering us 

 independent of it. Such a policy would at all events save these 

 North American Provinces to Britain; while, without a homely 

 and patriotic policy, the loss of them to the Empire will be more 

 than likely, especially if the Reciprocity Treaty with the United 

 States is withdrawn. My great object, therefore, is to impress 

 others with my own strong convictions that it is Vital that the 

 Canadian Farmer shoidd immediately have in the Markets of 

 the Maritime Provinces a substitute for the Markets we may lose 

 in the United States; and that it is equally vital that the 

 Maritime Provinces should immediately have in the Canadas a 

 substitute for the Trade they are now carrying on vnth the 

 United States, under the Reciprocity Treaty." 



A home market has been opened up in New Brunswick, and 

 Nova Scotia, which imposed a duty on American flour, so as to 

 create a trade with Ontario and Quebec. But the same ordeal, 

 or rather a more serious one, is awaiting Nova Scotia as respects 

 its staple product — Coal; for we have hitherto had no home 

 market, and have had even our foreign market suddenly restricted. 

 So far the pressure has been borne without a mui mur ; but this 

 cannot last forever, nor is there any reason why it should. The 

 Canadian wheat-grower's loyalty has been preserved by us from 

 the test of starvation, and the time for " reciprocated duties" 

 has arrived. 



"Under no circumstances," says Mr. Buchanan, "can I 

 anticipate any great disagreement of views among the parties 

 who are to form the British American Confederacy. That they 



