228 WITH MR. CHAMBERLAIN IN THE 



instance, the question of commerce between the two 

 countries. (Hear, hear.) If you were in the ex- 

 treme east of the Dominion of Canada with your 

 back to the Atlantic, and you looked straight across 

 the continent to the Pacific, you would have an 

 imaginary line of near 3000 miles in length ; on 

 the right, the north, you would have five millions, 

 or not quite, I think, of Canadians, and I think you 

 would have sixty millions of the population of the 

 United States. Now, what have these people 

 done ? The sixty millions of the population of the 

 United States have built up a wall the whole length 

 of this 3000 miles, not of bricks or of stone, but of 

 Acts of Congress, and they call it by the general 

 name of " tariff " — (laughter) — and on the other 

 side the five millions of Canadians have built a wall 

 also of the same length, and pretty nearly of the 

 same height, and they call that also " tariff," but 

 these walls are there for the purpose of intercepting 

 commerce between the sixty millions on the south 

 and the five millions on the north. (Cheers.) And 

 the five millions on the north have done another 

 thing. They have turned a corner, and run their 

 tariff wall on the eastern coast of the continent 

 northward, and thus have done their best also to a 

 large extent to shut out commerce with the mother 

 country. Now, I think, that is a fair statement of 

 the unwisdom of our kinsmen on the other side of 

 the Atlantic. But this system, as systems so stupid 

 and foolish generally do, fails to give satisfaction on 

 the northern side of the country. The Canadians 

 complain that they are shut out from free commerce 



