BANK-1,013.3 REJECHON OF RECIPROCITY 1911 AN EXAMENATEON 0F FACTORS i-N‘FLUENCING THE ELEZCi’ORME IN SGUTi-EWESTERR ONTARIO — 7 , 7, 7 7, 77 ,, 7 — — — — 7 7 , , 7 — , 7, "W W W111 H #4 ma \J\l THESIS FOR THE DEGREE OF M. A w fx‘fiIIE-ééfifaN STATE U i‘JIVEEiiéliT'J ADA JEAN MCDONALD 1964 Hilfifltmlmflflflijflflflmm Elm] Hunan’s Back Bindery 195 Hyman 8!. It, Seem, ant. ROOM USE 0m ‘33“! 0 7 I??? a ‘ “ 1 ? -:= g ' L ‘Lj -~ -.v ABSTRACT CANADA'S REJECTION OF RECIPROCITY 1911: AN EXAMINATION OF FACTORS INFLUENCING THE ELECTORATE IN SOUTHWESTERN ONTARIO by Jean McDonald The Canadian rejection of the proposed reciprocity agreement with the United States in 1911 has remained one of the puzzles of history. The decision seemed in direct contradiction to the repeated attempts made by Canada to obtain such an agreement during the forty years preceding 1911. For several reasons Ontario provides the key to the puzzle. First, it held the largest single block of seats in the Canadian House of Commons, though it, unlike some other areas of Canada, lacked homogeneity. For example, its population varied in religion and in ethnic background, unlike that of French—speaking, Roman Catholic Quebec. Furthermore, its economy, in 1911, was complex, approaching a major division between agriculture and manufacturing, and markedly different from the wheat-growing prairie provinces or the maritime provinces which were dependent on fishing and lumbering. Two counties in southwestern Ontario were selected for the study, Wellington and Waterloo. Census figures and parliamentary guides showed that these counties Jean McDonald illustrated, in miniature, the economic and demographic characteristics of the whole province. German Lutherans and Roman Catholics mingled with Irish Catholics, Scottish Presbyterians, and English Anglicans and Orange Lodge adherents. Farmland ranged from marginal to excellent. Manufacturing was creating an urban population with a new consciousness of its dependence on the nation's trade and commerce policies. The study was confined to a brief eight-month period in 1911. It opened on January 26, with the announce- ment in the House of Commons that the government had reached an agreement with the United States. It closed on September 21 with the federal election in which Canadians rejected the American offer. Public discussions and the parliamen- tary debates which culminated in the election brought into the open some of the historical background of Canadian- American relations and Canadian-British relations. These too were considered, as they intruded from time to time upon the 1911 scene. Local newspapers in the counties gave information on the editorials and public speeches used to influence the public. The two leading newspapers, the Berlin News Record and the Guelph Mercury, supported the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party respectively. Letters to the editors provided an indication of the public reaction. The agricultural press regarded the issue as a political Jean McDonald one, rather than economic, and refused to provide guidance for its readers. Private papers of political leaders were examined for information on party strategy and tactics. The Mac- kenzie King papers, which contained a vast assortment of personal correspondence, were the most valuable of all sources in this category. There was considerable evidence to show that the Conservative Party allocated funds for publications which would stir up fear of the aggressiveness of the United States or arouse British patriots. The Conservatives also pursued factory workers with warnings that reciprocity would mean lower wages, higher costs of living, and perhaps unemployment. The results of the election in Wellington and Waterloo showed that, in the main, farmers voted Liberal, urbanites voted Conservative. The trend in Ontario toward urbanization, as shown in the census, therefore became significant. A defeated Liberal candidate, writing to Mackenzie King, speculated on another probability. He was convinced that Liberal farmers in doubt about the issue stayed away from the polls, while Conservatives continued to support their candidate. His theory would help to explain the Conservative majority in areas where there was not suffi- cient urbanization to explain the overwhelming anti- reciprocity vote. CANADA'S REJECTION OF RECIPROCITY 1911: AN EXAMINATION OF FACTORS INFLUENCING THE ELECTORATE IN SOUTHWESTERN ONTARIO BY Jean McDonald A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of History 1964 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To the numerous individuals who were unfailingly helpful, in libraries, newspaper offices, and in the Public Archives of Canada, I owe sincere thanks for assistance in the mechanics of this research. My associates at the University of Guelph deserve my gratitude for their generous tolerance of shortcomings I was all too eager to ascribe to the pressure of research work. Above all, I acknowledge at this time the debt I owe to Dr. T. Lloyd Jones, Dean of the Ontario Veterinary College, for his encouragement, not only during this pro- ject, but throughout my graduate program. My thanks to Professor A. C. Gluek, Jr. are totally inadequate for his stimulating guidance, his confidence, and his understanding whenever my regular duties delayed the completion of this thesis. ii II. III. IV. VI. VII. VIII. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments Figures Introduction: 1854 to 1911 Wellington and Waterloo Counties in 1911 The Proposed Reciprocity Agreement The Initial Reaction Great Britain and the United States: Events Influencing Canadians The Election Campaign The Reaction of Agriculture The Election, September 21, 1911 Bibliography iii ii iv 15 18 32 41 51 56 62 FIGURES Map of Southwestern Ontario iv CHAPTER I On January 26, 1911 in the Canadian House of Commons, the Honourable W. S. Fielding, Minister of Finance, rose with scarcely concealed triumph to announce that the government had all but completed arrangements for a reciprocal trade agreement with the United States of America. The agreement would permit free trade between the two countries in specified products relating almost entirely to natural resources and to the needs of agri- culture. As Fielding gave details of the agreement, he pictured it as a financial achievement, a successful "business deal." Furthermore, it soon became obvious that he regarded it as a political coup and an almost miraculous revival of the Reciprocity Treaty of 185A. It was not without reason that the 1854 Treaty was acclaimed. It had been accompanied by a degree of prosperity previously unknown in Canada. During the twelve-year duration of the treaty, Canadian goods moved in abundance to the markets of the war-torn United States. Canadian transportation lines were pressed to meet demands. But by 1866, the victorious northern states possessed a powerful, post—war, industrial group favoring high pro- tective tariffs. The Reciprocity Treaty was not renewed, and coincidentally, Canada entered a forty-year economic depression. To the new American political and military might, Canada replied in 1867 with the confederation of British North America. But to the abrogation of the Reciprocity Treaty no answer could be found. Canadians continued to regard reciprocal trade as the concomitant of prosperity, and for many years repeated advances were made for a second Treaty, to bring back the golden years of 1854 to 1866. At negotiations for the Washington Treaty in 1872, the Conservative Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald, spared no effort to obtain economic concessions. His Liberal successor, Alexander Mackenzie, continued the same unrewarding struggle. Under the handicaps of costly rail- way construction, insufficient trade, and low population, the economy continued to deteriorate. In desperation by 1879, Canadians rallied to Macdonald's declaration of a "National Policy" and resolved to "go it alone." For the next ten years they concentrated on completion of a trans- continental railway and the development of inter-provincial trade. Slowly the cycle changed, and some improvement became apparent. Even without a treaty, trade with the United States increased year by year.1 A measure of prosperity returned. Yet the desire for reciprocal trade 1Donald C. Masters, The Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 (London, 1936), p. 190. lingered, until once again, in 1887, Macdonald's represen- tative, Charles Tupper, was repulsed at Washington. Finally, Canadians seemed to relinquish the vision. In 1898 Liberal Prime Minister, Wilfrid Laurier, voiced the Canadian attitude when he said that "I think I am not making too wide a statement when I say that the general feeling in Canada today is not in favour of reciprocity. There was a time when Canadians . . . would have given many things to obtain the American market. . . . But thank heavens these days are past and over now."2 Though Canada now extended from ocean to ocean, it bore little resemblance to a sovereign state. True, a Canadian High Commissioner represented Canadian interests in London. A Canadian representative sat in on negotiations between Britain and the United States. Yet often, Canada felt her interests betrayed in the need to maintain British- American equanimity and good will. Within Canadian borders, however, many changes had taken place, and at an accelerated pace after 1900. From a population of less than 4,000,000 in 1871 and little more than 5,000,000 at the turn of the century, Canada had grown to none than 7,000,000 by 1911.3 In the first decade of the twentieth century, exports doubled; while 2Oscar D. Skelton, The Life and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier (Toronto, 1921), I, p. 206. 3Census of Canada 1911 (Ottawa, 1912), I, p. 90. imports increased sixfold. The pattern of Canada's economy, with its imbalance of trade in favor of imports, was taking form. Western Canada's production increased by as much as 1000 per cent, and its population showed a comparable increase}F In the East, a social change, perhaps of even greater significance to political leaders, had taken place; by 1911, it possessed virtually an industrial and urban society. Americans had little reason to heed the activities across the border, at least until 1910. Conditions and demands then began to force President Taft's government to seek new supplies of raw materials and primary goods. An offer of reciprocal trade was made to the Canadian government, and the result-~Fielding's announcement on January 26, 1911. The Conservative Opposition in the House of Commons listened to Fielding in dismay. Though the reciprocity issue had lain dormant for well over a decade, both Liberals and Conservatives realized that the American offer could reawaken the dreams of the eighteen seventies and eighties. Conservative apprehension was well founded. The party had scarcely recovered from Macdonald's death in 1891. Its present leader, Robert L. Borden, had not won an election since assuming command of the party in 4Census of Canada 1911 (Ottawa, 1912), III, p. xii. 1900. In fact, he had still to win the complete confidence of his followers. The Conservative party, after fifteen years in Opposition, seemed farther than ever from victory. The Liberal leader, on the other hand, was at the peak of his power, unchallenged. Yet he may well have been unsuited for the leadership of Canada as it emerged in the twentieth century. Sir Wilfrid was a blend of English and French Canada, with a lasting enthusiasm for French and English literature and a sound background in constitutional law. His interest in economics was cursory. In the summer of 1910 he toured western Canada. There he encountered a series of demands for free trade, or at least for lower tariffs. Perhaps the magnitude of the West blinded him to the real, as well as the potential economic and political power of Ontario. In any case, he agreed with his Minister of Finance on the American offer of reciprocity, and sanctioned Fielding's statement to the House. Eight months later, on September 21, 1911 the Liberal party was crushed. Liberal morale was shattered, by the decisive vote against reciprocity. CHAPTER II To the trained eye of the politician, the social and economic changes taking place in Ontario were parti- cularly significant. As Canada's most populous province, with two and one-half million people, Ontario returned eighty-five of the 211 members of the House of Commons. The trend toward urbanization in the province was pro- nounced, and at the 1910 census, urban residents exceeded those in rural areas.5 The political reactions of Ontario were becoming increasingly difficult to assess. Other regions of Canada, economically or ethnically more homogeneous than Ontario, could be relied upon to vote almost en bloc in a federal election: the wheat-growing Prairie Provinces, the Mari- time Provinces with problems of lack of industry and manufacturing facilities, and Roman Catholic, French- speaking Quebec. Only Ontario was the real question mark of the 1911 campaign. The province's two counties of Wellington and Waterloo (see Figure I) still showed many of the charac- teristics of the old colony of Upper Canada. They also provided examples of the new way in which Canada was becoming economically more mature. 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