l as
the Executive to his proposals. The Reciprocity Treaty was passed by the
Senate in August, 1854, and by the Legislatures of the United Kingdom,
Canada, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia in the next
few months, and of Newfoundland in 1855. This treaty provided for free
admission into each country of practically all the products of the farm,
forest, mine, and fishery, threw open the Atlantic fisheries, and gave
American vessels the use of the St. Lawrence and Canadian vessels
the use of Lake Michigan. The agreement was to last for ten years and
indefinitely thereafter, subject to termination on one year's notice by
either party.

To both countries reciprocity brought undoubted good. Trade doubled and
trebled. Each country gained by free access to the nearest sources
of supply. The same goods figured largely in the traffic in both
directions, the United States importing grain and flour from Canada and
exporting it to the Maritime Provinces. In short the benefits which had
come to the United States from free and unfettered trade throughout half
a continent were now extended to practically a whole continent.

Yet criticism of the new economic regime was not lacking. The growth
of protectionist feeling in both countries after 1857 brought about
incidents and created an atmosphere which were dangerous to the
continuance of close trade relations. In 1858 and 1859 the Canadian
Government raised substantially the duties on manufactured goods in
order to meet the bills for its lavish railway policy. This increase hit
American manufacturers and led to loud complaints that the spirit of
the Reciprocity Treaty had been violated. Alexander T. Galt, Canadian
Minister of Finance, had no difficulty in showing that the tariff
increases were the only feasible sources of revenue, that the agreement
with the United States did not cover manufactures, and that the United
States itself, faced by war demands and no longer controlled by free
trade Southerners, had raised duties still higher. The exports of the
United States to the Provinces in the reciprocity period were greater,
contrary to the later traditions, than the imports. On economic grounds
the case for the continuance of the reciprocity agreement was strong,
and probably the treaty would have remained in force indefinitely had
not the political passions roused by the Civil War made sanity and
neighborliness in trade difficult to maintain.

When the Civil Wa