1, 1871.

East and West were now staked out. Only the Far North remained outside
the bounds of the Dominion and this was soon acquired. In 1879 the
British Government transferred to Canada all its rights and claims over
the islands in the Arctic Archipelago and all other British territory
in North America save Newfoundland and its strip of Labrador. From the
Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the forty-ninth parallel to the North
Pole, now all was Canadian soil.

Confederation brought new powers and new responsibilities and thrust
Canada into the field of foreign affairs. It was with slow and groping
steps that the Dominion advanced along this new path. Then--as now--for
Canada foreign relations meant first and foremost relations with her
great neighbor to the south. The likelihood of war had passed. The need
for closer trade relations remained. When the Reciprocity Treaty was
brought to an end, on March 17, 1866, Canada at first refrained from
raising her tariff walls. "The provinces," as George Brown declared in
1874, "assumed that there were matters existing in 1865-66 to trouble
the spirit of American statesmen for the moment, and they waited
patiently for the sober second thought which was very long in
coming, but in the meantime Canada played a good neighbor's part, and
incidentally served her own ends, by continuing to grant the United
States most of the privileges which had been given under the treaty free
navigation and free goods, and, subject to a license fee, access to the
fisheries."

It was over these fisheries that friction first developed.* Canadian
statesmen were determined to prevent poaching on the inshore fisheries,
both because poaching was poaching and because they considered the
fishery privileges the best makeweight in trade negotiations with the
United States. At first American vessels were admitted on payment of a
license fee; but when, on the increase of the fee, many vessels tried to
fish inshore without permission, the license system was abolished, and
in 1870 a fleet of revenue cruisers began to police the coast waters.
American fishermen chafed at exclusion from waters they had come to
consider almost their own, and there were many cases of seizure and
of angry charge and countercharge. President Grant, in his message to
Congress in 1870, denounced the policy of the Canadian authorities as
arbitrary and provocative. Other issues between the two countries were
outstanding as well. Cana