f, because the Dominion refused to grant her the preferential rates
reserved for members of the British Empire group of countries. After
four years' deliberation Canada eventually retaliated by imposing on
German goods a special surtax of thirty-three and one-third per
cent. The trade of both countries suffered, but Germany's, being more
specialized, much the more severely. After seven years' strife, Germany
took the initiative in proposing a truce. In 1910 Canada agreed to admit
German goods at the rates of the general--not the intermediate--tariff,
while Germany in return waived her protest against the British
preference and granted minimum rates on the most important Canadian
exports.

Oriental immigration had been an issue in Canada ever since Chinese
navvies had been imported in the early eighties to work on the
government sections of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mine owners, fruit
farmers, and contractors were anxious that the supply should continue
unchecked; but, as in the United States, the economic objections of the
labor unions and the political objections of the advocates of a "White
Canada" carried the day.

Chinese immigration had been restricted in 1885 by a head tax of $50 on
all immigrants save officials, merchants, or scholars; in 1901 this tax
was doubled; and in 1904 it was raised to $500. In each case the
tax proved a barrier only for a year or two, when wages would rise
sufficiently to warrant Orientals paying the higher toll to enter the
Promised Land. Japanese immigrants did not come in large numbers until
1906, when the activities of employment companies brought seven thousand
Japanese by way of Hawaii. Agitators from the Pacific States fanned
the flames of opposition in British Columbia, and anti-Chinese and
anti-Japanese riots broke out in Vancouver in 1907. The Dominion
Government then grappled with the question. Japan's national
sensitiveness and her position as an ally of Great Britain called for
diplomatic handling. A member of the Dominion Cabinet, Rodolphe Lemieux,
succeeded in 1907 in negotiating at Tokio an agreement by which Japan
herself undertook to restrict the number of passports issued annually to
emigrants to Canada.

The Hindu migration, which began in 1907, gave rise to a still more
delicate situation. What did the British Empire mean, many a Hindu
asked, if British subjects were to be barred from British lands? The
only reply was that the British Government which still ru