he 'Canadian Question'
had to {109} be sought elsewhere than in political union with the
United States.

Commercial union, or a _zollverein_ between Canada and the United
States, involved absolute free trade between the two countries, common
excise rates, a common customs tariff on the seaboard, and the pooling
and dividing according to population of the revenue. This was not a
new proposal; it had been suggested time and again in both countries,
from its advocacy by Ira Gould of Montreal in 1852 down to its advocacy
by Wharton Barker of Philadelphia--a strong opponent of reciprocity--in
1886. But now, for the first time, the conjuncture of political and
economic conditions on both sides of the line ensured it serious
attention; and, for the first time, in Erastus Wiman, one of the many
Canadians who had won fortune in the United States, the movement found
an enthusiastic and unflagging leader. In 1887 Congressman Butterworth
introduced a bill providing for free entrance of all Canadian products
into the United States whenever Canada permitted the free entrance of
all American products, and received a notable measure of support. In
Ontario, under the leadership of Erastus Wiman and Goldwin Smith and
Valencay {110} Fuller, the latter a leading stock breeder, the movement
won remarkably quick and widespread recognition: in a few months it had
been endorsed by over forty Farmers' Institutes and rejected by only
three. Much of this success was due to the powerful and persistent
advocacy of leading Toronto and Montreal newspapers. Needless to say,
the movement met with instant and vigorous opposition from the majority
of the manufacturers and from the Canadian Pacific Railway.

The movement had begun entirely outside the ordinary party lines, but
its strength soon compelled the party leaders to take a stand for or
against it. Neither party endorsed it, though both went far towards
it. The Conservatives had long been in favour of a measure of free
trade with the United States. The National Policy had been adopted
partly in the hope that 'reciprocity in tariffs' would compel the
United States to assent to 'reciprocity in trade,' and many who, like
Goldwin Smith, had voted for protection in 1878, now called upon the
Government to follow its own logic. But commercial union, with its
discrimination against Great Britain and its joint tariffs made at
Washington, did not appeal to Sir John Macdonald and his {111}
follow