peal to Canada to act as a link
between Great Britain and the United States, and thus secure for the
mother country the ally she needed in her dangerous isolation. Mr
Laurier followed some days later. He emphasized the need of wider
markets, of a population of consumers that would permit large-scaled
industry to develop, and contended that any manufacturing industries
which deserved to survive would thrive in the larger field. The same
terms could not be offered England, for England had not a tariff in
which to make reciprocal reductions. Canada would not always be a
colony; what she wanted, however, was not political independence, but
commercial independence. The opponents of the proposal had appealed to
the country's fears; he appealed to its courage, and exhorted all to
press onward till the goal should be reached.

In parliament the discussion led to little result. The Government took
its stand against unrestricted reciprocity, on the ground that it would
kill infant manufacturing industries and lead to political absorption
in the Republic, and the division followed party lines. Meanwhile in
the country interest slackened, for the time. In the presidential
{114} campaign of 1888 the Republicans, by a narrow margin, won on a
high-tariff platform, so that reciprocity seemed out of the question.
In Canada itself a new issue had arisen. Once more race and religion
set Quebec and Ontario in fierce antagonism.

The Jesuits, or members of the Society of Jesus, do not now for the
first time appear in the history of Canada. In the days of New France
they had been its most intrepid explorers, its most undaunted
missionaries. 'Not a cape was turned, not a river was entered,'
declares Bancroft, 'but a Jesuit led the way.' With splendid heroism
they suffered for the greater glory of God the unspeakable horrors of
Indian torture and martyrdom. But in the Old World their abounding
zeal often led them into conflict with the civil authorities, and they
became unpopular, alike in Catholic and in Protestant countries. So it
happened that 'for the peace of the Church' the Pope suppressed the
Society in 1773, and it remained dormant for forty years. After the
Conquest of Canada it was decreed that the Jesuits then in the country
should be permitted to remain and die there, but that they must not add
to their {115} numbers, and that their estates should be confiscated to
the Crown. Lord Amherst, the British commander-i