other lease of life for
five years.

The smoke of battle had not cleared when a remarkable letter from
Edward Blake, the late leader of the Liberal party, was published. It
was a curiously inconclusive document. It began with a scathing
indictment of the Conservative policy and its outcome: 'Its real
tendency has been towards disintegration and annexation.... It has
left us with a smaller population, a scanty immigration, and a
North-West empty still; with enormous additions to our public debt and
yearly charge, an extravagant system of expenditure and an unjust
tariff, with restricted markets whether to buy or to sell.... It has
left us with lowered standards of public virtue and a death-like apathy
in public opinion, with racial, religious, and provincial animosities
rather inflamed than soothed.... It has left us with our hands tied,
our future compromised.' A preference in the English market was out of
the question. Unrestricted free trade with the United States would
bring prosperity, give men, money, and {124} markets. Yet it would
involve assimilation of tariffs and thus become identical with
commercial union. 'Political Union,' he added in a cryptic postscript,
'though becoming our probable, is by no means our ideal, or as yet our
inevitable, future.'

Mr Blake had persistently withheld his aid and advice from the leaders
of the party since his resignation. His action now was resented as a
stab in the back, and the implication that the Liberal policy was
identical with commercial union was stoutly denied. If, as Mr Laurier
had made clear in his electoral address, negotiations proved that
reciprocal arrangements could not be made except on such terms, they
would not be made at all. Yet the letter had undoubted force, and
materially aided the Government in the by-elections.

The Government formally carried out its undertaking to open
negotiations with the United States. Sir Charles Tupper, Sir John
Thompson, and George E. Foster went to Washington and conferred with
Secretary Blaine. But the negotiators were too far apart to come to
terms, and the proposals were not seriously pressed. Later, when the
tide of reaction brought the Democrats back to power in 1892, the
Conservatives made no {125} attempt to renew negotiations; and later
still, when the Liberals came to power in Canada, the Republicans were
back in office on a platform of sky-high protection.

Meanwhile, the increase of exports of f