year ending March 31, 1921, Canadians
went into debt to the United States over a million a day--adverse
exchange. Nearly $400,000,000 in one year spent for Yankee goods more
than Yankeedom spent buying goods from us.

And now comes the need for the rationalizing philosophy of Sir John
Willison, truly our most versatile expert on tariffs from the _Globe_
reciprocity down to the Reconstruction. Beginning in 1917 with Foster's
"economic unity" in North America, a friendly Democratic tariff had let
Canada send certain natural products into the United States free of duty.
Private interests found it profitable to handle Canadian trade, much of
it in transit to Europe in a state of high demand. The democratic
element in Sir John must have approved that. Grit as he used to be, Sir
John must believe in letting the great United States practise free-trade
if it be so disposed. Those good Democrats! Had they not enacted the
Underwood tariff, what a mountainous load must have been imposed upon the
Atlantean shoulders of Reconstruction!

Which brings us to the eve of Dominion Day, 1921. Sir John was not
bowling; he was reading the _Round Table_ for June--at least if not he
should have been--an article on the meeting of the "Imperial Cabinet".

"Mischievous title!" he mutters. "It's an Imperial Conference of
Premiers. John S. Ewart will be sure to make a kingdom article out of
that. Very ill-advised. Er--Come!"

"Evening paper, Sir John," says the boy.

Sir John takes up the paper and is at once confronted by an item which
convinces him that if ever Canada needed protection from the United
States, now is the time. The item is the repeal of the Underwood tariff.
Accustomed for life to unpleasant sensations from printed pages, his face
gives no sign of emotion. Swiftly he reads through, flings the paper
down and looks up. At once he rises, glaring coldly at the Crerar
palimpsest on the wall. Again that Mona Lisa exporting smile, as the
lips seem to say:

"Well, Sir John--what will be the Republican Reconstruction price of the
Canadian dollar now?"

"Bah!" Sir John snorts into a handkerchief, like a Tory squire. "That
tariff, Sir, is not a menace, nor a prophecy of agrarian victory at the
polls. It is a challenge to this nation. Canada will not let down the
bars. We shall put them higher! Keep the Canadian dollar in Canada.
Sell our natural products to Britain. Build up our towns and our
industries. Utilize