Reciprocity, however, was the principal issue everywhere except in Quebec.Powerful forces were arrayed against it.Few manufactures had been put on the free list, but the argument that the reciprocity agreement was the thin edge of the wedge rallied the organized manufacturers in almost unbroken hostile array.The railways, fearful that western traffic would be diverted to United States roads, opposed the agreement vigorously under the leadership of the ex-American chairman of the board of directors of the Canadian Pacific, Sir William Van Horne, who made on this occasion one of his few public entries into politics.The banks, closely involved in the manufacturing and railway interests, threw their weight in the same direction.They were aided by the prevalence of protectionist sentiment in the eastern cities and industrial towns, which were at the same stage of development and in the same mood as the cities of the United States some decades earlier.The Liberal fifteen-year compromise with protection made it difficult in a seven weeks' campaign to revive a desire for freer trade.The prosperity of the country and the cry, "Let well enough alone," told powerfully against the bargain.Yet merely from the point of view of economic advantage, the popular verdict would probably have been in its favor.The United States market no longer loomed so large as it had in the eighties, but its value was undeniable.Farmer, fisherman, and miner stood to gain substantially by the lowering of the bars into the richest market in the world.Every farm paper in Canada and all the important farm organizations supported reciprocity.Its opponents, therefore, did not trust to a direct frontal attack.Their strategy was to divert attention from the economic advantages by raising the cry of political danger.The red herring of annexation was drawn across the trail, and many a farmer followed it to the polling booth.
From the outset, then, the opponents of reciprocity concentrated their attacks on its political perils.They denounced the reciprocity agreement as the forerunner of annexation, the deathblow to Canadian nationality and British connection.They prophesied that the trade and intercourse built up between the East and the West of Canada by years of sacrifice and striving would shrivel away, and that each section of the Dominion would become a mere appendage to the adjacent section of the United States.Where the treasure was, there would the heart be also.
After some years of reciprocity, the channels of Canadian trade would be so changed that a sudden return to high protection on the part of the United States would disrupt industry and a mere threat of such a change would lead to a movement for complete union.
This prophecy was strengthened by apposite quotations showing the existing drift of opinion in the United States.President Taft's reference to the "light and imperceptible bond uniting the Dominion with the mother country" and his "parting of the ways"speech received sinister interpretations.Speaker Champ Clark's announcement that he was in favor of the agreement because he hoped "to see the day when the American flag will float over every square foot of the British North American possessions" was worth tens of thousands of votes.The anti-reciprocity press of Canada seized upon these utterances, magnified them, and sometimes, it was charged, inspired or invented them.Every American crossroads politician who found a useful peroration in a vision of the Stars and Stripes floating from Panama to the North Pole was represented as a statesman of national power voicing a universal sentiment.The action of the Hearst papers in sending pro-reciprocity editions into the border cities of Canada made many votes--but not for reciprocity.The Canadian public proved that it was unable to suffer fools gladly.It was vain to argue that all men of weight in the United States had come to understand and to respect Canada's independent ambitions; that in any event it was not what the United States thought but what Canada thought that mattered; or that the Canadian farmer who sold a bushel of good wheat to a United States miller no more sold his loyalty with it than a Kipling selling a volume of verse or a Canadian financier selling a block of stock in the same market.The flag was waved, and the Canadian voter, mindful of former American slights and backed by newly arrived Englishmen admirably organized by the anti-reciprocity forces, turned against any "entangling alliance." The prosperity of the country made it safe to express resentment of the slights of half a century or fear of this too sudden friendliness.
The result of the elections, which were held on September 21, 1911, was the crushing defeat of the Liberal party.A Liberal majority of forty-four in a house of two hundred and twenty-one members was turned into a Conservative majority of forty-nine.
Eight cabinet ministers went down to defeat.The Government had a slight majority in the Maritime Provinces and Quebec, and a large majority in the prairie West, but the overwhelming victory of the Opposition in Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia turned the day.
