The effect of the President's Message asking for legislative provisions
enabling him to retaliate on Canada for the injuries which Canada is declared to have inflicted on the United States fishermen, has been of a very varied kind. It has, in a sense, taken the wind out of the Republican sails, for the Republicans regarded their own hostile attitude towards Canada as one of their most popular " planks," and it has also frightened them not a little, for what many of them wanted was the right to vapour against Canada without any reason for fearing that their vapouring would take practical effect. On the other hand, many of the Democrats, who really wished for a cordial understanding with England and Canada, are a little confounded at finding their chief suddenly asking to be armed with a policy of retaliation, in lieu of the policy of conciliation which the Senate have so unwisely rejected. In Canada there is a very strong feeling against surrender to United States threats, in which all parties seem inclined to combine. We suspect that the President really believes that his demand will have, at least sooner or later, the effect of sobering the most soberable of the American retaliationists.
