Mr. A. Mosely, whose knowledge of Canadian affairs is beyond
dispute, contributes a letter to last Saturday's Times in which he emphasises two important obstacles to Imperial unification. One is the high rates which the British Post Office charge for British periodicals and magazines, which are far in excess of the cost from the United States. The result is that Canadian opinion is chiefly informed from the United States, and the door is shut to that literary kinship between the Colony and the Mother-country which is one of the strongest of bonds. With American periodicals come Ameri- can advertisements, and the British trader and mann- faeturer are put at a disadvantage. The sec,bond point is the prohibitive cost of cable communication, which makes Canadian news in England and English news in Canada scarce and unsatisfactory, and prevents the two peoples from following each other's doings. Further, most information which reaches Canada from England goes through American sources and receives an American colouring. We agree with the Times that both matters call for attention, and that some arrangement might be come to by which Press messages could be sent at a low rate during certain hours. Our hostility to fallacious schemes of Imperial consolidation makes us the more anxious for all reasonable and practical reforms.
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