Mr. Forster made an important speech on the commercial rela-
tions of Canada with the United States on Monday evening, at the annual soirée of the Bradford Chamber of Commerce. He began by recommending the people of Bradford to exhibit at the Philadelphia Exhibition of next year, even though they should think, with him, that of commercial exhibitions, as a general rule, there have been enough and to spare. Still the Americans were good customers, and very hospitable as friends ; and besides this,
their inventions were very numerous and clever, and an agree- ment between the United States and Great Britain on the Patent Laws was very desirable. Moreover, the Americana are still hazy on the subject of Free-trade, and nothing would be more likely to clear up their haziness than for them to see our goods and the prices at which we can afford to sell them, especially as Philadelphia is the centre of the Protectionist interest. Mr. Forster also observed that the reciprocity treaty between Canada and the United States was not likely to pass, the Senate of the United States having apparently reported against it. He did, not think Canada would suffer much by the loss. The high duties on Canadian produce injured the people of the United States much more than the people of Canada, whose fish and timber the United States could not do without ; and he thought the high duties would tend much more to Free-trade than reciprocity treaties. He did not think that England ought to assent in any case to a differential duty imposed by. Canada in favour of the United States and unfavourable to England, nor did he believe that any person of influence in Canada entertained any dream of so unfair a proceeding. On the whole, he thought the United States would learn most by being left to suffer from Protection, but Canada must assuredly always treat the mother-country at least as fairly as she treats her great neighbour.
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