Page:The Life and Times of Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt.djvu/370

LIFE AND TIMES OF SIR A. T. GALT and the defence forces which backed up her policy. Yet, in the case of Canada, relations with the United States were so close and constant that some breach in the rigid rule was here inevitable. The opening was made slowly. In the first important negotiation, resulting in the conclusion of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, the leading part was taken by Lord Elgin, as Envoy Extraordinary, though Hincks from Canada and Chandler from New Brunswick took a part in the mission. The treaty was ratified by the votes not only of the British Parliament and the United States Congress but of the legislatures of Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. The informal discussion of the working of the treaty which has already been noted prepared the way for the more formal activities of Galt, Rose, Macdonald and Brown in the decade which followed.

To open negotiations with any other foreign power was more difficult, but under Galt's administration an opening was made. Naturally the first country to be considered was France, not merely because France was a second mother country to Canada, but because the negotiation in 1860 of Cobden's Reciprocity Treaty between England and France had made it evident that friendlier relations between the two countries were beginning and that France was disposed to depart to some extent from her rigid protectionism. In his Budget Speech of 1862, Galt declared:

At present there are practically but two markets to which our produce goes and from which we can obtain supplies. One of these is Great Britain; the other, the United States. Now the cause of the suffering in this country at the present time has arisen from one of those markets being closed to our trade. How is it, on the other hand, that under circumstances hitherto unparalleled in regard to the want of the staple articles of cotton, Great Britain has maintained her position during the past winter? It is this, that although she is dependent on the United States for an article important to her manufacturers, the various branches of her industry are so diversified, and her connexion with other countries is 332