Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. IV.djvu/217

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 177 was it possible to obtain the ratification of the treaty negotiated with Canada in accordance with the new law. Most of the opposition came from states and districts where the farmers were politically powerful, because so many of the items on which tariff charges were lowered were agri cultural products. In Canada the project met with disaster, partly due to a suspicion that reci procity was only the entering wedge of a scheme for annexation; a general election drove out of power the liberal ministry who had negotiated the treaty, and gave the whole subject its quietus for the time being. The assumption of control by the democrats in the house of representatives was marked by the beginning of a partisan guerilla war which went on for two years without a truce. The president having expressed his hope that modifications might be made in a few individual tariff schedules when data enough could be collected to serve as a guide, the democrats pushed through the house a bill re ducing duties on wool and woolens, which, with some amendments by the insurgent republicans, passed the senate also. The stroke was shrewdly timed, for the president vetoed the bill on the ground that the tariff board had not yet finished its investigation of the wool industry. A move to override the veto failed of the necessary two-thirds majority; but at the following session, the board