This view lingered on even into the sixties, and in 1867, when it was proposed to guarantee the Canadian Pacific Railway, Mr. Cave, the member for Barnstaple, remarked that 'instead of giving £8,000,000 sterling with a view to separating Canada and the United States, we ought to give £10,000,000 to unite them.' As Sir Spencer Walpole comments, such a remark would now be regarded as treachery. When said it did not elicit a single protest. Such was the feeling in regard to the Colonies that possessed statesmen who had been reared in the period of Preference. To them the Colonies were an incubus.
Contrast this feeling with that which prevails to-date. Not only would no statesman who wished to remain in public life dare to express such sentiments, but the great majority, whether Tory or Radical, would never dream of entertaining them. They have been banished from the mind of the nation by the epoch of Free Trade. That, and not Protection, has proved the soil in which the Imperial sentiment can best grow.
A very little reflection will show whence arose this unfavourable feeling towards the Colonies, which, remember, was specifically strong in the commercial class, and was reflected from it into the minds of our statesmen. 1 believe it came from the system of Preference which oppressed our trading and commercial classes at every turn. The merchant who was forced by it to buy bad, dear, and unsuitable colonial timber or sugar, coffee or wine, naturally resented the necessity, and vented his resentment on the Colonies. They were a stumbling-block in his path, and people never love stumbling-blocks. The Colonies were unpopular, and with those persons
