Some could remember,
and those who could not remember could read; how the
farmers and the millers of Ontario took heart and laid
out capital, and how money was easy and enterprise was
everywhere, and how agricultural towns such as Elgin was
at that time sent up streets of shops to accommodate the
trade that was to pour in under the new and generous
"preference" granted to the Dominion by the mother country.
And how long, Mr Winter demanded, swinging round in that
pivotal manner which seems assisted by thumbs in the
armholes of the waistcoat, how long did the golden illusion
last? Precisely three years. In precisely three years
the British nation compelled the British Government to
adopt the Free Trade Act of '46. The wheat of the world
flowed into every port in England, and the hopes of
Canada, especially the hopes of Ontario, based then, as
now, on "preferential" treatment, were blasted to the
root. Enterprise was laid flat, mortgages were foreclosed,
shops were left empty, the milling and forwarding interests
were temporarily ruined, and the Governor-General actually
wrote to the Secretary of State in England that things
were so bad that not a shilling could be raised on the
credit of the Province.
Now Mr Winter did not blame the people of England for
insisting on free food.
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