MOTION FOR PAPERS. (Hansard, 17 February 1865)

§ MR. WATKIN,
in rising to move an Address for Copies of all Papers in the possession of the Government respecting the Reciprocity Treaty with America and the Bonding Acts, of dates subsequent to December, 1861, said, that under the latter articles chargeable with duty could be sent through United States territory and Canada in bond, and as Canada was for the present, and would be until the completion of railway communication to Halifax on the Atlantic, cut off from access to the ocean for five winter months of the year, the Bonding Acts enabled her commerce with the outside world to pass unimpeded. The North Western States received in return corresponding facilities of access through Canada. The Reciprocity Treaty included three essential provisions—the rights of fishery on a shore line of 1,500 miles, the free navigation of the St. Lawrence, and the free interchange of productions between the British provinces and the United States. The beneficent theory of the treaty was to make two countries, politically distinct, commercially one, and to induce the two peoples, otherwise opposed, to live in co-operation and in peace. The provision as to the fisheries had settled for the time difficult questions leading in past days, and over and over again to dispute, collision, and sometimes the imminence of war. The free navigation of the St. Lawrence and of Lake Michigan had removed jealousies, and fostered the idea of common interests in the great waterways to the ocean, while the results of reciprocal trade had been so happy that a total annual interchange of commodities of a value of nearly £10,000,000 a year in amount between the British provinces and the United States 411 now existed. They were now threatened with the termination of this treaty at the end of twelve months, and no hope appeared to be held out so far of an amicable revision and extension of its benefits. The consequences to commerce were evident, and, at first would be most serious. Trade at last, no doubt, would take other channels, and the British provinces trading between each other and the mother country, and reducing their duties to a very low rate, might, in the end, be largely benefited at the price of a present loss. But that was merely the money view, and such a gain would he dearly purchased at the cost of humanity and civilization, if it broke up the commercial and social union heretofore existing. He held that peace and progress and the future good relations between Great Britain and the United States, on which peace and progress were largely based, would suffer by such an isolation, and he would look with distrust upon a prosperity which was not still shared between the people on each side of the border. He had travelled much on both sides of the British lines, and it was cheering to see there how thoroughly the two people had become sociably and commercially one. They traded together, went into partnership together, visited together. A Canadian or New Brunswicker would often have a farm on each side of the practically imaginary boundary line; and a citizen of the United States often lived on his own, and traded or manufactured on the other side of the border. In fact, those border jealousies which had caused such bitterness and danger even in our own country, had in this generation all but disappeared in this case under the operation of high-minded and far-sighted legislation. Considering, therefore, the magnitude of the commercial interests, the grave questions of navigation, ocean rights, and free communication involved, he must express the most anxious surprise to learn that Her Majesty's Government had allowed the matter to drift into its present position. He was told that no effort whatever had been made to preserve the treaty as it was, or as it might be amended, by negotiations with Washington. His hon. Friend the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs had said, in answer to a question he had put to him in that House last May, that no negotiations were pending as to the Reciprocity Treaty; and that the Government had no official information on the subject of the Bonding Act. He was bound to take that 412 answer as a correct statement; and he then asked was it possible that Her Majesty's Government could remain inactive when a trade of £10,000,000 a year, and the issue of future peace or disturbance were in the balance? Were the proposed notice to terminate the treaty any matter of suddenness, or by way of surprise, he might comprehend it; but for above three years the subject had been agitated and discussed in Congress—in Canada, and in all the Chambers of Commerce in the North-west. It had been notorious to everybody that one party desired isolation from the British provinces, and another desired the operation of the treaty to be extended. It was, therefore, a question to be discussed in advance of the present entanglement. And, as Canada had no treaty making power, the responsibility rested with the Government at home. This was a question so serious from every point of view, that the House would have to take it up as soon as the noble Lord at the head of the Government laid upon the table the notice which he had told them would be given on the 15th March next. Then would be the time to discuss it fully, and in all its bearings. His object now was to prepare for that discussion, by obtaining all the facts. The paper laid before the House last week did not go back far enough. It appeared that in the autumn of 1861, the New York Chamber of Commerce memorialised Congress for a revision of the treaty, and a committee of Congress reported upon it in February, 1862. That report he had here. It did not advocate notice, no, it advocated adherence to the principles of free exchange; and it proposed that commissioners should negotiate an extension of the treaty. In March, 1864, Mr. Ward reported to Congress resolutions appointing commissioners for that purpose, and ultimately the discussion was postponed to December, 1864. During all this time, surely communication of some kind had passed to or from this country; and it was self-apparent that the treaty might have been revised and extended before recent causes of irritation had appeared. These causes had led to much bitter feeling, and it might now be too late to restore the principle of the treaty and of the Bonding Acts in all their integrity. He now moved for all papers subsequent to December, 1861, with a view to further discussion hereafter. He would now call attention to a very singular letter, given at pages 70 and 71 in the papers printed 413 last week. That letter had been intercepted by General Augur, and was stated by Mr. Seward to be undoubtedly genuine. He would ask whether any explanation of that letter had been offered by his Excellency the American Minister, Mr. Adams? And, if so, why that explanation had not been printed? The letter was from a Confederate agent residing in Canada, apparently to Mr. Seddon, the Confederate Secretary for War. It must have been written at the end of October last year. It stated that the writer had made an arrangement with parties "powerful and influential with the Government of the United States" to deliver supplies of meat in exchange for cotton, "at any port Mr. Secretary Seddon may designate on the east side of the Mississippi," or on "the west side," and after this delivery it was said that "the way was perfectly clear to deliver anywhere with General Butler's department." He adds that he has made another contract with another Federal American citizen "by which supplies of meat will be furnished at Mobile by written permission of the President of the United States to the free passage of the blockading fleet at that port." His contract, he says, is for 5,000,000 lb. of meat in exchange for 5,000,000 lb. of cotton. Now, if this were true, it opened up a very large question. Merchants in England, who had run the blockade, had been most properly censured for the practice. Their having done so was naturally matter of diplomatic complaint. But here were the seal and the signature of the President of the United States himself made use of to send supplies to the enemy on one hand, and to give cotton to the manufacturers of the North on the other. He thought that letter ought not to have been printed without some comment. If explanations had been fairly given by Mr. Adams, and were not printed, the omission was a slight, and he thought a good understanding with the United States, desired so sincerely by, he hoped, the House at large, would not be promoted by its publication.

§ MR. KINNAIRD
hoped the hon. Gentleman would not deem it necessary to press for the papers for which he had moved, after the statement on the subject to which they related which had been made the other evening by the noble Lord at the head of the Government.

§ MR. LAYARD
said, in answer to the hon. Gentleman, he had only to repeat what was stated by the noble Lord the other night, that there were no papers on the subject of the Reciprocity Treaty. As the hon. Gentleman was aware, no notice with respect to the treaty had been given to Her Majesty's Government. Resolutions on the subject had been submitted to Congress, but there had been no intimation given to Her Majesty's Government—consequently there were really no papers to lay on the table.

§ MR. PEACOCKE
begged to remind the hon. Gentleman that no answer had been given as to the genuineness of the letter to which allusion had been made. If the letter were genuine, it would show that, while British vessels could not enter a blockaded harbour of the Confederate States, President Lincoln was endeavouring to enable Federal vessels to enter them to procure cotton for the Federal States. If the Government declined to give any information on the subject, he trusted the hon. Member for Stockport would not fail to press it again on their attention on a future occasion in a more formal manner.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, he would only make one observation on the letter, namely this—that it was quite possible that Her Majesty's Government might believe in the genuineness of the intercepted letter, but at the same time might not be convinced that all the statements it contained were true.