But this, as they all knew, was not the first time favours had been offered by the British Government to food supplies from Canada.

Just sixty years ago the British Government had felt one of these spasms of benevolence to Canada, and there were men sitting before him who could remember the good will and the gratitude, the hope and the confidence, that greeted Stanley's bill of that year, which admitted Canadian wheat and flour at a nominal duty.

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.