"'Although the Committee would grossly misrepresent their countrymen if they were to affirm that their loyalty to their Sovereign would be diminished in the slightest degree by the withdrawal, through the unfriendly action of a foreign Government, of mere commercial privileges, however valuable these might be deemed, they think they cannot err in directing the attention of the enlightened statesmen who wield the destinies of the great Empire, of which it is the proudest boast of Canadians that their country forms a part, to the connection which is usually found to exist between the material prosperity and the political contentment of a people, for in doing so they feel that they are appealing to the highest motives that can actuate patriotic statesmen--the desire to perpetuate a dominion founded on the affectionate allegiance of a prosperous and contented people. "'The Committee venture to express the hope that Your Excellency will be pleased to bring this subject and the considerations now submitted under the notice of Her Majesty's Imperial advisers. "'W. H. LEE, C. E. C.' "Does it not seem as if the whole business was let alone, neglected, despised? "What were our Government doing from 1861 to 1865? "POLAND exercised the minds of the Foreign Office from an early date, and they have given us papers from July 31st, 1862, December 31st of that year, and on to April 23rd, 1863, when that affair ended. "DENMARK revived their old discussions in 1863, and they began to write despatches about them. They have given Parliament papers about the 'Conference,' which only began January 23rd, 1864, and ended March 26th, 1864. "The whole number of papers printed for Parliament, and laid on the table in 1864, was 369. Yet there was not, out of these, one single paper about the Reciprocity Treaty. "The whole number of papers printed for Parliament, and laid likewise upon the table in 1865, was 170, but not a line appears about the Reciprocity Treaty. So much for the attention of the people we pay to watch over our affairs. "The question, as regards our relations with the States, Was a great opportunity lost? arises. Let us see. 1st, the Chamber of Commerce of New York, and its 1,300,000 people, ask for a treaty in 1861; 2nd, Congress asks for it by appointing a committee in 1861; 3rd, the committee ask for it by their report of 1862 and by their resolutions of 1864; 4th, Mr. Seward endorses it even so late as November, 1864; and 5th, the Convention at Detroit ask for it so late as the 14th July, 1865. In further testimony, a member of Congress said, on the 14th March, 1866, on the debate on the _abortive Bill_ for regulating trade with British North American Provinces:--