“It is,” says Mr. Galt, “a singular charge to make of discrimination on our part against them, that we do not permit one section of our public works to be used for purposes exclusively beneficial to them, when they absolutely, and contrary to the engagements of the treaty, debar any Canadian vessel from entering their waters, if we except Lake Michigan, specially mentioned in the treaty. Surely Canada does enough for them when she places them precisely on the same footing as she does her own vessels; and it is a novel doctrine that because the whole St. Lawrence is made free, therefore an injury is done to the New York route. The remedy is simple, and in their own hands: let them do as Canada has done--repeal the tolls on their canals, and admit Canadian vessels to ply upon them--and then the desired state of ‘fair competition’ will have arisen. But the Committee must have formed but a low estimate of the intelligence of their own people in the West, when they make it a subject of complaint against Canada that she has opened the St. Lawrence freely to their trade. The undersigned apprehends that the inhabitants of those great States will be much more likely to demand from their own Government an equitable application of their own customs-laws, so as to permit them to import direct _viâ_ the St. Lawrence, and to buy in the Canadian market, rather than to join with the Committee in requiring a return to a system by which the entire West has hitherto been held in vassalage to the State of New York.” Mr. Galt argues that an increase of customs-duties does not, necessarily, injuriously affect foreign trade within certain limits, and that those limits have not been exceeded in Canada. Formerly the cost of British goods in Canada was much enhanced, owing to natural causes, whilst Canadian producers obtained a minimum price for their exports. The duty was then generally 2½ per cent., but the price was enormous; and the Canadian suffered, _pro tanto_, in his means to purchase them. Suppose the duties, increased five per cent., were to produce a reduction of ten per cent. on other charges, “the benefit,” says Mr. Galt, “would accrue equally to the British manufacturer and to the consumer; the consumer would pay five per cent. more to the Government, but ten per cent. less to the merchant and forwarder.” As Mr. Galt considers the principle of Canadian finance and customs to be misapprehended in England as well as in the United States, it may be as well to give his own words:--