On the other hand, there is a prevalent opinion in Canada, and in other colonies as well, that the United Kingdom will yet be driven to recede to some extent from her Free Trade position. It is observed that however correct may be the economic principles on which Free Trade is based, national passion has prevailed over economic truth, and most of the nations of the world continue to erect higher and higher barriers against the trade of the United Kingdom, thereby falsifying the forecasts of the early apostles of Free Trade. More than this, it is seen that the United States, while given free access to English markets, not only creates a McKinley tariff to keep out English goods, but by offering Free Trade to Canada at the price of discrimination against Britain, practically, though perhaps not intentionally, uses the trade question as a leverage to break up the Empire. It is believed that, under the influence of considerations such as these, a decided reaction has in Britain begun in the direction of some modified system of Protection within the Empire. Are there grounds to justify this opinion? Certain it is that many Members of Parliament, representing both rural and manufacturing constituencies, openly avow their preference for a discriminating tariff within the Empire, and for fighting the commercial hostility of other nations by the use of similar {283} weapons, and appear to lose no political strength by the avowal. Twice has the Convention of Conservative delegates broken away from its leaders, and passed what amounted to Fair Trade resolutions. Liberal and Conservative representatives of labour constituencies have alike affirmed of late years that they find the working man's mind permeated with Fair Trade ideas, ideas which might become a serious political force in any period of prolonged industrial depression. A mayor of the greatest of English manufacturing towns told me in the very home of Free Trade that in his opinion England might yet have to revise her commercial policy. The leading silk-manufacturer of Yorkshire is an ardent advocate of Fair Trade principles. The heads of different great woollen and other manufacturing firms in the same county have told me that their judgment inclined them in the same direction. Joseph Cowen, the distinguished representative of northern Radicalism has said, that he looked upon a British Zollverein as the true ideal of our national statesmanship. When Sir Charles Tupper urged upon the late W. E. Forster the advisability of giving the outlying parts of the Empire a better commercial footing than foreign countries, his reply was: 'Well, I am a free trader, but I am not so fanatical a free trader that I would not be willing to adopt such a policy as that for the great and important object of binding this Empire together.' The _Times_, commenting upon a speech of Sir {284} Gordon Sprigg advocating a commercial union between England and her colonies, said:--