I had but little influence myself in political matters, but I had great confidence in Sir Oliver Mowat and the Hon. George W. Ross, and among my friends I urged that they should be induced to enter Dominion politics, as their presence among the Liberal leaders would give the people of Ontario a confidence which in 1891 had been much shaken in reference to the loyalty of the Liberal opposition. I was much pleased to find that before the election in 1896, arrangements were made that Sir Oliver Mowat was to leave the Ontario Premiership, and support Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the Senate. In the early spring of 1896, while the Conservative Government were still in power, I wrote to Lord Salisbury and told him what I thought would happen, first that the Conservatives would be defeated, and secondly that the Liberals, when they came into power, would be loyal and true to the Empire, and that he need not be uneasy, from an Imperial point of view, on account of the change of Government. I knew that with Sir Oliver Mowat in the Cabinet everything would be right, and I felt that all the others would stand by the Empire. In 1897, during the Jubilee celebration in London, I saw Lord Salisbury, and he was much gratified at the action of the Canadian Government in establishing the British Preference, and said that they had been anxious about the attitude of the Liberal party, until Sir Wilfrid Laurier's first speeches in the House after his accession to office. I laughingly said, "You need not have been anxious, for I wrote telling you it would be all right and not to be uneasy." His reply was, "Yes, I know you did, but we thought you were too sanguine." As soon as the new Government were sworn in, we endeavoured to press our views of preferential tariffs upon them, D'Alton McCarthy and Principal George M. Grant exerting themselves on that behalf, and during the autumn of 1896 a deputation of the Cabinet consisting of the Hon. Wm. Fielding, Hon. Sir Richard Cartwright, and the Hon. Wm. Patterson travelled through the country inquiring of the Boards of Trade and business men as to their views on the question of revision of the tariff.