The meeting of the Congress of Chambers of Commerce of the Empire took place on the 10th, 11th and 13th July. We had but little hope of doing anything to help the preferential trade policy, for the General Elections had gone so overwhelmingly against us that it seemed impossible that in England our Canadian delegation could carry the resolution they had agreed upon in favour of Mr. Chamberlain's policy. We expected to be badly defeated, but decided to make a bold fight. After the discussion had gone on for some time, Sir Wm. Holland and Lord Avebury, who led the free trade ranks, approached Mr. Drummond, who had moved the Canadian resolution, and suggested that if we would compromise by the insertion of a few words which would have destroyed the whole effect of what we were fighting for, the resolution might be carried unanimously. Mr. Drummond said he wished to consult his colleagues, and he called Mr. Cockshutt, M.P., and me out of the room and put the proposition. I said at once, "I would not compromise to the extent of one word. Let us fight it out to the very end, let us take a vote. We will likely be beaten, but let us take our beating like men. We will find out our strength and our weakness, we will find out who are our friends and who are our enemies, and know exactly where we stand." Mr. Cockshutt said immediately, "I entirely agree with Denison." Drummond said, "That is exactly my view. I shall consult with no others but will tell them we will fight it to the end." I spoke that afternoon as follows as reported in the Toronto _News_, 23rd August, 1906: There were a few remarks, said Col. Denison, which had fallen from previous speakers, to which he desired to call attention. In the first place, his friend Mr. Cockshutt, said that Canada had given England the benefit of five million dollars annually in the reduction of duties, in order to help the English manufacturer to sell English manufactured goods in Canada, and stated that that was a contribution in an indirect way towards helping the defence of the Empire. Mr. Cockshutt, however, left out one important point. If Canada had put that tax on, collected the money, and handed over the five million dollars to England in hard cash, what would have been the result? The greater portion of the trade would have gone to Germany, would have given work to German workmen, would have helped to build German ships, and it would have taken more than the five million dollars annually to counterbalance the loss thereby caused to this country. He felt that every day the British people were allowing the greatest national trade asset that any nation ever possessed, the markets of Great Britain, to be exposed to the free attack of every rival manufacturing nation in the world without any protection, without any possibility of preserving those great national assets for the use of their own people, and in his opinion such a policy was exceedingly foolish.