The originator of this movement, Erastus Wiman of New York, was born at Churchville, near Toronto, and was educated and lived in Toronto for a number of years in his early life. He was connected with the Press and for a time kept a small book shop on King Street. He served a year in the Toronto City Council. He became Toronto manager of R. G. Dun and Company's Commercial Agency in 1860, and afterwards went to New York and became manager of it there, and a member of the firm. He was also president of the Great North Western Telegraph Company, which controlled almost all the telegraph lines in Canada. He had not taken the oath of allegiance to the United States, and he was suited in every way to lead the insidious scheme which was started under the name of Commercial Union, but was intended to bring about peacefully the annexation of Canada to the United States. The movement was planned and launched with remarkable skill. Mr. Wiman, who was posing as a true-hearted Canadian, was, I believe, working for great financial interests in the States, headed by Jay Gould. Of course, of this there is no proof, but only the deduction that can be drawn from a close study of all the information that can be had. The first step was to establish the Canadian Club of New York, to be a home for welcoming Canadians visiting that city. The next was still more ingenious. A number of the most prominent Canadians, principally literary men, orators, &c., were invited to New York as guests of the Club, to address the members. These visitors were treated with the warmest hospitality, and no indication given that Mr. Wiman had any ulterior motives. About the same time, in 1886, Mr. Wiman gave some public baths to the citizens of Toronto, at a cost of about $6,000, as a proof of his warm feeling towards the city in which his early life had been spent. After all this preparation he came to Canada in the spring of 1887, and aided by Goldwin Smith, Valancy Fuller, Henry W. Darling, President of the Toronto Board of Trade, and a few others, he proposed in the interests of Canada a scheme of Commercial Union between Canada and the United States which he claimed would be a great boon and lasting advantage to Canada. During the whole summer of 1887 an active campaign was being conducted, meetings were held in many places, and addressed by Mr. Goldwin Smith, Mr. Wiman, Congressman Butterworth, of Ohio, and others. The members of the Canadian Parliament were furnished with circulars, articles, and reports of speeches in profusion. Mr. Wiman, as a member of the firm of Dun, Wiman and Company, had an influence over the business men of Canada that could hardly be overestimated. It would have been a serious thing for any ordinary business man in any city, town, or village in Canada, if dependent upon his credit for the profitable conduct of his business, to incur the hostility of the mercantile agency, on whose reports his credit would largely depend.