The event on Friday night, we repeat, must prove the worst blow that the Commercial Unionists have got since they forced their "fad" before the public. After this we fancy there will be a stampede among them to get out from a most unpleasant and ridiculous position. As early as October, 1887, the late Thomas Macfarlane, one of the ablest and most active members of the Imperial Federation League, wrote to the journal of the League in England a strong article pointing out that Commercial Union would mean annexation, and advocating a uniform rate of duty on all foreign imports in every country of the Empire over and above the ordinary tariff in force then. This was Mr. Hoffmeyer's suggestion at the Colonial Conference of 1884, one made mainly as a commercial measure which would encourage trade and give a tie of interest to the various parts of the Empire. Mr. Macfarlane had supported this view from the first. During November and December, 1887, the matter was being considered, and on the 22nd December a preliminary meeting was held in Shaftesbury Hall, and after speeches by D'Alton McCarthy, G. R. R. Cockburn and others, resolutions were passed in favour of forming a Toronto branch, and a number gave in their names for membership. Mr. McNeill's magnificent speech at Paris on the 19th January, 1888, was a most eloquent appeal in favour of Imperial Federation, and was printed and widely circulated in Ontario. He argued strongly in favour of discriminating tariffs around the Empire. On the 1st February the Toronto branch was formally organised, with the Hon. John Beverley Robinson as President, George R. R. Cockburn, M.P., John M. Clark and Col. George T. Denison as Vice-Presidents, and Wm. Hamilton Merritt as Secretary. It was then arranged that the Annual General Meeting of the Imperial Federation League in Canada should be held on the afternoon of the 24th March, 1888, for the transaction of business, and that in the evening there should be a large public meeting to inaugurate the Toronto branch, and to bring it prominently before the public. It will be remembered that with those who took the most active part in the organisation of the Toronto branch the moving idea was to agitate for a commercial union of the Empire. There was nothing in the original constitution of the Imperial Federation League that would justify such a policy being advocated. It was therefore necessary to amend or alter the constitution to that extent. Consequently, at the Annual General Meeting our Secretary, Wm. Hamilton Merritt, moved, and D. R. Wilkie seconded, the following resolution: