the Dominion required the nursing of such incidental protection as our moderate revenue tariff affords. We believe it is a fact that on recent negotiations for the renewal of the late Reciprocity Treaty, the propriety of adding certain manufactures to the free list was discussed and admitted; it is the principle of free trade as far as now commonly adopted by Great Britain and her colonies, and it is highly probable that the majority of our manufacturers would hail in the proposed change that extension of markets and customers the present want of which is their greatest want, and it is certain that in this number would be found those conducting the best established and most successful manufactures, thus giving the best proof of being congenial to the soil. ernment would doubtless be a gainer, inas- 3rd. "The admission of Dominion built ships and vessels to American registry, enrolment and license, and to all the privileges of the coasting and foreign trade." This change has been long desired by every vessel-owner in Canada, and would be an un mixed advantage to this important branch of industry and enterprise. 2nd. "Uniform laws to be passed by both countries for the imposition of duties on imports, and for internal taxation; the sums collected from these sources to be placed in a common treasury, and to be divided between the two Governments by a per capita 4th. "The Dominion to enlarge its canals or some other equally fair ratio." This is a and improve the navigation of the St. Lawcomprehensive proposal, and in the present rence, and to aid in the building of any great disparity between the Canadian tariff great lines of international railroad, and to and that of the United States seems rather place the citizens of the United States in like going backwards, and it seems (if enter- the same position as to the use of such tained) likely to conflict with our relations works as enjoyed by the citizens of the to Great Britain. These difficulties should Dominion; the United States and the sevenot, however, put the proposition out of ral States giving the citizens of the Dominion court if there be any good in its train, or if the same rights and privileges over works of it be firmly held on the other side. The the same character in the United States." Americans state in its favour that they pro- These works would simply be all in our own pose to reduce their tariff, as their debt is interest-the first to enable us to derive the being reduced; on our side we are unfortu- fullest benefit from our great water-way; the nately in the reverse of their situation in the second, to aid in the fullest development of matter of debt-and possibly this may be our vocation as carriers between the overthe readiest solution of the question how we peopled Eastern world and the vast fields of are to pay our debt, or the interest now yearly the West, now being so rapidly occupied increasing in alarming proportions. In the and made productive. The chain of lake manner of collecting a great economy would and river navigation united and made one be effected; and the removal of custom by our system of canals is only to be equalhouses from all the long border would remove led in completeness and efficiency by a raila cause of daily annoyance and infinite ill-way system extending in feeling. In the matter of division our Gov- through the central fields of the Dominion to Sault Ste. Marie and there connecting for the loss of the American market; any with the route of the Northern Pacific Rail- one who has lived in Canada since before way, now in course of construction, and 1854 can tell what a great impetus forward forming the shortest and most favourably situ- was given to its trade and productiveness ated with reference to climatic influence and during the existence, of the treaty, and it is the productive character of the country tra- fair to say that impulse has not yet been all versed, of any that has yet been projected; lost; indeed a glance at the present state of forming the shortest and most practical the country with its increase of manufactures route to our new fields of Manitoba and the and its wealth of banking capital and bank Saskatchewan Valley, and possessing all deposits will shew that the progress has been these advantages for the two nations. This continuous; but, along with some that are proposition reminds us how often it has been ' permanent, we are happy to say, there are proposed from the Canadian side to offer the temporary causes (that ought to be made enlargement of the canals as an equivalent permanent) patent on the surface to account for reciprocal free trade in natural produc- | for much of this continued prosperity during tions; such enlargement would no doubt, the last half-dozen years; chief of these is be of further advantage, as their use in their | the state of depletion in labour and in every present condition is a great advantage to the citizens of the United States, but the work is not a fair counter in negotiation, for it is a necessity for ourselves and for our own use, and since the last agitation of the question in Parliament it is admitted by every man in Canada that not a day should be lost in going on with the improvement. Having referred briefly to the propositions of the National Board of Trade, which may be assumed to be the views of a body well advanced in commercial questions, and being satisfied that they are at least not out of the question, let us look at the matter as one of material equivalents, as it has been treated, and so far defeated, by the Governments of the two countries-and we may remark it has been treated in rather a huckstering spirit, as a question whether certain commodities growing on the one sidebeeves and barley for instance, were more necessary to the party of the other side than Yankee notions and agricultural implements to the party of the hither side a form in which the controversy might be prolonged indefinitely. It has been said on our side that we have found many new ways of trade since the abrogation of the Reciprocity Treaty, and have so indemnified ourselves product of labour, and in domestic animals. these mere counters of exchange, let us rise to the higher level of the question as one involving not merely the material prosperity but the good neighbourship of two nations whose concerns and interests lie alongside of and interlace each other from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Pacific Ocean; and let us remember that the future of the Dominion even more than that of the United States is dependent upon a fair adjustment, because it is the weaker body of the two, and any disturbing element more nearly touches its heart. This question of commercial relations is vital to the equanimity of the two nations because every man along the long line who is concerned with trade or industry (and that is in these countries nearly everybody) is touched by it. Its settlement upon a fair and permanent basis would of course make easier the much needed establishment upon a permanent basis of our own system of government, for, with perfect freedom of trade, the people on either side could afford to look complacently and with interest upon the efforts and progress of their neighbours in the direction of self-government, and hope may be entertained of new progress in this so difficult science, where so much remains to be perfected, and in which the example and experience of England and of the United States, confessedly imperfect in their attainments, shew us something to be avoided as well as much to be imitated. The kindly suggestions that have occasionally been made to us of late years by British statesmen, pointing to the entire control of our own affairs, have, we think, foreshadowed the necessity of home treatment of our relations with our nearest neighbours, and have been intended to prove the readiness of the Imperial Government to assist us to get on our legs, and to conduct the negotiation for ourselves, and, in short, to lift us from the pupilage of colonists to the ambition of patriots, to a national life every throb of whose pulse we shall feel, and feel to be our own-whose life flows with us and within us. It is for the men of Ontario, who read and reflect, to take the lead in this development of national life, and to prove in response to the suggestions of British statesmen, and in assertion of their own manhood and worth, that they possess capacities for self-government and social improvement. The annual meeting of the Dominion Board of Trade took place at Ottawa, as intimated above Very little, however, occurred at the meeting to affect the situation or to change our view of it. The course of debate on the question of conference with the National Board of Trade with a view to further consideration of, and forwarding, the object proposed by that Board-"freedom of trade with the Dominion"-has not proved our commercial men to be in the more forward condition to be expected of pupils of the British school of trade. The apparent approval of the meeting of such sentiments as that "it was the determination of Canada to live separate and work out its own destiny" was hardly redeemed by the added. qualification "living on friendly terms with the United States," when the subject directly in question was simply that of commercial relations; and the statement of another speaker that the repeal of the Reciprocity Treaty had been of great advantage "to the Canadians, because it had made them rely on themselves to open up roads to the seaports in the east, and push on to the west through what would be the finest part of Canada," seems, if true, in fact as to such development, which we think is open to question, much like affirming the advantage of losing an eye or an ear in order to stimulate the cultivation of the remaining organs. The several quotations of astounding figures, results of experience of individuals or as a collective quantity to the nation shew how such statements may mislead if adopted as proof of the separate growth of our trade, when they actually result in great measure from the trade drawn from the grain fields of the Western States in spite of separation in a measure, and go to prove only the superiority of our great water-way as the highway of the continent. The "Zollverein", appeared to be a bête noire, deeply charged, as many thought, with a venom of disloyalty, and chiefly dangerous as pointing to "annexation." We continue to think, on the other hand, that allaying this spirit of trade would rid us of the chief disturbing element; and in this age when reason is claiming and establishing, as a necessity of truth and progress, the right to discuss every form and shade of opinion in the wide fields of religion and philosophy, we maintain that our national virtue is in no danger from the free discussion of so simple a subject. Notwithstanding, however, the ban upon "Zollver ein" it is satisfactory to notice that the Board decided to go on with the conference. To conclude: It is evident that we are but in the infancy of progress in the way indicated by the general name of "freedom of trade," opening as it does to our future a community of interest and feeling wide as the world. It is the leading step, as the intercourse of trade is always foremost, in drawing men and nations together, to stimu late enquiry, to elicit what is good, and reject what is defective, in every department of knowledge. Now that the subject is opened, there cannot long remain a doubt of the advantages to accrue from the widest opening of the highway between ourselves and our neighbour who possesses a language, laws, religion and habits as well as industrial pursuits similar to our own. L ET older nations proudly praise the emblems of their fame, That sounding down thro' ages long have won immortal name; Old Erin's Shamrock, England's Rose, and Scotia's Thistle green, But there's another Emblem yet, dearer to us than all, It breathes no tale of ancient feuds, betrays no barren soil, But welcomes to our grand old woods the sons of honest toil; Our Emblem chief, the Maple Leaf, of Canada the Free. Then while we prize, with children's love, the Shamrock and the Rose, The Thistle and the Fleur de Lys, forget not that there grows, Upon our broad and fertile soil, a noble forest tree, With graceful leaf, the Emblem chief, of Canada the Free. TORONTO. M THE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD. BY WILLIAM D. LE SUEUR, B.A. R. Arnold is more widely known, and probably attracts more interest, as a critic than as a poet; and yet, I confess, for my own part, to feeling more indebted to him for his poetry than his criticism. In the former, I cannot help thinking, he is more original than in the latter. As a critic he continually reminds us of Ste. Beuve, to whose school he may not unfairly be said to belong. As a poet he does not very distinctly remind us of any one, with the exception of the ancient Greek poets, whom it is no diminishing of any one's originality to imitate. It says something for the strength and independence of Mr. Arnold's poetic genius that he should have escaped, as com pletely as he has done, the influence-so irresistible to many contemporary writers-of Tennyson. Mr. Arnold's first publication in verse appeared, if I mistake not, in 1849, the year which gave "In Memoriam” to the world. Tennyson at that time was the rising star in the world of poetry, to whom nearly all younger writers were paying the homage of more or less conscious imitation. only models, however, which Mr. Arnold appears to have set before him were, as I have already hinted, those to whom the world has been doing reverence for two thousand years, and whose immortal productions no lapse of time can rob of their charm. The The "New Poems" published by Mr. Amold some five or six years ago have taken an altogether higher rank in general estimation than his earlier productions. The latter indeed have for some years past been but little seen or heard of; the "New Poems," on the contrary, have been received with a degree of favour which almost amounts to popularity." Popular, in a wide sense of the word, Mr. Arnold never can be, at least, as a poet. His thoughts are too remote from those of every-day life, and of the average of readers, to excite a wide enthusiasm, or even to be very generally intelligible.. Moreover, the form in which he has chosen to cast a considerable portion of his poetry repels those readers-and they are manywho resent the employment by a writer of any garb they do not recognize at once as modern, national and familiar. A writer with whom they cannot at once feel perfectly at home they turn from with an angry impatience. He may give them vigorous thoughts and beautiful images, but all is of no avail to win their favour if his accent is either archaic or foreign. People of this kind Mr. Arnold is sure to offend. His admirers will be, on the one hand, those who find the forms he has chosen appropriate and pleasing; and, on the other, those whose intellectual sympathy with him is so strong that the presence of certain elements they do not quite understand is no bar to their enjoyment of the substance of what he has written. In thinking of Mr. Arnold I have often been reminded of a well-known passage in Horace's Art of Poetry : "Natura fieret laudabile carmen, an arte, The careful elaboration which has been bestowed upon his poems is evident at a glance; but not less evident to the careful and appreciative reader are the signs of delicate poetic sensibility, liveliness of fancy and warmth of moral emotion; and here we have the substantial basis of Mr. Arnold's poetical talent, the dives vena, without which |