Great Britain’s Repeal of Its “Corn Laws” and Adoption of Free Trade in the 1840s Panicked Canadian Farmers, Dairy Producers, and Some Manufacturers Who Feared for Their Livelihood

Canada’s quest for reciprocity or freer trade with the United States predated the living memory of most of those people involved in the 1911 election. Great Britain’s repeal of its “corn laws” and adoption of free trade in the 1840s panicked Canadian farmers, dairy producers, and some manufacturers who feared for their livelihood with the loss of British North America’s preferential status in the British market. Feelings were so strong that a group of Anglo-Montreal businessmen came out in support of annexation by the United States as a way of dealing with their economic distress. The annexation movement was short-lived but survived long enough to publish a manifesto and burn down the parliament buildings in Montreal in 1849.

To placate the Canadians, the British government initiated trade negotiations with the Americans to find new outlets for Canadian products to offset what might be lost in the British market. Years of negotiation led to the signing, in 1854, of the Reciprocity Treaty, which allowed free entry of Canadian natural and some processed goods into the American market and the reduction of duties on a number of other products. In addition to reduced tariffs, the Americans were granted access to the inshore fisheries in the Maritime colonies. Ironically, in 1911 much would be made of the connection between reciprocity and annexation, with the argument that the one (reciprocity) would inevitably lead to the other (annexation), even though, in 1854, reciprocity was seen by the British government as a way of preventing annexation.

--Patrice Dutil and David MacKenzie, Canada 1911: The Decisive Election That Shaped the Country (Toronto: Dundurn, 2011), e-book.