London, there began an era of good feeling between the two
countries.

* See "The Path of Empire".


Ottawa and Washington were somewhat slower in coming to terms.
Many difficulties can arise along a three thousand mile border,
and with a people so sure of themselves as the Americans were at
this period and a people so sensitive to any infringements of
their national rights as the Canadians were, petty differences
often loomed large. The Laurier Government, therefore, proposed
shortly after its accession to power in 1896 that an attempt
should be made to clear away all outstanding issues and to effect
a trade agreement. A Joint High Commission was constituted in
1898. The members from the United States were Senator Fairbanks,
Senator Gray, Representative Nelson Dingley, General Foster, J.A.
Kasson, and T.J. Coolidge of the State Department. Great
Britain was represented by Lord Herschell, who acted as chairman,
Newfoundland by Sir James Winter, and Canada by Sir Wilfrid
Laurier, Sir Richard Cartwright, Sir Louis Davies, and John
Charlton, M.P.

The Commission held prolonged sittings, first at Quebec and later
at Washington, and reached tentative agreement on nearly all of
the troublesome questions at issue. The bonding privileges on
both sides the border were to be given an assured basis; the
unneighborly alien labor laws were to be relaxed; the Rush-Bagot
Convention regarding armament on the Great Lakes was to be
revised; Canadian vessels were to abandon pelagic sealing in