The delays which retarded the settlement of the Reciprocity Treaty were due to causes of another kind.  The difficulty was to induce the American Congress to pay any attention at all to the subject.  In the vast multiplicity of matters with which that Assembly has to deal, it is said that no cause which does not appeal strongly to a national sentiment, or at least to some party feeling, has a chance of obtaining a hearing, unless it is taken up systematically by ‘organizers’ outside the House.  The Reciprocity Bill was not a measure about which any national or even party feeling could be aroused.  It was one which required much study to understand its bearings, and which would affect different interests in the country in different ways.  It stood, therefore, especially in need of the aid of professional organizers; a kind of aid of which it was of course impossible that either the British or the Canadian Government should avail itself.  Session after session the Bill was proposed, scarcely debated, and set aside.  At last, in 1854, after the negotiations had dragged on wearily for more than six years, Lord Elgin himself was sent to Washington in the hope—­’a forlorn hope,’ as it seemed to those who sent him—­of bringing the matter to a successful issue.  It was his first essay in diplomacy, but made under circumstances unusually favourable.  He was personally popular with the Americans, towards whom he had always entertained and shown a most friendly feeling.  They appreciated, moreover, better perhaps than it was appreciated at home, the consummate ability, as well as the rare strength of character, which he had displayed in the government of Canada; and the prestige thus attaching to his name, joined to the influence of his presence, and his courtesy and bonhomie, enabled him in a few days to smooth all difficulties, and change apathy into enthusiasm.  Within a few weeks from the time of his landing he had agreed with Mr. Marcy upon the terms of a Treaty of Reciprocity, which soon afterwards received the sanction of all the Governments concerned.

The main concessions made by the Provinces to the United States in this treaty were, (1) the removal of duties on the introduction, for consumption in the Provinces, of certain products of the States; (2) the admission of citizens of that country to the enjoyment of the in-shore sea-fishery; (3) the opening-up to their vessels of the St. Lawrence and canals pertaining thereto.

A good deal of misconception prevailed at the time as to the amount of the concession made under the second head.  The popular impression on this point was, that a gigantic monopoly was about to be surrendered; but this was far from being the case.  The citizens of the United States had already, under the Convention of 1818, access to the most important cod-fisheries on the British coasts.  The new treaty maintained in favour of British subjects the monopoly of the river and freshwater fisheries; and the concession which it made to the citizens of the United States amounted in substance to this, that it admitted them to a legal participation in the mackerel and herring fisheries, from illegal encroachments on which it had been found, after the experience of many years, practically impossible to exclude them.[3]