98 CANADA AND THE EMPIRE.

hitherto bound the Empire together, and there are
no grounds for supposing that it will in future
prove inadequate to do what it has done in the
past. But once something of the nature of a commercial
 transaction is introduced, the whole nature
of the bond is changed. The ties that at present
hold the Empire together are none the less real
because they are peaceful and intangible. Their
value is in no way decreased by the fact that it is
these very qualities of peacefulness and intangibility
that alone render the Imperial tie tolerable to a
large proportion of Canadians of foreign descent, to
whom a more hard-and-fast bond would be irksome.
This cannot last under a stereotyped commercial
agreement. The tangible is bound inevitably to
exclude the intangible, with the result that the old
relations that bound the Empire together must
tend by degrees to disappear and purely commercial
 ones based on preferential tariff treaties
will take their place. At present commercial treaties
can be made in any quarter without weakening
the Imperial tie, because commerce and empire
are distinct. Once destroy the distinction that
now exists between these two, and the continuity
of the Empire will have to depend upon the
stability of the commercial treaties that connect
its parts together. Commercial treaties last, and
ought to last, just so long as they are commercially
profitable, and their object being solely profit, they
are usually denounced as soon as a better offer is
made from elsewhere, Were Canada offered her