Two centuries ago, Nova Scotia’s lieutenant-governor was fielding trade petitions that sound remarkably like today’s debates over U.S.-Canada commerce.
Lieutenant-governor was juggling petitions from competing business groups
George Ramsay, 9th Earl of Dalhousie, was lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia from 1816 to 1820.
Washington and Ottawa are engaged in a heated trade dispute, but the concerns driving today's tariffs are not new.
Two centuries ago, in the aftermath of the War of 1812, Nova Scotia Lt.-Gov. George Ramsay, the 9th Earl of Dalhousie, was fielding petitions that echo today's debates over U.S.-Canada commerce.
According to historian Shirley Tillotson, professor emeritus at the University of King's College, Halifax at the time acted as a middleman for goods travelling to and from the British West Indies.
The port of Halifax and its merchants were essentially moving goods around and collecting revenue for themselves and the provincial government, she says.
In June 1817, William Bowie and Stephen Deblois petitioned Ramsay for relaxed trade regulations and open access for certain American commodities.
The two were auctioneers and commission merchants in Halifax dealing in postwar American food imports.
In their petition, the pair argued that Nova Scotians were facing severe hardship and needed relief.
William Bowie was a Halifax merchant and founder of the firm Bowie & Deblois. Bowie would be killed in 1819 in the last fatal duel on record in Nova Scotia when he faced off against Richard John Uniacke Jr.
They pointed to what they described as the "great difficulties under which the trade in this port at present labours."
Specifically, they wanted to import goods from the U.S. without having to take an oath of ownership, a declaration that they owned the goods and that they were brought in legally.
The government implemented the oath to prevent smuggling and ensure that customs duties were paid.
Tillotson says tariff duties were at the time Nova Scotia's main source of funding but smuggling was a constant threat.
"Smuggling was a source of conflict among factions of merchants, between producers and consumers, and between everyone and the provincial government," she says.
Historian Shirley Tillotson is a professor emeritus at the University of King's College in Halifax.
Bowie and Deblois expressed the view that removing trade restrictions was the most effective way to get the province out of its postwar economic difficulties.
News of the petition did not sit well with another group of local merchants who wrote to the lieutenant-governor in March 1818 expressing their objections.
This larger group of shipowners and merchants led by William Sabatier relied on imperial protectionist measures to keep their businesses profitable.
Unlike Bowie and Deblois, they had large integrated businesses and a great deal of capital invested.
Their letter was signed by dozens of prominent local businessmen, including influential figures like Richard Tremain, who owned a flour mill and had served as a magistrate, and Joseph Allison, a merchant and financial figure who served in the House of Assembly.
They argued that freer trade would lead to more smuggling and would take business away from "British merchants resident within the colonies."
Tillotson notes that for all their talk of empire, the merchants likely had more practical considerations in mind.
"They may have been imperialists," Tillotson says. "But they were petty imperialists who were … motivated by the fact that their bread was buttered by a system of imperial protection, which cost the British nation money for navy and enforcement officers."
Commissioners House, in the Naval Yard, Halifax, 1804
In their letter, they said that removing barriers could lead to a drain of capital from the province and away from the British Empire.
In one striking section of their correspondence, they stated that American traders would do anything to make a profit, including breaking the law.
"For every person acquainted with the character of the States Americans well knows how disposed they are towards an illicit trade; and how adventurous and skillful they are in the performance of it," they wrote.
A letter written to the lieutenant-governor in March 1818 by William Sabatier on behalf of a group of merchants.
In their letter, they also expressed concern that farmers in the province would stop growing food if cheaper American flour and meat were allowed to flood the market.
They noted that following the War of Independence, Americans were permitted to "clandestinely" import cattle and meat in such large quantities that they were the market's primary source of those supplies.
"The farmers of the Province in consequence neglected to raise cattle; but the most energetic measures being adopted against that traffic, the stock of the country rapidly increased and the markets have ever since been supplied with native produce."
Their letter predicted a similar fate for flour production in the province if protections were lifted.
A crowd of people in the rain, many carrying Canadian flags.
The lieutenant-governor forwarded the correspondence to London.
"The case had to be made to London … because the fate of Halifax's merchants was settled there, not here," Tillotson says.
A note on the document indicates that the government sent the issue to the British board of trade for review.
The rhetoric around U.S.-Canada trade is still echoing two centuries later.
But, Tillotson says, there is one key difference today.
"Although such disputes continue, at least we are part of a nation that can make its own trade policy," she notes.
