Foster's Daily Democrat

FOREIGNERS MISLED
As to Reasons For Failure of American-Canadian Commission.

UNCLE SAM YIELDED MANY POINTS
While Our Cousins Declined to Commit Themselves.

Washington, May 12.—The statements of the press of London and Canada respecting the reasons for the recent failure of the negotiations with Canada have occasioned much surprise in the official world of Washington. These statements assume that the Canadians made all the offers of concessions, the United States commissioners standing by existing conditions. The facts, as understood here, are directly contrary to that view. There are certain facts tending to contradict the statements of the British press, which the Associated Press is now able to make known for the first time.

Take the question of trade with Canada for example. It is positively known that the Americans offered absolute free trade in mineral products, an enlargement of the free list of forest products; an important concession of duty on lumber and on most agricultural products. It is also known that they offered liberal terms for the adjustment of the Behring sea sealing question and offered an amicable method for the adjustment of the boundary question, yielded to Canada's views in respect to alien labor and to the lake fisheries, and offered reciprocal mining privileges. Indeed, if the opinion in well informed circles here is well founded, nearly every offer of concession proceeded from the side of the United States, the Canadians as a rule declining to commit themselves to any distinct proposition on the foregoing topics, the Alaska boundary excepted. In fact, it is universally believed here that the distinct offer of concessions for a settlement came almost wholly from the United States commissioners.