What Were The Differences Between Pennnington And Baker

Both Pennington and Baker deal with the issues surrounding Canadian trade agreements with the United States during the latter half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. However Pennington and Baker take vastly different viewpoints on the issue. Whereas Pennington takes the view that Laurier's Liberals were hoping for some sort of moderate trade agreement with the United States and support for a commercial Union, Baker deals with reciprocity and its ties to anti-Americanism. In addition, both authors tend to imply that the greater underlying question resulted into which economic orbit Canada would tie itself. MacDonald's Conservatives favouring to maintain the traditional economic alignment to Great Britain while the Liberals

While both Pennington and Baker are covering the 1891 and 1911 elections respectively by looking at the two different parties, the Liberals and Conservatives, both are quick to point out, if not consciously, that making free trade the key election played to MacDonald's, and the Conservatives' strengths, while taking advantage of Laurier's, and the Liberals', weaknesses surrounding free trade. The combination of the articles serve as a direct contrast between the Liberal and Conservatives during both the 1891 and 1911 elections, due to the fact that free trade, in even the smallest of possible formats, became the central election issue. According to Pennington there was a clear division within the Liberal Party itself over this issue, with the intellectuals within the Liberal Party aware that even pushing any form of free trade would be fine line between in-acting legislation that was enough to satisfy the biggest proponents of free trade, the farmers in the rapidly expanding western provinces, while

While Laurier argued that Canada could complete effectively compete against the United States, popular opinion in either eastern or western Canada was not supportive of entering into free trade with the United States and its larger industrial capacity. As a result support for the Liberals was not as strong as what the Liberals might expect due to the fact that for many Western Canadians the fear of being assimilated into, or overrun by, the greater American population and America's greater industrial base was greater than potentially seeing some economic benefit offered from either reciprocity or a Commercial Union or free trade in any format. According to Baker this played into the Conservatives' hands due to the Liberals' making this the election's central issue because it formed a stark contrast between the Liberals and the Conservatives. The Liberal policy made many Canadians anxious about their political, social and economic futures while the Conservatives offered a clear alternative through allowing Canadians to stay on the same economic policy, and by extension guaranteeing the social and political futures of those who were concerned about the Liberal policy which turned out to be the sizeable majority of the Canadian