in Canada significantly increased whereas British investment declined. By 1918, imports of goods from the United States were 1,000 percent of British exports to Canada. In 1915, 1916, and 1917, Borden's government began to reverse their anti-taxation position, not least because of the need for more government revenue. The government introducing wartime savings bonds and raising import tariffs was not enough. In 1915, a luxury tax on tobacco and alcohol and taxes on transport tickets, telegrams, money orders, cheques, and patent medicines were introduced. By the end of the war, staple items were taxed. In a politically motivated move in 1916, the government introduced the Business Profits War Tax to address increasing concerns about businesses practising war profiteering. The tax expired in 1920 but was brought back in the Second World War. In 1917, the government introduced the income tax. Though the government declared the income tax to be temporary, it has remained in place ever since. In 1917, facing skyrocketing prices, Borden's government established the Board of Grain Supervisors of Canada to distance the marketing of crops grown in 1917 and 1918 away from the private grain companies. It was succeeded by the Canadian Wheat Board for the 1919 crop. The board was dissolved in 1920, despite the concept being popular among farm organizations. Conscription, Unionist Party, and 1917 election In Spring 1917, Borden visited Europe and attended the Imperial Conference. There, he participated in discussions that included possible peace terms and helped spearhead the passage of Resolution IX which called for a post-war constitutional conference to "provide effective arrangements for continuous consultation in all important matters of common Imperial concern, and for such necessary concerted action, founded on consultation, as the several Governments may determine." He also assured leaders of the Allied countries that Canada was committed to the war. Also during his trip, Borden made visits to the hospital to meet wounded and shell shocked soldiers and became deterimined that the soldiers' sacrifices should not be in vain, and that therefore, the war must end. With volunteer enlistment slowing down, Borden believed that the war should finish through only one method: conscription. Reversing their pledge to not introduce the policy, Borden's government passed the Military Service Act to introduce conscription. The Act became law on August 29, 1917. The disputes over conscription triggered the Conscription Crisis of 1917; most English Canadians supported the policy whereas most French