Smith traveled no farther from his Toronto home than Niagara Falls in 1905. In late December he mailed his address to the American Historical Association to be read before the annual meeting, for although he had been honored by election as president of the association for 1904, Smith felt himself unequal to the journey to Chicago. Consequently his interest in Toronto affairs was intensified. Housing for the poor, university federation, separate schools,and temporary housing for the Toronto art museum were among the topics discussed. Succession duties, the closing of woolen mills for want of sufficient tariff protection, and the quality of school history textbooks claimed his attention. He was in communication with some of the leaders of organized labor in the city, and offered his services as intermediary in an attempt to effect a settlement between an employer and the lithographers' union. Smith revised his earlier study of Ireland, prepared a short study of the monetary system, and undertook to inform himself about the record of British rule in India. The turmoil inside Russia and the settlement of the Russo-Japanese war were mentioned, and a number of letters refer to a bust made by Moses Ezekiel for Goldwin Smith Hall at Cornell.