IF CANADA WERE TO ANNEX THE UNITED STATES
HOW RAE MALGREGOR UNDERTOOK GENERAL HEARTWORK FOR A FAMILY OF TWO
HER TRADE DEPENDENCE AND HER POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE
(“THE TRADE OF THE WORLD” PAPERS)
BY JAMES DAVENPORT WHELPLEY
Author of “The Commercial Strength of Great Britain,” “Germany’s Foreign Trade,” etc.
WITH PHOTOGRAPHS
IN the year 1899 a Canadian election agent, who had long been identified with the fortunes of the Liberal party, was a visitor in Washington. He expressed a wish to meet the late President McKinley, whose pleasing personality then pervaded the White House. “Nothing easier,” said his American friend, and an appointment was made forthwith. The President greeted the Canadian visitor with that charming air of particular interest and personal pleasure for which he was famed, and the conversation quite naturally drifted into political channels. The Canadian was soon put at ease, and in the course of the interview said: “This is a very great occasion for me, Mr. President. I had looked forward to it as a remote possibility, but one which would mark a red-letter day in my life. I have felt that I wanted above all things during my visit here to shake hands with a man in whom the American people had so much trust that they placed fifty million dollars in his hands, and told him to go ahead and spend it as he thought would best serve the country in the controversy with Spain. It was a wonderful evidence of trust and confidence, Mr. President; and I am proud to meet the man who was deemed worthy of it by a great, intelligent, and modern nation.”
The President’s face glowed with pleasure as the compliment passed, and he made modest and fitting reply. The Canadian then added: “But I want to say, Mr. President, that I consider it a most terrible waste of money. What do you get for it? Porto Rico, the Philippines, and a few other odds and ends, to say nothing of the loss to the American nation of many lives, the disturbance to business, and a thousand other evils that follow a war. I can tell you of a much better plan for increasing the wealth, size, population, and strength of this country. Give me two million dollars to spend in the next Canadian election, and I will guarantee the peaceful annexation of Canada to the United States. And look what you get!”
President McKinley was apparently much amused, and accepted the statement in the spirit in which it was made; that is to say, the suggestion was so far removed from the domain of the real as to prevent it from being seriously discussed. If it is possible in these days, however, for influences of various kinds emanating from the United States to turn the scale in a Canadian election against freer commercial relations between Canada and the United States, it is not impossible that this practical Canadian politician spoke with greater knowledge and greater seriousness than he received credit for. It must be remembered that at that time there were avowed “annexationists” in Canada, and a party in favor of closer commercial relations with the United States was strongly intrenched in power with the Canadian voters.
When the Canadian Parliament, representing as it does, in the degree in which such bodies do represent, the Canadian people, votes $35,000,000 as a contribution to England’s navy, the consideration of Canada as a nation is forced upon the world. It is not that Canada has need of the British navy any more than she needs a chain of forts along her southern border. It is because of the spirit of independence of natural laws of transportation, economics, and all other things that flow along the line of least resistance, shown by this act of fealty to an idea which might naturally have lost its vividness in crossing three thousand miles of water. England never did much to strengthen the tie between herself and Canada, and even now does little but talk. This talk is inspired by an awakening sense of the absolute necessity of oversea dominions to maintain the greatness of “little England” in the face of rivals becoming more formidable at an amazing rate. There is more human nature in the revival of Canadian loyalty to England, England’s greater appreciation of Canada, and a joint cold shoulder to the United States, than there is statesmanship or economic wisdom. The natural routes of trade and commerce in Canada lead to the south; the character and social conditions of the people are North American, not English. The temperate zone of the North American continent, along the northern fringe of which lies Canada, is all one country in its aspirations and material progress.
GRAIN-ELEVATORS IN PRINCE ALBERT, CANADA
NEW GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC ELEVATOR AT FORT WILLIAM, ONTARIO
I remember sitting in a London club one day at the time of the jubilee of the late Queen Victoria. Near me sat two Canadian army officers who were with the contingent of troops sent to the celebration in England. They were tall, raw-boned, leathery-skinned youths of the type now known to Europe as American. Seated in the club window, quietly and observantly watching the passing crowd, one of them suddenly blurted out to the other, “Well, there’s one thing I’ve learned on this trip, if nothing else.”
“What’s that?” inquired the other.
“Well I’ve learned that I am not an Englishman, as I’ve always supposed myself to be. I’m a Canadian. We don’t know them, and they don’t know us; and what is more, while we are interested enough to try to know them, they just don’t care one way or another. Our point of view is different; and I’m going back home more of a Canadian than I ever was.”
When the Hon. William S. Fielding, formerly Canadian Minister of Finance, introduced his now famous budget to the Canadian Parliament several years ago, in which Canada virtually declared a tariff war upon Germany, he said quite frankly that the important feature of this action was not the apparent hostility to Germany, but that such hostility might serve as a warning to the United States and to England. In brief, it was notice to the mother country that Canada was quite able and ready to act for what she might consider her best interests in fiscal matters, regardless of the wishes, feelings, or dictation of her august parent.
Canada has given to English goods preferential duties a third less than those assessed against the goods of other countries; in times of recent trouble she has given men and money; and now comes a contribution to the expense of British armament amounting to nearly five dollars per capita for every man, woman, and child in the dominion. In return, England has talked of preferential customs duties, but cannot give them; she has talked of changing the law under which a Canadian citizen is not necessarily a citizen of England, but has not done so; she has talked of an armed defense, which is not needed and never will be, for, unlike Australia, the Canadians are protected from all possible enemies by the mere facts of geographical isolation and the presence to the south of a great and powerful nation which would in her own interest, if for no other reason (and there are others), permit no foreigner to alienate a square yard of Canadian soil. England must have the products of Canadian soil, and English emigrants would go to Canada in no greater or lesser numbers if the political tie between the two countries were sundered. As a matter of fact, English immigrants are accorded the same treatment by Canada as those from other lands, and are not as welcome, because of the kind that England has sent.
The ties between five sevenths of the people of Canada and the people of England are those of tradition, sentiment, and blood, while the like ties of the other two sevenths are to France and the United States. It may be true that such ties constitute a tangible force, but that is a matter open to debate, and not to be settled until it comes to a question of international disputes. The ties between Canada and the United States are those compelling bonds of geographical and economic likeness, reciprocity of needs and markets, natural routes for trade and transportation, sympathetic financial exchanges, individual investments one within the confines of the other, to say nothing of the fact that more than a million Canadian-born—a number equaling one seventh of the present population of Canada—have found homes and profitable occupation in the United States, within easy hailing distance of their native land; and in that land are perhaps half a million or more people who were born in the United States.
At the general election in 1912, nearly half of the Canadian people voted in favor of closer trade relations with the United States. A newly elected Democratic Congress in the United States has signified its intention of not repealing the Canadian Reciprocity Act, and there are Canadians who believe the day will come, and at no very distant date, when Canada will yet enter the door thus left ajar, and absorb to herself a share of the forces for expansion and growth of industry which are urging her neighbor to the tremendous pace of the present day.
DISKING AND HARROWING BY STEAM IN CANADA
Contractors take outfits of this sort into the newer districts, and for a small charge “break” the homesteaders’ virgin land.
From a photograph by Notman, Montreal
ASBESTOS-MINE IN THEDFORD, CANADA
Notwithstanding the inability of England to give, and her readiness to take, the people of Canada have heroically set themselves to the task of directing their national growth along the lines of strongest resistance. They will not succeed in the end; but this conclusion does not detract from world-wide interest in the struggle, or from the significance and interest of the results of this Canadian policy, which, as stated, originates more in the qualities of human nature than from the observance of economic laws and an attempt to take advantage thereof. The logical course of events, following the coöperation of human endeavor and natural laws, would be the unification of the North American continent, politically, industrially, commercially, and financially. That this will come sooner or later is inevitable. In the meantime, to maintain a political sympathy with an Old World and a more or less indifferent parent community, to confine transportation, industry, and social existence to lines laid east and west, and at the same time to maintain the somewhat strained pose of an independent nation, is the task the majority of the Canadian people have set for themselves.
This self-styled nation is making a brave show at an ambitious task. A splendid national and independent spirit has arisen, and natural resources are being developed and farmed to the utmost. It has probably surprised the Canadians themselves to realize the present power of their word in affairs of the British Empire, a result not due so much to the weight of Canadian counsels as to the development of international affairs in Europe, but none the less gratifying to Canadian pride. For the first time in history the Canadian Government now finds itself in a position where its demands upon the mother country are not only listened to with respectful consideration, but are granted without much ado. Had it not been for Canadian insistence, backed up by the coöperation of other British possessions, the protest of the British Government over the action of Congress in the matter of the Panama Canal tolls would not have been so insistent; notwithstanding the alarm felt in England over the proposed reciprocity between Canada and the United States, the British Government was forced to leave the matter entirely in the hands of Canada, breathing a sigh of intense relief when it was found that the event was at least postponed. In many other cases where a few years ago all negotiations concerning Canadian affairs would have been conducted as between the United States and England, the latter country more recently has remained a passive and subservient listener, standing ready to carry out the wishes of Canada when the negotiations came to an end.
From a photograph, copyright by Underwood & Underwood
VIEW ON THE NEW WELLAND SHIP CANAL, WHICH CONNECTS LAKE ONTARIO WITH LAKE ERIE
Politically, therefore, Canada has finally won for herself the position of a virtually independent nation, self-governed and self-contained except for the form of obtaining the now ever-ready acquiescence of the mother country in her final dealings with foreign nations.
This was made possible by the very reasons which will forever bar Canada from a like industrial, commercial, financial, or social independence. The geographical and economic dependence of Canada upon the United States forced England to proceed carefully in dealing with Canadian affairs, to prevent alienation and possible final separation by the wish and necessities of the Canadian people. This attitude is an acknowledgment in itself of the independence of Canada from Great Britain and her tendencies in other directions. However, to say that Canada never can achieve the full measure of her material greatness as an independent nation takes nothing from her present power or her splendid progress. In fact, the greater the latter, the more evident will be the need to extend her southern boundaries.
If the position were reversed from what it is to-day, and the proposition were to be submitted to the Canadian people whether or not they would annex the United States, the vote would be virtually unanimous in favor of such annexation. The economic results would be the same as if the United States annexed Canada; the people of the whole continent would move forward at the same pace now observed in the expanding industry and internal power of the United States.
The reasons of Canada’s handicap lie in a lack of geographical and economic balance. From a material point of view, the country is not self-contained. An artificial barrier extends across its southern boundary, forcing transportation to follow unnatural lines and rolling back the tide of Canadian productive industry upon itself. Rivers, lakes, and valleys flow north and south. Eastern and western Canada are separated by twelve hundred miles, more or less, of almost totally infertile country. The snow and ice of winter point to the southern route as the natural outlet for traffic during certain seasons of the year. The population is not sufficient to absorb the products of huge mills, big enough to manufacture at a price which makes possible competition with Europe and countries elsewhere. The greatest and highest-priced marts of the world are across that theoretical line drawn upon the map and existing only as an idea in the minds of the people, a stimulus to local patriotism, and a hindrance to development in most directions. Her people are barred from the best in material prosperity, the best in the arts, in music, and literature, because these things come only where human beings congregate in sufficient numbers to make it possible to support them; and the cities of Canada never can reach that point of development where such will be possible so long as the pass to the south is blocked by even an idea.
With the aid of foreign capital, seven eighths of which, by the way, is Scottish, not English, Canada has built her railways, her mills, and established her banks; with the aid of subsidies she has made possible her manufactures and even her news agencies. Her per capita national debt is the largest in the world, a token in this case of amazing energy, courage, and enterprise, and not of fruitless wars or unproductive extravagance. The units of Canadian population are highly prosperous and intelligent, and possess a purchasing power superior to nearly every other community in the world. The profit of to-day, however, has come, first, from the rapidly increasing land values, and, second, from the fatness of virgin lands. There will be an end to this in its earliest and simplest forms. The profits upon the land have been largely taken; and while the virgin land is still yielding to the plow and numberless thousands of acres are still untouched, the nuggets lying on the ground have been closely gleaned, and more scientific, systematic, and expensive effort is necessary to reap the harvest yet available.
Land values in the Canadian towns and cities have reached the danger-point, and in some cases have exceeded it. There is an old and long-established law that land is worth only what it will produce, be it cash or produce for cash, and that in the end all values flow to this level. The material development of Canada will proceed upon sure lines, for it is based upon that measure of all values, the products of the earth; but the rate of development cannot be hurried beyond a certain point, and this, while satisfactory enough in itself, will not be at the pace the enthusiasts would have us believe. The same story has been written of the western United States, and as the conditions are virtually the same, history will repeat itself. Canada has this advantage, and that is the increasing population of the world and its increasing need or absorptive power, which is far greater to-day than in the decades when the western frontier of America was being pushed toward the Pacific coast.
With all this, the record of Canadian accomplishments is an amazing tale of wondrous energy and gigantic results. Put the figures of Canadian population, immigration, enterprise, and production side by side with those of the greater nations, and they are not large in comparison; but take them by themselves, as they stand, and they are pregnant with promise for the future of this land which stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is only estopped on the south by an imaginary line drawn just where a greater prosperity should begin, and limited at the north solely by the degree of cold and the length of winter that may control human endeavor in its strivings for material advance.
In some directions the science of government is more highly developed in Canada than in any other country in the world. A notable instance of this is in the administration and disposal of public land. Notwithstanding the vast area to be given away to settlers, there has been no prodigality or waste. The home-builder is the man that is wanted, and he is the only one who can secure title to arable land. The banking system is held to be superior to that of the United States; tenure in administrative and judicial office is based largely upon good behavior; immigration is restricted along protective lines; and the customs are administered with the least possible inconvenience to the importer or the traveler. In the endeavor to overcome the natural tendency of trade to flow north and south, and the limitations of her industrial present, Canada has been led into the doubtful byways of subsidy; but as the years progress and the country adjusts itself, there is a notable tendency to be more chary in creating industries that must be kept alive by direct gift; and those already enjoying these special privileges have been warned to prepare for the day when public opinion will demand that they stand or fall upon their own merits.
The figures of Canadian progress tell a story of wonderful energy, and in one particular they are especially interesting and significant. The population of Canada has not increased as might be expected, in view of her great industrial expansion. In fact, it has barely doubled in forty years. In the last four decades the population of the United States has grown about twenty-five per cent. in each succeeding ten years, while that of Canada has increased by thirty, eleven, twelve, and seventeen per cent. in the same periods. That is to say, while the population of Canada was doubling itself, that of the United States increased to two and a half times the number in 1871. In that same forty years, however, the productive and absorptive energies of the Canadian unit have increased enormously, until in these respects a point has been reached without parallel in any other country.
While, as stated, the population has about doubled in forty years, deposits in the post-office savings-banks have risen from $2,500,000 to $43,000,000; total bank deposits from $67,000,000 to $1,000,000,000; the national revenue from $20,000,000 to $118,000,000; expenditure for life-insurance from $1,800,000 to $20,000,000; the amount paid for mail and steamship subventions from $286,000 to nearly $2,000,000; the number of letters and post-cards handled by the post-office from 27,000,000 to 550,000,000; passengers on railways from 5,000,000 to 37,000,000; tons of freight hauled on railways from 5,000,000 to 80,000,000, and on canals from 3,000,000 to 43,000,000.
In that same time the national debt has increased from $77,000,000 to $508,338,592. The total mineral production has grown in value from the figure of 1886, when it was $10,000,000, to $107,000,000 in 1911. Coal production has increased in value from $3,000,000 to $30,000,000, and total foreign trade from $162,000,000 to $771,000,000.
There are in Canada to-day about 1,500,000 families, and only about 75,000 of these are without a dwelling to themselves—a great record of a home-building nation. There is now nearly a billion dollars invested in Canadian manufactures. Nearly 400,000 wage-earners have a payroll of about $150,000,000, and the product of their labor brings nearly the same amount of revenue to the nation as is invested in the productive plants. These figures are all the more extraordinary in that the figures of increase of population bear little relation thereto. It is the story of a great industrial awakening, following the discovery of latent natural resources which applied industry and intelligence have transmuted into wealth and profitable occupation for labor.
In the last ten years the population of Prince Edward Island, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon, has decreased by 9, 14, and 69 per cent., respectively. Some of this decrease has been caused by changes of political boundary-lines. Of the total increase in population nearly sixty per cent. has taken place in the four western provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and Manitoba, the relative expansion of these provinces in number of inhabitants being 439 per cent., 413 per cent., 119 per cent., and 73 per cent., respectively. The total increase of population in the last decade was 1,834,000, and it was distributed as follows: 1,117,000 in the four western or agricultural provinces; 354,000 in Quebec; 340,000 in Ontario; and 54,000 in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. To the western provinces have gone the people seeking homes on the new lands, and to the lively towns and cities, which have become the centers of these great productive areas, have thronged laborers, purveyors to the wants of the settlers, those who offer facilities for the exchange of commodities, and the usual large percentage who, in a new country, live off the industry of others by taking advantage of the eagerness of would-be buyers and sellers to make quick bargains.
As in the history of every newly opened reserve of the world, fortunes have been made from a shoe-string by those shrewd enough to step in between the seller and the buyer in time to take a part of the profit to themselves. The man who buys acreage and sells town lots is the speculator who has made money the world over. The purchaser of the latter may in turn make profit for himself, but the cream has been taken by the prophet who can materialize the vision of the paved street across the plowed field or the prairie sod. All new or rapidly developing countries pass through this stage of swift encroachment of town upon country, and up to a certain point it remains legitimate and normal—that is to say, so long as it fills the measure of need. The momentum thus gained, however, has seldom failed to carry the movement beyond the legitimate, and numberless acres have been in turn sold for taxes, and the farmer’s plow has turned up the stakes which were to mark the lines of pretentious boulevards.
The time of reaction is one of danger and often of disaster. Western Canada has already passed through several periods of stress and trial of this character, and the early story of the now thriving city of Winnipeg is full of tragedy to those who were caught in the reactionary period of many years ago. After a certain time, however, these places find themselves, possibilities and impossibilities are recognized, and values assume true levels, which in many cases constantly but sanely keep pace in their rise with the development of tributary territory. It seems to be a truism that the prices of Broadway or the Strand could not be legitimately duplicated in Prairieville or Rocky Pass, but men surely sane and successful elsewhere apparently become intoxicated as they breathe the stimulating air of the Northwest, and blinded by the vision of the future, they buy or loan in haste not only their own money, but that of others, only to lose, and curse their temporary aberration in the calmness of second thought or the depressing incident of a “busted boom.” Optimism is the key-note of life in a new community, and the true story of the poor man who stumbled over a wheelbarrow-load of gold nuggets is the constant incentive to the weary prospector who is measuring his daily dole from his last sack of flour. It is a thankless task to measure real values in the Northwest at the moment, for no matter how high they may be placed, such measure meets with the approval of no one, neither of the man who has something to sell, nor of the man inclined to buy. The spirit of the gambler is in all human nature, and in none more than the frontiersman; and there is no check to its development in the high-strung, optimistic, and get-rich-quick communities living in the electric atmosphere of our far-flung Northwestern horizons.
Genuine opportunity abounds, and the keen, restless minds of those who blaze the way for the more conservative are impatient of suggested limitations. Perhaps it is just as well it is so, for in the end, while some are trampled under the car, the final adjustment yields no higher death-rate in hopes than in older communities, and in the younger aspirant for civic greatness there is real opportunity for all; whereas in the older settlements there is often opportunity for those alone who already have the power and the means to create it.
An increase of 354,000 in the population of Quebec during the last ten years means a large natural increase characteristic of the French-Canadian inhabitants, and a development of lumbering, mining, and fishing industries natural to any section of the world so easy of access and so rich in such resources. The population of Ontario, that stronghold of the British in Canada, has increased by 340,000. This is due to the development of manufacturing. Cheap power, raw material, and favorable natural location, with protection and bounty advantages, are being made use of by foreign capital. The recent decision of the United States Steel Corporation to build a $20,000,000 plant in Canada is no part of a boom; it is only the maturing of plans made long ago in view of future possibilities, and a realization that the time was now ripe to move. The building of this plant bears no relation to the bounty now given on Canadian manufactured iron, for that is too uncertain, too political, too subject to the popular whim, to base a great and permanent industrial enterprise upon. It is based entirely upon an economic situation deemed favorable to the establishment of an extensive and profitable industry.
The rush to the wheat-fields of the Canadian Northwest is easily understood. For twenty years Europe poured a great stream of intelligent, industrious farmers into the United States to take advantage of the free and arable lands. Not a few from eastern and central Canada crossed the line to the south for the same purpose. With the exhaustion of the more easily acquired lands, the tide turned more northward, and while the movement has not yet attained, and probably never will reach, the flood-tide witnessed in the agricultural immigration into the United States, the same forces are at work, and the same results will be achieved.
In the days when the grain area of the United States filled up with people, wheat was fifty cents a bushel or less, and “dollar wheat” was the dream of the grain-farmer. The dream has come true, and this increase in value has given the movement strength enough to overcome serious climatic differences and remoteness from markets; or, in brief, it has equalized the line of greater resistance. In the last ten years perhaps 750,000 people from the United States have gone to Canada, most of them seeking homes. On the whole, this immigration has been of a very desirable class, and it is estimated that these people have taken with them to their new homes an average of about a thousand dollars in money or property for every man, woman, and child, or total assets of about $750,000,000. Many a prosperous farmer, with perhaps a hundred and forty acres of land in Iowa, Illinois, or other good farming States, has thought about his family, and realized that at his death his property would have to be sold in order that each might get his share. He has found that by selling his valuable but comparatively small farm at a good figure he would have enough to improve and stock at least six hundred and forty acres of the Canadian Northwest, thus giving him ample land at some time in the future to divide among his children and leave each one with a workable portion. Canada has welcomed these settlers, as well she might. They have willingly become Canadians and are good citizens. Their influence will in time add insensibly to the force at work for the economic unification of the North American continent, though in the meantime they are as good Canadians as immigrants in the United States are good Americans, even in the first generation.
There is possibly about $2,000,000,000 of British and other European capital invested in Canada, but it takes little active part in influencing the country politically or otherwise in the direction of its progress. As a rule, the English send out their money in hopes of larger earnings than would be had at home—and to escape the income tax; France, for the income received therefrom; both people investing in listed securities rather than industrial adventures. It is not quite the same with $350,000,000 of American money that has found its way into Canadian investment. Much of this money is engaged in enterprises based upon Canadian trade, protected by Canadian tariff, benefited by Canadian bounties, and competitive with American capital at home. The force of this influence, taken with antagonisms of similar character originating south of the Canadian boundary, and the active aid of certain high-tariff enthusiasts in the United States, enabled the anti-reciprocity party in Canada to score over those in favor of closer commercial union between the two countries. It might not be comforting to the pride of Canadians to know or to have it said just how far these influences went in deciding the political fate of the dominion at the moment, and it might detract from the quality of the self-gratification of the English to know how this so-called manifestation of Canadian loyalty was really brought about. It is equally true that those in the United States who worked so long and so ardently for greater freedom of trade with Canada, believing it would result in great good for their own country as well as for Canada, are not inclined to cheerfulness when they realize just how much of their defeat they owe to the antagonistic influence of their own fellow-countrymen, directors of American industries which have grown into perhaps too great power in the nation through the willingness on the part of the American consumer to contribute liberally, so that all branches of human endeavor might prosper together in the general advance of the nation. Just how far the reaction in favor of reciprocity has gone in both countries since the last Canadian election, it is impossible to say. It is reasonable to assume that none who voted in favor of it has changed his opinion, and it is a matter of public and private record that a goodly number of those who voted against it in Canada have changed their opinion since the smoke of battle cleared away and it has been possible to put a true value on the injudicious or untrue statements of politicians, be these of an allegedly humorous character or not. This question of the economic unification of North America is a living issue which will disappear from the national life of the two English-speaking countries only with a fulfilment of a commercial union virtually complete. When President Taft authorized his secretary of state to offer complete free trade to the Canadian Reciprocity Commissioners as a basis for negotiation, he was not suggesting the impossible; he was merely ahead of the times, for some day one of his successors in the White House will have the honor of carrying the suggestion into practical effect.
The period of great development in Canada began in the decade from 1891 to 1901, when the foreign trade of the country increased by about $170,000,000, or, in other words, doubled itself. In the following decade it increased by nearly $384,000,000, or nearly doubled itself again. A few figures show most strikingly how during the last twenty years the new Canada was begun and came into her own, for her foreign trade progressed as follows:
Years
Exports
Imports
Total
1871
$74,173,618
$96,092,971
$170,266,589
1881
98,299,823
105,380,840
203,621,663
1891
98,417,296
119,967,638
218,384,934
1901
196,487,632
190,415,525
386,903,157
1911
297,196,365
472,247,540
769,443,905
In the last forty years Canada increased the export of the products of her mines from $3,700,000 to $43,000,000; fisheries from $4,000,000 to $16,000,000; forests from $23,000,000 to $46,000,000; animal products from $13,000,000 to $53,000,000; agricultural products from $10,000,000 to $90,000,000, and manufactures from $2,500,000 to $44,000,000. Her greatest gain in the export of any one item has been in wheat and wheat flour, for in 1871 the exports were valued at $3,560,000, while in 1911 the value reached about $60,000,000. The wheat production of the United States is about 620,000,000 bushels, valued at about $555,000,000. That of Canada is about 216,000,000 bushels, valued at about $140,000,000. The average yield an acre in Canada is more than twenty-one bushels to the acre, or more than seven bushels an acre greater than the yield to the south. In 1912, Canada had 32,500,000 acres planted in field crops, 10,000,000 of which were in wheat, and nearly 10,000,000 in oats.
For the last forty years the foreign trade of Canada has been distributed among the four principal nations as follows:
UNITED KINGDOM
Years
Exports
Imports
Total
1873
$68,522,776
$38,743,848
$107,266,624
1883
52,052,465
47,145,217
99,197,682
1893
43,148,413
64,080,493
107,228,906
1903
58,896,901
131,202,321
190,099,222
1911
109,936,462
136,965,111
246,901,573
UNITED STATES
Years
Exports
Imports
Total
1873
$47,735,678
$42,072,526
$89,808,204
1883
56,032,333
41,668,723
97,701,056
1893
58,221,976
43,923,010
102,144,986
1903
137,605,195
71,783,924
209,389,119
1911
284,934,739
119,396,801
404,331,540
GERMANY
Years
Exports
Imports
Total
1873
$1,099,935
$76,553
$1,176,488
1883
1,809,154
133,697
1,942,851
1893
3,825,763
750,461
4,576,224
1903
8,175,604
1,819,223
9,994,827
1911
10,047,340
2,663,017
12,710,357
FRANCE
Years
Exports
Imports
Total
1873
$2,023,288
$31,907
$2,055,195
1883
2,316,480
617,730
2,934,210
1893
2,832,117
264,047
3,096,164
1903
6,580,029
1,341,618
7,921,647
1911
11,563,773
2,782,092
14,345,865
The two great traders with Canada are the United States and Great Britain. More than ten years ago Canada gave to certain classes of imports from England a special reduction of duties amounting on an average to about 30 per cent. These special favors are doubtless responsible for a part of the large and sudden increase of imports from England in the last decade. What would have happened to British trade in Canada without these tariff concessions is not a cheerful subject for discussion among British manufacturers, for even with it the Canadian exports to England form the large part of such increase of trade, as has been noted. Trade between England and Canada has increased as a whole by about 140 per cent.; but while imports from England have risen in forty years from less than $70,000,000 to about $110,000,000, exports to England have risen from less than $40,000,000 to about $140,000,000. In the same forty years exports from the United States to Canada have increased from about $48,000,000 to about $285,000,000, while imports from Canada have gone from $42,000,000 to about $120,000,000, or a total gain of about 350 per cent. This has been accomplished without tariff concessions on either side, in fact in the face of considerable antagonism.
The reasons for American success in the sale of manufactured goods in Canada in competition with other nations favored, as in the case of England, with lower customs duties, are not entirely geographical. Not only are many of the largest Canadian industrial plants of American origin, or even branches of American institutions, but American capital is interested in the success of many others. In a report to his Government the British trade commissioner for Canada says: “The geographical advantage of our American rivals is fully realized, but the lesson pressed home is that they are more aggressive in trade methods, spend more money in selling their goods, are quicker to make any suggested change in patterns, smarter in business methods and in design of goods, and quicker in delivering.”
England’s trade with Canada is based upon the necessities of the mother country in the matter of food supply and raw materials; hence the increasing Canadian export of the products of the farm and forest. In supplying the needs of Canada, the British manufacturer meets in competition the best equipped of all American industries—those which deal in building supplies of all descriptions, machinery, and railway equipment. English trade in Canada will continue to increase, but any hope on the part of Europe to oust the United States from the lines chosen is doomed to disappointment. Even with free trade within the British Empire, the situation might not change materially, though it might lead to a greater investment of American industrial capital in Canada, a course of events that would in time militate even more strongly against British trade supremacy than does the present situation, for competition would then come from within instead of from without. The development of Canada is the only measure of the future of American trade in Canada in nearly every direction, and the only way in which Canada can share fully in this rising tide of industrial activity is to make a flank attack upon the “friendly enemy” by permitting a freer exchange of commodities than is now allowed, to which the United States stands already committed. This would mean an increase in Canadian production and population such as has never been recorded.
From a photograph, copyright by Underwood & Underwood
THE ST. LAWRENCE AS SEEN FROM THE CITADEL IN QUEBEC
It is not within the scope of this article to treat of other than the material side of Canadian development, and yet such treatment leaves much unsaid that has a direct bearing upon the present and future of this old-new country, which is rapidly coming into its own. Commercial and industrial development have been rapid, and yet there is another Canada including within itself all the activities of human thought. Literature, art, and science are making amazing strides, stimulated by the optimism that pervades the life of this Northern land. Long before preferential tariffs or reciprocity treaties with Canada were seriously discussed by foreign nations as being of real advantage to them, Canada had made her impress upon the life of the world through the genius of her sons and daughters. In fact, the bygone days of calm contentment with things as they were, acceptance of a position in the world’s affairs as that merely of a colony of a far-distant country, gave time for introspection and the cultivation of the graces of the mind. In those days were laid the foundations of Canada’s great institutions, her schools, her libraries, her universities, and her laboratories. Still further back in history were enacted the heroic deeds of her soldiers and her pioneers, which have yielded to the Canadian people a pride of race all their own, and made easy the adoption at a later date of the so-called new national policy to which the people now pin their faith.
There is no rivalry between the United States and Canada. The interests of the two peoples are identical; the needs of both countries can be filled one by the other. No thought of conquest originates south of the Canadian boundary, and no thought of surrender from within. The resources of Canada, developed to their utmost, are only supplementary to the needs of the people of the whole continent; and to the south lie the great masses of population which are increasing in density at such a rate as to invite the prediction that before many years have elapsed it will require the highest potential energy of both peoples to supply their actual wants. The extension of American trade in Canada cannot be checked by laws or restrictions; the expansion of American markets for Canadian produce will be measured only by the ability to supply.