Grounds are not wanting for the belief that the inevitable tendency of several very great trade interests of Canada is more towards Great Britain and some of the British dependencies than towards the United States. From their position and physical character Canada and the United States must in many ways be rival producers. Both are great grain and cattle raising countries. Both wish their surplus of agricultural productions to reach the consuming millions of the old world, or the tropical countries like the West Indies where they may be exchanged for articles of {147} use or luxury. Certain it is that the United States now export to Great Britain many millions of pounds' worth of those very products which Canada sends in smaller quantities to the States. Such a fact scarcely bears out the assertion that the United States furnish the natural market of Canada. It rather suggests that better organization for transport and greater commercial enterprize would make the English market the more valuable of the two for Canada.

But while urging this view of ultimate trade tendencies there is no need to underestimate the present advantage and convenience which Canada would derive from the freest possible access to American markets. These may be at once admitted, the only qualification being that Canada cannot afford to purchase advantage and convenience at the price of national dishonour or humiliation. Let us remember, however, that advantage and convenience are not confined to one side.

It is already true, it is becoming increasingly true, that the United States must have Canadian products. They leap over even the barrier of a McKinley tariff. American forests are nearly exhausted—those of Canada are not only still of immense extent, but practically inexhaustible, since nature has reserved by conditions of soil and climate, large areas exclusively for the growth of trees. Canadian waters have well nigh a monopoly of the best fish of the American continent. From Nova Scotia northward gulf and bay swarm with fish which pour downwards {148} from the cold Arctic regions in numbers that never fail, and of the best quality. The lakes and rivers of the north-west might well supply the whole of the centre of the continent with fresh-water fish. On the Pacific the Canadian monopoly is not so complete since the purchase of Alaska by the United States, but the fisheries of British Columbia have a great future. On the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in the inland prairie region Canada can supply coal in abundance to regions in the United States without deposits of their own. American brewers find it necessary to have Canadian barley, and are earnestly petitioning Congress to reduce the duty from thirty to the old rate of ten cents per bushel. So too with farm produce of other kinds. American consumers now pay a higher price for the eggs and poultry once drawn from Canada but driven by the McKinley tariff to seek new, and as it turns out, fairly satisfactory markets in Great Britain. That tariff must inevitably result in a largely increased development of manufacturing industry, a closer pressure of consumption upon producing power in the matter of food in the United States, and a consequent increase in the demand, already very noticeable in New England towns, for easy access to Canadian supplies. The freedom of the markets of the continent is likely ere long to be a stronger election cry in the United States than it has been in the Dominion[2].

{149}

Something ought perhaps to be said in reference to the part which Canada seems likely to take in supplying food to the United Kingdom. The area of wheat production has shifted rapidly on the American continent, first westward from New York State to Ohio, Illinois, and Iowa, then northward to Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Dakota. Till within a few years past these northern states of the Union were supposed to mark the limit of successful wheat cultivation. Actual experience has now proved that it is several hundreds of miles further north, and that in Canadian territory is included the largest and richest undeveloped wheat area in the world. Allowance must be made for occasional early frosts, which are, {150} however, not so disastrous as Indian or Australian droughts, and may apparently be successfully combated by fall ploughing and early sowing. When this allowance is made, it seems clearly proved that in both quantity and quality the north-western provinces and territories of Canada will soon take a leading place in grain supply. The railway, which opened up the country to settlement, was completed in 1885. Yet in 1887 the districts which it reached, with but a scattered population, yielded 12,000,000 bushels of surplus wheat; in 1890, 16,000,000 bushels; and the estimate for 1891 is 21,000,000 bushels. Eight times this quantity would supply the whole British demand. At the present average of production 100,000 farmers thrown into the north-west, which {151} is capable of absorbing many hundreds of thousands, would raise all the wheat that now comes into the United Kingdom. Statisticians are already forecasting the date when the growth of population, going on side by side with the exhaustion of the more fertile prairie lands in the United States, will equalize production and consumption in that country, and leave it unable to furnish the supplies on which Britain has hitherto so largely depended. Speaking to a Yorkshire audience not long since, Sir Lyon Playfair suggested twenty years hence as the probable period to the time when England could expect to draw wheat supplies from the United States, after which she would have to depend on Canada, India, and other countries chiefly within the Empire. On the same question Mr. Bryce, in speaking of the United States, says: 'High economic authorities pronounce that the beginnings of this time of pressure lie not more than thirty years ahead. Nearly all the best arable land of the West is already occupied, so that the second and third best will soon begin to be cultivated; while the exhaustion already complained of in farms which have been under the plough for three or four decades will be increasingly felt.' Like opinions have been expressed by American writers. Whatever may be thought about the precise point of time, the tendency is manifest. Within a measurable time the Empire will, by the natural progress of events, mainly supply its own markets with wheat, and, it may be added, with its second most important article of consumption {152} meat. The argument which I have used in another place, pointing to the advantage and greater security for both producer and consumer, of having so far as possible the areas which furnish the raw material of manufacture under the protection of the national flag, applies with equal, if not greater force, to food supply.

[1] 'Mob violence and many forms of injustice, made life almost intolerable for them in their homes, and emigration to British territory took place on a scale which has been hardly paralleled since the Huguenots. It has been estimated, apparently on good authority, that in the two provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick alone, the Loyalist emigrants and their families amounted to not less than 35,000 persons, and the total number of refugees cannot have been much less than 100,000.—Jones' 'History of New York,' ii. 259, 268, 500, 509. An American authority quoted by Mr. Lecky.

[2] Since writing the above I have found the case thus put from the United States point of view in the North American Review for August, 1890:—'The exhaustion of the forests of Maine, the disappearance of the forests in the Saginaw valley, and the utter disregard for the future by which the policy of protection has stimulated the policy of destruction, will in a quarter of a century result in denuding vast areas of the United States of the timber supply available within reasonable reach of its great points of demand. All the industries dependent upon timber, if they are to grow in the next twenty years, will need new resources for the supply of the raw material. Whence can these be obtained except from the portion of the continent outside of the United States? …When one recalls the vast stretches of treeless prairies within the United States, in which shelter must be provided, the necessities and exhaustion of rainless regions resulting from the destruction of forests, and the rapid growth of vast cities on the lakes and plains, and also the fact that from the northern part of the continent above is a supply of timber certain for all future time, the necessity for the extension of commerce so as to include these areas is apparent. …

'The exhaustion of wheat lands is a consideration of the most vital importance in relation to the future supply of the food of this continent. It is a startling fact, not yet fully realized by the people of this country, that at the present rate of procedure the United States may be a large importer of breadstuffs. The growth of population is so rapid, the exhaustion of arable land so constant, that without new and cultivable territory the sources for the supply of food products will soon be below the local demand. … When it is recalled that the best wheat-producing region of the world is found just north of the Minnesota line, and that in the new provinces and territories of the Canadian north-west there is a possible wheat-supply for all time, it will be seen how important has been the provision of nature for the food of mankind.'

And again:-' Cheap food for New England is the necessity of the hour in that region. … In the Maritime Provinces are abundant sources of food supply. No other country in the world can produce potatoes, apples, oats, hay, poultry, dairy produce, and, still more important, the finest fish food, equal to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. … In the unlimited supply of cheap raw material from Canada, in the unrestricted output of fish and food products, and the constant employment of cheap labour from the north, the new hope of New England may be found. Without these her manufacturing prospects are gloomy indeed.'

{153}