What was the value of the farm products of the Dominion last year? $532,000,000, an increase of one hundred million in one year. They have the largest continuous wheat-field in the world. One field nine hundred miles by three hundred miles. I am talking about money, and this is Canadian money, with a population of between seven and seven and a half millions; and they have deposits of $917,000,000 in the bank.
We all know the phenomenal growth that Canada has had and is destined to have. When I asked, “What are the resources of Canada?” my friend replied, “I don’t know, Marling, but they are beyond the dreams of avarice.” Then I got this telegram from him to back it up:
“According to the census of 1901, the capital invested in Canada was $2,356,000,000 and the value of the products $992,200,000.”—Alfred E. Marling, “Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions,” 1910.
(2090)
MONEY POWER IN THE UNITED STATES
Do you know how many people there were in the country in 1880, thirty years ago? There were fifty millions. Do you know what the wealth was then estimated to be? $43,000,000,000. Ten years afterward, in 1890, there were 62,000,000 persons living in this country; that is a growth of 24 per cent. in ten years. But the growth of the wealth in those ten years was from $43,000,000,000 to $65,000,000,000, which is a growth of 51 per cent. in that decade. Population grows 21 per cent.; wealth grows 51 per cent. In 1900 there were 76,000,000 people; a growth of 22 per cent. in ten years. The growth in wealth was $88,000,000,000, or 35 per cent. in those same ten years. In 1904, the year of our last census, the population was 82,000,000, showing an increase of 8 per cent.; and the growth in wealth was $107,000,000,000. That is 21 per cent. in wealth in four years, while the population was growing only 8 per cent.
The estimated average daily savings in the United States between 1900 and 1904 over and above all consumption, was thirteen millions of dollars.
In 1900, the savings-bank deposits in the United States were $2,300,000,000; and in 1908, eight years later, they were $3,400,000,000, an increase of 47 per cent.
I have it on the authority of the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce of New York that the banking power of the United States is practically 40 per cent. of the banking power of the world. And this I read in a commercial review a few days ago: “The bank deposits of the United States amount to more than double the whole world’s known supply of gold. They are about equal to the whole volume of money in the world, counting gold, legal tender, currency, etc. They are greater in value than the world’s total amount of gold and silver since the discovery of America, and they would be sufficient to pay more than one-third of the entire debt of fifty leading nations of the world.”—Alfred E. Marling.—“Student Volunteer Movement,” 1910.
(2091)