EEPOET 
 
 ON 
 
 THE STATE OF TRADE 
 
 '■'I'.', ' 
 
 BETWEEN THE 
 
 UNITED STATES AND BRITISH POSSESSIONS 
 
 IN 
 
 NOETH AMBEIOA, 
 
 PREPARED 
 
 FOR THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, IN COMPLIANCE WITH A JOINT 
 RESOLUTION OF CONGRESS, 
 
 BY 
 
 J. N. LARNED. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1871 . 
 
3 ^^ 
 
l.ommrnc# 
 
 INDEX OF TOPICS 
 
 
 V 
 
 <s 
 
 > 
 
 r). 
 
 Natural relations 
 
 Tlie Dominion of Canada 
 
 Resources and capabilities 
 
 Comparative area and population 
 
 Causes of tardy growth 
 
 Present trade with the Dominion 
 
 Total imports of the Dominion 
 
 Imports from United States , 
 
 Imports from Great Britain 
 
 Total exports of the Dominion 
 
 Analysis of Canadian foreign commerce 
 
 State of commercial belligerency 
 
 Exhibit for seventeen years 
 
 Balance against United States 
 
 What Ave sell to the provinces 
 
 What we buy from the provinces 
 
 Distribution of the trade 
 
 A commerce of com^enience 
 
 The reciprocity treaty 
 
 The fisheries 
 
 Is recii)rocal free trade practicable 
 
 A zollverein 
 
 The transit trade 
 
 Canadian and American tariff policies 
 
 Canada as a “cheap country” 
 
 W ages and the cost of living 
 
 Comparative table of wages 
 
 Comparative table of prices 
 
 Purchasing value of wages compared 
 
 The savings of industry 
 
 Accumulated AA'ealth 
 
 Banking capital and circulation 
 
 Public debt 
 
 Immigration and emigration 
 
 Partial prosperity in the Dominion 
 
 Commercial growth of Montreal 
 
 Diversion of American grain trade 
 
 Favoring circumstances 
 
 Lumber and barley 
 
 Trade with the non-confederated i)rovinccs . . 
 Newfoundland and Prince Edward’s Island 
 
 Manitoba 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 Page. 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 7 
 9 
 9 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 13 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 15 
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 17 
 
 19 
 
 20 
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 25 
 
 26 
 28 
 
 30 
 
 31 
 
 31 
 
 32 
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 36 
 
 37 
 
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 38 
 
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STATE OF TEADE 
 
 WITH 
 
 THE NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 Treasury Department, Office of the Secretary, 
 
 February 3, 1871. 
 
 Sir : I transmit for the information of the House of Eepresentatives, 
 the report of J. N. Lamed, who was appointed special agent under a 
 joint resolution of Congress approved June 23, 1870, to inquire into the 
 extent and state of the trade between the United States and the several 
 dependencies of Great Britain in l^orth America. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 GEO. S. BOUTWELL, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 Hon. James G. Blaine, 
 
 Simiker House of Representatives. 
 
 Buffalo, January 28, 1871. 
 
 Sir : You intrusted to me, a few months ago, the task of collecting 
 information in compliance with the joint resolution of Congress approved 
 June 23, 1870, which directed that an inquiry should be made relative 
 to the state of trade between the United States and the British North 
 American Possessions. The subject is an important one, and I have 
 endeavored to investigate it with as much thoroughness as the time 
 allowed me would permit. 
 
 Between the United States and the British dependencies that lie ad- 
 jacent to us upon our northern border, the intercourse of trade ought, 
 in the natural order of things, to be as intimate and as extensive as the 
 intercourse that exists within this Union between its States at large and 
 any corresponding group of them. Indeed, the natural intimacy of con- 
 nection between the provinces of the Dominion of Canada and our own 
 Northern, Nortw’esteru, and li^astern States, is such as exists between 
 very few of the geograi)hical sections of the Union. Through more than 
 half the length of the coterminous line of the two territories, the very 
 boundary of i)olitical sei)aration is itself a great natural high-road of 
 commercial intercommunication— the most majestic and the most useful 
 
6 
 
 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 of all the grand water-ways of traffic and travel with which nature has 
 furnished the American continent. The lakes on which we border at 
 the north link ns with, rather than divide us from, the foreign border 
 on their opposite shores j while the fact that the great river through 
 which their waters escape to the sea diverges, at last, into that neigh- 
 boring domain, only adds to the closeness of the relationship in which 
 the two countries are placed. The territory of the Canadian peninsula 
 between the lakes is thrust like a wedge into the territory of the 
 United States. Across it lies the short-cut of traffic and traA'el be- 
 tween our Northwestern and our Eastern States. Geographically, 
 in the natural structure of that energetic zone of the continent which 
 lies .between the fortieth and the forty-sixth i^arallels of latitude, 
 the province of Ontario occupies, with reference to commercial inter- 
 changes East and West, what may fairly be described as the key position 
 of the Avhole. The lower province of Quebec, through which the St. 
 Lawrence passes to the Atlantic, is situated with hardly less advantage, 
 and in some views, which take account of the commercial possibilities of 
 the future, i^erhaps with eA'en more. On the seaboard there is no nat- 
 ural distinction or x^artition to be found between the maritime x^roA’inces 
 of the Dominion and our Noav England States. New Brunswick, as has 
 been remarked, is but an extension of the State of Maine along the 
 Bay of Eundy, and Nova Scotia is but a peninsula cleft from the side of 
 NeAV BrunsAvick. The island xii’OviRces that lie north of those, within 
 or beyond the Gulf of St. Lawrence, are a little remoA^ed from the 
 same intimacy of geographical and commercial relation shixi with our oaa n 
 national territory, and yet, to the extent of all the resources they possess, 
 their most natural connection of trade is Avith the United States. As to 
 the new colonial State into Avhich the British settlements in the Nortli- 
 west haA^e just been rudely molded, and the older but thinly-x)OXAulated 
 X)rovince of British Columbia, on the Pacific coast, the conditions in whicli 
 they are x^laced, relatiA^e to this country, may be considered more x^i'ox)- 
 erly hereafter, perhax^s. 
 
 THE DOMINION OE CANADA. 
 
 The four provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova 
 Scotia, forming at x^i’esent the confederation known as the Dominion of 
 Canada, contain a now estimated population of about 4,283,000, divided 
 
 as follows : 
 
 Ontario 2, 130, 308 
 
 Quebec 1,422,540 
 
 Ncav Brunswick 327, 800 
 
 NoA a Scotia 300,440 
 
 4, 283, 103 
 
 Total 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 7 
 
 These estimates are based upon a census taken in 1861, ten years ago, 
 and they assume for all the provinces the same rate of increase that 
 Avas found in the previous decade. It is quite probable that the result 
 of the neA\" census, for Avhich preparation is now being made, will fall 
 short of this calculation in every inmvince, except, perhaps, Ontario, and 
 four millions, in round numbers, may more safely be set down as the 
 existing population of the Dominion. The two insular proAunces, 
 of Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island, which have thus far 
 refused to enter the confederation, contain populations estimated^ 
 respecth^elj^, at 110,000 and 09,000. 
 
 RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 
 
 Here, then, are about four and a quarter millions of people, not only 
 liAung in the utmost nearness of neighborhood to us, but Avith such in- 
 terjections of territory, and such an interlacing of natural communica- 
 tions and connections between their country and ours, that the geograph- 
 ical unit}^ of the two is a more conspicuous fact than their political sep- 
 aration. Their numbers exceed by more than half a million the people 
 of the six NeAv England States, and about equal the numbers in the 
 great State of New York. In the magnitude and Amine of the industrial 
 and commercial interchanges that are carried on between the New Eng- 
 land States and the other parts of this Union, we may find no unfair 
 measure of the kindred commerce that Avould liaAm existed, under nat- 
 ural circumstances, between those people and ourselves. Such equal 
 conditions, indeed, would undoubtedly have given to the provinces in 
 question a weight in the commerce of the North America continent con- 
 siderably exceeding the present weight of the New England States. 
 The average capabilities of their soil and climate are not inferior to the 
 capabilities of the six States Avith Avhich I compare them, Avhile their 
 general resources are greater and more Amried. Ontario possesses a 
 fertility with which no part of New England can at all compare, and 
 that peninsular section of it around which the circle of the great lakes 
 is swept, forces itself upon the notice of any student of the American 
 map as one of the favored spots of the whole continent — as one of the 
 appointed hiving places of industry, where population ought to breed 
 Avith almost Belgian fecundity. A large section of Quebec is at least 
 equal, in soil and climate, to its New England neighbors, Avhile it rivals 
 them in tlie possession of Avater poAver, Avhich is furnished by exery 
 stream, and Avhile it commands easier and cheaper access to the markets 
 of the Avestern interior. As for the maritime i^roAunces, their pos- 
 session of abundant coal gi\T*.s theni one of the inimc advantages of in- 
 dustiy OAmr the contiguous States. Along Avith this parity, to say the 
 least, in all that is essential to a vigorous deA^elopment, the i)roAinces 
 forming the Dominion — even if Ave exclude that ATist seat of future em- 
 ]»ire in the basin of Lake Winnipeg, Avhich lies waiting for civilization 
 to reach it — occupy a territorial area Avithin Avhich the population of 
 
8 
 
 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 New England or New York might be several times multiplied without 
 increase of density. The area of Ontario and Quebec it is impossible to 
 define with exactness, for the reason that they have no boundary on the 
 north, except the limits to civilized settlement which the climate of tlie 
 North imposes, wherever that may be. Practically, the limits of Cana- 
 dian cultivation and settlement were marked, until a very recent period, 
 by the Laurentian range of hills and the broken spurs that are thrown 
 off from it across the head of the western peninsula. This barren, rocky 
 fidge follows a line nearly parallel with the St. Lawrence on its north- 
 ern bank, up to the vicinity of Montreal, where it strikes away in a wesf- 
 ern direction, indicated by the course of the Ottawa Piver, which is the 
 conduit of the w^ater-shed of the Laurentian elevation. A broad off- 
 shoot, however, of the same primitive upheaval is traced in a belt of 
 forbidding territory, where swamp and rock are intermingled, from the 
 Ottawa Eiver to Georgian Bay. 
 
 Up to the present time these forbidding barriers have practically 
 formed, in both x^rovinces, the northern boundary of Canadian cultiva- 
 tion and settlement, which sx^read slowly and feebly, without the same 
 impetus and momentum that characterize the x^ioneer movement in the 
 United States. Within a few years x^ast, however, it has been discov- 
 ered, and now it seems to be a well-determined fact, that beyond the 
 Laurentian belt there are large tracts of productive territory, cax)able of 
 well sustaining no very scanty x)ox)ulation, even when stripped of the 
 timber which constitutes their first value. The officially x^ablished re- 
 X)ortsof surveys made during late years within those regions, which I 
 have exmined with a good deal of carefulness, show great inequality in 
 the value of the lands, many districts of fertile soil being curiously in- 
 termixed with sections that are actually or almost incax^able of cultiva- 
 tion. But these reports, if at all correct, leave no doubt that on the 
 upx^er Ottawa, in the basin of Lake Nipx^issing, along the eastern shores 
 of Georgian Bay, and even to some extent on the northern shore of 
 Lake Superior, there are very considerable areas that will ultimately 
 give support to a hardy and enteiprising x^opulation. Large tracts of 
 this new domain have been set apart by the provincial authorities as 
 ‘Uree grant lands, to be given to actual settlers on terms very nearly 
 like the terms of the ‘‘homestead act” in the United States, and under 
 the stimulus of that wise x^olicy their settlement has commenced witu 
 some activity and x)romise. 
 
 To what extent the mineral resources of the infertile Laurentian belt 
 render that caxmble of giving life to industry and support to a popula- 
 tion, it is imx)ossible to say. Just enough has so far been discovered to 
 indicate that the mineral deposits within and on the flanks of the range 
 may prove to be quite an imx)ortant element of the wealth of the Cana- 
 das. Both iron and lead mines have been opened and worked to some 
 extent north of Kingston ; very valuable deposits of xdumbago have 
 lately been found and ox^ened j gold is extensively indicated throughout 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 9 
 
 a wide region in both provinces, and, more than probably, will yet be 
 found in profitable quantities ; a beautiful marble is already being quar- 
 ried ; the copper mines on the north shore of Lake Superior are unques- 
 tionably of great future value, and recent developments go to show that 
 the same region is remarkably rich in silver. Altogether, it may be 
 assumed that the productive and habitable territory of the Canadas is 
 not confined to their tillable lands. 
 
 COMPARATIVE AREA AND POPULATION. 
 
 The commonly stated area of the province of Ontario is 121,260 square 
 miles, and of the province of Quebec 210,000 square miles. The actual 
 area of habitable and productive territory belonging to them may be 
 estimated, 1 think, at about 50,000 square miles for each. Within that 
 area in Ontario the capabilities of development, making all due allow- 
 ance for whatever inconsiderable differences of climate exist, would 
 seem to be fully equal to the capabilities of the State of New York, and 
 if Ontario had kept pace in its growth with New York, as there seems 
 to be no natural reason why it should not have done, (if we exclude 
 New York City from the comparison,) the population of that province 
 would now have exceeded four millions instead of two. The province 
 of Quebec may be fairly measured in the same manner with the States 
 of New Hampshire and Yermont, whose capabilities are no greater, 
 notwithstanding the somewhat more rigorous winter climate to which 
 it is exposed. A population in Quebec proportioned to that of New 
 Hampshire and Yermont would exceed by not less than half a million 
 what the province now contains ^ while Nova Scotia and New Bruns- 
 wick, populated in the same ratio as Maine, of w'hich they are the coun- 
 terpart, would contain to-day a million of souls. 
 
 CAUSES OF TARDY GROWTH. 
 
 That the four provinces of the Dominion do not at the present day 
 exhibit a population of from six to seven millions of people, with cor- 
 responding wealth and corresponding activities of industry, is the very 
 plain and unmistakable consequence of the fact that they have not re- 
 ceived their natural share of the energies that are at work in the devel- 
 opment of the American continent ; and that fact is clearly to be traced 
 to their isolation from the free interchange of activities, in a commer- 
 cial way, which the rest of the Anglo-Saxon communities of America 
 have secured by their national confederation. To the mere political 
 distinction between the dependent British provinces and ourselves, or 
 rather to such ditference as exists between their form of popular gov- 
 ernment and our own, I should give no weight among the immediate 
 causes of the slower growth that they exhibit. The political institu- 
 tions of the ill-named Dominion of Canada are scarcely less republican, 
 either in oi)eration or in })rinciple, tlian our own, and cannot reasonably 
 'be charged with exerting, in or of themselves, any disadvantageous in- 
 
10 TEADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES, 
 
 A 
 
 liuerice upon the country. Even as concerns the influence of republican 
 aspirations upon immigration from the older world, it may be seriously 
 doubted whether practical considerations do not almost wholly control 
 the choice which the immigrant makes of this country rather than of 
 Canada. He has been led, and by good reasons, to expect that he will 
 find in the United States greater activities, wider and more numerous 
 o]>portunities, and the stir of a more vigorous life. The superior vigor, 
 AThich ajApears patent to the outside Avorld, is as simply explained as it 
 is undeniable. From the immense diAmrsity of resources and product- 
 ive capabilities in the vast territory that we occupy, with its many zones 
 of climate, its many Auiriations of soil, its multiform structure, its triple 
 seaboard, its inland seas and its great rivers, its prairies and its moun- 
 tains of every mineral, we derive a certain mutual play of industrial 
 forces, acting and reacting upon each other Avith unrestricted and per- 
 fect freedom, Avhich is wonderfully cumulative and Avonderfully stimu- 
 lating — beyond anything, in fact, that has been known in the experience 
 of the world before; and the secret of it all is the freedom of the diAmr- 
 sified interchange. The effect halts where that freedom of industrial 
 commerce meets Avith interference. The custom-houses of the national 
 frontier paralyze it more than half; and Ave should find, if we could 
 examine closely enough, that it is in just the degree that the neighbor- 
 ing provinces are cut off, by their political isolation, from the free cir- 
 culation of the i)roductiA"e and commercial energies of the continent, 
 that they have fallen behind their sister communities of the same ori- 
 gin and the same character in material jirogress. 
 
 I have placed the subject in this Anew for the xiuriiose of suggesting 
 the loss that Ave sustain, as a nation, from the unfortunate causes Avhicli 
 IniAm stunted the natural, or at least the otherwise possible, develop- 
 ment of so large and so importantly related a section of the common 
 domain of Anglo- America. If our loss is Amstly less, even proportion- 
 ately, than that of the provincial people, it is, neAmrtheless, a very serious 
 one. It is the deprivation of what might liaAm been and Avhat might still 
 be fully one-eighth added to the accumulating momentum of the indus- 
 trial energies b}" Avhich we are carried forward. If the same interchange 
 that exists between the States of the American Union had existed be- 
 tween those States and the neighboring provinces, we should now impart 
 to them, it is true, the actiAuties of forty millions of people, Avhile they 
 giA^e back to us the responding activities of six or seven millions ; but 
 that is an inequality of exchange AAdiich we IniA^e found, between our 
 Union at large and its several States, to be marvellously profitable. 
 
 In the extraordinary impulse of advancement that Avas given to the 
 lAroAunces, and particularly to Ontario, (then Upper Canada,) the 
 operation of the so-called treaty of reciprocity, during the eleven years 
 of its existence, a marked and significant illustration Avas afibrded of 
 the magnitude of the influence which limitations put upon the freedom 
 of commercial intercourse betAveen their producers and ours exert 07i 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 11 
 
 them. Unfortunately, we were not permitted, upon our own side, to learn 
 as fully, from tlie experience of that treaty, the value to ourselves of a 
 state of freedom in the interchanges of the two countries. As I desire 
 to show presently, the adjustment of the partial free trade established 
 by the treaty negotiated in 1854 was such as to render its operation 
 very far from reciprocal or equitable, for the reason that the schedule 
 of commodities covered by it, while it embraced on the one hand nearly 
 everything that the provinces produce, included, on the other, but a 
 limited number of the productions of which this country desires to extend 
 its sale; and for the far greater reason that the commodities made free 
 Avere almost wholly of a description for Avhich the provinces could otfer 
 no market to us commensurate with the markets that the United States 
 opened to them. 
 
 It was simply impossible that an arrangement of incomplete free 
 trade so non-reciprocal, so one-sided in its operation, and so provokingly 
 the result, as the treaty of 1854 Avas, of a sharply-forced bargain on the 
 fisheries question, could be alloAved to continue beyond the term for 
 which it was contracted. It Avas justly abrogated in 18G0 by the act of 
 this Government, with the A^ery general sanction of i)ublic opinion in 
 the countrA^; and yet there are probably feAv among those aaIio op- 
 posed the continuation of the reciprocity treaty of 1854, and who 
 oppose its reneAval in any similar form, Avho are not fully conAunced that 
 an intimate, unrestricted commerce with the neighboring communities 
 would be of great benefit to this country, as it certainly would be an 
 incalculable stimulant to the groAvth of those communities. The ques- 
 tion is one of adjustments. Free trade, or any approach to naturalness 
 of commercial intercourse between these quasi-foreign neighbors and 
 ourselves, is impossible, unless the outside conditions and commercial 
 relations of the two countries can be brought into harmony AAuth each 
 other. That is the important, and, in fact, the only point of inquiry 
 in the matter. If the exterior relations of the tAvo countries Avere so 
 adjusted to one another as not to interfere on either side aa ith a natural 
 circulation of free trade between themselves, probably not one intelli- 
 gent voice Avould be raised against the abolition of every custom liQuse 
 on our northern frontier. 
 
 PRESENT TRADE AVITII THE DOMINION. 
 
 Tlie provinces confederated in the Dominion of Canada are tAvo mil- 
 lions in ])opulation, as I am forced to believe, and seA^eral hundred mil- 
 lions of dollars in wealth, behind Avliat they Avould noAV have exhibited 
 had they enjoyed from the beginning free intercourse in trade aa ith 
 these United States. As they stand, hoAvewer, they form a very import- 
 ant body of producers and consumers for us to deal Avith. Last year-, 
 according to tlicir OAvn oflicial statistics of trade, they Avere ])urchasers 
 in tlie markets of the outside Avorld to the amount of $7 1,251), 487, and 
 they sold in the same markets productions of their OAvn to the amount 
 
12 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 of $56,081,192, (values in gold.) Of these transactions the Canadian 
 statistics show less than 35 i3er cent, of the foreign purchases of the 
 Dominion, against 51 per cent, of its foreign sales, to have been made in 
 the United States. In reality, as will appear upon a further examination 
 of the facts, the exports from the Dominion to the United States exceed 
 the imports from the United States into the Dominion to the extent of a 
 ratio even greater than that. 
 
 The following tables exhibit the commerce of the four ]3rovinces of the 
 Dominion for the last two fiscal years, as ^represented in the official 
 returns compiled by the commissioner of customs at Ottawa : 
 
 TOTAL IMPORTS OF THE DOMINION. 
 
 Statement of the value of articles imported into the Dominion of Canada and entei'ed for con- 
 sumption in the two fiscal years ended June 30, 1869 and 1870. 
 
 [From Canadian official returns.] 
 
 
 From Great 
 Britain. 
 
 From United 
 States. 
 
 From all 
 other coun- 
 tries. 
 
 Total. 
 
 1869. 
 
 Quebec 
 
 $19, 626, 636 
 8, .547, 339 
 4, 002, 985 
 3, 587, 510 
 
 $6, 168, 804 
 14, 590, 177 
 2,560,023 
 2,154,701 
 
 $3, 749, 737 
 587, 248 
 1,186, 325 
 640, 685 
 
 $29, 545, 177 
 23, 724, 764 
 7, 749, 333 
 6, 382, 896 
 
 Ontario 
 
 Nova Scotia 
 
 New Eruiiswick 
 
 Total 
 
 1870. 
 
 Quebec 
 
 35, 764, 470 
 
 25, 473, 705 
 
 6, 163, 995 
 
 67, 402, 170 
 
 20, 382, 270 
 
 9, 837, 885 
 
 4, 397, 725 
 3, 977, 553 
 
 6,611, 332 
 14, 031, 340 
 2, 258, 079 
 
 1, 823, 320 
 
 5, 174, 270 
 661, 232 
 
 1, 352, 227 
 731, 954 
 
 32, 167, 872 
 24, 530, 457 
 8, 008, 031 
 6, 532, 827 
 
 Ontario 
 
 Nova Scotia 
 
 New Brunswick 
 
 Total 
 
 38, 595, 433 
 
 24, 724, 071 
 
 7, 919, 683 
 
 71, 239, 187 
 
 IMPORTS FROM THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Statement of the value of goods imported into the Dominion of Canada from the United States 
 and entered for consumption, (exclusive of coin and hullion,) during the two fiscal years ending 
 June 30, 1869 and 1870, distinguishing those which paid duty from those entered free of duty. 
 
 [From Canadian official returns.] 
 
 • 
 
 Dutiable. 
 
 Free. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Duties col- 
 lected. 
 
 1869. 
 
 Quebec 
 
 $2, 910, 004 
 3, 119, 169 
 660, 192 
 1, 104, 383 
 
 $3, 144, 629 
 7, 608, 849 
 1, 899, 633 
 1, 050, 318 
 
 $6, 054, 6.33 
 10, 728, 023 
 2, 559, 825 
 2, 154, 701 
 
 $678, 683 
 5.50, 618 
 122, 229 
 214, 033 
 
 (Intario 
 
 Nova Scotia 
 
 New Brunswick 
 
 Total 
 
 1870. 
 
 Quebec 
 
 7, 793, 748 
 
 13, 703, 429 
 
 21,497, 182 
 
 1, 565, 563 
 
 3, 044, 535 
 3,912,368 
 763, 846 
 978,096 
 
 .3, 409, 756 
 7, 249, 179 
 
 1, 494, 233 
 845, 224 
 
 6, 454, 291 
 11, 161,547 
 2, 258, 079 
 
 1, 823, 320 
 
 72.3, 497 
 674, 271 
 119, 768 
 182, 712 
 
 (hitario 
 
 Nova Scotia 
 
 Nevr Brunswick 
 
 Total 
 
 8, 698, 845 
 
 12, 998, 392 | 21, 697, 237 
 
 1 
 
 1, 700, 248 
 
TEADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 13 
 
 lOTORTS FROM GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 Statement of the value of goods imported into the Dominion of Canada from Great Britain and 
 entered for consumption, {exclusive of coin and bullion,) during the two fiscal years ending 
 June 30, 1869 and 1870, distinguishing those which paid duty from those entered free of duty. 
 
 [From Canadian official returns.! 
 
 
 Dutiable. 
 
 Free. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Duties col- 
 lected. 
 
 1869. 
 
 Quebec 
 
 |14, 503, 286 
 7, 954, 779 
 3, 281, 836 
 2, 743, 744 
 
 $4, 855, 644 
 592, 560 
 721, 149 
 843, 766 
 
 $19, 358, 930’ 
 8, 547, 339 
 4, 002, 985 
 3, 587, 510 
 
 $2, 374, 446 
 1, 317, 253 
 593, 958 
 514, 098 
 
 Ontario 
 
 If ova Scotia 
 
 New Brunswick 
 
 Total 
 
 28, 483, 645 
 
 7, 013, 119 
 
 35, 496, 764 
 
 4, 799, 755 
 
 1870. 
 
 Quebec r. 
 
 14, 563, 737 
 8, 694, 745 
 3, 561, 080 
 3, 203, 386 
 
 4, 760, 195 
 1, 143, 140 
 836, 645 
 774, 167 
 
 19, 323, 932 
 9, 837, 885 
 4, 397, 725 
 3, 977, 553 
 
 2, 362, 209 
 1, 407, 454 
 643, 444 
 624, 331 
 
 Ontario 
 
 Nova Scotia 
 
 New Brunswick 
 
 Total 
 
 30, 022, 948 
 
 7, 514, 147 
 
 37, 537, 095 
 
 5, 037, 438 
 
 
 TOTAL EXPORTS OF THE DOMINION. 
 
 Statement of the value of goods, the growth, produce, and manufacture of the Dominion of 
 Canada, exported from the several provinces, {exclusive of coin and bullion,) during the two 
 fiscal years ended June 30, 1869 and 1870. 
 
 [From Canadian official returns.] 
 
 
 To the United 
 States. 
 
 To Great 
 Britain. 
 
 Total exports 
 to all countries. 
 
 1869. 
 
 Quebec 
 
 $5, 627, 276 
 15, 187, 809 
 1, 831, 054 
 994, 600 
 
 $16, 344, 825 
 742, 686 
 466, 779 
 2, 931, 548 
 
 $23, 546, 054 
 15, 930, 495 
 5, 031, 859 
 4, 814, 896 
 
 Ontario 
 
 Nova Scotia 
 
 New BiTinswick 
 
 Total 
 
 23, 640, 739 
 
 20, 485, 838 
 
 49, 323, 304 
 
 1870. 
 
 Quebec 
 
 6, 880, 446 
 18, 017, 212 
 
 1, 473, 895 
 
 2, 400, 759 
 
 18, 538, 842 
 
 1, 216, 989 
 395, 925 
 1, 009, 231 
 
 27, 421, 676 
 19, 235, 306 
 5, 061, 039 
 4, 363, 171 
 
 Ontario 
 
 Nova Scotia 
 
 New Brunswick 
 
 Total 
 
 28, 772, 312 
 
 21, 160, 987 
 
 56, 081, 192 
 
 
 ANALYSIS OF CANADIAN FOREIGN COMMERCE. 
 
 An analysis of the foregoing tables of imiiorts shows some facts which 
 it is well to note in passing. 
 
 Of the imports of the Dominion, 53 iier cent, in the fiscal year 1869 
 and 54 per cent in 1870 were from Great Britain ; 38 per cent, in 1869 
 and not quite 35 per cent, in 1870 were from the United States, and 9 
 and 11 per cent, in the two years, respectively, were the iiroportious of 
 importation from all other countries. 
 
14 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 The duty-paying imports from Great Britain into the Dominion formed 
 80 i^er cent, of the entire imi^orts from that nation both in 1869 and 
 1870, and only 20 per cent, were of commodities admitted free ; while but 
 36 xDer cent, of the imports from the United States in 1869 and 40 per 
 cent, in 1870 paid duty, and 64 per cent, and 60 per cent, in the two 
 years, respectively, entered free. 
 
 The duties collected on the dutiable imports from the United States 
 were at the average rate of 20 per cent, on the returned value in 1869, 
 and 19.5 per cent, in 1870; while the duty collected on the dutiable 
 imports from Great Britain was at the average rate of 16.8 i)er cent, in 
 1869, and 16.7 per cent, in 1870. 
 
 In other words, a much smaller proportion of the goods imported from 
 the United States than of the goods imported from Great Britain were 
 subjected to duty, but those among the former which did come under 
 the Canadian tariff paid at a considerably higher average rate. 
 
 The very large proportion, however, of free goods from the United 
 States that appears in the Canadian imports of 1869, and with a slight 
 diminution in 1870, no longer exists. A new Canadian tariff went into 
 effect on the 7th of April last, which imposes the following duties upon 
 articles previously free, all of them being commodities of leading import- 
 ance, in the not very extended list of productions that we barter with 
 our provincial neighbors: flour, 25 cents per barrel; meal, 15 cents per 
 barrel ; wheat,* 4 cents per bushel ;’ all other grains, 3 cents per bushel ; 
 coal and coke, 50 cents per ton ; salt, 5 cents per bushel ; hops, 5 cents 
 per pound; rice, 1 cent per pound. These duties, which leave a now 
 quite insiguilicant free list of commodities, so far as American trade is 
 concerned, were avowedly levied in retaliation for the protective rigor 
 of the United States tariff, and, by the act which imposes them, the 
 governor in council is authorized to suspend or to modify them, by pro- 
 clamation, together with the duties on fish, meats, butter, cheese, lard, 
 tallow, vegetables, and several other articles, whenever it appears to 
 his satisfaction that similar articles from Canada may be imported into 
 the United States of America free of duty, or at a rate of duty not 
 exceeding that payable on the same under such proclamation when 
 imported into Canada.” 
 
 THE STATE OF COMMERCIAL BELLIGERENCY. 
 
 As the case now stands, the two countries are in what might be de- 
 scribed as an attitude of commercial belligerency toward one another, 
 mutually repelling and discouraging the intercourse of trade and the 
 profitable and convenient exchange of industries that are natural to their 
 intimate neighborhood. Under the treaty of reciprocity there was a 
 large excess of liberality on the side of the United States in the terms 
 of trade, and the Canadian tariff grew steadily more illiberal and non- 
 reciprocal. After the abrogation of the treaty, the conditions Avere 
 reversed, and it must be confessed that the gates of trans-frontier traffic 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 15 
 
 stood more open on the Canadian than on the American side from that 
 period until the adoption of the retaliatory tariff of last April. Now, 
 however, on both sides, the freedom of trade is about evenly interfered 
 with, and the state of commercial repulsion between the two countries, 
 whose interests so strongly attract them to intimacy, is as nicely adjusted, 
 perhaps, as it could be. No one, I think, can contemplate this situation 
 of things without feeling it to be a most unfortunate dislocation, which 
 very seriously imj^airs the organization and operation of the industrial 
 energies of the American continent. And a further investigation of the 
 statistics of trade will not diminish that feeling. 
 
 STATISTICAL EXHIBIT FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS. 
 
 I have given the Canadian official statement of imports into the Do- 
 minion from the United States during the last two fiscal years. That 
 exhibits one side of the commercial exchanges between the two countries, 
 the other side of which is to be found in onr own official statistics of 
 imports into the United States from the provinces of the Dominion. It 
 is proper to remark here that a great many contentious arguments 
 relative to the trade between the two countries have been vitiated, by 
 being based upon official returns, in one country or the other, of both 
 imports and exports^ as though the two were equally trustworthy statis- 
 tics. The Av ell-known fact, howcA^er, is that in no country, and certainly 
 neither in Canada nor the United States, are the statistics of exports^ 
 compiled from the returns of clearances at the cnstom-honses, to be 
 trusted for accuracy ; for the simple reason that there is neither the same 
 stringency of law nor the same Avatchfulness to compel an exact state- 
 ment of outgoing shipments that is applied to secure true reports of 
 the A’^alue of foreign commodities coming into the country. Chiefly as 
 the consequence of this, the statistics of no two countries respecting 
 their trade with each other Avill agree at all. The discrepancy betAveen 
 our own official returns and those of the Canadian government relating 
 to the same trade is further Avideued by the mixed values (in currency 
 and gold) that appear in the export and reexport statements of the former. 
 
 According to our own statistics, we bought from the four provinces 
 of the Dominion, in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1870, commodities to 
 the ATilue ot 830,507,842, (in gold,) and sold them domestic commodities 
 to the Arable (in currency) of 810,305,771, and foreign reexports to the 
 value (in gold) of 83,031,525. 
 
 According to Canadian statistics, our purchases from the Dominion, 
 in the same tAvelv^e months, amounted only to 828,772,312, and our total 
 sales to it, of domestic and foreign goods, Avere of the value of $21,007,237, 
 all in gold. 
 
 On each side there is strong probability of the near accuracy of the 
 import returns, and Ave may safely accept them as representing the 
 commercial exchanges of the two countries. The following table is 
 compiled in that vicAv, from the official returns of imports in each 
 
16 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 country from tlie other, both representing Talues in gold. It shows the 
 yearly amount of trade each way that passed between the United States 
 and the old Canadian provinces from 1854 to 1867, both inclusive, and 
 between the United States and the Dominion of Canada, since that con- 
 federation was organized. The exhibit is rendered faulty to a certain 
 degree by the fact that the Canadian returns are made for the calendar 
 year down to 1864, at which time the provincial government adopted 
 the fiscal year ending June 30, to correspond with our own ; but this 
 does not affect the general showing of the state of the commercial 
 exchanges represented : 
 
 Imported into the United States from Canada. 
 
 Imported into Canada from the United States. 
 
 [From United States ofiicial returns.] 
 
 [From Canadian official returns.!] 
 
 OLD CANADA. 
 
 
 OLD CANADA. 
 
 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1854 
 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1855 * 
 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1856 
 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1857 
 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1858 
 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1859 
 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1860 
 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1861 
 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1862 
 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1863 
 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1864, (estimated).. 
 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1865 
 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1866 * 
 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1867 
 
 $6, 721, 539 
 12, 182, 314 
 
 17, 488, 197 
 
 18, 291, 834 
 11, 581, 570 
 
 14, 208, 717 
 18, 853, 033 
 18, 645, 457 
 
 15, 257, 812 
 18, 670, 773 
 32, 422, 015 
 30, 547, 267 
 46. 199, 470 
 26, 397, 867 
 
 Calendar year 1854 . . 
 Calendar year 1855* 
 Calendar year 1856. . 
 Calendar year 1857.. 
 Calendar year 1858.. 
 Calendar year 1859. . 
 Calendar year 1860. . 
 Calendar year 1861.. 
 Calendar year 1862. . 
 Calendar year 1863. . 
 First half of 1864.. 
 Fiscal year 1864-’65 . 
 Fiscal year 1866 * . . . 
 Fiscal year 1867 
 
 115, 533, 090 
 20, 828, 676 
 22, 704, 508 
 20, 224, 648 
 15, 635, 565 
 17, 592, 916 
 
 17, 273, 029 
 20, 206, 080 
 22, 642, 860 
 
 18, 457, 683 
 7, 952, 401 
 
 14, 820, 577 
 
 15, 242, 834 
 14, 061, 155 
 
 DOMINION OF CANADA. 
 
 DOMINION OF CANADA, 
 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1868, 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1869, 
 Fiscal year ended June 30, 1870, 
 
 25, 064, 858 
 30, 353, 010 
 39, 507, 842 
 
 Fiscal year 1868. 
 Fiscal year 1869. 
 Fiscal year 1870, 
 
 17, 600, 273 
 21, 497, 182 
 21, 697, 237 
 
 * First and last years of the reciprocity treaty. 
 
 t The figures for the earlier years in this column I take from one of the reports of Mr. William J. 
 Patterson, secretary of the Montreal Board of Trade. 
 
 The prominent fact that appears in the above statement is the total 
 change of current that took place in the trade between the United States 
 and Canada in 18G2. Down to the close of that year^ when the derange- 
 ment of currency, the inflation of prices, and the disturbance of indus- 
 tries produced by the war of rebellion in this country began to work 
 their effects, we had been selling to the provinces largely in excess of 
 what we bought from them. The aggregate of their imports from us 
 during the nine years ending with 1862 — eight of which were the years 
 of the reciprocity treaty — was $172,641,372. The aggregate of our 
 imports from them in the same period was $133,230,473. The balance of 
 trade in our favor was $39,410,899. But in 1863 the balance shifted to 
 the other side, and ever since the preponderance against us has steadily 
 and rapidly increased, until now, as the above figures show, we are 
 exchanging commodities for little more than one-half that we buy from 
 the British i^rovinces. Indeed, the exchange of our own productions 
 covers less than one-half of the amount that we are importing from the 
 provinces, since the Canadian import statistics cited above include for- 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 17 
 
 eig’ii commodities reexported from the United States to Canada, making 
 no distinction between those and the domestic exi)orts from the United 
 States to Canada. Our own official statement of these reexports shows 
 the following amounts going to Canada in •the last two h seal years: 
 1809,12,858,782; 1870, $3,031,525. Making these deductions from the 
 Canadian importation of goods out of the United States, the exchange 
 of domestic productions (since we receive very few non-Canadian com- 
 modities through Canada) stands as follow^s for the last two years : 
 
 1869. 
 
 From Canada to the United States $30, 353, 010 
 
 From the United States to Canada 18, 638, 400 
 
 Balance against the United States 11, 714, 610 
 
 1870. 
 
 From Canada to the United States $39, 507, 842 
 
 From the United States to Canada 17, 765, 712 
 
 Balance against the United States 21, 742, 130 
 
 Comment upon the unsatisfactoriness of this state of trade seems to 
 be quite unnecessary. The adverse balance is vastly too great to be 
 analyzed into commercial “profits,” as an apparently adverse balance of 
 trade often may be ; and the mode in which it is here arrived at, by 
 comi)arison of the imi)ort entries in each country from the other, 
 excludes, moreover, almost all the elements of such an analysis. 
 
 WHAT WE SELL TO THE PROVINCES. 
 
 To show what commodities are chiefly exchanged between the two 
 countries, and to exhibit at the same time the relative importance of 
 each in this commerce, and the course it has taken relative to each dur- 
 ing a considerable period of years past, I have compiled a series of 
 tables, which may be examined with interest. The first table here fol- 
 lowing is a summary and analysis of the import statistics of the Do- 
 minion of Caimda for the last two fiscal years, and shows wTiat w^e have 
 chiefly sold to the four provinces of the Dominion, severall^^ and collect- 
 ively, during those two years. 
 
 2 
 
18 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 Statement showhir/ the values of the principal commodities imported into the several provinces of 
 the Dominion of Canada from the United States during the two fiscal years ended June 30, 
 1869 and 1870. 
 
 [Compiled from Canadian official returns.] 
 
 « 
 
 
 Quebec. 
 
 Ontario. 
 
 HovaScotia. 
 
 Hew 
 
 Brunswick. 
 
 Total. 
 
 1869. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^114, ni 
 
 $3, 862, 154 
 
 $198 
 
 
 $3, 976, 523 
 
 
 
 
 Sugar, molasses, and melado 
 
 635, 715 
 
 289, 185 
 
 9, 351 
 
 $57, 080 
 
 991, 331 
 
 Meats, all kinds 
 
 183, 417 
 
 336, 574 
 
 24, 055 
 
 92, 419 
 
 636, 465 
 
 Tea 
 
 3‘.19, 836 
 
 91, 467 
 
 37, 030 
 
 65. 818 
 
 524, 151 
 
 Cottons 
 
 120, 855 
 
 149, 606 
 
 26, 751 
 
 146, 178 
 
 443, 390 
 
 Hats, caps, &c 
 
 137, 484 
 
 94, 758 
 
 22, 921 
 
 22, 757 
 
 277 920 
 
 General hardware 
 
 26.5, 567 
 
 377, 105 
 
 101.193 
 
 14, 140 
 
 758, 005 
 
 Coal and coke 
 
 187, 443 
 
 607, 934 
 
 21, 847 
 
 30, 105 
 
 847, 329 
 
 Flour 
 
 417, 255 
 
 217, 337 
 
 1, 033, 892 
 
 400, 790 
 
 2, 069, 274 
 
 Grain, all kinds, except Indian corn 
 
 105, 363 
 
 3, 054, 510 
 
 6, 176 
 
 64, .597 
 
 3, 230, 646 
 
 Indian corn 
 
 172, 446 
 
 1, 342, 846 
 
 80, 346 
 
 .58, 519 
 
 1, 654, 157 
 
 Cornmeal and oatmeal 
 
 4, 430 
 
 36, 094 
 
 236, 757 
 
 121,146 
 
 398, 427 
 
 Flax, hemp, and tow 
 
 137, 973 
 
 15, 990 
 
 72, 800 
 
 32, 811 
 
 259, 574 
 
 Hides, horns, and pelts 
 
 547 ; 405 
 
 203, 344 
 
 37, 587 
 
 30, 298 
 
 818, 634 
 
 Tobacco, unmanufactured 
 
 646, 843 
 
 154, 120 
 
 62, 717 
 
 14, 839 
 
 878, 519 
 
 Wool 
 
 147, 463 
 
 278, 825 
 
 
 183 
 
 426, 471 
 
 Woolens 
 
 98. 156 
 
 86, 1.53 
 
 26, 799 
 
 140, 091 
 
 351, 198 
 
 Glas.sware 
 
 42, 665 
 
 * 135, 105 
 
 18, 272 
 
 20, 576 
 
 216,618 
 
 Musical insti'uments , 
 
 50, 772 
 
 111, .599 
 
 8, 286 
 
 22, 900 
 
 193, 557 
 
 Books and other puhlications 
 
 48, 395 
 
 131, 595 
 
 19, 913 
 
 24, 915 
 
 224,818 
 
 Cotton wool 
 
 60, 037 
 
 235, 129 
 
 433 
 
 49, 041 
 
 • 344, 640 
 
 Salt 
 
 1, 801 
 
 147, 138 
 
 1, 160 
 
 2, 0.57 
 
 152, 156 
 
 Machinei-y 
 
 127, 329 
 
 253, 528 
 
 57, 674 
 
 90, 578 
 
 529, 109 
 
 Total, excluding coin and bullion 
 
 4, 467, 650 
 
 8, 349, 942 
 
 1, 905, 960 
 
 1,501,838 
 
 16, 226, 390 
 
 All other articles 
 
 1, .585, 983 
 
 2, 378, 081 
 
 653, 865 
 
 652, 863 
 
 5, 270, 792 
 
 Total imports from United States, ex- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 cept coin and bullion 
 
 6, 054, 633 
 
 10, 728, 023 
 
 2, 559, 825 
 
 2, 154, 701 
 
 21, 497, 182 
 
 Percentage of articles enumerated above. 
 
 74 
 
 83 
 
 74 
 
 70 
 
 79 
 
 Percentage of grain, flour, and meal 
 
 11 
 
 43 
 
 53 
 
 30 
 
 34 
 
 1870. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Coin and bullion 
 
 157, 041 
 
 2, 869, 793 
 
 
 
 3, 026, 834 
 
 Sugar, molasses, &c 
 
 444, 681 
 
 404, 593 
 
 23, 426 
 
 61, 948 
 
 934, 648 
 
 Meats 
 
 101, 868 
 
 338, 834 
 
 19, 311 
 
 60, 672 
 
 520, 685 
 
 Tea 
 
 684, 895 
 
 178, 875 
 
 29, 443 
 
 79, 803 
 
 973, 016 
 
 Cottons 
 
 141, 552 
 
 148, 743 
 
 33, 451 
 
 45, 692 
 
 369, 438 
 
 Hats, caps. &c 
 
 120, 870 
 
 149, 366 
 
 29, 051 
 
 36, 204 
 
 335, 491 
 
 General hardware and stoves 
 
 300, 221 
 
 423, 931 
 
 124. 520 
 
 27, 348 
 
 876. 020 
 
 Coal and coke 
 
 208, 361 
 
 665,139 
 
 1, 673 
 
 31, 886 
 
 898, 059 
 
 Flour 
 
 117, 843 
 
 41, 962 
 
 736, 261 
 
 361,333 
 
 1, 257, 399 
 
 Grain, all except Indian corn 
 
 250, 199 
 
 4, 103, 626 
 
 43, 361 
 
 2, 866 
 
 4, 460, 052 
 
 Indian corn 
 
 14, 427 
 
 375, 290 
 
 1.5, 045 
 
 16, 227 
 
 420, 989 
 
 Cornmeal and oatmeal 
 
 409 
 
 14, 528 
 
 220, 740 
 
 .53, 293 
 
 288. 970 
 
 Flax, hemp, and tow 
 
 139, 882 
 
 25, 223 
 
 332 
 
 21, 752 
 
 187, 189 
 
 Hides, horns, and pelts 
 
 694, *496 
 
 306, 493 
 
 51, 616 
 
 67, 740 
 
 1, 120, 345 
 
 Tobacco, unmanitfactured 
 
 474, 438 
 
 247, 994 
 
 73, 259 
 
 8, 832 
 
 804, 523 
 
 Wool 
 
 131, 179 
 
 277, 804 
 
 59 
 
 4, 183 
 
 413, 215 
 
 M'^oolens 
 
 57, 977 
 
 56, 672 
 
 19, 9.56 
 
 60, 813 
 
 19.5, 418 
 
 Glassware 
 
 41,016 
 
 123, 628 
 
 18, 240 
 
 22, 344 
 
 205. 228 
 
 IMusical irKstruments 
 
 54, 541 
 
 99, 23t; 
 
 6, 959 
 
 30, 807 
 
 191. 543 
 
 Books, <fcc 
 
 43, 636 
 
 148, 159 
 
 23, 540 
 
 2(), 525 
 
 241.860 
 
 Cotton wool 
 
 85, 173 
 
 268, 41 1 
 
 189 
 
 65, 271 
 
 419, 044 
 
 Salt 
 
 1,159 
 
 67, 951 
 
 1,065 
 
 1, 577 
 
 71, 752 
 
 Engines and machinery 
 
 141, 054 
 
 231, 669 
 
 23, 808 
 
 81, .545 
 
 478, 076 
 
 Total, excluding coin and bullion 
 
 4, 249, 877 
 
 8, 749. 127 
 
 1, 495, 305 
 
 1, 168, 661 
 
 15, 662, 970 
 
 All other articles 
 
 2, 204,414 
 
 2, 412, 420 
 
 762, 774 
 
 654, 6.59 
 
 6, 034, 267 
 
 Total imports from United States, except 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 coin and bullion 
 
 6, 454, 291 
 
 11, 161, 547 
 
 2, 258, 079 
 
 1,823,320 
 
 21, 697, 237 
 
 Percentage of articles enumerated above. 
 
 66 
 
 78 
 
 66 
 
 64 
 
 • 72 
 
 Percentage of grain, flour, and meal 
 
 6 
 
 41 
 
 45 
 
 24 
 
 29 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 19 
 
 One of the larger items {i. e., tlie item of tea) in the foregoing 
 list of twenty-two commodities or classes of commodities, which, to- 
 gether, make np three-fonrths of our exports to the provinces, is a for- 
 eign article, simply conveyed through American hands, in bond, to the 
 provincial consumers. Some part of other items in the list belongs in 
 the same ca egory of foreign reexports. When these are allowed for, 
 the range of the Canadian market for American in^odnctions appears to 
 be lamentably limited and almost confined to the rawest products of 
 agriculture, with hardly an apitreciable opening for the benefit of our 
 skilled labor in any department ) and this, too, in the case of the nearest 
 neighbors that we have upon the globe. 
 
 1 have found it impossible to give, for the provinces at large, a com- 
 parative statement like the above, embracing any such period as is nec- 
 essary for an historical exhibit of the course of trade ; but the following 
 table approximates that exhibit. It shows the value of a few of the 
 infincipal articles imported into old Canada (Ontario and Quebec) dur- 
 ing the fiscal year 18GI-’65, the last full year of the reciprocity treaty, 
 compared with the imports of the same articles in the fiscal years 
 1808, 1869, and 1870. 
 
 Statement of the values of a few principal articles imported into ^'old CaruuM^ from the United 
 
 States for several years. 
 
 Articles. 
 
 lS64-’65. 
 
 1867-’68. 
 
 1868-’69. 
 
 1869-70. 
 
 Coal 
 
 $544, 511 
 88, 786 
 120, 897 
 690, 124 
 3, 584, 405 
 265, 000 
 36, 622 
 876, 968 
 277, 007 
 174, 071 
 
 $791, 998 
 213, 194 
 147. 866 
 94, 444 
 3. 605, 998 
 1, 071, 999 
 47, 865 
 230, 332 
 450, 288 
 253, 736 
 
 $795, 377 
 295, 166 
 153, 963 
 634, 592 
 4, 675, 165 
 750, 749 
 40, 524 
 519, 991 
 800, 903 
 426, 288 
 
 $864, 500 
 353, 584 
 165, 105 
 159, 805 
 4, 413, 825 
 1, 000, 989 
 14, 937 
 440, 702 
 722, 432 
 400, 983 
 
 Cotton, wool 
 
 Flax, liemp, and tow, unmanufactured 
 
 Flour 
 
 Graiu, all kinds 
 
 Hides, horns, and pelts 
 
 Indian meal and oatmeal 
 
 ^feat, all kinds 
 
 Tobacco, unmanufactured 
 
 Wool 
 
 
 WHAT WE BUY FROM THE PROVINCES. 
 
 The return trade, or what we have chiefly bought from the provinces, 
 can be exhibited more comprehensively, in history at least, as will be 
 seen in the table following, which shows the values of the leading arti- 
 cles im})orted into the United States from all the British Possessions in 
 Xorth America during a series of years. The series cannot be made as 
 complete as I should wisli, for the reason that articles imported under 
 the reciprocity treaty were not discriminated for several years in the 
 official trade records of this Government. 
 
20 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 Comparative statement for several years before, during, and since the reeiprocity treaty, of the 
 value of the principal articles imported into the United States from the British jSo) th 
 American Possessions. 
 
 
 1854. 
 
 1855. 
 
 1863. 
 
 1865. 
 
 1867. 
 
 1869. 
 
 Wood and niaunfactures of 
 wood, (except cabinet wood) 
 
 Animals, living 
 
 W'heat 
 
 Plour 
 
 Barley 
 
 Oats - 
 
 Bye - 
 
 Products of fisheries 
 
 Coal 
 
 Provisions and tallow 
 
 Butter 
 
 Wool, raw and fieece 
 
 Hides and skins 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 Purs and fur skins 
 
 Gypsum, nnground 
 
 Pig iTOii 
 
 $753, 169 
 73, 821 
 
 2, 069, 070 
 
 1, 792, 789 
 
 5, 569 
 37, 108 
 202 
 1, 004, 468 
 254, 774 
 4, 431 
 126, 811 
 69, 080 
 34, 729 
 88, 405 
 13, 920 
 106,114 
 no, 840 
 
 $820,959 
 42,126 1 
 1,441,397 1 
 1,849,109 
 90,822 I 
 19,075 1 
 32,601 1 
 833,361 
 243, 784 
 
 4, 038 
 84, 773 
 13, 890 
 38, 592 
 
 129, 076 
 
 5, 977 
 107, 136 
 109, 882 
 
 $3, 203, 906 
 
 1, 351, 173 
 
 1, 050, 803 
 2, 137, 610 
 
 1, 524, 221 
 
 1, 418, 723 
 12, 577 
 736, 549 
 757, 094 
 150, 782 
 326, 634 
 781, 867 
 137, 113 
 147, 380 
 ! 143, 133 
 
 1 25, 882 
 
 460, 026 
 j 6, 536, 478 
 
 $4, 887, 589 
 
 5, 503, 318 
 
 1, 694, 916 
 
 2, 970, 348 
 
 4, 093, 202 
 2, 216, 722 
 
 72, 999 
 2, 213, 384 
 1, 223, 981 
 851,344 
 668, 917 
 1, 527, 275 
 228, 090 
 
 214, 622 
 61,439 
 86, 320 
 415, 398 
 4, 044, 065 
 
 $6, 431, 058 
 
 1, 902, 960 
 
 3, 262, 8.59 
 
 1, 765, 285 
 
 2, 012, 547 
 257, 085 
 149, 361 
 
 2, 054, 646 
 925, 447 
 84, 500 
 648, 102 
 201,083 
 81, 805 
 62, 238 
 133, 403 
 94, 900 
 204, 345 
 167, 207 
 8, 560, 173 
 
 $7, 170, 339 
 
 3, 471, 580 
 1, 673, 629 
 
 446, 003 
 
 4, 624, 320 
 143, 190 
 157, 731 
 
 1,505, 299 
 758, 588 
 
 1, 429, 349 
 
 715, 369 
 435, 507 
 42, 045 
 239, 104 
 133, 310 
 381, 192 
 45, 569 
 
 2, 796, 548 
 
 Coin and bullion 
 
 142, 602 
 
 18, 445 
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF THE TRADE. 
 
 The fact that in our trade with the provinces the interest of the East- 
 ern and Middle States is almost wholly that of buyers, while the inter- 
 est of the Western States is almost wholly that of sellers, could haidly 
 escape the notice of any one who examines the foregoing tables. If we 
 examine by customs districts the returns made for the last fiscal year, 
 of imports from and domestic exports and foreign reexports to the Brit- 
 ish American provinces, we find the distribution of the tiade to be in 
 the following proportions : 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Imports in — 
 
 Yermont district 
 
 Oswego district 
 
 I^iagara (Suspension bridge) district 
 
 Buffalo district 
 
 Champlain district 
 
 Boston district 
 
 All other New England districts. . . 
 
 Oswegatchie (Ogdensburg) - 
 
 All other collection districts 
 
 Domestic exports from — 
 
 Chicago 
 
 Milwaukee 
 
 Toledo 
 
 Port Huron 
 
 Vermont 
 
 Boston 
 
 Detroit 
 
 Cleveland 
 
 All other ports 
 
 27.1 
 17. 6 
 14.7 
 
 8.7 
 G.O 
 4. G 
 4. G 
 
 3.8 
 12.9 
 
 13.5 
 
 13.5 
 
 9.5 
 
 9.9 
 9.3 
 
 8.9 
 G. 1 
 
 5.9 
 23.4 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 21 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Foreign reexports from — 
 
 New York ol. 9 
 
 Portland 23. 0 
 
 Boston 13. G 
 
 All other ports 10. 0 
 
 A COMMERCE OF CONVENIENCE. 
 
 To a remarkable extent our present trade with the provinces is what 
 might be characterized as a pure commerce of convenience, incident 
 merely to the economical distribution of products which are common to 
 both conntries. We exchange Avitli them almost equal quantities of the 
 cereals, and almost equal quantities, on an average, of Hour. Except so 
 far as concerns the barley that we buy from them and the Indian corn that 
 we sell to them, this trade originates on neither side in any necessity, 
 but is chiefly a matter of simple convenience, of economy in carriage, or 
 of diversiflcation in the qualities of grain. Similarly, and for the like 
 reason, we exchange with them almost equal quantities of coal. We 
 sell them a certain quantity of hides and skins, and bay half that quan- 
 tity of the same articles back from them. On the other hand, they sell 
 us provisions and wool, and buy our iirovisions and wool to half the 
 amount in return. Not less than one- third, probably, of the trade now 
 carried on between the United States and the neighboring provinces is 
 of that character, and the fact that it is kept up with so little diminu- 
 tion, notwithstanding the imposition of duties on both sides of the fron- 
 tier, is signiflcant of the value of the advantages that are found in it. 
 
 THE EECIPEOCITY TEEATY. 
 
 The narowness of the range of commodities within which the bulk of 
 the trafflc between the two countries is now restricted has already been 
 pointed out as the conspicuous feature of this commerce in its present 
 state. It goes very little beyond the rawest products of agriculture, (in- 
 cluding animal food as such,) and out of this fact there follows, as an 
 inevitable consequence, the inequality which we And in the exchanges — 
 the heavy excess of our importations from the provinces over what we 
 export to them; since the trade, confined to an interchange of the same 
 kind of commodities, must be pretty much in the ratio of forty millions 
 of consumers on one side to four millions on the other. The old treaty 
 of so-called reciprocity contributed nothing directly, and very little in- 
 directly, to the rectification of this commercial ineciuity, and for that 
 reason it Avas a fraud upon the United States. It established free trade 
 between the United States and the British North American provinces 
 in the following specified articles, and in thovse only : 
 
 Grain, Hour, and brcadstnffs ; animal, s of all kind.s ; ashes; frc,sh, snadeed, and salted 
 meats; timber and lumber of all kinds, round, hewed, and sawed and nnmannfaetnred ; 
 cotton, wool, seeds and vegetabhis; nndi'ied fnuts, dried fruit ; fish of all kind.s; i)ro- 
 dnets offish and all the creatures living in the water; poultry; eggs; hides, fiir.s, skins. 
 
22 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 or tails, undressed ; stone or marble in its crude or unwronglit state; slate; butter, 
 cheese, tallow ; ores of metals of all kinds; coal; unmanufactured tobacco ; pitch, tar, 
 turpentine ; firewood ; plants, shrubs, trees ; j^elts ; wool ; fish oil ; rice and broom-corn ; 
 barks, gypsum, ground and unground ; wrought or unwrought burr and grindstones ; 
 dyestuffs ; 11 ax, hemp, and tow, unmanufactured ; rags. 
 
 two or three exceptions only, these are coininodities which both 
 countries produce, and with reference to which, of course, the freedom 
 of the markets of the United States, containing ten times their popula- 
 tion, was of vastly more value to the provinces than the freedom of their 
 markets could possibly be to the rival producers of the United States. 
 Moreover, the schedule of raw commodities covered by the treaty em- 
 braced, on the one hand, absolutely every product of the provinces for 
 which they sought a foreign market, while it included, on the other 
 hand, the products of but one department of the more varied industries 
 of this country. How it operated, so far as our trade with the old Cana- 
 dian provinces is concerned, may be exactly shown by comparing the 
 statistics of free and dutiable imports in each country from the other 
 during the period of the existence of the treaty : 
 
 Statement compiled from the official returns in the United States and in Canada, shoicinej the 
 imports of each country from the other, free and dutiable, during the existence of the treaty 
 of reciprocity. 
 
 United States imports from Canada. 
 
 official returns.] 
 
 [From U. S. 
 
 Canadian imports from the United States. [ From 
 Canadian official returns, t ] 
 
 Eiscal year. 
 
 Dutiable. 
 
 Free. 
 
 Calendar year. 
 
 Dutiable. 
 
 Free. 
 
 1855 
 
 $5, 305, 818 
 640, 375 
 691, 097 
 313, 952 
 
 $6, 876, 496 
 
 16, 847, 822 
 
 17, 600, 737 
 11,267, 618 
 
 1855 
 
 Ill, 449, 472 
 12, 770, 924 
 9, 966, 428 
 8, 473, 607 
 
 |9, 379, 204 
 9, 933, 584 
 10, 258, 220 
 7, 161, 958 
 8, 556, 545 
 
 1856 
 
 1856 
 
 1857 
 
 1857 
 
 1858 
 
 1858 
 
 1859 
 
 504, 969 
 434, 532 
 
 13, 703, 748 
 18, 418,501 
 18,-287, 217 
 15, 030, 753 
 18, 245, 638 
 31, 260. 034 
 
 1859 
 
 9, 036, 371 
 
 8, 532, 544 
 
 I860 
 
 1860 
 
 8, 740, 485 
 
 1861 
 
 358, 240 
 227, 059 
 
 1861 
 
 8, 346, 633 
 6, 128, 783 
 3, 974, 396 
 2, 177, 003 
 
 11, 859, 447 
 
 1862 
 
 1862 
 
 16, .514, 077 
 
 1863 
 
 425, 135 
 1,161,981 
 
 1863 
 
 14, 483, 287 
 5, 775, 398 
 10, 829, 351 
 
 1864* 
 
 1864, (first half) 
 
 1865 
 
 748, 374 
 3, 744, 643 
 
 29, 798, 893 
 
 1865, (fiscal year) 
 
 3, 991, 226 
 
 1866 
 
 42, 454, 827 
 
 1866, (fiscal year) 
 
 4, 362, 167 
 
 10, 880, 667 
 
 Totals 
 
 14, 556, 175 
 
 239, 792, 284 
 
 Totals 
 
 89, 209, 554 
 
 124, 372, 223 
 
 * Estimated Canadian proijortion of trade with the British Xorth American Possessions, not discrimina- 
 ted in the returns for 1864. 
 
 t These figures are taken from a table compiled by the secretary of the Montreal Board of Trade, Mr. 
 William J. Patterson. 
 
 The trade represented in the columns of free goods, on the two sides 
 of the foregoing table, is, of course, the trade in which the operation of 
 the reciprocity treaty is to be looked for. With the traffic in duty-pay- 
 ing commodities, which was carried on wholly outside of its provisions, 
 the treaty had nothing to do, except so far as that independent com- 
 merce was indirectly stimulated by the activities to which the treaty 
 gave direct encouragement. The actual treat}* trade, therefore, which 
 occurred between the two countries during the period of the existence 
 of the convention of 1854, shows an inecpiality of exchanges very nearly 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 23 
 
 ill tbe iiroportion of two to one. Two biiiidred aud tbirty-nine millions 
 of dollars’ worth of Oanadian products found a free market in tbe United 
 States, under tbe provisions of tbe treaty, against one bundred and 
 twenty-four millions of American products for wbicb tbe treaty opened 
 a free market in tbe Canadas. Of tbe total Canadian commodities sold 
 in tbe United States during tbe twelve years’ period, 94 per cent, came 
 free and but (y per cent, paid duty, while 58 per cent, only of the Amer- 
 ican commodities sold in Canada passed free to their market, and 42 per 
 cent., or about half, paid tribute to tbe custom-houses of tbe provincial 
 government. Moreover, tbe entire sales from this country to Canada — 
 free goods and dutiable goods, domestic jiroducts and foreign reex- 
 ports — altogether aggregated less for the twelve years by $20,000,000, 
 than the free goods wTiicb Canadian producers were enabled by tbe 
 treaty to sell in the United States. 
 
 This was certainly very far from being an arrangement of reciprocal 
 free trade, and no statistical ingenuity, even taking advantage of tbe 
 imperfect export showing of official returns in either country, could ever 
 make the treaty appear otherwise tlian a badly one-sided bargain so far 
 as its commercial stipulations were concerned. Whether tbe bsbery 
 l)rivileges and tbe freedom of the navigation of the St. Lawrence, wbicb 
 were throAvn as make- weights into tbe scale, approximately constituted 
 an equivalent for tbe excess of advantage in trade that was gained by 
 the x>rovinces, is a question about wbicb some differences of oinnion 
 have existed. It is certain that the i:>rivilege of navigating tbe St. 
 Lawrence remained an almost unused privilege during tbe whole term 
 of tbe treaty. How far it might be made valuable, by an enlargement 
 of tbe Welland and St. Lawrence canals, I shall not undertake to dis- 
 cuss. 
 
 THE EISHEEIES. 
 
 So far as concerns the fisheries, there can be no doubt that tbe greater 
 freedom wbicb our fishermen enjoyed under tbe treaty, in British waters 
 and at tbe provincial ports, was of importance to them. But it may 
 seriously be doubted whether tbe worth of all that they gained, over 
 and above what justly belonged to tbein before, and what justly belongs 
 to them now, under prior treaties, was greater than the worth of tbe 
 freedom of tbe markets of tbe United States to tbe people of tbe mari- 
 time provinces alone. It would seem that a full equivalent for our fish- 
 ing privileges was given to those provinces to whom belong whatever 
 rights of xmoprietorsbip there are in tbe coast-fishing grounds, .and 
 that all tbe enormous unreciprocated trading advantages given to tbe 
 Canadas in tbe bargain were a jnire gratuity. Under tbe operation of 
 tbe treaty tbe maritime provinces increased tbe sale in our markets of 
 tbe products of their own fishing from $1,004,408 in 4854 to $2,213,384 
 in 4805. Neither their fishing industries nor their fisheries sustained 
 any detriment from tbe admission of American fishermen within tbe 
 
24 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 tliree-mile inshore line, while they profited to no small extent from the 
 selling of supplies to them. How much of actual profit the New Eng- 
 land fishermen found in the privilege of the inshore fisheries, to offset 
 the accompanying competition of the provincial fishermen with them in 
 their own home markets, it is hard to estimate, since our statistics are 
 lamentably deficient in ‘facts bearing upon the subject. Apparently, 
 however, the value of the treaty to them was found more in the relief 
 that it afforded from the annoyance and harassing application of pro- 
 vincial regulations, than in the yield of the fishing grounds to which 
 they were admitted by it. At all events, the records of the enrolled ton- 
 nage employed in the mackerel and cod fisheries show no stimulation 
 of the business during the period of the reciimocity treaty, but unmis- 
 takably the reverse, as may be seen in the statement below, taken from 
 official sources : ^ 
 
 Statement of the enrolled tonnage employed in the cod and maclcerel fisheries from 1852 to 
 
 1869, inclusive.^ 
 
 Tears. 
 
 Cod fishery. 
 
 Mackerel fish- 
 ery. 
 
 Tears. 
 
 Cod fishery. 
 
 1 Mackerel fish- 
 ery. 
 
 1852 
 
 102, 659 
 
 109, 227 
 102 194 
 102, 927 
 
 95, 816 
 104, 572 
 
 110, 896 
 120, 577 
 136, 653 
 127, 310 
 
 72, 546 
 59, 850 
 35, 041 
 21, 624 
 29, 886 
 
 28, 327 
 
 29, 553 
 27, 069 
 
 26 , no 
 
 54, 295 
 
 1862 
 
 122, 862 
 117, 269 
 92, 744 
 59, 228 
 42, 796 
 36, 708 
 
 80, 596 
 51,018 
 55, 498 
 41, 208 
 46, 589 
 31, 498 
 
 1853 
 
 1863 
 
 1854 
 
 1864 
 
 1855 
 
 1865* 
 
 1856 
 
 1866 
 
 1857 
 
 1867 
 
 
 1868 
 
 1859 
 
 83, 886 
 
 62, 704 
 
 I860 
 
 1869 
 
 1861 
 
 
 
 * After 1865 the stated tonnage is either partly or wholly by “new” admeasurement, which produces 
 some apparent diminution that is not real. 
 
 It appears from the foregoing statement that an actual and consider- 
 able decline in the number of American vessels engaged in the mackerel 
 fisheries occurred during the first six years of the reciprocity treaty, and- 
 that, with the single exception of the year 1862, the business never em 
 ployed so much tonnage throughout the whole period of the treaty as 
 it had employed in the two years before the treaty was negotiated, 
 while the tonnage previously emifioyed in the cod fisheries was barely 
 kept engaged until 1863, and after that likewise declined. 
 
 These facts are eertainly very far from sustaining the prevalent idea, 
 particularly prevalent and much cherished in Canada, that the conces- 
 sions added to our fishing rights on the British North American coasts by 
 the reciprocity treaty greatly promoted the New England fishing inter- 
 ests, and were of such weighty value as to counterbalance the uneven 
 sharing of the commercial privileges negotiated in the same contract. 
 The importance with reference to these fisheries that came to be attached 
 to the treaty of 1851, undoubtedly grew out of the welcome exi)erience 
 of relief from unfriendly laws and harassing officials which the Ameri- 
 can fishermen enjoyed under it, and the welcome quietus that it gave to 
 quarrels and questions which were constantly giving rise to dangerous 
 
TRADE WITH liRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 25 
 
 national controversies. Now that the treaty has ceased to exist, it is 
 the recurrence of those same annoyances, and their consequence of ill 
 blood, far more than the loss of the ^Mnshore fisheries,” or the disi)uted 
 definition of the ^‘inshore line,” that gives seriousness and importance 
 to the fisheries question. That they have been revived in the most 
 troublesome forms that can be given to them — as they were made 
 troublesome to the fullest extreme before the treaty of reciprocity was 
 negotiated — for the politic purpose of heightening the importance to this 
 country of some compromise that will end them, there is little room for 
 questioning. Nor does it a})i)ear very doubtful that this policy origi- 
 nates at the same source from whence proceeded the shrewd dixfiomacy 
 by which, in the treaty of 1854, the maritime x)rovinces were made to 
 furnish the consideration for x)rivileges in trade from which the Cana- 
 dian provinces drew the lion’s share of profit. 
 
 As between the United States and tlie maritime provinces, which are 
 chiefly the x^arties in interest, the fisheries question could x)i‘obably be 
 settled very easily. Those x>Eovinces would gladly exchange the free- 
 dom of their fishing grounds, and eveiy desired landing and harbor 
 X^rivilege, for free access to American markets with their fish, their oil, 
 their coal, their gypsum, their lumber, their grindstones, and other x>ro- 
 ducts, and the best side of the bargain, so far as actual dollars and 
 cents’ worth is concerned, would be theirs at that. Indeed, so apx:>arent 
 to the xieoxde of the maritime pi'ovinces are the advantages of such an 
 adjustment of things, that the sentiment in I'avor of securing it by actual 
 annexation of themselves and their fisheries to the United States has 
 strength enough to be boldly outsx^oken, and to sux)X>ort at least two 
 Xtrominent organs of its x>ublic exx)ression in the province of Nova Scotia. 
 Had an effort been made, at the termination of the inequitable treaty of 
 reciprocity, to negotiate a settlement of the fisheries question on the 
 basis of free trade with the x>r*ovinces to whom the chiefiy valuable fish- 
 eries belong — then sex)arate as the since confederated xnovinces were — 
 the situation of affairs in British North America might now have been 
 considerably different. 
 
 IS BEOIPBOCAL FBEE TEADE PEACTICABLE ? 
 
 It is made xd^iin enough by the showing of the facts i)resented in this 
 report that abundant reasons exist for a strong desire on our x)art, as 
 well as oil theirs, to bring about an adjustment of our commercial re- 
 lations with all the British colonial states that are in neighborhood to 
 us, and esxiecially with the Canadian provinces, nxion a more liberal and 
 more natural footing. But it is made eipially ifiain that the United 
 States can never, in jmstice to themselves, effect that adjustment iixion 
 anything like the bases of the old treaty of reciprocity. We want a 
 more free and a more extended intercourse in trade with the four mil- 
 lions of ])eox)le whose territory, in so many respects, is the geograjihical 
 comxilement of our own ; but we want that freedom of intercourse to take 
 
26 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 a range considerably beyond the raw productions in whicli the two coun- 
 tries are mere competitors of each other, and with reference to which 
 our markets are necessarily of far greater value to the provinces than 
 theirs to ns. We want, not merely to exchange breadstiiffs, and pro- 
 visions, and coal, and hides and tallow with them, but to sell them our 
 cottons, our boots and shoes, our machinery, and our manufactures gen- 
 erally, in trade for their lumber, their live stocJv, their ashes, their plas- 
 ter, their furs, their minerals, and the general products of their farms. 
 We want, in fact, such an adjustment of the trade that the provinces 
 shall not sell what they have to sell in the United States and buy what 
 they have to buy in Great Britain. 
 
 Is the arrangement of a reciprocal free trade extended to that range 
 of commodities practicable Apparently it is not, under jmesent con- 
 ditions. If the free admission of American commodities is suggested 
 in the provinces, there arises at once the objection that their relations 
 with Great Britain forbid it; that they cannot discriminate against that 
 country in favor of this, and that their revenue necessities will not per- 
 mit the removing of duties from the products of both. l!lor could we 
 on this side afford the introduction of a state of free trade between our 
 territory and the provinces, with the circumstances of the two countries 
 remaining as they are; with high prices and high wages prevailing upon 
 one side of tli^. line, and low wages and low prices prevailing upon the 
 other; with the industries of the two people toned, if we may so express 
 it, in widely different keys. To obliterate the boundary line, commer- 
 cially speaking, while these contrasts of circumstance and the causes 
 behind them existed to still define it in every industrial respect, would 
 simply invite the removal of a good part of our manufacturing establish- 
 ments across the frontier, to enjoy the cheap scale in making and the 
 dear scale in selling their products. Of course, time would finally level 
 all the differences existing at first, but the process would assuredly be 
 an expensive one to the United States. 
 
 A ZOLLVEKEIK 
 
 It appears, therefore, that an intimate freedom of commerce between 
 this country and its northern neighbors, which is so desirable for both 
 parties, cannot be contemplated except in connection with a material 
 change in the conditions of theforeign relationship that the provinces sus- 
 tain toward us. It involves, of necessity, an entire identification of the 
 material interests of the two countries, by their common association, in 
 some form or other. If the provinces do not choose to become one with 
 us politically, they must at least become one with us commercially, 
 before the barriers are thrown down which shut them out from an equal 
 participation with us in the energetic working of the mixed activities 
 of the new world, and which deprive us, in a great jneasure, of the 
 reenforcement that they are capable of bringing to those activities. 
 The alternative of annexation is the zollverein, or a customs union, after 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 27 
 
 the plan of that under wliich the German states secured free trade 
 among themselves and identity of interest in their commerce with the 
 outside world. 
 
 A majority of the people of the British provinces may not yet be pre- 
 pared in feeling (though many of them are) for an arrangement which 
 probablj^ involves the disjointing of their ])olitical attachment to Great 
 Britain, and the assumption for themselves of a state of political inde- 
 pendence; but the time cannot be very distant when the persuasion 
 of their interests will overpower the hardly explainable sentiment by 
 which it is opposed. Perpetually made conscious, of late years, that 
 the parental nation to which they have loyally clung is more than ready 
 to dismiss them to an independent career, with a hearty God-speed, and 
 that they are far more endangered than protected by their anomalous 
 connection with Great Britain, their feeling with reference to that con- 
 nection has confessedly undergone a great change. At the i^resent 
 time the inhabitants of the provinces appear to be in a doubtful, waver- 
 ing, transition state of opinion and sentiment, witli regard to their future 
 policy as ai^eople; much affected, on the one hand, b}" dissatisfaction 
 with their relations to England, and, on the other hand, by a mistaken 
 belief that it is the ambitions policy and fixed purpose of their Ameri- 
 can neighbors to coerce them into a surrender of themselves and their 
 territory to the United States. That it is alike against the political 
 convictions and against the manifest interest of this nation to covet the 
 forcible absorption into its body-politic of any unwilling, alien, discon- 
 tented commnnity of people, so large as that of the British i)rovinces, 
 and that their accession to it is only desirable, and only desired, if the}^ 
 come by free choosing of their own, is a fact wliich they will probably 
 discern when their reflections have become more deliberate. 
 
 There does exist a feeling in the United States with reference to 
 them which it ought not to be difficult for the people of the provinces 
 to understand. It is the unwillingness of a reasonable jealousy, and of 
 a just, prudential selfishness, to extend the material benefits of member- 
 ship in the American Union, without its responsibilities and reciprocal 
 obligations, to communities with which the certain relations of an inde- 
 pendent- friendship cannot be cultivated or maintained; which are con- 
 trolled by a distant foreign jiower, and which are at all times liable to 
 be placed in an attitude of unfriendliness or hostility to this country by 
 causes outside of themselves, or through events in connection with whicdi 
 they have nothing on their own part to do. Between two equally 
 independent and responsible nationalities, homogeneous in blood and 
 character, and with every interest in common, situated as tlie United 
 States and their northern neighbors are toward each other, it would be 
 as easy to settle the relations of intimate fellowshii) ui)on an enduring 
 basis, as it is made difficult to do so in the case of tliese provinces, by 
 reasons of their dependent status. 
 
 The circumstances which make the common boundary of tlie two 
 
28 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROAHNCES. 
 
 countries an actual barrier instead of an imaginary line, are under tlieir 
 control, not onrs. It is for them to determine which affects them most 
 importantly, their political association with Great Britain, or their com- 
 mercial and industrial association in interest with the United States, 
 and which shall be yielded to the other, since the two are unquestionably 
 in contlict. There is no apparent evasion of the choice that they must 
 make. 
 
 THE TRANSIT TRADE. 
 
 Ill every commercial respect the dependence of the provinces of the 
 Dominion of Canada — especially of the old Canadian provinces — upon 
 the United States, is almost absolute. To say so is not to make an arro- 
 gant boast, but to state a simple fact. Restricted as the intercourse 
 between the Canadas and this country unhappily is now, they derive 
 from it almost Avholly the life which animates their industry and their 
 enterprise. The railroad system, which gives them a circulation of en- 
 ergies, and by which their resources are being developed, is the offspring 
 of the East and West traffic of the United States. Its trunk lines are 
 supported, and were made possible undertakings, by the carrying busi- 
 ness that they command from point to point of the American frontier, 
 across intervening Canadian territory. American commerce instigated 
 the building of their Welland and St. Lawrence Canals, and furnishes 
 the compensation for the cost of both. American commerce is the insti- 
 gator to, and the guarantor for, every similar enterprise that is now con- 
 templated in the provinces. 
 
 These are not exaggerated representations. They are borne out by 
 the returns of the traffic of the chief Canadian railways and canals. 
 
 The following is a statement, in tons, of the property transported 
 through the Welland Canal in 18G9, showing the ])roportions of Ameri- 
 can and Canadian commerce employing the canal : 
 
 
 Up. 
 
 Down. 
 
 Total. 
 
 From American to American ports tons.. 
 
 From American to Canadian ports tons.. 
 
 From Canadian to American ports tons.. 
 
 From Canadian to Canadian ports tons.. 
 
 2T7, 065 
 5, 845 
 78. 480 
 16, 666 
 
 411, 635 
 210, 608 
 56, 455 
 178, 751 
 
 688, 700 
 21.5, 851 
 134, 935 
 195, 417 
 
 The following is a statement of the freight traffic of the Great West- 
 ern Railway of Canada, for the year ending July 31, 1870: 
 
 
 Cattle. 
 
 Sheep. 
 
 Hogs. 
 
 Grain. 
 
 Other 
 
 freight. 
 
 Receipts. 
 
 
 Head. 
 
 Head. 
 
 Head. 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 S, s. d. 
 
 Foreij^n traffic, eastward.. 
 Foreign traffic, westward . 
 
 33, 329 
 
 129, 784 
 
 99, 061 
 
 2,597,042 j 
 
 213, 739 
 136, 825 
 
 203,499 11 6 
 99, 602 9 10 
 
 Total forei<^n traffic.-.. 
 
 33,329 
 
 129, 784 
 
 99,061 
 
 2,597,042 
 
 350, 504 
 
 303, 162 1 4 
 
 Local traffic, (both ways) . . 
 
 37, 195 
 
 77, 648 
 
 26, 593 
 
 2,330,555 
 
 323, 585 
 
 194,191 14 2 
 
 I have been unable to procure a statement of the traffic of the Grand 
 Trunk Railway of Canada, the management of \yhich appears to pursue a 
 policy of concealment with regard to its business ; but very much the 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 29 
 
 same state of facts atouIcI iiiuloubtedly be sliowii on that road as on the 
 Great Westeri]. The extent to Avliich tlie Grand Trunk Eailway shares 
 in the tlonf and grain trade of the United States, appears in the follow- 
 ing statement of the quantities of those articles which were shipped 
 upon it from its two western frontier termini, Sarnia and Goderich, in 
 the year 18G9 : 
 
 
 Flour. 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 Corn. 
 
 Other grain. 
 
 From TTuited States to United States, in transit 
 
 [Ftoiii Stnt^s 
 
 Barrels. 
 431,830 
 90, 112 
 
 Bushels. 
 225, 900 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 1, G92, 133 
 670, 230 
 
 Bushels. 
 183, 643 
 48, 831 
 
 
 
 The foregoing figures supply their oaaui commentary and fully sustain 
 the remark with which they were introduced, that the main railways 
 and canals of Canada owe their existence and their support to the com- 
 merce of the United States, in the transportation of which they share. 
 
 On the other hand, a large portion of the commerce between the old 
 Canadian provinces (Ontario and Quebec) and foreign countries, other 
 than our own, is carried on through the United States. This is made 
 necessary by the Avinter closing of the St. Lawrence, and by the fact that 
 no railroad connection between the Canadian interior and the seaports 
 of the maritime proAunces exists, and that one can be formed only by 
 taking so Avide, costly, and inconvenient a circuit that its commercial 
 usefulness Avhen realized AAill be A^ery slight. According to the “Trade 
 and XaAugation ” tables published by the goAwnment of the Dominion, 
 the foreign goods passing through the United States under bond to the 
 Canadiau importer, in the fiscal year ended June 30, 18G0, amounted in 
 Amine to $G,825,1G5. This is exclushm of foreign goods purchased in 
 the United States market, in bond, to the Audue of $1,701,9G5. 
 
 According to the returns compiled in the Bureau of Statistics at 
 Washington, the foreign commodities carried through the United States 
 to Canada in the fiscal ‘year ended June 30, 18G9, amounted to the Amine 
 of $14,843, G20, (more than double the quantity appearing in the Canadian 
 statistics,) and the Canadian commodities shipped through the United 
 States to countries abroad aggregated $5,794,197. In the fiscal year 
 ended June 30, 1870, the goods shipped through the United States to 
 Canada Avere of the A alue of $1G,519,G37, and from Canada, $G,932,G93. 
 The greater part of this in transitu trade is to and from Portland, Maine, 
 OA'er the Grand Trunk Baihvay, as appears in the folloAving statement 
 of it for 1870, made by districts: 
 
 Disti'icts. 
 
 lieceived from 
 Canada. 
 
 Shipped to 
 Canada. 
 
 Portland 
 
 $3, 273, 773 
 3, A55, 740 
 119, r>72 
 .AO, 017 
 12, 093 
 7, 701 
 
 2, 409 
 2, 388 
 
 $10, 768, 800 
 2, 502, 614 
 111,270 
 7, 975 
 2, 861, 1.50 
 7, 701 
 
 Vermont 
 
 Detroit 
 
 I’ort Huron 
 
 New York 
 
 Passamaijuoddy, Alaine 
 
 Alilwaukee 
 
 Do.ston 
 
 260, 127 
 
 Total 
 
 6, 932, 693 
 
 16, 519, 637 
 
30 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 No one will question tliat we find convenienee and advantage in the 
 use of Canadian channels for the passage of our coininerce between the 
 Eastern and Western States, nor that we find profit in acting as the 
 carriers of so large a part of the connnerce of Canada with the outside 
 AYorld. Both these arrangements of trade are of important value to this 
 country, and its interests would suffer materially from any suspension 
 of either; but the difference in the situation of the two countries with 
 reference to them is very marked. To the Canadian provinces their 
 importance is nothing less than vital, since, on the one hand, the very 
 sustenance of the arterial system of the Canadas is derived from the 
 American commerce which circulates through it ; while, on the other 
 hand, their own commerce with the world abroad can only be conducted 
 at exceeding disadvantage, if at all, for five months of the year, other- 
 wise than across the territory of the United States, and by the privilege 
 of the customs regulations of the American Government. The contem- 
 plation of such a state of facts must make it a very serious question to 
 the Canadian people whether they can afford to let their relations with 
 the United States remain in a precarious state, subject to disturbance 
 by causes that are totally foreign to themselves. 
 
 CANADIAN AND AMERICAN TARIFF POLICIES. 
 
 The proposed arrangement of a commercial union, or zollverein, with 
 no tariff' between the States and the inde])endent provinces that become 
 parties to it, and a common tariff for all outside trade — dividing the 
 common revenue collected from customs duties upon equitable terms — is 
 an arrangement which would place the provinces in the utmost security 
 of interested relationship with this country, and which, beyond all ques- 
 tion, would yield great advantage and profit to both people. There are 
 obstacles and apparent objections, to be sure, in the way of such an 
 arrangement, but they are less serious in the reality than in the appear- 
 ance. The objection raised, on the other side, upon the score of the wide 
 diff'erence that has existed of late years between the tariff' policy of the 
 United States and the tariff' policy of the Dominion, is an objection Avhich 
 a few years more seem likely to remove, in any event. While the tend- 
 ency in this country is toward a moderation of the extreme protection 
 duties that were caused by the necessities of the war, the tendency in 
 Canada, with reference to duties, is a steadily advancing one. Opinions 
 favorable to a pronounced policy of protection are manifestly gaining 
 very decided strength in the Dominion, and some, at least, of the 
 prominent public men now in office, including the premier of one of the 
 provinces, are among their advocates. Within the last year, the Con- 
 gress of the United States reduced and abolished duties in the American 
 tariff', estimated at the sum of $26,000,000 per annum, while the parlia- 
 ment of the Dominion, at its corresponding session, made considerable 
 additions to the Canadian tariff'. Within the past twelve years the 
 average rate of the Canadian tariff' has at least doubled. In the last 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 31 
 
 fiscal year, the duties collected in the Dominion amounted to 21 per cent, 
 on the dutiable commodities imported. In the same 5 ^ear, it is true, the 
 duties collected in the United States averaged 4G per cent, on the duti- 
 able commodities imported, but the current fiscal year will probably 
 show a falling of the latter rate to less than 40 per cent, and an advance 
 in the former rate to perhaps 23 or 24 ])er cent. The wide difference by 
 which the two countries have been apart in their tariff’ policy is certainly 
 destined to disappear in no very long time, whatever their relations to 
 each other may be. 
 
 CANADA AS A “CHEAP COUNTPY.” 
 
 It was remarked not long since,’ by a prominent Canadian gentleman, 
 that the policy of the Dominion was- to make a cheap country. That 
 policy has undoubtedly been successful in realizing its object; but 
 whether “ cheapness,” as an ultimate end, is a wisely-chosen object of 
 public policy may be questioned. 
 
 WAGES AND THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 To ascertain how labor stands affected by the cheapness that prevails 
 among our northern neighbors, I have procured a representative state- 
 inent of wages and of the prices of articles that enter most into the 
 cost of living, taken at several points in Ontario, in the two chief towns 
 of Yew Brunswick, and in the city of Quebec. The mean average be- 
 tween the four points represented in Ontario is, I think, a fair one for 
 that province, which is by far the most active and prosperous section of 
 the Dominion; that between the two towns reported from in New 
 Brunswick is, no doubt, something above the general average of wages, 
 and, possibly, of prices, in the province. How nearly the summer aver- 
 age of wages in the city of Quebec represents the same in the province 
 of Quebec I am not now able to say, though it is certainly indicative of 
 the prevailing state of industry. 
 
 These figures are placed, below, in comparison with similar figures 
 representing the mean average of wages and prices in the States of 
 New York and Maine, the latter of which are derived from the elaborate 
 tables upon the subject compiled and published within the past year by 
 the Bureau of Statistics at Washington. The New York and Maine 
 report is for the year I8G9, while the Canadian statement presents the 
 average prices of labor and of commodities that i)revailed during the 
 summer of 1870; but, so far as the diff’erence in time affects the accuracy 
 of the comparison, it is rather to the advantage ot the Canadian side, 
 since prices in the United States have declined to some extent during 
 the year past. 
 
Wages in Ontario, in New Brunswicic, and in the cilij of Qnelec, during the summer of 1870, compared with wages in New Yorlc and in Maine, during the 
 
 year 1869. 
 
 32 
 
 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 Ratios. 
 
 •q,IOi AVOX iP 
 S3.§nAV oj ooq 
 -on?)jo Aqi.-) ui 
 soSoAv JO oijnji 
 
 c-i cd ci ci « iii ci t-! ci ci i 
 
 BBBBBBBBBS | 
 
 •aiiib’K ni 
 
 saSb’AV oj q.ot.w 
 -siin.ia Av.^x >11 
 saSoAs. JO oijuji 
 
 Ito 1.94 
 
 1 to 1. 79 
 
 1 to 1. (19 
 
 1 to 1. 70 
 
 1 to 1.75 
 
 1 to 1. 9S 
 
 1 to 1.81 
 
 1 to 1. 75 
 
 1 to 1. 71 
 
 •q.iox 
 AV9X ni saS'uAV 
 oj OLiiqiif) ni 
 saSoAv JO oi:|i?y^ 
 
 1 to 1. 57 
 
 1 to 1. 47 
 
 Ito 1.64 
 
 1 to 1. 81 
 
 1 to 1. 64 
 
 1 to 1. 81 
 
 1 to 1. 88 
 
 1 to 1.32 
 
 1 to 1. 36 
 
 1 to 1. 90 
 
 1 to 1. 77 
 
 United States. 
 
 '6981 ‘oniop: 
 ni 9.OU.10AY 
 
 CO S 0 ?o 3 CO 0 3 J 
 
 ^ 07 OJ CO C^! T-i ‘ 
 
 •6981 
 ‘q.ioi Avax 
 ni o.oB.TaAY 
 
 ^eC(?Jci:^(jT<ncT»THo 
 
 •0L8I ‘oaqoiij^ jo A‘;to 
 
 
 Province of New 
 Brnnswick. 
 
 •0i8T 
 
 ‘jloiAisnu.itj 
 
 •X in oSbMOAY 
 
 
 •uojJiOT.19p9.Tx 
 
 
 •sjiqop'js 
 
 :§ 
 
 d 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 C 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 i •n’.8T ‘ounj 
 -TTQ III 9.oL’.[9AY 
 
 C» ,-1 tH cn rH r-l cn « rH 10 
 
 •TTiuqjuqo 
 
 l2i^2tgS®2^g§§ 
 
 ^GJrHrSCJrHTHrHjOTHlO 
 
 •paojjuBJo: 
 
 ggl[2g^,^^ggggg 
 
 r-trHClr-HrHCliqrHO 
 
 •aojiTUTUH 
 
 : :§§§ 
 ^cji-Hr-tGjTH j 
 
 •A’jjo u.«.ujjo 
 
 1 
 
 ig§i2Sg :g§§§ 
 
 ffl rH CN r-l jcNCTrHO 
 
 Occup.atious. 
 
 Black.sniitli daily. 
 
 Bricklavcrs or nia.sons daily. 
 
 Carpenters daily. 
 
 Painters daily. 
 
 Pla.sterers daily. 
 
 Shoemakers daily. 
 
 Tailors daily. 
 
 'Wheelwrio-hts daily. 
 
 Ordinaiy farm laborers, .per moTith, with board. 
 Other common laborers, .per day, without board. 
 Pennile servants per month, with board. 
 
 g ^ 
 
 rA rA zi 
 
 S B B 
 
 {1 
 
 2 'S 2 
 
 I I 
 
 'S « ^ 
 
 I ^ g 
 I g 2 
 
 III 
 
 §-.3 
 
 .3 I 
 
 I « 
 
 li 
 
 I 
 
 .3 0^ 
 
 rii 
 
 il§ 
 
 III 
 
 o t^; o 
 
 .3 .2 .3 
 
 III 
 
 iii 
 
 s ^ ^ 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 33 
 
 If we reduce tlie wages paid in tlie United States to their equivalent in 
 the currency with which (Canadian workmen were paid, by calculation of 
 the current premium on gold in 1869, (which averaged about 32 per cent.,) 
 we shall find that wages in New York average 25 per cent, more in their 
 gold value than wages in Ontario, and 80 per cent, more than in the 
 city of Quebec, and that the gold value of wages in Maine is 35 per cent, 
 greater than in New Brunswick. 
 
 But the fairer comparison of the earnings of labor in the two coun- 
 tries is to ascertain the purchasing value of each, or their ratio in each 
 country to the cost of living. This we do in the table subjoined, which 
 exhibits the prices of the principal articles of common consumption, 
 and the ordinary rates of board and house rent, in the same localities 
 that are cited in the foregoing table, and for the same periods of time : 
 
 3 
 
Prices in Ontario, in New Brunswick, and in the city of Quebec, during the summer of 1870, compared with prices in New York and in Maine during 
 
 the year 1869. 
 
 34 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 Eatios. 
 
 •q-ioi 
 Avajq m sooinl o^ 
 oaqoii^ fo’ ififp 
 
 III saoijci JO oijey; 
 
 1 to 1.31 
 
 1 to 0. 81 
 
 1 to 1. 90 
 
 1 to 1. 38 
 
 1 to 1. 81 
 
 1 to 1. 40 
 
 1 to 1. 53 
 
 1 to 1. GO 
 
 1 to 1. 50 
 
 1 to 1. 60 
 
 1 to 1. 70 
 
 1 to 1. 63 
 
 1 to 1. 46 
 
 1 to 1. 37 
 
 1 to 1. 41 
 
 1 to 1. 36 
 
 1 to 1. 20 
 
 1 to 1. 50 
 
 1 to 1. 50 
 
 1 to 2. 10 
 
 1 to 1. 33 
 
 1 to 3. 00 
 
 1 to 2. 60 
 
 1 to 1. 33 
 
 1 to 1. 41 
 
 1 to 1. 72 
 
 1 to 1. 45 
 
 1 to 1. 10 
 
 1 to 1. 50 
 
 •ouTcj^ UT saotjtl 
 o; ^[OIAVSUU.IJJ 
 
 lit sooud JO oijca; 
 
 1 to 1. 43 
 
 1 to 0. 49 
 
 1 to 1. 27 
 
 1 to 0. 75 
 
 1 to 2. 09 
 
 1 to 1. 30 
 
 1 tn 2. 00 
 
 1 to 1. 69 
 
 1 to 1. 63 
 
 1 to 1. 37 
 
 1 to 1. 50 
 
 1 to 1. 64 
 
 1 to 1. 69 
 
 1 to 1. 51 
 
 1 to 1. 45 
 
 1 to 1. 38 
 
 1 to 1. 50 
 
 1 to 1. 78 
 
 1 to 1. 79 
 
 1 to 1. 10 
 
 1 to 1.20 
 
 1 to 2. 16 
 
 1 to 1. 08 
 
 1 to 1. 33 
 
 1 to 2. 00 
 
 1 to 1. 04 
 
 1 to 1. 23 
 
 1 to 1. 58 
 
 •q.TOj^ Avajq ni 
 saoi.id o| oppno 
 in saoijd jo otp’^ 
 
 1 to 1. 26 
 
 1 to 0. 87 
 
 1 to 2. 11 
 
 1 to 1. 50 
 
 1 to 2. 40 
 
 1 to 1. 87 
 
 1 to 2. 16 
 
 1 to 2. 46 
 
 1 to 2. 18 
 
 1 to 2. 21 
 
 1 to 1. 84 
 
 1 to 2. 00 
 
 1 to 1. 65 
 
 1 to 1. 47 
 
 1 to 1. 45 
 
 1 to 1. 41 
 
 1 to 1. 60 
 
 1 to 1. 28 
 
 1 to 1. 58 
 
 1 to 2. 20 
 
 1 to 1. 43 
 
 1 to 1. 50 
 
 1 to 2. 60 
 
 1 to 1. 78 
 
 1 to 1. 72 
 
 1 to 1. 42 
 
 1 to 1. 14 
 
 1 to 1. 10 
 
 1 to 1. 58 
 
 United States. 
 
 •6931 
 
 ‘onrej\[ uioJjU.ioAY 
 
 $9 15 
 
 2 38 
 
 14 
 
 06 
 
 23 
 
 13 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 09 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 16 
 
 22 
 
 22 
 
 21 
 
 18 
 
 24 
 
 08 
 
 13 
 
 43 
 
 21 
 
 54 
 
 13 
 
 07 
 
 28 
 
 1 00 
 
 27 
 
 34 
 
 15 
 
 •698T ‘q-toi 
 
 Aio^q III oSu.iOAY 
 
 fc” r-l 
 
 •0L81 ‘oaqenf) Jo 
 
 $6 00 
 
 4 50 
 
 10 
 
 06i 
 
 11 
 
 10 
 
 oei 
 
 10 
 
 08 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 13 
 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 14 
 
 20 
 
 06 
 
 10 
 
 20 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
 05 
 
 06 
 
 22 
 
 65 
 
 20 
 
 30 
 
 10 
 
 Province of New 
 Brunswick. 
 
 ’OlBt ‘qoiAisiin.ia; 
 Aiox; in 9.Sej3AY 
 
 K - S g § § S ^ ? 3 2 S S 
 
 51288855 ggS'f 
 
 •ao|5[OTj:apoj^ 
 
 sgsgsssggsg23^2i3::sg 
 
 5;82g£g5 8££2 
 
 •spqop -IS 
 
 
 SSgggg 8gg8 
 
 Province of Ontario. 
 
 •0181 ‘OTJ 
 
 -'cjuo ni oScjOAY 
 
 S § g gS g fg £ g § 52 2 2 2 £ f 2 2 ? g 2 f g f 
 
 •uiuqj'Bqo 
 
 :g§g8gggg§§32S222£g22ggg2 gggS 
 
 :E 
 
 •p.iojjuma 
 
 ggSg :g£ :gggg22222£gg2gggg 
 
 E^ : : 
 
 •nojiitai?H 
 
 8 isgggg :g£sS :2222£5828gggJ 8882 
 
 E i : : 
 
 -.fjIQ BAiOJJO 
 
 I'8£g2£g£8£g£g2222 : 
 E"^ : 
 
 22gSg2 :£££ 
 
 Articles. 
 
 rnovisioxs. 
 
 Flour, Avlieat, superfine - per barrel.. 
 
 ('orii uH-al do 
 
 Beef, fresh, roastini*: pieces per pound.. 
 
 soup pieces do 
 
 rump steaks do 
 
 domed beef do 
 
 A'eal, fore-quarters do 
 
 bind-(inarters do 
 
 iMutton, fore-quarters do 
 
 less do 
 
 chops do 
 
 Pork, fresh do 
 
 corned and salted do 
 
 Bacon do 
 
 Hams, smoked do 
 
 Slu)ulders do 
 
 Lard do 
 
 Codfish, dry do 
 
 Butter do 
 
 Cheese do 
 
 Potatoes ])er bushel. . 
 
 Eiee per pound. . 
 
 IMilk per <iuart. . 
 
 Eg<>s per dozen.. 
 
 GROCEKIES. 
 
 Tea per pound.. 
 
 Coffee, Eio, green do 
 
 roasted do 
 
 Sugar, good brown do 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 35 
 
 1 to 1. 45 
 1 to 1. 30 
 1 to 1. 57 
 1 to 1. 71 
 1 to 1. 18 
 
 1 to 0. 95 
 1 to 1. 48 
 1 to 1. 37 
 
 1 to 1. 15 
 
 1 to 1. 20 
 
 1 to 1. 11 
 
 1 to 0. 52 
 
 1 to 0. 56 
 
 1 to 0. 90 
 
 1 to 1. 31 
 
 
 1 to 1. 10 
 
 1 to 1. 50 
 
 
 1 to 1. 36 
 
 1 to 1. 36 
 
 1 to 1. 02 
 
 1 to 1. 33 
 
 1 to 0. 94 
 
 1 to 1. 95 
 
 1 to 1. 37 
 
 1 to 1. 26 
 
 1 to 1. 09 
 
 1 to 1. 17 
 
 1 to 0. 87 
 
 1 to 0. 57 
 
 1 to 0. 42 
 
 1 to 1. 14 
 
 1 to 1. 14 
 
 1 to 0. 85 
 
 1 to 1. 27 
 
 1 to 1. 19 
 
 1 to 1. 52 
 
 1 to 1. 03 
 
 
 1 to 1. 45 
 
 1 to 1. 55 
 
 1 to 1. 52 
 
 1 to 1. 71 
 
 1 to 1. 18 
 
 1 to 1. 14 
 
 1 to 1. 48 
 
 1 to 1.78 
 
 1 to 1. 48 
 
 1 to 1. 64 
 
 1 to 1. 54 
 
 1 to 0. 87 
 
 1 to 0. 68 
 
 1 to 1. 51 
 
 1 to 1. 14 
 
 1 to 0. 91 
 
 1 to 1.00 
 
 1 to 1. 30 
 
 1 to 2. 04 
 
 1 to 1. 72 
 
 1 to 1. 50 
 
 1 to 1. 55 
 
 15 
 
 17 
 
 1 00 
 
 12 
 
 16 
 
 11 20 
 
 6 00 
 
 3 15 
 
 49 
 
 17 
 
 17 
 
 16 
 
 21 
 
 25 
 
 33 
 
 14 
 
 70 
 
 4 83 
 
 4 45 
 
 6 45 
 
 3 72 
 
 2 70 
 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 1 18 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 8 10 
 
 6 30 
 
 4 12 
 
 46 
 
 18 
 
 20 
 
 21 
 
 28 
 
 28 
 
 34 
 
 11 
 
 67 
 
 4 40 
 
 8 40 
 
 11 20 
 
 4 50 
 
 3 50 
 
 11 
 
 m 
 
 75 
 
 07 
 
 11 
 
 8 50 
 
 4 25 
 
 3 00 
 
 40 
 
 15 
 
 18 
 
 40 
 
 50 
 
 31 
 
 26 
 
 
 i : : § 
 
 ^ 1 I TO 
 
 
 kC ^ 51 
 
 : SS i 
 
 I CC ^ CO 
 
 
 th o Cl I I I < 
 
 ^ gg 
 
 ro CO 
 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 95 
 
 09 
 
 16 
 
 5 50 
 
 5 25 
 
 3 00 
 
 40 
 
 11 
 
 18 
 
 28 
 
 50 
 
 22 
 
 28 
 
 15 
 
 55 
 
 2 00 
 
 3 00 
 
 4 00 
 
 
 He H- -1 Hn ^ 
 
 . Cl CC CO fC 
 
 11 
 
 11 
 
 75 
 
 10 
 
 12.t 
 
 7 00 
 
 2 50 
 
 1 75 
 
 30 
 
 10 
 
 12i 
 
 25 
 
 50 
 
 16 
 
 20 
 
 m 
 
 70 
 
 4 00 
 
 5 00 
 
 8 00 
 
 3 00 
 
 2 00 
 
 §g§ g- H 
 
 00 r: ' 1 
 
 g' 
 
 4 00 
 
 6 00 
 
 3 00 
 2 50 
 
 I'sigi’ gi§ S 
 
 r-l 1' CO fC 
 
 
 5 00 
 
 8 00 
 
 3 00 
 
 2 50 
 
 1 CO r: r-t j ( 
 
 .2 g§ §g 
 
 M Cl CC C) 
 
 ) 
 
 t 
 
 yellow, “C.” do 
 
 (’offeo, ‘‘ B." <lo 
 
 Sirup -■ per p;allon. 
 
 Soa)), common l)er pound. 
 
 Starch do 
 
 I'L'EL. 
 
 Coal pe ton. 
 
 M’ood, hard per cord. 
 
 soft do 
 
 LIGHT. 
 
 Oil, coal per gallon. 
 
 DOMESTIC DRV GOODS. 
 
 Shirtings, brown, 4-4, standard quality per yard 
 
 bleached, 4-4, standard quality do 
 
 Sheetings, brown, 9-8, standard quality do 
 
 bleached, 9-8, standard quality. . .do 
 
 Cotton flannel do 
 
 Ticking, good qualitv, wide , do 
 
 Satinets and tweeds, medium quality do 
 
 Lioots, men s neavy per jiair. 
 
 HOUSE-REXT. 
 
 Four-room tenements per month. 
 
 Six-room tenements do 
 
 HOARD. 
 
 For men per week. 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 § 
 
 I 
 
 ■* 
 
 I 
 
 s 
 
 « 
 
 1 
 
 0 
 
 1 
 I 
 
 p 
 
 .a 
 
 0 
 
 <C 
 
 "A 
 
 .3 
 
 1 
 
 ■a 
 
 3 
 
 0 
 
 1 
 
 a 
 
 .3 
 
 i 
 
 •I 
 
 g 
 
 Mean ratio of prices in iSTew Brunswick to prices in Maine, from the list of articles named above 1 to 1.42. 
 
 Mean ratio of prices in city of Quebec to prices in New York, from the list of articles named above 1 to 1.43. 
 
36 TKADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 According to tlie mean ratios obtained from the foregoing tables, the 
 wages of the average workman in New York are 65 per cent, greater 
 than the same wages in Ontario, while the cost of his living is but 58 
 per cent, greater ; leaving a clear excess of 7 per cent, in his favor. 
 
 The wages of the average workman in Maine are 78 per cent, greater 
 than the same wages in New Brunswick, and the cost of his living is but 
 42 per cent, greater 5 leaving a clear excess of 36 per cent, in his favor. 
 
 Between New York and the city of Quebec the difference is almost 
 incredible : wages 138 per cent, higher in the former, and the cost of 
 living but 43 per cent, higher, leaving 95 i)er cent, clear excess of earn- 
 ings to labor in New York. 
 
 It may be doubted, however, whether a just ratio of prices is obtained 
 by calculating the mean rate between prices in so miscellaneous a list. 
 A more accurate calculation may be made by another method. Taking 
 on each side equal quantities of the various articles quoted, in an esti- 
 mate of the probable consumi)tion of an ordinaiy family, I arrive at 
 the following results: 
 
 That which cost $100 in gold in Ontario cost $162 in currency in New 
 York, or $122 72 in gold; while for every $100 of wages that the aver- 
 age workman received in Ontario, he was paid $165 in currency in New 
 Y^ork, or $125 in gold. Excess of purchasing value in New York wages 
 oyer Ontario wages, 2.28 per cent., gold measurement. 
 
 That which cost $100 in gold in New Brunswick cost $141 in currency 
 in Maine, or $106 82 in gold; while for every $100 of wages that the aver- 
 age workman received in New Brunswick, he received $178 currency, or 
 $134 84 gold in Maine. Excess of purchasing value in Maine wages 
 over New Brunswick wages, 28 per cent., gold measurement. 
 
 That which cost $100 in the city of Quebec, cost $152 currency in the 
 State of New York, or $115 15 in gold ; while for every $100 of wages 
 that the average workman received in Quebec, he was paid $238 curren- 
 cy, or $180 gold, in New York. Excess of purchasing value in New 
 York wages over wages in the city of Quebec, 64.85 per cent., gold 
 measurement. 
 
 In other words, by the same labor and with the same living, the av- 
 erage workman can make and save $2 28 (gold), out of every $100 of 
 earnings, more in New York than in Ontario ; $28 more in Maine than 
 in New Brunswick, and $64 85 more in New Y^ork than in the city of 
 Quebec. 
 
 It is certainly plain enough that labor gains nothing, but loses very 
 seriously, from the state of cheapness prevailing in the Dominion. 
 
 THE SAVINGS OF INDUSTRIE 
 
 The state of a country with reference to the accumulating energy of 
 its productive industries, and the general prosperity of its people, is 
 indicated with tolerable certainty now-a-days by its savings institutions. 
 The sa^ ings on deposit throughout the Dominion at the close of 1869, 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 37 
 
 in tlie post office savings banks, in trustees^ savings banks, in cliart- 
 ered banks, and in the hands of building societies, was estimated by the 
 compiler of the Canadian Year Book^^ at $9,168,150. At the beginning 
 of the same year the deposits in the savings banks of the State of New 
 York, drawn from the earnings of bnt a little larger population, were 
 returned at $169,808,678, equivalent to about $127,000,000 in gold, or 
 fourteen times the total sum of savings in the Dominion. The savings 
 deposited in Massachusetts at the same period, by a people numbering 
 about one-third the population of the Dominion, were $95,000,000, equiva- 
 lent to about $71,000,000 in gold j and the latest published returns from 
 the savings banks in all the New England States show as follows : 
 
 Massachusetts $112, 119, 016 
 
 Conuecticut 47, 904, 834 
 
 Rhode Island 27, 067, 072 
 
 Maine 10, 490, 368 
 
 New Hampshire 18, 759, 461 
 
 Vermont 2,037,934 
 
 Total New England 218, 378, 685 
 
 ACCUMULATED WEALTH. 
 
 Statistics from which to calculate the actual wealth of the provinces 
 are not at present attainable. Even the assessed valuation of real and 
 personal property for xiurposes of taxation I have been able to lirocnre 
 only for Ontario, and there no later than 1867. The comparison of 
 property, as assessed in Canada and the United States, must be a tol- 
 erably just one, since the under- valuation cannot be far from alike in 
 both cases. Ontario is by far the wealthiest of all the provinces, both 
 actually" and proportionately, and its official statement of the assessed 
 value of real and personal property for three years is as follows : 
 
 Years. 
 
 Assessed value 
 of real estate. 
 
 Assessed value 
 of personal 
 propert3^ 
 
 Total. 
 
 186.5 
 
 $232, 782, 016 
 238, 201, 6.57 
 212, 888. 435 
 
 $25, 357, 829 
 26, 295, 087 
 23, 963, 077 
 
 $258, 139, 845 
 264, 496, 744 
 236, 851, 512 
 
 1866 
 
 1867* 
 
 
 * The fact that the assessed values of i)roperty were lowered to the extent of $28,000,000 the year fol- 
 lowing the abrogation of the reciprocity treaty is certainly not Avithout significance. 
 
 In Alassachusetts, with not more than seventy per cent, of the popula- 
 tion of Ontario and twenty per cent, of, its occupied territory, the 
 assessed valuation of real and xiersonal proxierty in the same three 
 years was as follows : 
 
 Year. 
 
 Assfissed value 
 of ])ei'sonal 
 I)roperty. 
 
 Assessed value 
 of real e.state. 
 
 Total. . 
 
 1865 
 
 $386, 079, 955 
 430, 272, 298 
 457, 728, 296 
 
 $605, 761, 946 
 651, 043, 703 
 708, 105, 117 
 
 $991, 841, 901 
 1,081,316, 001 
 1, 16.J, 893, 413 
 
 1806 ' 
 
 1867 
 
 
38 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 These of eourse are valnatious in a depreciated currency. In 1867 the 
 average premium on gold was thirty-nine per cent. Eednced hy that, the 
 assessed valuation of property in Massachusetts was $838,772,239 in 
 gold, or about $655 x^or capita, against $236,851,512, or about $131 i3er 
 capita in Ontario. 
 
 In Ohio the assessed valuation of real and personal x)rox)erty, in 1868, 
 was $1,143,461,386, or $816,758,132 in gold, equivalent to about $325 
 X^er cax^ita. Taking the Northern States of the Union together, they un- 
 doubtedly exhibit on the average more than double the value of x^i’op- 
 erty per caxhta that is shown in Ontario, where the x)rox)ortionate value 
 of x^rox^erty must largely exceed that in Quebec or in the maritime 
 provinces. 
 
 BANKING CAPITAL AND CIRCULATION. 
 
 The caxiital emxiloyed in banking amounts to but $32,753,242 in 
 the entire Dominion, of which $30,363,842 is in Ontario and Quebec, 
 $2,060,400 in Nova Scotia, and $329,400 in New Brunswick. An active, 
 vigorous, and enterprising state of business in so large a community of 
 Xieoxile is clearly imxiossible with that limited sum of caxutal in banking — 
 a sum equal to but about $8 xier caxiita. In the nineteen States north 
 of the Potomac and the Ohio and east of the Missouri, with a xioxmla- 
 tion of about 26,000,000 xieoxile, there is a caxiital of $418,000,000 in 
 national banks alone, or $16 xier caxiita, besides the cax)ital of banks 
 still doing business under State charters, which amounts to $15,000,000 
 in the one State of New York. In the New England States the national 
 bank capital is $37 per capita, and in New York the total caxhtal in 
 chartered banking is $28 xier head. 
 
 The currency in circulation, banknotes, and Dominion treasury notes, 
 has rapidly swelled within the past year, from $15,982,165 on the 1st of 
 January, 1870, in Ontario and Quebec, to $25,514,169 in the same iirov- 
 inces on the 1st of October last. At the first-named sum — less than $5 
 Xier caxiita — the money in use (making full allowance for gold and silver 
 in circulation) was as much too restricted for an energetic state of busi- 
 ness as the inflated volume of currency in the United States is too 
 stimulating. The xn’ocess of inflation that has commenced so raxiidl^’ in 
 the Dominion, however, bids fair in the end to more than remove all 
 contrast in that xiarticular. 
 
 PUBLIC DEBT. 
 
 On the 30th of April, 1870, according to a statement from the auditor 
 general, the xmblic debt of the Dominion, deducting cash and banking 
 accounts, Avas $99,584,807. Ax)X>5U’ently, however, this statement did 
 not include the outstanding Dominion treasury notes in circulation, 
 of which $7,450,334 had been issued in October last. Ivclatively to 
 Xioxmlation, this debt of the Dominion, amounting to about $26 x>er 
 caxnta, axixicars trifling in comparison Avith the debt of the United States j 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 39 
 
 blit relatively to the wealth of the two countries, their resources, and 
 energies, it may be questioned, from the indications heretofore given, 
 whether the disparity of the burden of debt is so great as many in the 
 provinces imagine. Whatever the disparity may be, it will certainly 
 disappear in the accomxdishment of the policy of expenditure which the 
 government of the Dominion has laid out, with refereni'e to political 
 necessities that grow wholly out of an anomalous situation — such, for 
 example, as the building of the Intercolonial Eailway and the projected 
 railway across the continent to British Oolumbia, parallel with the line 
 of the American ^lorthern Pacific, to neither of which undertakings 
 does the commerce of the continent offer any encouragement. 
 
 IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION. 
 
 If no other facts existed to show that the conditions of life in the Do- 
 minion of Canada, with its cheapness and its lighter taxes, as compared 
 with the United States, are not conditions to be intelligently preferred 
 by those who are free to choose, the facts of immigration and emigration 
 show it strikingly. 
 
 Out of 74,365 foreign immigrants to the New World, who landed at 
 Canadian ports in 1869, only 18,360 paused to seek homes in the Domin- 
 ion, and’ 57,202 passed on to our Western States. In 1868 the number 
 reported as making a settlement in the Dominion was but 12,765, against 
 58,683 going through to the United States. For the year just closed, 
 the statistics of immigration into the Dominion at large are not yet at- 
 tainable. AVithin a few days, however, the Ontario Commissioner of 
 Agriculture, who has charge of immigration, has published his report, 
 from Avhich it appears that the measures adopted in that province to 
 attract settlers from Great Britain, and to assist their removal, have 
 largely increased the arrivals in Ontario during the past twelve’months. 
 The commissioner reports the number for the year ending December 31, 
 1870, at 25,290. Although to a great extent this does not represent a 
 natural movement of immigration, but is the result of systematic efforts 
 tliat are being made in England by various societies to deport some of 
 the more sufiering classes of the poor population of that country, still, 
 so far as concerns Ontario, it produces a considerable change in the facts 
 heretofore existing. But if Ontario is making some gain of population 
 from foreign immigration, that province, in this as hi most matters, is a 
 favored exception. AVithout much reasonable doubt the other provinces, 
 and especially (Quebec, are steadily losing more by emigration to the 
 United States than they gain by immigration from abroad. 
 
 I am indebted to Mr. AA)ung, Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, for the 
 following statement, compiled from returns made of immigrants arriving 
 in the United States from the British INorth American i)ossessions for 
 eleven years past : 
 
40 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 Tears. 
 
 Xumber. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Number. 
 
 I860 
 
 4, .514 
 
 2, 069 
 
 ’ 3, 275 
 
 3, 464 
 
 3, 636 
 
 21. 586 
 32, 150 
 
 1867 
 
 6, 014 
 10, 894 
 30, 921 
 40, 411 
 
 1861 > 
 
 1868 
 
 186-3 
 
 1869 
 
 1863 
 
 1870 
 
 1864 . . 
 
 Total - 
 
 1865 
 
 158, 934 
 
 1866 
 
 1 
 
 
 But these are more than doubtful statistics j nor does it appear pos- 
 sible to secure any trustworthy enumeration of the persons who come 
 into the IJnited States from the British provinces with intent to make 
 this country their home. The figures given above are obtained, I be- 
 lieve, from returns made by the officers of customs, in connection ‘■with 
 tlie entering of household goods, which are admitted free as settlers’ 
 ehects.” If exact to that extent, they would only represent the class of 
 immigrants who come with families and household effects, wholly omit- 
 ting the perhaps larger class of young men from the provinces who 
 seek their fortunes in the United States, and who, as they cross the 
 frontier, are in no way to be distinguished from ordinary travelers. 
 But even for what they purport to exhibit, I fear that our statistics of 
 provincial emigration are not to be trusted. I have reason to know 
 that some of the returns of immigration from frontier crossing points 
 are almost entirely, if not wholly, founded upon careless guessing on 
 the part of railway agents and clerks, as to the number of persons likely 
 to have accompanied a given quantity of settlers’ effects.” Perhaps 
 these are exceptional cases, but more probably not, since there is noth- 
 ing to compel the taking of the trouble which accuracy would require. 
 It is possible, too, that the aggregate result of such estimating may be 
 not far from the true fact, but that is a matter of no certainty. 
 
 As for the large class of immigrants of whom no account can possibly 
 be taken when they cross the frontier, Mr. Young, who has been gath- 
 ering information on the subject, thinks they may be safely estimated 
 at 10,000 for the past year. 
 
 All definite statements, however, with regard to this emigration from 
 the provinces must be made and received with considerable doubt. It 
 can only be said with certainty (and that no one at all acquainted with 
 the facts will dispute) that the annual movement from the Canadas and 
 from the maritime provinces to the United States is very large. The 
 Dominion suffers in no respect more seriously than in the loss of the en- 
 terprising young men who are being constantly enticed away from it to 
 seek wider opportunities in the United States than their own country 
 affords ; some of them to return after a time, but the greater part to 
 establish permanent ties and make permanent homes in ‘‘the States.” 
 Such are to be found everywhere in the Union, and no adopted element 
 in the American population contributes more to its stock of energy or 
 is of greater value. During the late war mau}" tliousands of Canadian 
 young men volunteered in the Union army and shared our national 
 
TEADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 41 
 
 struggle with us, the larger proportion of the survivors of whom are 
 probabty citizens to-day under the government for which they fought. 
 
 Erom the province of Quebec, where the circumstances of the general 
 population are growing less prosperous rather than improving, emigra- 
 tion across the line into New England and elsewhere has assumed such 
 proportions within the past two or three years as to become a very 
 serious subject of discussion in the journals of the province. It is 
 exceedingly unfortunate that we have no trustworthy data from which 
 to calculate its extent. There are two migratory movements from 
 Quebec, one periodical and temporary, the other permanent. Large 
 numbers of the French Canadian laborers and small farmers leave their 
 homes on the approach of winter, cross to the United States, find wdnter 
 emj)loynient here, some even in the Southern States, and return to their 
 homes again in the spring. How this number compares with those who 
 l^ermanently remove themselves to the United States it is impossible to 
 say. That the latter have greatly multiplied during late years we 
 know, from the importance which the French Canadian element is 
 assuming among the operatives in the New England factories, and from 
 what is acknowledged by observers in Quebec. Intelligent French 
 Canadian gentlemen in that province estimate that there are already 
 more of their race in the United States than at home. Said one of the 
 daily newspapers of Montreal in October last : Statistics tell us, and 
 any one who has traveled in the United States will confirm the fact, 
 that we annually suffer a heavier loss through native persons leaving 
 the country than the total figure of the immigration returns. There 
 are, at a low computation, half a million native-born Canadians now 
 domiciled in the United States. They are established in the republic, 
 not because they prefer that form of government, but because the spirit 
 of enterprise seemed to have died out on this soil, and there was no 
 field opened to skilled industry.’’ The same newspaper, in an article a 
 few weeks previous, had stated the fact that “ our farmers realize very 
 little more for their hay and oats than they did thirty years since, and 
 the consequences are that farm lands are declining in value in the jU’o- 
 vince. The returns, minus the labor, are smaller; the margin of profit 
 remaining to the farmer at the end of the year, after paying and feeding 
 his men, is less.” It was said in a public address by one of the promi- 
 nent public men of the province of Quebec a little more than a year ago : 
 “ The emigration of common laborers to the States is something actually 
 alarming; and it could not be otherwise, for our water-powers are 
 neglected, our mines are closed, and Ave have no means of furnishing 
 employment to our people.” Within a few Aveeks past, to cite one iiiore 
 authority, the leading neAvspaper of the city of Quebec, the Daily 
 Chronicle, made the folloAving statement, AAdiich has a tAAm-fold signifi- 
 cance: Unfortunately it is a truism, and requires no demonstration, 
 
 that ship-building, formerly the main industry of Quebec, has almost 
 ceased to exist, and that consequently our laboring population, the A ery 
 
42 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 bone and sinew of tlie body politic, were commencing to seek in the 
 adjoining republic that employment which was no longer to be found 
 here. Too many, indeed, already, we fear, have removed permanently 
 from our province.’’ 
 
 General evidence of the magnitude of the emigration that goes on 
 from the Dominion to the United States is abundant, though the statistics 
 to represent it in defined numbers, with tolerable exactness, are lacking. 
 What is true of (Quebec is undoubtedly true to not much less extent of 
 Uova Scotia and New Brunswick, and if Ontario does not lose poi)ula- 
 tion in equal numbers it loses very considerably from a class whose 
 young blood is the life force of a country. Against these losses there is 
 no equal offset or exchange. Emigration from the United States to the 
 provinces is limited, though valuable to the latter, because chiefly con- 
 fined to men who go there with a definite enterprise in view, and gen- 
 erally with capital, to engage in lumbering, or mining, or salt making, 
 or oil producing, or general si^eculation and trade. Under different con- 
 ditions, the number of these would unquestionably be multiplied to a 
 very great extent. 
 
 PAETIAL PEOSPIJEITY IN THE DOMINION. 
 
 I hope I shall not be accused of having labored to make a representa- 
 tion of circumstances unfavorable to our northern neighbors. I give the 
 facts as I have found them, in seeking, without preconceived notions, to 
 ascertain the relative situation of afiairs in the two countries, which be- 
 came, as I have viewed it, a necessary part of the subject submitted to 
 me for investigation. I group these facts here to show, as I think they 
 do show, that if that which appears to be the only practicable arrange- 
 ment under which a natural state of trade between the United States 
 and the British provinces can be established, involves a change in the 
 conditions that prevail within the latter, assimilating them to the con- 
 ditions existing in the United States, the change cannot be one to the 
 detriment of the people of the x)rovinces, and cannot form a forbidding 
 obstacle to the arrangement. 
 
 I know and I do not contradict the claim to prosperity that is 
 asserted in considerable portions of the Dominion. Prosperity, upon the 
 moderate scale to which everything is adjusted in the provinces, does 
 exist throughout most of Ontario, in the city of Montreal, and in several 
 small manufacturing towns that have grown ui> in the loAv^er x)roviuces 5 
 a degree of prosperity quite in contrast with the aspect of affairs, gen- 
 erally speaking, in Quebec, and for the most part prevailing in the mari- 
 time provinces. The people of Ontario are very comfortable j many of 
 the towns show more life than they formerly did, are adding to their 
 industries, and are slowly" growing. One branch of manufacture, the 
 woolen manufacture, has obtained quite a root, and has risen to consid- 
 erable magnitude within a few years past; so much so as to diminish 
 the imi)ortation of woolens nearly a million of dollars m I8G9 from the 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 43 
 
 importation of 1868. In railway enterprise there is a noticeable stir of 
 life, stimulated in great part by the American transit trade, though 
 partly directed towmrd the development of the ‘^back settlements” of 
 Ontario. 
 
 CO^mERCIAL GROWTH OF MONTREAL. 
 
 But nowhere and in nothing else is the display of really energetic 
 forces equal to that at Montreal. The city of Montreal has certainly 
 made an astonishing advance in commercial importance within the last 
 few years. The conspicuous feature, and, i^erhaps, the conspicuous 
 cause connected with its commercial rise, has been the establishment 
 and remarkable success of the splendid line of ocean steamers which 
 a single Canadian firm has placed afioat, connecting Montreal with 
 both Liverpool and Glasgow by regular direct lines. Commencing 
 in 1856 with four steamers and a capacity of 6,536 tons, this great 
 fleet of the Messrs. Allan & Co. now numbers eighteen steam ves- 
 sels, among the finest on the seas, with a total capacity exceeding 
 42,000 tons. The rise of this flourishing Canadian mercantile steam 
 navy is a more notable fact by reason of its contrast with the decline of 
 the ocean steam shq^ping of the United States. 
 
 DIVERSION OF AMERICAN GRAIN TRADE. 
 
 Perhaps it is owing chiefly to the organization of operations in com- 
 merce incident to the effect of the establishment of such lines of for- 
 eign connection, that Montreal began, two years ago, to accomplish a 
 powerful diversion of the movement of our Western cereals away from 
 'New York. The very extensive sudden transition, particularly in the 
 movement of wheat, which occurred in 1860, claims serious attention. 
 
 It appears in the following statement of flour and grain passing 
 through the Welland Canal, from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, the quan- 
 tity stated as going ‘Go Canada” being almost wholly destined for 
 Montreal : 
 
 Quantities of flour and grain xjassing into Canada from the United States ; also quantities in 
 transit to poi'ts in the United States during four years past. 
 
 Tear. 
 
 FLOUU. 
 
 5VIIEAT. • 
 
 INDIAN CORN. 
 
 OTHER 
 
 GRAIN. 
 
 To Canada. 
 
 Transit, to 
 United States. 
 
 To Canada. 
 
 Transit to 
 United States. 
 
 To Canada. 
 
 Transit to 
 United States. 
 
 To Canada. 
 
 Transit to 
 United States. 
 
 
 1 
 
 Jiarrds. 
 
 Barrels. 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 186G 
 
 8, 102 
 
 , 800, :U4 
 
 14, 90:} 
 
 5, 0:}2, 071 
 
 488, 401 
 
 4, 250, 2:}2 
 
 2(), 108 
 
 20, 425 
 
 1807 
 
 4, 401 
 
 1, 07:}, 080 
 
 2:}, 804 
 
 .5, 148,714 
 
 295, 720 
 
 5, 448, 144 
 
 :}, 128 
 
 22:}, 719 
 
 1808 
 
 o:}, 540 
 
 1,4.5.5,947 
 
 87, 22:} 
 
 7, 151,012 
 
 .520, 7:}1 
 
 5, 080, 990 
 
 18, .502 
 
 805, 020 
 
 180!J 
 
 105, oo:} 
 
 , 1, :}00, 054 
 
 5, 458, G!)2 
 
 7, 990, 2:}3 
 
 1, 180, 947 
 
 7, 024, 8:}5 
 
 05, 8:}5 
 
 1, 248, 470 
 
 The statement for the last season I Inave not yet been able to procure, 
 but there is reason to believe that the proportion taken to Montreal, 
 
44 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 compared witli tliat passing to Oswego, Ogdensburg, and Cape Vincent, 
 for sbiiiment by canal and rail to ^few York and Boston, lias increased 
 rather than diminished. 
 
 But, noticeable as tlie commercial progress made by Montreal during 
 a few years past may appear, it obviously has not placed her, and gives 
 no promise of placing her, at the height of importance which naturally 
 belongs to the chief port of the great St. Lawrence outlet. For Montreal 
 occupies a position where, under conditions of equal rivalry Avith New 
 York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore, there would unquestionably 
 have risen, to-day, a great metropolis of not less than half a million 
 souls, instead of a thriving city of one hundred and forty or fifty thou- 
 sand people. 
 
 FAVORINH CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 The moderate degree of prosperity that exists in the most faA^ored 
 section of the Dominion affords evidence, not to be disputed, in proof 
 that the Canadian people suffered less from the abrogation of the 
 reciprocity treaty in 18 G 6 than they apprehended or than others ex- 
 pected. The expiration of the treaty happened at a most fortunate 
 time for them, when several circumstances combined to break the effect 
 of the suspension of free trade. The state of business in this country 
 Avas just beginning to settle into composure after the upheaval and dis- 
 turbance of the civil war. During the war, and for some time after it, 
 the exaggerated and incalculably fluctuating premium placed upon gold 
 by the mad gambling that Avas rife, deprived our currency to some ex- 
 tent of its due purchasing power in the Canadian market, and intro- 
 duced so much daily and hourly uncertainty of exchangeable Amlues 
 between American and Canadian money, that transactions in the 
 Canadian markets by American purchasers were made difficult and 
 hazardous. This had interfered seriously with the selling of Canadian 
 liroducts to the United States during the last half of thefree trade period, 
 and Avhen, otherAvise, the marketing of those products in the United 
 States would have been enormously stimulated. At times it had no 
 doubt formed more of an obstruction to frade from the provinces than 
 the duties since imposed Inwe formed. But the one obstruction, of a fluc- 
 tuating and uncertain purchasing medium, Avas disappearing, AAdien the 
 other obstruction, of revived customs duties, arose, and it is clear 
 enough that the immediate commercial effects of the latter occurrence 
 were A^ery considerabl3^ neutralized by the former; so that the people ol 
 the iirovinces did not feel the sudden loss of free trade Avith the United 
 States as they otherwise Avould haA^e done. MoreoAW, the Southern 
 States began about the same time to become purchasers again of lumber, 
 fish, &c., from the proAunces, which, for fiA^e years before, had had that 
 part of their Amnican trade entirely cut off. These circumstances 
 account, I think, for the otherwise singular appearance of the fact that 
 our importations from the provinces have rather increased, on the 
 average, than declined since the termination of the recii)rocity treaty. 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 45 
 LUMBER AND BARLEY. 
 
 Referring’ to tlie comparative table heretofore given, which shows the 
 extent of onr annnol importation of several of the chief staples of Cana- 
 dian production, we find that the two articles of lumber and barley to- 
 gether formed one-third of the entire purchases of the United States 
 from the Dominion in 1869, and that these two articles, more than anj^ 
 others, have exhibited a total indifference to the terms upon which they 
 are admitted to the United States. In both cases the undoubted fact 
 is, that this country has need of the foreign supply. The sources of our 
 own lumber supply are rapidly receding from the great markets in which 
 it is consumed, and are rapidly being exhausted. Every year is making 
 it more a necessity that the Eastern and Middle States should buy lum- 
 ber and timber from the provinces. Under such circumstances, and in 
 view of the fact that this country would seem to have more interest in 
 the conservation of its fast-disappearing forests than in the encourage- 
 ment of their consumption, it may be well to consider, without reference 
 to the general question of reciprocal policy, Avhether it is not due to 
 American consumers that the present high duty of 20 per cent, on Cana- 
 dian lumber should be modified, taking another step in the - direction 
 which was taken at the last session of Congress, when the duties ou 
 saw-logs and ship-timber were removed. Much the same considerations 
 apply to the arti(de of barley, for which the consumers in this country 
 are, to a considerable extent, dependent upon a country whose climate 
 and soil are better adapted than most of our own territory to its pro- 
 duction. 
 
 TRADE WITH THE NGN-CONFEDERATED PROVINCES. 
 
 With this imperfect discussion of them, I submit the main facts which 
 I have collected. Within the time allotted to my inquiry I have been 
 unable to extend it, except very superficially, bej^oud the provinces em- 
 braced in the Dominion of Canada. 
 
 Our trade Avith the three provinces of Newfoundland, Prince Edward’s 
 Island, and British Columbia, which remain outside the confederation 
 of the Dominion, (although British Columbia seems to be at the point 
 of becoming joined Avith it,) is represented for the last tAvo years in the 
 reports of Commerce and Navigation, compiled in the United States 
 Bureau of Statistics, as folloAvs : 
 
 
 1869. 
 
 1870. 
 
 Inipf)rts 
 
 f 1, 737, 304 
 2, 703, 173 
 446, 664 
 
 |1, .581, 959 
 3, 204, 668 
 347, 360 
 
 Doincstic exports 
 
 Toreigii reexports 
 
 
 RelatUely to its extent, this trade appears much more faAwable to 
 the United States than our trade Avith the Dominion, and relatAely to 
 their population and commerce the non-confederated provinces are far 
 
46 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 the better customers of this conutry. The subject of our relatious with 
 them, moreover, is made the more interestiug and important by reason 
 of the unwillingness that their people manifest to attach themselves to 
 the British colonial confederation, and it claims an examination which 
 I regret that I have not been able to give to it. 
 
 In the United States official statistics of late years, only a distinction be- 
 tween the ^‘Dominion of Canada” and ^‘all other British possessions in 
 North America” is made, so that our trade transactions with the several 
 provinces cannot be discriminated. Attempting to procure returns from 
 the several customs districts with such a discrimination made, I suc- 
 ceeded but partially, and with a result too imperfect for use, except in 
 one or two particulars. 
 
 NEWFOUNDLAND AND PRINCE EDWARD’S ISLAND. 
 
 Out of twenty-eight collection districts from which I have been fur- 
 nished with statistics relating to the last fiscal year, only five report 
 transactions with Newfoundland and Prince Edward’s Island, as follows , 
 
 Imports m certain districts from Newfoundland, Cape Breton, and Prince Edward’s Island 
 during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1870. 
 
 Districts. 
 
 Products of the 
 forests. 
 
 Products of agri- 
 culture. 
 
 Products of the 
 mines. 
 
 Animals and their 
 products. 
 
 Products of the 
 fisheries. 
 
 Miscellaneous. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Boston 
 
 $621 
 
 372 
 
 $21, 767 
 5, 877 
 
 $1, 537 
 121, 520 
 2, 530 
 
 $41, 167 
 
 $79, 073 
 81, 372 
 
 $10, 431 
 
 5, 447 
 
 $154, 596 
 214, 588 
 2, 530 
 29, 096 
 
 New York ... 
 
 Providence B. I .... 
 
 
 New Bedford Wass 
 
 
 
 
 29, 096 
 
 
 Total 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 993 
 
 27, 644 
 
 125, 587 
 
 41, 167 
 
 189, 541 
 
 15, 878 
 
 400, 810 
 
 
 Domestic exports from certain districts to Newfoundland, Cape Breton, and Prince Edward’s 
 Island during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1870. 
 
 From Boston to Xowfonndland 
 
 From Boston to Prince Edward’s Island 
 
 From Wilmington, X. C., (lumber to Newfoundland) 
 From New York 
 
 1299, 117 
 105, 918 
 2, 200 
 1,567 
 
 Total. 
 
 408, 802 
 
 The foregoing returns no doubt represent most of the trade carried 
 on during the past fiscal year with the insular provinces named. 
 
 MANITOBA. 
 
 Our present trade with the great central region of British America, 
 formerly known as the Bed River country, but now politically organized 
 and incorporated with the Dominion of Canada, under the name of the 
 province of Manitoba, is imperfectly shown by the following statement, 
 
TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 47 
 
 wliicli is furuisbed to me by the collector of customs at Pembina, Min- 
 nesota. It exhibits for the last two fiscal years the imports entered in 
 and the exports cleared from the customs' district of Minnesota, through 
 which the trade between the United States and the Manitoba country 
 
 necessarily passes : 
 
 1869. 
 
 IMPORTS. 
 
 Imports entered for immediate consumxition $60, 402 02 
 
 Imports entered warehouse 151,645 22 
 
 Total imports 212,047 24 
 
 EXPORTS. 
 
 Export of goods the growth, produce, and manufacture of 
 
 the United States 174, 913 00 
 
 Exports of foreign dutiable goods 14, 548 05 
 
 Total exports 189, 461 05 
 
 1870. 
 
 IMPORTS. 
 
 Imports entered for immediate consumption $34, 199 29 
 
 Imports entered warehouse 186,142 57 
 
 Total imports 220,341 86 
 
 EXPORTS. 
 
 Exports of domestic merchandise 152, 596 00 
 
 Exports of foreign dutiable goods 20, 133 47 
 
 Total exports 172,729 47 
 
 The special deputy collector at Pembina, Mr. N. E. l^elson, who fur- 
 nishes this statement to me, writes that the entire amount of exports to 
 Manitoba, through Minnesota, is not represented in it, for the reason 
 that large quantities of domestic goods, such as tobacco, sugars, sirui)s, 
 gunpowder, matches, liquors, &c., are entered for exportation in bond 
 at other districts, free of the internal revenue tax, and, simply i)assing 
 in transit through the Minnesota district, do not appear in its returns. 
 
 > Tlie same is true of a large quantity of foreign goods reexported to 
 Manitoba. The United States imports from that province, which con- 
 sist almost wholly of raw furs and buffalo robes, are i)robably all entered 
 in the Minnesota district, since the large shii)ments made by way of 
 Iludson’s Pay go abroad. 
 
 Our j)resent trade with that vast new region of richly })roductive ter- 
 ritory in the basin of Lake Winnipeg, which the pioneer forces of civili- 
 
3 0112 062135147 
 
 48 
 
 TRADE WITH BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES. 
 
 zation are just preparing to invade, is inconsiderable; but its fntnr 
 possibilities are beyond calculation. The time is approaching very nea' 
 wlien it is clearly destined to give a new phase to the question of rela 
 tions between this country and British North America, and when it wil 
 bring to bear upon that question the pressure of an inexorable geographi 
 cal necessity, that will compel it to some solution. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 In concluding my report, it is proper that I should acknowledge th 
 extreme courtesy with which I have been assisted in procuring informa- 
 tion by the members of the Canadian government, and by all of its offi- 
 cials, as well as by those of this Government, to whom I have had occa- 
 sion to apply. 
 
 Eespectfully submitted. 
 
 J. N. LARNED. 
 
 Hon. George S. Boutwell, 
 
 Secretary of the Treasury, 
 
 O