pe, in a word, that make nations. Hard on the heels of the
land-seekers have come yet another type--the type that binds country to
country in bonds tighter than any international treaty--the investors
of surplus capital.

III

It is possible to keep a record of American investments in Canada;
because possessions are registered more or less approximately at ports
of entry and in bills of incorporation; but the English investor has
acted through agents, through trust and loan companies, through banks.
He is the buyer of Canada's railway stocks, of her municipal, street
railway, irrigation and public works bonds. Of Canadian railroad bonds
and stocks, there are $395,000,000 definitely known to be held in
England. Municipal and civic bonds must represent many times that
total, and the private investments in land have been simply
incalculable. The Lloyd George system of taxation was at once followed
by enormous investments by the English aristocracy in Canada. These
investments included large holdings of city property in Montreal and
Winnipeg and Vancouver, of ranch lands in Alberta, town sites along the
new railroads, timber limits in British Columbia and copper and coal
mines in both Alberta and British Columbia. The Portland, Essex,
Sutherland and Beresford families have been among the investors. It
does not precisely mean the coming of an English aristocracy to Canada,
but it does mean the implanting of an enormous total of the British
aristocracy's capital in Canada for long-time investment.

It would be untrue to say that these investments have all been wisely
made. One wonders, indeed, at what the purchasing agents were aiming
in some cases. I know of small blocks in insignificant railroad towns
bought for sixty thousand dollars, for no other reason, apparently,
than that they cost ten thousand dollars and had been sold for twenty
thousand dollars. The block, which would yield twenty per cent. on ten
thousand dollars, yields only three per cent. on sixty thousand
dollars. Held long enough, doubtless, it will repay the investor; or
if the investor is satisfied with three per cent., where Canadians earn
twenty per cent.--it may be all right; but Canadians expect their
investments to repay capital cost in ten years, and they do not buy for
profits to posterity but for profits in a lifetime.

Similarly of many of the r_an_ches bought at five dollars an acre by
Americans and resold as r_awn_ches at twenty-