t a foot of railroads, when the patriots fought the
Family Compact, to-day possesses twenty-nine thousand miles of
trackage,[2] three transcontinental systems of railroads and threescore
lines touching the boundary.[3] Five times more tonnage passes through
the Canadian Soo Canal than is expected for Panama or has passed
through Suez; but consider the burden of this development on a people
whose farmers were scarcely clearing one hundred dollars a year. It is
putting it mildly to say that during these dark days property
depreciated two-thirds in value. Land companies that had loaned up to
two-thirds the value of farm property found themselves saddled with
farms which could not be sold for half they had advanced on the loan.

Three times within the memory of the living generation Canadian
delegates sought trade concessions in Washington; and three times they
came back rebuffed, with but a grimmer determination to work out
Canada's own destiny. Is it any wonder, when the fourth time came and
Canada was offered reciprocity that she voted it down?

During the twenty dark years Canada lost to the United States
one-fourth her native population.[4] During the last ten years she has
drawn back to her home acres not only many of her expatriated native
born but almost two million Americans. In ten years her population has
almost doubled. Uncle Sam has boasted his four billion yearly foreign
trade from Atlantic ports. Canada with a population only one-twelfth
Uncle Sam's to-day has a foreign trade of almost a billion.

V

Take another look at Canada's area! All of Germany and Austria spread
over Eastern Canada would still leave an area uncovered in the East
bigger than the German Empire. England spread out flat would just
cover the maritime provinces. Quebec stands a third bigger than
Germany, Ontario a third bigger than France; and you still have a
western world as large again as the East. Spread the British Isles
flat, they would barely cover Manitoba. France and Germany would not
equal Saskatchewan and Alberta; and two Germanies would not cover
British Columbia--leaving undefined Yukon and MacKenzie River and Peace
River and the hinterland of Hudson Bay, an area equal to European
Russia. If areas in Canada had the same population as areas in Europe,
the Dominion would be supporting four hundred million people.

It would be assuming too much stoicism to say that Canadians are not
conscious of a great destiny