In 1790 the United States population was four millions.

In 1800 the United States population was five millions.

In 1914 the United States population was ninety-eight millions.

In 1891 Canada's population was five millions.

In 1900 Canada's population was five million three hundred thousand.

In 1914 Canada's population was seven million eight hundred thousand.

In point of population Canada is just one hundred years behind the
United States. Why? Granted her foreign trade is one-fourth as great
as that of the United States. How is it that a people with such a
genius for success in foreign trade have been so dilatory in their work
of nation-building? Slow progress can no longer be ascribed to
misgovernment. Her system of justice is one of the most perfect in the
world. Her parliamentary representation could hardly be more complete.
No people has stricter bit and rein on executive ministers. Through an
anguish of travail Canada has worked out an excellent system of
self-government. Why is her progress still slow?

Of course one reason for her slow progress in the past was the
impression that long prevailed regarding Canada's climate and
agricultural possibilities. The officials of the Hudson's Bay Company
contended that the Northwest was unfit for settlement, and it was only
within recent times that the contrary view gained a hearing and proved
to be true. With vast tracts of unoccupied land in the milder climate
of the United States still open to settlement and with Canadians
themselves denying that the great Northwest could be cultivated, it is
not strange that most immigrants passed Canada by. Furthermore in
those days the glamour of democracy fascinated dissatisfied Europeans
who swarmed to the New World. Canada was practically as free as the
United States, but she was a possession of the British Crown, and many
emigrants, especially from the Emerald Isle, preferred to try the
experiment of living in a republic.

But there are other reasons. It was after the Civil War that the
American high tariff struck Canada an unintended but nevertheless
staggering blow. She had no market. She had to build up
transportation system and trade routes, but this was well under way by
1890. Has her progress since 1890 kept pace with the United States?
One has but to compare the population between the Mississippi and
Seattle with the population between Red River and Vancouver to have the
answer to this ques