on Bay
Company. Of course, if the Canadas are wrested from us, we shall have
to depend upon the Americans for our supply of this necessary article.
The value in Canada of the furs exported to this country, by the
company, amounts, as I have observed in my Diary, to about a million and
a half of dollars.

I now come to what I consider will be the most important export from the
Canadas. I have stated it to be my opinion that Upper Canada will be
the first corn country in the world, and in a very few years we may
expect that she will export largely into this country; already having
had a surplus which has been sold to the Americans. It must be
recollected that America, who used to supply the West-Indies and other
parts of the world with her flour, has, for these last few years, in her
mania for speculating, neglected her crops, and it is only during these
last two years that she has redirected her attention to the tillage of
her land. She will now no longer require assistance from Upper Canada,
and the yearly increasing corn-produce of that province must find a
market elsewhere. After supplying the wants of Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick, this surplus will find its way into this country. As the
population of Upper Canada increases, so will of course her growth of
wheat be greater, and in a very few years, we have reason to expect that
there will be not only a constant, but even a more than requisite,
exportation of corn to this country. Now what will be the effect? Corn
from Canada is admitted at a fixed duty of 5 shillings per quarter,
therefore as soon as the supply from thence, is sufficient, the corn
laws will be _virtually_ repealed, that is to say, they will be
exchanged for a permanent duty of 5 shillings per quarter.

I think that the remarks I have made will incline the reader to agree
with me, that the reduction of the duties on timber will be a real boon
to all parties: to the Canadians, because at the same time that the
supplies of lumber to the West Indies and elsewhere will give a certain
profit, they will no longer have the true interested of the colony
sacrificed for the benefit of parties at home; to the mother country,
because it will relieve the expenses of the builder, lessen house-rent
and agricultural expenses, and at the same time increase the revenue;--
to the ship-owner, as it will enable him to build much cheaper, and to
compete more successfully with foreign vessels, with the prospect als