Читать книгу Canada at the Cross Roads - Agnes Christina Laut - Страница 3

Table of Contents

Are Americans interested in Canada's domestic Problems?

In ten years Canada absorbed into her North-Western grain provinces 450,000 of the choicest farm settlers from the Western States. That is, in ten years, she has drawn into her national life what is equivalent to one-fifth the original population of the Thirteen Atlantic Seaboard Colonies, when they declared their independence. That such an increment could come into any national life without vital far-reaching influences on the international relations of both Canada and the United States is flatly to ignore the teachings of past history. These 450,000 American settlers represented the very pick of Western American pioneers—the sons and daughters of the men and women, whose enterprise literally created the great American commonwealth from Minnesota to Texas. They are of the blood that neither climate, nor Indian warfare, could daunt. What though there were no railroads west of the Mississippi, when they migrated from the East? Their brawn and brain created the traffic for the railroad; and the trans-Mississippi Empire is to-day gridironed with rails. What though three-quarters of the unknown territory west of the Mississippi were labelled and libelled "Desert"? These pioneers turned on the sluice gates of irrigation, of dry farming, of mining, of oil drills, of lumber mills; so that the desert bloomed like the rose; and of the total colossal exports of the United States to-day, manufactured and raw,—$8 billions at the time of writing (though owing to deflation and exchange they may shrink in the future) over 60% can be traced back in flour, wheat, corn, beef, copper, gold, silver, lumber, steel and oil, to the primary producers of something from nothing, the dauntless pioneers of the trans-Mississippi Empire.

Economists may point to the superficial fact that of the United States' total exports, the preponderance is in manufactures; but the huge superstructure of manufactures rests primarily on what? On raw products, cotton, lumber, corn, cattle, wheat, minerals, oils, fish; on the men and women, who created and produced something that did not exist before—who took by the duress of muscle and brain and endurance and work from soil and sea and mine and forest and oil-well what did not exist for humanity before, and gave the foundation for the superstructure of prosperity for all, without robbing any man of his heritage. Analyzed down to foundation finals, manufactures, city money mart, Wall Street, the Grain Exchange, the great merchant marines, that shuttle back and forward weaving commerce across the Seven Seas—all are but middlemen between the primal producer on farm, in mine, in forest, on ranch, in the fishing dories of the seas and rivers, on the Western sheep and cattle ranches, but middlemen between these primal producers and the ultimate consumers on markets far and near.

We have developed such loose ways in our thinking and such sloppy ways in our talking of nationalizing this and that, that we ignore the fact that all farms, oil wells, mines, forests, river and ocean fisheries within the littoral limits west of the Mississippi were nationalized, if "nationalized" means nation-owned, within the memory of people living to-day; and all this nation-owned, undeveloped wealth was not worth a dime to any man, woman, or child on earth, till the individual owner got his grub-stake of homestead, timber limit, mineral claim, oil well, and began operating this nationalized dormant wealth into profits for himself and his family.

Then only did the sleeping giant of dormant wealth awaken and pour his floods of gold into the lap of an eager hungry world.

To talk of nationalizing the products of his "thrifty husbandry of many years," his self-denial, for two or three generations, his chase after what the rest of the world called "rainbow ends" through lean years—to talk of nationalizing what the nation as a nation couldn't and wouldn't do—well, it is to laugh!

It is the ultimate producer—not the myriad middlemen—that the nationalizing propagandist is concerned with; and he will no more sweep him off his feet than Lenin and Trotsky have swept the Russian peasant off his feet. It is the Russian peasant standing firm with both hands to the plough who has defeated the vague, airy, idle, paper schemes of communism. He has been the breakwater wall against which the floods of anarchy have beaten in vain; and he will be the ultimate bulwark against similar wild waves in America.

And this is the quality of American settler of whom 450,000 have poured into Canada in ten years.

Take the Great Peace River Country of the North—where a sudden bend of the isothermal line to the Arctic Circle has opened up a country equal to the area of Texas and Oklahoma and Kansas! Whether in the cattle country north of the Peace River, or the wheat country south, two-thirds of the population are Americans; and they went in ten years before there was any railroad (there are two roads there to-day following as usual the trail blazed by the pioneer), beating up zig-zag over a bush trail 600 to 700 miles from the Pacific Coast, or sleighing out in a caboose heated by a tin camp-stove through zero weather 400 miles from Edmonton.

Such settlers don't come easily, go easily. They stick; and they build an empire.

But these figures of 450,000 American settlers in the farm provinces do not tell half the story of the great migration—a migration that would pale the significance of the Santa Fé and Oregon Trails, only we are too close to get the perspective and the significance of the great racial movement.

Realize for a moment when the Colonies gained their Independence one-hundred-and-seventy odd years after the coming of the first founders to Manhattan, to Plymouth Rock, to the Roanoke and the James; they had as far as we can estimate without a formal census a combined population of over 2,000,000, under 3,000,000!

To Canada from 1900 to 1920, there came 1,349,212 American settlers. The famous Oregon and Santa Fé Trails celebrated in song and story, in legends of Whitman Rides and Overlanders and "Pike's Peak or Bust"—have no such racial movements remotely approaching this migration. As I shall explain later and more fully, not all these newcomers stayed. Only 450,000 remained permanent settlers; of the other 800,000 Americans, some filled their homestead duties, sold out to land syndicates at $25 and $30 an acre and went back to their old homes. These were chiefly of the bachelor squatter class. Others didn't sell out but went back to the States and are holding on to the land for an increase in values, that is occurring up to $50 and $60 an acre. Others enlisted with the Canadian troops and went to the war. Others again later went with the American troops. Many drifted to the mines of the Yukon and of Northern Ontario. A great many left the farm for the high wages of munition factory and shipyard during the war. Multitudes of these 800,000 floaters left Canada as boys and will come back with capital to work out their heritage as men.

But no alarm need be felt for this migration. From 1867 to 1900 over 2,000,000 Canadians came to the United States.

With these figures before one, to ask—are Americans interested in Canada's domestic problems—is to laugh. To aver that "Canadians don't like Americans, or Americans don't like Canadians"—as a foolish and superficial article recently did, when Irish propaganda was running true to form for the anti-British vote preceding elections—is to fly in the face of facts and figures. Would a million-and-a-half Americans migrate to a land where Canadians dislike Americans? Canadians have wooed Americans with both hands out full of promises, which have been made good. Again, over two million Canadians would hardly migrate to a land where Americans resent Canadians. Canadians have conscripted for national service Van Hornes and Shaughnessys from the American side of the Border and have conferred on them titles and wealth and every sort of public honour; and Americans have absorbed into national service Jim Hills and Graham Bells from the Canadian side of the Border and heaped on them all the wealth and honour individual lives could carry. This inter-racial reciprocity does not take place against inter-racial antagonism. It takes place only across a Border where there are no forts, no patrols, no armaments scowling hate and breathing the poisonous deadly gases of envy and suspicion. Only one line marks the International Border—little white-washed stones that spell out for a Border breadth of 3,000 miles the magic epitaph to the burial of all antagonism—R.I.P.—Rejoice in Peace!

But on the purely materialistic grounds of trade relationship—are Americans interested in Canada's domestic problems?

All countries are to-day crying out for a resumption of foreign trade to keep the world from going bankrupt and plunging into an abyss of labour anarchy. Only by keeping foreign trade growing and growing yet again, can the war-ruined world pay its debts. Only by keeping foreign trade racing like a shuttle across the seas, can factories remain operating, and the workers remain employed, and the ultimate producer find his ultimate market in the ultimate consumer.

Farmers learned that lesson in the war, when prices of cotton, wheat and corn rose beyond all prediction. It was further realised when foreign trade began to slacken, orders were cancelled and prices dropped ruinously. Factory workers and railroad labourers learned the same costly lesson. When foreign buyers could not buy more, and factories closed rather than face strikes by lowering wages; when railroads ran with half crews and those crews on half time because the demands for freight no longer paid operating expenses, from two to three million people were thrown out of employment in the United States. This does not mean that there was no longer work for them at lowered wages. When foreign trade was at its height, there was more than enough work for all. When foreign trade fell off, labour was standing idle. Necessity dictated—Scratch for it, or starve; and men, who had been receiving $10 a day and going to work in their own motor cars wearing silk shirts, felt the change. They learned quickly enough what the Foreign Trade Gospel meant.

On purely materialistic grounds of trade relationship, are Americans interested in Canada's domestic problems?

America's colossal foreign trade at the time of writing represents between $13 and $15 billions, and Canada is the United States' second-best customer. Canada with a population not much larger than that of New York City, in spite of tariff walls, buys a billion dollars a year from the United States and sells about half a billion dollars a year to them. She buys chiefly manufactured products and sells chiefly raw products—lumber, wheat, beef, pulp woods. It should be explained here that she does this in spite of a tariff wall; which is not a spite wall. Canada has a War Debt of over two billions to pay; and she can pay it only in one of two ways—by direct taxation on income and capital, or by taxation on imports. Heavier taxation on incomes and capital she cannot stand without hurting both; so she keeps her tariff as the United States keeps hers. Canada's tariff to-day against the United States is lower than it was under the free-trade apostle of the Cobden-Bright-Manchester School—Sir Wilfred Laurier. It is lower than it has been since 1867.

Let us suppose that, by diligent anti-British propaganda in the United States, a tariff wall became a spite wall to keep out Canadian imports! Suppose Canada were driven to retaliate by erecting a still higher tariff wall against American goods! Who would suffer? Canada would be hurt to the extent of the half billion farm products she sells to the United States. The United States would be affected to the extent of the billion dollars she sells to Canada. Canada, we'll say, would suffer just half as severely as the United States; and you have only to examine the quality of the things Uncle Sam sells to Canada to realize that such a spite wall would hit the Middle Western factory quite as hard as the Eastern anthracite coal mines. Curtail your Middle Western factory output by a billion dollars, an eighth of all the United States' exports, and where would your Middle Western factory wages fall; and who would pay the high prices for Middle Western hogs and corn and wool and beeves and sheep; and how about the wages of the railroad crews, who to-day prosper carrying a billion dollars' worth of freight yearly to Canada? Canada can always sell all her raw products to Europe. She is selling close on a billion dollars to Europe now. Divert all her products to Europe instead of the United States; will that build up the factories of Europe, or the United States?

When you come to consider Labour—the International Brotherhood—of which the world has dreamed as a millenium—the interweaving strands of the two democracies on this continent reach into the very vitals of the workers. Please note I said "workers," not "working classes." We are all "working classes" in Canada and the United States. We are still so much essential producers in Canada—smacking of the soil and the sea, the mine and the lumber woods—that we abhor this libel of "classes" and "masses" smelling of European ghettoes, and London's windy agitators, and Karl Marx's poison German theories, rather than the clear, clean ozone of the prairies and the pines.

Consider the Labour world of Canada and the United States! The railroad brotherhood are one North and South of the Boundary. When wages go up in the United States, they automatically go up in Canada. The mining brotherhood are one. The scale of wages in Alberta, or British Columbia, is the scale set by conventions in Butte, and Indianapolis. The paper makers' brotherhood is one. The scale set for mills on the Northern Pacific, or only 186 miles from James Bay in the hinterlands of Ontario, is the scale agreed upon in conventions at Buffalo, or Rochester.

But there is a deeper reason, which any thinker with prescience should foresee, for the keenest interest of all Americans in Canada's domestic problems.

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin's famous phrase—the two people must hang together, or be hanged separately.

While a great racial migration of 1,349,212 Americans crossed to Canada, there came to Canada in the same period 1,302,037 British settlers, three-fourths of whom were as pure English as the first Quakers on the Delaware, or the Cavaliers on the James, or the Pilgrims in Massachusetts; and these were only forerunners of one of the greatest migrations the world will ever witness.

Just consider for a moment facts, not airy dreams; and the stodgiest thinker may assume the role of prophet. Of the forty-seven million people more or less left in the British Isles to carry and pay the War Debt, 500,000 are the chief tax payers. You have only to read the British press to learn the weight of that burden. Spare your shafts against an "effete aristocracy"—I think those are the very words of the shallow soap-box orator. There won't be any aristocracy, effete or otherwise, left after the tax-collector finishes with him. There will only be an epitaph of what once was. There will be a new aristocracy. I trust it will be one of worth; but I don't know. Neither do you. All we know is—that old aristocracy—as Lansdowne's plaintive letters to the "Times" during the War testified—will be taxed off the British map. It will not be taxed to the death; but it will be taxed perforce into pastures new. No 500,000 people on earth can carry on their backs the burdens of forty-seven million people without their backs breaking. They are breaking now. Read the prices in the British press at which the old landed estates can be bought with all their parasitical past relegated to the junk heap! Parasitical idlers can't pay those taxes and remain idle.

For four-hundred years, ever since the defeat of "the Armada" gave England supremacy on the seas, Englishmen have been sea-rovers. That is what gave them the Canadian North-West through the gentlemen adventurers of the Hudson's Bay Company. That is what sent them to British India through the East India Company. That is what gave them Australia. Cecil Rhodes saw what was coming long before the war and dreamed of an all-British Africa as an outlet from Sea Rovers to Land Power.

Where lies England's greatest potential Land Power to-day? North of the Canadian Boundary. There is destined to grow the Greater Britain Over Seas, the heritage for the sons of the Outer Mere; and thither they are preparing to come in such a race migration as the British Isles have never witnessed.

But this brings up the subtlest aftermath of all from the war—how the submarine has changed Sea Power to Land Power; and on Land Power the future great nations must stand, or fall.

NOTE—The Fordney Tariff Bill has been framed since these words were written, and it is the best illustration I know of the interdependence of these two great commonwealths. The prospect of this bill becoming permanent reduced Alberta beef cattle from $100 a head to $30 and $3 a head in two months. Did Canadians who advocated a policy of anti-Americanism foresee the results of this insane policy?

Mr. Fordney contends this tariff was not designed to "slap Canada," but was to protect both Canada and United States from floods of imports from cheap labor and low exchange countries, where wages run at 30c a day in our currency, and their exchange at 1-3c, 1-20c and 1-200c in $1—Germany, Austria, Russia and Latin-America. Fordney proves that 12 countries—among them our Allies of France, Belgium, Italy—have increased tariffs since the Armistice from 7 per cent. to 300 per cent. He gives 5,400 examples of goods (raw and manufactured) coming into U.S. at labor cost of $500, which cost $1,000 to produce in Canada and U.S. He contends Canada and U.S. are in same boat and must work together to keep out this cheap flood. The exact figures are:—

Fiscal year ended June 30, 1920:

Exports	$7,950,429,180
Imports	5,238,621,668
Visible balance	$2,711,807,512

Europe purchased $4,864,000,000; North America $1,636,000,000; South America $491,000,000; Asia $798,000,000; Oceania $193,000,000, and Africa $128,700,000. These purchases included some re-exports of foreign goods, making the total exports of both domestic and foreign goods $8,211,000,000.