72 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
economic millenium for Canada had arrived to remain, found, to their 
chagrin, that ready money and ready employment had alike vanished. 
The reaction was rapid and severe and the colony once more entered 
upon a prolonged period of stagnant markets, low prices and little 
demand for casual labour. This condition of affairs continued for ten 
years, from 1816. During this period of stagnation, the war era of 
1812 to 1815 was universally referred to as a phase of economic golden 
age for the return of which most Canadians were understood to 
devoutly pray. 
With the revival of prosperity in Britain and the recovery of the 
continent of Europe from the devastation of the Napoleonic Wars, 
there developed, on the one hand, improved markets for the Canadian 
produce and, on the other, a certain readiness on the part of the Home 
Government to undertake more extensive public works in Canada, 
chief of which was the Rideau Canal undertaken on military grounds. 
Minor works were also planned, most of them for what were then 
deemed imperial needs, but some to furnish employment for the , 
rapidly increasing numbers of immigrants coming to Canada, partly 
on their own initiative and partly through the assistance furnished 
by the Home Government. This prosperous period, beginning in 
1826 and culminating in 1832, was followed by a time of reaction and 
political conflict with the representatives of the Home Government. 
This culminated in an actual and fairly wide-spread revolution in 
Lower Canada and a more or less grotesque parody of it in Upper 
Canada. This was followed by the reunion of the Canadas under the 
seductive inducement of very large grants for public works, especially 
the development of the St. Lawrence system of canals. 
Although the revolutionary outbreaks on the continent of Europe 
in 1848 seriously interfered with trade for a time, yet they did not 
involve Western Europe in warfare nor directly affect Great Britain 
and her colonies. Canada, however, had her own touch of revolution- 
ary upheaval during the stormy year of 1848 in the shape of riots 
over the indemnification of those who claimed to have suffered losses 
through the rebellion in Lower Canada. This was followed by the 
annexation manifesto of 1849, when economic conditions, especially 
in the towns and cities, were at a low ebb. Again, howevér, British 
capital and British diplomacy came to the rescue in furnishing many 
millions for railroad undertakings, in securing the Reciprocity Treaty 
with the United States, and finally, though this was not part of the 
original programme for restoring prosperity and contentment, in 
bringing about the Crimean War. Wheat was already over a dollar 
per bushel when the war broke out in the spring of 1854, and it did not 
fall below that point again until the war was over and with it the usual 
