74 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
in Canada more in financial and trading lines than in agricultural 
prosperity. The period of collapse and stagnation which followed from 
1874 to 1879 was correspondingly severe in Canadian urban centres. 
This was the notable period of the soup kitchens for the unemployed, 
which, in turn, gave rise to the National Policy, the consequent over- 
throw of the Mckenzie Government and the introduction of the Ameri- 
can protective system. 
After a long interval, disturbed only by minor conflicts, chiefly on 
the borders of civilization, we are now in the throes of a war, incom- 
parably greater than anything which the world has known. The full 
economic effect upon Canada of this conflict and of its financing, in 
which Canada, as becomes its modern status in the Empire, is now 
playing a highly responsible role, cannot be adequately determined at 
the present stage. So much is already obvious, however, that just 
before the outbreak of Armageddon, Canada was in a condition of 
reaction from a prolonged period of exceptional prosperity, largely due, 
it must be confessed, to the expenditure in the country of hundreds of 
millions of borrowed capital. How far that reaction might have ex- 
tended it is now impossible to say, but it is equally obvious that the 
reaction has been not only arrested but converted into a condition, it 
may be of temporary, but at least for a time of actual prosperity. 
The urgent demand for volunteers for overseas service has relieved the 
country of the threatened problem of unemployment in many urban 
centres, while the revival of industry in connection with the great 
variety of army supplies has given ample employment to all the efficient 
labour remaining in the country. So far, therefore, as actual conditions 
are concerned, Canada is once more greatly profiting from a share of 
the thousands of millions being expended by Britain and her allies in 
the present struggle. 
The economic fate of this country during the period of readjust- 
ment after peace is too large and too uncertain a subject upon which to 
enter at the present time. My object has simply been to summarize 
the effects upon Canada of the chief previous wars, which directly or 
indirectly have affected her economic condition. \ 
