Section II., 1914 12951 Trans. R.S.C. 



Railroad Construction and National Prosperity: An Historic Parallel. 

 By Adam Shortt, C.M.G., F.R.S.C. 



(Read May 27, 1914) 



The exceptional prosperity and expansion of our Canadian 

 Dominion during the past decade, have become matter of commonplace 

 observation, the mainstay of postprandial orators and hard-pressed 

 editors. Recently, however, the other side of this wave of prosperity 

 has been attracting special attention. High prices, large profits and 

 good wages must be paid by some one, and we have been hearing, 

 with increasing insistence, from the people who pay, about the upward 

 trend of the cost of living. Much of the discussion on both sides of 

 this subject, whether in presenting explanations or advocating remedies, 

 appears to assume that this period of prosperity, and especially the 

 elevation attained by the cost of living, are quite new and unprecedent- 

 ed phenomena, specially connected in some way with our modern 

 economic conditions. 



As regards the distress and inconvenience associated with the 

 high cost of living, many seem to consider the situation capable of 

 effective remedy by legislative process. Laws, it is thought, might 

 be passed for the summary suppression of the monopolists and other 

 grasping conspirators who have contrived to levy exceptional rates 

 upon their helpless fellow citizens. Still others who comforted them- 

 selves with theories of cause and effect which can be traced with 

 mathematical accuracy, and with remedies which can be applied with 

 mechanical precision, absolve all human agencies and attribute at 

 once the joys of high profits and the sorrows of high prices to the over- 

 production of gold. The remedy, of course, is equally simple and 

 universal, consisting simply in assigning by law to the standard dollar, 

 or other gold coin, a few more grains of gold, when everything will 

 automatically right itself. 



It is not at present my purpose to dispute with these or other 

 speculators as to causes and remedies for present conditions. I cite 

 them simply to show how general, though varied, is the recognition 

 of the central problem. In view, however, of the assumed uniqueness 

 of our recent experiences and of the corresponding assumption that 

 the remedies to be sought must be equally special and modern, per- 

 haps even futurist in their application, it may be of some interest to 

 Sec. I and II, 1914—20 



