CHAPTER VIII 



WHEN UPPER CANADA BECAME THE DOMINANT PARTNER 



It was several weeks before Mr. Keeler was able to arrange 

 another evening with his friend, the professor; but, when they 

 next met, he was fully prepared with data wherewith to make a 

 very good exposition of the commercial conditions of these 

 early years from 1840 onward, and found that his friend, the 

 professor, who had been saturated with the contents of standard 

 works on the growth of the Free Trade cult in England, pricked 

 up his ears and showed an intense interest in figures, which gave 

 so completely the prices of wheat and the cost of carriage in 

 Canada at the very moment when Gladstone as under secretary 

 )f the Board of Trade was laboring at the tariff schedules of 

 1,200 articles, trying to make them fit when they would not, 

 and who was forced finally in his desperate task to advise Sir 

 Robert Peel in December, 1845, in the midst of the most acute 

 commercial depression and serious political unrest, associated 

 with the poverty and sufferings of the unemployed in England, 

 and the disease and death from famine in Ireland, to burn his 

 protectionist ships and in a single bill abolish entirely the taxes 

 on corn and wheat. 



The professor was just beginning his education in a new field 

 and, trained to study, learned rapidly. The first question which 

 naturally occurred to him to ask was: "How did the almost 

 wholly new political and economic situation, developed in the 

 United Canadas after Lord Sydenham's efforts toward a pref- 

 erential treatment of food imports to England, affect immigra- 

 tion?" The professor was amazed at the information he 

 obtained. 



"From the census returns he found that while Upper Canada 

 had increased in population from 1811 thus, 



1811 77,000 1841 465,357 



1824 .... 155,000 1851 952,004 



1834. .. 320,000 



31 



