50 The Illumination of Joseph Keeler, Esq. 



we all did not lose faith entirely in our future. Only think of it, 

 the aggregate foreign trade of all Canada in 1889 as compared 

 with 1881 had increased by only $400,000 while that for the 

 dreary years from 1870-1880 had even increased by $4,000,000. 



"The nadir was reached when a financial crisis, beginning 

 in the United States in 1890, reached its height in 1893. This 

 hopelessness is perhaps not greatly to be wondered at when, 

 although trade slowly improved after 1893, the export price of 

 wheat from 1891 to 1896 rose only once to 80 cents per bushel, 

 and fell in 1896 actually to 58 cents, while that of potatoes for 

 the same period rose but once to 50 cents and averaged as low 

 as 38 cents per bushel. There seemed but one adequate explana- 

 tion for this whole situation, so directly affecting not alone the 

 growth of the Canadian West, but even more that of the old 

 Lake shore counties of my native district, and this was the 

 extraordinary development of the Western American States. 



"I find for instance that to the twelve North Central States 

 during 1880-1890 there was an immigration of 1,143,285, which, 

 however, was less than the percentage increase for the same 

 states from 1870 to 1880. But it made a total population for 

 this area of 22,410,417 in 1890, which had increased by 1900 

 to 26,330,000 of whom 48 per cent were foreign born, over 

 2,000,000 being Canadians. 



"Remember too that while this caused an enormous growth 

 in Chicago, and some of the western urban centres, it meant 

 also an increase in the farms of this central western area from 

 1,000,000 in 1870 to 2,000,000 in round numbers in 1890. But 

 that there was a limit to the available land there is shown in 

 the fact that the increase in farms from 1870 to 1880 was 50 

 per cent, while between 1890 and 1900 it was only 14 per cent. 



"You see then, professor," continued Mr. Keeler, "when 

 these several elements of our problem are brought together 

 that they present a group of conditions in some degree helping 

 to its solution, and we thus find in Ontario and the older 

 provinces only an accentuation of the process, which went on 

 in the old Eastern States for several decades; with this distinc- 

 tion, however, that while the whole of old Canada was for forty 

 years being drained of her population, the westward movement 

 at any rate kept the old New England population within their 



