Report on the American and Canadian Meat Trade. 339 
that the Canadian farmers are labouring at a disadvantage with 
their American confreres ; on the contrary, as a set-off against 
the 20 per cent, duty, they are, comparatively speaking, exempt 
from taxation in Canada, as compared with the United States. 
They have no war-debt to pay, and therefore the public debt of 
Canada is about 4/. sterling per head, mostly for public works, 
canals, &c, whilst that of the United States is upwards of 
sixty dols., exclusive of State debts, which have nothing to 
correspond with them in Canada. Canada is the most lightly- 
taxed country in the world. The development of the exportation 
of cattle, horses and meat to Europe will prove an inestimable 
boon to Canadian agriculturists." 
The following extract from the Montreal ' Journal of Com- 
merce,' is the only reliable information I have seen published 
on the exportation of beef from Canada, and it cannot fail to be 
of interest to the readers of this Report : — 
" With unwavering increase since the first shipments in the fall of 1875, 
our Dominion beef export trade has to-day attained a surprising magni- 
tude, when expressed in figures, and, when read as a chapter in our com- 
mercial economy, it is pregnant with domestic lessons and example. For 
the last three-quarters of the fiscal year, ending June, 1876, the exports 
aggregated 4,500,000 pounds, and during the first eleven months of the 
present fiscal year 45,000,000, an increase of forty-one million pounds. During 
the first five months of the present calendar year the shipments have been at 
the rate of 75,000,000 pounds per annum. The magnitude of our exports 
may perhaps be best estimated by taking alone the month of April last, when 
the shipments were at the rate of 100,000,000 annually. The value of ship- 
ments before the close of the year, it is estimated, will exceed one million of 
dollars ; equal to about two hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling. It 
is sufficient to add that our shipments of live cattle by way of Montreal far 
exceeds that from New York, extensive as the latter are, and hence controlling 
the cattle trade, as unmistakably Canadians now do, it remains for them to 
make good the advantage." 
During the winter months, New York will continue to be the 
chief port for the exportation of both Canadian and American 
meat. In the summer and autumn, Canada will send at all 
events some of her cattle and meat to Europe direct from 
Quebec and Montreal. The export of live cattle will, however, 
in my opinion, not become so important a trade as that of 
dressed meat. Not economy alone, but humanity dictates this 
opinion. It is impossible that a voyage of three thousand miles 
should not cause considerable inconvenience on board ship, and 
suffering to the animals themselves ; and the cost of ocean transit 
on live cattle is altogether disproportionately high — necessarily so 
as compared with that on dressed meat ; the question of space 
accounts, at once for this. The advantage of landing cattle 
alive on these shores is obvious — more particularly in hot 
