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Factors in Economic Growth in Canada*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Penelope Hartland
Penelope Hartland
Affiliation:
Washington, D.C.
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Extract

Within the sweep of Canada's economic progress, I should liketo devote special attention to one period—from about 1900 to the outbreak of World War I—as die period of most rapid growth in the history of Canada since die union of the separate provinces under Confederation in 1867, with die possible exception of die war-stimulated 1940's. I propose to point out certain parallels between that remarkable expansionary period and a much earlier one. I shall also attempt to isolate die important factors responsible for the upsurge of growdi after 1900.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 1955 , pp. 13 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1955

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References

1 Up to World War II, there were four decades in which Canada had net inward migration: 1851-61, 1901-11, 1911-21, and 1921-31. Corbett, D. C., “Immigration and Economic Development,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science (hereafter referred to as CJEPS), XVII (08 1951), 360 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar . In the last two of these decades, however, the rate of net immigration was lower, and it was not accompanied by any sizable net capital inflow.

2 Shortt, A., “Railroad Construction and National Prosperity,” in Proceedings of Royal Society of Canada, 12 1914Google Scholar ; see also Shortt, A., “History of Canadian Currency, Banking and Exchange,” Journal of the Canadian Banker? Association, 01 1904, pp. 106 ffGoogle Scholar . and April 1904, pp. 199 ff.; Pentland, H. C., “Role of Capital in Canadian Economic Development before 1875,” CJEPS, XVI (11 1950), pp. 457–74Google Scholar.

3 These and the following data on average rates of increase per annum are derived from O. J. Firestone, Canada's Economic Development 1867-1952, a study prepared for the Third Conference of the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, September 1953, possibly to be published in 1955.

4 The evidence lies largely in the fact that the volume of capital inflow from abroad in 1900 was considerably smaller, and had been declining for some years below the level of the late 1880's and early 1890's. In 1880 and again in 1900, Canadian payments of interest and dividends abroad considerably exceeded the net capital inflow, while the opposite was true in 1890. Both 1870 and 1880 mark troughs in the cycles of net capital inflow. P. Hartland, The Canadian Balance of Payments Since 1868, a study to be published shortly by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

5 For a discussion of the role of the Canadian Government in development, see Easterbrook, W. T., “State Control and Free Enterprise,” in Progress of Underdeveloped Areas, ed. Hoselitz, B. F. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952)Google Scholar ; Hartland, P., “Private Enterprise and International Capital,” CJEPS, 02 1953, pp. 70–80Google Scholar.

6 The huge inflow in 1950 of about $1 billion was only about 5 per cent of gross national product.

7 Innis, H. A., Problems of Staple Production (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1933).Google Scholar

8 Glazebrook, G. P. de T., History of Transportation in Canada (Toronto: Ryerson Press; New Haven: Yale University Press for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1938), p. 161.Google Scholar

9 XLIII (May 23, 1885), 625.

10 As compared with 63 per cent in 1915. Innis, H. A., History of the Canadian Pacific Railroad (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1923), p. 276Google Scholar.

11 Hartland, Canadian Balance of Payments Since 1868.

12 Fitzpatrick, G., British Empire in Australia, 1834-1939 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1941), pp. 137, 171.Google Scholar

13 Williams, J. H., Argentine International Trade Under Inconvertible Paper Money, 1880-1900 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920).Google Scholar

14 On the other hand, one could say that if the United States frontier had been closed at thU time there might have been more sustained attempts at wheat growing, and perhaps the innovations which later made wheat culture profitable would have occurred earlier, being mothered by necessity.

15 Hartland, Canadian Balance of Payments Since 1868.

16 Moore, E. S., American Influence in Canadian Mining (Toronto: Ryerson Press; New Haven: Yale University Press for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1941), p. 90.Google Scholar

17 Skelton, O. D., General Economic History of the Dominion, 1867-1913 (Toronto: Publisher's Association of Canada, 1913) 1 p. 119.Google Scholar

18 Britnell, G. E., The Wheat Economy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1939), pp. 35 ff.Google Scholar ; Buller, A. H. R., Essays on Wheat (New York: Macmillan Co., 1919), pp. 206, 215Google Scholar ; Nesbitt., L. D., The Story of Wheat (Calgary: Alberta Wheat Pool, 1946), p. 11Google Scholar.

19 Marshall, H., Southard, F. A., and Taylor, K. W., Canadian American Industry (Toronto: Ryerson Press; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1936), p. 61.Google Scholar

20 In this regard, however, it should be pointed out that although the government's campaign overseas to encourage the migration of people to Canada continued throughout, its activities were more aggressive in the early 1880's and after 1897, but in the years between were rather stereotyped, according to one source. , Skelton, General Economic History of the Dominion, p. 193Google Scholar.