Speech #620003746

That the racial characteristics of the respective peoples and the climatic conditions of the two countries fully justified an entirely different course of action of one toward the other from that which ought to control our relations with the peoples on the other side of the two oceans. where like conditions do not prevail. I laid down the fundamental principle that competition can not exist between the products of two nations except with reference to their exportable surplus. and showed the statistical position of the principal crops of Canada and the United States In this respect. I think I demonstrated beyond dispute. for no reply has yet been made by anybody to the proposition. that the higher cost of living which now obtains in this country was due to an enormously increased demand for food products and a proportionately decreased productive power on our part. and that this great change. due largely to immigration and a transition from agriculture to manufacturing. had begun on the Atlantic coast and was steadily moving westward until now its influence was effective and controlling in the central West. I pointed out. also. that the transference of millions upon millions of the foodproducing classes from the nations of Europe into the manufacturing industries of this country had made the tendency to a higher cost of living worldwide. and I expressed my sincere belief that the continuation of high prices for food products was inevitable. and that the only possible effect of complete freedom of exchange of all natural products between the United States and Canada would be to temporarily retard the rapid advances and to steady the fluctuations of the prices of the fastdiminishing export surplus of many of the food products of both countries. and that a considerable period of time would be necessary for a permanent readjustment of the present worldwide conditions of the cost of living. I showed that the land values differed in the different Provinces of Canada as they did In the United States. but that taking all occupied farm lands in the Dominion. the average value was $38.60 per acre. as against a value of $23.38 of all occupied farm lands in the United States.