CANADA’S WEALTH

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 116, 6 August 1927, Page 26

CANADA’S WEALTH

BETTER TIMES COMING AMAZING CROP RESOURCES While Canada in common with other countries experienced a severe postwar depression, there has been a marked revival of trade and industry during the past two years. Farmers there are also approaching a period of better times. In making this statement to a special representative of “The Times,” Sir F. W. Taylor, general manager of the Bank of Montreal, said that with a return of confidence and optimism he considered the country was in for a period of prosperity. Canada was primarily an agricultural country, and crops therefore exexercised an important influence on the economic situation. The high price for farm products during the war encouraged farmers, particularly those engaged in graingrowing, in a policy of expansion that had since left many with obligations which bore heavily upon them when the slump came. Both the satisfactory crops and higher prices of the past two years had proved a great help in reducing the obligations and the farming industry was now on a sound basis, with every prospect of contributing in a marked degree to the prosperity of the country in years to come. WEALTH IN CROPS The Prairie Provinces, it was worth remembering, alone produced wheat and other crops the total of which exceeded in value the world’s total annual output of gold by some 250,000,000 dollars. Actually the Prairie Provinces produced field crops in 1926 to the value of 647,282,000 dollars, against the world’s output of gold around 400,000,000 dollars. While the rehabilitation of the Canadian agricultural industry is the most important feature of the present situation, a development of significance is the newly-awakened interest of capitalists in the latent capacity of Canadian urban industrial enterprises. The association of wealth represented by forest and mineral resources with the existence of abundant waterpower is now a matter of international knowledge. The result is seen in the large and increasing flow of capital into Canada for the establishment of new enterprises and the expansion of existing ones.