¹ Fiscal year figures for “total imports” less “imports for consumption” give fiscal year amounts of the “imports for re-export.” These are then adjusted to a calendar year basis by assuming an equal monthly distribution of this trade throughout the fiscal year. Beginning with the Customs Report of the fiscal year 1917, “total imports” are no longer recorded but the writer is informed by the customs department that “imports for re-export” were still included in “total exports” until 1921. The amount to be deducted on this account from exports for the calendar years 1917 and 1918 had to be estimated, therefore, upon the evidence of the amount of this item in the years preceding and the probable trend of the trade. The deduction made was $20 million.

² From exports the other deductions are of very minor importance; from imports the only important additional deduction is for “goods to be ex-warehoused for ship's stores.”

³ Dominion Bureau of Statistics, The Canadian Balance of International Payments: A Study of Methods and Results (Ottawa, 1939).Google Scholar

⁴ See p. 233 for explanation of the meaning of monetary gold.

⁵ The amounts were calculated monthly at the average premium on New York funds for the month. The additional liability exceeds one million dollars in 1915, 1916, and 1917 and in 1918 amounts to $18.7 million.

⁶ Canadian Balance of International Payments, pp. 70 ff.

⁷ Ibid., pp. 62 ff.

⁸ Canada, Sessional Papers: “Annual Report of the Militia Council.” Fiscal year data changed to calendar year data by assuming equal quarterly distribution.

⁹ It is difficult to reconcile the amount of the payments to the British Government as stated in the “Statement of Receipts and Expenditures” in the Public Accounts with what has been stated elsewhere as to their amounts. What seems to be an unequivocal statement of the amount of such advances appears in the text of the Public Accounts themselves. In the Accounts for the year 1918, for instance, there appears on p. xii a tabulation commencing with the words, “Advances to the Imperial Government by the Dominion of Canada have been made as follows: ‘….’” One might conclude that the amounts which follow were either the advances made during the current fiscal year or the total advances to date. Actually, the total “amount of advances to Imperial Government” is neither, but rather the cumulative total less the amount already written off in a settlement made in 1914-15. Apparently the dates of these settlements were merely such as suited the convenience of the two governments. These stated amounts offer, therefore, no additional information with respect to total advances made each year.

¹⁰ The large issue total shown in Great Britain for the year 1916 (V, I) was due to the issue made by the Dominion Government directly to the British Government as a refunding of part of the net floating debt of the Dominion Government to the Imperial Government up to that time.

¹¹ Young, R. A., Handbook on American Underwriting of Foreign Securities (United States Dept. of Commerce Trade Promotion Series, no. 104, Washington, 1930).Google Scholar

¹² Field, F. W., Capital Investments in Canada (Ed. 3, Toronto, 1914)Google Scholar; Viner, J., Canada's Balance of International Indebtedness 1900-1913 (Cambridge, Mass., 1924).Google Scholar

¹³ Of the totals given in table I, item 16, the estimated interest and dividends due on British and foreign holdings of Canadian securities was 123.1; 119.5; 133.9; 141.8; 152.5 millions of dollars, respectively, for the years 1914-18. The remainder is due to the admittedly unsatisfactory estimates of the interest and dividends due on other forms of investment. As almost nothing definite is known about the size of the Canadian holdings of foreign securities in these years, vague estimates of their possible amounts were made and then included in the almost equally vague estimate of the total Canadian investment abroad upon the basis of which the estimates of table I, item 5, were obtained. The only relatively precise amounts in this estimate are the interest earned on the net assets of the Canadian commercial banks held outside Canada and that on their holdings of foreign securities. The former was estimated at the rate which the total net profits of all Canadian banks bore to their average total assets each year. Interest on bank holdings of British Treasury bills was placed at five and one-half per cent and that on other British and foreign securities at the rates of yield on sixty high grade United States bonds as calculated by the Standard Statistics Company.

¹⁴ When gold received from and issued to the Bank of England, 1915-19, is excluded, only small amounts of gold coin and bullion were issued by the Ottawa branch of the Royal Mint during the years 1914-18 (Annual Reports of the Royal Mint: Appendix, Report of the Ottawa Branch, or Canada Year Book, 1939, p. 839, where the annual totals from 1917 on are given). The amount of this issue by the Ottawa Mint which probably went to commercial uses has been estimated by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics for the writer. For the amount of gold held by the Receiver-General see volumes of the Canada Year Book.

¹⁵ The items included in the foreign assets of the Canadian banks are as follows: gold and subsidiary coin held elsewhere than in Canada; foreign currencies; cheques on foreign banks; balances due by United Kingdom and by foreign banks; call and current loans elsewhere than in Canada; and all British and foreign securities held except British Treasury bills which are included separately in the balance of payments. (I, 23). Foreign currencies are estimated at ten per cent of ”deposits elsewhere than in Canada” which was the actual ratio for 1923, the first year for which information is available. In 1936-7 cheques on foreign banks were 5.8 per cent of foreign call loans and deposits at foreign banks. This ratio has been used to estimate the amount of these cheques for the years 1914-18.

To estimate the amount of British and foreign securities, exclusive of British Treasury bills, held by the banks involves a somewhat complicated calculation. The Canadian Bankers' Association reported to the Macmillan commission (Report of the Royal Commission on Banking and Currency in Canada, 1933, p. 104)Google Scholar the amount of “British, foreign and colonial public securities, other than Canadian,” held by the banks at December 31, 1914 and 1919. To obtain the total of such securities held in 1919 one must add the amount under discount under the Finance Act ( Curtis, C. A., “The Canadian Banks and War Finance” in Contributions to Canadian Economics, vol. III, 1931, p. 30 Google Scholar). From this total the amount of British Treasury bills held had to be subtracted as these are included in the long-term capital items of the balance of payments. They wereat no time salable outside Canada. The amount of such bills held by the banks has been estimated from information disclosed at the annual meetings of the Canadian Bankers' Association as reported in the January numbers of their Journal in each of the years 1918, 1919, 1920, 1921, and 1923. By subtracting the amount of these British Treasury bills held at December 31, 1919, from the total holdings of the banks for the same date, a figure for the amount of the other “British, foreign and colonial public securities” held by the banks is obtained which is strictly comparable with the amount reported by the Bankers' Association for the end of 1914. As no information is available as to how the increase from 1914 to 1919 was actually distributed over the intervening years, it has here been distributed equally over the period.

British and foreign securities, other than public, held by the banks have been estimated at sixty per cent of the total reported in the bank return under the title “Railway and other debentures, bonds and stocks.” This was the percentage used by Dr.Viner, for the pre-war years (Canada's Balance of International Indebtedness, 1900-1913, p. 91)Google Scholar and is roughly accurate for the years 1920-3 according to estimates prepared by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics on the basis of actual reports made by the four banks which do the major part of the business of Canadian banks in other countries.

The items included in the foreign liabilities of the Canadian banks are as follows: balances due to banks in the United Kingdom and foreign countries; deposits elsewhere than in Canada; bills payable. The latter are “almost wholly sterling drafts on the London branches or correspondents of the Canadian banks”.( Curtis, C. A., Statistical Contributions to Canadian Economic History, vol. I, “Statistics of Banking,” p. 8 Google Scholar). The net foreign assets, or balances, of the banks is the difference between the total foreign assets and the total foreign liabilities as thus calculated.

¹⁶ In the years 1911-15 merchandise imports into Canada were, in millions of dollars, respectively: 506.3; 626.0; 654.9; 470.8; 447.2. Receipts from customs duties in the fiscal years 1912-16 were in millions of dollars, respectively: 85.1; 111.8; 104.7; 75.9; 98.7 (Canada Year Book, 1939, p. 883).

¹⁷ War tax revenues amounted, respectively, to $ million, 0.1; 3.6; 16.3; 25.4; 56.2; whereas the war expenses for the same fiscal years totalled, respectively, in $ million, 60.7; 166.2; 306.5; 343.8; 446.5 (Canada Year Book, 1939, pp. 882 ff.).

¹⁸ Not till 1921 did the revenue from war taxes exceed that from customs duties. For the fiscal years 1917-19, respectively, customs revenues amounted, in millions of dollars, to 134.0; 144.2; 147.2 (Canada Year Book, 1939, pp. 883 ff.).

¹⁹ Canada Year Book, 1939, pp. 872, 900 ff.

²⁰ SirWhite, Thomas, The Story of Canada's War Finance (Montreal, 1921)Google Scholar, passim.

²¹ In the years 1915-17 France floated loans to the total of $591 million in the United States; Great Britain's loans amounted to $1,062 million; and Canada alone sold there $440 million worth of securities. ( Young, R. A., Handbook on American Underwriting of Foreign Securities, pp. 24 and 26.Google Scholar)

²² Schumpeter, J. A., Business Cycles (New York, 1939), p. 886.Google Scholar

²³ Canada Year Book, 1929, p. 230. Yield per acre 1914, 15.8 bushels; 1915, 26.0.

²⁴ For an excellent and exhaustive account of this process see C. A. Curtis, “Canadian Banks and War Finance.”

²⁵ Before 1917 borrowings were seasonal and small. In June, 1917, no advances under the Finance Act were outstanding.

²⁶ Report of the Royal Commission on Banking and Currency in Canada, 1933, p. 22.Google Scholar

²⁷ For these ratios see Cameron, J. C., “Canadian Banking Operations” (Canadian Chartered Accountant, March, 1933, pp. 588 ff. and April, 1933, pp. 658 ff.).Google Scholar

²⁸ SirWhite, Thomas, Story of Canada's War Finance, p. 51.Google Scholar

²⁹ Ibid., pp. 57, 60 ff.

³⁰ Ibid., pp. 60 ff.

³¹ For details of the war loan issues see Curtis, C. A., “Canadian Banks and War Finance,” p. 12, or Canada Year Book, 1929, p. 812.Google Scholar

³² Monetary Times Annual, 1919, pp. 10 and 34.

³³ J. C. Cameron, “Canadian Banking Operations.”

³⁴ Journal of the Canadian Bankers' Association, vol. XXVI, Oct., 1918, p. 16 Google Scholar “… four hundred million during the year before June 30, 1918.”

³⁵ By the Order-in-Council of August 4, 1914, validated in the Finance Act, 1914. ( SirWhite, Thomas, Story of Canada's War Finance, pp. 8 ff.Google Scholar)

³⁶ Carnegie, D., The History of Munitions Supply in Canada 1914-1918 (London, 1925), p. 133.Google Scholar

³⁷ Ibid., p. 303. $32.8 million worth of munitions were delivered on these contracts before the armistice.

³⁸ Dominion Bureau of Statistics, The Prairie Provinces in Their Relation to the National Economy of Canada (Ottawa, 1934), p. 45.Google Scholar

³⁹ Canada Year Book, 1939, p. 421. On the basis of 1917 = 100, the index number of the volume of manufactured products stood at 102 in 1918.