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Some Aspects of the Financial Difficulties of the Province of Canada*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
Extract
Our subject concerns the dialogue held between English financiers and Canadian politicians and the response of Lombard Street to the calls of the Province of Canada over the last ten or fifteen years of its existence. Its scope is limited because of the limited array of materials surveyed. The intention is to review some of the correspondence between the financial agents in London and the Canadian ministers or other officials entrusted with English money through the agents. The materials comprise some two hundred letters, a few duplicates of which can be found in the Baring collection at the Public Archives in Ottawa, which the author was fortunate enough to peruse at Glyn, Mills & Co., Lombard Street, London.
These fragmentary materials have been marshalled back into the conventional framework of Canadian economic history, where in the author's estimation they belong, in order that they might shed some more light on matters already known. The role of the agents in money matters exerted a remarkable influence on Canada's political affairs, to the extent that the presence of the English investor implied some kind of participation in the decision-making process of the Province of Canada. The English press may have exerted a similar influence, since it reflected the attitude of those financially interested in Canada, whether directly or indirectly.
Not all of the difficulties that the Province had been through in the last decade of its existence can be traced back, however, to its financial connection with the English money market. Indeed, several problems arose from its commercial structure, its precarious trade pattern upon which the neighbouring states exerted a continuous pull, the deflated expectations of Canadian traders as regards the western trade, and the over-all modification of trade channels which accompanied the cotton revolution. Yet we have chosen here to single out one factor—the opinion of Lombard Street—by way of suggesting the importance of market forces in the shaping of Canadian economic policies.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , November 1960 , pp. 617 - 624
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1960
Footnotes
*
This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Kingston, June 9, 1960.
References
1 The author acknowledges his debt for this privilege to the Nuffield Foundation and to the management of Glyn's.
2 The Canadian News and British American Intelligencer (hereafter cited as C.N.) and the Economist well reflect the opinion of the period.
3 For the significance of the trade pattern as related to the Quebec City area, see Faucher, A., “The Decline of Shipbuilding at Quebec in the Nineteenth Century,” this Journal, XXIII, no. 2, 05, 1957, 195–215.Google Scholar
4 Glyn, Mills & Co. to Francis Hincks, Aug. 6, 10, 1849, April 5, 1850.
5 Joint letter to Hincks, Jan. 10, 1851.
6 Ibid.
7 Journals of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada (hereafter cited as J.L.A.), 1851, App. UU.
8 By virtue of the 1849 legislation (12 Vic, c. 29) all railways seventy-five miles in extent could have the interest at 6 per cent on their bonds guaranteed by the Province, provided the company had contributed one-half the cost of construction. In 1851, following the recommendations of the MacNab Committee, Hincks recognized (see his Railway Resolutions in Doughty, A. G. D., ed., Elgin-Grey Papers, 1846–1852 (Ottawa, 1937), 870–3Google Scholar) that the 1849 legislation had been too liberal. The guarantee was limited to the trunk line and to railways that had already secured it: the Great Western, the St. Lawrence and Atlantic, and the Northern. This limitation was, however, offset by an extension of guarantee of the interest on both capital and bonds. These provisions were included in an Act to Incorporate the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada in 1852 (16 Vic. c. 37).
9 Aug. 28, 1851, J.L.A., 1852–3, App. Z.
10 Jan. 12, 1852, Ibid.
11 Keefer, T. C., Eighty Years of Progress in British North America (Toronto, 1863).Google Scholar
12 Sept. 18, 25, Nov. 23, 1857.
13 Nov. 27, 1857.
14 Oct. 8, 23, 1857.
15 J.L.A., 1856, App. 30, no. 47.
16 Canada, 1849 to 1859.
17 In his British Supremacy and Canadian Self-Government, 1839–1854 (Glasgow, 1919), 231.Google Scholar
18 G. C. Glyn to Wm. Cayley, Jan. 10, 1861.
19 G. C. Glyn to Thomas Gait, Nov. 29, 1860.
20 Baring & Co. and Glyn, Mills & Co. to A. T. Galt.
21 Ridout to Glyn, Mills & Co., April 30, 1859.
22 Ibid.
23 To Hon. John Ross, May 19, 1860.
24 To Wm. Cayley, Oct. 31, 1860.
25 See Faucher, A., “Le Fonds d'emprunt municipal dans le Haut-Canada, 1852–1867,” Recherches sociographiques, I, no. 1, 1960.Google Scholar
26 As quoted in C.N., Aug. 13, 1863, 109.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid., April 3, 1862, 215.
29 Ibid., Aug. 27, 1863, 130.
30 As quoted in Innis, H. A. and Lower, A. R. M., eds., Select Documents in Canadian Economic History, 1783–1885 (Toronto, 1933), 646.Google Scholar
31 As quoted in C.N., March 3, 1864, 130.
32 Ibid., Feb. 13, 1862, 98.
33 Annual meeting, June 26, 1865, in Archives of Glyn, Mills & Co.
34 Fulford, Roger, Glyn's, 1753–1953 (London, 1953), 148–9.Google Scholar