CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. 37

States gave opportunities for employment to townsmen
 and markets to farmers, with which Canada had
nothing to compare. For years Canadians crossed
the frontier in their thousands. At the present
day it has been estimated that there are something
like a million Canadian-born residents in American
territory, most of whom have become naturalised
American subjects. French Canadians migrated
to the New England States, British Canadians to
the great industrial centres and the farms in the
Western States. Thus a bond of relationship has
been created between the two countries, and there
are few of the older Canadian families who have
not some naturalised American cousins.
As with population so it has been with trade.
The natural trend of trade on the continent was
north and south—it is by artificial means that it
has been diverted east and west. Canada found
herself trading with the United States all along
the frontier. Canadian timber from the province of
Ontario was floated across the great lakes into
American ports, Pennsylvanian coal was burnt
in Eastern Canada, while the coal from British
Columbia supplied the Western American States.
The hard wheat of Manitoba found a ready market
in Minneapolis and the other grain centres of the
Union, where it is bought to make up their best
blends for the European markets. All this existed
in the days when Canada was an almost unknown
competitor in the European market, and it still
exists. But besides the commerce in raw materials