The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1863-06-15
Canadian Coincidence for American Suffer-
sug-

Canadians affect great concern for the poor
laboring people of the States-''the mudsills"
and speak of the war and the depreciation
of our currency in way that shows how
great privilege they deem it, at the present
time, to dwell beneath the folds of the British
flag. Though their government bonds sell at
discount, and those of our Government are
at par or command premium, they still think
their money must be worth about forty per
cent. more than ours, and they transact BUSH
ness with our people upon this basis. Now it
may be some consolation to our poor people,
who feel cursed with plethora of poor mon
ey, to know few simple facts. First and
foremost of these facts we will state, that the
means of living are really cheaper with us
than In Canada, and we prove it in this way:
Go into Canadian Hotel-the ST. Lawrence
Hall in Montreal, or the Queen in Toronto
and the regular charge is $500 or $3.50 per
day, payable in their money. The same
am cunt of our money in Portland, in Buffalo
or in Detroit, will command Accommodations
and table far superior to those found at the
hotels referred to.
hb Tic tdtiuS HOUSES diOuR Tic Huc vi
roa d through Canada, 80 cents, Canadian cur
re ncy, is the almost universal price of a meal,
be bolted in fifteen or twenty minutes, the
eggs perhaps fried in fresh lard, the potatoes
scar cely fit for a pig, and the coffee no more
the flavor of the genuine berry than u decoc-
ton of burnt leather. Who that has travelled
in the States needs informing that fifty cents
worth of our despised shinplasters will pro-
cure a meal suitable for a monarch, and that
in hotels of rare excelence,-in point of fact
as good as the best-this is the regular charge?
We are aware of no Accommodations demanded
by the traveller, whether it be from the land
lord or the boot-black, the bartender or the
barber, for which a halfdollar shinplaster will
not 60 as far in payment in the New England
or Western States, as a halfdollar in silver in
Canada: therefore all such Accommodations
there cost forty per cent. more than here.
In Canada West-the garden of the prov
incorporates have been sold this season for
shipment, by the cargo, for 80 cents per BUSH
el-equal to AZ Of our money-which certain
ly indicates that this valuable article of hu-
man subsistence is little or no cheaper there
than here. So 1t is, we presume, with most of
the articles which 60 to make up an inviting
bill of fare for the family table.
We had been told Of the cheapness of print
ing paper in the provinces, and at one time
the importation of it for use in this city, at a
duty of IS per cent, was seriously contem-
plated. Such delusion is not likely to take
,,ossase;,,, Of thu mind apain-cartainlv NOT
ours. We found that for a dark, stiff, hard,
yellow article, mostly straw and poor at that
such as is used for the Toronto Globe, about
ten cents minimum is paid, TO which add the
difference in currency, and it would be IA
cents per pound; an article which our Port
land printers would not accept as a free gift
upon which to print their papers, if they could
obtain the ordinary rag paper for 20 cents 1t
looks extravagantly dear to practical print
er at any price, if he values the wear of his
types; and to the reader it would revive old
stories of the hard times among the printers
down in Dixie.
Another fact may not tend to increase the
discomfort of our laboring men, or to stimu-
late very large emigration to the northern
provinces. In Canada West, the best portion
of the whole province, where there are few
Frenchmen or Irishmen to underbid for a job,
laborers receive in the numbering operations
about 70 cents per day, boarding themselves,
or $40 per month and boarded. This fact not
only shows the value placed upon labor, but
also the price placed upon common laborers
board. Seventy cents per day is over $1S per
month, which leaves at least So per month for
the laborer's board. The reader will not need
to draw upon very profound intellect to sat
isfy himself, in the light of such facts, that
Canadian coincidence with the "poor laborers
OF the States is entirely misplaced, and had
much better be kept for home consumption.
Another gratifying fact may as well be stat
ed in this connection. When the war first
commenced in our country, intelligent and
far-seeing Canadians thought the golden mo-
ment had come to divert the great tide of i'm
migration setting westward across the ocean,
from the States TO their own broad and fertile
acres They have unsettled and unsold Crown
Lands--equivalent to our Public Lands-and
they would see them opened up to settlement,
diiu JIG WiiuCi tcco NohfNA iheo IA hOiuo
beneath the peaceful dominion of an indus
trial population. Public meetings were held
in Montreal and other places; appeals were
made to the immigrants; offers of aid to set
tiers were proposed, and so far as earnestness
and eloquence could accomplish it, the true
"Eldorado" for the immigrant was located on
the Ottawa or in other parts of Canada, and
the States were made desert waste, in
which industry would be drowned in the red
tide of fraternal and mercess war. Who
will dispute that the prospects for Canada did
look flattering? Who will deny the wisdom
of the effort to make legitimate gain out ofour
national misfortunes? But the whole effort
miscarried. The immigrants could mot see it
in the same light as the Canadian statesmen
aud men of enterprise. On they went, never
stopping till they could sit down beneath the
Stars and Stripes. Canada had been tunnel
"a sort of tubular bridge-for the immigrants
to pass through on their passage from the old
country to the West, and despite wars and
rumors Of wars it continued to be, and still
continues to be.