U.S. MONEY IN CANADA.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 4 October 1924, Page 13

U.S. MONEY IN CANADA.

1 INCREASING INVESTMENT. • AMERICA’S APPRECIATION OF CANADIAN METHOD©'. “ON THE RIGHT HORSE.” Speaking at the annual coiiv-entLa of the New York States Rankers’ .association, lielci at Montreal (writes the correspondent of the Financial 'lmiesy, Mr Willis G. Nash, the. president, said that between the Canadian and American systems there existed sc,me very close similarities and some extroordinary unlikenesses." The interesting thing was that both systems worked well. They had not had an easy time of it, however, during the last few months, and in neither country had the banks come through unscathed.

“What impresses every American is the simplicity and uniformity of the •Canadian banking system,” continued Mr Nash. “In the many discussions of this subject which I have listened to from time to time I have heard some very unfair and untrue criticisms directed against the Canadian system. One of these is that it does licit build up the country. Another is that the system savours of monopoly. I do not believe this to be true. I think the business borrower gets just as fair treatment in Canada, as elsewhere. But there has been no lack of fair criticism even against our own Federal reserve system, though it is the best ever yet devised. We keep on patching and tinkering with our State banking laws from year to year, and the changes even in the Federal Reserve Ac-t have been many. “Here in Canada the Bank Act comes up before Parliament once every ten years. The present. Act, passed last July, has som© interesting points of comparison with the statute of the previous decade. I looked up the law particularly to see what happened to Section 88. Under the old law an interested bank could exercise a lien on all the available assets of any business that became insolvent, whether the goods that represented part of its assets had been paid for or not. I often used to wonder who the silvertongued orator was who persuaded the Canadian Parliament ever to hand out protection of that extent to the bankercreditor. Down in New lork we never got away with anything as good as that.”

Turning to the broader aspect of banking on the American Continent, the president of the New York State Bankers’ Association said that never in the history had bankers been confronted by such perplexingly large, complicated and serious problems as o the present time.

“At the hub and centre of them all,” Mr Nash said, “as you will readily agree, is the question of German reparations. A very great financier has just been nominated in Cleveland as the Republican candidate for Vice-Prd-sident. To- read the Dawes report and see the masterly way in which he and his committee worked out a. plan that was fair and feasible and constructive, and outlined the machinery for getting this solution on a practical basis, is to convince 1 oneself firmly that here is the one hope of international reconstruction. Our daily fortune will largely depeiuj upon the outcome ca this plan. It will directly affect every bank and every business in this hemisphere.

Speaking on United States investments in Canada, Mr Nash said: “About 2,500,000,000 dollars of American money is now invested in Canadian enterprises. Of this amount about 1,200,000,000 is in bonds and the balance in stock holdings, mortgages, farms, industrial enterprises and private loans. Americans in the last few years have opened upward . of 700 branch factories in the Dominion. l When I look around at conditions in other lands abroad I am glad indeed to see so much practical interest on the part of our business men in the development of this country. Our Canadian investments in future bid fair to be on an even larger scale, and have already gone substantially beyond those of Great Britain.”

On th'e subject of Canada’s foreign trade, Mr Nash said it was interesting to note that Canada was a creditor to Great Britain, debtor to the United States and a creditor to the rest of the world.

“The amazing size of this trade deserves particular emphasis. Last year. Canada’s exports equalled one-fourth the value of those of the United States, a truly marvellous total considering that Canada’s entire population is only equal to that of Pennsylvania. To give the same picture differently, Canadian exports last year amounted to 113 dollars per capita, against 37 dollars in the United States. For her imports the corresponding figures were 100 dollars per capita, as compared with 33.50 dollars on the other side of the border. The bigger the figures become in future years, the better pleased will we Americans be.

“Canada is evolving rapidly,” continued Mr Nash'. “Last year she sold to the United States 410,000,(XK) dollars worth of goods—more than we bought from either Great Britain or Cuba, which stood second and third in rank among the countries selling to us. Canada now stands first! And as her industrial development goes on apace she will more easily keep this pre-eminence. Electric power is now exported. Engineers assert that Canada possesses a greater fresh water area than all the rest of the world put together. “We Americans are not worried by the probability that onr coal exports northwards will fall off sharply m future years, because, by way of compensation, there will be instead a larger demand for electrical equipment. There must he changes wherever there is progress. Approximately 20 per cent of all American foreign investments are in Canada, and I, for one, am glad that this time at least we are on the right horse.”