richest nation in the world.The automobile and the aircraft replaced the railway, which began itslong decline into obsolescence. A new primary product frontier came tothe fore in Canada; really two frontiers, as mineral and forest productsexported to the United States rose in value in relation to wheat exportsto Britain.The exhaustion of British capital, in part because of the war, and in partbecause of her relative decline, caused Canadian interests to turn toUnited States sources. Canada became indebted to the United States, andas United States electrical, automobile, and pulp and paper and mininginterests moved north, more of the capital inflow came in the form ofequity. American capital replaced British capital to offset Canada'strade deficit with the United States. The international corporation and"foreign ownership", mostly American, rose to prominence in Canadian concerns. Expansion on the Prairies came to an end. Two transcontinental railwaysbankrupted and were bought out to form the one, government owned, CanadianNational Railway. Still, the advance of the consumer capital industries,that is, of the innovation of durable consumer goods like radios,automobiles, and vacuum cleaners, and new resource exports, particularlyof mining and pulp and paper exports, kept Canada afloat economicallyuntil the global depression of the 1930s. Depression and War The depression of the 1930s was probably the end of the last upswing basedon investment in railways and of the first upswing based on investment in paper, minerals, and consumer capital goods [cars, wash machines, radios,and other electricity dependent production and consumption goods]. Theexpansion of real GDP having outrun the expansion of the gold base ofof the monetary system, during this remarkable, double Kondratief recoveryand boom, a shortage of currency was given as one cause of the depression.Accordingly, the Gold Standard was abandoned, globally. This wasaccompanied by compe...
