In the Looking Glass

Canada looked in the mirror last week and liked the ruddy cheeks it saw. In Ottawa, Finance Minister Douglas Abbott announced that the fiscal year would certainly end (March 31) with the budget in balance. There was a $200,000,000 Government surplus at the end of eight months, instead of the $200,000,000 deficit expected. Better still, there might be cuts in taxes, although they probably would not be large.

No matter how Canada turned before her mirror, she found most prospects pleasing. There were still some inconveniences and shortages: meat was still rationed, refrigerators and washing machines were still hard to get. And there were far from enough houses to go around. But there were good things aplenty.

The big strikes which had cost about 4,500,000 man-working-days in 1946 were well out of the way; as the year opened only 1,600 (see below) were on strike. Furthermore, the price line had been held. Looking at the U.S., Canadians could feel smug because their own prices, under orderly decontrol, had stayed fairly firm. They were up only 6 1/2% in the last 18 months, and business was excellent.

Satisfaction. Retail sales in Canada in 1946, helped by a massive Christmas rush, passed the $5 billion mark for the first time in the Dominion's history. The national income was at an alltime high: $9,400,000,000. Canadian exports for the year, primed by nearly $2,000,000,000 worth of loans to foreign countries (much of it for purchases in Canada), hit a record peacetime high : $2,300,000,000. So did imports, at $1,900,000,000. The bulk of the trade was with the U.S. Canada entertained 20,000,000 U.S. tourists who spent $200,000,000 (up $40,000,000 from the year before). In 1946, some 418,000,000 bushels of grain from Canada's lush wheatland, some 1,250,000,000 lbs. of fish from her coasts, plus vast amounts of beef, pork, oats, barley, had helped feed Canada and the hungry world.

Anticipation. Best of all, the Dominion's markets for 1947 seemed likely to be as good as in 1946. Her 110 pulp and paper mills, the Dominion's largest industry, had turned out nearly 7,000,000 tons of paper products worth $700,000,000--and customers all over the world were clamoring for still higher production. Despite a lack of sheet steel (a shortage caused by U.S. and Canadian steel strikes), auto plants managed to build 178,000 cars and trucks, 3% above the average prewar production. And the pile of domestic and foreign orders was higher than ever.

Looking at the year ahead, Canadians could see humming production lines, jobs for almost everyone. They felt good.

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