account of the nickel mines, the copper mines, the smelters, the silver
mines, the coal lands, the timber limits, the fisheries, the vast
holdings of agricultural lands in the West held for speculative
purposes--for all of which spot cash was paid down in large proportion.

The largest steel plant in the East, the largest coal areas in the
West, the only nickel mines in America, three-quarters of all the
copper and gold reduction works of the West are financed by American
capital. To be more explicit, when the MacKenzie-Mann interests bought
one large coal area in British Columbia, the Hill interests of St. Paul
bought the other large coal area. This does not mean there are not
large coal areas owned by Canadian capital. There are--colossal areas;
but for every big area being worked by Canadian capital there are two
such being worked by American.

Before a single Canadian railroad had wakened up to the fact there were
any mines in East and West Kootenay and the Slocan, American lines had
pushed up little narrow-gauge lines to feed the copper and gold ores
into Butte and Helena smelters. By the time Canadian and British
capital came on the scene in Kootenay the cream had been skimmed from
the profits, and the mines had reached the wildcat stage of beautifully
gilded and engraved stock certificates taking the place of real
profits--of almost worth-nothing shares in worthless holes in the
ground selling on a face value of a next-door profit-yielding neighbor.
The American is without a peer as pioneer on land, in mine, in forest;
but the boomster, who invariably follows on the heels of that pioneer,
is also the most expert "houn' dawg" to rouse the wildcatter.
Canadians have too often wakened up only at the wildcat stage, and
British capital has come in to reorganize inflated and collapsed
properties on a purely investment basis. The American pioneer does