Canadian industrial life, why was reciprocity rejected? That, too, is
an interesting story by itself.

There is one subject on which Canada's inconsistency regarding
"Americanizing influences" is almost laughable. It is the subject of
the influence of periodical literature. Canadians are great
lip-loyalists, but in all the history of Canada they have never
accorded support to a national magazine that enabled that magazine to
become worthy of the name. Facts are very damning testimony here.
Very well--then--let us have the facts! There is one American weekly
which has a larger circulation in every city in Canada than any daily
in any city in Canada. Of the American monthlies of first rank, there
is hardly one that has not a larger circulation in Canada than any
Canadian magazine has ever enjoyed. Even Canadian newspapers are
served by American syndicates and press associations. The influence of
this flood of American thought in the currents of Canadian thought can
not be exaggerated. It is subtle. It is intangible. It is
irresistible. What Americans are thinking about, Canadians
unconsciously are thinking, too. The influence makes for a community
of sentiment that political differences can never disrupt, and it is a
good thing for the race that this is so. It helps to explain why there
is no fort between the two nations for three thousand miles.

It may also be added that no Canadian writer can get access to the
public in book form except through an American publisher. Unless the
author assumes the cost or risk of publication, the Canadian publisher
will rarely issue a book on his own responsibility. He sends the book
to New York or to London, and from New York or London buys plates or
sheets. This compels the Canadian book to have an Imperial or an
American appeal. In literature, the modus operandi works; for the