At the end of the 1880s, reports Desmond Morton in “A Short History of Canada,” the United States was booming while Canada stagnated. Even Friedrich Engels, during a visit to the U.S. and Canada in 1888, recognized “how necessary the feverish speculative spirit of the Americans is for the rapid development of a new country.” However, the situation was so bad in Canada that opposition leader Wilfrid Laurier, who became prime minister in 1896, ruefully stated, “We have come to a period in the history of this young country when premature dissolution seems to be at hand.”
