The scholars of continental Europe have devoted much attention to the social consequences of rules and customs of inheritance, and there exists a large body of work on this subject by lawyers and agricultural historians. The purpose of this paper is to consider, in the light of this European evidence, the possible significance of such rules and customs for economic development in the nineteenth century.

Within the sweep of Canada's economic progress, I should liketo devote special attention to one period—from about 1900 to the outbreak of World War I—as die period of most rapid growth in the history of Canada since die union of the separate provinces under Confederation in 1867, with die possible exception of die war-stimulated 1940's. I propose to point out certain parallels between that remarkable expansionary period and a much earlier one. I shall also attempt to isolate die important factors responsible for the upsurge of growdi after 1900.

The following nore on source material relates to an important aspect of British industrial development in the eighteenth century. Some use of this material has been made by M. W. Flinn of Aberdeen University and myself in our studies of the industry in the Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but the field of the sources is so wide and relevant to so much of the economic history of Britain in that period that a summary may be of use to future researches in these rich and neglected sources.