Was Canadian Manufacturing Inefficient before WWI? The Case of the Cotton Textile Industry, 1870-1910

Is it possible that generations of Canadian economists and historians have got it wrong and Canadian manufacturing before WWI was fairly efficient? Yes, because they do not pay enough attention to the measurement of efficiency. New cliometric evidence supporting the revisionist side of this question is presented on total factor productivity and five other measures of efficiency for the Canadian cotton textile industry, 1870-1910, an industry long thought to be grossly inefficient, which shows the industry performed strongly relative to the U.S. cotton textile industry and other cotton textile industries elsewhere in the world.