Starting in 1873, Chile's economy deteriorated. Chilean wheat exports were outcompeted by production in Canada, Russia, and Argentina. Chilean copper was largely replaced in international markets by copper from the United States and Río Tinto in Spain. Chile's silver mining income also dropped. In the mid-1870s, Peru nationalized its nitrate industry, affecting both British and Chilean interests. Contemporaries considered the crisis the worst ever of independent Chile. Chilean newspaper "El Ferrocarril" predicted 1879 to be "a year of mass business liquidation". In 1878, then-President Aníbal Pinto expressed his concern through the following statement: