Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 26 - AUS-CHI.pdf/584

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534

CANADA

[statistics John the Atlantic terminus, and Vancouver the Pacific terminus of the Canadian Pacific railway. Esquimalt is the harbour and depot of the British squadron on the Pacific, but it is little used by merchant vessels. There are four graving docks in Canada :— at At Water on Length. Width $ Coping. Entrance. Bottom. Sills. 1880 87,911,458 86,964,747 ! 71,782,349 14,138,849 1890 96,749,149 121,858,241 : 112,765,584 24,014,908 Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. 1900 191,894,723 189,622,513 | 180,804,316 28,889,110 430 90 41 Esquimalt, B.C. 65 26* 280 Kingston, Ont. 79 55 47 16 445 100 62 Quebec 73 The exports for the decades ending 1878, 1888, and 1898 are here 25£ Halifax, aST. S. . 585 102 89£ 72 shown:— 30 1878. 1888. 1898. There are 1532 light stations, lighthouses, fog-whistles, and automatic horns. Of late the character of the shipping interest has much changed, owing to the substitution of iron and steel for wood. Produce of the mines 2,762,762 4,100,893 14,460,056 has decreased from 490 vessels built and registered in Fisheries 6,853,9751 7,793,1831 10,841,661 I Shipbuilding 1874, to 278 vessels built and registered in 1898 ; the tonnage built Forests.... 5,912,139 5,091,546 6,013,942 from 183,000 in 1874 to 24,522 in 1898, but the general increase of Animals and their pro- 14,019,857 24,719,297 44,301,470 tonnage employed in transportation has been larger during the duce same period, as the following table shows :— Agricultural. 18,008,754 15,436,360 33,063,285 Sea-going Tonnage arriving at and leaving Canadian Ports. Manufactures 17,780,776 20,383,594 31,179,113 Miscellaneous 61,405 401,871 773,877 Total British. Canadian. Coin, bullion, and short 2,418,755 3,101,856 9,250,868 Foreign. Tons Register. returns at inland ports in 2,105,539 3,945,8221 included 1874 6,051,361 The largest items of this export trade for 1898 were : Minerals— British gold, quartz, dust, &c., $3,587,953; silver, $3,519,786; lead, 1898 5,777,068 2,029,745 4,778,672 12,585,485 $1,008,147; nickel, $970,531. Fisheries—cod, $2,595,005; lobsters, $2,627,597; salmon, fresh and otherwise, $3,624,212; mackerel, In 1874 there was but one regular passenger steamship line $76,502. Forest—pine logs, $1,616,671; spruce, $33,885; all between Great Britain and Canada ; there are now four, with occaother logs, $150,265. Lumber—pine deals, $3,814,947; spruce sional less regular services. On the inland waters the tonnage of and other deals, $7,918,366 ; planks and boards, $5,611,537. Square Canadian and American vessels arriving at and leaving Canadian timber: white pine, $1,536,067 ; red pine, $59,687 ; others, $28,882 ; ports has increased in the same period from 5,370,506 to 12,160,631 and other products of wood, making a total of $26,511,539. Animals tons register, the Canadian in each case slightly preponderating. and their 'produce — cheese, $17,572,763 ; cattle, $8,723,292 ; The tonnage engaged in the coasting trade increased in the twentyhorses, $1,497,444; sheep, $1,272,077 ; butter, $2,046,686; four years from 8,700,000 tons to 29,700,000 tons. eggs, $1,255,304; hides, skins, &c., not fur, $1,072,028 ; bacon, Internal Communications. — The internal communications are $7,291,285 ; besides many other articles reaching less than one carried on both by railway and canal, and in no particular has million dollars’worth. Agricultural products—vAtzut, $17,313,916 Canada undergone greater change than in her inter-provincial traffic. + $5,425,760 wheaten flour ; oats, $3,041,578 ; apples, $1,431,517 ; In 1878 there were 6143 miles of railway in operation, carrying pease, $1,813,792, &c. Manufactures—agricultural implements, 6,443,924 passengers and 7,883,472 tons of freight; in 1898 there $1,443,140 ; boots, shoes, and articles of leather, $1,608,352 ; wood- were 16,718 miles in operation, carrying 18,444,049 passengers and pulp, $1,210,421 ; other articles of wood, $1,261,618. There is a 28,785,903 tons of freight. There are 166 railways, but an amallarge number of items in the export trade, but those are mentioned gamation of 25 of these constitutes the Grand Trunk railway that exceed one million dollars. system, and of 23 the Canadian Pacific railway system. These Shipping.—The chief seaports from east to west are Halifax, two systems, with the Intercolonial (owned and operated by the X.S. ; St John, N.B. ; Quebec and Montreal on the Atlantic; Government), are the three principal railways. A short line across and Vancouver, Esquimalt, and Victoria, B.C., on the Pacific. Prince Edward Island is also owned by the Government. In 1898 Halifax is the ocean terminus of the Intercolonial railway; St the condition of the railways was thus :— Capital Freight in Total Total Passengers Mileage. Paid Up. Tons. Receipts. Carried. Expenses. $ Canadian Pacific 6,298 323,834,057 3,327,368 5,493,030 25,470,796 14,684,791 Grand Trunk. 3,147 342,244,928 6,041,551 8,773,322 18,396,010 11,536,708 Intercolonial and Prince 1,355 59,437,021 1,654,954 3,276,620 1,492,115 3,489,067 Edward Island Total, all railways . 16,717 941,297,037 18,444,049 28,785,903 59,715,105 39,137,549

of trade. The development that has taken place may be seen from the figures in the following tabular statement:— rr„+„i Imports. I, Consuinption Entered for . Year. Total Exports. Total Duty.

It will be seen that the Government has not had equal success with public companies in the management of railways, and that the Grand Trunk’s receipts are not in the same proportion to their capital as those of the Canadian Pacific. The ordinary share capital of the railways is $266,669,857 ; preference shares, $111,481,933 ; bonded debt, $354,946,866 ; together with aid from the Dominion and provincial Governments and other sources amounting to $208,198,381, making the total capital $941,297,037, exclusive of land grants given to the Canadian Pacific railway, the Calgarry and Edmonton, and other prairie railways. Only one railway runs across the continent. The average cost per mile of completed railways has been $55,797. There has been considerable development in the employment of electricity as a motive power in railways, especially in the cities and towns. In 1898 there were thirty-five electric railway companies which made returns. These showed that there were 635 miles of track, that 28,547,900 miles had been run during the year, and 94,616,344 passengers carried. Taking in the electric railways that failed to make full returns, the number of passengers carried by these railways is about 100,000,000. Canals.—Despite the large increase in railway facilities, the waterways remain important factors in the transportation of the country. Though railways have to some extent supplanted water for internal passenger traffic, the great lakes and the St Lawrence

constitute the route of the bulk of the grain trade of the west to the seaports. The logs and a portion of the timber, as well as of sawn lumber of the Ottawa, Lower St Lawrence and Hew Brunswick are carried to their destination for the most part by water, and for these two trades the canals are a necessity; and in 1899 surveys were made with a view to connect the Georgian Bay arm of Lake Huron through the intervening water-stretches with the Ottawa river and its canals, and so to Montreal, the head of summer navigation on the Atlantic. On the great lakes route Lake Superior is connected with Lake Huron by canals round the rapids of Sault St Marie (two American, one Canadian lock). Lake Huron flows into Lake Erie by the St Clair and Detroit rivers, and this is connected with Lake Ontario by the Welland canal round Niagara (26f miles), and between Lake Ontario and Montreal there are five canals. These canals have a depth of 14 feet on the sills. Up to the end of 1898 Canada had spent on the construction, renewal, and maintenance of canals $160,075,900, of which $87,571,498 had been taken from earnings, but the canals of the St Lawrence are regarded as public works of general utility, and are practically free of tolls. Of the total expenditure, $20,692,244 was expended before confederation (1867), of which $4,173,921 was supplied hy the imperial Government. The increasing use of the canals is shown by the tons of freight carried in the two years 1888 (2,761,597 tons), and 1897 (8,560,969 tons), the difference being due mainly to grain 1 This does not include sawn and other manufactured timber which from the west, American as well as Canadian vessels having to pass through the Welland canal to reach the ports on Lake Ontario. are classed as manufactures.