The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1911. CANADA'S INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1094, 5 April 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1911. CANADA'S INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT.

An interesting paper on the "Industrial Development of Canada" was read by Mr. Ellis T. Powell on February 14 before the Royal Colonial Institute. After referring to the increasing immigration into the Dominion, from the United States as well as Europe, the lecturer went on to describe certain commercial and industrial developments. That great colonial waterway, tho St. Lawrence River, it seems plays an important part in the development of Canada. According to the President of the Montreal Harbour' Commission, no less than £4,400,000 was invested in' the port,and seven months' trade had aggregated £40,000,000. There is only one port on the North American Continent which did a bigger business than Montreal month for month,_ and that was New York. There is only one port in the United Kingdom, after London and Liverpool, that exceeds the average monthly trade of the port of Montreal which averages £250,000 a day, exports and imports. Fifteen years ago the tonnage of the largest boats calling at Montreal was COOO, ten years ago 10,000, to-day 15,000, and ten years hence it is considered probable that it will exceed 25,000 tons. The eastern end of Canada between Quebec and Toronto, served largely by the St. Lawrence, is far advanced in _ commercial development. _ In railways, tramways, lake and river transport, manufactures, and all the indications of enterprise and prosperity, it affords abundant material for economic study. Wc are told that during the year 1010 the total Government, corporation, and municipal borrowings amounted to £4?.,067,7C0, as compared with £48,000,000 in the previous year. Tho expenditure on railway construction for the year was estimated at £10,000,000. These investments must of course be made in the open, but there is.another and very striking aspect of this question of tho investment of foreign capital in Canada, and Mr. Powell's own words are worth reproducing in full. He said:

"A few months ago I crossed to Canada on a Canadian northern liner, as a member of tin usual well-assorted company that studies constitutional problems by pacing the promenade deck. Very slight intimacy with my fellow-passengers showed me that there were people on the boat who were going to Canada as the representatives of large British interests for the purpose of placing considerable sums of morcy there; and at least two of-the passengers were men in early middle ago, accompanied by their families, who were on their wny to start afresh in the new country on the other side. One of these men could count upon resources running well into five figures. Facts like these stimulated a train of inquiry, which led me to some of the most authoritative sources of information in the Dominion. In that way I obtained the most comnlete confirmation of my own inference." I found myself at the same time in the presence of a polite but insistent reticence; but no secret was made of the passing of huge sums, by indirect and impalpable means, into Canadian investments. The money comes from tho large rather than the ■small investor."

The active participants, Mr. Powell added, include several of the crowned heads of Europe among their number, as well as a long list of leaders of finance. The profits have in practically all cases been large; in some cases surprising, in colossal, yet tho whole process is going on so unostentatiously that the majority of Canadians themselves are unaware of it. Dealing with the Canadian Pacific Railway, the popular C.P.R., Mr. Powell claims that it is the most powerful of all the factors at work in Canada's industrial development. The idea_ prevalent is that the G.P.R. is a railway company, whereas the construction and management of railways are only items in a programme which extends to hotels, steamboats (trans-Atlantic, trans-Pacific, coastwiss, lake and river), grain elevators, land sales and development, irrigation, timber, immigration, the building of rolling-stock, and fifty other elements, each of which is a big business in itself. Tho Canadian Pacific_ ismuch more than a railroad, it is much more than Canadian. "A traveller may leave the Mersey and go all the way.to Japan without being for a moment out of the hands of the C.P.R. His steamers, berths, food, trains, and hotels are all C.P.R, The steamers, whether ocean or lake boats, rank among the best." New Zealand might well profit by some of the experiences of the sister Dominion. The splendid spirit of enterprise which permeates the whole country, and which is continually opening up opportunities for the investment of capital and attracting population from all parts of the world, has as its sequel a record of progress and development that is phenomenal. In no country in the world is the value of capital better appreciated as a primary essential to tho development of latent natural resources, and no country in the world to-day lias such a record of progress to point to as the result of its encouragement of private enterprise.