factured goods to a value of $71,781,656 were imported last year. That it is not excessive is shown by the fact that the cost of manufactured goods has not increased materially to the consumer. The recent investigations of the Department of Labour proved that while the cost of farm produce had increased in 20 years by approximately 50 per cent., the cost of manufactured goods had increased in the same time by a mere 4 per cent. Those who will compare the stove of 20 years ago with the stove of to-day, or the sewing machines of the two periods, will wonder, not at the increase in cost, but at the marvellous advance in usefulness and efficiency. We are no longer a purely agricultural people. Our problems are those of the city as much as of the country. At a reasonable computation two millions are dependent upon manufacturing for their livelihood. Villages which were little more than a corner store and post office have become active centres of life, making possible the establishment of adequate educational institutions and the spread of the luxuries and the advantages which urban settlements alone develop. The latent wealth of the country has been brought forth to feed factories with raw material. Opportunities have been thrown open to those whose talents lie in skill of hands and sureness of judgment.

The growth of the textile, steel and cement industries, electrical machinery and motors, buttons, knitted goods and shoes, were all indicative of this development in 1911. On the other hand the value of United States manufactures during 1910 was over $20,000,000,000 or 22 times the value of its agricultural products, and most of these industries were competitive so far as Canadian efforts, present or future, were concerned-provided the tariff were removed. This not being the case the past few years had seen $226,000,000 of American money invested in branch Canadian factories. The exports of manufactured products during 1911 showed continued progress. Between 1876 and that year the increase was 600 per cent.; between 1896 and 1906 the exact increase was from $9,365,384 to $24,561,112; in 1911-year ending Mch. 31-the exports totalled $35,283,118 with re-exports of foreign manufactured goods totalling $5,149,408 additional. There had been a manufacturing Census in 1905 and the following list of industries producing $1,000,000 and over per establishment will show large increases when the 1911 Census details are published:

In Western Canada there was continuous expansion in this connection between 1905-when there were only 554 industries

employing 13,822 persons and commanding an investment of $37,000,000 and 1911. There was ample room for such growth and a writer in the Toronto Globe on Jan. 1, 1912, put the situation as follows: "In many lines manufactured goods from the United States are filling the Western market. For instance, it is known that school desks at the rate of 100,000 per year enter the Canadian West from Michigan. Hardware and implements of different kinds find their way to the Western consumer mainly from the United States. Other articles are supplied in large quantities from the same source. "In Milling much progress was made and at the close of 1911 the Ogilvies and the Saskatchewan Flour Mills Co. in the West and 4 Milling Companies in the East were preparing to build additional plants. In 1910 there had been a trebling of Canada's export of flour over that of 1907 and the process continued in 1911 while in the same period United States exports of flour decreased by 4,000,000 barrels. Illustrative of this prosperity was the Lake of the Woods Milling Co. which had profits in 1911 of $412,153 and a total in the eight years, 1904-11, of $3,874,643 with a capital stock and bonds totalling $4,600,000 and a surplus account of $857,457; the statement of the Ogilvie Flour Mills Co., Ltd., showing net profits of $481,309 and a total in five years of $2,881,446, real estate, water powers, mill plants, etc., in hand valued at $4,283,489, and a capital stock of $4,500,000. At Port Colborne, on Nov. 18, the splendid new mills of the Maple Leaf Milling Co. were opened with a capacity of 9,000 barrels per day and at a cost of $1,000,000. Toward the close of the year general milling conditions were not as favourable as they had been.

The demand for Canadian iron and steel in 1911 was very heavy, and the expansion of plants general throughout Canada. An estimated $25,000,000 of additional capital had been put into the industry in the past few years and the total was about $100,000,000. The progress of production was marked although the bounties of $1,138,748 (year ending Mch. 31) had ceased on Dec. 31, 1910, with the exception of that on rolled round wirerods which was extended one year. Meanwhile the competition of the great United States Steel Trust continued keen and only about one-half of the home demand was supplied by Canadian industry. As to the individual Companies the Dominion Steel Corporation-the holding concern for the Dominion Coal and Dominion Iron and Steel Companies-with its capital stock of $34,598,600 held its annual meeting on May 19, 1911. Mr. J. H. Plummer, President of the Corporation and of the two subsidiary Companies, in his address pointed out that although no dividends had been paid for the year ending Mch. 31 yet the Coal and Steel Companies had made net gains which had been added to the value of the properties by additions to plant and working capital. He declared that the cessation of the bounty on wire rods would com

pel the closing of their rod mill and dealt with the Bounty question as follows:

Much has been said of the large amount we have drawn in bounties on pig iron and steel ingots, and it is large, having averaged for the ten years of our existence between $500,000 and $600,000 each year. We need not, however, waste time in defending the bounties. We all know that for many years the bounties had been offered vainly to induce the starting of such enterprises as ours. Then, when a scale was finally adopted which had the desired effect of inducing people to provide the necessary capital one would suppose that the larger amount paid out in bounties the better, since that meant success for the policy adopted by Parliament. If we got so large an amount, it was because we ventured a large amount of capital and went into the business in a large way. I have never been able to see any difference in principle between the bounties which have been granted to build up the manufacture of steel and iron in Canada and the high tariffs which were established and used successfully for the same purpose in England and in the United States. In Canada, at any rate, the bounties were voluntarily offered as a quid pro quo, and were so accepted by people who put (and still have) a lot of money at stake in these enterprises. The Finance Minister has shown that they were repaid by increased public revenues and it is not without bearing on this point that the Dominion Steel Company since it began operations has paid out about $20,000,000 in wages. The theorists may say that the wages had better have been paid for work in other lines that needed no bounty. I say that the bulk of these wages would never have been earned in Canada, at all, except through the bounties and, moreover, that the country owes to them a sound industry, which, in our own single case will, in 18 months from now, be the direct cause of an expenditure in wages of $6,000,000 to $8,000,000 a year.

The production of the Dominion Coal Co. for the 15 months ending Mch. 31, 1911, was 4,412,639 tons and the net earnings $2,118,686; the output of the Dominion Iron and Steel Co. for ten months ending Mch. 31 was 205,865 tons of pig-iron, 250,462 of steel ingots, 109,534 of rails, 68,602 of wire-rods and 28,040 of billets and blooms with net earnings of $2,201,185. It was announced, also, that the Cumberland Railway and Coal Co., owning large and valuable coal areas, had been acquired. On Nov. 20 an important meeting of the Steel Corporation was held at Montreal and Mr. Plummer announced that the chief subject considered was "the recommendation of the President that the Steel Company should not continue to provide for the expenditure on its new plant by the sale of the bonds which were authorized in 1909, and of which about $6,000,000 is still held in the treasury, but that capital should be obtained by the issue of preferred stock of the Corporation. The Coal Company has also entered on important extensions which will increase its fourteen producing collieries to twenty, and require greater facilities for transportation, etc. The capital required by that Company can also be best obtained through the Corporation. The advantages of this mode of financing is that it avoids the increase of fixed charges and leaves the Steel Company with a large reserve of un-issued bonds of established market value." It may be added

here that the Boards of all three Companies-holding and subsidiary-had Mr. Plummer, Sir W. C. Van Horne, J. R. Wilson, William McMaster, Hon. G. A. Cox and Hon. R. Dandurand as members. Other Directors of the Corporation were Sir H. M. Allan, G. Caverhill, Hon. R. McKay, Hon. David McKeen, Sir William Mackenzie, Colonel James Mason, F. Nicholls and W. G. Ross.

The Nova Scotia Steel & Coal Co. had the largest business in 1911 of any year in its history, except 1910, with an output of coal totalling 780,468 tons and of iron ore 521,011 tons. The output of coke was 97,580 tons, pig-iron, made, 84,497 tons, steel ingots 83,718 tons and steel billets 78,004 tons with limestone and dolomite quarried 72,236 tons, and shipments of finished steel forgings totalling 69,800 tons. Of its coal shipments 300,000 tons went to Montreal and St. Lawrence River points. Despite the depression in the iron and steel trade the profits of the year were $1,019,392 and for the six years 1906-11 they totalled $5,707,619. R. E. Harris, K.C., was re-elected President (Mch. 27) and Hon. J. D. McGregor Vice-President with Thomas Cantley as 2nd Vice-President and General-Manager. Speaking at the close of the year Mr. Cantley dealt with the fiscal situation as follows: "Owing to the depression in the European markets and the utter demoralization in the American trade, during the latter months particularly, Canadian iron and steel makers were forced to meet dumping conditions and slaughter of prices abroad as the only alternative to large curtailment of output and operations. The situation now is that instead of a combined protection of bounty and duty of, say 30 per cent., the trade is struggling along with protection ranging between only 8 to 15 per cent. In short the protection given to-day by the tariff to the great bulk of the iron and steel trade of Canada is, roughly, but one-third of that deemed necessary when the tariff was last revised in 1897."

The Steel Company of Canada, with headquarters at Hamilton and forming a combination of steel, rolling mills, screw and wire, bolt and nut industries, had a prosperous year. Its stocks were listed on the London Exchange while, at the close of the year, A. E. Ames & Co. of Toronto, the well-known brokers, issued a statement from which the following is a quotation and dealing with the Company's stock as an investment ($18,000,000 capital and $7,500,000 in bonds): "It is understood that all the plants are busily employed and working to their full capacities; that the volume of business this year will show an important increase over that of last year; that there are no labour difficulties and none immediately anticipated; that to take care of the increasing business offering and in prospect it is contemplated to make important additions to the Hamilton plant, involving an

expenditure of $2,000,000 for rod blooming and billet mills and two 60-ton continuous open-hearth furnaces; that all the plants are modern, well equipped and situated at strategical points for incoming and outgoing water and rail freight."

Of the Lake Superior Corporation, at Sault Ste. Marie, much might be said. Its capital liabilities on June 30, 1911, were $51,300,000; its output of pig-iron was 170,359 tons and of steel rails 201,615; the total income of its subsidiary companies the Algoma Steel, the Algoma Central and Hudson's Bay Railway, the Lake Superior Paper Co., Algoma Eastern Railway, etc.was $1,200,216 with a total income for the corporation of $618,570. During 1911 a three-year loan of $2,500,000 was obtained to develop the Magpie iron-mine in which 20,000,000 tons of high grade ore had been proved and the Lake Superior Paper Co., Ltd., was re-organized from a preceding concern-with contracts for power from another subsidiary company and for pulpwood from the 2,170,000 land grant of the Algoma Central Railway. In the two years, 1910-11, over $11,000,000 were spent on improvements and new construction, the Algoma Central was pushed to its connection with the C.P.R. and the Algoma Eastern to Little Current from Sudbury. As to fiscal matters T. J. Drummond, President of the Corporation, told the Toronto Globe (Jan. 1, 1912) that:

The fiscal tariff of 1897, so far as the iron and steel industry is concerned, was a combination of bounties and duties, and was based on the then conditions of industry in Canada from a producing point of view. Unfortunately, a few years later, the tariff became personal in its effect, and one by one certain most favoured users of iron and steel were declared immune, not subject to the general tariff as were their neighbours, and this line of action fairly riddled the so-called general tariff. The makers of the most important lines of agricultural implements were declared exempt through a rebate of 99 per cent. on the iron and steel used in the manufacture of implements for the home market, and similar extensions were granted to the manufacturers of springs, axles, bedsteads, windmills, etc., and these people, being virtually bonused so to do, imported their requirements in pig-iron and steel. Then, too, the bounty which formed part of the protection given in 1897 was subsequently placed on a reducing scale, and finally disappeared. It was generally recognized that the disappearing bounty would mean a re-adjusting of the duty, where necessary, but this re-adjustment, so far, has not been made.

In all manner of miscellaneous industries there was progress in 1911. Motor cars and automobiles were everywhere and the Canadian makers prospered accordingly-despite the increase in importation from 1,424 motors in 1909-10 to 3,488 in 1910-11 and the fact that the United States, from which most of them came, was estimated to have built 140,000 in the latter year valued at $175,000,000. The net earnings of the Shawinigan Water and Power Co. in 1911 were $1,060,000 and the net