INDUSTRIAL CANADA.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2189, 13 May 1908, Page 1

INDUSTRIAL CANADA.

GROWTH OF MANUFACTURE. EXTENSION OF TJtADE. Comparatively little attention, says Dr. Arthur iShadwclj, writing in stlio London Times, lias'hitherto been paid on the British side of the Atlantic to the development of manufacturing industries in Canada; but it_;is a subject of great interest from several points of view. It lias interest lor the capitalist, the workman, the statesman, and the student of economics. - A mighty process in going on in the Dominion,. which Is rapidly becoming a manufacturing country of the first class, with unlimited possibilities of development. The number of persons returned by the census of 1901 as employed in manufactures was 341,035, which is just onctweltli of' tho whole population over 10 years of ago. The census does not contain data which would enable one to make, a statistical comparison of this group. 1 with others, but it evidently represents a numerically important section of the population. Ih the United States, with .its enormous manufacturing activity, tho proportion is only between, oneeighth and ono-ninth; in other words, the industrial interest in relation to population is not half as .great again as in- Canada. In England itself, which lives mainly by manufactures, it is not much more than double, so far as an estimate can be made. These facts prove that Canada is already no infant among manufacturing countries, but more than, half grown up. The amount of capital invested, in manufactures was, in 1901, about £90,000,000, and the value of products £96,000,000. And growth is going on at a very rapid rate. Between 1881 and 1901, itlie amount of canital increased from £33,000,000 to'£90,000,000; and the expansion took place mainly in the larger concerns, having a production value of over £IO,OOO per annum; the increase of capital in them was from £17,000,000 to £67,000,000. During the five years following in 1901 tho number of persons employed i.n manufactures has increased at the rate of nearly 10,000 a year, aiid the amount o : f wages paid upwards of £2.000,000 a year. Statistics sufficiently corroborate what has been said above, and prove, so far as figures can, that manufactures are no small exotic affair in the Dominion, but a great and rapidly-grow-ing interest. At present the process is going on very actively. The home market is expanding w.iitli the growth of .population, and the increasing 'wealth won from the soil furnishes the means for developing mechanical production. The tide of westward, settlement, which has been, and' is, flowing so strongly, sends back a reflex wave to the industrial centres, to be presently described in the eastern provinces. The one is the complement of the .other, and tho pace seems much more likely to hi accelerated than diminished in the near At the present moment'the general financial stress is, perhaps, affecting Canada rather acutely; but that is a temporary condition which does not obscure the wider prospect.