A classification by minerals for the same period of twenty years shows the quantity and value of exports from the province to be as follows:

EXPORTS FROM ONTARIO IN TWENTY YEARS BY

MINERALS.

Mineral pro

ducts of Canada

States.

As shown by the former table, the share of those exports to the United States in the twenty years was $14,329,330, while Great Britain's share was $3,340,317, and all other countries only $2,577.

Table 1 of mineral production of the Dominion appended to this Section of the report gives the value for 1886 at $10,529,361 and for 1887 at $15,000,000, but the seemingly large increase of $4,470,639 will appear as an actual increase of only $1,247,936 when the articles which are given in the return for 1887 but not in 1886 are taken into account, and the quantity and value of each struck out in making a comparative statement.*

COMPARISON WITH UNITED STATES PRODUCTS.

If we compare our own volume of mineral production with that of the and the United United States the result will be the discovery that the development of the mineral resources of Canada is in the main in a backward condition as compared with the mineral development of that country. The extent of this disparity will naturally precede enquiry into its causes, and will possibly sharpen the desire to discover a remedy for the existing condition of the Canadian mineral industry.

Elements of a

In making the comparison of production between the two countries it will fair comparison. be necessary to strike certain items from the summary of production of Canada for 1887, as given in Table 1, in order to make the list of articles classed as metallic and mineral products correspond with the United States classification. In that country pig iron is classed as a mineral product; iron ore is not embraced in the classification, as in that case the value of the pig iron would include the duplication of the value of the ore used in its production. For the same reason iron and steel are not included in the classification, as these articles are the manufactured product of pig iron. To give their value would be to duplicate the value of the pig iron used in their production, and adding thereto the cost of converting a raw material into a manufactured article and the profit of conversion. Coke is an article manufactured from coal, and is not classed as a mineral product in the United States. Neither are brick and tile classed as mineral productions. If we strike from our list of minerals for 1887 the following articles and values, our summary of production for that year will very closely correspond in classification and character to the summary of mineral production in the United States for the same year, as given in the volume of Mineral Resources published by the Geological Survey.

ARTICLES ELIMINATED FROM THE CANADIAN TABLE.

*Statistics of production in Ontario for the year 1888, collected by the Commission, are given in Section II of this report, p. 72.

product.

This amount of $2,886,025 deducted from the total of $15,000,000, given in the Geological Survey report for 1887, leaves the actual production for that year as $12,113,975, based upon the American Canadian rule of classification. But it is a question whether this amount ought not to be further reduced by a round million at least, if not by the whole sum of $1,610,499 given in the table as the "estimated value of mineral products not returned." This estimate, or more properly perhaps, this guess, seems a loose and somewhat exaggerated calculation. No estimate of a like kind appears in the United States returns, the only thing in any way corresponding with it being "estimated value of mineral products unspecified, $6,000,000." It is permitted to stand as an actual item in Canadian mineral production for 1887, but in doing so it is proper to say that the comparison between the mineral production of the United States and Canada which follows is more unfavorable to the latter country, in all probability, than the actual facts would warrant.

product.

For the year 1887 the mineral production of the United States, according to the report of Mr. Day, chief of the Mining Statistics division of the Geological Survey, amounted to $542,284,225, or more than forty-fold greater than United States, the production of Canada. Estimating the population of Canada at onetwelfth that of the United States, the ratio of production per head was as $2.40 for Canada to $9 for the United States. With the enormous mineral resources possessed by the Dominion it cannot be considered a satisfactory condition of our mining development when the nation to the south of us shows mineral output nearly four times greater per capita than our own. An examination of the details of production may be of service for the purpose of comparison as far as relates to minerals of which we have an abundant supply, and it is here given.

COMPARATIVE PRODUCTION OF CANADA AND THE

Iron ore

¡Pig iron

Copper

Lead

Mineral or Product.

UNITED STATES.

Coal, bituminous and anthracite. . long tons.

Coke..

Phosphate

! Building stone.

Gold

Silver

Brick and tile

Lime..

Cement.

*The short ton of 2,000 lb., used in the table of Canadian production in Table 1 appended to this Section, has here been converted into the long ton of 2,240 lb.

"Bxports of minerals from Ontario.

The following table, giving a summary of the value of minerals exported by Ontario for the calendar years 1874 to 1886 and by the Dominion for the years 1874 to 1887, shows that the mineral export trade of the province is of small proportions, and is relatively small even as compared with the exports of the Dominion. The largest items are gold and coal, amounting in 1886 to $2,627,024 and in 1887 to $2,616,112, neither of which figure in the exports from Ontario for those years except for a trifling amount.

Table II appended to this Section gives the mineral exports of the Dominion to the United States, Great Britain and all other countries by quantities and values for the seven fiscal years 1881 to 1887. From this table it will be seen that the United States is our principal customer for the products of our United mines, having in the period of seven years covered by the table taken

es our

principal eusomer for produets of the

$18,567,710, or almost 80 per cent. of the whole, while during the same period all the rest of the world took only $4,828,313. This result is the more remarkable when it is considered that during the entire period our export trade with the United States was burdened with impost duties upon the more important of our minerals, such as coal, copper ore, iron ore and building stone. The effect of these duties was to seriously curtail the movement of nearly all articles on the list of our mineral exports, and very nearly to prohibit transactions in many of them, in which but for the duties the business could not have failed to assume enormous proportions. It will be interesting to enquire, as will be done later on, what would be the probable effect produced by the removal of these duties. It will be interesting especially to enquire what the effect would be upon Ontario, whose vast deposits of copper ore in the Sudbury district and elsewhere are within easy distance of the furnaces of the United States, whose apparently limitless supply of iron ore in eastern Ontario can be transported to the furnaces of Cleveland and Pittsburg as cheaply as the ores of the lake Superior district, and whose

mountains of marble, granite and sandstone, situated directly upon the navigable waters of lake Huron and lake, Superior and within short distances by rail of lake Ontario, can be laid down in quantities equal to any possible demand,-in quality superior to any material of like character obtainable on American territory within the basin of the great lakes, and at prices which but for the duties might defy competition at such commercial centres as Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo, and that would secure enormous sales in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and other eastern cities. Doubtless conjectures as to the increase of Ontario's export trade in mineral products under the condition of removal of the American duties are to a certain degree speculative; but when the question is examined it will be apparent that the increase could not fail to be very large, and one more likely to exceed than to fall short of expectations based upon the best attainable data.

POSSIBILITY OF LARGER PRODUCTION UNDER PRESENT CONDITIONS.

industry.

Few if any of the mining industries of Ontario and Canada, with their allied manufacturing interests, have reached that extent of development which seems not only possible but easy of attainment. In other pursuits, The iron such as farming, fishing, lumbering and manufacturing in various lines, a large measure of success has been achieved, and therefore it cannot be alleged that failure to utilise the mineral resources of the country is due to a natural lack of energy or enterprise in our people. Progress has been hindered by a variety of causes, some of which will be indicated; but there is reason to believe that in some directions, and under existing conditions, skill and capital ought to give promising results.

CHARCOAL AND COKE IRON.

What has just been said appears to apply in a special sense to the iron industry. The Canadian market is a limited one, it is true, and development upon a large scale if confined to the supply of our own wants cannot be expected. With the present duties upon iron, however, and the additional protection afforded by the bonus upon Canadian pig iron, the production of iron and its manufactured products of wrought and malleable iron and steel ought to be largely increased. Our importation of pig iron for the fiscal year 1887 amounted to 50,000 tons; our production for the calendar year was 24,827 tons. We exported none, and our consumption was in round numbers 75,000 tons. Of this amount 10,000 tons was imported from the United States, consisting entirely of charcoal and other special grades of iron. Considerable space will be devoted later on to the question of the production of charcoal iron. There seems to be no reason why this article Charcoal iron, cannot be as cheaply produced in Ontario as in the United States, and the entire amount now imported for domestic consumption ought to be speedily added to the sum of our iron production. Further than this, charcoal iron, owing to its greater strength and superior qualities, could in all probability be supplied after furnaces were in operation at prices that would secure its use for many purposes where Scotch and English pig iron is now used Intelligent iron founders testify that they would use it to a large extent if it could be obtained at a price moderately in excess of the price of ordinary