The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

16 "MONTREAL HARBOR FACILI- TIES AND THE ST. LAW- RENCE ROUTE. The completion of the construction of a series of 14 two-story steel structural sheds at the Montreal har--- bor was signalized, recently, by the ceremonial driving of the last rivet by the Dominion minister of Marine. At a subsequent luncheon, in shed ii, Hon. L. P. Brodeur said: "We have spent upwards of $150,090,000 in improving the St. Lawrence route, or considerably more than we have given in the form of subsidies to all the existing railways in the Dominion, omitting those built by the govern-- ment. This immense sum, which com- prises the capital outlay on. canals, harbors and dredged channels, to- gether with the excess of cost of maintenance over revenue from the beginning, has been laid out by two or more generations of Canadians, for the purpose of Keeping Canadian trafic as far as possible in Canadian hands, and of enabling us to partici- pate in the conveyance, by this great natural waterway, of the products of. the American west to the Atlantic, in compétition with the railways and the more or less artificial waterways of the United States. It has long been apparent, however, that in proportion to the quantity of export grain raised in the western and northwestern states then and now, the Canadian route is not carrying anything like ea ire. 4 share as it. should. Lhe truth is that, like the Erie Canal, it -has never been physically capable, in recent times at any rate, of meet- ing the requirements of the enormous traffic *created by the rapid develop- ment of the west. When the Welland canal, the key of the route, was pro- jected 90 years ago, the west, as then comprehended, did not extend beyond Lake Erie. The wheat belt of the United States was in northern New York and Ohio, while that of Canada was slowly advancing up the peninsula between Toronto and Windsor, but, in an incredibly short space, the whole 'face of things was altered by the Onward "march of civilization, and, though it was enlarged more than once, the Welland soon fell so far behind the procession of events that, as is mow the case with the Erie Canal, the transportation interests be- _ gan to prize it more on account of its usefulness as a regulator of rates in the navigation season than for its Setvices as a carrier. The last .en- largement was completed in 1887 and the canal is now 14 ft. deep, as are the canals between Prescott and Mon- treal. On the other hand, the natural TAE MarRINE KEVIEW channels in the upper lakes have been dredged to a depth of 20 ft. or more, and the Canadian and United States canals at Sault. Ste. .Marie, which connect lakes Superior and Hu- ron, are of like capacity. Hence it has come about that most of the steam .freighters on the upper lakes, the more recently built of which are capable of carrying nearly 15,000 tons in a single cargo, are excluded from the Welland, and consequently from Lake Ontario and Montreal, almost as effectually as though they be- longed to another planet. They con- vey Canadian and United States grain to Buffalo, from which point it is portaged, so to say, by rail to New York, Boston and other United States ports. No vessel carrying over 75,- C00 bush. can navigate the Welland canal without first lightering at Port Colborne, whereas the big vesseis on Lake Superior regularly take cargoes of 250,000 or 3C0,000 bush. to Buffalo. Moreover, w-thin the last decade or two the United States railways, by improving their roadbeds and rolling stock, have put themselves in a posi- tion to transport wheat at a low rate from Chicago to New York, whle our Canadian: railways have estab- lished a laké-and-rail route via Lake Huron and Georgian Bay forts to Montreal. The grain, both Canadian and United States, is.carried by ves- sels from Fort William, Duluth | or 'Chicago to Midland, Depot Harbor, Collingwood, Owen Sound or Goder- ich, and conveyed thence by rail to the ocean steamer at Montreal, or, when the St. Lawrence navigation closes, to the ocean steamer at St. John or Portland. "An enormous population has flocked to the region bordering the upper lakes, and industries have aris- en which trafic, stich. as the iron and copper deposits and the and lumber trades, to say nothing of the progress of grain-growing in the northwestern states. On the Canad- ian side of the upper lakes we are making very satisfactory progress in mining and other lines of industry; whilst the wheat belt of North Amer- ores coal ica is now centering in our prairie provinces. Beyond them lie the har- vest fields of Alberta, which have begun to export wheat and flour to the orient. The stream of popula- tion from Europe, which till lately emptied itself almost exclusively into the United States, is now turning to the Canadian which is likewise profiting by a wonderful inrush of United States labor and capital, at- tracted by our cheap lands as well west, 'tell supply an immense vessel. as by our good laws. There is ait- thority for saying that in the last 19 years, or since what is termed the American invasion of the Canadian west began, United States immigrants have brought into western Canada and spent in the purchase and exploi- tation of farms, timber limits, eleva- tors, mines, stores and what not, not less than $400,000,000, or far -more than our net federal debt and the net debts of all the individual provinces combined. "T am obliged to auxnowledge, how- ever, that, owing to the various causes just mentioned, the St. Lawrence route is not participating to the extent we once thought it would in the gigantic traffic moving every year between the west and the east. To be sure, whenever upper lake rates are abnormally low, it asserts its nat- ural supremacy. This season wheat has been carried from Fort William and Duluth, through the Welland to Montreal, for .from 334 to 4c. per bushel, with corresponding quotations for other . grains. These figures, which the lake-and-rail route by Buf- "falo to New York cannot approach, account for the recent large increase in the export grain trade of Mon- treal, which has created such conster- nation in New York. I need scarcely you that the government has given and will continue to give the closest study to a matter of such grave national moment. At _ present about 15,000,000 bushels of wheat from the Canadian northwest are shipped every year to Buffalo for ex- port to Europe by New York, Bos- ton, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Over and above this, some 5,000,009 bushels of Canadian wheat are carried to Port- land for export. A considerable quan- tity of Canadian flour is also shipped to Europe from United States sea- ports. "T do not suppose that, by the con- struction of the Georgian Bay canal and the reconstruction of the Welland, could entirely stop the exports of Canadian produce from the United States seaboard. The Canadian north- west wheat, which goes from. Fort Wirjam and Duluth to Buffalo, is carried there mostly by United States vessels at the tail end of the season, when Canadian vessels have all they can do on the Canadian routes. The Buffalo route, in short, is a second string to our bow, which on occasions is quite useful. But with these two new Canadian waterways we could certainly carry to Montreal in sum- mer and to St. John in winter a vast- ly greater quantity of Canadian-grown wheat, together with a vastly greater WC