During the year the United States Government published a Report by Edward A. Preble who had spent several years in northern Canada. In 1888, he stated, the wheat-growing capacity of the Peace River country was roughly estimated at 300,000,000 bushels. At the least there was in that region, he summarized, a new and greater Manitoba. Meantime the C.N.R., the G.T.P. and the Great Waterways were all trying to get into and through this country; immigrants were steadily working their way over the 700 miles between Edmonton and the wealth of this newer West; the press was daily giving more and more attention to its resources and realities; prospectors were beginning to study the country for the valuable minerals which were rumoured to exist; wherever in Northern Alberta crops were grown it was found they were little affected by the drouth of 1910-Fall wheat going as high in places as 50 bushels to the acre; the Peace River Trade and Navigation Co. of Montreal promised an expenditure of $300,000 in ranching and development work during this year; Mr. Oliver, Minister of the Interior, declared after his trip to the north (Edmonton, Aug. 8) that there was no limit to successful farming in these northern regions. "Potatoes and garden produce are grown successfully as far as Fort Good Hope, just south of the Arctic Circle, and oats and barley are cultivated as far north as Fort Simpson."

As to Mining this industry made further strides toward becoming one of the most important of Western developments. The estimated daily output of the coal mines of Alberta in 1910 was 13,000 tons. The daily tonnage* of these mines was about as follows: Coleman, 2,400; Frank, 600; Blairmore, 2,500; Hillcrest, 600; Passburg, 400; McGillivray, 500; Lethbridge (3 mines) 1,200; Diamond City, 200; Taber (4 mines) 1,300; Bankhead, 1,000; Canmore, 1,100; Morinville (several small mines), 700; small outfits, 500. The total mines working in the Province, large and small, were 150 in 1910. This industry was strengthened at this time by the organization of the Canadian Coal and Coke Co. through J. W. McConnell of Montreal and with the intention or idea of combining four large Western companies-The Pacific Pass Coal Co., the Lethbridge Collieries, Limited, the Western Coal and Coke Co. (on Crow's Nest Pass line of C.P.R.) and the St. Albert Collieries, Limited (near Edmonton). It was estimated that there lay beneath the soil of Alberta, the tremendous total of 84,900,000,000 tons of coal-lignite, bituminous, anthracite. The coal lay in different areas, which were tabulated as follows:

Dominion official statistics showed a total Mineral production in Alberta of $7,876,458 or an increase of $1,800,000 over 1909. The value of the coal produced in 1909 was placed at $4,838,109. Incidents of the year included the organization of a Winnipeg concern-the Athabasca Oil and Asphalt Co. with $5,000,000 authorized capital, and headed by E. F. Hutchings, with a view of developing properties near Fort McMurray at the end of the proposed Railway; the statement regarding Frank, Alta., that Coal mining companies had been organized there with a capitalization of $12,000,000 within the last nine years and that, during the same period, between $7,000,000 and $8,000,000 had been expended upon equipment with a total capitalization in the neighbourhood of $20,000,000; the alleged discovery of iron-ore between Edson135 miles west of Edmonton-and the Mountains and the ensuing Report from the Geological Survey at Ottawa that conditions "warrant the belief that good Oil-fields may be found in the Province."

Other matters were the claim that Brazeau coal was nearer anthracite than bituminous and the statement on Sept. 16 by T. W. Brown, D.L.S., that experts at Pittsburg had declared it equal to the best Pennsylvania coal; the alleged discovery of a rich bed of Mica near Edson; the discovery of various coal beds along the line of the G.T.P.; the statement of F. C. Campbell of Fort St. John that an out-cropping of coal was widespread in the Peace River region and the glowing report of Alex. Jackson of Edmonton (Nov. 26) that in this latter region there was "a salt bed as big as the Niagara valley, a lake of asphalt twice the size of Lake Simcoe, coal measures whose limit could not be defined, and a mineralized mountain in which are to be found gold, silver and copper." As to miscellaneous development there was, between 1905 and 1909 inclusive, an incorporation of 696 Companies with an aggregate capitalization of $72,022,900 and the registration of 241 concerns capitalized at $214,485,000; there was said to be 1,144,000 horse-power in the waters of Alberta but further knowledge of the great chain of lakes and rivers in the north will probably make that estimate seem small; Life Insurance Companies (chiefly Canadian) had in 1910 $5,631,417 invested in Alberta and the Loan Companies $8,070,315.

In the calendar year 1909 the general revenue of Alberta was $3,655,906 including $1,340,195 from the Dominion Government and $1,050,304 used on capital account. The receipts from Telephones were $2,470,319. Expenditures, including Capital account, were $3,700,745 of which $1,448,569 went to Public Works, $311,892 to Education, and $421,139 to Agriculture. The Telephone expenditure was $2,157,840. For the five months ending May 31, 1910, or up to the time when the Sifton Government assumed office, the Revenue received was $2,126,832 including $457,727 from the Dominion and a $1,460,000 Loan. The total

expenditure was $2,282,530 of which $455,791 went to Public Works, $156,863 to Education, and $113,658 to Agriculture. Mr. Premier Rutherford's brief Budget speech of Mch. 19th declared a surplus of $24,830 on the figures of 1909; the Public Accounts, as afterwards issued, showed a deficit on the succeeding five months' affairs of $130,866.

As to Education the youthful University of Alberta made considerable progress. Preliminary arrangements were made with the Alberta Law Society for the establishment of a Law coursesubject to approval at the 1911 meeting of the Society; on Sept. 28 the University began its third year with 150 pupils; a little later President H. M. Tory announced that the new Laboratory was in a condition to do assay work and that a Chair of Mineralogy would be shortly established. On Dec. 23 O. M. Biggar and Edwin C. Pardee of Edmonton, G. H. W. Ryan, M.D., of Vermilion, Michael Clark of Olds, Euston Sisley, M.D., and A. L. Cameron of Calgary, G. A. Kennedy, M.D., of Macleod, L. M. Johnstone of Lethbridge, and R. E. Starks of Medicine Hat, were appointed Governors of the University. As was to have been expected from the competitive rivalry of the two centres Calgary undertook to initiate a University for Southern Alberta during the year. Dr. T. H. Blow was one of the chief movers in the project which looked to the affiliation of the local Anglican and Presbyterian Colleges; W. J. Tregillus offered a quarter-section of land as a site and other places offered aid and asked for its location with them; the Calgary Board of Trade asked the City for a grant of $150,000, the Province for $150,000 and the Dominion Government for a grant of land; arrangements were made with the Western Canada College to undertake University work pending organization; in the Legislature on Nov. 29 R. B. Bennett, K.C., presented a Bill incorporating the University of Calgary which passed in due course though it was opposed by W. A. Buchanan and others, on the ground of one Provincial University being not only the ideal but sufficient for the Province.

Alberta College, the Methodist institution at Strathconaaffiliated with the University and costing $100,000-was under way during the year as a result of a gift of $50,000 from the Massey Estate in Toronto which made removal from Edmonton, and construction in the University grounds, possible; at Calgary a new Methodist College was also got under way with the Rev. G. W. Kerby as Acting-Principal, Hon. W. H. Cushing as Chairman of the Board of Governors, and with incorporation as the Mount Royal College of Calgary: the Presbyterians of the Province also obtained permission from the General Assembly to establish a Presbyterian College in affiliation with, and built on the grounds of, the University of Alberta. A large Board of Management was appointed consisting of many Ministers and such laymen as Hon. F. Oliver and Hon. C. W. Cross, J. A.

McDougall, M.L.A., of Edmonton, Mr. Justice Stuart and James Short, K.C., of Calgary, while S. W. Dyde, D.Sc., LL.D., Professor of Mental Philosophy at Queen's University, was appointed Principal. A Presbyterian Ladies College was also established at Red Deer with Rev. Neil D. Keith, M.A., B.D., of Prescott, Ont., as Principal. The Educational statistics of the year 1909 were as follows:

IX.-BRITISH COLUMBIA AND THE YUKON.

Resources and General Development in British Columbia

This Province had experienced a year of great progress in 1909 and it was continued during 1910. Immigration, at first slow, was now beginning to pour into the country while British capital commenced to show its influence. As Sir Edmund Walker put it in his yearly review of Banking and national conditions: "Farm lands continued to advance in price and so did fruit lands, but the Railway development in the northern part of the Province and in other districts will give the settler without capital his pathway to success. The growth of cities in British Columbia is so rapid that large quantities of food stuffs have at present to be imported from the United States, and it can be readily seen that agricultural settlement is necessary and should be profitable. Fruit growers had a profitable season both as to yield and price. Ranchers and graziers had a good winter and prices were high when their stock was marketed. salmon catch was 762,000 cases, against 629,460 cases in 1906, the year of natural comparison, the increase being in the catch on the northern rivers while fishing on the Fraser River was again unsatisfactory." Sir Edmund made a strong appeal for protection of the Halibut fisheries in which the Province owned a great source of wealth. "I regret that nothing of much practical value is being done to stop the extensive poaching by Americans. Capital in a large way awaits the development of the Pacific coast fishing. Markets exist in our own country, and halibut and herring fishing, if protected, will exceed the great salmon industry. Shall we preserve our rights?"

The

As to general conditions Mr. Premier McBride at the Canadian Manufacturers banquet in Vancouver on Sept. 22 said: "No Province of the Dominion possesses in itself such a wealth and diversity of natural resources as British Columbia-(1) our fisheries account for over 30 per cent. of the total catch of Canada; (2) our mines have produced since their inception $347,800,000 and 300,000 square miles of mineralized ground are not yet prospected; (3) our timber brings in over $12,000,000 a year and (4) our agricultural and fruit lands, hardly scratched, over $8,000,000. We have created a trade totalling close to $50,000,000 annually; established manufactures and industries yielding over $80,000,000 dollars a year-and, remember, we are still at the beginning of things." These figures for 1909 had been elaborated as follows in Mr. Bowser's Budget speech earlier in the year and may be supplemented by the estimates afterwards compiled for 1910 as follows: