PACIFIC OUTLET

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 42, 18 August 1930, Page 9

PACIFIC OUTLET

PORT OF VANCOUVER

GROWTH IN IMPORTANCE

(From "The Post's", Representative.) VANCOUVER,^ 23rd July.

Fifty different steamship lines now i operate from Vancouver, to carry Canadian products to every continent. Scheduled sailings are maintained to the important Atlantic ports of North America, and there are direct shipping connections with Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. In tracing tho growth of the port, the Royal Bank of Canada declares that the day has come when Vancouver must be numbered among the great ports of the world. It is pointed out that in a period when other great ports have" had difficulty in maintaining their pre-war volume of trade, traffic through the port of Vancouver has experienced steady growth. In 1913 there were 132 ocean-going vessels which visited this port, and the number calling there last year was 1500. In the past year the total trade of the port had a value of £60,000,000, an aggregate so large, says the bank, that Vancouver, rather than San Francisco, is now considered -v-- leading Pacific port of North America.

"Situated on the terminals of two' transcontinental railroads and facing China and Japan at a distance of some 4000 miles," says the bank, "Vancouver constitutes the Dominion's largest trading centre with the Orient. The growth of trade between the two borders of the Pacific will become an increasing factor in Vancouver's prosperity. , TRADE WITH THE OEIENT. "Canada's tra/ with the Orient for 1&29 is 50 per cent, greater than the annual average, for 1924-28. Aside from the fact that Vanconver is the natural gateway to the Orient, there have been other forces which, have contributed to her increasing commercial importance. To the recent expansion of the port the westward trend of wheat production has made a substantial contribution. While in 1907 the centre of wheat-growing, lay in Manitoba, in 1912 it had moved into Saskatchewan, aJttd by 1929 it had again moved westward, so that Alberta and Saskatchewan together produced 90 per cent, of tlie prairie 'a wheat. The growth in the •shipments of wheat from the West Coast has necessitated the construction of new terminal' facilities. "Tho publicity given to the port by the grain shipments has had the effect of bringing to tho notice of prairie shippers of other commodities the advantages to be obtained by using the western route, and commitments are being made for Europe and even for North American Atlantic ports from points as far east as Begina. This is particularly true during the winter months, since foreign importers find it more expeditions to have their goods sent by the Pacific and the Panama Canal than to await the opening of the i Eastern ports. Some idea of tho importance of tho Panama Canal in Vaneouver'a trade may be gathered from i the fact that out of a total of 05,000,I 000 bushels of wheat shipped through the port in 1929 61,000,000 weufc to Europe. "The expansion of mining and industry in the area surrounding Vancouver has been substantial. There has been a large influx of capital from Eastern Canada, the United Stales, and Europe. Pulp and paper production is being developed} forest products generally are boing utilised; mines of the coast recesses and the intorior valleys are being opened Up, while the largo water-power resources are being tapped and harnessed for a protracted programme of expansion."