RICHES OF CANADA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19721, 22 August 1927, Page 7

RICHES OF CANADA.

DEVELOPMENTS SINCE 1914.

PROGRESS OF GREAT WEST. 1 SOME REMARKABLE FIGURES. [from our own* correspondent.] VANCOUVER, July 27. One or two outstanding facts illustrate the remarkable development that has taken place in Canada since 1914. In that year, Dominion Government loans were entirely held outside Canada; to-day. £400,000,000 are held by Canadian in vestors. Savings bank deposits have i'own by £125,000,000, and like enormous sums have been deposited in other financial institutions or invested in life insurance. Besides these savings of capital, the 9,000,000 people of Canada have been able, within twelve years, to spend a sum of not less than £125,000,000 on motorcars alone, apart from the cost of upkeep. According to the annual report of the Hudson's Bay Company, this expenditure has its adverse effect in relation to sales by shops in the principal cities of Western Canada. Many people make up for their expenditure on motorcars by economies in clothing, furniture, etc., but still it is a sign of well-beiDg which cannot be neglected. Seeking the origin of the great riches of Canada, one finds it in lumber, fish and minerals, mainly, with a fourth important basis of prosperity in tourists, with manufactured articles a healthy fifth in oi-der of value. But, when we have considered all these, the first place must still be given to the rich soil of the three Prairie Provinces—the great West, which, year by year, produces crops of grain and other foodstuffs, drawing a yearly tribute from the world of wealth beyond compare. The Prairie Provinces and British Columbia together contain nearly 30 per cent, of the population of British North America, as compared with 3 per cent, fifty years ago. Twenty-five years ago, the Western population was 650,000; now it is equal to half the population of Australia. Fifty years ago, Vancouver was virgin bush; now, with its immediate environs, it has a population of 300,000, and is becoming one of the world's great seaports. Sixty years ago, Winnipeg had a population of 200; now it has 200,000. Less than forty years ago, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton and Saskatoon were tiny villages ; to-day, they are prosperous cities, centres of trade laid out on a pretentious scale, and looking forward to a great future, when each in its sphere will share in the industrial production that has hitherto been the monopoly of Ontario and Quebec.