THE HEAL CANADA OF 1907

Otago Witness, Issue 2804, 11 December 1907, Page 88

THE HEAL CANADA OF 1907

ITS ACTUAL PRESENT AND PROBABLE FUTURE. By Hugh H. Ltjsk. No. V.— MANITOBA. T,he Province of Manitoba is in a good many respects the most interesting to the observer of any part of the Canadian Dominion. It was the first part of the Canadian Middle West to attract population, and to the notable success which has in many ways marked its development, the great movement of population westward in the last six- years is undoubtedly owing. It is to be noted that in several ways the inferences so freely drawn from this suocess, in favour' of a great future for the more westerly provinces on tbe eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, are exaggerated and unfair. Manitoba — originally known as " the Red River Settlement*' — is much smaller in .area than either Saskatchewan or Alberta, measuring as nearly as 65,000 square miles, or somewhere between 41 end 42 million acres of land and water. The expression "land and water" is used here because Manitoba is the great lake country of Canada — a fact which not only reduces its land area by a good many millions of acres, but has an, influence on its climate which must be considerable, though as' yet it does not appear to have been taken into consideration by those who have freely used the experiences of Manitoba as necessarily applicable to the more western provinces. The province lies between the 49th and 53rd parallels of latitude — stretching, that is to say, to a point about 260 miles north of tbe boundary line of North Dakota. Deducting from its available surface the area of its lakes, as well as some districts of broken land unfit for tillage, it may safely be said that the province contains from 25 to 26 million acres of good agricultural land. To-day between four and five million acres of this land may be ssid to be under cultivation. The population of Manitoba may be fairly estimated this year at about 380,000 persons^ There is one city — that of Winnipeg, the centre of the wheat trade and capital of the province — and a number of small towns on the lines of railway, which, in the southern part of the province at anyrate, are numerous. Winnipeg, which is a large and finely laid-out city of about 112,000 inhabitants, is the natural centre not only of all the railway 'lines of the province, which radiate fanlike in all west and north-west directions from it, but of the agricultural settlement of the country districts. The towns — genera 1 ly containing from 2000 up to 5000 inhabitants, are little more than receiving depots for the grain and produce on the ,way to Winnipeg, and probably do not contain on the whole a population much more than half as numerous as the capital, which 16 beyond doubt at present the most progressive city in the Dominion. The agricultural population of Manitoba may be estimated this year at a little Boore than 2OUOOO persons, and there can be little doubt that^it represents at preisnt the high-water mark of Canadian prosperity as far, at anyrate, as settlement on the land is concerned. What has been done in Manitoba has all f>een done in very little more than 30 yearß, and the record is a remarkable one. !Chirty years ago nobody outside its own 3knits believed in a possible future for Manitoba- as a country for extensive or profitable settlement. It was a sort of ■•'never-never land" to the people, of 'Eastern Canada, where cattle might feed, perhaps, and the remnants of Indian tribes might be allowed to roam unmolested in a land which nobody cared to *&ke from them.- The firet approach of railway enterprise to the border of the province woke it to a new energy, and fekve it quite a new importance in the eyes 5f its eastern neighbours. People began to come in, and the hope of finding a xnarket to which access might- be obtained induced new experiments to be undertaken — the new era of grain pioductfon began. It would be difficult to speak too highly of the enterprise shown by the gjydy jiicaeera of the grain industry of HpeaterE • <3ttnada. It is • not merely betglßO they undertook hard work and 4s4&red many privations — that /has been 404 lot of the pioneers of most new coungdes, and even those of New Zealand were jtot without their share,-^-it was chiefly fcscause they had so great a faith in tbe ■and of- their adoption, that they defied all sublic opinion, and ventured their all on 3bs chance that the new country would, arove better than almost anybody ventured to expect. Their faith was justified. The new country did what even they liad hardly ventured to hope for as * producer of grain, and in the end as a producer of other things also that in the

long run may prove nearly, if not quite, as valuable to the couatry. The beginnings of wheat-growing on anything like a considerable scale were made in Manitoba about the year 1878, and from that time the industry ■has steadily increased. Within five years the, wheat belt had extended so that itcovered an area of fully 300,000 acres, and this in five years more had increased to upwards of 600,000 acres. In the first instance farming in Manitoba was understood to mean little more than wheatgrowing. Indeed, the question on which the settlement of the country and the sale of its lands turned was, Will they grow wheat? If the soil' and climate would admit of this, it was felt that the question was answered. Wheat could be easily cultivated on the plains, and it was felt that, more than most agricultural produce, it was likely always to be comparatively easily transported to a market, and always to command a price when it got there. The answer obtained by the pioneer wheat-growers was conclusive : the ground would grow excellent wheat, and, except in rare cases, the climate — at least, in the southern part of the province — would ripen and allow of its being well harvested. The crops, too, were generally good, though by no means enormous. The average for the first 10 years for which anything like official statistics are available was about 1&£ bushels per acre, and for the last 14 years it has been as nearly as possible 18 bushels. In the meantime the area under this crop has increased year by year, till the 300,000 acres of wheat crop in 1885 had increased in 1905 nearly ninefold, and had reached in that year a total of 2,644,000 acres. The success of Manitoba in growing wheat led first to experiments in the growth of otEer grains, and it has since led to wider experiments with root crop 6, pasturage, and cattle-raising, both for beef and dairy purposes. The success which has usually attended these experiments, when made in suitable localities and with due precautions, has been very considerable, and has led to the rapid development of these industries'' in the southern districts of the province. It has also led, however, to some other thing 6, which may prove much less satisfactory. The railway and other great land speculators have used the experience of fche Manitoba farmers as if it applied to the whole of Weetern Canada. They have not only done this, but have represented the results obtained on experimental farms and others of the same class ac the general results to be looked for in all parts of both Alberta and Saskatchewan, to which they are in no sense, and hardly in any degree, applicable. Once more the real question becomes one of climate rather than of land. Of land— and land of excellent quality, too — there is an abundance in every part of the Canadian West ; the real question is, What proportion of it can be made available for the prosperous settlement of such a people as can be looked upon as desirable to form pait of ' the Empire? There are, it is said, already j 40,000 farmers in the Province of Manitoba, maiuly dependent on the wheat crop of the country. Nearly all those farmers are settled in tli£ southernmost part of the province — that is, in & belt of country between the 49th and 51st parallels of latitude, or within 130 miles of , the international boundai'y. At present they consider that they can make a surplus ov«r expenses in growing grain of about five dollars, or one pound sterling, per acre in a good average year; and perhaps nearly as much by great personal exertions per acre by using their land for raising and feeding dairy and other cattle. Thus a farmer who can cultivate 200 acros may hope in good years to make £200. over and above expenses, out of which he has to allow the interest on the capital invested, which in such a- case would certainly not be represented by less than half tlie profits. Thousands of home 6 have been made, and are bein^ made to-day, in Southern Manitoba on terms that are certainly not better than these, and the holders are not dissatisfied. P«'hapo they are right ; but it may be asked whether in New Zealand or Australia, the prospect would be looked on as good. - As I have pointed out, the settlement of the last 20 years in Manitoba hae in this sense been a success. Settlement there has occupied — though it has not as yet cultivated — the land to tbe extent of perhaps neaily one-third of the available area of good soil, and that almost entirely in the southern and most piomismg dißtricte. Compared with the more northern districts or the province- — and these extend north little more than „ half as far as the co-called central di^ ! tricts of Alberta and Saskatchewan,— »the ' clissate is moderate, in the sense in which the term is understood in Canada, though intensely cold as the expression would signify in New Zealand or Australia. 1 &*.'*&*« who come there from NojUiein

Europe, or even from the colder part 6of the British Islands, soon grow accustomed to its severity, and feel that they have done well in coming to a land where they can have a home that is their own, and can hope, by hard and constant work, to earn a sufficient living for themselves and families. And in this respect there can be no doubt whatever that in the meantime the Manitoba farmer has in many ways the advantage over his more Weetern neighbours. For the most part, their southern districts are far less suited for farming settlement than his, owing either to the land or the rainfall. So far as evidence- goes at present, the northern half of what they call their central districts can never, at the very best, be more than a plaoe in which all the advantages are greatly reduced, and all the drawbacks that go with settlement on the land of Manitoba greatly heightened. In the matter of access to markets, it is also true that the Manitoba farmers have a great advanage over those who are farther west. The grain industry, which is admittedly the one specialty of the western plain country, is one which can never look for a home market. If it is to be conducted on the grand scale which is vaunted as its great feature, it must always go far afield for its market. Already Southern Manitoba is seamed and scored by lines of railway, the main traffic on which is the transportation of grain ; and the rates for grain haulage are light. T,he entrance to the world's markets for grain, however, is through the gateway of the great lakes, and every mile to the west from Winnipeg represents a mile more of transportation. Thus the 50 cents a bushel for wheat, which leaves, as we have seen, some profit to the farmer of the near west — though by no means, as we have also 6een, too much, — must be reduced by every mile to the westward in the situation of the place of production; and from this., now and hereafter, it would 6eem there could be no escape. A hundred million bushels of grain were grown last year in Manitoba, And about half as much in the Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan united. The transportation of 75;000 tons of grain must, it can readily be imagined, materially assist in securing dividends on the railway stock ; probably, just in proportion, it will materially reduce the small margin of profit that will fall to the Western producer^.