CANADIAN NEWS NOTES.

West Coast Times, 18 June 1912, Page 1

CANADIAN NEWS NOTES.

TORONTO, May 9. TO UTILISE SAWDUST.

i Plans are in preparation for the con- | struction, of a plant ip Toronto to 1 utilise sawdust and other waste materials from tho Canadian lumber mills. The scheme has behind it Col. J. B. Miller, President of the Poison Iron Works Company, one of tho largest shipbuilding firms in Canada, and Professor Wallace P. Cohoe, who has been conducting successful experiments in his laboratory. Tho project is to convert the sawdust into glucose, and by the addition of yeast to produce alcohol. Sawdusts derived from soft woods are treated with acids, and the glucose thus produced may ho clarified to produce alcohol. Either a light yellow glucose or a pure white solid mass icsults, .according to different treatment. In view of the large output of lumber in the Dominion, and the demands for by-products of the waste, it is expected that there is a big future before this new industry. :UNUSUAL SIGHTS IN THE WEST. Thcf uimsual sights are seen nr the Western Provinces this spring of ploughing seeding, reaping, and threshing being all carried on at once. The o-rain held over by the farmers, for fack ot limans to get it to market last season, is proving of better quality than was feared! Thousands of bushels of it are still in the bands of the farmers, but the movement has bogun. BIG COALFIELDS FOUND.

What are believed to bo the ■ two largest coalfields in the world have boon discovered on Canadian soil by some of the .exploration party aboard Captain Bernier’s Arctic. The fields arc in Buffin’s Land, and arc one hundred miles apart, the coal being so easily obtainable that it can bo dug from the surface with a shovel. In spite of thenaltitude it is believed that they will bo workable all the year around. Captain Janes, one of the party, spent eight months in prospecting alone, and on bis return to Montreal has stated that he found ,twenty-five feet below the surface, an immense forest in a perfect state of preservation,; the trees, pointing duo East and west are laid as flat as a wheatfield blown down by a cyclone; the timber, he declares, is in perfect condition, even the cones from the treotops being as fresh as the day ' they fell. At the present time no trees grow for thousands of miles around the buried forest. A NEW PRAIRIE INDUSTRY. The Canada Flax Fibre Co., Ltd., of Toronto has been incorporated, with 3.000,000 dollars capital, to manufac- . ture cloth and paper from flax fibre on an extensive scale in the prairie provinces. Flax is grown in that part of Canada in immense quantities, and at present thousands of tons of the straware thrown away each year. Paper manufacturers except that of the cultivation of flax in tho West for the sak'- of merely its fibre, is likely to become very profitable. Much Pf 'the flax straw now burned in Canada and the United States is superior in quality and length to that which tiro Russian peasant utilises to make the linen fabrics for which that country is noted. A new process of separating the wood from the fibre has been found,' and the outlook for the new industry is very promising, foreshadowing also the erection of numerous paper and linen mills throughout the prairie • provinces in the near future, sufficiently to supply at least the home demand for high grade papers and much of the linen cloth required in Canada. REFORESTING SCHEMES. In accordance with the legislation passed by the Ontario Government a year ago empowering municipalities to. engage in afforesation or reafforestation, the County of Hastings has taken steps to acquire waste land for that purpose, and during the coming summer the Commission of Conservation of the Dominion will supervise the purvey of the County of Haliburton and tho northern portion of the County of Peterborough, in Ontario. The economc ,-and natural conditions of the country and tho resources of the watershed from which the Trent Canal waters are fed, will be investigated, to serve as a basis for future action.

WANTS FLEET UNIT QN PACIFIC. Premier Mcßride, of British Columbia. during his present visit to England will, it is understood, press upon the British Government the desirability of urging the Canadian Government to adopt the plan of a Canadian owned fleet unit on the Pacific Coast. He also wants shipyards established there, and a number of the vessels built in British Columbia. The fleet unit might consist of a Dreadnought, with the proper compliment of cruisers and destroyers, a squadron which would be able in time of need to co-operate with the Australian unit, to be completed next year, and with the British unit stationed on the Chinese Coast .

PREFERENCE FOR AUSTRALIA. Satisfactory progress is being made fiy the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Hon. George E. Foster) in negotiations for closer trade relations with Australia. It is believed that a policy is being adopted which, will result in a treaty of reciprocity, with probably a preferential tariff of 33,1 per cent., the same as Canada at present extends to New Zealand. Mr Foster will likely go to Australia to complete the agreement, as he would like to be able to present that treaty to Parliament along with the West Indies agreement. Canada’s exports to Australia last year amounted to almost four mi11i0n5—3,92.5,592' dollars—chiefly of lumber ,carriages and autos, farm implements and paper, the farm implements alone totalling in value 1,645,305 dollars. Tho imports into this country from Australia last year were a little more than half a million, including meats and dairy products for Bntish Columbia to a totil ol 247,370

TRYING COMMISSION GOVERNMENT. The first trial of the Commission form of municipal Government in Canada is being undertaken in St. John, New Brunswick. On April 23rd' the new body was elected, consisting of a Mayor and four Commissioners, each . at the head of one of the civic departments, the Mayor being over the Finance Department. Allotment of the others will be among the .Commissioners themselves. Two of the Commissioners will servo four years, tho others two years; in 1914 two more will he elected for four-years terms, and after that two will retire every two years. The mayor is elected for a two-year term.

DEATH OF A GREAT CANADIAN. Mr. Justice James P. Mabec, chairman of the Dominion Board of Railway Commissioners, died on Monday afternoon, 6th. hist., after an illness of just one week. He was seized with an attack of appendicitis the Monday evening previous, just after concluding a session of the Board in the City Hall Toronto, at which he presided with his accustomed vigour, and apparently in the best of health. Ho was taken to tho hospital, and a successful operation was performed, from which, after a ecu pic of days of crisis; be seemed to be recovering safely, but his heart failed a few hours after the physicans had given out a more encouraging bulletin than they liad boon able to do for days. Judge Mabco was a man of ■shrewd judgment, quick discernment, and sound common sense, with a fund of humour which often stood him in good stead both at the Bar, on the Bench, and in his position of chairman of the most powerful, probably, of tho non-judicial tribunals of the country. Ho bad many important cases to deal with, and bis decisions gave general satisfaction, even tho opposing parties admitting their fairness. Ho stood especially for the rights of the common people as against the groat corporations. His place will bo exceedingly bard to fill, for be combined eminent impartiality with, great firmness, and was the dominant personality on the Board.