1890-91.] IRON AND STEEL PRODUCTION IN ONTARIO. 311 



ments of everyday consumption of the king of metals? We can say 

 at least that there would be a million more people in Canada to-day. 



We cannot point to any nation in the world that amounts to anything 

 which does not manufacture its own iron and steel. 



One who has never visited a " black country " cannot conceive the 

 stupendous scale of each member of the family of industries that goes 

 to make up the creation of iron and steel. First the underground world 

 teeming with miners to produce the ore and coal, or the busy neighbour- 

 hoods where the forests supply charcoal, the great traffic of these 

 products to the railroads to some central point for smelting, the men day 

 and night round the blast furnaces, the swarm of workmen at puddling 

 and rolling the product, if iron, or converting the pig into steel and then 

 rolling it. In all of these the consumption of nearly every other 

 product is so prodigious that a thousand other trades are permanently 

 benefited, from the farmer, who produces food for the workman, to the 

 cloth maker who turns out his Sunday clothes. 



A Royal Commission reported last year on the mineral resources of 

 Ontario, and in connection therewith some information was given about 

 this question of Iron and Steel Smelting. The report states on page 

 21 : " The industry is of first class importance and every proper means 

 should be taken to secure its establishment in Ontario ; " also on the 

 same page : " It is unquestionably n a country's interest not only to 

 smelt its own ores, but to refine and manufacture the metals, providing 

 always that the various operations can be carried on economically and 

 without taxing other interests indefinitely for their maintenance." 



With regard to fuel, I may state the above mentioned Mining Com- 

 mission reported that there is no more favourably situated district for 

 charcoal iron smelting in North America than Eastern Ontario. In this 

 connection I would add that the Rathbun Company, of Deseronto, is 

 shipping large quantities of charcoal to the United States, and it is a 

 known fact that for a long time charcoal has been shipped from Essex 

 to Detroit chiefly for iron smelting purposes. 



With regard to coke let me briefly remark that the Illinois Steel 

 Company at Chicago produced in 1890 the largest output of steel rails 

 of any firm in the United States — nearly a million tons (exact amount 

 925,000 tons), and we should not have to bring our coke or ore so far to 

 the works — say at Toronto. 



A new and great factor in steel making, as you all know, has recently 

 appeared. Mr. James Riley, of Glasgow, and others showed that 

 structural steel could be improved in quality by alloying it with from one 



