Across Canada Saskatoon 



Saskatoon claims to have achieved a more 

 rapid and spectacular growth than any city of 

 Western Canada, and when one views the exten- 

 sive and beautiful city situated upon the banks 

 of the Saskatchewan River and realizes that 

 twenty years ago, when cities such as Winnipeg 

 and Vancouver had already attained continental 

 and world renown, Saskatoon was not even 

 incorporated as a village, there appears to be 

 ample justification for the claim. Certainly it 

 is the youngest born of the more important 

 Western Canadian cities and already ranks third 

 in all respects among the civic centres of Sas- 

 katchewan. 



One factor, solely, has been responsible for 

 this phenomenal development the agricultura 

 production which has followed upon the settle- 

 ment of the land about it. Saskatoon is pre- 

 eminently the wheat city. It is the centre of 

 the famous wheat growing area of Central 

 Saskatchewan which for so many years captured 

 the world championship for this cereal. The 

 city became the base for the settlement of this 

 large area and developed into its logical market- 

 ing centre. The greatest tribute paid to its 

 peculiar productive capabilities was its selection 

 as the site of the huge Dominion Government 

 Interior Storage Elevator and for two of the 

 largest milling concerns in the west, with a 

 combined output of 2,225 barrels per day. 



Saskatoon has a twofold economic impor- 

 tance, first as a distributing centre by virtue of 

 an unique position as the hub of a large rich 

 district, served in all directions by railways, and 

 second in the milling of the cereals this district 

 produces. In the first regard its importance is 

 bound to enhance with the further development 

 of Southern Saskatchewan, for it is the point of 

 focus for three transcontinental lines and for a 

 number of branch lines. In the second regard 

 it must be remembered that Saskatoon is approx- 

 imately in the centre of a province which 

 produces more than fifty per cent of the total 

 Dominion wheat crop and is annually increasing 

 its output. Its central geographical position 

 gives it freight control of 47,000 square miles of 

 distributing territory embracing over 200 points 

 and 2,225 miles of railway. 



Developing as an Industrial Centre 



Saskatoon is, at the same time, developing 

 in a sound and healthy manner as an industrial 

 centre. This can be gauged from the fact that 

 its production in 1919 was $10,812,765 as com- 

 pared with $6,587,632 two years previously. In 

 addition to its milling operations and the dis- 

 tribution of wholesale houses, there are brick 

 plants, cement works, cold storage, aerated 

 waters, metal shingles and sidings, machine shops 

 and foundries. In the year 1919 a total of 

 $7,069,793 was invested in Saskatoon industry 

 and 1,649 persons found employment there, 



receiving salaries and wages to the extent of 

 $1,882,307. 



As a residential city Saskatoon offers excellent 

 facilities and advantages. It is, in its way, a 

 capital city, reigning supreme over an extensive 

 area which looks to it for touch and communi- 

 cation with other capitals and commercial and 

 agricultural centres. It is the seat of the 

 provincial university, an agricultural college 

 and experimental farm, and has many other fine 

 educational establishments. 



A Dominion's Lands office likewise serves the 

 area for the filing of government lands yet 

 available. There are eleven banks, seventeen 

 churches and many other fine public buildings 

 in the erection of which the beauty and utility 

 of the city has been considered. 



If past growth is to be taken as any indication 

 of future progress, Saskatoon is due for great 

 development. A mere village in 1903, with a 

 population barely reaching one hundred, it had 

 grown by 1914 to a flourishing city of over 20,000 

 people. At present the population is estimated 

 at about 30,000 and it is still growing. As 

 settlement and production increases in Central 

 Saskatchewan, Saskatoon must inevitably attain 

 greater proportions and loftier heights of national 

 importance from both its distinctive lines of 

 development. It will be called upon to furnish 

 the more voluminous and extensive needs of the 

 growing agricultural population and to receive 

 an increasing volume of produce for milling 

 locally or for shipment over the many lines 

 centring in it. 



Canada and Empire Settlement 



The Empire Settlement Bill has passed the British 

 House of Commons without division, making available 

 three million pounds sterling of the money of the taxpayers 

 of Great Britain, annually for fifteen years, for schemes of 

 settlement in the overseas Dominions of the British Empire. 

 The bill aims at the close co-operation of the Imperial and 

 overseas Dominions in evolving schemes which will be to 

 the best mutual interests of the settlers and the Dominions 

 concerned, but leaves those Dominions, as being most 

 vitally interested, practically a free hand in the matter of 

 actual settlement. The ultimate success of the general 

 project, as far as Canada is concerned, lies in the manner 

 in which the Dominion will exert herself to take advantage 

 of the measure and develop the best arrangements to 

 receive and locate settlers. 



The scheme is designed to work to the greatest benefit 

 of both the Motherland and the Dominions of the Empire 

 and should accomplish what each has been attempting 

 individually to achieve since the conclusion of the war. It 

 is calculated to effect a considerable amelioration in the 

 acute unemployment situation of the British Isles whilst 

 giving to the Dominions emigrants of good British stock 

 which certain of them have felt constrained to refuse in 

 their own unsatisfactory economic conditions. 



The war brought to the point of culmination the urgent 

 need of a redistribution of the population of the British 

 Empire, for the return of the armies resulted in an over- 

 stocked British Isles. Normal emigration to the Dom- 

 inions during the war period would have been over two 

 millions; actual emigration was less than one-sixth of this 

 total. Even allowing for nearly 750,000 who fell in the 

 war, there was an excess of one million over the normal 

 increase of population for the period. To accentuate the 



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