216 



DOMINION OF CANADA. 



Canal, with two feet more of water, or twelve 

 feet throughout its length, was opened April 

 20th. The vessels which bring grain from the 

 ports of the upper lakes and discharge it in the 

 ports of Lake Ontario usually have a carry- 

 ing capacity of 240 tons, but could not carry 

 more than three quarters of a cargo when the 

 draught of the canal was ten feet. The effect 

 of the improvement on the commerce of the 

 lakes was noticeable at once. The action of the 

 State of New York in abolishing the tolls on 

 the Erie Canal excited an agitation in Canada 

 in favor of making the Dominion canals free, 

 in order to compete with the American water- 

 route. 



ONTARIO BOUNDARY. The boundary dispute 

 between Ontario, Manitoba, and the Dominion 

 Government continued the subject of excited 

 controversy during the year. The disputed 

 territory is about 97,000 square miles in extent. 

 It is rich in timber, and contains mineral re- 

 sources and some fertile tracts of land. The 

 arbitrators to whom the question was referred 

 in 1878, by the Dominion and Ontario Govern- 

 ments, awarded it to Ontario as possessing, un- 

 der the British North America act, the same 

 boundaries as the former province of Upper 

 Canada, which had succeeded to the western 

 boundaries of old Quebec. The western line 

 was denned by the Treaty of 1763 with France 

 as the extension of a line drawn along the 

 course of the Mississippi River. The northern 

 line was determined by the southern boundary 

 of the Hudson Bay Compan j 's Territory, which 

 was defined to be the " height of land." The 

 Ontario Legislature promptly ratified the de- 

 cision. The Dominion Parliament not only 

 omitted to do so, but made Manitoba a party 

 to the dispute by an act passed in the closing 

 days of the session of 1881, making the bound- 

 ary of Manitoba conterminous with the west- 

 ern border-line of Ontario. The Dominion 

 Parliament passed a resolution in April provid- 

 ing for the joint administration of the disputed 

 territory by a commission appointed by the 

 provincial Government of Ontario and the 

 Federal Government, pending the adjudication 

 of the matter by the Supreme Court or the 

 Privy Council. At the close of the year, the 

 question was still unsettled, the Ontario Gov- 

 ernment being unwilling to have the award of 

 the commission of arbitration Sir Edward 

 Thornton, Sir Francis Hincks, and the late 

 Chief-Justice Harrison reviewed by another 

 tribunal. This controversy between the Tory 

 Government of the Dominion and the Liberal 

 Government of Ontario was the leading polit- 

 ical question of the year. By the act of 1881, 

 about 35,000 square miles of the disputed ter- 

 ritory would be joined to Manitoba, including 

 all the valuable timber between Lake Superior 

 and the Lake of the Woods, estimated at 26.- 

 000,000,000 feet. 



ONTARIO. The receipts of the Ontario Gov- 

 ernment for the year 1881 were $2,746,772; 

 of which $1,116,872 was the subsidy from the 



Dominion Government, $80,000 specific grant, 

 $136,696 interest from special funds, $992,504 

 revenue from the crown lands, $98,782 reve- 

 nue from public institutions, and the remainder 

 from other internal sources. The expenditures 

 under the supply bill footed up $2,281,053, 

 which, together with $205,528 in aid of rail- 

 ways, and other permanent outlays, made a total 

 expenditure of $2,585,053. The chief items of 

 current expenditure were: Education, $502,- 

 824; maintenance of public institutions, $551,- 

 663; administration of justice, $251,119 ; legis- 

 lation, $178,954; civil government, $174,803. 

 The liabilities of the province amounted to 

 only $731,396 ; the public assets were valued 

 at $6,240,988. The budget estimates for 1882 

 made the receipts $2,848,960 ; and the expendi- 

 tures for current expenses $2,100,169, on capi- 

 tal account $247,220, together $2,389,726. This 

 province stands in the peculiar financial posi- 

 tion of drawing sufficient revenues from the 

 common property, with the fixed subsidy from 

 the Dominion, to defray all the usual expenses 

 of government and relieve the municipalities 

 of the cost of maintaining asylums and prisons 

 and of a large share of the cost of public edu- 

 cation, without levying a single tax upon the 

 people. The income is even sufficient to leave 

 a large annual surplus to be added to the assets 

 of the province. About $500,000 was added 

 in 1882 to the surplus, which amounted on 

 December 31, 1881, to over $2,000,000 in cash 

 or its equivalent, and $2,500,000 inother as sets. 

 The expenditures of 1882 showed a large in- 

 crease over the preceding year, but the increase 

 was entirely applied to the maintenance of 

 public institutions, for which $380,000 more 

 than the appropriations of 1881 were voted, and 

 in public education, which item increased $51,- 

 000. 



The right of the provinces to property es- 

 cheating to the crown for want of heirs was 

 formerly maintained by the courts of Ontario 

 and Quebec. In a recent case the Dominion 

 Government claimed the right to the reversion, 

 and was upheld in its claim by the Supreme 

 Court of Canada. The question was taken 

 before the Privy Council by the Ontario Exec- 

 utive. 



A Bureau of Industries for the collection of 

 statistics, corresponding to the Agricultural Bu- 

 reau at Washington, was established in the 

 province of Ontario by an act of the Legislature. 



The agricultural interests of Ontario are flour- 

 ishing, notwithstanding the desertion of many 

 of the old farms for the new wheat-fields of 

 Manitoba and Dakota. Owing to this move- 

 ment, the value of farm property has recently 

 declined. The production of wheat in 1882, as 

 reported by the new Bureau of Statistics, was 

 40,000,000 bushels, against 13,000,000 in 1870; 

 of barley 22,250,000 bushels, against 9,461,000 ; 

 of oats, 50,000,000 bushels, against 22,000,000. 

 The acreage of land under cultivation was 

 shown by the census to have increased 1,378,- 

 000 acres in ten years. 



