CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



United States. This should cause us to stop and ask ourselves: Should the 

 Canadian people do the same thing? I think not. We are on the eve of 

 realizing that our timber and all our natural resources must be conserved. 

 Take iron. I was astonished to hear there that iron, as it is now being 

 dsed in the United States, will be exhausted by the middle of the present 

 century, and that coal will be exhausted by the middle of the next century. 



There is another very important matter. In that country they are not 

 so well situated in regard to water supply as we are. I also attended on 

 that occasion the Harbors and Rivers Convention, where statistics were 

 given as to the state of their water ways. I was very much astonished to 

 find the difference in conditions to-day as compared with fifty years ago. 

 Why? Simply because their rivers are drying up and water powers disap- 

 pearing, because their lands are being denuded. We occupy a more north- 

 erly country and our northern forests prevent this being as vital as question 

 in Canada as in the United States. Our water supply, if good judgment 

 prevails, will never cease to exist. I want to point out to you the import- 

 ance of that when the coal disappears in that country. We will have the 

 water supply which will furnish the same results in power and light and 

 heat. We have not been able to keep pace with our friends to the south in 

 manufacturing, for the reason that our population is not sufficiently large to 

 allow us to specialize. But if our manufactures have not developed as fast 

 as we would like, yet our day is coming, because of the existence of our 

 water power, and because we are rapidly increasing in population, and in 

 fifteen or twenty years we will be able, owing to our coal and our water 

 powers, to compete with them when their coal and iron deposits have dis- 

 appeared. We have coal and water powers to last for all time. Canada 

 occupies a unique position, because she has forty per cent, of the water 

 powers of the world. The fact is, gentlemen, the time is coming I do not 

 want to say it, I say it with some hesitation the time must necessarily 

 come when the centre of manufacturing on the North American Continent 

 will be in the northern portion of our country. (Applause.) Unless 

 American ingenuity discovers some instrumentality for developing power 

 that will be cheaper than water, this state of affairs must come about. If 

 that discovery is made, so much the better for the world. My own opinion 

 is that there is not much likelihood. Water is the cheapest power and seems 

 likely to continue so. So the preservation of our forests means the 

 preservation of that enormously valuable asset, our water power. 



The result which I believe will accrue from such gatherings as this will 

 be most gratifying. Let meetings of this kind be held in the various Prov- 

 inces to stimulate the Canadian people to action relative to the protection 

 of their great resources for the benefit of our country and for the benefit 

 of the world. (Applause.) 



The Convention closed with three cheers for His Majesty the King. 



