504 USES OF WOOD PULP. 



the want of a profitable market. In the western part of the Province, nearly all the 

 paper mills manufacture pulp, so that pulp mills which do not manufacture paper 

 have no other way to sell their products but by exporting them. They ship to the 

 United States; but this market has a twofold disadvantage. In the first place, com- 

 petition is sharp, for the United States is one of the countries in which the manu- 

 facture of wood pulp is conducted on the largest scale; in the second place, the cost 

 of freight is high, and our pulp is subjected to a duty of 10 per cent ad valorem. 

 When the Canadian manufacturer has deducted those duties and the cost of freight 

 from the return of the sales, there remains but very little margin for profit. 



Thus is explained the opinion, unfortunately too general, that the manufacture 

 of wood pulp is not a paying industry. 



But outside of the United States there are markets where the output of our pulp 

 mills can be sold; those of Europe are more profitable and much larger. Besides 

 France, which can produce a part of its supply, there are Spain, Italy, Portugal, 

 Belgium, and particularly Great Britain which have to rely on importation for the 

 supply of their paper mills. I admit that mills located in the western part of 

 the Province, and which have to pay heavy freight to railways to carry their prod- 

 ucts to a seaport, can not profitably ship to Europe; but as regards mills situated 

 east of Quebec, Europe is the market par excellence, and I do not hesitate to say 

 that when organized with a view to exportation to the European markets, the manu- 

 facture of wood pulp is one of the safest and most paying industries. On this 

 point, I am in a position to give facts of which I have a personal knowledge. 



FOREIGN MARKETS. 



Mechanical pulp sells in England from $22 to $25 for spruce and $36 to $39 for 

 aspen and poplar. In a mill provided with good machinery, located at a fair dis- 

 tance from a seaport, in the Lower St. Lawrence or Bay des Chaleurs, with wood 

 at $1.50 a cord and common labor at $i a day, mechanical pulp can be manufac- 

 tured and delivered on board of ships for $ 10 or $12 a ton. Calculating the freight 

 at $5, which is the maximum, the total cost of mechanical pulp, delivered in Eng- 

 land, would amount to $ 15 or $17 a ton, which leaves for profit a margin of $ 5 to 

 $10 a ton. In many places, the capital required for building and running a mill 

 with a capacity for turning out from 25 to 30 tons of pulp, dry weight, per twenty- 

 four hours, would be from $100,000 to $150,000, supposing the most improved ma- 

 chinery is used. The working of a mill of that capacity, calculating on an average 

 the price of pulp at $23.50 and the cost of production at $16, would give a gross 

 profit of $200 per day, or $60,000 a year. Fora mill using aspen and poplar, the 

 profit would be larger. 



Mr. A. Kaindler, a French engineer, wrote last summer: 



"After studying the question in all its forms, I have acquired the conviction 

 that Canada, with its splendid and cheap woods, its geographical position, its power, 

 its means of transport, its low freight, is the country which can supply mechanical 

 pulp at the cheapest price, and the only country which can compete successfully 

 with Sweden, Norway, and Germany." 



I have recently received some additional facts in regard to the 

 pulp industry and the enormous water power soon to be utilized to 

 a large extent in the Province of Quebec. In the port of Quebec 

 alone, the exports of pulp last year were valued at $79,948, as against 

 $32,918 the year previous. But here I wish rather to call attention 

 to the openings the Province affords for new mills to supply the 

 growing demand. 



