200 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



sity, on imports. The refining of metals and the promotion of electro- 

 chemical and electro-metallurgical industries so as to give our own 

 people the maximum of employment in connection with the manipu- 

 lation of our own natural resources is also a matter requiring even more 

 attention than is now being given to it.* 



The need for organizing and encouraging the mining and rural 

 manufacturing industries of Canada is desirable, both in the interests 

 of agriculture and of transportation. An additional fact may be 

 added to those already mentioned to show the importance of mining 

 in regard to transportation. It is not commonly known that mining 

 furnishes most of the traffic on railroads. Mr. Arthur A. Cole, pre- 

 sident of the Mining Institute, in an address given before the 

 Montreal Canadian Club, stated: — 



"In the report for the fiscal year 1913, the Department of Rail- 

 ways and Canals published figures from which the following are per- 

 tinent: For the year 1913 the products of agriculture handled by 

 Canadian railways formed 16 per cent of the total, and during the 

 same period the products of mines was 38 per cent of the total, or 

 more than twice as much; and these percentages were practically 

 the same for six years previous. The manufacturer need not think 

 that he makes a better showing than that, for manufactures come 1"2 

 per cent less than agriculture (14"8)." 



He also showed that the mining industry had been responsible 

 for 47 per cent of the total freight revenue of the Timiskaming and 

 Northern Ontario Railway, as against 13 per cent for agriculture, 

 although that road was built for the purpose of agricultural coloniza- 

 tion. He added that the products of agriculture were responsible for 

 9 per cent, while the products of mines formed 53 per cent of the 

 freight traffic of the United States railways over a two year period. 



The great mineral resources of Canada, alluded to in Chapter II, 

 and its immense coal, asbestos, nickel, talc, feldspar, mica, graphite, 

 silver, void, cobalt and tar-sand deposits, have enormous potentialities 

 for future development. Capital, brains and planning are needed 

 to secure and direct that development to the best advantage. Better 

 housing and social conditions are needed for those whose labour is 

 largely responsible for the increasing mining wealth and the traffic 

 which it produces in the Dominion. 



As Mr. Co'e points out, there has been a lack of organization 

 and co-operation in regard to mineral production in the past, and the 



* "Canada is destined to secure the principal electro-chemical and electro- 

 metallurgical industries of eastern North America" — W. J. Dick, mining engineer 

 of the Commission of Conservation, in a paper read before the Canadian Mining 

 Institute, March, 1917. 



