228 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 
in 1897 $3.39, in 1899 $3.28, in 1904 $4.39, in 1906 $6.01, and in 
1908 $8.78 per acre. 
Railway Development.—A general account of the earlier history of 
railway development in the North-West was given in my report of 
1904. Since that date a very large amount of construction has been 
effected and projects of new lines are constantly being brought forward. 
It should, however, be recognised that in Canada, owing to the advisa- 
bility of affording every encouragement to railway enterprise, the process 
of obtaining a railway charter is usually a very simple one. 
The promoters of a new railway are not required to specify in other 
than a very general way the direction of the proposed line. They are 
not required to lay before Parliament or a Parliamentary Committee 
accurate surveys of the route. This elasticity has many advantages ; 
but it has the disadvantage of rendering the railway companies some- 
what casual in their applications to Parliament for charters. The result 
is that many hundreds of railway charters have been granted which 
have not resulted in any construction. 
The following table exhibits the mileage of constructed lines in the 
Prairie Provinces in each year from 1905 till 1908: 
— | 1905 | 1906 | 1907 | 1908 | 
| rare J Saree | 
| Canadian Pacific Railway: lines in | Miles | Miles Miles | Miles 
the Prairie Provinces. .  . 3,854 | 4,097 | 4,276 | 4,376 
Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, under | | | 
construction, Winnipeg to Wolf Creek | —- | — ce) 916 
Canadian Northern Railway : | 
In operation : ; 3 a Sf). eS _ — |2,845). 
Under construction . | | — 621 } 
hae | 
Great Northern Railway 
A very significant although as yet minor figure in the above 
table is thes mileage of the Great Northern Railway. This railway 
system, whose main line crosses the great central plain parallel 
to and about seventy miles south of the international ‘boundary, 
has been during the past few years sending up feeding lines at 
short intervals from its main line northwards to the boundary. 
There are at present thirteen of these feeding lines on the southern 
boundaries of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Three of these lines 
enter Canadian territory, two of them extending into it for between 
seventy and eighty miles. Two other lines connect with Canadian 
lines. The remaining eight lines have their termini at, or almost at, 
the frontier. It cannot be supposed that their progress will be per- 
manently arrested there. The President of the Great Northern; Mr. 
James J. Hill, is a Canadian. He was one of the first to recognise the 
_agricultural value of the North-West, and there can be no doubt about 
the nature of his designs in pushing feeding lines to his system up into 
the prairies. It is very clear that in the first place he intends to haul 
out wheat to the mills of Minneapolis and St. Paul. It is very clear 
also that he anticipates at no distant date the adoption of a policy of 
reciprocity by the United States and Canada, and the freer movement 
of manufactured goods across the line northwards. It would be idle te 
| 
1 Report of Department of Interior, 1908, Ottawa, 1909. 
