PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 565 
of execution; and it might be thought impertinent if the atieinpt were 
made by one who has only an outside knowledge of the facts. On the other 
hand, it may be of interest to illustrate by means of Canadiafi examples 
the truth of the general statement that civil engineering has exercised and 
must continue to exercise great influence upon the well-being and develop- 
ment of the British Empire. 
By the kindness of the High Commissioner of Canada, Lord Strathcona 
—who has himself done so much for the development of the Dominion, 
including a great part in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway 
—the writer has been favoured with official reports and statistics bearing 
on the subject. These have been freely used in the statement which follows. 
The subject is so extensive and the time available for this Address so 
short that it will be necessary to omit detailed reference to important 
applications of engineering which are necessarily made, under modern con- 
ditions, in all great centres of population. Amongst these may be men- 
tioned building construction, sanitation, water supply, heating, lighting, 
telegraphy, telephony, tramways, electric generating stations and their 
plant, and gas manufacture. No attempt will be made to deal with the 
important assistance given by engineers to the operations of agriculture, 
mining, and manufacture, or to the utilisation of the splendid forests of the 
Dominion: although the demands for machinery and mechanical power is 
in these respects exceptionally great, owing to the sparseness of the popula- 
tion and the magnitude of the work to be done. Notwithstanding the large 
immigration and rapid increase of population, these demands will certainly 
continue and will probably become greater as the area under cultivation 
is increased, as manufactures are developed, and the natural resources of the 
country more largely utilised. The example of the United States places this 
anticipation beyond doubt, and demonstrates the great part which the 
engineer must continue to play in the development of Canada. 
Even when the limitations described have been imposed upon the scope 
of this Address the field to be traversed is #wide one; and without further 
preface an endeavour will be made to describe a few of the most important 
services which the engineer has already rendered to the Dominion and will 
render in the immediate future. 
Railways. 
It has well been said that the great problem of to-day in Canada is that 
of providing ample and cheap transport for her agricultural, mineral, and 
forest products from the interior to the sea, and so to the markets of the 
world. Important as inland navigation may be as an aid to this enter- 
prise, it cannot possibly compare with railway development in actual and 
potential results. Apart from that development the one united Dominion 
must have remained a dream; thanks to the rapid and efficient inter- 
communication furnished by railways, widely scattered provinces are knit 
together in friendly and helpful union, literally by ‘ bonds of steel’ which 
stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and reach farther and farther 
north each year. Regions which would eotherwise have remained inac- 
cessible and unproductive have been turned into new provinces, whose fer- 
tility and future development it is not easy to forecast, and practically 
impossible to exaggerate. 
In this department successive administrations (both Federal and pro- 
vincial) have realised the facts and possibilities of the position, and have 
given substantial assistance to private enterprise in the execution of great 
engineering works. Progress in railway development has been remarkable 
since Federation was accomplished forty-two years ago. During the pre- 
ceding thirty years the total railway mileage in operation had been raised 
to 2,278 miles ; in 1887 it was 12,184 miles ; in 1897, 16,550 miles ; in 1907, 
22,452 miles. The number of miles of railway actually under construction in 
