The Washington times., 1901-08-31
CANADA'S IRON TRADE.

Canada will soon have new place in
| the industrial world Hitherto the bulk
| of the iron aud steel used In the Domin-
ion has been imported. Until the middle
| Dos most of the railway material came
| from England and Scotland. More re-
Gently it has been imported from this
country; and to the iron and steel trade
| of the United States has accrued much
of the profit arising from the large ex-
penditures on railway building in Canada
of the last four or five years. Iron and
steel for these enterprises have had to be
imp from this country for the sim
| pie n that Canada had not a single
pla which rails and structural ma
teri aid be made. There were in these
years two or three iron and steel making
plants: but the largest of them. at Harni!-
ton. Ontario, and at New Glasgow. Nova
Scotia, the industry was on n small
scale, and the output of these furnaces
was put to other uses than the nanufac-
ture Of rails and structural material.
. already, although only one OF the three
'sw plants which are to give Canada a
place in the iron and steel world is at
, work and this plant is but partially com
piete, Canadian pig iron is being export
ed to Glasgow. BY the end of the year
into the British market. These pioneer
shipments of pig metal have gone from
the new plant at Sydney, Cape Breton.
Only two furnaces are in blast there.
Two others are in building; and when
the plant is complete 1t will rank with
the newest and best equipped in Penn
sylvania or Ohio, and will have a capac-
ity of 100000 tons of iron and steel a
year. On this output, Government boun-
ties will be paid until 1901 In 1851 and 1902
the bounties will be at the rate of s. a
ton on pig iron and 50 on steel ingots.
After 1859 the bounties are on 4 decreas-
ing scale; but even on a decreasing scale
they are sufficiently large to enable the
steel plant at Sydney to earn over $780,
0o0 between now and 1907.
Bounties are undoubtedly giving an i'm
petus TO the industry in Canada Boun-
ties alone, however. could never have
brought the Sydney enterprise into exis-
tence. Sydney owes its new prosperity
its increase in population from 1890 to
15.00o in eighteen months-to the fact that
Cape Breton has an almost unlimited sup
ply of bituminous coal, and to the addi-
tional fact that only a few years ago a
great find of iron ore was made in Wa
bana Island. Newfoundland. This one, of
can be mined and shipped more economi-
cally than any iron ore in North Ameri-
ca The island is a little more than 100
miles from Sydney; and the net result of
these two conditions, the nearness to ore
and to coal. is that ore, coke. and lime
stone can be assembled more cheaply at
Sydney than at any other place where
up to the present, iron and steel manu-
facture has been carried on. The differ
ence between the cost of assembling these
materials at Sydney and at Pittsburg is
about 81 10 per ton of pig metal in favor
of Sydney. AS a shipping point Sydney
Is also splendidly situated. 1t and Louis
burg. the winter port of Cape Breton. are
the nearest of the Atlantic ports to Great
Britain, and it Is in Great Britain that
the output of the Sydney furnaces and
mills is for the most part to be market
ed. Iron and steel manufacturers in the
Old and the New World are now watch
ing Sydney; for if all that is claimed con-
cerning its advantages is true, iron and
steel VIII be produced there at lower
cost price than at any other centre of
the industry. either in Europe or America.
second large plant, also drawing its
ore from Wabana Island is now in con-
temptation in the neighborhood of New
Glasgow; and away at Sault Ste. Marie,
a third of the distance across the conti-
nent, plant even larger than that at
sydney is now IL; building. This plant is
to have six 4o0-ton blast furnaces, and is
to obtain its ore from the Helen Mine, on
Michipicoton Bay. The Helen Mine is the
first great field Of ore on the Canadian
side of Lake Superior, and the fact that
1t Is in Canada permits the pig iron made
at Sault Ste. Marie drawing a larger
bounty from the Dominion treasury than
that made at Sydney. Newfoundland ore
is classed as foreign in the Dominion
bounty acts. and on pig iron made from
1t the bounty is thirty--three and one
third less than that paid on iron from Ca
madam ore. Moreover, the Ontario Gov
ernment pays 4 bounty of 81 a ton on pig
iron from ores mined in the province: so
that during 1901 ard 1902 81 a ton will be
drawn as bounties on pig metal made at
Sault Ste. Marie.
AS regards coal. the Sault Ste Marie
plant is less advantageously placed than
the Sydney plant At Sydney coal is
mined almost within sight of the plant,
while the coke used at Sault Ste. Marie
will have to be transported by rail and
lake from Pennsylvania Ontario is with
out coal. All its supplies have to be OBJ
tanned either from the United States or
carried up the st. Lawrence and the St
Lawrence canals from Nova Scotia. AS
long, however, as bounties are paid by
the Ottawa and Toronto Governments,
conditions between the Nova Scotia plants
and the Ontario plants will be equalized
-.