Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/882

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
840
MANN—MANGEL II.

186,000. Brandon, the second city of Manitoba (pop. 15,225), has grain elevators, flour-mills, and various manufactures. It is the seat of one of the Government normal schools, and near it is the Dominion Experimental Farm. St. Boniface (pop. 11,021), oppo- site Winnipeg on the Red river, is the centre of the Roman Catholic interest in western Canada and the archiepiscopal seat. It is a thriving manufacturing city, and may be regarded as a suburb of Winnipeg. Selkirk, Dauphin, Waskada, Neepawa, Souris, and Minnedosa are the most important of the railway towns from which agricultural products are shipped.

Government. Manitoba is administered by a lieutenant-gov- ernor appointed by the governor-general in council for a term of five years, an Executive Council of 7 members chosen from the Legislative Assembly, and a Legislative Assembly of 49 members elected by the people. The province is represented in the Do- minion Parliament by 15 members in the House of Commons and 6 senators. There are 163 organized municipalities, including cities and towns. A considerable portion in the north and east is as yet without municipal organization, but school districts may be established wherever there are sufficient children.

Education. The single public-school system in Manitoba is free to all reli-ious denominations and has nearly 4,000 teachers and over 100,000 pupils enrolled. Collejiate institutes have been estab- lished in Winnipeg, Brandon, Portage la Prairie, Virden, Souris and Stonewall, and hi^h schools and continuation classes at various smaller places. Higher education is provided by the university of Manitoba at Winnipeg, which has affiliated with it colleges of the Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Methodist denom- inations, also medical and pharmaceutical schools. The medical school of the university is recognized as one of the best in Canada. The Manitoba Agricultural College, near Winnipeg, is supported by the province. The number of schools and pupils enrolled has doubled within 15 years. The cost of education increased from $2,840,693 in 1907 to 56,285,878 in 1918.

Finance. Revenue and expenditure were respectively $5,788,070 and $5,314,849 in 1913; $5,524,911 and $5,698,059 in 1915; $6,692,- 985 and $6,860,353 in 1917; and $8,986,076 and $8,544,790 in 1919.

Agriculture. Ever since the opening of the country by railways Manitoba has been famous as a wheat-trowing country (Manitoba wheat, from its fiinty hardness and full kernel, is a specialty of the Canadian north-west; it is famed as the Manitoba " No. I Hard "). The enormous development in the growing of wheat is evident from the fact that in 1883 the production was 5,686,355 bus., while in 1915 it was 69,274,000 bus. The corn belt is gradually moving northward. Oats, barley and pease are also important crops. From the richness and mellowness of the soil potatoes and all tap- roots reach a {Teat size. Vec-etables of all kinds grow to perfection. Flax, rye, potatoes and turnips are also grown in quantity.

The total value of field crops in 1919 was $162,462,200, produced on an area of 6,344,318 acres. The values of farm crops were as follows in that year: fall wheat $101,000; spring wheat $78,706,000; oats $41,420,000; barley $20,137,000; rye $5,228,000; pease ii'joftoo; mixed grains $1,063,000; flax $2,215,000; potatoes $4,266,000; turnips $663,000; hay and clover $6,818,000; fodder corn $1,520,000, and alfalfa $256,200. Wild forage plants of many kinds are ab'in- dant, hence Manitoba produces live stock as well as grain. The live-stock industry and dairy-farming are becoming more important every year. In 1918 the total dairy production amounted to over $11,000,000. Some 40 creameries were in operation producing 8,45.I3 2 'b. of butter, an increase in one year of over a million pounds. From an importing province in respect of dairy products, Manitoba within a few years has changed to one with abundant surplus for export. Manitoba in 1919 had 227,872 milch cows and a total head of cattle of 781,771. Of sheep there were 167,170 and of swine 261,542. Hog-raising has been very profitable for the same reason that all other branches of live stock are lucrative the stock-yards are not in control of the packing-houses, so that the Manitoba farmer has an open market. Sheep-raising is making considerable progress, a large portion of the northern part being especially adapted to that industry. Though not a fruit-growing province, Manitoba has made some progress in that respect. Small fruits grow in great abundance, and orchards of apples and plums have been successfully cultivated. Bee-keeping is also developing rapidly, the natural conditions being favourable.

Forests. --Northern Manitoba is forest-clad as far north as lat. 60 N. Birch, spruce, poplar, jack pine, aspen, balsam poplar, pine and tamarac are the principal trees, and supply sawmills erected at various points. The value of lumber in 1918 was $1,240,000.

Fishing and Game. Large quantities of fish are obtained from Lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba, the principal catch being whitefish, with which these waters are plentifully stocked, also sturgeon, pike and pickerel. The fish are taken principally in winter, frozen on the ice and shipped to the United States or distributed to local markets. Many of the waters of the more northerly part of the province abound in whitefish, pickerel and trout. The total value of fish caught and marketed in 1919 was $1,008,000.

Prairie chickens are the principal native game birds, and once existed in great numbers throughout the prairie country. Ducks and wild geese are very plentiful on the lakes, rivers and ponds. There are numbers of elk, moose and jumping deer, and in the forests and hills the bear, wolf, lynx, fox , marten, beaver and other fur-bearing animals have their haunts.

Mining. Considerable prospecting has been done in the north and east and some important discoveries have been made. There are three promising mineral belts the Pas, Rice Lake and Star Lake areas. The Flin Flon district is rich in copper ore. The " Mandy Mine," on which work commenced in 1906, was the first to make commercial shipments; its ore (zinc blende and copper sul- phide) was so rich that it paid to ship it to the smelting furnaces at Trail in British Columbia. The Flin Flon district deposits are described as extensive and rich, but requiring for development a very large amount of capital and the extension of the railway for 40 miles. The ore is a complex admixture containing copper, lead, silver and gold. To the north of Flin Flon lies a territory of great promise for gold-prospecting, and these areas might possibly justify the construction of the Hudson Bay railway for mineral traffic, even if it should fail in its orijinal design as a grain route. Large gypsum deposits occur north-east of Lake Manitoba. The raw material is shipped to Winnipeg and converted into finished gypsum products. Soft lignites occur in the Turtle Mountain district in southern Manitoba, but have not yet been developed. Experiments were being made in 1921 for the utilization of these and other large beds by processes of carbonization and briquetting. A very beautiful mottled-gray stone, of Ordovician age, is quar- ried at Tyndall, east of Winnipeg. The entire interior of the new Parliament buildings at Ottawa is finished with this stone.

Manufactures. Although Manitoba is essentially an agricultural province the growth of manufactures has become quite marked. Meat-packing is becoming a lar^e industry. The burning of lime and the making of brick and tile are important. Other manufac- tures are wire-fencing, leather goods, clothing, cigars and| biscuits. In 1918 1,444 factories, with capital $105,983,000, gave employ- ment to 22,808 persons, who received $23,031,000 in salaries and wages and consumed $92,600,000 worth of materials in producing goods valued at $145,030,000.

Communications. Three lines from the east of Canada converge at Winnipeg and radiate thence to west, north-west and south. There is connexion south with the United States and another out- let is secured by transfer from rail at Fort William and Port Arthur to the Great Lakes. The Great Northern, the Canadian Pacific and the Canadian National railways gave the province in 1920 a mileage of over 4,000 m., and each of these systems was actively extending and constructing branch lines. The Dominion Govern- ment undertook the construction of the Hudson Bay railway from the Pas on the Saskatchewan river to Port Nelson (424 m.), which is intended to give the grain-growing country an alternative short ocean route to the British market by Hudson Bay usually safe for navigation from July 15 to Nov. 15. Its claim to consideration is that it will shorten the distance between Liverpool and the prairies by upwards of 1,000 miles. (W. L. G.*)

MANN, TOM (1856- . ), British Labour politician, was born at Foleshill, Coventry, Warwickshire, April 15 1856. He received a very scanty education, and at the age of nine years started work on a farm. At the age of ten he was working in a coal-mine, which he left at the age of fourteen. He served seven years with an engineer tool-maker in Birmingham, went to London at the age of 21 and worked in a number of engineering firms. In 1883 he visited the United States and worked there. Returning to England, he became a Socialist in 1884 and a member of the Social Democratic Federation. He took an active part in many trade disputes, notably the London dock strike of 1889. He became president of the Dockers' Union, and first president of the International Transport Workers' Federation, and was ex- pelled both from France and Germany in connexion with his activities as an agitator. He later became the general secretary of the I.L.P., and worked with Keir Hardie in building it up. In 1901 he went to New Zealand, and thence to Australia, where he stayed for eight years, becoming an ardent advocate of Syn- dicalism. In 1910 he visited South Africa, and in 1913 the United States, where he made a lecture tour from Boston to San Francisco. In 1914 he again visited South Africa to help carry on the work of the trade-union deportees, and covered the whole of South Africa in a six-month campaign of persistent propa- ganda. He became secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers in 1919, and resigned (per rule) in 1921.

MANGEL II., ex-King of Portugal (1880- ), was born at Lisbon Nov. 15 1889, the younger son of Carlos I. by his wife Marie Amelie of Orleans. On the assassination of King Carlos