out the day there are volleys of blasts in the mines. Every issue of the local paper contains bona-fide reports of new strikes upon developing properties or of sales to men whose names are well known in financial circles, and lucklily for us a spirit is awake in our press which is exceedingly intolerant of the Wild Cat and the Boomer.

Kootenay, after a long period of waiting, is now rapidly becoming possessed of most of those things which she needs. The Coast at last is awake to the fact that the mainland of British Columbia is actually a part of that Province; more than that, that it is a part of the Province of exactly the same importance to the Province as his purse is to a man. These facts, too, have been established: that the sun does not rise and set exclusively within the domains of the E. and W. Ry., and that Canada has no intention of abandoning this fraction of her Dominion to any monopolists.

The result of these great discoveries is a rapid improvement in tone here. - Men are hopeful again everywhere. The "boys" of Kootenay and Cariboo have sent a man of their own choosing to Ottawa of whom some of them recently told the writer that they didn't go a whole heap on his politics and he was no account at all at whiskey, but they guessed he was pretty straight for a politician! That is what Kootenay wants. We are not politicians here; we are miners, and the man who will honestly push our mining interests, whether Liberal or Conservative, is the man for Kootenay. From outside, men with money have come to us to develop our mines, a broad guage railway has run into Rossland this Autumn, and possibly we may yet have our great need satisfied by the building of the Crow's Nest Pass Ry. We have the mines and the men and the money. What we still want are smelters with refineries in the right places, and fuel of our own at a cheap rate to feed the same. At present it is alleged that we pay over $17 per ton for imported American coke, whilst if we had the Crow's Nest Pass Ry. we could lay

down our own coke at half that price. By the time we get the Crow's Nest Pass Ry., it does not seem too much to hope that our smelting men will have thoroughly mastered the difficulties of smelting our peculiar form of ore to the best advantage, and may have established smelters and refineries at the best points within Our own boundaries. British Columbia has a good many past extravagances to pay for, Government buildings "to anchor the Capital" and such like, and she wants to make for herself every dollar which she can out of her own industries; but if she ever gets her own coke and a cheap process for treating her low grade sulphide ores she can pay her outstanding accounts with the profits of Trail, and have another spree on the silver of Slocan.

As to this question of smelters, in reply to a question of mine, my friend Mr. Leslie Hill writes: "To be successful, a smelter must be run on a large scale and must be able to draw supplies of ore from a large district. A smelter should refine as well as smelt, and to do this successfully it must be run on a large scale and must be able to run 365 days in the year.

"A smelter also requires a large variety of ores so that it may be able to make the best smelting, and both these conditions can only be fulfilled when the smelter obtains ores from a large district. As you know, at present most of the B.C. ores are smelted in the States, and this important industry is lost to Canada," (as is most of the trade which goes to Spokane.)

The supply of fuel and fluxes also enters largely into the question of successful smelting. Now it is claimed. that good coking coal exists in large quantities in the Crow's Nest Pass coal-field. If this is so, and the Crow's Nest Railway is built, it would seem that some point on the Kootenay Lake, probably near the outlet, would best fulfil the conditions necessary for an ideal smelting point."

This is one man's view.

Other persons point to Vancouver as the proper place for a smelter, and

it is alleged that two exceedingly strong financial combinations are competing for the establishment of smelters and refineries at that point. In favour of Vancouver, its friends allege that (the Crow's Nest Pass Railway apart) it can bring down cheaper coke than can be laid down at other points, coke, that is, from Cardiff or Australia, at $9.00 per ton, and that possibly even cheaper coke will be available in the future from Comox; that it is a competitive point on the railway systems having command of the C. P. Ry., the Northern Pacific Railway, and the Great Northern; that wages are lower on the Coast than in the interior; that less fuel is used in treating ore on the sea level than at a greater elevation.

There is this to be added of which little has so far been said in this briet sketch. All along our coast and on

the island at Alberni, on Phillip's Arm at Texada, and elsewhere, fresh deposits of mineral are being opened up. These would help materially to increase that volume and variety of ore (gathered, say, at Vancouver) which seems to be an essential to success in smelting operations.

Perhaps the best that could happen to British Columbia would be, not the establishment of a lot of small smelters all over the place, but of one great company with smelters and refineries at Vancouver, with that direct railway to Kootenay of which men are beginning to talk, and which is absolutely needed to bind mainland and coast into one prosperous whole, and to make the most of our really magnificent resources for British Columbia, for Canada, and for that great Empire of which Canada is a part. Clive Phillipps-Wolley.

GR

Lizzie E. Dyas.

congratulat

ing Louis XV. upon being happily rid of a few hundred leagues of snow and ice, may have been impelled by a desire to minister to a monarch's vanity, please Pompadour, and calm the patrician sensitiveness of the French court; whatever his motive, the illustrious savant's estimate was sadly astray. Great Britain absorbed a splendid heritage, while France lost a game well worth winning. But, why speculate? Monarch and Voltaire and Pompadour, the fripperies and furbelows of Versailles, the tinselled votaries at royalty's shrine, long ago crossed the Great Divide, and places that knew them once shall know them no more, forever. Still, candour compels the admission that even Britain was virtually coerced into keeping possessions in North America; her magnificent domain to the south went by the board, consequent upon the stubborn temperament and crass stupidity of a reigning Sovereign, apparently misled by the fallacy that British blood, British pluck and British prowess underwent some extraordinary

2

Atlantic. The spirit of the United Empire Loyalists, unswerving devotion and attachment to the mother country, maintained her supremacy on the northern portion of the continent, despite Oregon capitulations and Maine Treaty surrenders. Hence, above all others, the Dominion of Canada is entitled to the distinction of being a self-made and self-sustaining colonial Empire.

Like other sections, the western country took care of itself through an extremely eventful period; for, had ready-made diplomats been vouchsafed the permanent privilege of playing battledore and shuttlecock with interests under their control, scarce an acre would have remained vested in the Crown. To-day, British tourists may be heard intermingling eulogies upon Canada with criticisms upon the idiocy of Louis the Fifteenth's belief that the "cession" represented a mere flimsy bagatelle. These, apparently, overlook the fact that, in days not far remote, diplomatic negotiations affecting colonial affairs too often savoured of pomposity, with a transparent veneer of Downing Street polish. Happily, in those primitive times, there were glorious exceptions, although, generally speaking, Imperial representatives, baptised, as it were, in batches, sallied forth in a species of hand-me-down wardrobe, labelled Genuine, but unmistakable-Misfits; all convinced that it

bagatelle.

It is not the earlier epoch over which Canadians delight to ponder, although the sun's rays were as warm and the moon's beams as soft and mellow as to-day. There lived good and bad, enlightened and ignorant, men; brave colonial and chivalrous imperial officers and soldiers, who, through trial and temptation, rallied beneath the same glorious flag; there were, in all emergencies, battalions of patriots, prepared to sustain the mother land in the hour of darkness, danger, and tribulation.

The past, then, should be without regrets, because Canadians were true to themselves; because no great disaster checked their progress, and because, in later days, statesmen guided national destinies, and Royalty's vice-regents were sought for amongst the ablest Imperial diplomats. Wisdom delights in gazing towards the beautiful stars, instead of contemplating sombre elements below. Bygone experience taught our people self-reliance, and the closing years of the nineteenth century demonstrate that here, upon British soil, has been established one of the most prosperous, one of the most industrious commonwealths civilization ever produced.

Since 1867, Canadians have recognized that the component parts of a Federal union must work in harmony if the national fabric is to be perfected; that even from a selfish standpoint, being of one family, it is to their interest to glory over the success of each individual member thereof. The Provinces joined in a great co-operative undertaking, and the voice of British Columbia should appeal to the people of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, as effectively as though borne upon the waves of the Atlantic, instead of the Pacific. Believing this to be a solution of the problem, how best to promote the practical development of the Dominion, it is of vast importance that Canadians should know their own country, its capabilities, its varied resources, its marvellous reserved power; and, so

race

Little more than twenty-five years ago, Canadians looked askance when British Columbia, in consideration of becoming an integral part of the Dominion, demanded that the walls of adamant frowning over her eastern boundaries should be pierced by a railway. This somewhat startled those who prided themselves upon representing the progressive Provinces of older Canada; consequently, there was some hesitancy in assuming responsibility for an experiment which some imagined a miracle only could prevent from precipitating national disaster. New Caledonia had been read of, in palmy days of Hudson's Bay supremacy, as a trading post and as a Crown colony; British Columbia heard of as being an isolated and somewhat exclusive community, a trifle insular, despite towering cliffs and sea-beaten coasts; but, as to being a country of great possibilities, few even dreamed.

Certainly, it had been the fur-traders' Mecca; its waters teemed with fish; its forests produced magnificent timber; a modicum of gold had possibly escaped the ferret-like proclivities of the ubiquitous prospector; there were bands of Sarcees, famous for filth and remarkable for chronic laziness; there were groups of Chinese, possessed of immortal appetites for gambling, and the living embodiment of almond-eyed hypocrisy. In short, grewsome pessimists found salmon in sufficiency in the Metapedia and Restigouche (salmon rising to a fly, too!); timber enough in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick; gold enough in Nova Scotia; and, as to railways, commerce was crying aloud for means of transport to and from localities whose population had for decades contributed taxes to the national treasury. Enlightened travellers, keen observers, were, however, abreast of the times; these fully appreciated the advantages accruing from ports on the Pacific, and a highway

through British territory to the centres of trade in Asia. Common sense, patriotism, statesmanship, triumphed ; the great trans-continental road became a reality, and British Columbia to-day exercises a significant and far-reaching influence, not alone upon Canada's future, but upon Imperial destinies as well.

A few words, then, concerning the historic past of British Columbia. Prior to 1843, the northern portion of Oregon territory had been a common hunting ground for traders of all nationalities; but, consequent upon a doubt existing with reference to the boundary line between the United States and British territory, a new site for the erection of a fort was chosen by the Hudson's Bay Company, and where the beautiful city of Victoria now stands, palisaded enclosures, bastions and offices were erected, and until 1846 the post was known as "Camosun." But even then gold was destined to attract the attention of the outside world to the mineral wealth of New Caledonia. The United States "jockeyed" the Mexicans and secured California; and when, in 1848-9, gold was discovered there, an impetus was

given to explorations elsewhere, Queen Charlotte Islands being known to contain deposits of the precious metal.

At that time, the boundaries of New Caledonia included the whole region from Peace River and the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, while the southern boundary was defined by the Columbia River, from the outlet of that river on the Pacific Ocean, following its course eastward to Fort Colville, thence along the Kootenay and Flathead Rivers to the Kootenay pass in the Rocky Mountains. The northern boundary was usually defined as reaching the Russian possessions on the north-west. Subsequently, an Imperial proclamation of the 2nd August, 1858, constituted British Columbia a colony, and declared the boundary on the south to be the frontier of the United States of America; to the east, the main chain of the Rocky Mountains; to the north, Simpson River and the Finlay branch of Peace River; and the west, the Pacific Ocean, including Queen Charlotte Islands, but not the colony of Vancouver Island. In 1863, minor changes took place in the definition of the boundaries of British Columbia. Subsequently, (1866) the union of British Columbia and