For many years past, the Dominion Government has voted $10,000 to be spent in this harbor. It is proposed that the Dominion should increase this grant to $30,000 a year for a period of five years.

With reference to the repayment of the loan, the act provides that no surplus land shall be sold within ten years; but after that period, when prices may be considered established, any portion exceeding 60 feet away from the water's edge may be disposed of, provided the proceeds are applied solely to the redemption of bonds.

COVERED BERTHS IN SHIPYARDS.

Consul Metcalf, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, transmits, May 16, 1899, the following newspaper clipping, giving a description of the two covered berths at Wallsend-on-Tyne, an experiment which has created considerable interest in shipbuilding circles in England:

THE WALLSEND EXPERIMENT.

The heavy rainfall during the past week, which led to a practical stoppage of work in the outside departments in all the shipyards on the northeast coast, conduces to afford an indisputable illustration of the advantages of covered ship berths. Strange as it may appear, the firm of Messrs. C. S. Swan & Hunter, Limited, Wallsend, is the only shipbuilding firm in this country the representatives of which have gone to the extraordinary outlay entailed in the erection of stupendous structures to inclose the vessels on the berths. The idea of carrying such a project into effect originated in the mind of Councilor G. B. Hunter, the managing director of the company, conceived, it is understood, during a business tour in America, the huge structures inclosing the exhibits at the famous Chicago exhibition suggesting to his mind the practicability of the development of the principle on a more enlarged scale in the covering of vessels in course of construction on the berths. The firm named have no fewer than three shipyards-their east, west, and pontoon yards. The company entered into possession of the east yard in the year 1883 on a lease, and a few years later they purchased the ground in perpetuity, and hence it is in this department of their works in which two huge steel sheds have been erected, their present dimensions being 500 feet in length, 82 feet in width, and 100 feet in height. Having abundance of land at their disposal on the same level, the structures can be lengthened to 1,000 feet or more, as the ever-increasing demand for vessels of large dimensions may lead the company to lengthen the sheds to meet the requirements of the hour. In fact, the company has at the moment a magnificent steamer upwards of 600 feet in length on one of their berths, which is the largest vessel at present in the hands of any shipbuilder in the British Isles. It should be stated that, apart from the advantages accruing from the workmen in all the departments of the shipbuilding trade being able to follow their employment from Monday morning to Saturday at noon under the protection of the sheds, the facilities in point of labor are such that steady men of the best class are securing engagements with the firm, Mr. C. Stephenson, the yards manager, being gratified by the knowledge that he is gathering around him a class of men upon whom the utmost reliance can be placed in an emergency. Under such a condition of things, it will be understood that the firm gain in turn for the enterprise and outlay, inasmuch as they are in a position to undertake to build and equip the vessels in less than half the prescribed period essential for the execution of the work in the establishments in which climatic considerations naturally form an important factor. The workmen

in all the outside departments speak in terms of the highest commendation of the advantages which the inclosed berths afford, not the least of which is the greater safety to life and limb. It is known that many lives have been lost through the oscillation of the uprights, the ends of the staging becoming detached, and the men falling to the ground below; but as uprights are dispensed with in the case of vessels built under the sheds at Wallsend, a spirit of confidence is engendered among the riveters and other sections of the men, the stagings being attached to the massive still trellis work of which the sides of the sheds are composed. In point of expedition and the finish of work, the men participate largely in the facilities which the sheds afford. A plant in which all the latest improvements have been introduced, and driven by electric energy, is at the disposal of the men, by which the plates and bars are raised from the ground with the utmost promptitude by electric cranes and placed in position, one huge crane working on the roof with a 60-foot jib, while several cranes of lesser power travel immediately under the roof, which is of strong plate glass, as well as part of the sides which have been inclosed, with the result that the workmen are exempt from the discomforts not only of a stormy day, but of a passing shower.

PROSPERITY OF BRITISH COLONIES.

Ambassador Choate transmits from London, under date of June 17, 1899, a clipping from the London Times of June 6, as follows:

The lean years have gone by, and there is every reason to hope that British communities in different parts of the world are entering upon a period of fat years. This is the summary of the financial and industrial position which reaches us from the various groups of self-governing colonies.

First in the prosperous list stands Canada, where the fiscal year ends on June 30, and Mr. Fielding, the Dominion Minister of Finance, was able, in making his budget speech the other day, to estimate the surplus for 1898-99 at $4,600,000. The revenue for the year, assuming that the estimates of receipts for the last three months are well founded, will be $46,632,398, and the expenditure will amount to $42,026,028. This is a substantial advance on the revenue of last year, and the advance in expenditure, though considerable, is quadrupled by the receipts. In addition to the expenditure from income in the Dominion, there is every year for purposes of railways, canals, and other public works and services a further expenditure from capital account. This expenditure amounted last year to $8,662,795. Allowing for the deduction of the surplus and the outlay for sinking fund estimated in the regular expenditure, the net increase to the public debt of Canada will this year be $1,700,000. It was last year $2,417,802. In every particular the year shows a better result than last year.

Good harvests and the better prices ruling in the markets of the world for the staple produce of the colonies have, of course, much to do with the prosperity of Canada, as well as with that of Australia, to which allusion will presently be made. But there is something to be attributed to the increase of local enterprise which has resulted from or accompanied these conditions. The development of wheat farming and cattle breeding on the prairies and the opening of new productive mineral districts have helped to swell the total of Canadian foreign trade, as well as to increase the demand made by one part of the Dominion upon the produce and industry of the others. In the years which have been quoted the mineral production of Canada rose, in round figures, from an annual total of $19,000,000 to $38,000,000. The

actual increase of animal and agricultural products is more difficult to arrive at, but it has very greatly increased, and the number of farming homesteads taken up on Government lands in Manitoba has grown from 2,406 in 1897 to 4,848 in 1898. Along the course of the railway lately constructed through the Crow's Nest Pass of the Rocky Mountains into the mineral districts of southern British Columbia new towns are described as having "sprung up like mushrooms in a warm shower." In the Yukon district, where two and a half years ago there was a population of a few hundred persons, there are now upwards of 30,000, and the Atlin gold fields in the northern territory of British Columbia bid fair to rival the Klondike in their wealth. The eastern and maritime Provinces contribute their share to the general total. The annual reports of the boards of trade of Toronto, Montreal, St. John, and Halifax give satisfactory accounts of the condition of affairs in the Provinces for which they speak. The result of the general activity, though imperfectly summarized by export and import returns, is yet very perceptible in the fact that in the years for which the figures of revenue and expenditure have been given, the total of Canada's foreign trade has risen from $240,000,000 to $304,000,000. It is the first time in her history that Canada has touched or even approached a total of $300,000, 000; but Mr. Fielding, in estimating the prospects of the coming year, anticipates results of a still more satisfactory character.

If we turn to Australia as it hovers on the brink of federation, we find a condition of affairs which, notwithstanding the heavy blows of the past, promises scarcely less well for the future. In Victoria, where among the more important colonies the financial position has given the greatest cause for anxiety, the revenue returns are such as to justify the anticipation of a surplus for the year of £250,000 ($1,216,625), and there also treasury returns do not stand alone in bearing witness to an era of reviving prosperity. In mineral development, gold and coal, which are the two principal products of Victorian mines, show a substantial increase; while in agricultural and garden produce the total value of the output has risen in five years from £5,000,000 ($24,332,500) to £7,000,000 ($34,065,500) in round figures. The value of pastoral and dairy produce remained stationary in Victoria up to the end of last year, but the steady advance which has been taking place in the price of wool and meat is now making itself felt, and has greatly benefited the pastoral industry in the colonies of New Zealand, New South Wales, and Queensland. The total value of pastoral property in the seven colonies of Australasia was estimated in 1897 at about £238,000,000 ($1,158,227,000), exclusive of the value of freehold land, and the annual return of produce was at the same time calculated at £35,000,00 ($170,327,500). A very small increase in price is therefore sufficient to give a large increase in value and corresponding prosperity to Australian pastoralists. The quotation for Canterbury mutton has this year reached a figure 81⁄2 per cent higher than it did last year. Queensland beef has moved up 13 per cent. The value of merino wool has advanced something like 50 per cent from the lowest point which it touched in 1895. Victorian fruit, both dried and fresh, is making a good name for itself in the London market. The dairying industry through all the colonies is in a soundly prosperous condition, with every prospect of expansion as the taste for good and cheap butter grows in the manufacturing populations of the whole world. The troubles in the sugar trade have not prevented the sugar output of the northern part of Australia from increasing nearly 50 per cent upon the output of last year. The area of cultivated land in New South Wales has doubled itself within the last five years, with a very remarkable increase in the year 1898. New land legislation has contributed to promote a movement in the same direction in Queensland, and, as the average difference in value of produce between an acre of pastoral land and an acre of cultivated land is as the difference between Is. 4d. (32.4 cents) and £3 16s. ($18.49), it is not difficult to perceive the importance to the

Australian colonies of such a development. In Queensland, the prospects of mineral development on a large scale are regarded by mining authorities as most satisfactory. It is a happy moment in which the hope of federation has assumed a practical form in Australia, and, if any parallel can be drawn from the effect of federation upon Canada, it is probable that, if the great change is successfully carried into operation in the course of the coming year, Australia will enter upon the new century in a condition no less satisfactory in every particular than that already shown by the Dominion.

In South Africa the prospects of political unification are more doubtful, but there also the dominant industrial note is one of revival and expansion. There, apart from political troubles, the principal feature of anxiety in the industrial situation has of late years been a heavily preponderating balance of imports over exports. For the two years of 1896-97 the excess of imports over exports was very great; but in 1898 the balance restored itself in favor of the export trade, and the figures of trade were £26,709,000 ($129,979,349) worth of exports and £24,500,000 ($119,229,250) of imports, giving a combined total of £51,209,000 ($249,208,599), as against a combined total for 1897 of £48,674,906 ($236,876,430). The entire white population of South Africa does not yet reach 1,000,000 persons, and when this total of foreign trade is compared with the £61,000,000 ($296,856,500) done by the 5,000,000 inhabitants of Canada and with £74,000,000 ($360,121,000) of external trade done by the 4,500,000 inhabitants of Australasia, it is evident that some special circumstance must govern South African trade relations with the outside world. The special circumstance is, of course, to be looked for in the very large output of gold and diamonds, and the fact that South Africa has to import almost everything that is required by the white population. South Africa has practically no manufactures, and it does not feed itself. The gold output this year reached £16,000,000 ($77,864.

000) in value, and though this must not be reckoned as the produce of a British colony, coming as it does mainly from the Transvaal, it is largely the result of the. industry of British subjects. The existence and development of the gold-mining industry of the Rand have profoundly affected the industrial position of the surrounding British colonies, and its prosperity is scarcely less a matter of colonial concern than is the existence of the Kimberley diamond industry. The companies working at Johannesburg employ nearly 10,000 white men at an average wage of £24 ($116.80) a month, and about 68,000 natives at an average wage of £2 9s. 9d. ($12.11) a month and rations. These companies in 1898 increased their gold output by about £4,500,000 ($21,899,250) as compared with 1897. They also distributed in dividends £4,834,160 ($23,525,440), or £2,120,890 ($10,321,311) more than in 1897. From Rhodesia during the past year, a contribution of about £200,000 ($973,300) worth of gold has been made from the little beginning of five paying mines now working with ninety stamps in the northern district, and that number of stamps will be trebled by the end of this year. The principal industry of South Africa has therefore, in spite of the too well known difficulties by which it is hampered, made very remarkable progress in the past year. Putting gold, diamonds, and copper aside as special products, there is, further, the satisfactory indication of the existence of the elements of prosperity in the fact that the exports of general produce from South Africa rose from £4,401,000 ($21,417,467) in 1897 to £5,551,196 ($27,030,955) for 1898. Outside the gold industry, South Africa possesses through a great portion of its extent one of the best climates and the most fertile soils in the world. To give the natural elements of prosperity the same fair chance of fruition that they have in other countries developed under the protecting power of Great Britain is an object which President Kruger and Sir Alfred Milner may well unite in seeking as the outcome of the conference at Bloemfontein.

TRADE SUGGESTIONS FOR ASIATIC TURKEY.

Consul Washington sends from Alexandretta, under date of June 2, 1899, copy of a report by the British consular representative at Erzerum, containing suggestions for increasing the trade of his country with Asiatic Turkey. Mr. Washington thinks that the information may be of value to United States exporters, as showing the kind of competition they are likely to encounter. The report

reads, in part:

Trade catalogues and price lists, edited to suit the different localities of this country, with comparative measures and prices in both languages, would be valuable. At present, English catalogues reach me with no comparative price list in the currency of this country, and of manufactures utterly unsuited to this district. Recently, a catalogue of bicycles came to hand, none much cheaper than £20 ($97.33) apiece. This betrays ignorance or carelessness. No bicycles can be used here, where a decent road is unknown, in a mountainous district varying from 5,000 to 10,000 feet high. Even if they could be utilized, no one could afford to pay more than £2 or £3 ($9.73 to $14.60) for a machine.

The distribution of catalogues should vary according to the very different requirements of each district of Asia Minor. Thus, goods for Adana would be useless

in Erzerum.

For the above reasons, I would advocate the establishment, by interested British merchants and manufacturers, of a central office in Constantinople for the collation and distribution of catalogues and other information, as a center of reference for native merchants to ascertain comparative weights, measures, and prices, and to communicate the wants of this country to manufacturers at home. Such an agency might also serve as a general commission house for the transaction of considerable business now passing to Germany and Austria. The fact that almost all merchants in the provinces obtain their goods from middlemen in the capital points to the advantage of what I here advocate. It would be of much benefit to British commerce in Asiatic Turkey, where each district has its own particular rate at which gold payments are accepted. Thus, at Adana this rate is 136 piasters to the English £1. In Erzerum, it is 109 or 110 piasters. At Constantinople it is, I believe, 118 piasters, and so on. How is it, then, possible to compile comparative price lists in England? At Adana, a tropical summer heat prevails for seven months, while at Erzerum the thermometer registers a general winter temperature of some 40° of cold. Yet at both places I have received identical catalogues of goods totally unsuitable for the one or the other locality. Again, the advocated agency would, in my opinion, turn into British channels many orders now going elsewhere. Many merchants are deterred from direct dealings with England through ignorance of the necessary methods for establishing such a trade. They are driven for their orders to unscrupulous Greek or Armenian middlemen in Constantinople, who palm off on them the cheap wares of other countries, the prices of which enable them to make a higher profit than on our more expensive, but better, goods.

I hesitate to advocate, at Constantinople, anything so extended as the formation of an amalgamated company of British manufacturers or merchants. I can not think that this is practical or necessary. It is not to be expected that our merchants would risk their capital in such an enterprise without having first some fair guaranty of remuneration. Nor would I establish at such a center a general corps No. 228-8.