During 1917, 85,000,000 feet of British Columbia lumber, in 3,850 cars, were handled by “C.N.R.” to the Prairie Provinces and Eastern Canada. Balsam and Douglas fir, red cedar, spruce, hemlock, &c., predominated. Silver spruce for aeroplanes came also, and as a result of the efforts of the Imperial Munitions Board the output of the latter has been recently doubled, the monthly production at present being approximately 1,200,000 feet.
Mr. W. H. Moore, Secretary of “C.N.R.”, in “Railway Nationalization and the Average Citizen”, makes some clear and terse comparisons of deep interest to the public spirited tax-payer anent the government’s aid given in cash, land and guaranteed bonds to “C.N.R.”, and subsidiary properties, and also to other Canadian railways, especially the Canadian Pacific Railway. He sets down that the “C.N.R.” received from federal, provincial and municipal coffers.—
| Land | Acres $ 6,555,708 |
| Cash subsidies | 38,874,148 |
| Guarantees by governments | 211,641,140 |
| Federal loans | 25,858,166 |
In rebuttal, the Government Bureau of Railway Statistics tabulates—
| To “C.P.R.”, land | Acres $ 28,023,185 |
| Cash aid to “C.P.R.” | 108,920,375 |
| Loans from Dominion Government (paid back) | 40,000,000 |
The Dominion Government’s Board of Arbitrators—Sir William Meredith, Chief Justice Harris and Wallace Nesbitt, K.C.,—which submitted a report as to the value of 600,000 shares of Canadian Northern Railway common stock, consumed 50 days from March to the middle of May in hearing the testimony of legal counsel and valuation experts, the proceedings totalling over 1,500,000 words of evidence and costing about $100,000.
F. H. Phippen,
General Counsel, Canadian Northern Railway System.
The Board’s award of $10,800,000 for the railway stock valuated, exceeded by $800,000 the limit for same made by Act of Parliament, which was $10,000,000.