The origin of some further of our chief industries may now be recorded.
The cotton industry originated in the old Hudon Mill at Hochelaga, which was started in 1874. When founded there were employed at this mill some three hundred hands, and the buildings and plant were quite small. As the mill stands today, the ground covered is about four times that originally built upon and the number of men employed is upwards of eleven hundred.
The four other cotton mills of Montreal, all of which are under the ownership or control of the Dominion Textile Company, provide employment for between five thousand and six thousand persons in this city and must therefore be accounted amongst its very greatest industries. Some idea of the magnitude of the industry may be formed from the fact that the capitalization amounts to $13,500,000, including bonds. It may be noted in passing that the Dominion Textile Company, the chief offices of which are in this city, controls many other mills, some of them at considerable distances from Montreal.
Prior to 1883 there were no metal bridges manufactured in Montreal or vicinity and practically no structural steel work for buildings.
Since 1883, bridge and structural steel manufacture has developed greatly in Montreal. And there are now three large concerns engaged in this line of business: the Dominion Bridge Company, Limited, the National Bridge Company, Limited, and the Phoenix Bridge and Iron Works.
It is estimated that the combined output of these companies for 1912 was between seventy-five thousand and eighty thousand tons of bridge and building work, having a value of about four million and a half dollars.
It is also estimated that the number of hands employed in the shops and offices of these companies is about eighteen hundred, with a pay roll of about a million and a quarter dollars.
NATURAL ADVANTAGES
Of the great variety of natural advantages for manufacturing possessed by Montreal, it would be difficult to say which is the most important. With cheap transportation, it can assemble raw material and ship finished product with far greater facility than any other city on the American continent. Other cities have possibly equally good railway facilities, others have lake transportation; and other manufacturing cities, but not many, are ocean ports. No other city on the continent, however, combines all three advantages.
Coupled with these, Montreal has an important and rapidly expanding tributary territory in the Dominion, for products of its factories find their way all over Canada; it has a large class of skilled labor to draw on; and it commands cheaper power. Every requisite for successful manufacturing is found here. The cheapness with which power can be secured is a very important factor and with the development of important hydro-electric properties in the immediate vicinity industrial power costs are likely to be materially reduced in the near future. With both ocean and lake navigation at its disposal, Montreal taps both the Nova Scotia and the American coalfields and thus has unlimited supplies of fuel to draw on, which can be delivered here at a very low cost. Some of the largest ocean-going bulk cargo carriers in the world are running between the St. Lawrence ports and the Sydneys, freighting coal here at the lowest figures achieved anywhere for ocean transportation.