Quebec

QUEBEC, a province of the Dominion of Canada, is situated west and north-west of the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Bruns wick and Prince Edward Island, and is bounded on the east by that part of the Labrador coast which belongs to Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence; on the south by the province of New Brunswick and the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Ver mont and New York; on the west by the province of Ontario, the Ottawa river to Lake Temiscaming and thence northwards to James Bay and Hudson Bay, and on the north by Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay. The province extends from the 45th parallel to 6o° 4o' (approx.) north, and longitude 57° 7' to 79° 33' west. The addition of Ungava, under the provisions of the federal "Quebec Boundaries Extension Act" of 1912, increased the area of the province by 351,780 square miles, making the total at that date 706,834 square miles. In 1927 a decision of the Privy Council attributed to Newfoundland a portion of hinterland area, west of the Labrador coast, of undetermined Population.—By the federal census of 1921, the province of Quebec had a total population of 2,361,199, an increase of 17% over that of 1911 ; in 1931 it was 2,874,255. In 1921, 1,889,277 were of French and 357,108 of British origin; the number of Indians was 11,566. The chief cities and their populations in 1931 were: Quebec (the capital) 130,594; Montreal, 818,577; Verdun, 60,745; Three Rivers, 35,450; Hull, 29,433; Sherbrooke, Outremont, 28,641; Westmount, 24,189; Lachine, 18,630; Shawin igan Falls, 15,345; St. Hyacinthe, 13,448; Levis, 11,724; Val leyfield, 11,411 ; Joliette, 10,765. The English-speaking ele ment, which extends from Abitibi in the west to Gaspe in the east, remains steadily at about 15% of the total population; de creases of it in a number of rural sections being balanced by increases on the Island of Montreal and in industrial centres.

Government.

The Government consists of a lieutenant governor, appointed by the Dominion Government, a legislative council of 24 members appointed for life by the provincial gov ernment, and a legislative assembly of 84 members, elected for five years. The members of the Executive Council are the pre mier, provincial secretary, provincial treasurer, attorney general, minister of agriculture, minister of lands and forests, minister of public works and labour, minister of municipal affairs, min ister of colonisation, mines and fisheries, minister of roads. The province is represented in the Dominion parliament by 65 elected members to the house of commons and 24 members appointed for life to the senate. During thirty years up to and including

1927, there has been an annual surplus over the ordinary revenues and expenditures. There has been also a considerable growth in the ordinary revenues, due to the industrial expansion of the present century. In 1900 the total ordinary revenues amounted to $4,175,000; in 1927 they had increased to $30,925,000. The net debt of the province in 1927 was $58,812,951.

The province of Quebec is sharply divided into three distinct physiographic regions, each of which is also distinct geologically. They are: (I), the Laurentian Plateau Region, (2) the St. Law rence Lowlands Region and (3) the Appalachian Region.

(I). The Laurentian Plateau comprises the whole northern part of the province north of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa river valleys, and is more than nine-tenths of the whole area of the province. It is an immense plateau with an uneven rolling sur face, the elevation in general varying from 5oo to 2,000 feet, but near the Atlantic coast some peaks rise to over 5,000 feet.

The southern boundary closely follows the north shore of the Gulf and River St. Lawrence to the City of Quebec, from which point it gradually recedes westward, following a line which joins the cities of Quebec and Ottawa. Viewed from the southern boundary the plateau has at many points a well-marked escarp ment which suggests that it is a range of mountains, but the essen tial feature of the whole region is that of a plateau or peneplain. It is a hard-rock area, heavily planed by glacial action, and the Labradorean ice-sheet has also left its mark in the innumerable lakes and ponds, either cut in the solid rock by the ice-plough or hemmed in by the heaps of glacial debris. The Laurentian Plateau is heavily forested in its southern portion and has long been the scene of lumbering operations. In the twentieth century it has become increasingly occupied by large pulp and paper mills, due to the presence of the extensive raw material, the many float able streams and the abundance of water power. Although but a small percentage of the whole area is suited for agriculture, the parts which are thus occupied are of considerable importance, such as the Lake St. John region, north of the Saguenay river. The Laurentian Plateau is the scene of the long-continued fur trade of this part of Canada.