The chief occupations of the inhabitants are commerce, manufacturing and in the businesses associated with the fisheries, transportation and shipping. The city has con siderable West Indian trade, exporting lumber, fish, flour and other agricultural products, and importing sugar, rum, molasses, fruits and other .sub-tropical products; much of the com merce of the province is carried on through Halifax. The principal manufactures • are wooden cars and car and other iron and brass castings, machinery, boilers, agricultural im plements, skates, nuts and bolts, nails, paints, gunpowder, cordage, leather, boots and shoes, clothing, soap, cotton and woolen goods, wood work and woodenware, tar and products, ferti lizers, chocolates, spices, biscuits, aerated waters. There are two large sugar refineries, a molasses refinery and several distilleries and breweries, also several large fish-curing and packing and cold-storage establishments, sending their prod ucts to the United States, the West Indies, South America and the Mediterranean. In 1915 its manufactures, including fish and fish products, were valued at $20,730,000; ex ports, $32,175,231 • imports, $10,712,585; customs receipts, $2,488,10;5; bank clearings, $104,414,589.
History and Government.— In 1749 the British government sent out an expedition under the Hon. Edward Cornwallis to settle upon the strategic position now called Halifax, so named by Cornwallis in honor of Lord Halifax, president of the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations. The following year it was made the capital of Nova Scotia, then including New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, in place of Annapolis Royal; in 1817 it was declared a free port; in 1842 it was incorporated as a city.
It is governed by a mayor, elected annually, and four controllers and a council of 12 mem bers holding office for two years. The city and county send two members to the Dominion House of Commons and five to the provincial legislature. A fine tower erected in 1912 on the shores of the North West Arm commemorates the fact that Nova Scotia had the first repre sentative government of any portion of the empire, this privilege being granted in 1758. On 6 Dec. 1917 as the result of an explosion and conflagration, caused by the collision of two ships, one carrying a cargo of war muni tions, the north end of the city and Dartmouth on the east side of the harbor were devastated. From the North Street Railway station as far north as Africville to Bedford Basin, an area of about two and one-half square miles was totally destroyed by the explosion and fires which followed. A blizzard the next day im peded the work,of salvage; 1,158 dead bodies were recovered from the ruins, of which 854 were identified and 304 unidentified; 4,000 per sons were seriously injured; 20,000 were ren dered homeless; while the total property loss was estimated at $50,000,000. The damage to government, military, naval, provincial, civic, in dustrial, institutional and church property was half of the amount. The Dominion govern ment made an appropriation of $1,000,000 for immediate relief ; a relief fund of $25,000,000 was raised for necessary work; and clearing and reconstruction operations were at once instituted.