44. MANUFACTURES. The 1911 cen sus of Canada, which affords the latest com prehensive view of Canadian manufacturing, gave the total value of manufactured products in establishments employing five hands and over as $1,165,975,639, and placed a value on the raw materials consumed in the manufactur ing process at about half that amount. A Ws tal census of manufactures for the year 1915 shows an annual production over $240,000,000 in excess of the total above quoted. Compared with the beginning of the century, the latter figures reveal a growth of nearly three times in the value of products.* They also effectively reveal the important place which manufactur ing has come to occupy within the Canadian economic scheme. Only one other total, that of agriculture, vies with manufactures. From the billion dollars' worth of cereals and ani mals produced on Canadian farms in 1915 there are, of course, comparatively few deductions to be made an account of raw materials con sumed, the allowing for which is one of the vexing problems of statistics of manufactures. It would apparently, however, be safe to say that the manufacturing industry of Canada con tributes a new value approaching half a billion dollars annually to the production of the coun try, a total which places manufacturing an easy second to agriculture in the Canadian indus trial organization.
Anything like a detailed description of man ufacturing in Canada exceeds the intention of the present article. It may, however, be prac ticable to run over in a summary way the lead ing groups into which the industry may be di vided. These divisions are necessarily some what arbitrary, but perhaps the best initial ap proach is from the standpoint of the primary extractive industries, whose products it is the function of the manufacturer to turn into the forms required for final use.f Food First then with regard to manufactures using Canadian farm products as raw materials. The most important indus try under this heading is flour and grist milling which had a production valued at $114,483,924 in 1915, the larger mills being located at points strategic to the grain fields of Ontario and the West. Exports of flour in 1915-16 amounted
to $35,767,044 and of oatmeal to $471,298. Bread and biscuit-making establishments re ported a total product of $40,772,216.
The butter and cheese factories of Canada yielded a product valued at about half that of the flour mills in 1915, a total which does not include farm-made produce. These are chiefly small establishments owned for the most part by associations of farmers. The ma jority are in Ontario and Quebec, though the Maritime provinces have a well-developed dairying industry, and rapid progress is being made in the West, where the provincial govern ments have in some cases operated the plants. Condensed milk factories yielded $3,725,668 in 1915. Exports of butter, once a very heavy item, have decreased in recent years with the great increase in home consumption. Cheese exports, however, have steadily increased, reaching a total in 191S-16 of $26,690,500.
Against the live stock branch of farming may be placed a large meat-packing industry, the total product of which reached $96,789,731 in 1915. Meat packing has increased very rap idly in Canada during the past few years, and there has also grown up an important whole sale fresh meat trade. The latter was practi cally non-existent in 1900. Soap making, which is usually subsidiary to meat packing, is not so in Canada; the product reached a value of $6,445,939 m 1915. Leather making is more directly associated with live stock; the total Canadian product was valued at $3,654,491 in 1915, most of it, however, from imported hides. The boot and shoe industry, based on the leather trade, had an output of $34,064,696, the city of Quebec being the main manufacturing point. The harness and saddlery output ac counted for $8,739,278 more, and gloves and mitts for an additional $1,899,092.