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A couple of weeks ago, a correspondent
in the columns of the Spectator had something to say about the nickel industry.
Some years ago, the writer of these musings was interested in a passing study
of the mining and metallurgical industries of Canada, especially in the
province of Ontario. At that time, it was one of the dreams of John Patterson
to build a smelting furnace here in Hamilton for the reduction and refining of
nickel matte. Indeed, he got so far along in his scheme as to organize a
company and erect the necessary buildings in the east end of the city, and
there, forom some unaccountable reason, the nickel industry came to a sudden
ending before actual smelting had begun. Hamilton then lost a prospective
industry that would have been the means of bringing others of its kind to
furnish labor and wealth for the city. As we call to mind from the reading of
the report, referred to some years ago, native copper was first discovered in
Canada about the year 1767 by a trader named Henry, who had passed the winter
on Michipicoten Island. Later, a company was organized in England to work mines
in Lake Superior country, but the vein of copper was so narrow that the
prospectors became discouraged and the attempt was abandoned. No further effort
was made for nearly three-quarters of a century, until 1845, when a company was
organized in Montreal to explore the minerals on the north shore of Lake
Superior. A distance of 500 miles, from Sault Ste. Marie to Pigeon River, was
surveyed, but subsequent development proved disappointing. Unprofitable
operations were continued at intervals until 1865, during which time large sums
of money were expended in developing the Bruce mines. Nickel was first
discovered in 1816 in the copper ore in the Wallace mine, on the shore of Lake
Huron, but not in sufficient quantities to justify extensive explorations. This
was the first recorded discovery of nickel in Canada. Ten years later, nickel
and copper ore were discovered six miles north of Whitefish lake, and less than
half a mile from the Creighton mine. The Creighton mine, which has become the
main source of the nickel supply, was not opened till 1909. In 1892, the
International Nickel company, of New Jersey, was organized to consolidate and
control the nickel production in Canada.
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Canada has a monopoly of the nickel
output, for nickel is only found in one other place in the world in paying
quantities. In 1853, the French government took possession of an island of
Australia, in the Pacific ocean, and converted it into a convict camp. The
island is rich in gold, copper and nickel, and is surrounded on all sides by
coral reefs, connecting numerous islets, rocks and banks of sand, rendering
navigation so intricate and dangerous that the island can be approached by two openings
only. Captain Cook first discovered the island in 1774, and called it New
Caledonia. The island covers about six thousand square miles, and in 1890 had a
population of 57,000. The mines are worked by the French government with
convict labor. New Caledonia is between eight hundred and a thousand miles from
the shores of Australia, and its approaches are so dangerous that it is next to
impossible for the convicts to make their escape. The nickel output of the New
Caledonia mines hardly comes in competition with the output of the Sudbury
mines, for the distance which it has to be freighted to the markets in England
and New York, being some sixteen or seventeen thousand miles, and the demands
of the French government for use of the material in manufactures, etc.,
substantially gives Canada the control of the markets of the world. In 1907 –
the latest data on hand – the value of the nickel sent to the United States was
$9,525, 406. There seems to be no end in sight to the output of the mines, and
as the years go by, its value increases on account of its application in almost
every branch of the steel industry, especially in the making of plates for
sea-going vessels.
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In gold and silver mining, Canada has
wealth in abundance, and all that seems to be necessary to its development is
the investment of more Canadian capital. It does seem strange that in Ontario,
with all its richness in copper, nickel, lead, zinc, graphite, mica, talc,
corundum, carbide of calcium, salt, peat, petroleum and natural gas, so few of
the companies are controlled or managed by Canadian men or capital. In looking
over the list of corporations, we find Hamilton men and capital are represented
in the Canada Corundum company. It has a paid up capital of $1,106,287. Three
Hamilton men are members of the board of directors, C. S. Wilcox, F. H. Whitton
and J. Orr Callaghan. The headquarters of the company is in Toronto. The
company owns about three thousand acres of corundum lands in Renfrew and
Hastings counties. The corundum mill is by far the largest concentrating plant
in Canada, and in 1904 gave employment to an average of 200 men. Corundum was
first discovered in paying quantities in 1906. Corundum is the second hardest
mineral, the only other one equaling or surpassing it being the diamond. As
with nickel, cobalt, mica and asbestos, Canada holds a unique position, the
deposits being practically unlimited. Another valuable product is carbide of
calcium, a discovery made by H. L. Willson, who was born and raised within the
sound of the alarm in Hamilton’s fire tower.
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Take the entire territory of the
Dominion of Canada, from the Yukon territory to the jumping-off place at Nova
Scotia, and the earth is one vast storehouse of undiscovered wealth. The hardy
pioneers who have developed its mines have merely scratched the surface, but
enough has been done to prove Canada among the richest mining countries in the
world. Gold was first discovered in the Yukon in 1878 by a prospector named
Holt, and in the first twelve years $122,968,000 worth of the precious metal
was added to the wealth of the world. Towards the close of the eighteenth
century, silver was discovered near Sault Ste. Marie by a Russian explorer, but
it was not till 1855 the first mine was located. The yield was inconsiderable
till between the years 1867 and 1870, when an American company acquired from
the Montreal Mining company a tract of 107,000 acres, in which was included the
famous Silver Islet mine. The province of Quebec is rich in minerals, the one
of the greatest value being asbestos , which is especial interest in the mining
and industrial world. So far as is known down to the present time, the deposits
of asbestos in Quebec are the only ones yet discovered. The asbestos mines are
principally controlled by American capital. Petroleum was first discovered in
the western part of Canada about the year 1850, but it has been known to exist
by the Indians aay back in the early settlement of the country. It has been
used for lighting purposes from time immemorial. Petrolea, Bothwell, Leamington
and East Tilbury are the principal oil fields in Ontario, and all are located
between London and the Detroit river. Sixty years ago, everybody in this
section of Canada was talking petroleum, and millions of dollars were sunk in
prospecting wells, from which there was but small returns to the investors.
George Brown, the editor of the Toronto Globe, was one of the early promoters
of the Bothwell field, and sunk quite a lot of money. The pioneers in all such
enterprises generally lay the foundation for the fortunes made by the
Rockefellers. Hamilton had at least one enthusiast as a promoter in the oil
fields at Petrolea and Bothwell. Frederick Watkins, father of Frederick Watkins
now living in this city, was at that time doing a prosperous mercantile
business in partnership with his brother, Thomas C. and Samuel, but he caught
the oil fever and left the selling of dry goods and clothing to his brothers,
while he spent weary days and anxious nights boring for oil. After sinking
quite an amount of capital, he retired from the oil fields, glad to get back to
Hamilton with life and broken down health. The men who developed the Ontario
oil fields never made a dollar, but those who came after them reaped the harvest.
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We repeat the question asked in the
opening of these musings, Why should there be poverty and hard times in a land
of plenty? Ontario is rich in everything necessary to the comfort of man, and
there is more wasted every day on the farm and in the homes in towns and cities
than would feed the multitude out of work. Hamilton has grown in population far
beyond its working capacity at the present time. The war and hard times came
together, and, as a result, the four hundred or more industries of Hamilton
have had either to close down or run on shorter hours. The cotton mills and the
knitting factories and John McPherson’s shoe factory seem to be the favored
industries, some of them having to work overtime to fill orders. While Canadian
capital is being investedin Mexico and South America, English and American
capital is gathering in the wealth from the Ontario mines.
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Canada has sent some thirty or
thirty-two thousand of her boys across the seas to help fight the battles of
the mother country, and there is an effort to raise nearly as many men to raise
the contingent to fifty thousand. That the rolls will soon be filled, there is
no doubt, as thousands were disappointed at not being taken on the first call.
Just think of it, that in less than two months an army of thirty thousand
fighting men could be gathered, drilled and equipped, and all are volunteers!
In 1861, when President Lincoln issued the first call for 75,000 volunteers to
suppress the rebellion in the southern states, it took nearly three months to
lick them into shape and get them ready for the field of battle. That army had
to be equipped and drilled, for the majority of the boys who enlisted had,
probably, never fired a gun in their lives. This old muser can speak from
experience, for he was one of the 75,000 volunteers, and never but once had
fired even a shotgun, and then he killed a poor little bird that was singing so
sweetly in a tree across the bay in Oaklands park. The United States was not
then as well-prepared for war as was Canada when Colonel Sam Hughes called for
thirty thousand men. At the first battle of Bull Run, in July, 1861, the
Federals had in the field no larger an army than Canada sent across the seas a
couple of weeks ago.
