Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1921.djvu/362

 310

THE BRITISH EMPIRE : — BRITISH COLUMBIA

Minister of Education directs the general management of the schools through the Superintendent of Education.

There are 45 high schools in the Province, with 5,806 enrolled pupils (2,392 boys, 3,414 girls). The number of schools in 1919 was 933, with 2,332 teachers, and an enrolment of 72,006 pupils. The Provincial Uni- versity was founded by Act in 1908. It began operations as a teaching in- stitution in 1914, and in 1918-19 there were about 900 students.

Finance. — Revenue and expenditure : —

Revenue Dollarg

1913-4 . ■ 10,479,259

1914-5 . | 7,974,496

1915-6 . ' 6,291,693

1916-7 . 6,906,783

Expenditure Dollars

15,970,877

11,942,667

10,422,206

9,079,317

Revenue

Dollars

Expenditure Dollars

1917-8* 1918-9 1919-20 1920-21 >

9,S68,325 ' 10,800,805

9,900,055 11,611,694

12,609,960 J 13,313,303

13,978,245 j 17,410,673

The balance sheet of the Province showed that on March 31, 1919, the liabilities totalled 52,288,067 dollars; assets, 59,642,124 dollars; balance of assets over liabilities, 7,354,057 dollars.

Production and Industry. — British Columbia produced in 1919 minerals to the value of 32,296,313 dollars; lumber to the value of 70,285,094 dollars ; fish to the value of 15,216,397 dollars ; agricultural produce valued at 65,384,556 dollars; and manufactures, 1919, of the value of 68,500,000 dollars (estimated). The acreage and production of certain crops in 1920 were: wheat, 46,000 acres, 874,000 bushels; oats, 48,000 acres, 1,163,000 bushels; barley, 9,600 acres, 364,000 bushels; potatoes, 18,000 acres, 2,934,000 bushels; turnip"?, &c, 7,400 acres, 3,220,000 bushels ; hay and clover, 127,000 acres, 254,000 tons. Total area under field crops, 349.000 acres ; value, 27,017,500 dollars. Number of live stock in 1919: milch cows, 52,000 ; other cattle, 194,000; sheep, 45,000; pigs, 45,000; horses, 44,000 ; poultry, 1,181,000.

British Columbia's coal measures are estimated to contain 75 billion tons, mainly bituminous, of which 23,000 millions are in the seams known and measured ; it possesses the greatest compact area of merchantable timber in North America ; the importance of the fisheries, apart from salmon fishing, is only beginning to be realised; there are widely-distributed deposi magnetite and hematite iron, which are as yet undeveloped ; the area of possible farmland has been estimated at 60,000,000 acres, but not much more than one tenth of this area lias yet been occupied ; the Province has millions of acres of pulpwood as yet unexploited ; and much of the territory is unex] and its potential value unknown.

More than half the standing timber in Canada is to be found in British Columbia, and tbewiverage rate of forest growth is double that in the remainder of the Dominion. Recent investigators place the area of British Columbia's timber land at over 100,000,000 acres, containing, roughly, 400,000 million feet of merchantable timber. The most important species are : Douglas fir, western red cedar, silver spruce, western soft pine, western hemlock, Engel- liKtim spruce, cottonwood, and balsam, It isestimated that there are about 50,000,000,000 feet board measure under the control of the Dominion in the railway belt. Value of lumber produced in 1819, 70,285,094, dollars (in- cluding 12,554,257 dollars value for pulp).