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Canada: THE DOMINION: The Long Arm of Lewis

2 minute read
TIME

Outside the Parliament Building, tulips bloomed and strollers idled along sun drenched walks. Inside, the House of Com mons was being told that Canada was in for a cold, tough winter. Reason: the coal strike in the U.S. (see NATIONAL AF FAIRS). Said Reconstruction Minister Clarence Decatur Howe: “The Canadian position will be very serious. . . . I am much more alarmed . . . than I was at any time during the war.” Two days later the truce in the strike was reached. But even a final settlement would not mean coal for Canada right away. U.S. bins would probably have to be filled first.

Canada normally uses 43,000,000 tons of coal a year. She gets 17,000,000 tons from mines in four provinces: Nova Sco tia, New Brunswick, Alberta and British Columbia. She could increase this production by half a million tons, but no more.

The rest of Canada’s coal, all used in industrial Ontario and Quebec, which have none of their own, is imported from the U.S., via the Great Lakes, in the seven ice-free months.

Valuable shipping time has already been lost. Two-thirds of Canada’s Great Lakes steamships were tied up last week. Coal dealers’ stockpiles were dwindling rapidly, in some cases had already vanished. The railroads were still in good shape, with a two months’ coal supply on hand. And be cause Canada’s great hydro-electric plants are capable of producing all the electric power needed, there had been no brownout.

But unless shippers hauled coal faster than they ever had before, “once shipments are resumed in quantity, Canadian homes would be chilly next winter.

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