Minister of Trade and Commerce, has just returned from the Pan-Pacific Commercial Conference in Honolulu, amd states that he is much impressed with the trade opportunities offered to Canada by China. He says that the Chinese are prepared to buy everything which Canadians have to sell, and that, with a population of 400,000,- 000, China should afford a splendid market. He points out that the United States finds a market in China for nearly every line of goods it produces, and the Chinese students who go back home after attending American Universities prove to be links between American and Chinese commerce. This is simply confirmation of what Dr. Ross, the energetic Canadian Trade Commissioner at Shanghai, has been endeavouring to impress upon Canadians for years past.
DEPLETION OF SALMON FISHERIES, The announcement is made that there may be @ close season for five years for sock-eye salmon fishing on the Fraser and its tributaries, and all coast waters Teading to them, provided Amoricans do the same on Puget Sound, and that an International Commission may be appointed consist-
Canada to govern the regulations two years ago. during the period named. The Commission appointed to inquire into the terrible depletion of these fisheries was quite agreed on the deplorable! state of affairs, but not so on the method of seiting it right, and I am not sure that it has not already been abandoned.
The matter calls attention to the manner in which the people on this continent have for generations been treating their natural resources. Sosfar as Canada is concerned, this depletion of salmon applies to other fisheries and a book has just appeared giving a shocking account of the manner in which wild life has been destroyed, many animals and birds having become extinct, nearly so. The destruction of forests, with no reafforestation of any account, hag been going on strenuously, while bush fires have burnt up more every year. The pollution of the lakes and rivers with sewage has rendered the question of pure drinking water an acute one, and it will prove to be a costly one. The land has been impovished very largely by continued cropping without fertilizers being used to replenish it: and in spite of all the space on which villages and towns could be built, which would eventually grow into cities, there are slums to be found here equal to those in European countries. Canadians are waking up te all this, but it will cost time and no end of money to make good the mistakes of the past, if ever this can be done, VIMY RIDGH MEMORIAL, The famous battlefield of Vimy Ridge may be purchased by Canada, to be turned into a park as a memorial to the Canadians who fell there. Two Canadian ministers are at present in France, negotiating a new trade treaty, and they may soon announce that the proposed purchase has been arranged. The proposal has met with favour here, and it would be an opportune thing to do og our Governor-General ig General Lord Byng of Vimy Ridge.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.