The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.
I shall tell the hon. gentleman in a * few minutes. From the experience we had last year, I am satisfied that this system will be the ultimate one adopted by all the ships coming to Canada which expect to carry large quantites of cheese or fruit. We havp had to do the same kind of thing that we did in the case of the original cold storage scheme, namely, bear a share of the cost-of fitting the vessels up, and make a similar contract. The experiment I am happy to say, has justified our expectations. By the contracts we then made with the shipowners to fit up their ships with this apparatus, we agreed to pay half the cost of fitting up, on the understanding that the cost should extend over, in the first case, three years, and in the second, two years ; and the results have justified our expectations that the ships would continue with that apparatus after the contract had expired. To-day a large number of the vessels now leaving Canadian ports and not subsidized at all by the government, are fitted up in that way, and when any new ship is being built for the St. Lawrence trade, it is well understood that it is necessary it should be fitted up with this cold storage system. Gratifying as has been the success of the work we have undertaken I am satisfied that when we have got the other system I have been describing, thoroughly into working order, similar results will follow, and that in the near future every steamer which expects to carry our apples and cheese across the Atlantic will be fitted up with this arrangement.
I shall not go into details just now on the particular expenditure in that line, although it is somewhat larger than last year. [DOT]
With regard to the railways, the system has been constantly extended. We have today a larger! number of lines fitted up with this system than we had any year before, and are occasionally receiving requests to have more put on, which we immediately act upon.
I hope this year to have an additional officer, whose duty it will be to watch more 1 closely the carriage by these railways of i our cold storage products. That work is c Hon. Mr. FISHER.
5 now being done by an officer stationed in ' Montreal, to which these lines nearly all 5 converge. He there watches carefully the ' arrivals, makes note of the shipments re-' ceived, the condition in which they arrive, 5 and the temperature maintained. His obser-; nations show that the work, on the whole, 5 has been satisfactorily done, but we have 1 complaints occasionally, especially at points * where the cars stop on their way to Montreal, and where there are converging lines , coming together, and I think it would con' <Uice to greater efficiency and the removal , of any such complaints, if we had an inspector, whose business it would be to take special charge of this particular work. I hope to be able to provide for such an officer during the coming year.
I have a statement here with regard to the creameries. I find that there are, roughly speaking, in the neighbourhood of TOO creameries in Canada, and that up to the present about 500 have been fitted, leaving in the neighbourhood of 200 which have not yet complied with the conditions , and got the bonus.