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_ The Mining Act has in the past worked-- very well, and given ¢enens.«.=atlstwfl8n to the residents of the district; and with the amendments which are deemed necsssary and to which the commuttee would draw your at: tention, the present act will be much more in the interests of the people of the Province thany, a new act changinf what has been in th,apgz' the settled policy of the Government. 3P Mpa always shown by 1 > the development of l'rovince 1:;;;1'1:01 move any vantages the districts may be under at the haveo only to bring the matte! tion. . _: } s hoi h en' davits the n{;plicant. shall have the first privi-- lege of purchase for a lEoeriod of 30 days only, and in the event of the purchase mone{.not being paid and the purchase completed within 30 days the location shall be open to other ap-- plk:émtu as if no prior application had been made, (2) That a prospector may upon filing an aflidavit of the discovery of mineral and paying a fee of tive dollars be granted a certificate en-- titling him to hold the land (not exceeding 80 acres) upon which the minoral has been found for one year. Such certificate to be granted upon the condition that the party &Dplylltl'fi therefor shall forthwith doat least $100 wor of work upon such land and furnish the department with satisfactory proof thereof. And if these conditions are comrlied with, and wilhin one year from the date of the granting of the certiticate the party hnldin{ it pays the purchase monef. ho shall become the owner of the lands. If the conditions are not complied with and the purchase money not paid, the certificateto be cancelled. No person to be permitted to hold more than two certiticates at any one time. (5) That it will begreatly in the interests of this district, if the territory described in the order in Council of November 29, 1830, be declared a mining district and an oflice oponed at Sud-- bury, where all business can be d4one and an' offticial} appointed to settle disrutos and cx-- amine when necessary into all rival claims on The committee feel confident that these changes which they have been instructed to recommend to you will, if made, tend to on-- courage prospectors to discover minerals and promote the development of the mining dis-- tricts of this Province. We would respectfully submit that any change by which mineral lands would be disposed of in the same manner as timber lands now are would discourage the actual workers and probably lead to the mining districts of our country being locked up for many years in the hands of onelarge monopoly, the ground. A royalty on the ore produced or an increase in the price of land would also tend to limit the number of those engaged in the work and thus check development. _ ___ _ is In many States of the Union refulatlons similar to those recommended are in force, and much of the mineral development there is, we believe, due to them. Cl We submit theso recommendations trusting that they may meet with your approval and in confidence that your policy will in the future as in the past result in the development and building up of the great mineral interests of our Province,. e ho e s P Mr, Loughrin explained that the meeting at which this committee was appointed had been called at bis <uggzestion, and that he had told the ¥cople that, it they didn't want the whole earth but were Yreparcd to adopt reasonable views, they would have a good chance of get-- ting what they asked for. He had the honor to represent thisigreat mineral rcfiion. but he did not pretend to have the knowledgo necessary to discuss the questions at issue, and he asked Mr. Conmee to speak, The Prospector's Place, Mr. Conmes gave it as his orinion that it would not be the intcrest of the minin* in-- dustry if the mining lands were dealt with in the sams manner as the timber lands were now. They had to have the prospector find out where the mineral was before any de-- velopment could take place, and the prospec-- tor should be encouraged in every reasonable way. The Sudbury district had long since becn surveyed and had been ex-- amined by the gcologists of the survey at Ottawa, but mo important discoveries of mineral were made. EKven the building of the Canadian Pacific failed to bring to light the mineral resources of that district. It was only by the energy and perseverence of the ?ros- pector that this hidden wealth was brought to the knowledge @f the world. He pointed out further that a mining venture . was ver{l hazaruous, that a plant once estb-- alished represented so much money actu-- ally sunk, for it could not be removed to another location and urged to treat Other ore. even a short distance away. It was cal-- culated by experts that the io of a mine was about ten years. In that time not only muss there be enougih produced t» pay interest, but aiso to repay the capital expended. Otherwiss there would be a loser. 'There had been but liittle -- mining _ development _ in _ Canada thus far and it was of the utmost importance that the attention of carm\l- ists and miners now diredted to Ontario should not be diverted, _ HMe expressed his own dissent from thet part of the resolutions which, as he from thet part of the resolutions which, as he understooj it, would allow the capitalist to buy and hold unlimited quantitiee of land, while the prospector was ro%u&red to do $100 of work before he could hold his claim for more than a year, _ All should be compelied to make ailidavit that they had discovered minerals and to do development work under proper regulations. Mr. Stoble was called upon. Without ventur-- ing to outiine a policy, he would, he said, give them some of his experience as an explorer. He had been prospecting since 1885, and at A School of Mines, *¢a% Mr. Ritchie fora small sum, that he id have capital to go on witfi--his work. ?vm Peters, when he was deulcninfi the amelters now _ in or:muon, was told that the works would never pay, Now the im-- pression was that the prospectors were all millionaires, As a matter of fact compar--. atively. feow had met with success, and some : good men who had worked faithfully for three years had made nothing out of it. He sug-- ' geated, in addition to _ what was said in the re-- "quisition, that the Province should take in . hand,the work of educating men to be prac-- tical mjters, so that, knowing the work of smelting, they <« could establish smeltlnf workq1 on -- comparatively _ small capital. Mr. lardy suggested that this could be learned by young men -- working . at the smelters already in existoace, but Mr. Stobie said a man might work about a smelter for years and not refily learn anything about the process or the scientific vrinciples involved. 'This proposition of Mr. S.obie was dis ;ussed at some length, partly as a school of mines and partly as a custom or experi-- mental smelter, at which the owner of a yine -- ~ould get his oro smelted, Mr. Ryan pointed out that these features were united in the institutions of some of the mining States. Mr. O'Connor dwelt upon the advuntage to the poor man of «uch an institution, _onuuxing him to have the ore he took out of his mine reduced to a form in wh'lch | he could sell it. 'In this connection Mr. Con-- | mee pointed out that such an institution could : be made nearly if not quite self--sustain-- | ing, by a charge upon the ore smelted, ifor at present men desiring to know: | what they had in a mine had to send | shipments out of the country at great expense | to have a test made, The mere assaying of a hand specimen proved nothing. More exten-- | sive tests had to be made, and these the owners of locations were ready to pay for. __ | _ _ 4704 a an4r8 4e id 14 Ph t acin PP it m B 24 The Attorney--General, on behalf of the Gov-- ernment, assured the deputation of their deep interest in the g:rout question of mineral de-- velopment, and thanked them for their at-- tendance. THE ADVANCE OF EDUCGATION. The Annual Report of the Minister, H O N. GEORGE W. ROS S8, A Special Report on the French Schools. Use of Bi--Lingual Readers--Training of French Teachers--Growth of the Public «I ma diny & 4 ¥ The report of the Minister of Education for the year 1890, together with the statistics for 1889, has been laid before the House. It gives the school population ot the Province for 1889 as 616,028, of which number 500,-- 815 pupils were registered, 263,047 were boys and 237, 768 girls. 'The school popula-- tion that year was only 675 more than in 1888 ; the number of ]-mpill registered had, however, increased 4,492. The average at-- tendance in rural sections was 47 per cent. of the registered attendance, while in towns it was 60 per cent. and in cities 64 per cent. With regard to the average attendance . as compared with cheregistered attendance, . the report says it is evident that the power con-- ' ferred upon trustees tocompel theattendance I at school of children between the ages of seven and thirteen years is not exercised. In 1882 the number of absentees between the ages named was 87,444 ; in 1889 thefi numbered 86,515. There are now 5,6 school houses in the Province. Notwith-- standing the large expenditure for school sites and buildings and the large increase in the teaching staff of the country, the cost per pupil has but slightly advanced in thir-- teen years. The average cost f»er pupil ou the number enrolled in 1889 for counties was $7 14 ; for cities, $15 35; and for towns, §9 19, or an average of $8 44 for the: Pro-- vince. In 1877 the average cost was for'" counties, $6 01 ; for cities, $7 52 ; for towns, $6 51 ; or an average of $6 26 for the Pro--» vince, The number of Roman Catholic schools open during the year were 243, the number of pupils 32,790 and teachers 546. High Schools and Collegiate Institutes. The number of High Schools, including eollefiist.e institutes, was 120, with 18,64 ! pupils and 427 teachers. 'The report refers School System. T H tori! B