INTRODUCTION.

The leading tables of former issues of the Statistical YearBook will all be found in the present one, brought down to the latest available date and in many cases enlarged and improved. Considerable additions have been made throughout the book, particularly in Chapters IV and VII, which contain several new tables bearing specially on the important trade questions of the day, and in Chapter XI, in which, besides a large amount of general information, will be found a synopsis of the principal provisions of the new Bank Act.

Appendix A contains a copy of the Tariff arranged in alphabetical order, thus doing away with the necessity of an index; and Appendix B, the proposed Tariff changes of the present session.

The figures of the area of Canada, as given on page 92, were specially calculated for this work by the Topographical Survey Branch of the Department of the Interior and, as far as warranted by the present geographical knowledge of the country, may be accepted as correct.

Notices of the numerous Parliamentary changes that have taken place since going to press will be found as "Addenda" at the commencement of the book.

The publication of the work has been again delayed, from the same causes as before, viz.: by the delay in the publication of some of the Reports and by the extreme difficulty of getting any other than Parliamentary work attended to by the Printing Bureau, while the House of Commons is in session.

It is hoped that any errors detected, if such exist, will be at once reported to Mr. S. C. D. Roper, Department of Agricul

ture.

STATISTICS BRANCH,

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,

OTTAWA, July, 1891.