such conditions we could not finish our work in Canada, called us home.  In common with many of our countrymen we indulged in the hope that the duration of the war would be a matter of months and not of years, and that we should be able to resume our work in Canada in the autumn of 1915.  But this was not to be.  However, in 1916, the Governments represented on the Commission came to the conclusion that the completion of our work ought not to be longer delayed, and accordingly, in August, 1916, we sailed again to Canada.

In the Maritime Provinces of Canada, in 1914, we visited Sydney, Cape Breton, Halifax, the Annapolis Valley and Digby in Nova Scotia; St. John, Fredericton and Moncton in New Brunswick, and Charlottetown in Prince Edward Island.

In 1916 the resumption of our Canadian work began at Montreal.  Thereafter, the great mining districts of Northern Ontario engaged our attention, where, amongst other valuable products of the earth, nickel, silver and gold abound.  From Ontario we travelled westward to Prince Rupert on the British Columbian coast, holding sittings at Saskatoon, Edmonton and Prince Rupert.  We then proceeded by steamer, through glorious scenery, southward to Victoria, Vancouver Island.  At Victoria and also at Vancouver we took evidence.  From Vancouver we journeyed eastwards by the Canadian Pacific Railway over the Rockies, breaking our journey and holding sittings at Vernon, in the Okanagan Valley, at Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec, devoting several days each to many of these places.  Whilst in British Columbia we also visited the lower part of the Okanagan Valley, and whilst in the prairie provinces stopped at Medicine Hat (where the gas lamps burn day and night because it would cost more in wages than the cost of the gas to employ a man to turn them out).  In Ontario we visited North Bay, Fort William, Port Arthur, Guelph and Niagara Falls.  In addition some of us travelled through the mining districts of British Columbia, and also inspected the asbestos mines at Thetford, in the Province of Quebec.

This is the bald outline of our long and interesting journeys, which by land and sea comprehended some 70,000 miles.  How bald it is I keenly feel, and it would afford me more pleasure than I can tell to give some account of our wonderful experiences—­of the delight of sailing in southern seas; of the vast regions of the mainland of Australia; of the marvels of its tropical parts; of the entrancing beauty of New Zealand and Tasmania; of the wonders of Canada, the variety of its natural productions, its magnificent wheat-growing areas; of the charm of South Africa with its glorious climate and its beautiful rolling veldt.  What a memory it all is!  Tranquil seas, starlit nights, the Southern Cross, noble forests, glorious mountains, mighty rivers, boundless plains; young vigorous communities under sunny skies, with limitless space in which to expand.  I should love to enlarge on these things, but a sense of proportion and propriety restrains my pen.