Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1960-11-17, Page 12ti . I f 14/417M MAW g•XPOSITQA,. SEA.FO$Ti , OMT., NOV. 17, 1960 We Congratulate . . THE TORONTO -DOMINION BANK on the completion of a Modern New Branch in Seaforth Plumbing requirements in the new building were provided by us. FS LL a PLUMBUNG ,:H A .R D W A R F QUALITY HEATING.• ;*" SERVICE PHONE .56 Chao The nineties were years of chal- lenge to Canadians, and it was Bering that period that The Doul.: inion Bank entered upon a pro- gram of enlargement. It was as a result of this program that the bank in 1893 made the decision to open a branch in Seaforth. The Canadian development of those years, and the part the bank played, is described in an interesting chapter of the book, "One .•hundred Years of Banking in Canada—A History of The To- ronto -Dominion Bank," which was published in 1958. During the period extending from the late seventies to the mid- dle nineties, Canada accomplished one tremendous task and embark- ed on a, number of sobering experi- ments. Across 3,000 miles of wil- derness, plains and mountains, the steel of the C.P.R. was pushed to the Pacific at a rate of nearly two miles a day. Physically, it was a feat of nation bu ding which astounded the world. On the oth- er hand, the high hopes- and high tariffs of the National Policy yield- ed steadily diminishing returns, and a hundred thousand disillusion- ed immigrants returning from Manitoba or drifting on to the United States, showed how stub- bornly the western prairies resist- ed civilization. The pattern of economic develop- ment was frustrating and erratic. It was a time of revelations and portents, and of disappointment and hope deferred. No year went by without discovering some new aspect of the country's promise; yet time and again the difficulties of realizing that promise were harshly shown. Fourteen banks failed between 1875 and 1895. Rash speculation brought its panicky af- termaths. The collapse of the Manitoba land boom in 1882 set off an avalanche of failures among land and colonization companies. The nation sprawled from sea to sea, tenuously joined,' stirred yet confused by ,the ferment of its growth, and vulnerable to every storm from the world outside. Yet the line of the C.P.R. remained a symbol of power and of achieve- ments yet to come. Surface pros- perity ebbed and flowed, crises came and passed, but at the cen- tres of the country's life there was a steady gathering of strength. The anxieties of the time were rather more evident than the -hopes as the late seventies dwindled away. Export markets for the staple products of the country seemed to be disappearing. Cana- dian manufacturers • and distribu- for the new branch of and LUMBER TORONTOa-DOMINION BANK IN SEAFORTH WERE SUPPLIED BY US Congratulations . . . TO THE BANK on the completion of this modern branch Seaforth Lumber Ltd. Phone 47 — Seaforth ing Year,. Branch tors were crippled liy "slaughter" competition from abroad.. Front the United States and from Eng- land, a flood of dumped merchan- dise was pouring into the country. American salesmen, in some ar- eas, followed the travellers • of Canadian wholesale houses from town to town with instructions to cut any price offered. Banks felt the effects of the calamitous situa- tion in every department of their business, most seriously in lum- ber, leather, boot and shoe ac- counts. Railway advances had be- come static and seemed to be shaky. For the first and may time in its history, The Bank of To- ronto was forced back onto its secondary defences. The directors decided on June 18, 1879, that $500,000 --half of the laboriously built up reserve --should be trans- ferred to a contingency fund to provide for possible losses. The position of both banks was still a happy one in comparison to the general position of the coun- try. Basic industries were in de- cline. In spite of the trek to Mani- toba, which had already begun, the agricultural population of central Canada seemed for the moment at saturation point. Farm hands, lumbermen, and unemployed fac- tory workers roamed the streets of Toronto and Montreal, begging for work and often begging for food. The only hope for the coun- try seemed to lie in a fight for something like national self-suffici- ency. Certainly the flooding of its markets by cheap goods from Eng- land and the United States had to be stopped, and the prostrate Can- adian manufacturer's given a hand up. So came the National Policy, with its protective tariff. "Mac- donald's way of imposing the new tariff," says Lower, in what is probably a rather sweeping state- ment, "was simple; he just invit- ed anyone who wanted a new duty to come to Ottawa and ask for it." In any case, protection became the policy Of the country. A great revival followed, partly caused by, and partly .coinciding with, the new policy. Manufactur- ing leaped forward, and the de-' mand for factory labor began to thin out the ranks of the unemploy- ed. Recovery in the United States brought a new demand for Cana- dian lumber. Ontario had a suc- cession of good harvest, while Bri- tain had some of the worst on re- cord, causing the export volume of wheat to soar. The railways. leaped from their coma as traffic revived; the whole pulse of the nation began to beat strongly again. By 1882 The Bank of To- ronto had recovered its losses, dis- posed •of its doubtful assets, and restored the half million dollars to its reserve. Neither William Gooderham nor James Worts lived to see the recovery completed. Gooderham died in August 1881, and Worts` followed him less than a year lat- er, in June, 1882. George Gooder- ham, who had been a ' director since 1873, succeeded his father as president, and William H. Beatty became vice-president, George Gooderham, then sixty- two; had his father's imposing presence, his native shrewdness, and his long-lived physical vigour. He is credited with a dry hum- our, which never escapes from the secrecy of the board- room into cold print. One incident cherished by the family, however, affords 'a relief from solemnity and even. from propriety. Gooderham, it ap- pears, was both amused and irri- tated by the saving habits of one of his directors. The two were fast friends and often foregather- ed of an evening in the study of the director's home. Coal oil be- % expensive, it was the direc- tor's habit to extinguish the lamp and let conversation ramble on in darkness. Gooderham submitted to a number of these darkling chats without complaint, but fili- ally one of them was interrupted by a series of squeaks and rustles coming from the direction of his chair. "Just taking off my pants," was his response to an annoyed query. "If nobody's going to see them I might as well save wear and tear on the seat." The first major changes in the leadership of The Dominion Bank 'also took place during the early eighties. John Worthington, one of Holden's first associates in the pro- motion of the bank, had died in 1873. In 1882 Holden himself died and was followed a few months later by Peleg Howland. Edmund Osler, now "a gentleman well known in financial circles as a successful business man" succeed- ed to the board in Holden's place. Frank Smith replaced Peleg How- land as vice-president, and an- other significant change was the addition to the board of Wihn et D. Matthews. Matthews was a future vice-president and was at that time Former Managers Retire In Town FORMER MANAGERS of the Seaforth branch of The To- ronto -Dominion Bank a r e : (upper) E. C. Boswell, who served from 1932 to 1949, and J. R.....Spittal, who retired in 1959. Both continue to reside in Seaforth and to contribute in a large measure to com- munity activities. neath the crests and ripples of the surface. Many of the protect- ed industries were now solidly es- tablished and doing well. There was an increase of public works. Towns, cities, and municipalities were all anxious for improvements, and better . able to support the Ioans to finance them. There was fpi.portant borrowing both from The Bank of Toronto and from The Dominion Bank, for the im- provement of water, Lighting and sewerage in many towns and for street railways and telephone sys- tems in the cities. The agricultural business of the two banks was suffering as farm communities began to feel the ef- fects of foreign competition. There Was an increase of agricultural production all around the world, while improved railway and steam- ship facilities were pouring the larger volume onto the market to force prices down. The bright spot, for Canada, was the growth of her dairying industry. By the early nineties Canada was supply- ing half of all the cheese imported into England, and cheese factories were becoming important accounts for bankers. Meat packing com- panies were also forging ahead. Old rough-and-ready methods of slaughter and packing were being done away with, and the result showed in greatly increased ex- port volume. Textiles had been one of the industries most greatly benefitted by the National Policy, and in the early eighties textile credits began to appear on the books of both banks. Between 1879 and 1885, nineteen new cotton mills. sprang up, more than doubling the coun- try's output. Production was soon double what the country could -ab- sorb, and a search began for ex- port markets. In 1887 five and a half million yards of cotton were shipped to China; yet output was still ahead of consumption. Even- tually -the industry turned toward consolidation. Nineteen of the 26 mills were amalgamated into two large combinations, The Dominion Cotton Mills Company and Cana- dian Coloured Cottons. The move represented a tread which was be- ing followed by many other branch- es of industry with a view to to control wasteful overproduction, streamline distributing methods, and generally put the manufac- turer and distributor in a strong- er position vis-a-vis their markets. Later on, in some industries, the position was to become too strong for the health of the country and would require regulation by law. a prominent grain inerchant of To- ronto. His election testified to the bank's growing involvement with the grain trade, in which its vol- ume was already beginning to riv- al that of The Bank of Toronto. Frank Smith, at the time he became Vice -President of The Dominion Bank, was also the wearer of another important hat. He was actually The Honourable Frank Smith, a member of Mac- donald's cabinet, and was later to become Sir Frank Smith for ser- vices rendered during the building of the C.P.R. Some anxious years lay ahead of him, in which he would well earn his title. Though not among the principal builders of the railway, be supplied its con- tractors through his wholesale pro- vision business, often on long cre- dits which , only faith could justify. Liberal, audacious and steadfast through the various crises of the project, he was to find himself on one or two occasions with most of his personal fortur% in jeop- ardy. The Toronto Dominion Bank Building is an impressive addition to Seaforth's Main Street, and the Manager and Staff of the Seaforth- Branch are to be congratulated It was flour ,priviledge to have had the re- sponsibility of providing and installing the modern floor coverings in this new building. BOX FURNITURE Appliances — Furniture- -- Floor Covering Phone 43 — Seaforth Canada had embarked on the building of the C.P.R. in 1881. The great enterprise, in itself, was a considerable factor making for the return of prosperity. Yet its larger promises was almost defeated for a time by the eruption of the Man- itoba land boom. The rush to Manitoba began first in 1878, with the completion- of a railway be- tween St. Paul and Winnipeg. A twelve -day journey between St. Paul and Winnipeg was reduced to three, and Manitoba had acquired an eastern outlet for its wheat by way of the United State. Grain prices doubled in the west, and Manitoba Fever" seized eastern Canada. Settlers trekked from On- tario by the tens of thousands, and among the home -stayers a rash of colonization coMpanies broke out. it began to seem that everyone in Ontario owned farm lands in Mani:. toba or corner lots in Winnipeg or Brandon. The boom rose to its peak as the steel of the C.P.R. marched toward Winnipeg. Sixty thousand settlers poured into Mani- toba in 1882, and nearly three mil- lion acres of land were taken up by homesteading, pre-emption, or sale. Then came frost and drought, the Riel rebellion, and trouble with the C.P.R., which, exercised the monopoly privileges of its charter with a determined hand. The long- term credits for their implements caught up with the cropless farm- ers, and the. --hardships of prairie life; frequently combined with an. ignorance of good farming meth- ods, did the rest. There ensued a drift eastward and south which tuned many of the farms and corner lots back to prairie. Immi- gration was discouraged until af- ter the turn of the century, and some thoughts of westward expan- sion cherished by the two banks were shelved for over a decade, Conditions in the east were, hi any case, interesting enough and difficult enough. In 1885 the first flush of prosperity resulting from the tariffs of the National Policy had begun to subside. Another Ywing to adversity was at band. et there was a slow groundswell; of solid development working be. ens in '93 million in /873, it slumped to $153 millions in 1879, and rose to $230 millions in 1883. It climber only nine millions more by 1896, but the actual progress was more heartening than it seemed, for lower. prices masked the increase in actual volume." Until 1890 it had been doubtful whether the United States or Great Britain would prove the better market for Canada's exports. The high McKinley tariffs set up by the United States in 18$1 decided the issue. By 1896, British pur- chases from Canada were $62 mil- lions as against $34 millions by the United States. On the other hand, between 1874 and 1895, Can- ada's imports from the United States remained steady at a figure of fifty to fifty-five millions, while purchases from Britain dropped from $68 millions in 1873 to $32 millions in 1896. The word ` equilibrium' had not yet entered the economist's vocabulary, but many Canadians were uneasily aware that they were buying im- mensely more in proportion from the United States than the United ' States was buying from them. A notable transition was -taking place -in the lumber industry, which was warmly supported by both banks. From about 1880 pulpwood had become the principal source of supply for paper -making, and methods of manufacture increased bykleaps and bounds. Canada, with its' enormous resources . of spruce and its unlimited water power, had a reat opportunity and soon be- came aware of it.• By 1891 twenty- three mills were producing pulp, with an annual output valued at around a million dollars. Canadian oil, like Canadian nickel, was a product ahead of its market. Petrolia, in Ontario, was a considerable production centre, but its maximum output of three thousand barrels a day was twice the consumption of the entire coun- try. The railways used the crude as a lubricant. •The refined pro- duct, mixed with sperm oil, was used in lamps and eventually for the manufacture of wax candles and paraffin. But export demand was fitful and soon supplied by the product of superior American refineries. At one time Liverpool authorities even refused . storage space to evil -smelling Canadian crude. There were not enough wheels and pistons in the world, as yet, to make oil more than a minor commodity. "The progress of Canada's for- eign trade was disappointingly slow. From an aggregate of $21'7 Congratulations to THE TORONTO -DOMINION BANK on the opening of new accommodation to. serve Seaforth and. community Ball -Macaulay Limited Phone 787 Seaforth CONGRATULATIONS TORONTO -DOMINION BANK SEAFORTH On the opening of your new modern Bank We take pleasure in wishing you many more successful years in the community. i BANK INTERIOR COUNTER FITTINGS . SU.PPLIED BY .JAS. F. GILLANDERS CO. LIMITED Manufacturers and Suppliers of Fine Woodwork 131 Front Street East : Toronto 2, Ont.