Biz-Biz 1901

More on the Gold Rush

The year began for the Board, said the January 9th Province, with a continuation of its efforts to improve the city’s steamship service to Skagway. A firm called Bodwell & Co. wrote the Board to say that the steamers Victorian and City of Seattle had been placed on the northern run “and that these vessels would make this city their first and last port of call up and down.” They also said that two other vessels would be added to the route in the spring “to care for the increased freight traffic likely to result.” The Board resolved to form a committee to meet with Bodwell’s local agent to secure a commitment to their pledges.

A two-man delegation (Board president Buscombe and A.O. Campbell) would go to Ottawa to “lay before the government the desirability of granting a subsidy in connection with the carrying of the Canadian mails to the north . . . At present the Canadian mails for the north are shipped from this city to Seattle and from there transported to American vessels to Skagway owing to the fact that it has been found impossible to place the carrying of them with a Canadian company or with one operating from a Canadian port and possessing the required facilities.” The delegation also planned to go to Montreal and talk about the steamship situation with CPR president Thomas Shaughnessy. [A May 5, 1902 story in the Province indicates this subsidy had recently been approved.]

False Creek, a Mint, and other weighty measures

The Board at its January 8th meeting approved a show of support for the city’s request to Ottawa for control of the False Creek tidal flats. (A parenthetical note: the Creek still extended far to the east of Main Street in 1901; that land would not be filled in until during the First World War.)

We learned that the Buscombe-Campbell delegation that had gone to Ottawa had also asked the federal government to establish a mint in Vancouver. The request had been received and filed.

The letter carriers of the city wrote the Board asking it to support their plea for a 20 per cent increase in their wages, which averaged $40 a month. A committee was appointed to look into it. (The Board approved a letter of support at its AGM March 12.) And Board member Henry Bell-Irving passed along a newspaper report of a resolution passed by the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association in Toronto “advocating the holding of a conference between Great Britain, the United States and other Anglo-Saxon people, with regard to the adoption of a universal system of weights and measures.” Bell-Irving suggested Canada could lead the way, and recommended other boards of trade in the province be contacted and that they all pass along a suggestion to Ottawa that the matter be discussed in parliament. Approved. (At its April 9th meeting Bell-Irving, in a letter, again urged the Board to put itself on record as approving a switch to the metric system.)

John McLagan leaves

John McLagan’s health forced him to resign from the Board. The news truly distressed the Board, because he had been a hard-working and popular member, and it was unanimously decided to recognize his service by electing him as an honorary member for life. Sadly, McLagan—the editor and publisher of The Vancouver World—died this same year. (His widow, Sara Ann McLagan, took over and became the first woman publisher of a daily newspaper in Canada.)

Ships needed

The Board was dismayed, said the Province of March 6th, by the preference for American ports shown by Pacific coast ship owners. What was needed: more locally made and locally based ships. “Resolved that in the opinion of this board the promotion of ship-building and owning of ships in this province is of the highest importance to the future commercial prosperity and advancement of British Columbia, and that this board begs to urge upon the dominion and provincial governments the advisability of granting assistance to the industry until it is fully established.” Carried, and the secretary was instructed to send a copy of the resolution to each representative of Vancouver and the coast in both the federal and provincial houses.

AGM

The annual general meeting of the Board on March 12 heard that membership had reached 183, and that there was “a cash balance at its credit at the end of the financial year of $932.76.” Members also heard that the Board was actively seeking new offices “further removed from the noise of street traffic, where the secretary may be permanently located during business hours.” (The April 10 issue of the Province shows that they moved into the Molson Bank building.)

Incidentally, you’ll have noticed that much of the attention of the Board in these early years was directed at points well beyond Vancouver itself. One example was the concern shown over the “necessity light-ships, lighthouses, fog signals and other aids to navigation on the British Columbia coast.”

There was dismay at the low Fraser River salmon run of the past year. “The number of canneries in operation on this river was 43 and the total pack amounted to only 161,423 cases, as against 510,383 cases in 1899.” There was a strike in the industry and that led to an estimated shortage of 50,000 cases, but even so the run was very small, making the season “one of the most disastrous in the history of the salmon canning industry on the Fraser.” The northern canners did well, but it was to be regretted that the government had done very little towards the extension of salmon hatcheries. Embarrassingly, the fishery commissioner for the state of Washington—where the industry was thriving—had submitted a proposal to the B.C. canners’ association on behalf of the state government “to contribute a large sum towards the establishment of hatcheries on the Fraser for the propagation of the sockeye salmon.” Comparison was made by the Board to Ontario, where 80 million fry were distributed by their provincial government, while only five million were distributed in B.C.

Lumber up . . . and down

Lumber shipments in 1900 were up markedly over 1899, but that was largely because the Hastings Mill had resumed operations after rebuilding (they’d had a fire). The industry, facing increases in wages and the cost of supplies, was still struggling. And—shades of 2006!—there was anger and resentment over the fact that the product of Canadian lumber mills was shut out of the American market by duties (for example, $2 on every thousand board feet), while American lumber products entered this country free of duty.

Locally built ships were needed for trans-Pacific trade (with China, Japan, Australia and South America), because B.C. shippers had to use San Francisco-based vessels, which charged fees well above those they levied on Puget Sound exporters, virtually next door.

The assay office

At a special meeting May 22 the Board, announcing that the government was unwilling to make a commitment, recommended that the city and its banks establish a gold assay office. Seattle, which had such an office, was benefiting from it to Vancouver’s disadvantage. If the banks would agree to do the assay work for nothing, then miners could be paid for their gold virtually the same rates they were now paid in Seattle. Some $20,166,687 worth of gold had been purchased in Seattle in the previous year, and of that amount $16,674.433 was from the Yukon. The meeting ended with a decision to advertise to the public the need from them for a guarantee fund of $5,000 to cover the costs of establishing payments to miners equal to that offered by Seattle. (A September 11 story indicated that, largely thanks to the efforts of Board member Pellew Harvey—who happened, incidentally, to be a metallurgist—the assay office had been established.)

Victoria offered to join with Vancouver in establishing two assay offices, one in each city, but the Board recommended against that, and resolved that “. . . while appreciating the natural desire of Victoria to have an assay office there, [the Board] still considers that the most advantageous position for this is at Vancouver.”

The Board ups its rates, seeks a judge, and worries about its good name

The June 18 meeting debated and passed a resolution that the entry fee for joining the Board should be raised from $5 to $10. Agitation continued for a resident judge in the city. The provincial government was against it, and the result was that a judge of the provincial Supreme Court visited the city only a few times a year.

A clever local hotelier named Smith had named his establishment the Board of Trade, and a delegation was dispatched to suggest he choose another name, or at least put the word “Hotel” at the end of it. There was no anger at the name, in fact the Board considered it a form of “subtle flattery,” but still it was thought it might cause confusion in the minds of some, especially visitors who “in searching for the institution of which they were members . . . might drift into a wholly different place.”

A digression: an advertisement in the September 11 Province placed by Weeks & Penwill, Family Grocers and Provision Merchants at Hastings and Seymour, was offering lobster at 35 cents a jar.

Tasmanian matters

A Mister Alexander Morton of Tasmania—still a colony of Australia when Morton visited, Tasmania became a state later this same year—spoke of the great desire in the colony for good quality canned salmon. The stuff they had been getting (he didn’t name the source) was of low quality, and the thousands of miners in Tasmania, which had the world’s largest tin mine, were choosing beef instead. He would inform the Tasmanians that salmon from Vancouver was infinitely better. [Our own researches show that there is an “Australian salmon,” but it’s a salt water fish and not very popular for eating, more of a sport fish or used for bait. Maybe that’s the kind Morton was referring to.]

Conventional decision

At its December 3 meeting the Board decided to seek affiliation with the Dominion Board of Trade, “which body proposed holding a convention of representatives of affiliated boards in 1902, when the question of a policy of preferential trade between Great Britain and the colonies will be discussed.” (In September of 1902 the Board would heartily agree to take part in that convention, now to be called a congress of the Chambers of Commerce of the Empire. It was scheduled for September, 1903 in Montreal . . . “at the same time noting that the day was not far distant when Vancouver must be recognized as the most central and fitting place for such a convention.”)

Board member W. Godfrey gave notice that at the next AGM he was going to recommend that the Board meet monthly, instead of quarterly. Rather than wait until the AGM the members decided to call a special meeting for January 7, 1902, just a month away.

And this puzzling item closed the Province’s December 4 account of the Board’s session: “Mr. H. T. Lockyer brought to the notice of the meeting the inconvenience caused by the medical inspection of passengers arriving from sound points on the steamer Mainlander. He pointed out the farce the whole thing was, owing to passengers from the same points but travelling via Victoria or the railway route being allowed to enter the city without passing any inspection at all. Mr. Lockyer moved that the board communicate with the Ottawa authorities requesting that the inspections be discontinued. The motion was seconded by Mr. Alexander and carried. The meeting adjourned.”1902

Missing material

It should be noted that, because of the condition of some of the newspaper microfilms used as the source of these reports, some issues are unreadable. The coverage of the Board’s AGM for this year, for example, was unavailable, and so was the January 7 special meeting at which the suggestion for monthly rather than quarterly meetings was to be debated. Still, we see references in later reports this year of “regular monthly meetings,” so the decision must have been approved.

The February 25th meeting of the Board was divided in its sympathies regarding the plea of B.C.’s loggers to have repealed the provincial law prohibiting the export of cedar logs to the U.S. Some members argued one way, some the other. It was decided to invite representatives from both the Lumbermen’s Association and the Lumber and Shingle Manufacturer’s Association to come and speak to the Board at its next meeting.

Other Boards

The Edmonton Board of Trade wrote asking the Vancouver Board to “do something” to bring grain shipments to this coast. It seems wheat and oats from “the territories”—remember, Alberta and Saskatchewan did not join Confederation until 1905—were being shipped to the Atlantic seaboard, and “there was no reason why the shipments could not have been made via Vancouver.” And, still on the subject of wheat, the Toronto Board of Trade wrote asking our Board to support its drive for a preferential tariff on Canadian wheat going to Great Britain. The Board agreed to lend its support, but recommended an amendment that the same preferential tariffs be extended to lumber, fish and all natural products, and that the tariffs apply “to all portions of the Empire,” not just Great Britain.

A digression: there was an advertisement in the February 26, 1902 Province, next to the report on the Board’s meeting, for George E. Trorey, Jeweler and Diamond Merchant (and official Watch Inspector for the CPR). He was holding a Big Watch Sale, ranging in price from $6.75 to $20. In 1907 Birks would come to Vancouver and buy the Trorey store, and change its name to Birks. The Trorey Clock would become the Birks Clock.

Siphoning

The April 8th meeting was informed by member C.E. Hope of a curious situation: he had been recently at Mission Junction and observed “that fully 75 per cent of the passengers arriving from the east by the CPR changed cars and crossed the line on the Seattle & International train. He estimated that 50 per cent of the American-bound people were agriculturalists, who had been induced to settle in the state of Washington. He contended that these people were passing in the Fraser valley land equally as good as could be found anywhere in the neighboring state.” The Board unanimously supported Hope’s contentions, and resolved to bring the matter to the attention of “the ruling powers.”

Member W.H. Malkin brought up the subject of a resident Supreme Court justice again, and it was decided to confer with the Bar Association to pursue the subject.

The Board decided to order 10,000 stickers to be applied to bills of goods shipped north by local merchants, advising miners in the area that Vancouver now had an assay office and was buying gold at rates virtually the same as those available in Seattle. It was hoped the merchants would cooperate.

Fair’s fair

The Province had a front-page editorial May 5 calling for an end to the practice of allowing Canadian bonded cargo to be sent to Skagway in American ships. This had been necessary during the gold rush when there were too few Canadian and British ships, but now the practice should end. The newspaper said it was likely the Vancouver Board of Trade would follow the lead of its Victoria counterpart, and call for an end to that practice. Incidentally, the editorial said, American law didn’t permit Canadian ships to carry American cargo to American ports.

An interesting passage in that editorial refers to the trade that had been done from Vancouver to Honolulu before the islands were annexed by the United States. “Every steamer of the Canadian-Australian line running out of this port did an enormous business in the hauling of American freight to Honolulu before annexation was effected, but immediately the islands became part of the United States all that trade was lost to the port of Vancouver . . .” There was no reason, the editorial concluded, “why Canadian steamers should not take all Canadian bonded freight north from this port.”

But at its May 19 meeting the Board’s consensus was that, because there were still too few Canadian and British ships available for the amount of trade, it would be inadvisable “under existing circumstances” to rescind the practice. American ships would continue to carry Canadian cargo north.

The August 1 meeting dealt almost wholly with trade to the Yukon, and satisfaction at its extent and growth. Guest speaker H.T. Lockyer, president of the Wholesale Grocers’ Association, remarked in passing that he thought an “All-Canadian or a Canadian-controlled railway to the Yukon would work to the betterment of Canadian trade. He thought possibly the sympathies of the present road [that would be the White Pass & Yukon] showed a leaning toward the Americans.”

White Pass passes?

W.H. Malkin must have been elected Board president at its 1902 AGM because that’s his title in an August 6 story on the regular meeting the previous evening. The members recorded an “emphatic protest . . . against the proposed removal of the local office of the White Pass & Yukon Railway from this city.” President Malkin “said that he was glad to see some of the heaviest shippers in the city present to give their views on the situation. Personally he regarded it as a matter of vital importance to the trade of the city.”

A resolution was passed to the effect that, not only should the railway keep its Vancouver office open, but that it should make Vancouver its head office, rather than Seattle. So much trade was done with the north, and so much came from Vancouver, that it was “inexplicable” that the railway would close the local office. Particularly vexing was the fact that White Pass gave no reason for its decision. See more on this below.

Members learned that the “Colonial Premiers” would be passing through the city, and efforts would be made to learn the precise date so that the Board could begin preparations to “banquet them.”

The Premiers

The premiers were banqueted September 18, and here is an opportunity to share with today’s readers a sampling of newspaper style of a century ago. The Province of September 19 covered the speech to the Board of Sir Edmund Barton, “Premier of Australia,” and here is a brief excerpt from that story.

“The Premier of Australia possesses the gift of oratory to a marked degree. His personality is magnetic. His voice is deep, resonant and sympathetic. His enunciation is good, and his delivery forceful. His was a noble speech, nobly expressed. His imperialist utterances were the words of a true statesman, with lofty aims and the ability to impress them upon his hearers.

“It was the best speech heard in Vancouver in many a day.”

The dinner was held in the Hotel Vancouver. The 1902 version of the hotel, the first of three, was at the southwest corner of Georgia and Granville Streets, where Sears sits today, and the banquet was accompanied by music from the band of the Sixth Duke of Connaught’s Own Rifles. Another indication of the change in newspaper style: every single guest was named in the story. There were 67 names, and they included high-ranking military officers, leading businessmen (no women were present), politicians domestic and foreign, consuls and more.

One brief passage from Barton’s speech was of special interest to the Vancouver audience: he said that the people of Australia “had taken a firm stand and had not only barred out Chinese, but other classes of Orientals.” Making that particularly ironic was the reference toward the end of the newspaper report to one of the guests, Mr. K. Morikawa, the Japanese consul in Vancouver. He thanked the company for a toast that had been given to Japan during the meeting, “and expressed his pleasure at Japan being the ally of England. (Cheers).”

Grain

The subject of grain exports came up again at the Board’s regular September meeting, and it was thought that although freight rates would make shipping prairie grain to Great Britain via Vancouver economically unfeasible, there was every reason to believe that markets for that grain could be found in Australia, parts of China and northern Russia. It was suggested by Mr. Peters of the Canadian-Australian line that his firm was prepared to carry samples of Canadian grain to Pacific ports free of charge to test response.

That meeting also featured this quaint and puzzling reference: “It was decided to take steps to further the scheme of establishing telephonic communication with Point Atkinson…” Could they have been referring to the lighthouse there?

White Pass at Gunpoint!

The Board took a dim view of the removal by the White Pass & Yukon Railway of its Vancouver office, “despite the fact that 25 per cent of the trade carried over the company’s lines originated in Canada.” See more on this above. President Malkin said that he understood from outside sources “that the reason the company did not want to have offices here was that it might escape the responsibility which attached to the issuance of the bills of lading.” There was no elaboration on that point, but one striking note was sounded: a letter from E.J. Graves, the president of the railway, said that “if the board had not tried to put a pistol to his head he might possibly have transferred the railway’s head offices from Seattle to this city.”

The Pacific Cable

The Board marked with real enthusiasm the completion October 31 of the Pacific Cable, which in the words of the Province, was an “epoch-marking event in the history of the British Empire.” Vancouver would now be able to communicate instantly with places as far-flung as Great Britain and Australia over the 7,200 miles (11,500+ km) of the cable. “The completion of this new electric band,” the report continued, would assist in disseminating knowledge, and interest in the Colonies would be stimulated through it . . .” President Malkin told the members that “a loyal message had been sent from Vancouver to His Majesty the King, and this message was then read by Secretary Skene. It was greeted with cheers and the singing of the National Anthem, His Majesty’s health being drunk in champagne.” [Edward VII had been crowned August 9th this year. That “National Anthem” would have been God Save the King.]

Sir Sandford Fleming, who had been pushing for the cable for years, had been quoted as saying that it was British Columbia’s offering of $1 million toward the work that was “the turning point, and from that time forward success was assured.” Special regard was paid to Board member Francis Carter-Cotton, then a provincial cabinet minister, who had been instrumental in the government making the offer. And a very special telegram was received from Ottawa: “I sincerely rejoice over the complete and successful opening of the new method of communication between Canada and the Orient,” it read. “I feel confident that Vancouver and British Columbia will reap very substantial benefits from the same.” Signed, Wilfrid Laurier, Prime Minister of Canada.

The cable, incidentally, began its leap across the Pacific from Bamfield, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, just south of Ucluelet and ended at Fanning Island, an atoll south of Hawaii. The ship Colonia laid the 8,000 tonnes of cable needed.

The major topic at the regular monthly meeting of the Board on December 2, the last meeting of 1902, was a controversy over “street ends,” with the city going to court opposing the CPR’s position on the subject. A careful reading of the newspaper reports shed no further light on the matter; we don’t know what was involved, except that the Board supported the city in its fight against the railway.

A digression: William Farrell, the president of the British Columbia Telephone Company, spoke proudly this year of his company’s friendly relations with subscribers, and the fact that its rates were 50 per cent lower than paid in Seattle or Tacoma. He also said there were more telephones per capita in BC than in any other province, while in Vancouver, “We have more telephones per head than any city in the British Empire.” Unfortunately, labor relations were less tranquil. A month after Farrell’s rosy report, the company locked out its unionized construction workers. It’s mentioned here because a number of prominent business people, including Board of Trade president W.H. Malkin and Hudson’s Bay Co. manager H.T. Lockyer, lined up in support of the strikers.

Image, top: Some buildings in Atlin during the Klondike Gold Rush, circa 1900. [City of Vancouver Archives AM54-S4-: Out P527.1]