up exclusively of French-speaking members, and the Montreal
Typographical Union, No. 176, followed by the Carpenters’ Union,
which has developed to such an extent that, today in Montreal,
it has seven locals and about three thousand members. Local No.
134 of this union is made up exclusively of French-speaking
workmen and comprises about two thousand three hundred members.
An impetus had been given, and the international labour movement
is still powerful. Today there are 194 international unions in
the Province of Quebec with a membership of over forty thousand
members, of which 109 locals, comprising over thirty thousand
members, are in Montreal. The proportion of French-speaking
members belonging to these unions is:
Building trades, 75 per cent; boot and shoe industry, 90 per
cent; cigar and printing trades, 90 per cent; metallurgy,
machinists, etc., 25 per cent; railway employees, 50 per cent;
musicians and others, 80 per cent.
As an example of what can be accomplished by political action
combined with trade unionism, it may be pointed out to the credit
of the workingmen of the City of Montreal, that it is the only
city throughout the whole Dominion which found a way of electing
one of its own labour members to the House of Parliament, Mr.
Alphonse Verville, who was returned in 1906 by a strong majority,
being reelected twice since by a still larger majority.
In the City of Montreal, another worker, Joseph Ainey, was
elected as city commissioner by a majority of 8,000 votes over
and above that of the second commissioner elected in the City of
Montreal.
It is well to place a record here of the average annual salary of
various classes of wage-earners in Montreal at present:
Bricklayers $800.00
Carpenters 700.00
Plumbers 750.00
Plasterer 750.00
Stone Cutters 800.00
Granite Cutters 800.00
Painters 700.00
Electricians 700.00
Structural Iron Workers 600.00
Building Laborers 500.00
Brass Workers 750.00
Moulders 750.00
Machinists 750.00
Blacksmiths 750.00
Typos 900.00
Pressmen 800.00
Bookbinders 750.00
Stereotypers 650.00
Cigarmakers 750.00
Shoemakers 650.00
Musicians 800.00
Butchers 650.00
Barbers 600.00
Tailors 600.00
Weavers 600.00
Laundry Workers 500.00
A central executive entitled “The Trades and Labour Council”
has done very effective work in harmonizing difficulties and in
promoting useful legislation for the working classes.
THE YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION
[3] The development of the modern moral and intellectual
assistance for the worker may now be instanced. The work of the
Y.M.C.A., now so largely developed on the American continent,
owes its origin to Montreal. Its history is briefly thus. It
was in the Baptist Church on St. Helen’s Street, in the ’50s,
that the beginnings of the association took form. The official
date given on a tablet placed on the Gault Building on St. Helen
Street places the date as November, 1851.
Among those present were Messrs. F.E. Grafton, T. James Claxton,
W.H. Milne, F.H. Marling, and John Holland. Mr. Marling, who was
a student in the Congregational College, was chairman of the
meeting. A canvass was made of the churches and encouragement
obtained for the project. One of the planks in the constitution
was that the association would never admit any intermeddling with
those matters of faith and polity on which the Protestant church
may differ.
There was a general committee appointed and this body rented the
Odd Fellows’ Hall on St. James Street. In 1851, the Rev. Donald
Fraser, the pastor of Coté Street Presbyterian Church, delivered
the inaugural lecture.
The young association had much difficulty to realize growth, but
a city missionary was appointed to give his whole time to the
work of obtaining support, and of familiarizing the churches and
the people generally with the objects of the work.
Mr. John Holland, one of the original members, moved to Toronto
in 1853, and was instrumental in forming the first association in
that city.
There was a confederation of all the associations on this
continent in 1855, and to this the local association gave its
adhesion. All the European associations met this same year at
Paris, and reached what was known as the “Paris basis,” to which
the local association also gave its adhesion.
In 1856 the Confederated Association met in Montreal, and
adopted the basis of union. Montreal was, therefore, not only
the birthplace of the organization on the continent, but at the
meeting in the city the basis of union was adopted, which has
since bound all the associations on this continent together.
The Montreal association moved to 205 Notre Dame Street, where
its membership reached 205. Some of the names of the then members
have an interest for the present generation of Montrealers. Men
like Charles Alexander, James Baylis, George S. Bransh, T. James
Claxton, J.P. Cleghorn, George Childs, W. Cooper, David Bentley,
Robert Gardner, F.E. Grafton, E.K. Greene, Alexander Harte, W.R.
Hibbard, Robert Irwin, F.W. Kay, Joseph Learmount, S.H. Burnett,
Thomas Leeming, John Louson, Theodore Lyman, A. McGibbon, Samuel
Massey, G. May, John Murphy, William Muir, A.A. Stevenson, Robert
Dow, Henry Drummond, Kenneth Campbell, Henry Morton, J. Tees, J.
Holland, P.L. Ross, H.A. Nelson, Alfred Savage, John Torrance,
Joseph Rielle, John Dougall, John Lewis, R.C. Jamieson, and many
others.
In 1857 the slavery question in the United States became acute,
and was felt its influence here. It was the slavery question
which was the cause of the Montreal association withdrawing
from the confederation. A resolution was passed declaring that
slave holders were ineligible for membership. The international
convention was to be held in Richmond. The Montreal association
was asked to vote on the question. It resolved that as southern
associations which rejected men of color, were connected with the
confederation, the Montreal association resigned its connection
with the same. This slavery question created much feeling at the
time. Many outside associations followed the Montreal example.
In 1858 the association removed to 90 McGill Street. It was in
this year that the late Sir William Dawson connected himself with
the work, remaining with it till his death. It was the habit,
long before the erection of the present Sailors’ Institute, to
visit all the ships coming into port and talk to the sailors who
were given suitable literature.
The fortunes of the association were at a low ebb in 1862, and,
in fact, there was talk of disbanding. A meeting for that purpose
was called; but the result was a determination to prosecute the
work with more energy than ever. Rooms were secured over the Bank
of Upper Canada, then on St. James Street. The association began
to flourish. A fire broke out in the building, and in 1863 a new
suite of rooms was secured adjoining the postoffice. Each year
onward showed from this point increased success.
The city was properly classified; the bands of workers increased.
Mr. Alfred Sandham was secured as general secretary, and remained
in the position till 1876, when he was succeeded by Mr. Budge.
In 1867 the association removed to the Bible House at the corner
of Craig and Alexander streets. In this year, the twelfth
international convention was held in the city. This convention
represented 106 associations and 597 delegates. Major-General
Russell, commander of the British forces, and Sir Henry Havelock
were among the speakers on the important occasion. Occurring at
the close of the Civil War, the meetings were remarkable for the
interest and fervour, for the slaves had been freed, at fearful
cost, and it was a sight to see the delegation of colored men who
were, for the first time, received as accredited delegates.
The idea of the association was to have its own building, and
great efforts were made in this connection. It was in 1870 that
steps were taken to secure the property at the corner of Craig
and Radegonde streets. The cornerstone was laid in 1872 by Mr.
J.T. Claxton. Revs. G.C. Wells, Doctor Burns and Doctor Wilkes,
were among the speakers. Comfortably installed in their new
building, the work progressed. It had been in seven different
buildings since its inception. It now owned its own premises.
Mr. Budge began his work in 1874 as general secretary. The total
membership was in this year 1,360.
It was the late Mr. Moody who decided upon the present site
of the association. The work had become too large for the
accommodation on Victoria Square. The population had greatly
increased. The membership felt this increase. Enlarged interests
had been cared for; and the training and education of boys had
been undertaken. Mr. Moody had been in the city and held a most
successful series of meetings in what was known as the old
Crystal Rink on the corner of Metcalfe and Dorchester streets
facing Dominion Square. There was doubt as to the location of the
new association building. He was asked for his opinion. “Why not
build it on the site of the Crystal Rink?” he said. His counsel
prevailed, and in 1888 the deed was signed, which transferred the
site of the present building to the association.
Here the work grew marvellously. It has branched out in many
important directions. It has supported men in India; it has sent
out men to South Africa during the Boer war; it has added to its
membership and activities and its recent triumph, when it raised
over $200,000 for the further extension of the work in the new
and enlarged building, is within recent memory.
The new home on Drummond Street was entered on August 1, 1912,
and was formally opened in September.
From the little Baptist Church on St. Helen Street to the
palatial home of the association is a long step, but it is an
answer to the demand for this sort of service on behalf of the
young in our city.
THE MONTREAL YOUNG WOMEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION
The Montreal Young Women’s Christian Association was organized
and incorporated in 1874 under the presidency of Mrs. P.D. Brown,
its central idea being that of helpfulness--physical, moral, and
spiritual--for industrial women.
Its first purpose was to provide a boarding home which should be
in no sense a charity, where young business women and students
might find a safe home free from the numerous temptations which
beset the young woman in the city. This part of the work has only
been limited by the size of the building; today about eighty-five
young women are housed in the association building, and fifty
in an annex which was opened in 1908. Early in 1914 another
building, to accommodate fifty more, was opened.
Its second purpose was to provide an employment bureau where
suitable work was found for the stranger.
Some of the activities of the association may now be mentioned.
In 1880, the necessity for a diet kitchen was felt, and in the
basement of the American Presbyterian Church, under the wing of
the Young Women’s Christian Association, one was opened. Here
the ladies themselves prepared suitable articles for diet for
invalids, the food dispensed only to applicants provided with a
card from clergy or the medical profession. In a few years this
work became so necessary that it separated from the Young Women’s
Christian Association and carried on its good work alone.
The Montreal Day Nursery, or crèche, was begun by the Young
Women’s Christian Association in 1888, but like the Montreal Diet
Dispensary it outgrew its sponsors and branched out for itself,
and has long been one of the most popular of Montreal’s charities.
The Helping Hand sewing school was opened in 1875, its object
being to teach the children of the poor to sew.
In 1894, the first school for cookery in Montreal was opened
by the Young Women’s Christian Association, its object being
to teach the poorer classes habits of thrift and economy. This
continued for many years, or until the normal and technical
schools took up the work.
Thus the Young Women’s Christian Association has been the pioneer
in many of the flourishing charitable and philanthropic works of
Montreal.
Educational classes have been a large factor in Young Women’s
Christian Association work, classes being held nightly in
dressmaking, millinery, shorthand, first aid to injured, French,
bookkeeping, and elementary subjects.
The first Montreal Young Women’s Christian Association work
began at 47 Metcalfe Street. Three moves were made as the work
developed, until in 1897 the present building was bought, but
even then the opportunity for progressive movement has been
hampered by the limited space. Plans for a larger and more modern
building are under consideration.
In addition there is the Fairmount Branch Y.W.C.A. and those
branches at 323 Mackey Street and 25 St. Famille Street.
LE FOYER
An important work for French business girls on the same lines
as the Young Women’s Christian Association is conducted by “Le
Foyer,” which was established in March, 1903, under the direction
of the Curé of St. Jacques, on St. Denis Street--M. Henri
Gauthier. The first house of the society was at 207 Champ de Mars
and its first directress was Mlle. Marie Imbleau. As the work
progressed a branch house was instituted at 14 Osborne Street,
the first directress of which was Miss Gabrielle Taschereau.
Later a second branch house was opened at 55 St. Denis Street
under the direction of Mlle. Leona Bonneville. In addition
there is a country house at Ste. Adèle, which receives during
the summer months thirty-five boarders a week. The organization
has a central office at 60 Notre Dame Street and its government
is under a committee of lay people of whom Mlle. Emma Beaudoin
is the present president. Each of the three houses has its own
secretary. There are 800 meals served daily in the three houses,
with about five hundred at the chief house on Champ de Mars,
while there are 125 regular boarders besides transients. The
pension is $2.50 a week. The activities include the _Bureau
d’emplacement_ in which situations are arranged for, and the
_Bureau d’enseignement_, which provides for culture and education
through lectures, classes, etc. There are also social, musical,
domestic science and other clubs in connection with this varied
work.
THE CATHOLIC GIRLS’ CLUB
A work which is conducted on somewhat similar lines to the Young
Women’s Christian Association is the Catholic Girls’ Club.
On March 20, 1911, Lady Hingston called together a number of
ladies from the various English-speaking parishes and invited
their cooperation in forming a Catholic Girls’ Club. The idea was
enthusiastically received, a committee was promptly formed and,
with Lady Hingston as president, the scheme was fairly launched.
A house, 63 Victoria Street, was rented for a year and thanks to
an efficient committee, was furnished and ready for occupation in
an incredibly short space of time.
Early in June the rooms were formally opened by His Grace,
Archbishop Bruchesi, under the name of the “Catholic Girls’
Club,” while the opening for the members took place on June 6th.
A large and successful bazaar, under the convenership of Mrs.
Cornwallis Monk, was held in October, 1911, the proceeds of which
enabled the committee to arrange for the purchase of the present
handsome club house, 311 Mackay Street, and to make the first
necessary payments.
Among other agencies for business girls may be mentioned “Ave
Marie,” La Providence, Maison St. Nom de Marie, Patronage
d’Youville and the business organizations under affiliation
with La Fédération St. Jean Baptiste. There are many also among
the non-Catholic population, the branches of the Young Women’s
Christian Association, and the like.
XIII
RECENT SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
NEIGHBOURLY CHARITIES--THE KING’S DAUGHTERS--THE UNIVERSITY
AND IVERLEY SETTLEMENTS--THE SETTLEMENT IDEA--SOCIAL STUDY
ORGANIZATIONS--THE CANADIAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY
TO ANIMALS.
“Neighbourly” charities in Montreal flourish in many a corner too
numerous to individualize. Of late both in the French, or English
and foreign sections of the city, Free Air and Summer Vacation
committees, and others such as the “Holiday” Home, the various
crèches and relief associations and churches, do their utmost
to give rest and holidays to poor mothers and children. Other
bodies assist in sewing and making garments for them such as the
“Needlework Guild,” and the sewing circles of the various church
clubs. Then there are associations with a wide scope which are
ready to take up the social work most needed for the hour, such
as the Victorian Sunshine Society, which originated at Westmount,
and many others.
THE KING’S DAUGHTERS
One of the latter societies is the “King’s Daughters,” an
international association founded in 1886 and established in
Montreal in 1888 by the Ready Circle in connection with the
American Presbyterian Church. This work is now carried on by
the crèche on Côte des Neiges Road opposite the old entrance to
the Mountain Park. The primary aim of the King’s Daughters is
to deepen the spiritual life and to engage in social works. The
crèche is one form of such and since its establishment in 1908,
first at Outremont then at Côte des Neiges and now at the above
place it receives poor families with their children during three
months of summer for daily rest, fresh air and relaxation, even
paying their transportation thither.
THE UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENT
The “settlement” or “neighbourhood” movement which culminated
in the formation of the University Settlement House at 159
Dorchester Street West in May, 1910, when two of the organizing
committee, Mrs. W.P. Hodges and Mrs. D. McIntosh set to work
cleaning up the little tenement and founded the nucleus of a
settlement round the classes of the McGill Neighbourhood Club,
may be traced to an earlier move originating with social workers
in connection with McGill University. The following synopsis will
show in brief the progress accomplished from 1889 to 1913:
1889--The Mu Iota Society was formed by the women graduates of
McGill University.
1890--Its name changed to Alumnæ Society.
May, 1891--Girls’ Club and lunch room was opened by the Alumnæ
Society at 47 Jurors Street.
May, 1894--Girls’ Club was moved to 84 Bleury Street. Evening
classes, etc., were held. First Christmas tree and entertainment
for 100 children of the neighbourhood.
May, 1895--Dwelling over shop was rented, giving sitting room and
bedrooms for working staff and four club members.
1895-96--Library opened. Addresses on settlements were given.
May, 1896--Adjoining shop rented.
1899-1900--Further addresses on settlement work, one by Dr.
Graham Taylor, of Chicago Commons.
1902--Moved to east side of Bleury Street. Shop and dwelling
rented.
1903--King’s Club for boys and girls was formed in fall.
May 1, 1905--Girls’ Club closed.
1905-07--King’s Club continued--Bi-weekly use of rooms in
Dufferin School was made possible by courtesy of the Protestant
Board of School Commissioners.
Christmas, 1906--First Christmas dinner held in rooms of Montreal
Protestant House of Industry and Refuge. Eighty-two boys and
girls of King’s Club were present.
1907-8--Rooms taken for the King’s Club at 308 Lagauchetière
Street West.
October, 1908--Workers’ Committee formed into “The McGill
University Neighbourhood Club” as part of the Alumnæ Society.
January, 1909--McGill Y.M.C.A. formally joins in the work of
Neighbourhood Club.
Fall, 1909-Spring, 1910--The use of the Belmont School granted by
the Protestant Board of School Commissioners.
January, 1910--Settlement Committee formed by the Alumnæ and
McGill University Neighbourhood Club.
February 8, 1910--Lecture by Miss Sadie American on
“Settlements,” given under the auspices of the Montreal Local
Council of Women in the interests of the Neighbourhood Club. Boy
Scouts organized.
May, 1910--The University Settlement of Montreal formed and
recognized by the corporation of the University. House rented,
159 and 161 Dorchester Street West. The use of Dufferin School
gymnasium again granted by the Protestant Board of School
Commissioners. The first president was Prof. J.A. Dale of McGill
University.
October, 1910--Annex of rooms at 189 Dorchester Street West,
made necessary. Becomes headquarters for Scouts, library, and
kindergarten.
December, 1910--First salaried headworker engaged.
January, 1911--Use of two rooms in St. John’s Parish House,
Ontario Street West, given by Rev. Arthur French. Becomes
headquarters of Boy Scouts. No. 189 Dorchester Street West
retained for library and kindergarten.
October, 1911--Factory flat rented on Dufferin Square. Second
salaried worker engaged (kindergarten).
April 3, 1912--Incorporation.
April, 1912--Property purchased on Dorchester Street West, near
Dufferin Square.
August 12, 1912--Summer camp with one tent at St. Rose, Quebec.
February 13, 1913--New building opened by H.R.H. Duke of
Connaught in a handsomely remodeled bottling factory at 179
Dorchester Street West.
THE IVERLEY SETTLEMENT
The Iverley Settlement followed in September, 1911, through the
instrumentality of Mrs. Ivan Wotherspoon and her friends, the
organizing committee meeting on June 4th preceding.
A house was taken on September 13th with the approval of
Judge Archer and Mr. Eugene Lafleur, K.C., who from the first
have evinced their entire sympathy with the work, and active
preparations were made for its development. From the moment the
Iverley was ready, children and their parents flocked in, thus
showing the value even of the settlement idea as a powerful
modern force for social betterment. Other settlements of a more
parochial or church affiliation have since adopted the movement.
The settlement idea has been productive of imitation or a
readjustment of other forms of charitable endeavours so long
employed in connection with the many churches, religious and
other institutions of the city.
SOCIAL STUDY
The social movements just recorded also have succeeded in
bringing social students together. Cooperation between the
English and French associations began about 1910 to be more
frequent in social enterprises. Intercommunication by lectures
and round table conferences, the interchange of literature and
intercourse with expert sociologists from England, the United
States and the continent, have had a very broadening effect on
our sociological life. A school of social study and publication
started up in the French educational circles about 1912 under
the title of L’école Sociale Populaire, the English Catholics
having previously, about 1911, started a Social Study Guild. In
connection with the leading social organizations, a Social Study
Club was also founded about 1912 for discussion among experts
of problems of sociology. All these forces having influence in
high civic circles, Montreal received at this period a stimulus
in social reform which has been distinctly a phase of our present
civic life.
XIV
MUNICIPAL CHARITIES
The action of the city as such has been partially noticed also
in other social works. Its Department of Assistance Municipal,
organized about 1904, dispenses the city’s charities regarding
the reformatories and industrial schools; the insane, of whom
in 1913 it supported 242 at St. Jean de Dieu and 98 at Verdun
insane asylums; the incurables, of whom 43 were kept in 1913 at
Notre Dame de Grace Hospital for Incurables and the Grey Nuns;
tuberculosis patients, for whom in 1913 the sum of $14,300 was
apportioned as follows:
Hôpital des Incurables $7,500.00
Royal Edward Institute 3,300.00
Grace Dart Home 500.00
Bruchesi Institute 3,000.00
The department deports from the city for causes of misbehaviour,
illness or insanity. In 1913 448 cases were deported to England,
Ireland, Scotland, Jamaica, Judea, Egypt, Russia, United States,
Austria, Guadeloupe, France, Italy, Normay, Germany, Australia,
Switzerland, Greece and Belgium.
Two hundred destitute persons were repatriated in 1913, or
fifty-eight more than in 1912.
Relief is given to homeless poor and unemployed, which was larger
in 1913 owing to the economic crisis prevailing over Canada and
to the fact that in the fall many immigrants flocked from the
harvest fields in the West to the city, and also because there
was an extraordinary influx of foreigners whose cheap labour
caused the discharge of others of British origin. The number of
cases dealt with in 1913 by the city apart from the ordinary
regular volunteer charities, was 648 (or 105 per cent more than
in 1912).
These 648 cases reported to the city department and handled
by the Charity Organization Society for it, were dealt with
as follows: 181 were temporarily relieved, 79 repatriated, 43
committed to the “Assistance Publique,” 10 committed to various
institutions, 9 committed to the Hôtel-Dieu, 6 given with
employment, 6 deported, 5 confined in the Notre-Dame Hospital, 5
referred to the Society for the Protection of Women and Children,
5 given legal advice, 5 referred to the Municipal Labor Bureau, 4
committed to the Hospital for Incurables, 4 referred to the Baron
de Hirsch Institute, 4 placed in the Royal Victoria Hospital,
3 referred to the “Union Nationale Française,” 3 placed in the
Protestant House of Industry, 3 placed in the General Hospital, 2
referred to the Old Brewery Mission, 2 placed in the Institution
of the Grey Nuns, 2 placed in the St. Bridget’s Home, 2 referred
to the Salvation Army, 2 referred to the St. Vincent de Paul
Society, 1 was placed in the Bruchesi Institute, 1 placed in
the Maternity, 1 referred to the Montreal Ladies’ Benevolent
Society, 1 placed in the St. Henry Asylum, 1 placed in the
Youville Patronage, 1 placed in the Nazareth Asylum, 1 placed in
the Sheltering Home, 1 placed in the St. Benoit Asylum, 1 placed
in the St. Paul Hospital, 1 referred to the Belgian Society, 165
were refused relief and 88 did not report.
The city in 1913 made grants to the charitable institutions and
public bodies of Montreal to the amount of $105,996.00. The city,
however, remits a great amount of the assessment of charitable
institutions.
The value of the properties belonging to charitable institutions
and exempted from taxation, in 1913, was $23,131,660.00.
The assessment of 1 per cent therefore represents $231,316.60.
The City of Montreal paid, in 1913, for the relief of destitute
persons a sum of $497,712.35, as follows:
Remittance of assessments $231,316.60
Grants 105,996.00
Maintenance of insane 83,249.60
Maintenance of children in industrial schools 69,450.15
Miscellaneous 7,700.00
-----------
Total $497,712.35
Or $53,809.94 more than in 1912.
In 1912 $443,902.41
In 1911 356,758.00
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Quoted from “Hochelaga Depicta.”
[2] The Sulpicians and the Grey Nuns early commenced their
connection with Irish orphans. In 1758, M. de Lavalinière, a
Sulpician, succeeded by his entreaties and promises in rescuing
an Irish child of the name of O’Flaherty from the hands of fierce
Indians. She was but a few months old and was already tied to
the stake to be burned alive with her mother when the generous
liberator came to the rescue. Madame d’Youville voluntarily
consented to take charge of her, and the child became a Grey Nun.
[3] Cf. the reminiscences of a leading citizen given in the
Montreal Star of January 2, 1912. The work itself is so well
known that the writer has thought it necessary to indicate only
its general history.
CHAPTER XXXV
COMMERCIAL HISTORY BEFORE THE UNION
MONTREAL’S EARLY BUSINESS FIRMS--A PROPHECY AT BEGINNING
OF NINETEENTH CENTURY--CULTIVATION OF HEMP--ST. PAUL
STREET--SLAVES IN MONTREAL--DOCTORS AND DRUGS IN
1815--WHOLESALE FIRMS IN 1816--FIRST MEETING OF COMMITTEE
OF TRADE--NOTRE DAME STREET--M’GILL STREET--FRENCH CANADIAN
BUSINESSES--SHIP CARGOES--THE SHOP FRONTS IN 1839.
The early struggle of Montreal to assume the mastery of the
commercial supremacy has been indicated by its continuance of
the great fur trading industry which became amalgamated in the
North West Company, and by the establishment of its general
merchant class. After the American war of 1775, business began to
flourish. One of the earliest of the firms of this period was the
tailor business founded by Benaiah Gibb, whose son, also Benaiah,
became a benefactor to the Art Association of Montreal. Benaiah
Gibb, who came in 1774, at the age of twenty years, succeeded to
a Mr. McFarlain. In 1782 there came Mr. John Molson, who started
a brewery in the east end, and in 1809 pioneered the steamship
lines of Canada. About 1800 was established the retail drug firm
of (George) Wadsworth & (Lewis) Lyman. This became a wholesale
business, also, in 1829, and today the Lyman Drug Company is
the direct lineal descendant. The great Montreal Ogilvie flour
milling business was begun in 1801 by Mr. Ogilvie at Jacques
Cartier near Quebec. Shortly afterwards, perceiving that Montreal
was to rise superior in the commercial world, he erected a mill
on the Lachine Rapids. The Glenora Mills on the Lachine Canal
were erected in 1852 by his grandsons, A.W., John and W.W.
Ogilvie. The Ogilvie mills have since spread over the Dominion.
There were far-seeing men, at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. A few years after its opening a visiting traveler had
the following prophetic view of Montreal as the emporium of the
northern world:
“The City is that subdivision which is enclosed by the ancient
fortifications, the ramparts, fosse and glacis of which are
suffered to go to decay. Its form is that of a trapezium, or
quadrilateral figure whose sides are unequal. It is situated on
an incline plane, gently descending towards the eastern branch of
the St. Lawrence River, in whose ample bosom the Island itself,
with all its villages, gentlemen’s seats, and cultivated farms,
reposes. The following was the population about this time:
Houses. Males. Females.
City of Montreal 485 1,541 1,642
St. Lawrence suburbs 514 1,292 1,488
St. Antoine do. 144 348 346
Recollet do. 187 552 620
Quebec do. 256 783 784
Grey Nunnery do. 1 38 94
“The return of men able to bear arms give an aggregate of 3,392;
but as little or no attention is given to their exercises and
discipline, even that number is contemptible in the estimation
of a military man, who in war justly considers an undisciplined
mob as an encumbrance rather than help. Should Montreal ever
be attacked it can only be defended by British troops. Without
these the inhabitants would not be likely to irritate a powerful
assailant by ineffectual resistance. As a military position, the
place would not be worth a contest, as it would remain no longer
in the hands of the garrison than they would keep possession
of the high level ground that commands the city. But its local
advantages for commercial purposes and manufactures are so great
and various that it will inevitably become the Emporium of the
Northern World.
“At the head of ship navigation, on the waters of the majestic
St. Lawrence, like the heart in the human body, it will be the
grand reservoir into which all the streams connected with that
immense river must pour their contents. The inhabitants bordering
on these waters on the lakes in the northern part of Vermont and
western part of New York must necessarily make it the depot for
whatever articles of export their labours may produce, and take
in return whatever merchandise they consume.
“Those countries, particularly New York and Vermont, are
populating so fast that the commerce of Montreal must increase
rapidly unless the mechants’ inattention to their own interests
should neglect to import goods in such quantity and variety
as will render it unnecessary for the country traders to have
recourse to the markets of New York and Boston. At present the
commerce of Montreal is principally confined to the fur trade,
and collateral relations, under the direction of a company of
wealthy, independent, enterprising merchants, whose immense
capital and judicious arrangements have set at defiance every
kind of competition. But the other mercantile departments remain
unoccupied, and men of industry and property might, with a well
grounded prospect of success, establish houses for conducting
those branches of commerce which are less expensive, troublesome
and hazardous than the fur trade.”
In 1802 an act (George III, 1802, Cap. V) provided for the
application of £1,200 currency to enable the inhabitants to
“enter on the culture of hemp with facility and advantage.” The
hemp was to be used for cordage for the Royal Navy. Committees
were formed at Quebec and Montreal. The following advertisement
appeared in the official gazette in English and French: “Notice
is hereby given to persons inclined to raise hemp that seed
will be delivered gratis at Quebec and Montreal to such persons
as will engage to sow the same, not exceeding two and one-half
bushels to one person, and that nine pence per pound will be
paid for clean hemp of the growth of Lower Canada equal to
samples of Russian clean hemp to be seen at Quebec and Montreal,
and delivered on or before the 30th of September, 1803, and
12 shillings and 6 pence per bushel for good ripe hemp seed
delivered on or before the 1st of January, 1803.” Premiums were
offered to societies and in 1804 Mr. Isaac Winslow Clarke,
chairman of the Montreal committee, received the gold medal
from the Society of Arts for hemp grown in Lower Canada. Great
interest was sustained for a time, but it was found useless to
compete with Russia. Sir Joseph Banks, the president of the
Royal Society, in reply to a reference from the Board of Trade,
concluded that the exportation of hemp from Russia could not
be stopped, that no matter at how low a price the British or
colonial producer offered it, Russian hemp would still be lower.
Meanwhile the principal retail businesses, the butchers, the
bakers, the candlestick makers, and the rest, were growing in
importance in their shops on St. Paul Street over which they
and their families lived. The historian, Heriot, says of these
in 1805: “The habitations of the principal merchants are neat
and commodious and their storehouses are spacious and secured
against loss from fire, being covered with sheet iron or tin.”
Speaking of the markets he also says: “The markets of Montreal
are more abundantly supplied than those of Quebec, and articles
are sold at more reasonable prices, especially in winter, when
the inhabitants of the United States who reside on the borders
of Canada bring for sale a part of the produce of their farms.
Quantities of fish are likewise conveyed thither in sleighs from
Boston.”
At this time there were 142 slaves in the Montreal district,
although their importation had been forbidden in Canada since
1793, and their perpetuation in Lower Canada was disfavoured by
the bill of 1799, in which year there was a petition of Montreal
citizens to secure master’s rights over them. In the first
issue of the Montreal Gazette of June 3, 1778, the following
advertisement appeared: “Ran away on the 14th inst., a slave
belonging to the widow Dufy Desaulniers, aged about thirty-five
years, dressed in striped calico of the ordinary cut, of
tolerable stoutness. Whoever will bring her back will receive a
reward of $6.00 and will be repaid any costs that may be proved
to have been incurred in finding her.”
In 1807 with the growing trade an act was passed for a new market
house in Montreal. The year 1808 marks the advent of a second
brewery firm, that of Dow & Dunn, with D. & D. on their bottles
of beer and whiskey. The first brewery was at La Prairie and the
liquor was shipped across the river. The business was started
by Mr. Dow who shortly took Mr. J. Dunn into partnership. Its
lineage is Dow, Dunn, White, Harris, Scott, Hooper, and it is now
merged, about 1911, into the National Breweries Company, into
which the Molson firm never entered.
In 1809 Mr. John Frothingham founded the firm now known as
Frothingham & Workman. The factory was at Côte St. Paul and
was the pioneer business to introduce the ax and tool industry
generally into Canada. An interesting relic retained by the firm
is an invoice for shelf hardware imported from England in the
spring of 1815 and contains this note at the bottom: “The premium
on insurance has risen since the reappearance of Bonaparte and
the above is the best terms we could obtain.” The reappearance
was due to Napoleon’s escape from Elba. In 1850 William Workman
was admitted to the firm. He was the well known alderman, mayor,
member of parliament--a good citizen. In 1809 the prospects of
trade were heightened by Molson’s introduction of steamships
in Canada. A third brewery was started in 1811 by Mr. Thomas
A. Dawes. It was located at Lachine, probably for two reasons,
the water supply and the opportunity to supply the northwestern
expeditions into the fur lands directed by Sir George Simpson,
the governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, whose headquarters
were at Lachine. The Dawes firm also lately became merged in the
National Breweries Company.
A faded ledger of 1815, begun by Joseph Beckett & Company on
St. Paul Street, marks the foundation of a Montreal drug firm
almost a century old which, through Beckett & Company, Carter
& McDonald, John Carter & Company, John Birks & Company, John
Carter & Company, Carter, Kerry & Company, Kerry Brothers &
Company, Weston & Company, leads to the National Drug Company.
The ledger above mentioned is historically interesting, as it
reveals some of the names of the leaders of social life in the
early days of the nineteenth century. A study of it reveals the
following facts:
First of all there are the Earl and Countess of Selkirk--regular
customers of the firm, buying powders and pomades and perfume,
attar of roses, and the like, as becomes extreme delicacy, high
position and a super-refinement, not forgotten in a raw community.
We have Colonels and Captains and Lieutenants, who were in
abundant evidence in the life of the city at the time; medical
men; esquires by the score--all in account with Mr. Beckett for
prescriptions and toilet articles, and delicate perfumes and
aromatic waters and powders and lip salve and pomades to give
the skin a satin appearance, and other mysteries of the feminine
toilet--for the account is a family one, in each case.
We have General Proctor, Captain Thomas, Captain Barnes,
Captain Despard, Colonel Dechambault, Major Courtenay, Captain
Castle, the Hon. Judge Monk, the Hon. William McGillivray, the
Hon. Judge Sewell, Major McGregor, Captain Weeks--but, really
the military march through the pages, as thick as “autumnal
leaves in Vallombrosa.” As for the medical men, their name is
legion--Doctors Andrews, Arnoldi, Bender, Badgely, Brown, Dillon,
Davis, Cazieu (Chateauguay), Emerson, Ferris, Forsyth, Grassett,
Irving, Kennedy, Kimber, Lee, Morris, McLeod, McGale, Osborne,
Nelson, Sleigh, Seilby, Stansfield--and many more. Evidently the
people did not suffer for lack of medical advice a century ago in
Montreal.
The doctors are down, of course, for the ingredients with which
they compounded their own prescriptions, which was the general
practice of the time.
We see that Mr. William Gray, founder of The Herald, had an
account with Mr. Beckett, while John Kyte, Esq., is indebted
in the sum of £6 8s for a new green coat, and £1 5s for a new
waistcoat. This might seem incongruous, as drugs and dry goods
do not mix too well; but in another page we notice that a member
of General Proctor’s household has had a tooth extracted in the
establishment--thus testifying to the eclectic nature of the
business in that early day, when the departmental store had yet
to be evolved.
The Hudson’s Bay Company has an account. The Orkney family got
their perfumes and toilet articles from the firm. The Orkney
family had a large property facing on St. Catherine Street before
the latter was homologated--property which extended below Beaver
Hall Hill. Many will remember the family mansion, standing
in off the street, near Phillips Square--a big, old-fashioned
residence in the colonial style, with ample grounds.
These itemized accounts touch life in an intimate and
confidential way. That this ledger should have been preserved
all these years in such good condition, each page telling its
own story of status and pride and mode of living--is remarkable.
It is also interesting to note the copies of letters which
Mr. Beckett transferred to the pages of the ledger from time
to time--letters of business, but showing a perfection of
chirography which would be the despair of the slap-dash writer
of the present day--delicate, spiderylike copperplate, with
delectable involutions, hinting leisure, and the aesthetic sense.
By comparison, the horror of the typewriter is intolerable. The
ledger is regarded as an heirloom to be carefully preserved by
the National Drug Company, whose offices are now on St. Gabriel
Street, though the original firm of Dr. Beckett a century ago,
was on St. Paul Street.
Business was growing in 1815 and St. Paul Street was flourishing.
In November of that year, through the exertions of Mr. Samuel
Dawson, part of St. Paul Street was lighted by twenty-two lamps,
costing $7.00 each. Business commenced to pick up after this.
In 1816 the principal wholesale firms doing business in Montreal
were: McGillivray, Thain & Co., otherwise called the “Northwest
Company;” Forsythe, Richardson & Co., who were agents of the East
India Company; Maitlands, Garden & Auldjo; Gerrard, Gillespie,
Moffatt & Co., then agents of the Phoenix Fire Insurance Company,
of London; H. Gates & Co.; Allison, Turner & Co.; Desrivières,
Blackwood & Co.; Blackwood, La Rogue & Co.; Robinson, Masson &
Co.; Hector Russell & Co., also retailing fancy dress goods--the
great retail dry goods house of that time; Miller, Parlane &
Co., James Miller left the firm in 1819 and engaged exclusively
in shipbuilding, and was one of the founders of the Allan line
of steamships; James McDougall & Co., merchants and brokers;
Hart, Logan & Co.; George Platt & Co., hardware; J. and J.M.
Frothingham, hardware; J.T. Barrett, hardware; Jacob DeWitt,
hardware; Lewis Lyman, druggist, founder of the house of Lyman’s
Sons & Co.; Day, Gelston & Co., druggists, Mr. Day being the
father of the late Judge Day; Wadsworth & Nichols, druggists;
Thomas Torrance and John Torrance, both wholesale and retail
grocers; Bowman & Smith, grocers; Zabdiel Thayer, crockery;
Toussaint Peltier, grain merchant; Felix Souligny, do.; McNider,
Aird & White, auctioneers; M.C. Culliver & Co., do.; and Bridge &
Penn, ditto.
Most of these firms did what was then considered a very large
business and many of the men composing them were reputed to be
wealthy. The possession of $25,000 in those days made a rich man,
and $100,000 a very wealthy man.
The business needs required a bank and the Montreal Bank was
started in 1817 without a charter. This was secured in 1822. Its
story is told elsewhere.
In 1820 John D. Ward built the Eagle foundry on Queen Street and
with his brothers, Lebbeus and Samuel, provided engines for many
steamboats on the St. Lawrence. The successor of the firm was
George Brush. In 1821 Sherman & Co. formed a sculptory business.
Its successors were Hyatt & Co., James Mavor and Robert Reid.
The first meeting of the committee of trade on April 23, 1822,
indicates another link in the chain of progress of mercantile
solidarity. This was to become the parent of the present Board of
Trade.
The earliest boot and shoe factory was established on St. Paul
Street in 1824 by Alexander Bell, the founder of the J.T. Bell
Company of today. Among the first important industries of
Montreal also must be mentioned the hemp factory, established
in 1825 and owned by Mr. J.A. Converse. The Mussen grocery firm
opened in the spring of 1827 with a store in Mrs. Ousteroute’s
building on the south side of St. Paul Street facing Vaudreuil
Lane. In 1837 his third location at the corner of Notre Dame
and St. Gabriel streets marks a historic move and one thought
daring. Hitherto trade had centered on St. Paul and Commissioners
streets, between Custom House Square and Bonsecours Street, while
Notre Dame, Little and Great St. James, Craig and intersecting
streets were the residential part of the city. His example was
successful and Notre Dame Street then became the principal retail
street of the time. Birks’ famous chemist’s store was opened by
Dr. F. Fraser in 1828, to be succeeded by R.W. Rexford and by Mr.
R. Birks in 1846. His famous store was first near the old Albion
Hotel from which the stage coaches started, and afterwards at
the corner of Recollet and McGill streets, and has only recently
been demolished to make room for the McGill building. In 1829 the
wholesale dry goods importing firm of J.G. McKenzie & Co. was
founded, though a legitimate successor of one of the business
ventures of Horatio Gates, a merchant of great renown, and one of
the incorporators of the Bank of Montreal. This year also saw the
birth of Morton Phillips & Co., a firm of stationers.
With the date of 1829 we may associate a note on the Montreal
lines of stages which were conducted as follows: “between
Montreal and Prescott, every week day except Saturday, proprietors
H. Dickerson & Company, St. Paul Street; between Quebec and
Montreal, every week day except Saturday, proprietors H. Dickerson
& Company, of St. Paul Street, and John Cody, Quebec; between
Montreal and Bytown (Ottawa), twice a week, Tuesday and Friday
morning, proprietor E. Cushing, Haymarket, Montreal; between
Montreal and Albany, twice a week, proprietor, E. Cushing; between
Montreal and Albany, thrice a week, proprietor, John Esinhart &
Company (St. John).”
The railway era started in 1831, when the charter for the first
railway in Canada between La Prairie and St. John was granted.
All this was to mean great extension to Montreal business. To
the date of 1833 is to be attributed the original foundation of
Kenneth, Campbell & Co., wholesale druggists, through D. Michael
McCulloch, Alexander Urquhart, Dr. William McDonald, John Birks
(for Carter, Kerry & Co.), and Johnson & Beers, passing to
Kenneth Campbell in 1850.
At this time the grocery business of Hudon Hebert, established
on St. Paul Street near Jacques Cartier Square since 1839, and
that of Chaput, Fils, on Youville Place in 1842, mark early
French-Canadian enterprise.
McGill Street before the ’40s was considered in the country, when
Samuel Mathewson started his present grocery business there. For
a long time the street as it grew up was a frowsy affair, till
the Grand Trunk offices set the way to higher ideals. The street
has begun its transformation period during the last four years.
Mathewson & Co. was established by Samuel Mathewson on May 1,
1834, on St. Paul Street. In 1840 he moved to McGill Street and
was thought to be moving into the country.
It has been found difficult to trace the history of the chief
French-Canadian firms. The advent of the Banque du Peuple
originally established in 1835 as a private bank under the
title of Viger, DeWitt & Cie, shows that this portion of the
population was becoming financially stronger. In 1843 the Banque
du Peuple as such was started. The petitioners for incorporation
were Messrs. Louis Viger, Jacob DeWitt, John Donegani, Pierre
Beaubien, Augustin Tulloch, Hosea Baillou Smith, Ronald Trudeau
and Pierre Jodoin, Esquires, of Montreal; Alexis Sauvageau,
Esquire, of La Prairie; Timothée Franchère, Esquire, of St.
Mathias; Joseph Frederick Allard, Esquire, of Chambly; and Alexis
Montmarquet, Esquire, of Carillon. It will be noted that we have
not treated of the banks and insurance businesses which are so
closely connected with the commercial growth of the city. These
are treated separately in another place.
The state of commerce about this time will appear from the
following scale of vessels and their tonnage, which arrived at
Montreal:
No. of
Date. Vessels. Tonnage.
1832 117 27,713
1833 137 30,864
1834 89 20,105
1835 108 22,729
1836 93 22,133
1837 91 22,668
1838 63 15,750
Of these vessels and their cargoes, by far the greater part were
from England and Scotland. A few came every year from Halifax and
other British ports in North America and sometimes cargoes of
grain, etc., from other ports in Europe.
The state of the store fronts of this period immediately
preceding the Union will afford a picture of the commercial
streets of the city.
In 1839 Mr. H. Greig wrote in his History of Montreal: “Both
in Quebec and Montreal the windows in many of the old stores
and shops are small, not larger than those of ordinary dwelling
houses, very little calculated for display and not giving
indications of the extensive depositories of goods that may be
found within.
“A very great number of the recent shops are elegantly, and some
of them splendidly, fitted up. Perhaps there is in scarcely any
part of the commercial world, either in Europe or America, a more
superb or exquisitely finished room, for its size, than the shop
of Mr. McDonald, at the corner of Place d’Armes and Notre Dame
Street.”
If Mr. Greig were only privileged to take a walk along St.
Catherine Street now!
CHAPTER XXXVI
COMMERCIAL HISTORY SINCE THE UNION
THE RISE OF MODERN MANUFACTURES AND INDUSTRIES
MONTREAL CENTER OF CANADIAN TRADE--LORD ELGIN’S OPINION OF THE
CANADA CORN ACT--TRADE DEPRESSION BEGINNING IN 1847--SUGAR
AND FLOUR INDUSTRIES--THE PANIC OF 1860--A PROSPEROUS
DECADE--ANOTHER DEPRESSION--THE NATIONAL POLICY--PROSPERITY
AGAIN IN THE EIGHTIES--ST. CATHERINE STREET--THE RISE
OF FURTHER INDUSTRIES--THE RISE OF THE COMMERCIAL
ASSOCIATIONS--THE COMMITTEE OF TRADE--ITS ACTIVITIES--THE BOARD
OF TRADE--ITS ACTIVITIES IN CANAL, PORT, RAILWAY, CANADIAN AND
EMPIRE EXPANSION--ITS INTEREST IN CIVIC GOVERNMENT AND GENERAL
CIVIC BETTERMENT--ITS BUILDING--ITS SOCIAL FUNCTIONS--THE
“CHAMBRE DE COMMERCE”--ITS ORIGIN--THE OTHER MERCHANTS’
ASSOCIATIONS OF THE CITY--A TRIBUTE TO THE MERCHANTS OF
MONTREAL. NOTES: PRESIDENTS OF THE BOARD OF TRADE--CENSUS
(1912) OF MONTREAL MANUFACTURES.
Trade at the time of the Union centered at Montreal. Quebec had
been left behind. The Canada corn act brought in by Lord Stanley,
the colonial secretary in Robert Peel’s cabinet, while it
cheapened corn in England stimulated business in Canada, for the
act lowered the duty on Canadian wheat and flour to one shilling
in the quarter upon the condition that Canada should impose
a duty of three shillings upon United States wheat. Montreal
became the center of its distribution. This success was dashed to
disappointment by Peel’s bill of 1846, described by Lord Elgin in
writing to a friend shortly after, as drawing “the whole of the
produce down the New York channels of communication, destroying
the revenue which Canada expected to derive from canal duties
and ruining at once mill owners, forwarders and merchants. The
consequence is that private property is unsalable in Canada;
not a shilling can be raised on the credit of the province.” To
crown the disasters in 1847 there was the ship fever in the city.
In 1848 the depression was continued, followed next year by the
riots over the rebellion losses bill, so that many were ready
in the same year for the annexation to the United States as a
desperate remedy.
The year 1850 was not commercially satisfactory, but remains
bright in the annals of trade on account of a most successful
fair opened in Bonsecours Hall, October 17th, and attended by
from 20,000 to 30,000 people. This fair was held in order to
prepare for the great International Exhibition in London in the
following year, and resulted in 200 packages being sent forward,
by which the attention of Great Britain was called to Canada
in a most practical manner. The war between Great Britain
and Russia in 1854, while improving the demand for cereals,
injuriously affected commerce in Montreal through stringent
European money markets, etc., while American tourists, upon whom
the retail trader then as now relied for no small portion of his
summer trade, were deterred from visiting the city through the
prevalence of cholera. This, coupled with the unusually late
arrival of the spring importations, resulted in leaving large
stocks on hand.
In 1854 the Canada Sugar Refinery business was established by Mr.
John Redpath. The late Sir George Drummond was early connected
with it as general manager.
An improvement in business characterized the following year,
while the city was thronged in March with visitors to a fair
held in anticipation of the Paris Exhibition, and which was very
successful. In the same year Montreal was visited by Admiral
Betveze to arrange for closer trade relations between Canada
and France. The reciprocity treaty also of 1855, followed by
the American Civil war, led to increased activity of trade in
Montreal, her citizens, as well as those of other Canadian
cities, supplying many of the needs of the army of 1,000,000
taken from pen and plough in those days of trial.
In 1858 a torchlight procession of about twenty thousand souls
(including spectators), a general illumination and a military
parade, expressed the jubilation of Montreal over the successful
laying of the first Atlantic cable. The procession, composed of
tradesmen and handicraftsmen, was a mile long and marched six
abreast.
In 1859 the Victoria Tubular bridge was opened, but just before
its completion in 1860, commercial panic struck the country, with
disastrous effects.
The greatest disasters were those in the United States, where
every bank but one suspended payment; but the calamity was
sympathetically reflected in the Dominion.
The Bank of Montreal remained firm, thanks to Mr. Davidson, the
cashier, who carried the Montreal merchants through that black
time. It may be said that Mr. Davidson founded a school of
banking.
Manufacturing made great progress in the ’60s, owing to the Civil
war in the United States taking millions of men from the ordinary
activities of the country to the battlefields, thus stimulating
Canadians to manufacture sufficient to supply the resultant
demand.
In the decade from 1860 to 1870, the investment in Montreal
industries leaped from $800,000 to $11,000,000. Just about then,
however, a period of depression set in, due to a variety of
causes.
Chief among these were the inevitable slackening in Canadian
outputs due to production being resumed in the United States,
and the general stress caused by the financial losses incurred
through wars both on this continent and in Europe. During this
period the manufacturers of Montreal suffered possibly more than
any other body; for the great population and easier developed
natural resources of the United States, with other contributing
factors, enabled nearly all lines of goods to be produced there
at a lower cost; and with his goods barred from the States
by high tariffs and his home market thrown open to American
factories, the Montreal manufacturer suffered from his nearness
to the American border, suffered, perhaps, more acutely than
other Canadians. With the inauguration of the National Policy in
1879 conditions changed materially, and the beginning of 1880
found business booming again. Meanwhile St. James Street had
become the chief business street. Morgan’s Colonial House was at
the northeast corner abutting Victoria Square. When the head of
the firm took an idea to open on St. Catherine Street, as yet an
unimportant business thoroughfare, in the present location, it
was a dangerous move according to the wiseacres, but instantly
justified, being followed by other great departmental stores,
such as Murphy’s, Hamilton’s and the rest. Substantial and steady
progress was made in the ensuing twenty years, the products of
the various factories doubling in value in each decade. Then came
the remarkable development of the city, beginning about 1898, and
in the ten years from 1900 to 1910 the production increased from
about eighty-five million dollars to two hundred millions.
The origin of some further of our chief industries may now be
recorded.
The cotton industry originated in the old Hudon Mill at
Hochelaga, which was started in 1874. When founded there were
employed at this mill some three hundred hands, and the buildings
and plant were quite small. As the mill stands today, the ground
covered is about four times that originally built upon and the
number of men employed is upwards of eleven hundred.
The four other cotton mills of Montreal, all of which are under
the ownership or control of the Dominion Textile Company, provide
employment for between five thousand and six thousand persons
in this city and must therefore be accounted amongst its very
greatest industries. Some idea of the magnitude of the industry
may be formed from the fact that the capitalization amounts to
$13,500,000, including bonds. It may be noted in passing that the
Dominion Textile Company, the chief offices of which are in this
city, controls many other mills, some of them at considerable
distances from Montreal.
Prior to 1883 there were no metal bridges manufactured in
Montreal or vicinity and practically no structural steel work for
buildings.
Since 1883, bridge and structural steel manufacture has developed
greatly in Montreal. And there are now three large concerns
engaged in this line of business: the Dominion Bridge Company,
Limited, the National Bridge Company, Limited, and the Phoenix
Bridge and Iron Works.
It is estimated that the combined output of these companies for
1912 was between seventy-five thousand and eighty thousand tons
of bridge and building work, having a value of about four million
and a half dollars.
It is also estimated that the number of hands employed in the
shops and offices of these companies is about eighteen hundred,
with a pay roll of about a million and a quarter dollars.
NATURAL ADVANTAGES
Of the great variety of natural advantages for manufacturing
possessed by Montreal, it would be difficult to say which is the
most important. With cheap transportation, it can assemble raw
material and ship finished product with far greater facility
than any other city on the American continent. Other cities
have possibly equally good railway facilities, others have lake
transportation; and other manufacturing cities, but not many, are
ocean ports. No other city on the continent, however, combines
all three advantages.
Coupled with these, Montreal has an important and rapidly
expanding tributary territory in the Dominion, for products of
its factories find their way all over Canada; it has a large
class of skilled labor to draw on; and it commands cheaper power.
Every requisite for successful manufacturing is found here. The
cheapness with which power can be secured is a very important
factor and with the development of important hydro-electric
properties in the immediate vicinity industrial power costs
are likely to be materially reduced in the near future. With
both ocean and lake navigation at its disposal, Montreal taps
both the Nova Scotia and the American coalfields and thus has
unlimited supplies of fuel to draw on, which can be delivered
here at a very low cost. Some of the largest ocean-going bulk
cargo carriers in the world are running between the St. Lawrence
ports and the Sydneys, freighting coal here at the lowest figures
achieved anywhere for ocean transportation.
As far back as 1859 Sir William Dawson, the principal of McGill
University, referred to Montreal’s position for commerce in words
as apropos today as they were then:
“In its situation at the confluence of the two greatest rivers,
the St. Lawrence and Ottawa; opposite the great natural highway
of the Hudson and Champlain valley; at the point where the St.
Lawrence ceases to be navigable for ocean ships, and where the
great river, for the last time in its course to the sea, affords
a gigantic water power; at the meeting point of the two races
that divide Canada, and in the center of a fertile plain nearly
as large as all England: in these we recognize a guarantee
for the future greatness of Montreal, not based on the frail
tenure of human legislation, but in the unchanging decrees of
the Eternal, as stamped on the world he has made. We know from
the study of these indications that were Canada to be again a
wilderness, and were a second Cartier to explore it he might
wander over all the great regions of Canada and the West, and,
returning to our mountain ridge, call it again Mount Royal, and
say that to this point the wealth and trade of Canada must turn.”
At this time of writing the industries have grown so numerous
that the chronological method of relating their rise is
impossible. We shall present a brief indicaton of their number
and scope besides adding in tabulated form various statistical
facts which will sum up the variety of the industries engaging
attention in Montreal in 1912. Probably the most important
industry of the city is the manufacture of clothing, both custom
and factory. Nearly ten per cent of the factory workers of the
city are engaged in this trade and they furnish two-thirds of the
annual Canadian production.
But apart from this industry, manufacuring in Montreal covers
a very wide range, embracing the chief Canadian car and engine
manufactories, structural works, cotton factories, sugar
refineries, rubber manufactories, rolling mills, cement works,
and leather manufactories. In extent and value of output it
easily heads the list of Canadian cities, having double the
output of its two nearest competitors, Toronto and Hamilton.
The extent to which manufacturing is carried on is strikingly
shown by the per capita valuation of its product, which is $360
annually.
Tobacco is a principal single industry, while boots and shoes
come next in importance. As to textiles, cotton takes the first
place. Among food products, slaughtering and meat packing rank
with flour, the largest flour mill in the British Empire being
situated in Montreal. Of the miscellaneous industries, electric
light and power and electrical apparatus and supplies are the
chief.
Immediately outside of Montreal is a large business in iron
and steel products. Among the largest are the Dominion Bridge
Company’s works at Lachine and the Montreal Locomotive Works and
the Structural Steel Company’s works at Longue Pointe. Again, in
Montreal are to be found the great car and repair shops of the
two chief railways: the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Grand
Trunk Railway System.
The city is also the center of several industries, which though
not actually situated in Montreal, are yet managed from it. The
pulp industry is an example, yet there is not actually a single
pulp mill in Montreal.
In the president’s address to the Canadian Manufacturers
Association in September, 1912, it was pointed out that in
the ten-year period Canadian exports showed an increase of
$110,000,000, while manufactured articles showed an increase of
$683,000,000. Probably no other country in the world can show
such a satisfactory record as this. And when it is considered
that more than one-sixth of all the manufactures in the Dominion
come from Montreal, the part which the city has taken in this
great industrial evolution will be appreciated.
Montreal is most favourably situated with regard to obtaining
cheap power. Canada is essentially a land of rivers and lakes,
and her water-power is undoubtedly her greatest asset. In 1911
the total electrical energy developed from Canada’s water-power
was 1,016,521 horse-power, of which the province of Quebec
developed 300,153 horse-power. At twenty-two tons of coal per
horse-power per annum, this is the equivalent of about six and
one-half million tons of coal. Eighty per cent of the power used
in the province of Quebec is water-power.
The wood pulp and paper industry have contributed very largely to
the development of this kind of industry, but other industries
have taken advantage of it, such as lumber mills, textile mills
and rubber factories.
The following companies supply power in Montreal:
1. The Montreal Light, Heat and Power Company, Limited, act as
distributing agents in the City of Montreal for the Shawinigan
Water and Power Company, whose plant is situated at Shawinigan
Falls, on the St. Maurice River, eighty-four miles from Montreal.
There is a fall of 135 feet, and 107,000 horse-power has been
developed. The electricity is transmitted to Montreal and the
Eastern Townships; a large portion supplying the asbestos mines
with power. Thirty thousand horse-power is used in Shawinigan
itself for the production of aluminum and carbide.
The company also obtains power from Chambly on the Richelieu
River, and from the Lachine Rapids and the Soulange Canal.
2. The Montreal Public Service Corporation act as distributing
agents in the City of Montreal for the Canadian Light and
Power Company, which has a plant at St. Timothée, where 30,000
horse-power has been developed. Electrical and other power is
also obtained from the Lachine Canal, where there is a total fall
of thirty-five feet, to the extent of 4,642 horse-power. This is
used for flour mills, rolling mills, and many others.
There are, in addition, one or two other power plants in process
of development.
The manufactures carried on in Montreal are very varied, but of
these we cannot speak in detail.[1]
OFFICIAL BUSINESS ASSOCIATIONS
Before closing this chapter showing the rise of many of the
individual conmercial enterprises of our merchants we must refer
to them again in a collective fashion. We have already indicated
their combined effort in securing advanced governmental and
municipal action. This has been carried on by the great official
bodies or associations of commercial men organized during the
last few decades of the commercial expansion of the city. The
first of such organizations to arise was the Committee of Trade.
COMMITTEE OF TRADE
(1822)
Early in the last century, the merchants of Montreal realized
that a country’s trade and progress are to be measured by its
transportation facilities, and that until these are secured,
there can be little advance. Accordingly, when on July 19,
1821, the first sod of the Lachine Canal was turned by one of
their number, the Hon. John Richardson, a vista of a future
inland waterway system and consequent commercial progress was
unfolded. Individual action had prevailed so far, but now the
value of union among the merchants was seized upon. A few months
later, on April 11, 1822, the Hon. John Richardson presided at
a preliminary meeting held in the Exchange on St. Joseph Street
(St. Sulpice) of merchants and others interested in commerce,
which gave birth to the “Committee of Trade.”
At this meeting a resolution was adopted stating “that
the ruinous consequences now apprehended from the growing
embarrassments of Canadian commerce can no longer be averted or
even delayed by the solitary exertions of individuals or by the
occasional hasty and inadequate deliberations of public meetings,
and that the present alarming crisis demands the establishment
of a standing committee of merchants to be authorized by their
constituents to watch over the general interests of the trade of
the country.”
The subscription of the members of this organization was placed
at three guineas per annum, and the original subscribers numbered
fifty-four, who elected the following thirteen gentlemen as the
first committee of trade: Horatio Gates, George Auldjo, George
Moffatt, Henry McKenzie, Campbell Sweeney, John Forsyth, Peter
McGill, F.A. Larocque, John Fleming, Samuel Gerrard, Thomas
Blackwood, Charles L. Ogden, James Leslie. This committee began
its operations in a very humble way, for at its second meeting
Mr. Auldjo was authorized to finish the proposed agreement
with Mr. A.L. Macnider for a room for the accommodation of the
committee, including fuel and attendance at the rate of thirty
pounds per annum. The population of Montreal at this time was
18,767, increasing to 27,997 by 1831.
From the records we possess of this Committee of Trade, it
is clear that Montreal recognized early its vocation as the
commercial metropolis of Canada, for its rules “authorized
and required the Committee to make to His Majesty and the
Legislature of the United Kingdom, and others in authority, such
representations on Trade matters as might be deemed advisable in
the defence of such suits as involved the General Trade of the
country.”
The securing of the construction of the Lachine Canal warranted
this assumption of authority by the merchants of Montreal, who
were not unopposed in Upper Canada through mistaken motives of
jealousy. The Committee of Trade foreseeing that Montreal was
to become the commercial port of Canada, set to work at once to
encourage large vessels to come to the St. Lawrence. In 1825,
it made strong efforts to induce the Government to deepen the
channel in Lake St. Peter so that “vessels of nearly 250 tons
burthen, might reach Montreal fully laden during the whole
season.” It is a far cry from such vessels to the magnificent
steamers which now perform the service between Great Britain and
Montreal, some of which are nearly fifteen thousand tons.
Steadily the Committee of Trade began to prepare for the future
destiny of the port. One of its number, the Hon. James Leslie,
presented in Parliament a petition praying for aid to deepen the
channel to sixteen feet. In spite of the cholera outbreaks of
1832 and 1834 and the rebellion of 1837 and 1838, the Committee
of Trade went on, until 1839, effecting further improvements.
THE MONTREAL BOARD OF TRADE
(1842)
In April, 1840, when the Union was in the air, at a meeting
under the chairmanship of the Hon. Peter McGill, the more active
members of this committee took steps to reorganize as a Board of
Trade, an act of incorporation being procured in 1841, but as in
those days all important bills were “reserved,” it was not till
March 2, 1842, that the Royal assent was signed by proclamation
and the present Board of Trade came into existence, the number of
original members being 106. On April 1st of that year the first
meeting of the newly incorporated board was held, at which Mr.
J.T. Brondgeest was elected chairman; Mr. Thomas Cringan, vice
president; and Mr. J.W. Dunscomb, treasurer.
The board under its new name, pursued the same policy as
hitherto. Realizing the value of Montreal’s water position, that
all trade had to follow the waterways and that all the waters of
the West flowed past Montreal, the merchant members of the board
secured the fastest ships to Montreal and early controlled the
import trade. The Lachine Canal had been opened in 1825 and in
the first decade of the new board they had the satisfaction of
seeing the whole magnificent St. Lawrence system of inland water
communication fully opened up through the foresight and initial
push of Montreal merchants.
In 1853 the first ocean steamer, the Genova, arrived, the new
channel having been deepened to fifteen feet two inches and later
to sixteen feet six inches. But in 1854 and 1855 this prosperity
experienced a check, for during those years no ocean vessel
reached Montreal; its rival, New York, with its navigation open
all the year, had greater attractions for shipping. Trade became
alarmingly bad, but the Montreal merchants were not supine,
they rose to the occasion and determined to deepen the channel
to twenty feet, and (in 1856) the Allan Brothers came to the
rescue, establishing the Montreal Ocean Steamship Company, which
commenced a fortnightly service with four steamers. Since then
the shipping trade has prospered continuously. The Board of Trade
has continuously urged and secured improvements along the St.
Lawrence route, the channel depth having been gradually increased
to thirty feet and a further increase to thirty-five feet has
been promised by the Dominion Government.
A few other activities of the board, which are synonymous with
those of the representative merchants of the city, may be here
mentioned in connection with the port. The office of port warden
was established through the board and its work of overseeing
the loading of vessels sailing from this port has entirely
prevented the sad loss of life and property which at one time
so frequently resulted from the faulty loading of cargo. The
question of harbour improvement and development has always
received the earnest attention of the board and the council’s
representations to the Government in 1906, urging that instead of
eleven commissioners there should be three, were instrumental in
securing such reduction. The result of the work of the smaller
board has exceeded all expectations. The Board of Trade for many
years agitated for the relief of the Harbour Commissioners from
the cost of the channel through Lake St. Peter on the ground
that it was a national work for the national waterway, and
this agitation resulted successfully, for in 1888 the Dominion
Government assumed the debt, which action relieved the Harbour
Commissioners from the burdensome charge for interest on such
expense. Similarly the board has succeeded in its efforts to
induce the Dominion Government to free the canals from tolls. But
while so much improvement has been obtained, there is at present
one most urgent need, viz.: the establishment on the St. Lawrence
of the dry dock now constructed in which the largest vessels
trading on our river can be repaired in case of emergency.
Montreal has yet to become a free port. The Board of Trade hopes
that its ceaseless representations to the Government on this
matter will ultimately be successful.
It would be interesting similarly to trace the efforts of members
of the Board of Trade and other Montreal merchants towards the
provision of the great railways emanating from our city as their
center. Space limit will only allow us to indicate, that when
shortly before the canal system was perfected it began to be
seen that the waterways would not be sufficient to accommodate
the ever growing trade of Canada, Montreal men faced the railway
transportation problem and greatly contributed to its present
success. In this they were largely helped by the Grand Trunk
Railway which, originally backed by English money, made splendid
sacrifices for Canada. The Grand Trunk Railway has not always
received its just need of appreciation, but it is now a great
national institution stretching its arms across the Dominion and
receiving its just reward. The enterprise of Montreal merchants,
is, however, mostly to be discerned in that wonderful system
of railroads, with its headquarters in Montreal--the Canadian
Pacific Railway, which, conceived by Canadian brains, was started
by Montreal men and carried out by Canadian executive force and
capital. Men of wonderful courage, skill and judgment, prominent
members of the Montreal Board of Trade, concluded a contract
with the Government in 1880 to complete the whole road by May 1,
1891. On the 28th of June, 1886, the first through train to the
Pacific Coast left Montreal for the Pacific terminus, Vancouver.
On the first board of directors (1880) of the Canadian Pacific
Railway Company we find the names of Mr. George Stephen (now Lord
Mount Stephen), president; Mr. Donald A. Smith (Lord Strathcona),
vice president; Messrs. R.B. Angus, Duncan McIntyre, and C.B.
Rose; leading members of the Board of Trade.
With regard to the water transportation of the Dominion the
Georgian Bay Canal prospect has been for some years the object of
the Board of Trade and on March 14, 1912, a large deputation of
boards of trade and municipal councils urged upon the Dominion
Government an immediate commencement of work upon the Georgian
Bay Canal.
The Premier promised his earnest consideration of the great
question involved but said that the Government must have time for
a full investigation.
In the spring of 1914 an immense delegation organized by the
Chambre de Commerce of Montréal also approached the Government to
the same effect.
All praise to the merchants of the Board of Trade, who by their
undaunted push, character and political foresight have written
their names in the history of the development of Canada, and have
bound the Mother Country, through Montreal, by bands of steel
and water to the extreme ends of the Dominion. Their influence
extends even further, for it is a matter of record that the
congresses of the chambers of commerce of the Empire are the
result of a suggestion made by the Council of the Board. The
last congress was held in September, 1909, in Sydney, Australia,
where the board was represented by Mr. H.B. Ames, M.P., and its
secretary, Mr. George Hadrill. Nothing but good for Empire trade
can come of such conventions.
Again the Board of Trade looks far and wide. Apart from its
present trade working relations between South Africa and Mexico
it is looking for a larger and most interesting exchange of
business, for a year ago an Imperial Royal Commission sat in the
board’s rooms taking evidence regarding the trade between Canada
and the West Indies.
By its internal constitution, as we have noticed, the Board of
Trade is ever on the alert watching Dominion, Provincial and
Civic legislation.
In the municipal life of the city it has urged improvements in
the fire service, the water supply, the lighting service and the
betterment of streets and interested itself in various other
spheres of municipal government reform, among them the securing
of the great modern amendment of the city charter which has
necessitated the reduction of the number of aldermen to one for
each ward, and the creation of a board of five commissioners for
the disbursement of money, the awarding of contracts and the
purchase of material.
It would be tedious to enumerate further the home activities of
the Board of Trade, but this feature should not be omitted, viz.:
that its work has made this city a manufacturing center of ever
increasing possibilities. Montreal, as a manufacturing center, is
hardly sufficiently advertised; Montreal should be made known not
only as a gateway for export and import transportation, but also
as the busy center of headquarters of numerous and constantly
growing industries of its own. It is a distributing source of
cheap power, light and heat. All that goes towards the making of
a great and successful commercial metropolis has been planned
by the merchants of modern Montreal, whose predecessors began
humbly in 1822, and ever conscious of the future destiny of
their city, were always led by visions of its future greatness as
the commercial metropolis of Canada.
It has made representations to the Dominion and Provincial
governments on the subject of industrial and technical education
for the workers and has taken a lofty and ideal stand in more
recent philanthropical and civic betterment schemes.
The Board since 1893 has occupied quarters in its own building,
though the first building was destroyed by fire on the 23d of
January, 1901. The present building which was entered into in
May, 1903, while built on the same site and on a similar plan
to the first, is of fireproof construction and, like the former
building, faces on four streets. The board occupies the greater
portion of the fourth floor, its premises consisting of a
handsome exchange hall, branch association room, reading room,
secretary’s office, council chamber and committee room. It has a
membership of 1,400 and there are daily gatherings of various of
its affiliated commercial associations.
In addition to being the center of the commercial life of
Montreal, the building has been the locale of several important
social functions, the most notable being its inauguration of the
evening of 17th August, 1903, by the Rt. Hon. Lord Strathcona
and Mount Royal, G.C.M.G., which was attended by the members of
the board and the delegates to the Fifth Congress of Chambers of
Commerce of the Empire (which was held in Montreal that year) and
the president of the congress, the Rt. Hon. Lord Brassey, K.C.B.;
the reception of Their Excellencies the Rt. Hon. Earl Grey,
G.C.M.G., and the Countess Grey on the evening of the 24th of
January, 1905, to welcome them on their arrival in this country,
which, attended by over twelve hundred guests, was pronounced one
of the most brilliant social functions in the history of the city.
CHAMBRE DE COMMERCE
(1887)
The next great commercial association was the “Chambre de
Commerce,” of French business men. Up to 1886 the Board of
Trade had been alone, though with individual French citizens,
as at present, among its members, but in this year Mr. J.X.
Perrault, not without opposition even among his compatriots,
took the initiative of forming a second board to group together
French-speaking citizens. An act of incorporation was applied
for from the government at Ottawa and was granted on January 1,
1887. On February 2, 1887, the first reunion of French business
representatives took place under the chairmanship of Mr. Jacques
Grenier, the mayor of the city, and then president of “La Banque
du Peuple,” in the offices of G.W. Parent, at the corner of St.
Lambert and St. James streets. Its few hundreds of members have
now surpassed a thousand. Its activities are similar to those
of the Board of Trade with which there is mutual cooperation in
points of common, civic, provincial and federal import. It has
taken a great interest in the future commercial education of the
merchant by promoting the “Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales”
recently erected.
[Illustration: MONTREAL STOCK EXCHANGE BUILDING]
[Illustration: MONTREAL BOARD OF TRADE BUILDING]
CHAMBRE DE COMMERCE FRANCAISE DE MONTREAL
There is also at present the “Chambre de Commerce Française de
Montreal” for the promotion of trade by merchants of France
settled here. It was originally proposed at a meeting in Montreal
of French traders on May 27, 1886, by M.G. Dubail, the Consul
General of France, and on June 26th of that year the projected
constitution was received for approval. Since then its purpose
of intercommunication and trade relations with France have been
sustained under its presidents.
OTHER BODIES
There is also a Federation of the Chambers of Commerce of the
Province of Quebec with its offices in this city and among the
many mercantile bodies now promoting the trade and industries of
Montreal may be mentioned the Montreal branch of the “Canadian
Manufacturers’ Association,” the “Montreal Stock Exchange,” the
“Montreal Mining Exchange,” the “Canadian Mining Institute,”
the “Builders’ Exchange,” the “Corn Exchange Association,” the
“Montreal Business Men’s League,” the “Association Immobiliére
of Montreal,” the “Milk Shippers’ Association,” the “Wholesale
Grocers’ Guild,” the “Wholesale Dry Goods Association,” the
“Metal and Hardware Association,” the “Wholesale Hardware
League,” the “Montreal Lumber Association,” the “Montreal Produce
Merchants’ Association,” the “Retail Merchants’ Association of
Canada,” with its office of the Provincial Board for the Province
of Quebec at Montreal, the Province of Quebec Association
of Architects, the “Licensed Victuallers’ Association,” the
“Federation of Licensed Wine and Spirit Dealers of the Province
of Quebec,” the “Dominion Association of Chartered Accounts,”
the “Canadian Bankers’ Association,” with numerous other trade
organizations, all cooperating and making for the commercial
growth of Montreal and Canada.[2] To all these may be applied in
their degree the words of tribute spoken at the Board of Trade
building in 1908 by the Governor General Earl Grey:
“I am glad to be able to stand here as the representative of
the King and to signify by my acceptance of your hospitality
His Majesty’s appreciation of the benefits you, the Montreal
Board of Trade, have conferred by your energy, by your spirited
enterprise, and by your imperial aspirations, not only on the
Province of Quebec and the Dominion, but upon the population of
the United Kingdom of the whole British Empire. * * * Thanks to
the brains, energy and public spirit with which your board have
met the requirements of a trade which is being borne in ever
increasing volume to your doors, over the continuous bands of
steel and mighty waterways which you have harnessed to your city,
the doors of the great treasure house of the West, containing
illimitable riches, have been unlocked for the benefit of
impoverished mankind.
“I am aware that the proud consciousness of your past
achievements has not made you indifferent to future improvements
and that you are still busily engaged in honourable emulation
of your predecessors, in promoting plans which will increase
the Commercial strength and prosperity of Montreal and further
advance the general welfare of the Dominion.”
CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEE OF TRADE, MONTREAL
From Its Inception in 1822 to 1841 When It Was Changed into the
Montreal Board of Trade
1822-25 Thomas Blackwood
1825-33 George Auldjo
1833-34 James Miller
1834-35 T.M. Smith
1835-36 George Auldjo
1836-37 J. Quesnel
1837-38 A. Cuvillier
1838-39 Adam Ferrie
1839-41 A. Cuvillier
PRESIDENTS OF MONTREAL BOARD OF TRADE
1842-43 J.T. Brondgeest
1844-45-46 Hon. George Moffatt
1847 Thomas Gringan
1848 Hon. Peter McGill
1849-50 Thomas Ryan
1851-52-53-54 Hugh Allan
1855 Hon. John Young
1856-57-58 E.H. Holton
1859 Thomas Kay
1860 Hon. John Young
1861 Edwin Atwater
1862 Hon. E.H. Holton
1863 Thomas Gramp
1864-65 Peter Redpath
1866 John McLennan
1867-68 Thomas Rimmer
1869 J.H. Winn
1870-71 Hon. John Young
1872-73 Hugh McLennan
1874-75 William Darling
1876-77 Andrew Robertson
1878-79 Henry Lyman
1880-81-82-83 T.W. Henshaw
1884-85 John Kerry
1886-87-88 Hon. Geo. A. Drummond
1889-90 James P. Cleghorn
1891 Robert Archer
1892 G.B. Greenshields
1893-94 W.W. Ogilvie
1895 James A. Cantlie
1896 Robert Bickerdike
1897 John McKergow
1898 James Crathorn
1899 Charles F. Smith
1900 Robert Mackay
1901 Henry Miles
1902 Alexander McFee
1903 Arthur J. Hodgson
1904 George E. Drummond
1905 William I. Gear
1906 F.H. Mathewson
1907 George Caverhill
1908 T.J. Drummond
1909 F. Robertson
1910 George E. Cains
1911 Jeffrey H. Burland
1912 Robert W. Reford
1913 Huntley R. Drummond
1914 Robert J. Dale
SECRETARIES
1842-49 Fred’k A. Wilson
1849-50 Charles Lindsay
1851-54 Alex. Clerk
1854-63 John Dinning
1863-86 Wm. J. Patterson
1886 George Hadrill
NOTE
PRESIDENTS OF LA CHAMBRE DE COMMERCE
1887
D. Parizeau, Ex-M.P.P.
l’ex-Maire J. Laporte
Joseph Contant
Damase Masson
L.E. Geoffrion
H.A.A. Brault
C.H. Catelli
Isaie Préfontaine
O.S. Perrault
Frédéric C. Larivière
Armand Chaput
le Lieut.-Col. A.E. Labelle
A. Fortier
PRESIDENTS OF LA CHAMBRE DE COMMERCE FRANCAISE
1886-90 M. Schwob
1890-92 C.H. Chouillon
1892 A. Girard
1892-95 E. Galibert
1895-97 G. Herdt
1897-1900 E. Galibert
1900-04 H. Jonas
1904 J. Helbronner
1904-08 C.H. Chouillon
1908-09 M. Chevalier
1910-11 A.F. Revol
1912-14 J. Obalski
THE CENSUS RETURNS OF 1912 ON MONTREAL’S MANUFACTURES
The Industries of Montreal City (Not Greater Montreal); the
Capital Invested, Output, Hands Employed and Wages and Salaries
Paid.
Employees
Name or kind Establish- on salaries.
No. of industry. ments. Capital. No. Amt.
CITY OF MONTREAL Totals 1,093 $135,044,782 6,863 $7,258,810
1. Aerated and mineral waters 15 1,017,900 73 85,819
2. Axes and tools 6 351,550 19 21,790
3. Awnings, tents and sails 5 57,510 21 15,827
4. Bags, cotton 4 1,106,000 33 35,740
5. Baking powder and
flavoring extracts 7 174,585 26 24,224
6. Blacking 5 95,582 14 15,016
7. Blacksmithing 5 94,000 5 6,576
8. Boilers and engines 8 2,909,729 143 131,987
9. Boots and shoes 39 10,386,852 346 380,461
10. Boot and shoe supplies 5 363,536 24 26,762
11. Boxes and bags (paper) 10 963,100 67 77,481
12. Boxes (wooden) 3 376,500 10 10,012
13. Brass castings 6 901,238 30 61,288
14. Bread, biscuit and
confentionery 48 2,326,662 161 132,158
15. Brooms and brushes 5 29,200 18 13,114
16. Buttons 3 61,600 5 3,076
17. Car repairs 3 -- 25 20,340
18. Carriages and wagons 33 1,351,078 67 70,096
19. Cars and car works 4 3,867,000 166 142,850
20. Clothing (men’s custom) 64 1,244,917 139 156,131
21. Clothing (men’s factory) 84 4,525,551 447 591,969
22. Clothing (women’s custom) 48 843,548 123 93,254
23. Clothing (women’s factory) 22 737,225 182 178,112
24. Cocoa and chocolate 3 269,000 23 16,515
25. Coffees and spices 6 563,150 34 33,488
26. Cooperage 3 114,346 7 15,840
27. Cottons 6 9,502,973 74 98,219
28. Drugs 7 614,558 48 39,158
29. Dyeing and cleaning 12 479,609 51 45,418
30. Electrical apparatus and
supplies 13 4,828,667 157 199,274
31. Electric light and power 3 3,753,392 16 21,356
32. Elevators 3 266,353 31 32,610
33. Flour and grist mill
products 3 3,424,500 61 128,900
34. Foundry and machine shop
products 43 3,804,137 305 325,776
35. Fruit and vegetable
canning 3 75,500 8 11,500
36. Furnishing goods (men’s) 9 1,597,500 162 157,930
37. Furniture and upholstered
goods 15 828,700 57 53,079
38. Furs (dressed) 3 134,000 13 15,220
39. Glass (stained, cut and
ornamental) 4 109,500 6 6,250
40. Gloves and mittens 3 485,588 40 30,052
41. Hairwork 3 59,500 2 3,380
42. Harness and saddlery 8 1,527,153 104 124,800
43. Hats, caps and furs 59 3,468,671 231 222,406
44. Hosiery and knit goods 5 1,072,093 35 28,096
45. Housebuilding 15 504,070 30 30,398
46. Interior decorations 9 185,768 16 12,585
47. Iron and steel products 8 4,092,900 197 187,929
48. Jewelry and repairs 14 1,644,387 141 105,405
49. Leather goods 9 1,000,287 83 59,508
50. Leather (tanned, curled
and finished) 4 770,163 23 41,250
51. Liquors (malt) 7 2,939,223 46 68,552
52. Lime 3 134,100 12 14,980
53. Log products 3 877,000 17 24,906
54. Lumber products 34 3,460,328 137 164,971
55. Mattresses and spring beds 7 159,000 30 33,808
56. Mirrors and plate glass 5 335,000 48 42,201
57. Monuments and tombstones 7 257,800 12 15,991
58. Musical instruments 4 220,500 26 34,750
59. Oils 4 423,200 19 22,194
60. Optical goods 3 34,150 24 20,707
61. Paints and varnishes 7 3,829,538 155 175,576
62. Patent medicines 6 89,803 14 10,903
63. Picture frames 4 101,500 19 12,980
64. Plumbing and tinsmithing 26 3,796,433 209 203,363
65. Printers’ supplies 3 34,207 7 8,640
66. Printing and bookbinding 64 2,414,200 255 252,650
67. Printing and publishing 15 5,323,991 473 419,905
68. Roofing and roofing
materials 6 499,500 44 55,254
69. Rubber clothing 8 383,750 30 30,498
70. Signs 5 76,700 21 22,300
71. Silversmithing 4 30,500 6 4,916
72. Slaughtering and meat
packing 12 2,414,000 116 115,348
73. Soap 4 360,000 23 31,300
74. Stationary goods 4 166,668 24 25,282
75. Stone (cut) 3 386,074 6 6,864
76. Tobacco (chewing, smoking
and snuff) 5 2,874,489 22 41,346
77. Tobacco (cigars and
cigarettes) 30 10,068,784 322 425,327
78. All other industries* 105 14,442,976 629 632,579
Employees Cost of
Name or on wages. raw Value of
No. kind of industry. No. Amt. material. products.
CITY OF MONTREAL Totals 60,390 $26,779,657 $88,862,420 $164,698,761
1. Aerated and mineral waters 325 165,140 150,260 575,330
2. Axes and tools 118 67,974 155,649 301,059
3. Awnings, tents and sails 67 28,153 85,587 167,553
4. Bags, cotton 250 105,000 1,632,000 2,982,000
5. Baking powder and
flavoring extracts 55 27,398 97,248 449,425
6. Blacking 28 8,084 97,472 162,494
7. Blacksmithing 34 16,536 21,500 77,000
8. Boilers and engines 1,184 831,997 1,389,527 3,267,873
9. Boots and shoes 5,291 2,228,701 6,377,823 11,462,566
10. Boot and shoe supplies 253 112,838 134,933 303,177
11. Boxes and bags (paper) 792 250,226 457,934 1,087,119
12. Boxes (wooden) 167 70,654 120,000 250,000
13. Brass castings 245 113,303 822,766 1,329,006
14. Bread, biscuit and
confentionery 1,095 457,435 1,808,552 3,270,525
15. Brooms and brushes 40 13,882 25,880 66,500
16. Buttons 76 17,600 13,000 49,000
17. Car repairs 433 217,997 223,464 465,985
18. Carriages and wagons 649 340,286 719,317 1,594,787
19. Cars and car works 3,348 1,649,889 4,064,832 7,710,430
20. Clothing (men’s custom) 1,562 706,087 1,428,123 3,226,234
21. Clothing (men’s factory) 5,378 2,442,810 6,306,479 11,358,192
22. Clothing (women’s custom) 967 425,908 994,836 2,176,924
23. Clothing (women’s factory) 1,976 609,821 1,232,304 1,857,493
24. Cocoa and chocolate 190 53,856 300,000 443,480
25. Coffees and spices 85 45,241 501,826 748,599
26. Cooperage 50 16,907 41,800 84,992
27. Cottons 3,435 1,292,493 4,531,282 6,480,698
28. Drugs 116 51,274 291,130 627,488
29. Dyeing and cleaning 630 268,314 213,750 883,103
30. Electrical apparatus and
supplies 1,929 898,951 3,026,228 6,841,124
31. Electric light and power 94 54,558 -- 396,850
32. Elevators 97 52,990 58,797 315,170
33. Flour and grist mill
products 255 10,900 4,791,000 5,686,000
34. Foundry and machine shop
products 1,919 1,002,673 2,269,868 4,735,357
35. Fruit and vegetable
canning 44 13,900 85,000 123,500
36. Furnishing goods (men’s) 1,823 467,144 1,007,831 2,820,816
37. Furniture and upholstered
goods 725 383,144 409,671 1,358,310
38. Furs (dressed) 183 73,612 854,700 1,255,000
39. Glass (stained, cut and
ornamental) 49 23,184 15,900 386,000
40. Gloves and mittens 327 112,431 358,234 707,449
41. Hairwork 43 28,400 30,200 107,000
42. Harness and saddlery 429 207,340 688,600 1,173,750
43. Hats, caps and furs 1,268 500,155 2,598,029 4,388,918
44. Hosiery and knit goods 586 192,137 553,298 1,016,901
45. Housebuilding 462 251,932 390,566 1,053,583
46. Interior decorations 148 75,720 128,555 294,342
47. Iron and steel products 1,224 794,416 1,908,666 3,880,597
48. Jewelry and repairs 574 312,244 477,348 1,184,351
49. Leather goods 228 101,038 817,710 1,112,035
50. Leather (tanned, curled
and finished) 276 126,914 735,795 1,300,141
51. Liquors (malt) 410 238,326 638,615 1,627,311
52. Lime 57 28,000 8,600 149,000
53. Log products 84 41,429 478,000 630,400
54. Lumber products 1,618 877,271 2,272,876 4,904,573
55. Mattresses and spring beds 274 129,327 307,509 572,475
56. Mirrors and plate glass 123 54,022 173,132 342,830
57. Monuments and tombstones 114 65,998 74,182 237,032
58. Musical instruments 159 92,100 112,167 283,400
59. Oils 60 25,019 744,068 864,674
60. Optical goods 55 19,882 45,271 121,771
61. Paints and varnishes 516 299,019 2,822,706 4,722,477
62. Patent medicines 38 17,705 23,074 136,803
63. Picture frames 61 33,106 28,975 104,000
64. Plumbing and tinsmithing 1,952 691,537 1,416,917 2,767,034
65. Printers’ supplies 21 9,328 10,000 23,500
66. Printing and bookbinding 1,484 703,392 740,770 2,367,655
67. Printing and publishing 1,144 631,994 742,956 2,595,180
68. Roofing and roofing
materials 307 161,167 526,695 886,450
69. Rubber clothing 291 136,885 384,100 869,744
70. Signs 76 41,000 36,400 140,797
71. Silversmithing 28 17,036 9,200 51,128
72. Slaughtering and meat
packing 650 310,638 5,059,000 6,123,125
73. Soap 99 34,660 269,878 495,862
74. Stationary goods 191 56,522 84,159 235,980
75. Stone (cut) 270 100,760 25,060 324,418
76. Tobacco (chewing, smoking
and snuff) 787 255,999 2,596,356 3,564,736
77. Tobacco (cigars and
cigarettes) 3,108 1,107,464 4,809,173 10,292,144
78. All other industries* 4,812 2,280,479 8,995,320 15,677,928
* All other industries comprises:--2 wire, 1 cutlery and edge
tools, 1 oxygen gas, 1 time recorder, 1 window fixtures, 1
coffins and caskets, 2 glass, 2 vinegar and pickles, 1 wall
paper, 1 paste flour, 1 pins, 1 washing blue, 1 sausage casings,
1 bells, 1 shoddy, 1 glue, 1 boats and canoes, 1 cement
(Portland), 1 fertilizers, 1 paper, 1 batting, 2 brick, tile
and pottery, 1 cordage, rope and twine, 1 malt, 1 plaster, 1
foods (prepared), 2 railway supplies, 1 refrigerators, 1 safes
and vaults, 1 saw, 1 typewriters, 1 cement blocks and tiles,
1 lasts and pegs, 2 stone (artificial), 1 vaseline, 1 sewing
machines, 2 silk and silk goods, 1 spray motors, 2 stamps and
stencils, 1 sugar (refined), 2 umbrellas, 2 vacuum cleaners, 2
washing compounds, 1 woodworking and turning, 1 costumier and
hairdresser, 1 cotton and wool waste, 1 paper (blue print), 1
stove polish, 1 automobile repairs, 1 bicycles, 2 gas (lighting
and heating), 1 inks, 2 photographic materials, 2 stereotyping
and electro-typing, 1 artificial limbs, 2 asbestos, 1 babbitt
metal, 1 bridges (iron and steel), 1 butter and cheese, 2 corks,
1 fringes, cords and tassels, 1 gas machines, 1 miscellaneous, 2
plumbers’ supplies, 1 typewriter’s supplies, 1 dyes and colors,
1 typefounding, 1 fancy goods, 1 laces and braids, 1 scales,
1 church ornaments, 1 macaroni, 2 prepared flour, 2 statuary,
1 boxes (cigar), 1 corsets and supplies, 2 dies and moulds, 1
jewelry cases, 1 metallic roofing and flooring, 2 patterns, 1
showcases, 1 textile (dyeing and finishing), 1 window blinds and
shades, 1 pipe and boiler covering.
THE MANUFACTURES OF GREATER MONTREAL
Capital. Wages.
1910. 1900. 1910. 1900.
Montreal $132,475,802 $57,148,661 $34,270,835 $17,810,356
Laprairie 112,000 -- 31,940 --
Longueuil 75,000 -- 55,300 --
Maisonneuve 7,919,080 4,147,533 4,856,496 912,789
Lachine 7,496,612 3,913,846 1,301,545 565,432
Outremont 187,993 -- 51,780 --
St. Henri -- 4,303,362 -- 1,154,383
St. Lambert 191,638 -- 58,496 --
St. Louis -- 101,053 -- 52,988
Verdun 426,051 -- 102,547 --
Westmount 1,441,288 48,947 374,562 26,394
---------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Total $150,325,464 $69,663,402 $41,103,501 $20,522,342
Production.
1910. 1900.
Montreal $166,296,972 $71,099,750
Laprairie 17,500 --
Longueuil 145,750 --
Maisonneuve 20,813,774 6,008,780
Lachine 6,295,716 2,909,847
Outremont 190,506 --
St. Henri -- 4,139,391
St. Lambert 185,119 --
St. Louis -- 200,140
Verdun 229,299 --
Westmount 1,541,802 102,500
------------ -----------
Total $195,716,438 $84,460,408
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See the supplemental chart at the end of this chapter.
[2] It is worthy of record that within the past few years there
has been also on the part of these great organizations great
interest and active concurrence shown in the civic betterment
and good government schemes as well as in general humanitarian
movements for the common good.
CHAPTER XXXVII
FINANCE
MONTREAL BANKING AND INSURANCE BODIES
I. BANKING: HAMILTON’S PLAN FOLLOWED BY THE FIRST BANK OF THE
UNITED STATES IN 1791--1792, THE ATTEMPTED CANADA BANKING
COMPANY AT MONTREAL--DELAY THROUGH AMERICAN WAR OF 1812--1815,
RENEWED AGITATION FOR A BANK CHARTER FOR MONTREAL--1817,
THE FIRST BANK OF MONTREAL WITHOUT A CHARTER--ITS FIRST
OFFICERS--OTHER BANKS FOLLOW--THE QUEBEC BANK--THE RIVAL
“BANK OF CANADA”--THE BANK OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA--MOLSONS
BANK--THE MERCHANTS BANK--BANQUE JACQUES CARTIER, PREDECESSOR
TO BANQUE PROVINCIALE--THE ROYAL BANK--THE BANQUE
D’HOCHELAGA--THE MONTREAL CITY AND DISTRICT BANK--BANKS WITH
HEAD OFFICES ELSEWHERE--MONTREAL BANK CLEARINGS WITH CANADIAN
AND NORTH AMERICAN CITIES.
II. INSURANCE: THE PIONEER FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY OF CANADA--THE
“PHOENIX”--THE “AETNA”--IN THE FIFTIES AND SIXTIES--THE GREAT
FIRE OF 1854--LATER COMPANIES. A. LIFE INSURANCE: THE PIONEER
COMPANIES--THE SCOTTISH AMICABLE AND SCOTTISH PROVIDENT
COMPANIES. B. MISCELLANEOUS INSURANCE.
I. BANKING
THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE BANKS OF MONTREAL[1]
As Montreal has been for many years the financial center of the
country, a considerable part of Canada’s banking history is
contained in the story of the formation and growth of the city’s
representative banks.
It is well known that there was no joint stock bank existent in
British North America one hundred years ago.
The first attempt was not made in Canada until 1792 when, after
the conclusion of the Revolutionary war, Montreal’s commercial
importance was increased through the settlement of the United
Empire Loyalists in Upper Canada.
Until the Loyalists came, there were only a few scattered
military posts in Upper Canada. The new settlers began to clear
the land and grow crops. Then, as now, the greater part of the
produce exported by the provinces was sent to England; and the
greater part of the imports came from the American colonies. The
imports came by the Lake Champlain routes. So Montreal handled
the inceased exports and imports caused by the settling of the
Western province.
In connection with this trade, and with the other business of the
city, banking operations were required. These were transacted by
the English merchants. They took money on deposit, made advances,
and issued due bills which served as currency.
All the writers dealing with this period of Montreal’s history
lay much stress on the troubles caused by the lack of circulating
medium. It should be remembered that the habitants in Lower
Canada had suffered great losses from the issues of paper money
during the French régime. Their experience with this paper money
caused them to hoard gold and silver and to distrust paper
promises to pay. Their attitude towards the first bank notes is
said to have had a considerable influence in making the banks
hold strong reserves against issues of notes. The currency of the
country then consisted largely of French, Spanish and Portuguese
gold coins.
In his “Early History of Canadian Banking,” Professor Shortt
has shown that banking in Canada represented the development
of ideas emanating from Alexander Hamilton, the great American
statesman. In 1791 the first Bank of the United States was
formed, on a plan constructed by Hamilton. This bank performed
very valuable services for the young Republic; and it contributed
most importantly to the development of industry and trade. But it
was a private concern; and in its work of caring for the business
of the country, it committed the crime of earning satisfactory
profits for its proprietors. Even in that early day “the people”
exhibited a strong propensity for putting out of business any
public corporation which had the temerity to earn good profits in
serving them. In the case of the Bank of the United States, its
end was probably hastened by the fact that the greater part of
its capital stock had been purchased by investors in England. At
any rate, in 1811, after twenty years of operation, its affairs
were liquidated.
In 1792, the year after the Bank of the United States was formed,
an attempt was made to launch the “Canada Banking Company,” which
was to receive deposits, issue notes, discount bills and keep
cash accounts with customers. Professor Shortt says the idea of
the bank is supposed to have been originated and worked up by
Montreal merchants. The official notice in the Quebec Gazette
is signed by Phyn, Ellice & Inglis, a London firm, and by Todd,
McGill & Company, and Forsyth, Richardson & Company--Montreal
merchants, who were customers of the London firm. The Canada
Banking Company was to have its head office in Montreal and
branches at Quebec and other places. The two Montreal firms here
referred to had a large share of the trade with the Upper Canada
settlers.
This scheme fell through. Mr. James Stevenson says in his work
that the promoters succeeded in forming a private bank of
deposit; and in Sir Edmund Walker’s book it is stated that the
company did issue notes, but they doubtless had a very limited
use.
Upon the failure of this project, the Montreal merchants
proceeded to develop and extend the business of private banking
carried on by them in connection with wholesale trade. They gave
credit for supplies, issued due bills, accepted orders drawn by
one party on another, etc.
In 1808, while the first Bank of the United States was still
in active business, steps were taken to organize the “Canada
Bank.” A bill was introduced in the Legislature providing for a
capital of £250,000 currency ($1,000,000), the shares being of
the denomination of £25 currency ($100). This bank was promoted
by a combination of citizens of Montreal and Quebec. It was to
have twenty-four directors, twelve from Montreal and twelve from
Quebec. Although the Legislature rejected this bill, it was
printed at the time of introduction. Professor Shortt states that
he had the opportunity of examining it and comparing it with the
charter of the Bank of the United States.
“Allowing,” he says, “for the necessary changes required to adapt
the American charter to Canadian conditions, the bill reproduces
in a very literal manner every essential feature of the American
Act.” The bank provided for in the bill was naturally on a
smaller scale than that of the United States. Then he gives in
parallel columns the full number of articles, sixteen in each
case, applying to the Canadian bank and the American bank. On
perusing them it is quite easy to see that the idea or plan was
taken bodily from the United States and changed only so much as
to make it applicable to Canada’s position.
This new banking scheme formed the subject of much discussion,
in the Legislature and outside of it, for several years. The big
merchants of Montreal and Quebec had not abandoned their plan,
and were no doubt working for its accomplishment when in 1812
war broke out between the United States and Great Britain. The
war served to put an end for the time to the projects for a new
bank. The various writers dealing with this stage of Canada’s
history appear to agree in their statements that the maintenance
of considerable bodies of British troops in Canada served to make
business prosperous for the producers and merchants. The troops
consumed large quantities of produce, which was purchased by
the Home Government at famine prices. Consequently, exports of
produce tended to decline. One authority says that about the only
exports passing down the St. Lawrence at this time were bills of
exchange.
During the war the currency troubles were largely removed, too,
through the issue of the army bills. These bills were issued at
first in denominations of $25 and upwards bearing interest and in
the denomination of $4 not bearing interest. Afterwards bills of
the denominations of one, two, three, five, eight, ten, twelve,
sixteen and twenty dollars were added to the non-interest bearing
issues. The large interest-bearing bills could be converted into
small bills not bearing interest; and the small bills could be
converted into large bills subject to interest. The rate of
interest was 4 pence per £100 per day. Bills were redeemed at
the option of the commander in cash or bills on London at thirty
days’ sight at the current rate of exchange.
While these army bills were in circulation there was plenty of
currency available for carrying on the country’s business. The
total outstanding on March 27th, 1815, was £1,249,996. After the
close of the war, the issues were rapidly redeemed. A year later,
in April, the outstandings had been reduced to £197,974. At the
end of 1820, all bills had been retired. Their cancellation
brought back the currency troubles in an aggravated form; and
the merchants and citizens redoubled their efforts to secure
authorization of a bank which would transact, deposit exchange,
and discount business, and issue notes to serve as circulating
medium.
Even before the army bills were withdrawn and cancelled, the
agitation for a bank was renewed. Early in 1815 a motion was
introduced in the Lower Canada Legislature to resolve the House
into a committee of the whole to consider the establishment of a
bank. This came to nothing. At the next session sundry Montreal
merchants petitioned for incorporation as a bank. The dissolution
of the House on 28th February, 1816, put an end to the bill which
was framed to give effect to this plan. It was put in again when
the new House assembled; but before it could be passed the House
was prorogued. Then, to quote Professor Shortt, “The merchants
of Montreal, who had been chiefly interested in the attempts to
get a bank charter, feeling, no doubt, that the sympathy of the
business community was with them, and that it would be a pity
to lose another year with no more certainty of success, * * *
decided to start the bank _without a charter_. Accordingly, on
May 19, 1817, the articles of association of the Montreal Bank
were adopted, and the corporation proceeded to organize.”
The founders of the bank had their articles of association
published in The Montreal Herald, May 22, 1817. Our authority
states that he was not able to discover any copy of The Herald
for that date. But he found that the Quebec Gazette, exactly one
week later, on May 29th, copied from The Herald an editorial item
commenting on the new enterprise thus:
“In the first page of this paper the articles of the Montreal
Bank Association are laid before the public. Such an
establishment has always been a favorite with this journal,
and we cannot but congratulate the community on the prospect
of a wonderful change for the better in the agricultural and
mercantile pursuits of this province. The articles of this most
laudable association, so far as we are enabled to judge from
practical experience in our younger years, and from much reading,
are drawn up with great judgment and wisdom, and seem extremely
well calculated for our local position. We forbear making any
remarks on the subject for the present, further than that we wish
the establishment the utmost success in all its bearings.”
These original articles of the Montreal Bank, according to
evidence collected by Professor Shortt, were without doubt
adapted from the proposed charter for the Canada Bank, drawn up
in 1808; and as we have already seen, the articles of the Canada
Bank were almost literally copied from the charter of the first
Bank of the United States. Just a few months before the Montreal
Bank articles were signed--in January, 1817--the second Bank of
the United States was organized. If more evidence is required to
demonstrate that our banking system was originally founded on
the United States model as then existing, it is supplied in the
statement that one of the officers of the newly created Montreal
Bank was sent to New York to study the methods of the American
institution, and that one of the first officers of the Montreal
Bank was an American experienced in United States banking.
The names of the first officers are given as follows: President,
John Gray; cashier, Robert Griffin; accountant, H. Dupuy; first
teller, Mr. Stone.
The directors, appointed the first year after organization,
were: John Gray, George Garden, John Forsyth, Horatio Gates,
James Leslie, George Moffat, F. W. Ermatinger, David David,
Austin Cuvillier, John McTavish, George Platt, Hiram Nichols, and
Charles Bancroft.
The Montreal bank directors and officials continued to press for
incorporation. They did not, however, finally secure it until
May 18, 1822, when the Royal assent was given to the bill passed
by the Legislature for the purpose.
The following resumé of its history may be given:
The Bank of Montreal opened for business on Monday, 3rd November,
1817, in premises in a building belonging to the Armour estate,
situated on St. Paul Street, between St. Nicholas and St.
Francois Xavier streets, with a paid-up capital of $350,000.
In the year 1819 the capital was increased to $650,000, and in
the following year to $750,000. In 1829 the capital was $850,000;
in 1841, $2,000,000; in 1845, $3,000,000; in 1855, $4,000,000; in
1860, $6,000,000; in 1873, $12,000,000; in 1903, $14,000,000; in
1905, $14,400,000; in 1912, $16,000,000.
In the first full year (1819) of the bank’s operation, a dividend
was paid at the rate of 8 per cent per annum, and since then
(with the exception of the years 1827 and 1828, when the bank did
not pay any dividend), the annual dividends have ranged from six
per cent to sixteen per cent (or say, a dividend of 12 per cent,
with a bonus of 4 per cent), according to the earnings. But of
late years 10 per cent per annum has been the rate paid, with a
bonus of 1 per cent in April, 1912.
After 8 per cent had been paid as dividend in 1819, a balance
of $4,168 remained on hand, and was laid aside as a _rest_.
From that date of small beginnings the rest has steadily grown.
In 1825 it was $30,780, going down to $12,064 in the following
year, and then up again to $107,084 two years later; in 1830 it
stood at $31,360. Five years later it stood at $80,660, reaching
$197,828 in 1837; in 1840 it showed $89,480; in 1850, $120,192;
in 1860, $740,000; in 1870, $3,000,000; in 1880, $5,000,000; in
1883, $5,750,000; in 1884, $6,000,000; in 1900, $7,000,000; in
1908 $12,000,000; and now it stands at $16,000,000, and there are
additional undivided profits amounting to $696,463.27.
In 1903 the Bank of Montreal purchased the assets and business of
the Exchange Bank of Yarmouth. In 1905 it acquired the People’s
Bank of Halifax, in the same way, and in 1907 the People’s Bank
of New Brunswick at Fredericton was also acquired in this way by
the Bank of Montreal.
In 1906 the Ontario Bank having intimated that it was in
difficulties and would have to suspend, the Bank of Montreal
assumed all its liabilities, and it was subsequently liquidated
without loss.
In 1863 the Bank of Montreal was appointed Banker in Canada for
the Canadian Government, and on 1st January, 1893, Mr. E.S.
Clouston being general manager at the time, the bank became their
financial agent in Great Britain, also.
On 4th December, 1911, Sir Edward Clouston resigned the position
of general manager and was succeeded by Mr. H.V. Meredith.
Other banks followed the establishment of the Montreal Bank.
Next year, 1818, a company of Quebec merchants organized the
Quebec Bank. On March 17th the articles were ratified and on
the 18th the books were opened for subscriptions to the stock.
On September 16, 1822, the Royal assent was given to the bill
incorporating this second bank. Less than two months after the
Quebec Bank’s articles were signed a company of “speculative
Americans attracted to Canada by the prosperity of the war
period,” entered into articles of association under the name
of Bank of Canada. This bank was formed in Montreal to compete
with the Montreal Bank. It started with a capital of £300,000 as
against the Montreal Bank’s capital of £250,000 and the Quebec
Bank’s capital of £150,000. Royal assent was given to its bill of
incorporation on September 16, 1822, the same day as the Quebec
Bank’s bill was signed.
The charters of these two banks followed the lines of the charter
of the Montreal Bank. The Bank of Canada passed out of existence
in a few years.
These were the first three chartered banks to be started in
British North America. Upper Canada was not far behind in the
matter of organizing a bank. The Bank of Upper Canada got
its charter in 1821. In 1820, the Bank of New Brunswick was
incorporated; in 1825 the Halifax Banking Company started as a
private bank; in 1832 the Bank of Nova Scotia was chartered. Soon
several other banks were started in Upper and Lower Canada and in
the Maritime Provinces.[2]
In 1837 the banks experienced very stormy weather. There was a
great panic in the United States followed by general suspension
of specie payments. Also business in Canada was completely
disorganized by the rebellion. In May, 1837, the Lower Canada
banks suspended specie payments. In the Upper Province the banks
continued to meet their liabilities in specie until March of the
next year. Specie payments were resumed in the United States and
in Lower Canada in June, 1838; but in November another outbreak
in the Lower Province necessitated a second suspension. Finally,
payments were resumed in Lower Canada in June, 1839, and in Upper
Canada four months later. That represents the last occasion on
which the Canadian banks have suspended specie payments. For
seventy-three years they have stood up, in fair weather and foul,
meeting all demands in specie or its equivalent. The American
banks have suspended generally on four or five occasions since
1837.