☛ Splendid Financial Success
The Sarnia Observer and Western Advertiser
March 23, 1854
Splendid Financial Success of the Grand Trunk Railway
The attempts so perseveringly made to injure this magnificent
enterprise which will cause an expenditure of £9,000,000 sterling, on
account of Canada, have been carried from this province to England. A
call on the Grand Trunk shares was payable in England on the 6th of
February; and the enemies of this enterprise made a dead set to
prevent the call being responded to by the shareholders. A scurrilous
pamphlet containing a rechauffe of all the exploded charges which had
been made against the company for months past, was issued and
circulated gratuitously in England on the 3rd of Feb’y, just before
the call came due. The concoctors of this infamous production
doubtless calculated that the falsehoods they scattered broadcast
amoung the shareholders of the Grand Trunk would do their work, and
that there would be no time for correction and refutation. Wherever
it was believed that the Grand Trunk shareholders were to be found,
there was this bundle of falsehoods sent.–It is hardly necessary to
mention that such a production as this was issued anonomously: nobody
could be found to father the calumnies it contained. Amoung those who
were honoured with a copy of this unowned production were the Duke of
Newcastle, Secretary for the Colonies, Lord Elgin and other persons of
distinction. But the concoctors of this disgraceful work mistook the
public whom they addressed. They are accustomed to address a Canadian
audience and they greatly mistook when they concluded that the arts
which they practise here would have an effect on the capitalists of
England. How utterly this contrivance failed of it’s object which
will be understood when we state that not only has the call amounting
to £360,000, sterling, been promptly paid; but that there has in
addition been received at the company’s Bankers nearly £300,000
sterling, in anticipation of future calls; and at latest accounts the
money continued to pour in with unabated rapidity. These payments,
together with deposits paid in May last, and the capital already paid
up on the Quebec and Richmond, the St. Lawrence and Atlantic, and the
Toronto and Sarnia companies amount to more than one fourth of the
total capital of the amalgamated capital companies. Whoever were weak
enough to entertain doubts of the success of this enterprise will now
doubt no longer. This eminent financial success has been attained in
spite of the deperate and unprincipled efforts that have been made to
write down the enterprise. It has, by it’s enemies and the enemies of
provincial prosperity, been described as a “grand bubble;” And we
were bid wait a few weeks to see it burst. But fortunately this
instance, the efforts of calumny have prooved fruitless; and whatever
advantages may reasonably be anticipated from the success of the Grand
Trunk are certain to be realized.–Leader
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