The Sarnia Observer and Western Advertiser
December 15, 1853
The Great Western Railway
We give the following extract ( says the North American ), from a communication which appeared in a late No. of the Canadian, in reference to the Great Western Railway. After a somewhat lenghty introduction, the writer says:
“My reason for now troubling you is, that I have just learned that the Board of the Great Western have voted to Sir Allan McNab the enormous sum of £10,000, part cash and part stock, with an annuity of £500 sterling for life, as a trifling renumeration for his past services. I will not allude, Mr. Editor, to the very general impression long felt here that Sir Allen’s name was the great drawback and obstacle to the progress of the Great Western — that his jobbing in the stock of the Company when sent to England as it’s agent, damned it’s prospects on that occasion,–that immediately on his being replaced by one in whom the public had more confidence, very large amounts of stock where instantly subscribed,–to his already having pocketed between £3,000 and £4,000 for land rights, or water rights to which he had no title, or one of a very questionable nature; but I would ask, in the name of common sense, and common honesty, what has he done to receive this prepposterous sum? And I would further intimate to the President and Directors of the Board, that if no other shareholder feels a sufficient interest in the subject, it is my intention to test in a Court of Law, the right of the Directors to vote away such a sum of money against the wishes of the parties for whom they are trustees.–Even members of “My House”may learn, that although the breeches
pocket may place themselves their tools and toadies, in the position of Directors, it will not avail them, if, in the exercise of the duties that devolve upon them, they so far outstrip the bounds of reason and decency.
There is another matter in which no court of law can, I fear, reach them, and alas! as I have already said, for pulic opinion: but should any English shareholder chance to see this letter, I ask him to read and ponder. It has ever been urged (witness the Annual reports of the Company) that the Road from London to Sarnia was so free from difficulties that the diminished expense on that portion of the line would nearly reduce the cost of the whole to the original estimate, notwhithstanding all the unforeseen accidents that have occurred on the remaining portion. What will shareholders think now, when they learn that the contract has been given out for about £7,500 per mile, when it is notorious to any one with a knowledge of the section of the country through which it runs, that it could be built for $15,000 or at most $16,000 per mile. Rumour says that one of the Board has an interest in the contract. Of that I know nothing; but here
are the figures, let the public judge. I may, perhaps, refer to other matters connected with the anagement of the Company shortly; in the meantime, I have not much satisfaction in subscribing myself, A SHAREHOLDER.”
There are four distinct charges agaiinst the Directors in that extract. 1st. The vote of £10,000. 2nd. The life annuity of £500. 3rd. £4,000 for land to which Sir Allan had no claim, and 4th. A charge in reference to the contract given at £7,500 when the work might have been done for £4000. Sir Allan sometime ago, declared his future politics to be Railroads, and no one will venture to insinuate that he has swerved from his new faith, and there is little chance that he will, seeing that it pays so much better than the old. But this wholeslae subsidizing we fear will bring the Board into desrepute. The Canadian, further says:
“We have often said, and we know nothing of the secrets that there was just as much “jobbing and chiselling”in the management of the Great Western Railroad, as there is in the Government of the Province, about which the whole world and his wife have heard so often, and so much,–but we certainly were not prepared for the perpetration of anything half so flagrant as that referred to by “A Shareholder.”
“We like to see good men get good wages. ‘The labourer is worthy of his hire,’and ‘the ox that tread-out the corn’ should not be ‘muzzled.’ Sir Allan McNab has been a good man for the Company of the Great Western Railroad. Indeed, only for his influence it is questionable if it would have been a Railroad at all; at least, it is certain that the Depot would not have been so convenient to Burlington Bay and Dundurn Castle. Sir Allan has therefore been a good man, and we trust he has got good wages. Nay, we could even allow him some small perquisites–hence, we said very little in opposition, when the Board of Directors voted him some six thousand pounds for a peice of the water of the Bay, which, with somoe certain breadth of the beach, we believe, belong to the Government, or rather, to the people. But Sir Allan being a good man, we were willing to allow him even this six thousand pounds as a kind of perquisite. We have
really great faith in not muzzling the mouth of the oz, but we have no faith in pensions. Sir Allan lately told the citizens of Hamilton, that their stock in the Great Western was an excellent investment; that it was first rate stock, and would yeild a large revenue! Profitable affair, certainly! A few such pensioners as Sir Allan, would soon swallow up both stock and interest! But let us ask, first, Is there one single municipality, a Shareholder in the Great Western, that would vote for, or sanction this profligate expenditure of the
revenue of the railroad? And, second, Has the Board, or rather a mere quorum of the Directors, any legal authority to squander the funds of the Company in premiums and penions to favourites? If so, the sooner the Municipalities ‘sell out’the better! For our own part, we regard this ‘job, as a gross unwarrantable imposition, and trust that, for the sake of common justice, our correspondent will bring it
before the Court of Chancery.”