$31,600 Debentures Paid Off for Three Industries

On Friday last (Oct. 1), $31,600 pf the debentures of this town fell due, and were paid off. This indebtedness was incurred ten years ago, in the following manner: loan of $10,000 to the Patterson foundry; loan of $5,400 to the Atlas Woolen Mills; loan of $10,000 to the Martin Manufacturing Co.; gift of $6,200 to Martin Mfg. Co., being cost of their land and buildings. The total of the loans and bonuses at that time was $31,600. Out of the Patterson loan the town never received but $1,800. A lucky fire burned the Atlas Woolen Mills and the town drew the insurance, amounting to about $4,000. The Martin Company repaid their loan the day it became due. The taxpayers of the town have paid $5,000 interest on the loans, about $300 expenses of one sort or another, and about $14,200 of the principal, making $19,800 or thereabouts that the town paid for the folly of hiring three firms to come here and start business experiments. Besides this, townspeople took about $10,000 stock in the Patterson foundry and lost it all. One out of the three only ran about a month or two, another has been sometimes alive and sometimes dead during the whole ten years, while the third was a success. At the time their loans were granted the chronicle opposed the move very strongly, and was threatened with an advertising boycott by several merchants. However, there is agony to recount without going into our personal troubles. The town has learned a bitter lesson of experience, and has paid for it, honorably. The by-law under which these loans were granted called for a sinking fund to be raised to meet the $6,200 of a bonus given the Martin Co., which our council of ten years ago and for several years thereafter neglected to raise, thus trifling with the town’s honor in order to keep down taxes and secure elections for the councillors by acclamation. It also became apparent about eight years ago that the Patterson and Atlas companies would never repay their loans. Still no effort was made to raise a sinking fund. This journal pointed out that the towns honor was at stake, and that there would be very little money to pay the $31,600 debentures at maturity. An agitation was started which placed a new set of men in council, and a plan was arranged at once to collect a sinking fund. In the meantime the Ontario Bank had refused further credit to the town, and to ward off a crisis, Ex-Mayor James Campbell stood for a time personal security for its finances at the Western Bank. Messrs. Campbell, King, Rutledge and A. M. Ross at that time were mainly instrumental for adopting measures, which Mr. Rutledge has since taken the lead in carrying out, by which the town was able on Friday last to redeem its mighty folly, and pay off one-third of its total indebtedness. A part of the advantage of making this effort to pay its score was made apparent last year when the debentures for the railway loan renewed at a reduction in interest from 6 to 4 per cent. Now that the $31,600 loans have been wiped out, we do not doubt but the town could sell at par debentures at 3 ½ per cent. The town is to be congratulated upon the excellent management of its finances in getting out of this awful mess; the council is to be likewise commended for its steadfastness of purpose. In laying away mainly to pay the peoples’ debts honorably, the Martin Mfg. Co. deserves special mention for the full measure of honor with which it handed back the money the hour it became due. Lastly, Mayor Rutledge by his skillful and careful supervision of the whole matter places the town under lasting obligations to him. As Mr. Samuel Trees remarked on Friday, Mr. Rutledge was born to be mayor and the people would be wise to make him stick to his job as long as he lives.