The Sun.
London, England, 1869-12-21 00:00:00

GRAND TRUNK OF CANADA.
The
.adjourned half-yearly general meeting of
WA company was held on Friday, at the City Ter-
riinus Hotel, Cannon-street; Mr. R. Potter, the
cha'rinan, presided.
The CHAIRMAN said that on his return from a
three months' tour in Canada and the United State
the first thing he saw was a pamphlet from Mr.
Creak ; there were also statements from Mr. fland v-
side and other gentlemen interested in Grand Truhli
property. I lis first duty was to reply to those state-
ments, whieh he did at considerable length, alleging
that several of them were without foundation, and
had been replied to over and over IT tiu. Ile then
referred to a balance of revenue, amounting to
£27,000, which had been c tri ied to capital, the
latter account having been debited with the full
amount of capitalise) coupons accepted by the bond-
holders, and it was therefore fair that capital should
be credited with the balance of revenue. The
revenue account of the past half-year had been dis-
turbed by the extraordinary snow storms of last
March and April; and he was bound to tell them
that to some extent the accounts of the current
half-year would be disturbed by a similar event,
although not so serious in its consequences. In
the month of October last, when he was at
Toronto, a severe storm passed over New Eng-
land, blocking up many of their lines, and the
whole mountainous district about Richmond had
suffered considerably. There was a loss of £6,000
or £7,000 of the traffic from that cause. Also an
expense of £2,000 or £3,000 had been incurred to
temporarily repair the bridges and culverts which
had been washed away. A reserve out of the cur-
rent half-year would be necessary to reconstruct
the works that had been destroyed. He had been
induced six months ago to take the office of chair-
man, at a time when the shareholders had ceased
to treat their directors with any degree of confi-
dence or credit. He hoped the result of his jour-
ney to Canada would tend to restore confidence in
the board, and bring about the co-operation of
share and bond holders which was necessary to the
success of the undertaking. Although he had 20
years' experience in English railways, having been
chairman of the Great Western Railway through-
out 1863, 1864, and 1865, ho had no knowledge of
Canadian or American railways. He came upon
the Grand Trunk at Portland, and travelled over
the whole of it on three distinct occasions, each
time with the road-master and practical men of the
district. It would be very erroneous to compare
the permanent way of an American or Canadian
railway with the permanent way of the London and
North-Western, the Midland, or the Great North-
ern. That of the Grand Trunk was not equal to
the permanent way of the Pennsylvania Central,
the New York Central, or the Baltimore and Ohio,
but it was equal and more than equal to the perma-
nent way of the Great Western of Canada. It was as
good asthepermanent way of thelllinois Central, and
better than the average way of the railways West of
Chicago and St. Louis. He had been able to com-
pare the permanent way of the Grand Trunk with the
permanent way of many railways in America, because
the managers and presidents of the railway were good
enough to allow him to travel upon their lines,
generally with the practical road-master of the dis-
trict. The permanent way department of the Grand
Trunk Railway had been entirely the creation of
Mr. Brydges. The man at the head of it was Mr.
Hannifot d, an able, zealous, hard-working engineer,
and under less skilful and able hands the expenses
of the permanent way of the Grand Trunk would
be very largely increased. All the calculations
made, almost without exception, of the Canadian
railways, by themselves, the Great Western of
Canada, and the American Railways, had been to
a very large extent falsified by the miscalculation of
the life of an iron rail. The English rails shipped
within the last three or four years to America and
Canada had been very inferior. But looking to
the L ct that on the Grand Trunk of Canada they
had 140,000 tons of iron rails, and that it was now
the practice of almost all the American lines to use
steel rails, the company intended to use 5,000 tons
of steel rails in the year 1870, and to depend for the
rest, about 9,000 or 10,(.00 tons, upon the rolling
mills of Toronto, Detroit, and Portland. He be-
lieved for the next two or three years, or until the
quantity of steel rails on the lines would make an
appreciable difference in the average life of the rails
and in their wear and tear, they could not safely
calculate upon a less expenditure out of revenue
than £300,000 per year for maintenance and re-
newals on the Grand Trunk line. When he spoke
of renewals and maintenance he did not include
ballasting the road, which undoubtedly belonged to
capital, and not to revenue. But with the expen-
diture of £300,000 a year on the permanent way,
maintenance and renewals, he had no doubt the
line would be considerably improved, and that
when there were 10,000 or 15,000 tons of
steel rails on the line there would be a dimi-
nution in the charge. The addition of £lOO,OOO
extra traffic would not increase that charge much
above 5 per cent. on the extra traffic, although the
present proportion of permanent way and renewal
charges to the gross receipts exceeded 20 per cent.
This was in consequence of the rates paid for
traffic being so low. But if the rates were raised
to a fair amount the percentage of expenses would
become less in proportion. The same might be said
of the expenditure in other departments. Every
additional £lOO,OOO of gross traffic brought over the
Grand Trunk would cost considerably less than the
existing percentage of working expenses. With re-
gard to the Toronto rolling mills, it had been found
that rails rolled there would last as long as three or
four times the number of rails shipped from Eng-
land to Canada during the last three or four years.
(Hear, hear.) The Toronto re-rolled rails were ac-
knowledged to be the best rails that could be made
in Canada, and he might mention that a few weeks
before he left Canada, as a great favour, they al-
lowed the Great Western of Canada Company to
have 300 tons of rails re-rolled at the company's
Toronto rolling mills. The American railway sys-
tem within the last three years had been in very
much the same condition as that in England in
1843, 1844, and 1862, 1863, and 1864, the larger
railways having been in progress of concentration
and extension. The day of reckoning was coming,
and the cost of the extensions would have to be
met. He was quite satisfied that the course of events
during the next three years would tend to improve
the rates for goods, which had been extremely low
during the three preceding years. Throughout the
progressive parts of Canada the position of the people
was high.lThe farmers were almost all out of debt,and
there was plenty of capital in Canada. With re-
gard to the eastern section of their line, he did not
entertain expectations of improvement until the
Intercolonial Railway was finished. He believed
that when that line was opened to the public a very
large traffic in fish would be brought over the Grand
Trunk line, and it was a traffic that could not be
competed for. Along the whole course of the line
from Riviere du Loup to the Southern shores of
the St. Lawrence, the whole place was teeming with
fish, and there was an immense demand for it in
the West. The people of the West were wealthy
and luxurious, and they would pay any price for
fresh salt-water fish. In addition to the fish traffic,
large traffic resources would be developed along the
Intercolonial and Grand Trunk Railways, and this
traffic would not interfere with the company's Port-
land line. The annual increase of traffic in Upper
Canada was between 10 and 20 per cent., and it was
believed would continue for many years to come.
There was a tendency throughou t the whole of the
Grand Trunk system for the traffic more and more
to seek the railway carriage and leave the water.
He thought the Americans were becoming a very
luxurious people, and he was satisfied there would
be a very rapid increase in the passenger train° of