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AGAINST LOCAL OPTION
Manager of Ontario Iron and Steel Co.
Declares Local Option Would Cripple, Perhaps Close the Works
[Welland Tribune, 8 December 1910]
As work manager of Page Hersey Iron, Tube and Lead Co., Ltd., and Ontario Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., I wish to state the effect local option would have in our works.
From what I understand from a great number of our workmen, and especially most of our leading men, who have stated to me that if local option took effect in Welland, they would work just long enough to get another position elsewhere.
With my experience of running plants and handling men of this class for the last twenty years or more, I really do believe that local option, if carried, in the town of Welland, will cripple our works very much, if not close them down entirely, as this class of men will not work in a town where there is no license.
Last summer it cost our firm over $2,000 to import men from different parts of Canada, and United States, and three-fifths of these men did not work in Welland long enough to pay the fare back to us, which put us to a great expense. The men stated that they did not like Welland, and if there is no license here, it will be a great deal harder to get men of this class to come here.
The above companies employ at the present time between six and seven hundred men. The pay-roll of these two companies amounts to about $40,000 each month.
We have invested in plants about $1,000,000 and if any injury should happen, a plant of this kind through local option, or any other cause, it would be a great blow to any town of this size. I believe it would decrease property by about 150 per cent. I am only speaking of what I really believe; local option would not only injure our company’s property, but practically all real estate holdings in Welland.
I will also state that we have plans for a new plant, which we intend to build this spring and which are now in the hands of the contractors. This plant will increase our working staff from two hundred and fifty to three hundred men. I can safely say, as works manager of these plants, that if local option should injure our present plants, if carried, that the new works will not be built in the town of Welland or any where near it.
A.M. Moseley
Works Manager
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