“As an established Canadian company employing hundreds of workmen the year round, not to mention the lever we had in political affairs, the advantage, at the start, was with us; but parliament, as is the wont of parliaments, haggled over the matter for many weary months. Finally, they awarded the lease to the North Star, on a year to year basis, with a particular stipulation that our mills be grinding wood from the Nannabijou Limits at full capacity on October twenty-third of this year. That would give us plenty of leeway, for we expected to commence the installation of our machinery in June.
“Strange as it appeared at the time, the Kam City Pulp and Paper Company continued their building operations with no apparent prospect of limits to draw a raw supply from. I suspected Gildersleeve had a card up his sleeve, but was at a loss to determine what trickery he planned until the announcement reached us that the company in the States which was building the North Star’s pulp and paper manufacturing machinery had gone into liquidation and could not make delivery.
“This was indeed a calamity, for the construction of certain of the machines used in paper-making cannot be completed in less than twenty-seven months’ time. Nowhere else could we secure equipment anywhere within the time limit set by the government. The full meaning of the coup that had been put over the North Star by its unscrupulous rival was realised when we learned that the failure of the pulp and paper machinery manufacturers with whom the North Star had its order was brought about by money-market manipulators in Gildersleeve’s syndicate. By this underhand method the Kam City Pulp and Paper Mills had actually gained possession of the plant the North Star had on order.
“The North Star was faced with cancellation of its rights on the limits and possible financial difficulties through the immense amount of money it had invested in a mill that would now be a white elephant on its hands. The Kam City Pulp and Paper Company lost no time in drawing the attention of the government to the fact that the North Star was installing no machinery to grind the pulp poles it was booming at the limits; and further that we had no machinery nor any prospect of securing any. The Kam City Company applied for an order to restrain the North Star from further cutting operations and again applied for the lease under the former terms of offer.