ENTERPRISE OF RESIDENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 215, 9 March 1912, Page 7

ENTERPRISE OF RESIDENTS.

Last summer a manufacturing firm in Toronto was invited to settle in Guelph. They had £15,000 capital of their own, and employed a couple of hundred men. They consented to remove their works to Guelph if the residents would lend them £2500 for 20 years at 4 per cent, and give them a free site. A public-spirited resident of Guelph (Mr. J. W. Lyon) surveyed out of his estate 100 lots, and offered them for sale to local men at £25 per lot, stating that he 'would make this factory a present outright of the proceeds (£2500) and eight acres, to induce them to settle in Guelph. These 100 lots were sold in a fortnight, the purchasers being such men as drapers, grocers, tailors, lawyers, doctors; in fact, various ranks of the community bought one or two, and there again was blended the public spirit with commercialism, because with that district settled they can sell those lots for probably double what they paid for them, besides settling the families of the employees near by as customers. There are now a dozen small factories in that town, and the population is increasing, whereas if the residents had remained apathetic, business would have fallen off and empty houses would have been the rule of the day, owing to the younger men going out West. It is of very frequent occurrence in towns and cities there to make loans for 10 years without any interest at all, the various grants depending, of course, upon conditions, such as how men are employed, whether the town has natural advantages or not, etc.