Where did the Fortune Go?

Don't worry, this kitty is just sleeping. You should have seen the look she gave me when my phone camera woke her!

James Dunsmuir is described as practical, honest, reliable and unassuming. He had a certain brusqueness in business that gave an impression of cold haughtiness. He was careful with money, resisting what he considered to be over charges from doctors, shippers and such but he gave generously to churches, orphanages, hospitals and agricultural exhibitions. Starting June 1900, James donated $25 per month to the Extension Mine Accident Fund.

There was vicious public criticism of Dunsmuir sometimes but he never made an attempt to justify his actions or defend himself. He had a habit of being self-deprecating and this led to negative assessments of his business career. People wrongly labelled James as being simple, unimaginative and unambitious whereas if they had looked at the progress of the company during the time he was in control, they would have said differently.

During the time he was premier, Dunsmuir ran his company on a daily basis. And this talented entrepreneur raised production levels from 215,021 tonnes to 898,908 tonnes and the average workforce from 575 to 2,519. Sales increased from 215,127 tons of coal to 706,890 tons of coal and 8,327 tons of coke. The coke had never been manufactured before. James Dunsmuir did a lot to increase the value of the company and enlarge the family's fortune.

This photo is of Hatley Park, the home of James and Laura Dunsmuir.

Graveyard monument for James Dunsmuir at Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria, BC. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

More on the grave monument in Victoria, BC.

This is another photo of Hatley Castle in Colwood, B.C. It is now the home of the Royal Roads University.

It is difficult to understand why, at the relatively young age of 61, James Dunsmuir retired from the corporate world. Maybe he was tired of the eternal confrontations with the workers or discouraged by the growing popularity of oil in the U.S., which was seriously depleting the firm's key market. He was smart though. He sold up at the most opportune time to maximise his profits. Perhaps James was responding to the increasing value placed on leisure time and to the general economic decline of Vancouver Island. Another reason could be that he had just lost interest in furthering the family empire.

So James retired to the life of an English gentleman at Hatley Park near Esquimalt and devoted his life to fishing and estate management. Hatley Castle is an Edwardian mansion of 50 rooms on 640 acres complete with modern dairy and slaughterhouse. There was also a 2158-foot steel yacht Dolaura with a dining room that could seat 24 and a hunting lodge on the Cowichan River. This wasn't a flamboyant display of wealth though. James lived behind the massive fences on a large, relatively remote estate. 

This is a picture of the Japanese Garden at Hatley Park. It was designed by Japanese landscape architect Isaburo Kashida and installed in 1909.

This is Dola Dunsmuir - the youngest child of James and Laura Dunsmuir - and an unknown gentleman on horses at Hatley Park.

This is James and Laura Dunsmuir in the Italian Garden at Hatley.

A tea pavillion and bridge in the Japanese Gardens at Hatley Park.

(all these photos are from the Royal Roads University Archives)

James Dunsmuir, though, experienced little joy in his later years. He was increasingly isolated and lonely. His eldest son spent his life globetrotting in an alcoholic haze and his younger son died in the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. The daughters weren't much better. They led frivolous lives and there was no one in the third generation of the Canadian Dunsmuirs who was the entrepreneur or worker that their father and grandfather had been. In fact, after James' death in his hunting lodge in 1920, the children burned through the family fortune in one generation.

So sad. James Dunsmuir had been the richest and allegedly the most influential man in British Columbia for a few years. He didn't create the labour environment but he contributed to the militancy with his strong arm tactics. He didn't create the racism but he intensified the debate by employing a large amount of Asians and using them as strike breakers. Yet he was a highly successful Vancouver Island entrepreneur who dominated the local economy and he created communities and provided living wages to thousands of people. James Dunsmuir was a talented businessman whose wealth and influence exceeded that of his father. 

Once again, I would like to thank the Dictionary of Canadian Biography for the above information.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, James Dunsmuir, history, Lusitania, fortune Hatley Park, Royal Roads University, Premier,militant,

Benevolent Leader or Tyrannical Icon?

Wow. This is my 500th entry. And I have had over 76,000 views. Thank you to everyone who has supported the Vancouver Vagabond, without you it would be nothing.

“There is no individual in British Columbia respecting whom public opinion is so hopelessly divided as over Honourable James Dunsmuir. . . . If short-range critics and sycophantic friends in his entourage are now at hopeless variance, what likelihood is there of the masses forming a correct view of him?” So said the Daily Province in 1908 and that question remains unanswered to this day.

In a tradition inherited from his father, James Dunsmuir saw workers as part of a family who were watched over by a stern patriarch who had their best interests at hear. (This reminds me a lot of B.T. Rogers of Rogers Sugar - here is the link to that entry ) Even as late at the 1970s, people remembered acts of kindness shown by James as well as his dislike for pomp and how he could talk with his workers on a first name basis. This attitude inspired loyalty in the Wellington men and dozens pulled the hearse containing Robert Dunsmuir's body through the streets of Victoria in 1889.

Such deference was natural back in that time. And remember that Robert Dunsmuir had once been one of those men - he had risen from the position of worker to mine owner. I also think that this whole attitude of a benevolent patriarch may have come from the days of landowners and peasants in Europe where the lord of the manor was responsible for the people living on his lands. Like a father and his children. These workers also elected their employers into office and if they should strike, that was seen as an act of ingratitude and rebellion against a wise parent.

Of course, that attitude could never exist in today's society. Today's employees consider such personalized relations as dependence. As well, many of today's workers seem to feel that the employer - who may have worked long hours and sacrificed a lot to get their company where it is - should not be allowed to take high wages.

By the time that James started taking over the company in the 1880s, workers were developing new attitudes. Some of them were rejecting condescending benevolence and were insisting on independence and dignity. And safety.

Coalmines were, and in some ways still are, dirty, noisy, dark and dangerous places. The gaseous Vancouver Island mines were some of the most dangerous in the world.

This risky work was done by some unusually independant-minded people and this setting attracted or bred some of the most militant labour. In 1890, a Wellington miner wrote “that we are not slaves, but a free people, and, as such, we cannot allow ourselves to be tyrannized over.” Not all workers agreed but the more radical began to see themselves as exploited and capitalists as evil. As owner-manager of B.C.'s largest firm in British Columbia and the province's richest man, Dunsmuir was an easy target.

Dunsmuir was adamantly opposed to unions of any kind and was more than ready to fire any person he found organizing one. And he wasn't alone in his actions. While the U.S. took a belligerent stance, employers in Vancouver in 1903 formed an employers' association that advocated firings, blacklists and employment of strike breakers.

The Dunsmuirs used these tactics as well as others to control their employees. Just like their Canadian counterparts, the Dunsmuirs persuaded the provincial government to send in the militia to keep peace while strikebreakers continued to mine coal during a strike. Every dispute in the Dunsmuir empire related to a demand for the company to recognize a union. However, no Dunsmuir ever agreed to that.

There were two major strikes during James' management. The first was from May 19, 1890 to November 1891 and centred on wage roll backs in depressed market conditions and the eight-hour day movement. The provincial government cooperated with the Dunsmuirs by sending in the militia during this strife.

The second major strike happened from March 11 to July 4, 1903. Employees were upset over the firing of union organizers and demanded union recognition. During this upset, the federal government intervened. They had established a royal commission to discover why there were so many industrial disputes in British Columbia.

Labour solidarity eroded since most of the miners lived in company owned houses and, when they went on strike, they were evicted. The miners would drift back to work as they realized that there would be no concessions from the employers. Most of the militant workers hated the Dunsmuirs but their anger was also focused on the strike breakers.  It all came down to power.

If the Dunsmuirs agreed to all of the striking workers' demands, it would be seen as a sign of personal weakness and where would it stop? Nevertheless, after the 1890-91 strike, work hours were reduced to eight and half and by 1900, the Extension workers had their eight hour day. These decisions though were not concessions to militant labour in a strike setting but rather a gift from a paternalistic manager who was aware of the international trends. Dunsmuir also imposed labour contracts that specified wages and working conditions for set periods.

Information was gleaned from the website Dictionary of Canadian Biography.

I hope you find the beauty around you.


Karen Magill, James Dunsmuir, history, strikebreakers, militia patriarch, Nanaimo, Premier,militant,

Dunsmuir as Premier

This pole was created by Zac George, in honour of his grandfather, Chief Dan George. The elder George was chief of Tsleil-Waututh First Nation as well as an author and Academy-award nominated actor. This pole was installed in front of the Pacific Coliseum at Hastings Park in 2010.

When last we left off, I gave you a brief summary of James Dunsmuir's political career. Today, I will look at it more closely.

Critics at the time and historians have accused Dunsmuir of entering politics for his own purposes but James sometimes acted against what would seem to be his personal advantage. Like when, in 1902, his government brought in a redistribution bill that would shift the political balance in the assembly from Vancouver Island to Vancouver and Kootenay mining district to better reflect the growth of population there. Even though this meant a loss of two seats on the island - one in Esquimalt where Dunsmuir would soon build his new house and his own seat of South Nanaimo. With the introduction of a small tax per ton on coal and coke, taxes on the gross output of mines and a graduated income tax, the Nelson Daily Miner admitted that "those terrible Dunsmuirs improve on nearer acquaintance." The Rossland Record, also in the Kootenays, cited these financial levies as evidence of the "Premier's ability to set public duty above private interest."

Dunsmuir's record on Asian labour was more complex. He was the province's largest employer of Asian labour and during the election campaign of 1900, he promised to remove Chinese workers from his operations in the Nanaimo area. And he did start the removal, prompting the Nanaimo Herald to say it would "suspend our invectives until we have evidence that he has fooled the people."

Obviously, Dunsmuir was aware of the severity of public dissent on the issue of Asian labour. James even warned Prime Minister Sir Wilfred Laurier in 1900 that agitation would grow to "undesirable prominence" unless the federal government increased the poll tax on Chinese immigration. When Dunsmuir was lieutenant governor, he reserved provincial legislation that attempted to restrict Asian immigration on the grounds that it encroached on federal jurisdiction.

Yet Dunsmuir sent out mixed signals. As an employer, he fought in court against government restrictions on hiring Asians, eventually winning a judgement in his favour. However, he took 50 cents to a dollar per month from each“each Chinaman working in and around the mines . . . to cover part of the costs of carrying the Chinese case” to this highest court of appeal. While as lieutenant governor, Dunsmuir secretly negotiate with the Canadian Nippon Supply Company for the importation of 500 more Japanese workers - an order the company was unable to fill. It would seem that business considerations generally triumphed with Dunsmuir if he had to make a choice.

The Dunsmuir government seemed to have its remaining focus on railways and a "pack of charter mongers" who pushed through the house 17 bills with the aid of private members. Dunsmuir took no direct part in these though he replaced land grants in support of construction with cash subsidies to be paid only when a line had been completed and approved. He also revived former Premier Walkem's fight with Ottawa over terms of confederation. B.C. was facing increasing deficits and Dunsmuir pointed out that eastern provinces had come into confederation with an infrastructure of public works already in place. He requested that his province receive compensation.

James began to divest himself of his corporate empire during his ten-year tenure in politics. In 1905, he sold the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway and its land grant to the Canadian Pacific Railway for $2,300,000 and with that deal, became a director of the CPR. It wasn't a surprise though when he retained the lands necessary to mine and transport coal under the entire grant - which covered a third of the island. In 1910, he sold his mining empire to the Canadian National Railway interests for $11,000,000. The new constituted subsidiary was called Canadian Collieries (Dunsmuir) Limited. That was unfortunate because it kept the Dunsmuir name prominently displayed on Vancouver Island for radical labour to despise even though family owned no shares and played no part in the management.

Here's a big surprise for you. I would like to thank the Dictionary of Canadian Biography website for the information above. Wednesday, I will tell you about this hard working, wealthy man who led our province. Wednesday will also be my 500th entry! 

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, James Dunsmuir, history, CPR, Sir Wilfred Laurier Victoria, Nanaimo, Premier,Canadian National Railway,