Page:Sutherland Commission report (hydro-electric railways).djvu/13

Rh business they were doing, as these would not be disclosed to them if inquiries were made, and thus, so far as they were concerned, they had in this respect to depend on published annual reports, regarded as incomplete.

The second important source of information would appear to us to be that gained through inquiries as to roads operating elsewhere, either in Canada or the United States, somewhat comparable in territory, population, industries and the like. An attempt appears to have been made to gee considerable information of this kind. Information of this kind would seem to us to suggest a warning against too sanguine expectations either as to low operating costs or high expected revenues.

The third mode of procedure would be to make inquiries and surveys (through the territory in question and thus endeavor to ascertain what was the passenger and freight business which could be reasonably expected to be derived therefrom. This was the course pursued in very considerable detail by the Hydro-Electric Power Commission when preparing their original estimates and the results were also carried into their supplementary estimates. The same course seems to have largely been followed by Mr. Arnold, Mr. Saeger and their assistants in their investigations commencing in August, 1920, and continuing until June, 1921. It would seem that only to the extent that such inquiries and investigations would approach the number of actual passengers carried through the territory by existing transportation facilities and the actual freight, carload and less than carload, and otherwise, handled by these, would the results be likely to be reasonably accurate. If they appeared to go substantially beyond these, some doubt as to their accuracy would, as one would think, arise. Quite early in the investigation, it appeared clearly necessary to us to obtain the results of the actual operations of the railways doing business in the territory. We would thus have actual and practical data which the Hydro Commission might not have been in a position to get and which was so desirable. For this reason, we called officials from all of the railways, steam and electric, in the territory, and obtained from them evidence and statistics of their operating costs and revenues. Notwithstanding that this was from then on available, no real attempt seems to have been made by the Hydro-Electric Power Commission, or the Municipal Hydro-Electric Railway Association, or by Mr. Arnold or Mr. Saeger, to utilize or apply this evidence. Throughout their reliance seems to have been mainly placed on their inquiries and surveys. This, as it seems to us, was an error. While these surveys were made with care, and submitted in evidence with some detail, the figures resulting appeared to be too high and out, of line with experience and the mode of distribution of the freight between the various points in the system was left a good deal to the haphazard discretion of the people making the surveys.

Upon the whole evidence, it seems clear that if these railways were constructed, they could not be operated at the cost estimated, and equally clear that the revenues expected could not be secured. One curious feature in this connection is the anticipation that in the first year of operation revenues would be obtained, which elsewhere had not been realized, even after long years of operation and building up. We should not overlook to mention that an engineer of prominence, namely, W. S. Murray, was in the spring of 1920 called in by the Hydro to supervise the estimates which they had prepared. He made a written report. One cannot read it without coming to the conclusion that on its very face, it shows him to have been too eager to endorse and to have made too little investigation to warrant him in doing so. As a curious example of his loose way of putting things, the following illustration from his report may be given: After quoting from a letter of Dr. Reid, the Minister of Railways to Sir Adam Beck, in part as follows: "As you are of opinion yon will want the road (the Toronto & Eastern) I think it is better that we do no more construction in the meantime, but of course it is urgent that a decision be arrived at at the, earliest possible moment in order that the road be constructed as a feeder for the Canadian National Railway System as originally intended" he (Murray) proceeds to draw this remarkable conclusion: "The above is an excellent presentation of the Minister of Railway's point of view regarding the feeder relation of the steam road to the Toronto & Eastern Radial." He was called as a witness, and it was then found that he had had little or no operating experience and it was made plain that his examination of the whole project and of the estimates was a cursory and incomplete one, amounting to little more than what he himself termed it "a report on a report." His endorsation of the estimates lent little or no weight thereto.