inconceivable that shrewd business men as these officials are
known to be would be guilty of an act which from a purely
business point of view would be a stupidly suicidal one. It taxes
one's credulity to too great a degree to ask one to believe that,
in view of the recent plebiscite taken in several Provinces, that
any officer, possessed of mental qualifications sufficient to
secure a position of power in the Company, would ally himself
with a coterie of lawbreakers in a secluded village, and
perpetrate an act which would be resented by thousands of
business men and tens of thousands of the travelling public in
our Dominion, and attach a stain to the name of the Company which
would challenge contempt for years future. The facilities
afforded by other competing lines at so many points in our
Dominion for such as would resent an act of this character are
too great to permit a Company that is hungering for freight and
passenger traffic to yield to such inconsiderable and immoral
influences as the liquor men of Sutton Junction and their
sympathizers could command. The Company knows well how slight a
matter often creates a prejudice for or against a railway which
affects its dividends for years, and they know well also that
when an act of this kind is actually done and unearthed, that it
appeals to principles held as sacred by the public of our
Dominion. They also know that, however the temperance ballot
holders may be divided in their political allegiances, in a
matter of this kind, when no political ties bind them, they would
be practically a unit in resenting an act not only tyrannical,
but under the circumstances cowardly and immoral. One cannot
believe that this shrewd Company of high-minded and acute
business gentlemen would be guilty of the folly attributed to
them. Their effort is in every way honorable to attract their own
line, and it is past belief that they should play into the hands
of the Grand Trunk and other competing lines in any such manner
as the accusation, if proved, would mean. Give them time and
opportunity for an explanation before any expression of
indignation manifests itself, and especially before any hasty and
inconsiderate act of discrimination against the Company is made."

SPECTAT