“You must have deeper reasons for your suspicions than appear on the surface, Mr. Duff.”
“I have. But, Good Lord, man, aren’t the surface indications sufficient? Here’s the North Star Company that once held exclusive cutting rights on all the available northern limits, docilely, tamely, allowing their initiative to pass into the hands of outside capital without even a murmur of protest. Tell me, does that look natural? It’s all the more ominous because up to the eleventh hour of our securing permanent rights on the Nannabijou Limits they have fulfilled their part of the contract to the letter.
“Doesn’t it strike you as passing strange that the North Star, which owned or controlled all the tugs and loading machinery on the upper end of the lake, accepted without even the slightest protest the government’s proposal that they cut and deliver the required poles that would make our acquisition of the limits complete?”
“It did seem odd at the time,” admitted the lawyer, “but then, they no doubt feared that obstruction of the government’s policy might have meant another order ousting them from the limits at once.”
“Nonsense! And you must know that’s nonsense!”
Mr. Duff arose and paced the floor, jammed another unlighted cigar between his teeth and sat down again. “Winch,” he suggested, “just let us take the whole situation as it obtains to date, stand it on end, so to speak, and take a square look at it. Then tell me if you still think the present lamblike attitude of the notorious North Star timber pirates looks natural.
“In the first place, the North Star at one time owned outright or held cutting rights on practically all the pulpwood contingent to water-haul from the North Shore, with the exception of the crown lands known as the Nannabijou Limits, didn’t they? Well, back in those days the Ontario government had very little notion of the immense forest wealth of the North. The North Star got most of the concessions for a song, through political pull, graft, intimidation and downright theft in some cases. They bribed government officials right and left, moved survey lines overnight, had cruisers make false estimates, took out fake mining patents, and, on the pretence of cutting trails and tote roads in to mine sites that never existed, skinned the territory of all its best timber. They left a trail of commercial iniquity behind them, unparalleled on this continent, until it became a by-word that the North Star would rather win out by putting the law in contempt than accept a gift where everything was above board.
“The huge block of crown lands known as the Nannabijou Limits was the only territory held sacred from their nefarious exploitation. Government after government remained firm to the pledge of the late Sir John Whitson, when he was prime minister, that not a stick would be cut on the Nannabijou that was not manufactured into paper in Kam City.
“The North Star long had their covetous eyes on the Nannabijou Limits. They wanted them worse than any other concession in the North, because they knew the Nannabijou, bisected as it is by a great river with tributaries extending for miles and miles inland, meant the domination of the pulp and paper industry once it was secured.
“But the North Star Company were exporters,” continued Duff. “It is pretty well established that the North Star, controlled by Canadians whom no one has ever seemed able to name, owns two big paper mills in Eastern Ontario. They tried by every black artifice at their command to fleece the government for the Nannabijou and to get the embargo on export to the East in the raw state removed. But the government stood firm by the Whitson pledge and they failed in their attempts.