The energy and enterprise of Mr. Ross seemed limitless. No matter how many and how important were the enterprises with which he was actively connected it seemed possible for him to take on others and become a factor in their successful control. He was one of the promoters of the Lake of the Woods Milling Company in 1887, chief promoter of the Columbia River Lumber Company in 1889 and of the Canadian Land and Investment Company in 1891. His opinions carried weight in the councils of various companies with which he was connected as a member of the board of directors, including the Bank of Montreal; Calgary and Edmonton Land Company, Limited; Canada Life Insurance Company; Canada Sugar Refining Company, Limited; Canadian General Electric Company, Limited; Laurentide Paper Company, Limited; Royal Trust Company; and Dominion Bridge Company and St. John Railway Company, of which two last named he was president.
Writing of his business career a local paper said: “One of the most interesting periods of Mr. Ross’s life was that of his prominent connection with the Dominion Coal and the Dominion Iron and Steel Companies, lasting for a period of upwards of ten years. At a comparatively early stage of the development of the coal and iron industries on the island of Cape Breton, Mr. Ross with his customary business astuteness, foresaw the possibilities of great development, and decided to invest a considerable amount of his capital there. He became the owner of a large block of shares in the coal company, and after the promotion of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company in 1901 he became a director. As it was obvious that the interests of the two concerns would, if steel turned out a success, be very much bound up, Mr. Ross increased his holdings in coal until, in the same year, the Steel Company was launched, his interest became paramount, and he was placed in the position of being able to dictate the policy of the company. Having retired from active participation in many of the interests which made his earlier career such a busy one, he determined to give his personal attention to the development of his Cape Breton interests and with that object in view he accepted the office of vice president of the Dominion Coal Company and managing director of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company in 1901.
“The succeeding years were destined to be full of business anxieties and lively contendings but his keen business ability and foresight brought him to the end of his active connection with the companies a much richer man than when he went in, despite the loss of the fight in the courts over the dispute about the terms of the contract for the supply of coal to the Steel Company, 1907-08.
“Besides this fight Mr. Ross conducted the affairs of the Coal Company through disastrous fires which seriously affected the output of the mines, and labor troubles one of which was of a protracted and costly nature. Throughout all the various negotiations which were almost continuously carried on between the two companies for years, Mr. Ross found his paramount interest was in the Coal Company although he was financially and executively interested in both, so that eventually he withdrew from the steel board and gave his whole time to the Coal Company, becoming its president, a post he retained until December, 1909. In March, 1909, at the annual meeting of the Dominion Coal Company, Mr. Ross made an exhaustive statement concerning the relations of the two companies following the decision of the Privy Council in the preceding month, in which he justified the course taken by his company. He explained from the coal point of view, how the company had saved the Steel Company from bankruptcy at a critical time following the termination of the lease of the Coal Company to Steel in 1903 and the subsequent dispute which became acute in 1906 and reached the courts the following year. The final settlement of the terms of the judgment between the two companies and the eventual purchase of Mr. Ross’ interest in coal for four million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which took place late in 1909 when he retired from the presidency and Coal was amalgamated with Steel, concluded the most interesting and strenuous period of his career.
“Although Mr. Ross had strong likes and dislikes he never hesitated to proclaim openly ability he saw in the make-up of a business opponent. A conversation during the progress of the Steel and Coal litigation brought out this characteristic to a marked degree. During that memorable conflict Mr. J. H. Plummer and Sir William Van Horne were perhaps more prominently in the firing line on the Steel side than any one else, while Mr. Ross for the Coal Company was the inner and outer defenses and commander-in-chief combined. He was asked one day while discussing the possibilities of Canadian Pacific Railway stock what would take place supposing anything happened to Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, whereupon Mr. Ross said: ‘This statement will surprise you, but Van Horne would have to go back,’ thus paying a high compliment to his chief adversary in the Steel-Coal conflict. The manner in which Mr. Ross came to the rescue of a very important brokerage firm, the head of which is now dead, the day following President Cleveland’s message on the Venezuelan situation was another indication, not only of his good heart, but general interest in the financial community. The market was in a bad way generally when the message to congress accentuated to such an extent the unrest and lack of confidence, that gilt-edged securities were without buyers, even at ruinous prices. The financier in question was desperately in need of funds and although his securities were of the best, the then general manager of the Bank of Montreal, who has also passed away, did not consider himself justified in making the advance. When James Ross heard of the affair he came forward and said: ‘We cannot afford to allow this man to go to the wall, for if he goes half of St. François Xavier Street will tumble with him. Give him a million, take his securities and charge the amount to my account.’ Another public-spirited director assumed half the responsibility and a very grave financial smash was averted.
“Mr. Ross was first president of the Mexican Light, Heat and Power Company and during his several visits to the Mexican capital was brought in contact with the then ruling spirits of the republic. He at once formed a very high opinion of the then president with whom Mr. Ross had several interesting interviews, touching the trade relations of Canada and Mexico, and with that never erring foresight he also stated to a friend on his return from the Mexican capital that if ever Diaz was forced to relinquish the helm of state, trouble would follow in the southern republic as it did not appear to the Montreal financier that there were enough of trained men around the then president to carry on successfully the affairs of that country, and the words of the former appear to have been prophetic.
“Although having a commanding interest in many other establishments and industries Mr. Ross used to say that the Bank of Montreal, the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Dominion Coal Company were nearest his heart. He was a director in the first named institution since 1899, the largest individual shareholder in the great national railway system and up to a few years ago the president and the holder of five million dollars stock in the last named corporation. Mr. James Ross succeeded the late Mr. Hugh McLennan and had been in consequence director of the Bank of Montreal for fourteen years. Speaking of the loss that institution sustained in the death of Mr. Ross, its vice president and general manager, Mr. H. V. Meredith, said: ‘We have lost an eminently strong man and a sound adviser,’ while Mr. R. B. Angus, the president, spoke of him as a very able director of the bank and a warm personal friend.”
About the time that Mr. Ross arrived in Canada the country was deeply engrossed in the discussion of free trade versus protection, and having seen the neighboring republic grow from an agricultural to a manufacturing community, and realizing what the same fiscal policy would do for Canada, he at once espoused the cause then championed by Sir John Macdonald and Sir Charles Tupper, both as regards the fiscal policy of the Dominion and their railway program as well. Mr. Ross was a moderate protectionist, believing that such a policy was mutually beneficial both to the manufacturer and consumer. He had seen such states as Illinois, Ohio, Minnesota and other agricultural sections of the Union vote for protection and often when apprehension was expressed over the probable outcome of a moderately protective tariff for the western provinces of Canada, Mr. Ross would reply that the establishment of eastern industries all over the west would soon convert the farmers of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan to protectionist ideas.
In 1872 Mr. Ross was united in marriage to Miss Annie Kerr, a daughter of the late John Kerr of Kingston, New York, and sheriff of Ulster county. They had one son, John Kenneth Levison Ross, who married Ethel A. Matthews, a daughter of W. D. Matthews of Toronto, and they have two children, James Kenneth and Hylda Annie. Mrs. James Ross is deeply interested in organizations for promoting aesthetic tastes and is active in support of benevolent and charitable projects. She is a director of the Society of Decorative Art, vice president of the English section of the woman’s branch of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society and is president of the Maternity Hospital of Montreal.
Flags at half mast on the Bank of Montreal and the Royal Trust Company, on September 20, 1913, gave official announcement to the financial and business community that Mr. James Ross, director of the institutions, had passed away. It is fitting in a review of his life that one take cognizance of his many good deeds. Aside from his prominent activity in railway and financial circles, he was a man of marked public spirit and benevolence. In 1902 he gave to Lindsay, Ontario, and the county of Victoria, the Ross Memorial Hospital as a memorial to his parents. Two years later Alexandra Hospital of Montreal received from him a gift of twenty-five thousand dollars and in 1910 he gave an equal amount to the Montreal Art Association of which he had long been a member and of which he was at that time the president. His total benefactions to the Art Association amounted to over a quarter of a million. In his will he made the following public bequests: to the Royal Victoria Hospital, the General Hospital and the Maternity Hospital each fifty thousand dollars; to Alexandra Hospital twenty-five thousand dollars; to the Montreal Art Association and to McGill University each one hundred thousand dollars and to the Ross Memorial Hospital at Lindsay, Ontario, twenty-five thousand dollars. He also remembered many of his old friends and took special care that his servants and employes should be provided for.