August 25, 1921
What was happening a century ago this week from the front page of the Cowichan Leader.
August 25, 1921
Agriculture, particularly dairy farming, is still a major player in the Valley economy, but nothing like it was a century ago. Back then, most residents operated their own small farms (large in the case of the Westholme Solly farm) or worked in one way or another in dairying, poultry and market gardening, many of them as members of the Cowichan Creamery Co-op. Even the E&N Railway benefited as the chief means of shipping to outside markets.
So it’s not surprising that the big news story of the day, for August 25, 1921, was:
DECIDE POULTRY ISSUE – Cowichan Creamery Members Reject Proposal of B.C. Poultrymen’s Co-operative Exchange.
This was something that had meaning, even financial implications, for many of the Leader’s weekly readers hence its being spotlighted with two full-length columns, mid-page.
A large turnout of 80 members of the CAS met in unseasonable wet weather at the Agricultural Hall for a directors’ meeting to discuss the merger proposal long advanced by the B.C. Poultrymen’s Co-op. There was considerable discussion of a shares swap and the nuts-and-bolts of such an association (not all of it on-topic according to the Leader), before a resolution was passed to the effect that a merger was unnecessary and undesirable:
“...Acceptance of these [merger] proposals would be of no advantage to the poultrymen of the Cowichan Valley and would be prejudicial to the welfare of the Cowichan Creamery Association as a whole”. Case closed.
The Hon. J.H. King, Minister of Public Works, had dropped by to fulfill a longstanding promise to inspect the road between Duncan and Lake Cowichan. Lake residents had long lobbied for improvements, their latest attempt being a petition which they’d submitted through Independent MLA Kenneth Duncan.
It wasn’t so much that the road needed major work, it was the fact that recent repairs and widening had been ineffective to the point of being, in the words of an angry unnamed resident, a “scandalous waste of money”. Hence King’s and his chief engineer’s tour. King replied that he’d been over many roads in B.C. and the state of the Cowichan Lake road was in fact better than most.
He agreed that recent rains had left ruts that needed grading—some of it was actually done immediately after he arrived in Lake Cowichan—and the result was there for all to see during his return trip to Duncan.
While in Lake Cowichan he was shown the E&N Railway station which residents wanted moved “to the other side of the tracks”. This, of course, was a railway matter and residents eventually had their way with or without his tacit support.
King ended his visit by discussing road classifications with North Cowichan Council before continuing his tour up-Island.
In another, smaller report, the Leader noted that some road work had been resumed after two-months’ idleness because of a 23 per cent cut in the department’s budget.
The Cowichan Health Centre had completed its first year of “formation and pioneer stage” in good shape and was looking forward to the new year’s program. With 400 students in the Duncan school system a third nurse was necessary and 10 “rural” trainees (two at a time) would be placed within the Cowichan system at a cost of $100 per month. The three school nurses would be paid $580 annually.
Miss Hardy reported on the growing need for a dental program and she and president Mrs. Moss, OBE, were given the task of finding an appropriate dentist. They were off to a good start with the donation of a $400 dental chair from former Lake Cowichan dentist Dr. Lewis Hall, now of Victoria.
Because their first year had incurred extra expenses it was resolved to approach North Cowichan Council and the southern Island Red Cross for grants. The board had also entered into discussion with the local Indian Agent W.R. Robertson and his superior, W.E. Ditchburn about providing health services to Cowichan Tribes. The Cobble Hill school board had come through with a one-time $50 grant to cover the cost of a health inspection for its students.
A wrestling match provided novelty at a Recreation Hall dance at Crofton, with the “fair sex” enthusiastically applauding the efforts of P.H. Welsh, J. Symes and H. Powell. Mrs. C.H. Gibbons of Victoria provided the music.
At Genoa Bay there were reports of good fishing, more lumber shipments to the Orient, Seattle and Vancouver.
The British film “Alf’s Button” was drawing many British residents to the Opera House who appreciated it as a “very clever piece of writing and a faithful representation of life in the British army during the war”.
Three Chinese residents appeared in police court to face charges of possession or use of opium after a raid on Chinatown. Caught in the act of smoking the drug cost Chow Jan $40 fine or two months in jail. Two men charged with being inhabitants of an opium den (a room at the back of Sing Lee’s store) were fined $25 each and costs or one month in jail. The Leader smugly noted, “In all three cases the city’s exchequer was enriched by the payment of the fines.”
There was a full attendance for the meeting of Duncan Council which discussed, among other things, providing water for the new golf course being constructed on Trunk Road. Clr. C.H. Dickie pointed out that the links were being constructed at great expense by private parties, “partly for their own pleasure and partly for the benefit of the district”. It was agreed that the City would provide water for five years for $5 per month.
The Royal Financial Corporation of Vancouver had offered the City better terms for its school bonds and the finance committee had accepted. A proposed reclassification of the Island Highway by the province was also accepted, as was a request for 250 feet of fire hose by the fire warden.
Mayor Pitt and the City Clerk would represent Duncan at the forthcoming B.C. Municipalities’ convention at Alberni. Council agreed to support any resolutions approved by the BCM concerning the continued taxation of church property and a proposal from Victoria that police and school boards become “departments of council activities”.
Also discussed was the provincial Hospital Act of 1916 which had legislated that municipalities cover the costs of “indigent” patients but which had been amended to charge $2.50 for every patient regardless of their financial status.
It was also suggested that the Municipal Act be amended to include pool table as well as billiard table because of confusion as to which was which.
There were other proposed amendments to the Act but we’ll conclude today with Act 399: “Where a municipality has a police magistrate who is a solicitor by profession, he is absolutely debarred by this section from acting as counsel in any proceedings of a criminal nature in other courts in the province.”
The Leader thought this was an “unnecessarily harsh restriction and increases the difficulty that some municipalities have in obtaining the services of a member of the legal profession to act as police magistrate except with some additional compensation for loss of business that may accrue in consequence of such appointment.”
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