Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation
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The Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation (also DOSCO) was a Canadian coal mining and steel manufacturing company.
Incorporated in 1928 and operational in 1930, DOSCO was predated by the British Empire Steel Corporation (BESCO) which had purchased the assets of the Dominion Steel Company. DOSCO was one of the largest private employers in Canada during the 1930s-1950s. In 1957, DOSCO was purchased as a subsidiary of A.V. Roe Canada Company Ltd. and was later assumed in 1962 by Hawker Siddeley Canada. The company was dissolved in 1968 after the majority of its coal mining and steel mill industrial assets in Industrial Cape Breton were expropriated and nationalized by the federal and provincial governments.
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[edit] Dominion Steel Corporation
Industrial Cape Breton consisted of two distinctive geographic regions for industrial activity: the "north side" of Sydney Harbour, and the "south side." The north side was dominated in the 1800s by the General Mining Asssociation (GMA), which had been formed in the 1820s after the Colony of Cape Breton Island was amalgamated back into Nova Scotia. Several independent collieries opened on the south side and by the 1870s, Canada's federal government had implemented its National Policy of economic protectionist measures. It was during this decade that the leading operators on the "south side" foresaw the benefits of amalgamating and modernizing to replace lost American coal markets in eastern Canada with Cape Breton coal.
[edit] Dominion Coal Company
In 1893, the Henry M. Whitney syndicate of Boston, Massachusetts, along with various other investors, united the following collieries into a new company named the Dominion Coal Company Ltd. (DOMCO). The new company included the following properties:
- Gowrie
- Schooner Pond
- Clyde
- Glace Bay
- Caledonia
- Reserve
- Lorway
- Emery
- International
- Bridgeport
- Gardiner
- Lingan
- Victoria
- and several smaller collieries
DOMCO also inherited a mixed variety of railway lines linking the various mines. These were consolidated and merged within the decade to form the Sydney and Louisburg Railway.
By 1912, DOMCO operated 16 collieries, comprising 40% of Canada's coal production.
[edit] Dominion Iron and Steel Company
Flushed with the success of creating DOMCO in the 1890s, the Whitney syndicate sought to create a use for "slack coal" resulting from mixing and screening processes at DOMCO's coal wash plants. The Dominion Iron & Steel Company Ltd. (DISCO) was formed in 1901 and constructed the largest integrated steel mill in the British Empire on the south side of Sydney Harbour.
DISCO operated coke ovens which cooked this slack coal to create coke to fuel its oxygen blast furnaces that were used to smelt iron ore mined by DISCO at its mine on Bell Island in Newfoundland and shipped to Sydney.
That same year saw Whitney sell its majority control of DOMCO to Montreal industrialist James Ross and its minority share in DISCO to Ross and several other Canadian interests.
The year 1901 also saw further changes in the coal and steel industry on Cape Breton Island when the rival GMA, operator of coal mines on the "north side" of Sydney Harbour, as well as a newly inaugurated steel mill at that location, sold its properties to Nova Scotia Steel Company Ltd. (SCOTIA) of New Glasgow.
In 1903, Ross and the Canadian investors in DISCO sold control to J.H. Plummer of Toronto, Ontario. By 1910, Plummer gained control of DOMCO from Ross and made both DOMCO and DISCO subsidiary companies of a new entity called Dominion Steel Corporation, which also counted mainland Nova Scotia's Cumberland Railway and Coal Company as a subsidiary.
[edit] British Empire Steel Corporation
Further consolidation of industrial activity on Cape Breton Island saw SCOTIA taken over in 1917 by American investors as its steel mill was closed and the company focused on coal mining in Sydney Mines and manufactured steel products at its extensive facilities in Trenton, Pictou County.
The fall-out from World War I saw a syndicate of British investors led by Montreal, Quebec industrialist Roy M. Wolvin negotiate a takeover of Dominion Steel Corporation from Plummer in 1919. BESCO proposed a $500 million merger of DOMCO and DISCO, along with various British steel and shipbuilding interests. In 1921, SCOTIA was merged with the conglomerate to form the British Empire Steel Corporation (BESCO).
The scope and scale of BESCO was truly mind-boggling. In addition to its coal mines and steel mills operating as a complete monopoly across the entire Sydney Coal Field, BESCO also operated coal mines, steel mills and foundaries in the Pictou Coal Field in Trenton, New Glasgow, Stellarton and Westville, as well as North America's deepest coal mines in Springhill. It also operated several industrial railways and various shipping ports.
However the mergers that resulted in the formation of BESCO also amalgamated an inordinate amount of debt. During its 8-year history, BESCO was in a constant financial crisis and required an annual operating profit of $8 million to meet these financial commitments. BESCO investors in-turn pressured management to force many difficult working conditions in order to achieve higer production from its workforce. This resulted in unprecedented labour unrest and militancy which would forever transform Industrial Cape Breton (see Davis Day).
Profits fell and coal and steel markets were declining throughout the 1920s as North America's industrial and consumer practices changed. BESCO management tried to desperately save the company, however bitter strikes by workers, culminating in widespread social and civil unrest in 1925, saw BESCO slip further into debt.
BESCO subsidiary DISCO (the steel mill) fell into receivership in the spring of 1926 after short-term financing was refused; this would eventually lead to the break-up of the conglomerate. DISCO was liquidated in 1927 but the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia refused to dissolve BESCO. Wolvin resigned as president and sold his holdings after his reorganization plan was rejected by other shareholders and he was succeeded by C.B. McNaught.
[edit] Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation
In 1928 a new holding company called Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation (also DOSCO) was formed as a holding company by McNaught and various BESCO investors. In May 1930 BESCO was dissolved and the new company took over its industrial properties. DOSCO implemented management processes that put a halt to the financial troubles through the 1930s. The company's fortunes were boosted by World War II with its control of manufacturing and their inputs and at one point DOSCO was the largest private employer in the nation.
Following the war, DOSCO's industrial prominence continued to slide as alternative fuels and sources for steel took force, combining with declines in government subsidization of both industries. In 1957, A.V. Roe Canada acquired a controlling interest in DOSCO in a bid to diversify its operations beyond the aircraft manufacturing and defence industries. In 1958, DOSCO subsidiary Cumberland Railway and Coal Company closed its mines in Springhill; the mines being closed following the Springhill Mining Disaster. The associated railway service limped on until permission to abandon was granted in 1961, and the last train ran in 1962. Also in 1962, A.V. Roe Canada was dissolved and its assets merged into the newly-formed conglomerate Hawker Siddeley Canada, which sought to rid itself of money-losing operations.
By the early 1960s DOSCO was in a continuous slide and sought to halt its decline by shutting various poorly performing mines in the Pictou and Sydney coal fields; from 9 in 1960 to 5 in 1965. Despite shedding other money-losing subsidiaries it was still losing money and under pressure from Hawker Siddeley Canada to reduce red ink. In 1965, DOSCO announced that its remaining mines had only 15 years of production left and it would not undertake any further capital expenditures and would exit the industry within months.
The vast public outcry to DOSCO's announcement in Industrial Cape Breton saw the minority government of Prime Minister Lester Pearson come under incredible political pressure to resolve the crisis. Pearson announced the formation of the Donald Commission of inquiry into the industry, which would eventually lead to the formation of the federal Crown corporation Cape Breton Development Corporation (or DEVCO) and the provincial Crown corporation Sydney Steel Corporation (SYSCO) which expropriated DOSCO's mines and steel mill in 1968.
[edit] Sampling of DOSCO subsidiaries[1]
- Acadia Coal Company Limited, Stellarton, NS
- Aluminum Industries Limited, Montreal, QC
- Canadian Bridge Company Limited, Walkerville, ON
- Canadian Bridge Engineering Company Limited, Walkerville, ON
- Canadian Steel Corporation Limited, Ojibway, ON
- Canadian Steel Lands Limited, Ojibway, ON
- Canadian Transmission Tower Company Limited, Montreal, QC
- Canadian Tube and Steel Products Limited, Montreal, QC
- Cibou Steamship Company Limited, London, UK
- Dominion Coal Company, Glace Bay, NS
- Dominion Coal Import Company Limited, Montreal, QC
- Dominion Rolling Stock Company Limited, Sydney, NS
- Cumberland Railway and Coal Company, Springhill, NS
- Sydney and Louisburg Railway Company, Glace Bay, NS
- Dominion Iron and Steel Company, Sydney, NS
- Dominion Limestone Limited, Aguathuna
- Dominion Shipping Company Limited, Sydney, NS
- Dominion Wabana Ore Limited, Bell Island, NL
- DOSCO Overseas Engineering Limited, Beaconsfield, UK
- Empire Housing Company Limited, Sydney, NS
- Essex Terminal Railway Company, Walkerville, ON
- Eastern Car Company Limited, Trenton, NS
- Graham Nail & Wire Products Limited, Toronto, ON
- Halifax Shipyards Limited, Halifax, NS
- Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company Limited, Trenton, NS
- Old Sydney Collieries Limited, Sydney Mines, NS
- James Pender & Company, Saint John, NB
- Scotia Rolling Stock Company Limited, Trenton, NS
- Seaboard Power Corporation Limited, Glace Bay, NS
- Stothert & Pitt (Canada) Limited, Montreal, QC
- Stowell Screw Company Limited, Longueuil, QC
- Trenton Industries Limited, Trenton, NS
- Trenton Steel Works Limited, Trenton, NS
- Truscon Steel Company of Canada Limited, Walkerville, ON
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Industrial Heritage of Cape Breton Island
- The Sun Rises in the East, an address to The Empire Club of Canada by Lionel Avard Forsyth, President of the Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation Ltd. on October 22, 1953.
