But lots of people think different--more than you'd
imagine. I was talking to old man Milburn just now--he's
dead against it. 'Government has no business,' he said,
'to apply the taxes in the interests of any company. It
oughtn't to know how to spell "subsidy." If the trade
was there it would get itself carried,' he said."
"Well, that surprises me," said Lorne.
"Surprised me, too. But I was on the spot with him; just
thought of it in time. 'Well, now, Mr Milburn,' I said,
'you've changed your mind. Thought that was a thing you
Conservatives never did,' I said. 'We don't--I haven't,'
he said. 'What d'ye mean? Twenty-five years ago,' I said,
'when you were considering whether you'd start the Milburn
Boiler Works here or in Hamilton, Hamilton offered you
a free site, and Elgin offered you a free site and a dam
for your water power. You took the biggest subsidy an'
came here,' I said."
Lorne laughed: "What did he say to that?"
"Hadn't a word. 'I guess it's up to me,' he said. Then
he turned round and came back. 'Hold on, Williams; he
said. 'You know so much already about my boiler works,
it wouldn't be much trouble for you to write out an
account of them from the beginning, would it? Working in
the last quarter of a century of the town's progress,
you know, and all that.
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