8860
2.
the efforts at resuscitation. The efforts were kept up till the arrival of Dr. Ainsley, who pronounced life to be extinct, and the body was removed to the Hongkong Mortuary.
Mr. A.H. Rennie was a typical Canadian and loyal to the Dominion. He was born in 1857. In 1890, he turned his face to China and received an appointment under the Hongkong Government as correspondence clerk in the Public Works Department, and two years later, in 1892, he was filling the responsible positions of Acting Assistant Harbour Master and Acting Superintendent of the Water Police. In 1893 he became Acting Secretary of the Sanitary Board.
About this time he was doing a large business as representative in China for the Puget Sound Milling Co., and afterwards for the Portland Flour Mills Co. He quickly established himself in Hongkong as the leading man in the flour business, and people took the establishment of the Junk Bay Mill as a matter of course.
It is evident Mr. Rennie, no longer a young man, had felt he could not face the failure of his great ambition. At the inquest, held on April 28 following, a verdict of suicide was returned. The evidence showed that the despatch box had been specially weighted with the intention of dragging his head under water.
The S.C.M. Post of April 28, 1908, refers to the liquidation of the mills, thus:
"In view of the inquiry (into Mr. Rennie's death) which will take place to-day, it is interesting to know that the Junk Bay mills have been working during the last four or five days grinding the large stock of wheat which is on hand, into flour. In Hongkong flour is a saleable commodity, wheat is not.
We understand at present the company is making no new purchases of wheat, and a cargo of 6,500 tons from the Pacific coast is now in the harbour but will not be taken delivery of, the company being in liquidation. Two more cargoes, equally large, for forward delivery at the mills in Junk Bay, have been cancelled by wire. What arrangement will be made for working time alone will show. The mills may be taken over by the present shareholders, the company having gone through a process of reconstruction, or they may be sold to some influential local Chinese. All things connected with these mills at present seem to be problematical."
However, it was not found possible to continue operations, for reasons which appear in the following comment by the S.C.M. Post of October 13, 1908:
The late disastrous failure of the big Hongkong Flour Mill, placed in operation over a year ago by Hongkong capitalists, will have a strong influence on future similar projects in China, and it serves as an exemplar of the competitive disadvantages of the flour-milling industry in South China under present conditions. The future increase of wheat production in Manchuria will present more favourable conditions in that part of the Empire, and will likely be an aid to the young industry in Japan, but the Orient will long draw its main supplies from Portland, Puget Sound, western Canada, and Australia. The Hongkong failure is interpreted