[ { "id": 211526, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 243, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "219\n\npremier and treasurer of Manitoba in 1885, and while there was quite prominent in the political affairs of the province, being sent to England to negotiate a large loan. On his return from England, he was ordered to Hongkong, to take a position in the diplomatic service. Before leaving this country, he came to Portland with a letter of introduction from Sir William Van Horne of the Canadian Pacific Railroad to Theodore B. Wilcox of the Portland Flouring Mills Co.\n\nRennie at that time knew nothing about the flour business, but he made such a good impression on Mr. Wilcox that he was engaged by the Portland miller to put in the time he could spare from his diplomatic duties, in selling flour. He was successful from the beginning, and in 1895 his business had grown to such proportions that he resigned from the government service and devoted all of his attention to the flour trade. He was a tireless worker, and as he had very liberal contracts with Mr. Wilcox, he was soon enjoying a very large business. On this business he always endeavored to stamp his own personality.\n\nWhile the Wilcox brands were soon famous from Vladivostok to the Malabar coast, and far into the interior of China, it was Rennie alone, of whom the Chinamen knew, and with whom they dealt. This great success and the attendant profits it brought, was probably responsible for Rennie's belief that he could make a grand success out of the milling business.\n\nHis studied effort to keep his own name and personality in the foreground, had given him great prestige in Hongkong and other trade centres across the Pacific, and to him it seemed easy to transfer this prestige from the Americans to a mill of his own.\n\nApparently confusing flour making with flour selling, Mr. Rennie plunged into the business on a big scale. Had he been content to feel his way with a small mill, where the capacity could be increased as the demand for the product developed, he might have made a success, or at least the failure would not have been serious. But Rennie, the greatest flour salesman in all the Orient, had aspirations to be a great miller, and with the money he had saved during his successful career as a salesman, and several hundred thousand dollars subscribed by English capitalists at Hongkong, he built a two thousand barrel mill. The capital", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211527, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 244, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "220\n\nstock of the company was $1,000,000, and it was all needed before the end of the first year's business.\n\nPrior to the appearance of Rennie as a miller, the chief obstacle to milling with a profit in China was the lack of a market for the offal. Practically all of the profit enjoyed by the Pacific coast millers came from the high prices at which they were able to market millfeed, for which there was no demand in the Orient. Rennie, without much investigation, decided that the offal from his two thousand barrel mill could be fed to pigs at a profit and he established a “piggery” with several hundred animals at the start.\n\nBut millfeed for Chinese hogs was but little more nutritious than poison, and they died by hundreds; the experiment proved a flat failure. This was the beginning of the trouble, and as there was no market for millfeed in the Orient, it became necessary, in order to dispose of it, to ship it to Honolulu. Here it was sold at a very low price in competition with the Oregon mills. As Rennie secured most of his wheat from Portland and Puget Sound, the bran and shorts that finally found a consumer at Honolulu, had to stand a freight rate across the Pacific, and thence half way back again, compared with a short mileage between the Pacific coast ports and Honolulu, paid by the American millfeed.\n\nWhile the pigs were dying, the Chinese were refusing to buy the flour. Mr. Wilcox had spent a large sum of money in working up a trade throughout the Orient for particular \"chops\", as the fantastic brands are known. The Chinese by years of experience had learned to have confidence in these “chops\". So long as Rennie had them for sale, they bought from Rennie, but when Rennie, with his new mill, attempted to sell something \"just as good\", the Chinese buyers politely but firmly refused.\n\nThe Orientals are conservative in the extreme and they steadily refused to take up the new brands put on the market by the Hongkong mill. With slow sales for flour, and no profitable outlet for millfeed, matters were far from bright last winter when a cargo of weevily wheat from India distributed the industrious weevil throughout the mill and warehouses so thoroughly that Americans who have since visited the mill express the opinion that it will be impossible to rid the plant of the pest.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211528, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 245, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "221\n\nShortly before his death, Mr. Rennie issued a statement showing the business for the first eleven months of operation to have yielded a profit of 16 per cent on the $1,000,000 capital stock. The report was received with incredulity by the American millers, who regarded the details as showing a rather sickly condition of affairs. Of the total of $2,964,535 assets shown in the statement, the mill site, piers, machinery, plant, lighters, etc., were placed at a valuation of $969,138. The stock on hand was given at $1,544,267, and on consignment $55,619. The cash on hand and in the bank was $6,519, and there was due from sundry debtors $386,543.\n\nOn the liability side of the sheet, bills payable were given at $1,305,438.67; outstanding sales at $498,382.28, and on open account, $77,960.30.\n\nThe scepticism of the coast millers was caused by knowledge that Mr. Rennie had resold a number of Australian wheat cargoes at a heavy advance over the purchase price, his profits on these cargoes alone reaching a high figure. Noting that in the face of these profits on wheat, he had been unable to make a better showing for the year, and that he was obliged to include “stocks on hand” at an enormous valuation, none of the millers at all familiar with conditions in the Orient would believe that there had been any profit.\n\nAs matters now stand, the mill is closed down; both mill and warehouse are overrun with weevil; and greater part of the stock that has been ground since the mill began operation is unsold and is deteriorating in value, with almost a certainty that at least a portion of it will become a total loss.\n\nContrary to general reports in this country, there were no Oriental capitalists connected with the enterprise; all of the money was supplied by Mr. Rennie's British friends. The failure to attract Chinese capital to the enterprise was undoubtedly a heavy blow to Mr. Rennie, for his best customers, whose trade had given him such prestige, refused to buy the new flour; they remained loyal to the old \"chops\"; Mr. Wilcox sold direct to them and allowed them the commission which he had formerly paid to Mr. Rennie,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 } ]