Cobalt Silver Queen, Ltd - Stock Certificate

TORONTO, CANADA, nice graphics by Grand & Toy, Toronto. Silver printed seal. Rare! John Irvine Davidson’s profile was enhanced by his involvement with the Toronto Board of Trade, which he joined in 1883. His two-year term as president (1890–91) was marked by the completion of the board’s impressive new building, a project that had degenerated into scandal, but in his annual reports Davidson seemed preoccupied by issues farther afield. In imperial trade he stressed the need for a treaty with Britain that would give Canadian goods preference over goods from the United States, a position he would advance in 1892 in London at the second Congress of Chambers of Commerce of the Empire. (Five years later the board would exult at the reduction of the tariff on imported goods of British origin.) In Ontario, where a royal commission had highlighted the wealth of mineral resources in the province’s north, he heralded Toronto’s role, as a financial-service and industrial centre, in their development. He viewed the situation firsthand when the Canadian Copper Company invited representatives of the board to visit its Sudbury mines in December 1890 [see Samuel J. Ritchie]. Shortly after his return he reported to the board, “I find it difficult to keep within bounds of moderation when I contemplate the possibilities of those northland nickel riches of ours.” His interest seems to have shifted to more precious metals later in the 1890s, when he assumed the presidency of Cobalt Silver-Queen Limited and the St Paul Gold Mining Company.