Letters to the editor

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Thumbs up for campus security

Just a quick note to say thank you to the two unnamed security staff, who drove out to my car to give it a jump-start. I really appreciate their help and courtesy considering I was just another dimwit, who left his lights on all day while at school.

Another thanks to the fellow who tried my door that morning in the parking lot when he saw my lights on. That kind of kind neighbourliness is something we need to preserve.

And a reminder to everyone: jumper cables are a good idea. I didn’t have them and neither did anyone else I asked as they came to their cars. Don’t get yourself trapped somewhere more inconvenient than the university parking lot. I’m going to get some right away. And, I guess, learn how to use them.

Simon Neufeld

Great Defalcation: Machray didn’t spend the money

I was glad to see Tessa Vanderhart’s piece on the Machray “defalcations” in your Nov. 22 issue. It is good to have this sort of in-depth article in the Manitoban. However, I have a couple of quibbles with Vanderhart’s article. First, like many others, she concludes that John Machray stole money for his own use. I have done quite a lot of work on the defalcations and have read through most of the volumes of testimony before the Turgeon Royal Commission held in the University archives, and my conclusion is different.

Although Machray’s books were certainly in disarray and it took several years to establish just how much money was missing, my conclusion is that he did not personally profit to any great extent. I think the evidence shows that the main source of Machray’s problems was that he had invested heavily in real estate speculation in the years before 1913 and was caught, like many other Winnipeggers, by the fall in real estate values in that year.

He had little money of his own, so his investments were made on behalf of clients and business partners. Essentially, he was bankrupt in 1913 but he held on to his properties in the hope that values would rise again. They never did or at least not in time to save him. He paid taxes and other costs out of the funds entrusted to him as the manager of investments for the University and the Anglican Church. He also paid the university and the Church and many smaller investors their yearly payments, but instead of using interest from investments for this he was often paying them out of the capital. By the early 1930s, he had made several desperate and unsuccessful attempts to save the situation, including speculating on the Grain Exchange.

When his affairs were wound up, he had no money other than his life insurance. Machray has often been called a thief but I think that is not accurate. He was an unlucky and unsuccessful businessman and he lied about the state of his affairs but I think his goal was always to make good the losses he had suffered while administering his clients’ money.

The other little quibble was the suggestion that Samuel Matheson was involved in something illegal. Around the time of the scandal, before the true dimensions of what had occured were established, many people associated with Machray came under suspicion but to suggest that Matheson did anything dishonest has no basis whatsoever. In fact he was a victim of Machray’s failures more than most.

Jim Blanchard

Elizabeth Dafoe Library