Moneymaker

Like the rest of the world, Canada is short of farm machinery; although production is up over prewar figures, the factories are turning out only a third of the machinery farmers want to buy.

In making up the deficit, the biggest part of the responsibility lies on the broad shoulders of Canada's Massey-Harris Co. (by appointment, makers of farm implements to His Majesty King George VI), which last week celebrated its 100th anniversary in business.

In its century, Massey-Harris Co. has progressed from plows to self-propelled combines. It is now Canada's biggest farm-implement maker--and the world's fifth largest--with five plants in Canada, three in the U.S. and subsidiaries scattered around the globe. But in its maturity its production arteries hardened.

Last week Massey-Harris got a rejuvenating shot in the arm. The man who administered it was Toronto's Edward Plunkett Taylor, 46, a round-faced, blue-eyed hustler who is Canada's No. 1 industrialist. Taylor went into Massey-Harris five years ago as a director. By last week he and his associates had bought up 35% of Massey-Harris common stock--and control. First thing that Taylor did was reorganize the board of directors, bringing in such energetic new members as Quebec's shipping magnate Joseph Simard. Said Eddie Taylor: "We plan to increase [production] everywhere."

How he was going to do so was Taylor's secret. But those who had watched him cobweb his holdings into scores of industries clear across Canada were sure he would. Some industrialists in Canada have more money than Eddie Taylor, but none control more enterprises (15), or more employees (30,000).

Cut-Down Brands. Thanks to his father's brewing interests, Taylor was raised in the sight & sound of industry. Fresh from McGill University, he had a whirl at running his own bus service, then spent seven years with an Ottawa firm learning the investment business. Named a director of his father's Brading Breweries in Ottawa, he picked up other Ontario breweries, formed the Brewing Corp. of Canada. As president and general manager, he whittled 90 brands down to nine, and formed the Brewing Corp. of America to sell his beer in the U.S.

When Canadian Orange Crush, Ltd. needed help, he bought its stock (peak value: $4,300,000) for $43,000. Along with it he got a lawsuit filed by the Honey Dew chain of restaurants, in which Orange Crush had an interest. Quickwitted Eddie Taylor dropped in to see the Honey Dew board of directors. He came out a vice president. Two days later the president died, and Taylor got into his job.

In 1939 he set up the Anglo Canadian Publishers, Ltd. and now he is making money with Canada's lone picture magazine, the monthly New World (current circulation: 200,000).

Expand All Over. In four war years he earned $4 in salary working for the Government in a half-dozen top jobs. On one trip to England his ship was torpedoed off Iceland. Roused from his bunk, Taylor bobbed around the Atlantic in a lifeboat for six hours without his pants.

In his spare time during and after the war, he bought into the British Columbia lumber industry, now has control of B. C. Forest Products. He took over and helped reorganize the big Dominion Store chain, bought out the Orange-Crush Co. (Illinois). He branched out into life insurance, food, chocolates, bakeries, and other lines. By September 1945, his holdings had become so extensive that he centralized nine of his major ones in an investment company, the Argus Corp.

Out Tariffs. Taylor has kept labor troubles at a minimum because of his twelve-word policy: "Give them what they are entitled to before they ask for it." Many conservative businessmen regard his pyramided holdings with some suspicion. But Eddie Taylor believes that with efficient big companies Canada can boost her world trade. Another way is to eliminate tariffs. A world trader, he has summed up his position: "Full employment is impossible in the world without a good measure of free trade. I would like to see the trade barriers wiped out between the British Commonwealth and the U.S., because I believe that the easy exchange of goods will serve the people of all these nations."

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