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Tipped off before the bidless box was opened, Premier Hepburn hopped back to Toronto by plane from the bush, where he had been fishing with—of all people— President John P. ("Jack") Bickell of Mclntyre Porcupine Mines (gold), "richest bachelor in Canada," and Manhattan's legendary speculator, Bernard E. ("Ben") Smith, who is called a "money magnate'' in the Dominion Press. The Government's counter attack was planned at Jack Bickell's home located at Port Credit. "The financial interests undertook to discipline the Government of Ontario because of its stand on the power purchase question," thundered a Cabinet statement. "The challenge is not to the Administration but to popular government and to the people themselves."*
Dominion bankers denied a conspiracy, suavely hinting that underwriting of Ontario obligations was too risky a business. Nevertheless, Premier Hepburn promptly declared war. He spoke darkly of special, if not punitive, taxes on "surplus money," refused audiences to banking emissaries, threatened to withdraw all Provincial balances from commercial banks, announced plans for 30 new branches of the Government-owned savings bank system, upped the system's interest rate from 2% to 2½%, to tempt deposits away from private institutions.
"They tried to bluff us today," cried the strident "Mitch" Hepburn. "And they found out we can't be bluffed. The Province of Ontario is too big to be bluffed. . . . We are going through with this business—all the way through with it."
*U. S. bankers who now hold about 52% of the national debt have never dared hold out on Treasury financing. But that possibility was one reason why the pending Banking bill was so drawn that the Government can finance itself through Federal Reserve Banks, which it will then control.