Hull Packet & East Riding Times
Fri 6 Feb 1880

THE NEW DOCK DIRECTOR

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The rejection of Colonel SMITH as a director by the Hull Dock Company necessitated the appointment of a successor, and the choice of the Board seems to have fallen upon Lieutenant Colonel SANER. It will be in the recollection of our readers that Colonel SANER and Mr JOHN SIMPSON on a very recent occasion allowed their names to be used in certain proceedings of the Dock Company against the Hull Corporation. The rôle filled by them might be useful to the Dock Company, but it was hardly one to create popularity in their native town, and the epithet bestowed on them by a distinguished Counsel in the committee-room of the House of Commons will not readily be forgotten. No reward could possibly be expected by those gentlemen from the general public, and it was therefore not unreasonable for them to expect that consolation should be bestowed on them within the walls of the Hull Dock Offices.

Had Mr MAXSTED, in proposing Lieut-Colonel SANER, confined himself to the real reason for the appointment we should have assumed that one exception had been made to the old definition of gratitude, but when he is gravely put forward as the "representative of the timber trade", and we are assured by his seconder that "benefits may be expected from his appointment", we are entitled to criticise the reasons adduced for his appointment.

In the town of Hull we have timber merchants of importance who have acquired an almost European importance – notably, the WADES, the HARRISONS, the BARKWORTHS, and others; but, we ask, until announced by Mr MAXSTED, and somewhat faintly re-echoed by Lieutenant-Colonel SANER – who called himself a "Timber Broker", did anybody in the town of Hull ever know that Lieutenant-Colonel SANER was in any way connected with Timber? We ask, where are his yards, and where his timber and ships? We never heard of them.

Of course we do not intend to say that Lieutenant-Colonel SANER has not at some period of his life been in a timber merchant's office, or had transactions in timber, but this will not supply the popular idea of a timber merchant (otherwise the match lad), who is not merely figuratively "in the street", might be so dignified. The impression intended to be created in the minds of those present at the Dock meeting was that Lieut-Colonel SANER was a timber merchant, and that in electing him to a seat on the Board they were electing a man who was a representative of, and acquainted with the now notorious grievances of the timber trade. Will the timber merchants be contented with this so-called representation and concession, or will they not rather look upon it as an insult added to the long arrears of injuries inflicted by this "Board" of Directors.

It may be somewhat hard on Lieutenant-Colonel SANER that he should form the subject of any disputation, but he must take comfort from the fact that people who aspire to high positions cannot expect to be exempt from the penalty attached to greatness. Besides, he gets a much-coveted seat on the Board, which might have been endangered had he disavowed his connection with the timber trade. Perhaps at some future time similar greatness may await another gentleman, who may be described as an "Importer of German Merchandise". Then, indeed, will this precious "advertising board" be "polished off", and become as nearly perfection as may be with such materials.