IN THE DRAG OF THE HARROWS
"I see the villain in your face!"
"May it plaze yer worship, that must be a
personal reflection, sure."
--_Irish Wit and Humor (Howe)._
The "good old days" when the Farmer was a poor sheep without a
shepherd, shorn to the pink hide with one tuft of wool left over his
eyes--those "good old days" are gone forever. It is some time now
since he became convinced that if a lion and a lamb ever did lie down
together the lamb would not get a wink of sleep. As a matter of
survival he has been making use of the interval to become a lion
himself and the process has been productive of a great roaring in the
Jungle.
All this co-operative purchasing of commodities in the three Prairie
Provinces has not been developed to its present great volume without
arousing antagonism in the business world. The co-operative idea in
merchandizing is not confined to the West by any means. From the
Atlantic to the Pacific various organizations have been formed to carry
on business along co-operative lines. A Co-Operative Union has been
formed to propagate the movement and the subject is vast.
But the establishment of an extending network of elevators under the
control of the Western farmers has brought about possibilities which
threaten to revolutionize the whole established commercial system.
Farmers' Elevators in Dakota, Minnesota and Alberta have proved that it
is practical to utilize the same staff at each point to manage the
distribution of farm supplies as well as looking after elevator
operation during the grain season. This being so, it is not difficult
to visualize a great distributing system under centralized management
with tremendous purchasing power.
There are those whose imaginations stretch readily to the extreme view
that the Grain Growers are a menace. Such are filled with foreboding.
They see the country merchant out of business and the whole business
fabric destroyed.
"The farmers are talking everlastingly about 'a square deal,'" it is
argued. "Why don't they practice what they preach and give the country
merchant a square deal? What about the times of poor crops and money
scarcity? Where would the farmer have been if the country merchant had
not carried him on the books for the necessities of life?"
"It didn't cost the merchant anything to carry me," denies the farmer.
"He just raised his prices to me and got credit from the wholesaler."
"Then what about the wholesaler?"
"Raised his prices and got credit from the manufacturer and the bank."
"Then the banks----"
"Refused to give me the credit in the first place!" interrupts the
farmer resentfully. "Do you dare to blame me, Mister, for cutting out
all these unnecessary middle charges when by proper organization I am
able to finance myself and take advantage of cash discounts on the cost
of living?"
That is the Farmer's motive for taking action. He wants to improve his
scale of living for the sake of his family. By making the farm home a
place of comfort his sons and daughters will be more content to remain
on the land. He does not seek to hoard money; he intends to spend it.
If middlemen are crowded out of his community it will be because there
are too many of them. Instead of having to support parasites the
community will be just that much more prosperous, the farms just that
much better equipped, the land just that much more productive and
thereby the country's wealth just that much greater.
That is how it appears to the Farmer.
"If the Farmer is to be a merchant, a wholesaler, a banker and all the
rest of it he is no longer a farmer. Is nobody else to have a right to
live?" enquires the Cynic. "Did these Grain Growers fight the elevator
combine of the early days in order that they could establish a Farmers'
Combine? Is one any better than the other?"
The inference is that the Grain Growers are bluffing deliberately and
aiming at all the abuses conjured by the word, "combine." The slander
is self-evident to anyone who examines the constitution of the Farmers'
Movement, so framed from the first that any possibility of clique
control was removed for all time. It is impossible to have a "combine"
of fifty thousand units and maintain the necessary appeal to the
cupidity of the individual. It is not possible for designing leaders,
if such there were, to take even the first step in manipulation without
discovery. It simply cannot be done. Woe betide the man who even
exhibited such tendencies among his fellow Grain Growers! These
organized farmers have learned how to do their own thinking and every
rugged ounce of them is assertive. They are not to be fooled easily
nor stampeded from their objective. And what is that objective?
"To play politics!" explodes the hidebound Party Politician knowingly.
"To get a share in the Divvy and eventually hog it!" suggests the
Financial Adventurer.
"Equal opportunities to all; special privileges to none," the Grain
Grower patiently reiterates.
He believes in doing away with "the Divvy" altogether. He believes
that "the spoils system" is bad government and that no stone should be
left unturned to elevate the living conditions of the Average Citizen
to the highest possible plane. He believes that the status of a nation
depends upon the status of its Average Citizen and in that he does not
consider himself to be preaching Socialism but Common Sense.
Come back to the country store--to the Country Retailer who is pulling
on the other end of the whiffle-tree with the Farmer for community
progress. Each is necessary to the other and it is a vital matter if
the co-operation of the Farmer is going to kill off a teammate,
especially when tandeming right behind them are the Clydesdales of
Commerce, the Wholesaler and the Manufacturer. With the Farmer kicking
over the traces, the Retailer biting and squealing at the Wholesaler
every little while and the Manufacturer with his ears laid back flat
this distribution of merchandize in Western Canada is no easy problem.
It is bringing the Bankers to their aristocratic portals all along the
route and about the only onlooker who is calm and serene is the
Mail-Order Man as he passes overhead post-haste in the Government
flying machine.
"I'd get along alright if the Farmer would pay up his debts to me,"
cries the Retailer. "I've been giving him too long a line of credit
and now he's running rings around me and tying me up in a knot. When
he gets some money he goes and buys from my competitors for cash or he
buys more land and machinery. If I shorten the rope he busts it and
runs away!"
"I'd be alright if everybody else would mind their own business,"
grumbles the Wholesaler. "Just trot along there now! Pay your bills,
Farmer. Improve your service, Retailer. Don't ask me about high or
low tariff. I've got my hands full with established lines and it's my
business to supply them as cheaply as is consistent with quality. I
want to see everybody succeed and it isn't fair to include me in any
mix-up. Only the humming of that confounded flying-machine up
there--Can't somebody bring down that Mail-Order bird? He isn't paying
his share of the taxes while I've helped to finance this country."
"We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves," sings the
Manufacturer. "Giddap, Dobbin!"
"'Money makes the mare go,'" quotes the Finance Minister, taking
another look out of the window at the War Cloud. "'Money comes from
the Soil,'" and he push-buttons a buzz-bell over in the Department of
Agriculture.
"Send out the choir and let's have that 'Patriotism and Production'
song again," is the order issued by some deputy sub-chief's assistant
in response to the P. M.'s signal. "We must encourage our farmers to
even nobler efforts."
And all the while the Unearned Increment loafs around, studying the
Interest Charges which are ticking away like a taxicab meter, and the
"Common Pee-pul" gaze in frozen fascination at the High Cost of Living
flying its kite and climbing the string!
Seriously, though, the situation demands the earnest thought of all
classes. The argument has so many facets that it is impossible within
the limits of a few pages to present an adequate conception of all the
vital problems that surround the Farmers' Movement. Each interest has
its own data--packages of it--and it is difficult to know what to
select and what to leave out and at the same time remain entirely fair
to all concerned. There is some truth in many of the accusations which
are bandied about. No new country can do without credit facilities.
What about the homesteader or the poorer farmer who is starting on
meagre resources? They will win through if given a chance. Who is to
give it to them if business is put on a cash basis? On the other hand,
is the man who has the cash to receive no consideration?
The trouble with our banks is that their system falls down when the
retailer or the farmer need them most--in times of stringency. It is
true that the wholesaler has done much for the country, that the
retailer is often at the mercy of careless or selfish customers who
abuse credit privileges. It is true that the mail-order houses also
have performed good services in the general task of making a new
country. The solution can be arrived at only by co-operation in its
true sense--getting together--everybody. Also, while one may joke
about "Patriotism and Production," the fact remains that much has been
accomplished by these campaigns.
Asked if the organization of the farmers meant that the retailer would
be forced out of business, the well posted Credit Manager of a large
Winnipeg wholesale establishment admitted that it would not mean that
necessarily.
The same question put to C. Rice-Jones, President and Manager of the
Alberta Farmers' Co-Operative Elevator Company, brought the same denial.
"The only men who would be weeded out," said he, "are those who have
gone into the local store business without knowing anything about it
and who can remain in it only because the present system allows them to
charge any price they like. The men who know their business will
remain. Those who are objecting to us are objecting to the very thing
they have been doing themselves for fifty years--organizing."
"We want to farm, not to go into business," remarked H. W. Wood,
President of the United Farmers of Alberta. "The local merchant gives
us a local distribution service, a service which has to be given. We
cannot destroy one single legitimate interest. But if there are four
or five men living by giving a service that one man should give in a
community and get just a living--that is what we are going to correct
and we are absolutely entitled to do so. The selfishness we are
accused of the accusers have practiced right along and these very
things make it necessary for us to organize for self-protection. If
they will co-operate with us to put their business on a legitimate
basis we are willing to quit trying to do this business ourselves."
That is straight talk, surely. It is a challenge to the business men
to meet the farmers half way for a better understanding. No problem
ever was solved by extremists on either side. Enmity and suspicion
must be submerged by sane discussion and mutual concessions bring about
the beginnings of closer unity.