The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 14, 1916, Page 9

2 s e pes ‘side. of the international border. ANADA'S government - owned ‘elevator system has been a big success as far as it has gone— i . 80- successful that the govern- ment is now heing urged to take over the en!:u‘e terminal elevator system now privately owned in the Dominion, so that the grain will be handled and marketed through government-owned facilities. ; This is the word brought to the Leader office by R. McKenzie ' of Winnipeg, " secretary of the Manitoba Grain Grow- ers" association and director in -the Grain Growers’ Grain company. Mr, McKenzie, on his vacation, made a trip to Minneapolis and St. Paul and thrqugh _ ship is the logical thing in the grain growing states on this side of the line. He stopped off at Fargo to learn somet!l.i.ng about the Nonpar- tisan League, whose fame has spread > through Canada. FIGHT OF CANADIAN FARMERS RESEMBLES U. S. SITUATION . The visitor told of the battles, victories and defeats of the producers on the other The fight there has been much the same as on this side of the line—it has been a fight of the producers for a fair market and fair laws against intrenched privil- ..ege, the grain exchanges, railroads and eapitalists. While the same forces have been lined up in Canada against each other the farmers are coming into their own there in a different way and have .progressed a lot further than they have in the United States. Mr. McKenzie said: “The Dominion government now owns & terminal elevator of 3,500,000 bushels capacity at Port Arthur, on Lake Super- ior, a 2,000,000 bushel interior elevator at Moose Jaw, one of the same size at Saskatoon and ‘is now ‘constructing a 1,000,000 bushel terminal ' elevator at _ —that’s the answer. - : f"I.‘he government-owned system of terminals 18 giving the utmost satisfaction to farmers and there is little criticism about it from any class of people, now that it is an accomplished fact and no longer .a mere plan or experiment.” ownership of terminals has been found the way to better market conditions in Canada. : had the state and national s NS e \ Vancouver, on the Pacific coast, to afford a grain outlet in that direction. “This governmeni-owned .system of terminals is giving the utmost satisfac- tion to farmers and there is little criti- cism about it from any class of people, now that it is.an accomplished fact and no longer a mere plan or experiment. The ownership by the government of these terminal facilities has demon- strated that it is the only way they should be owned and a- movement is now Public State owner- North Da_kota. on to have the government take over all the present privately-owned grain term- inals at Port Arthur and Fort William on Lake Superior, 'so that all grain will be handled through publicly owned elevators. At least the government will have t¢ build some more terminal elevators, the demand“for them is so great, but since there are enough terminals now built to handle all the grain no more should be built, but the present ones privately owned should be taken over by the government. This will undoubtedly be done in time. GRAIN EXCHANGE STARTS FIGHT AGAINST FARMERS “Our fight against marketing con- ditions began in 1903 when the Manitoba Grain Growers’ association was started. This association originally did what-it could to aid the farmer in marketing and it enabled farmers to combine their - orders for supplies -and to buy them cooperatively in carload lots. But in -1906 the Grain Growers’ Grain company was - organized to handle the grain marketing end of the business for the association. Then we ‘began “a fight similar to the fight your Society of Equity had on its hands when it organ- The grain speculators in Canada fought to re’ain domination of the mar- ~ ket, just as they are doing in the American Northwest. The farmers won in ,Canada. How? By getting the power of the government behind them. The farmers of . the Northwest have failed in their fight so far. They haven’t governments with them. Political organization A western Canada bonanza crop in the shoek. - Government Ownership Succeeds, Says McKenzie, Pioneer in Fight of Farmers 5 ized the Equity Cooperative exchange. “At first the Grain Growers’ company was allowed to buy a_seat on the Win- nipeg Grain exchange, corresponding to your Chamber of Commerce at Minne- apolis. We paid $2500 for the seat-and proceeded to market the grain of the farmers .shipped us like a private brokerage firm would market it. We were regular members of the exchange. But when the exchange members saw what an opening they were giving the farmers through ownership of this seat on the exchange, they kicked us out— took our membershin away. “We were then left witnout any means of marketing our grain and faced a serious crisis. The Winnipeg exchange has rules much the same as the Cham- ber of Commerce at Minneapolis and it controlled the whole grain business. - Herd of Jerseys on a Nobody would buy of us -after we lost our seat. Unlike the, Equity at St. Paul we could find no market for our grain among independent, interior mil- lers, for there were no such millers. All markets were' closed to us. FARMERS STAND TOGETHER AND BEAT SPECULATORS " “In this crisis we appealed to the government, -where the justice of our plea was finally realized. The govern- ment ordered the K Winnipeg Grain exchange to restore us our-membership. This did not end the fight, however. ' The . way. exchange then tried to ruin us in another The rule of the exchange was that each broker handling wheat should charge ‘one cent per bushel commission, The exchange repealed this rule for a year, so that members of-the exchangg could handle grain at cut.rates or for nothing, thus attracting business away, from the farmers’ company, which had to get a certain fee, of course, or if couldn’t exist. They figured they had lots of money and could stand a loss for a year in cut-throat competition against us,- but “that we did not have enough money to stand this kind of a fight and would have to quit. “However, we took the matter up with our stockholders and they decided tq stand pat, allowing our company to cons tinue to charge the one-cent brokeraga fee, regardless of what the other members of the exchange chargeds Well, this kind of a dirty fight on us helped our- cause and that year we doubled our business, handling 16,000,000 ~ Canadian farm bushels of grain for the farmers, agains§ less than 7,000,000 the year before, THREE SEATS ON EXCHANGE 7} NOW OWNED BY GROWERS ) “This year the Grain Growers’ Grain company will handle 40,000,000 bushels, despite the small crop. We now have three. seats on .the Winnipeg Grain exchange. ‘We lease a 2,500,000 bushel terminal ~elevator of the Canadian Pacific railroad at Fort William and are building one of our -own of 1,000,000 capacity at Port Arthur. -We find that the biggest money in the grain business is the terminal eleyator end of it. Our company owns its own weekly paper, the . Grain Growers’ Guide, ‘published at- Winnipeg. It has 85,000 circulation, “Our company is owned by the Mani« toba farmers, but the farmers of Alberta and Saskatchewan also own their own . grain marketing company. They also have ; zeats on ‘the Winnipeg' exchange. The °three * farmers’ -companies’ now handle aboutfone-third of ‘the total crop of Canada and.their business is growing. “We expect to be handling over half (Continued ‘on-page 18) oy A R O NN s s e, s o | { | 1 { | 1