A CALL TO ARMS 31)1 



their promises and the tall grain boxes reared their 

 castor tops against the sky in increasing clusters. 



To operate a standard elevator at a country point 

 with profit it was considered necessary in the early 

 days to fill it three times in a season unless the owner 

 proposed to deaTin grain^lltntself and~malte a 



profit in addition to handling grain for others. The 

 cost -ef^5uTI3ing^and operating the class of elevator 

 demanded by the railway company was partly respon- 

 sible for this. Before long the number of elevators in 

 Manitoba and the North-West Territories increased till 

 it was impossible for all of them to obtain the three 

 fillings per season even had their owners been inclined 

 to perform merely a handling service. 



But those who had taken up the railway's offer with 

 such avidity and had invested large sums of share- 

 holders' capital in building the elevator accommodation 

 were mostly shrewd grain dealers whose primary object 

 was to buy and sell. These interested corporations were 

 not constructing elevators in order to admire their sil- 

 houettes against the beautiful prairie sunsets ! In every 

 corner of the earth the Dollar Almighty, or its equiva- 

 lent, was being stalked by all sorts and conditions of 

 men, some of whom chased it noisily and openly while 

 others hunted with their boots in one hand. Properly 

 enough, the grain men were out for all that their invest- 

 ment could earn and for all the wheat which they could 

 buy at one price and sell at another. That was their 

 business, just as it was the business of the railway com- 

 pany to transport the grain at a freight rate which 

 would net a profit, just as it was the farmer's 

 business 



^XBut to the farmer it seemed that he had no business f/ 

 He merely grew the grain. Apparently a farmer was 



