68 DEEP FURROWS 



which met there in due course was productive of such 

 stimulus and publicity that its effect was felt long 

 afterward. 



At every convention the farmers found some additional 

 weak spot in the Grain Act and suggested remedial 

 legislation^ Records are lacking to show in what order 

 the various changes came ; but step by step the farmers 

 ), were gaining their rights. It all seemed so wonderful 

 to get together thus and frame requests of the 

 Government at Ottawa, to find their very wording 

 incorporated in the Act. The farmers scarcely had 

 dared to think of such a thing before. To them the ear 

 of a government was a delicate organism beyond reach, 

 attuned to the acoustics of High Places only; that it 

 was an ear to hear, an ear to the ground to catch the 

 voice of the people was a discovery. At any rate when 

 W. R. Motherwell and J. B. Gillespie, of the Territories, 

 D. W. McCuaig and E. C. Henders, of Manitoba, went 

 to Ottawa for the first time they were received with 

 every consideration and many of their requests on 

 behalf of the farmers granted. 



With such recognition and the recurring evidence of 

 advantageous results the jeering grins of a certain 

 section of the onlooking public began to sober down to 

 a less disrespectful mien. Those who talked glibly at 

 first of the other farmers' organizations which they 

 had seen go to pieces became less free with their fore- 

 bodings. 



j. In 1904 the farmers began to press for something 



I more ^tnan the proper distribution of cars and the 



I freedom of shipment. They were dissatisfieji -wiijijthe 



grading system and the re^mspecilon machinery. Some 



ofThem claimed that the grading system did not 



classify wheat according to its milling value. Some 



