CHAPTER XIV 



THE INTERNAL ELEVATOR CAMPAIGN 



What constitutes a state f . . . 



Men who their duties know, 



But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain. 



Ode after Alcaeus. 8* William Jones. 



NOW, about this Government Ownership of Ele- 

 vators. The Grain Growers had had it in mind 

 right along. The elevators were the contact 

 points between the farmer and the marketing 

 machinery; therefore if his fingers got pinched it was 

 here that he bled. Complaints of injustice in the matter 

 of weights, dockage, grades and prices colored the con- 

 versation of farmers in many parts of the country and, 

 rightly or wrongly, many farmers were profoundly 

 dissatisfied with existing conditions at initial elevators. 

 These elevators provided the only avenue by which 

 grain could be disposed of quickly if transportation 

 facilities were not fully adequate. It seemed to the 

 farmers, therefore, that the only way to avoid mon- 



opolistic abuses was for the provincial governments to 

 own and operate a system of internal storage elevators 

 and for the Dominion authorities to own and operate 

 the terminals. The elevators, declared the farmers, 

 should be a public utility and not in private hands. 



This feeling first found definite expression in a 



request by the Manitoba Grain Growers prior to the 



\j Manitoba elections in 1907. The Manitoba Government 



169 



