56 THE STORY OF THE U.F.O. 



in view, it is no wonder that the farmers 

 believed that a great mistake was being made 

 which it was their duty to set right. Of course 

 they were told that the serious reverses on the 

 Western front in the early spring of this year 

 were sufficient reason for the breaking of 

 solemn promises, as undoubtedly would have 

 been true had it been possible for the newly- 

 raised forces to be trained and transported 

 across the ocean in time to meet the sudden 

 emergency, or had they not been more urgently 

 needed elsewhere. The farmers, however, 

 realizing that it would take at the least several 

 months to train and transport these men, and 

 that the emergency would have passed, with 

 whatever result, before they could reach the 

 front, and seeing further, that very many acres 

 whose produce they had been told was urgently 

 needed to save the Allies from famine, would lie 

 fallow because the men necessary to work them 

 had been conscripted, the farmers came to the 

 conclusion that a wrong and foolish policy was 

 being followed, and that it was their duty to 

 protest. The correctness of their conclusion 

 was shown by the event. Farm operations 

 were seriously disturbed and production con- 

 siderably curtailed, while comparatively few of 

 the young men whose exemptions were cancelled 

 ever reached the front. 



