176 



planations, introduced a bill into Congress requiring 

 permission to emit a loan to construct Elevators for ac- 

 count of the State. 



It proposed a project of remote possibility to off- 

 set one of practical present realisation. Needless to say 

 the plan was never proceeded with, in fact there are 

 grave doubts that it was ever intended to be proceed- 

 ed with. Again the vested interests won. 



Rarely in the history of Statesmanship have events 

 demonstrated the shortsightedness of the policy adopt- 

 ed by the ('iovernmeiit in attempting to reserve a line 

 of enterprise for the State to the exclusion of all others, 

 especially in view of the utility of the railways, as an 

 example, which would never have been constructed had 

 similar views ruled for railways as apparently did for 

 elevators . 



OPPROBRIOUS CONDUCT OF THE MINISTERS, ' 



Owing to the misconception of what constitutes a 

 legitimate profit under the present system of grain 

 handling, the authorities at the time preferred to have 

 the losses continue than to permit any variation other 

 than that derived from the intervention of the State in 

 the business of handling and marketing our grain. Prob- 

 ably the extraordinary idea of the State as sole inter- 

 ested party in the management of the crop arose from 

 a false conception of the profitable nature of elevators,, 

 owing to the figures cited regarding the economies to 

 be attained, which appear to have been looked upon as 

 going into the pockets of the owners of the elevators in- 

 iftead of into the pockets of the thousand and one farm- 

 ers. Apparently it was thought preferable for the 

 State to do the exploiting: curious reasoning. 



Rarely has a Minister so well earned the oppro- 

 brium showered on him as the then Minister of Agri- 

 culture for, with the means, the capital, before him to 

 accomplish what all his predecessors had failed to do, with 

 the double advantage of doing it at a moment ten times 

 more opportune and., a hundred times more effective, 

 since the country was threatened with grave difficul- 

 ties at the moment and graver in the future, had the 

 said Government not failed so signally to appreciate 

 the question practically none of the present difficulties 

 would be felt to-day. 



This crowning opportunity to carry through what 

 half a generation had tampered with and failed to mas- 

 ter, the primary elements of economics, understood and 



