SALES, MORTGAGE 399 



marks a wheat town the Government scale and 

 the Government grader should be in the centre of 

 its market-place. Whenever a charter is granted 

 to a Bank it should be on the condition that a certain 

 sum of money is to be kept strictly for the service 

 of the producer at a fair and acceptable degree of 

 interest. Much has lately been written against 

 freight charges. I lived for some months twenty- 

 six miles from the nearest bi-weekly railway service, 

 and then through four years found it necessary to 

 haul grain fifteen miles to the nearest railway- 

 station ; but since the coming of the Grand Trunk 

 Pacific Railway from Winnipeg to Regina via Fort 

 Qu'Appelle, within four and a half miles of my farm, 

 I can appreciate the blessing of being able to fill 

 a car within forty-eight hours, or even twenty-four 

 if necessary. Many of my neighbours this year 

 threshed their grain into the wagon and hauled 

 directly to the railway-car, which was loaded and 

 dispatched within twelve hours, and two-thirds 

 of its value was obtainable on sight if dispatched 

 through the elevator at Fort Qu'Appelle. For 

 this inestimable boon one paid exactly the same 

 freight charge as in the pioneer days, when it 

 sometimes meant a three weeks' journey to sell a 

 wagon-load, or in the days of my own experience, 

 when it took from fifteen to twenty days to fill a 

 car. Yet it is the farmers within the belt of con- 

 venience who kick at the freight charge, not those 

 who are still depending on the railway development 

 to make life easier. Of the freight charges I can 

 only speak as a grain farmer. There seems to be 

 some just ground for complaint of lack of organiza- 

 tion between the producer and the would-be con- 



