Deep Furrows - free ebook by Herbert Joseph Moorhouse

TORONTO AND WINNIPEG

GEORGE J. McLEOD, LIMITED...

2 minute read

Read Chapter

COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1918

BY GEORGE J. McLEOD, LIMITED...

2 minute read

Read Chapter

TO THE

Foreword I The Man on the Qu'Appelle Trail II A Call to Arms III The First Shot is Fired IV "That Man Partridge!" V "The House With the Closed Shutters" VI On a Card in the Window of Wilson's Old Store VII A Fight for Life VIII A Knock on the Door IX The Grain Exchange Again X Printers' Ink XI From the Red River Valley to the Foothills XII The Showdown XIII The Mysterious "Mr. Observer" XIV The Internal Elevator Campaign XV Concernin

51 minute read

Read Chapter

FOREWORD

Once in awhile, maybe, twenty-five or thirty years ago, they used to pack you off during the holidays for a visit on Somebody's Farm. Have you forgotten? You went with your little round head close clipped till all the scar places showed white and you came back with a mat of sunbleached hair, your face and hands and legs brown as a nut. Probably you treasure recollections of those boyhood days when a raw field turnip, peeled with a "toad-stabber," was mighty good eatin'. You remember the cows and

7 minute read

Read Chapter

DEEP FURROWS

Among the lonely lakes I go no more, For she who made their beauty is not there; The paleface rears his tepee on the shore And says the vale is fairest of the fair. Full many years have vanished since, but still The voyageurs beside the camp-fire tell How, when the moon-rise tips the distant hill, They hear strange voices through the silence swell. — E. Pauline Johnson. The Legend of Qu'Appelle. To the rimming skyline, and beyond, the wheatlands of

20 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER II

And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth.— Isaiah 10:14. For five thousand years Man has grown wheat for food. Archaeologists have found it buried with the mummies of Egypt; the pictured stones of the Pyramids record it. But it was the food of princes, not of peasants—of the aristocracy, not of the people; for no man could harvest enough of it with his sickle to create a supply which would place it within th

32 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER IV

Any man can work when every stroke of his hand brings down the fruit rattling from the tree to the ground; but to labor in season and out of season, under every discouragement, by the power of faith . . . that requires a heroism which is transcendent. And no man, I think, ever puts the plow into the furrow and does not look back, and sows good seed therein, that a harvest does not follow.— Henry Ward Beecher . It was a handy place to live, that little tar-paper shanty around which the prairie wi

15 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER V

Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of Beelzebub? Here's a farmer . . .— Macbeth . When wheat ceased to be grown for local needs and overflowed upon the markets of the world, becoming a factor in finance, arenas where its destiny was decided were established in the large centres of trade. In these basins of commerce the never-ending flow concentrated and wheeled for a short space before in re-directed currents it rolled on its way to ocean ports. Here, according to the novelists, frant

15 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VI

. . . Is it vain to hope The sons of such a land will climb and grope Along the undiscovered ways of life, And neither seek nor be found shunning strife, But ever, beckoned by a high ideal, Press onward, upward, till they make it real; With feet sure planted on their native sod, And will and aspirations linked with God? —Robert J. C. Stead. Ideas grow. The particular idea which now began to occupy the thoughts of E. A. Partridge to the exclusion of everything

10 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VII

My dear little Demus! you'll find it is true, He behaves like a wretch and a villain to you . . . —Aristophanes. It was characteristic of John Kennedy to keep everlastingly at it. He was used to hard things to do. In this life some men seem to get rather more than their share of tacks in the boots and crumbs in bed! But every time Fate knocked him down he just picked himself up again. Always he got up and went at it once more—patiently, conscientiously, smiling. Even Fate cannot be

19 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VIII

Every man is worth just as much as the things are worth about which he is concerned.— Marcus Aurelius . That big shipment to Buffalo, along with several others which were placed in the East with the market recovering, relieved the situation greatly. Also, the Scottish Co-Operative Wholesale Society's Winnipeg office decided to stand by the farmers' co-operative marketing venture and risked disapproval to buy some of the young company's wheat; not only that, but the farmers' company was allowed t

11 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER IX

"How many tables, Janet, are there in the Law?" "Indeed, sir, I canna just be certain; but I think there's ane in the foreroom, ane in the back room an' anither upstairs." — Scotch Wit and Humor (Howe) . The efforts of the elevator faction of the Winnipeg Grain and Produce Exchange, apparently to choke to death the Grain Growers' Grain Company, had awakened the farmers of the West to a fuller realization of the trading company's importance to the whole farmers' movement. The Grain Growers of the

13 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER X

The fewer the voices on the side of truth, the more distinct and strong must be your own.— Channing . As the farmers saw it, there was no reason in the world why the bank should do what it did. The Company had closed its first year with net profits sufficient to declare a seven per cent. cash dividend and the profits would have been augmented greatly had it not been for the heavy interest payments which accrued on the unusual overdrafts imposed by special conditions. In spite of their extremely

13 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XI

It ain't the guns or armament nor the funds that they can pay, But the close co-operation that makes them win the day; It ain't the individual, nor the army as a whole, But the everlastin' team-work of every bloomin' soul! — Kipling . At one of the early grain growers' conventions it had been voiced as an ideal that there were three things which the farmers' movement needed—first, a trading company to sell their products (with ultimately, it might be, the cheaper distribution

15 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XII

It's scarcely in a body's power Tae keep at times frae being sour Tae see how things are shared. — Robert Burns . A fight was on between the elevator interests and the commission merchants of the Winnipeg Grain Exchange—a fight for existence. For, with the Commission Rule of the Exchange eliminated, those firms which handled grain on a straight commission basis would be forced to meet the competition of the elevator buyers and the chances were they would be forced to handle gra

11 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XIII

Observation tells me that you have a little reddish mold adhering to your instep. . . . So much is observation. The rest is deduction. — Sherlock Holmes . Sign of Four (Doyle) . In Prehistoric Days, when one man hied himself from his cave to impress his ideas upon another the persuasion used took the form of a wallop on the head with a stone axe. It was the age of Individual Opinion. But as Man hewed his way upward along Time's tangled trails personal opinions began to

12 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XIV

What constitutes a state? . . . Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain. — Sir William Jones. Ode after Alcaeus. Now, about this Government Ownership of Elevators. 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 a

12 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XV

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging the future but by the past.— Patrick Henry . With the establishment of co-operative elevators for the storing of grain at interior points the farmers of Western Canada launched out upon the greatest experiment in co-operation this continent has seen. The success of these elevators, owned and controlled by the farmers themselves, in all probability would evolve the final phase of internal

10 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XVI

Now, infidel, I have thee on the hip! — Merchant of Venice. The visitors' gallery is an excellent vantage point from which to view the trading floor of the Exchange. It runs the full width of the south wall. The chairs entrenched behind the rail have acquired a slippery polish from the shiftings of countless occupants just as the wall behind has known the restless backs of onlookers who have stood for hours at a stretch. It is here that the curious foregather—good people from every walk of life

21 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XVII

Fishes, beasts and fowls are to eat each other, for they have no justice; but to men is given justice, which is for the best.— Hesiod . The situation was changing indeed for the Grain Growers in Western Canada. In spite of all opposition the farmers had made themselves a factor in the grain trade and had demonstrated their ability to conduct their affairs on sound business principles. Co-operative marketing of grain no longer was an untried idea, advocated by a small group of enthusiasts. The ma

8 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XVIII

We sometimes had those little rubs which Providence sends to enhance the value of its favors.— Vicar of Wakefield . While developing co-operative purchasing of farm supplies the pioneer business organization of the farmers had continued its policy of expansion in the grain business. The ideal of the farmers had been to reduce to the lowest possible point the cost between the producer in Western Canada and the Old Country consumer who bought most of the Western grain. By engaging in the export bu

9 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XIX

An old man on the point of death summoned his sons around him to give them some parting advice. He ordered his servants to bring in a faggot of sticks, and said to his eldest son: Break it. The son strained and strained, but with all his efforts was unable to break the bundle. The other sons also tried, but none of them was successful. Untie the faggots, said the father, and each of you take a stick. When they had done so, he called out to them: Now break; and each stick was easily broken. You s

14 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XX

Beyond the fields we plough are others waiting, The fallows of the ages all unknown. Beyond the little harvests we are reaping Are wider, grander harvests to be grown. — Gerald J. Lively. Out in the great Range Country all this time the United Farmers were lickety-loping along the trail of difficulties that carried their own special brand. The round-up revealed increasing opportunities for service and one by one their problems were cut out from the general herd, roped, tie

8 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXI

"I see the villain in your face!" "May it plaze yer worship, that must be a personal reflection, sure." — Irish Wit and Humor (Howe). The "good old days" when the Farmer was a poor sheep without a shepherd, shorn to the pink hide with one tuft of wool left over his eyes—those "good old days" are gone forever. It is some time now since he became convinced that if a lion and a lamb ever did lie down together the lamb would not get a wink of sleep. As a matter of survival he h

9 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXII

Our times are in His hand Who saith, "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God; see all, nor be afraid." — Robert Browning. The Grain Growers' Movement in Western Canada now had attained potential proportions. In Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta the Provincial Associations with their many Locals were in a flourishing condition. Each province was headquarters for a powerful farmers' trading organization to market grain and provide co-operative supplies. Unlike the

14 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXIII

Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. — Julius Caesar. Because it was the logical and primary source of redress for the abuses which led the Western farmers to organize, the Grain Growers from the first have concerned themselves seriously with legislation. It took them a little while to discover that instead of being an all-sufficient panacea, mere legislation may become at times as fl

21 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXIV

The principle of co-operation draws the whole community together. It breaks down barriers. It unites the State. It gives hope to the humblest toiler. And it strengthens the great moral ideal of duty, without which no State can endure.— Earl Grey . What is to be the final outcome of the Western farmers' revolt and its spread to rural communities in Eastern provinces? Is there to be greater harmony among opposing interests or is Canada on the threshold of internal strife which will plow deep furro

14 minute read

Read Chapter

THE END.

[1] Abnormal conditions in the grain trade at present, due to the war, have led to government control of the crop by means of a Board of Grain Supervisors, aside altogether from the permanent Board of Grain Commissioners. This government commission has very wide powers, superseding the Grain Act for the time being, and can fix the price at which grain stored in any elevator may be purchased, ascertain available supplies, fix conditions of removal from storage and determine the destination of gra

1 minute read

Read Chapter

APPENDIX

1. Territorial (Saskatchewan) Grain Growers' Association—1902 . President, W. R. Motherwell (Abernethy); Secretary, John Millar (Indian Head). Among those who acted on the first Board of Directors were: Messrs. Walter Govan and M. M. Warden (Indian Head); John Gillespie, Elmer Shaw and Peter Dayman (Abernethy); Matthew Snow (Wolseley). 2. Virden (Manitoba) Grain Growers' Association—1903 . President, J. W. Scallion; Vice-president, George Carefoot; Secretary-Treasurer, H. W. Dayton; Directors: J

6 minute read

Read Chapter