"They're after us already!" he exploded.
It looked that way. The Company's seat on the Grain Exchange was held in the name of the President and the letter summoned him to appear before the Council of the Exchange to answer to a charge of having sinned against the honor and "diginity" of that institution and of violating its rules. A short time before the young company had issued a circular setting forth their intention of dividing co-operatively whatever profits were earned; in other words, the man sending the larger amount of grain would receive the larger profits. This, the Exchange claimed, was a violation of the strict rules of the Grain Exchange and would have to be abandoned.
"You are virtually splitting the commission with the shipper," claimed the Exchange, "and we can't allow that for a minute."
"It's up to you to prove I'm guilty, not up to me to come here and commit myself," argued Partridge. "If you can find any profits that have been distributed co-operatively by the Grain Growers' Grain Company, go ahead. Nor have I sinned against your 'diginity'!" he added, sarcastically taking advantage of the stenographer's error in spelling. "For that matter, you've been digging into me ever since I came on here!"
"You can't do any more business with our members till you change your ways," declared the Exchange and forthwith, on October 25th, notice was posted to all Exchange members that any of them found dealing with the farmers' company would be penalized themselves.
Expelled from trading privileges! Practically boycotted! It was a straight punch on the nose that threatened to put the young organization out of business for the final count. Membership in the Exchange was absolutely imperative if the farmers were to be in a position to sell grain to exporters; they were not strong enough yet to export direct to Old Country markets and all the exporters through whom they were compelled to deal were members of the Exchange.
"The whole thing's just a pretext!" cried Partridge vehemently. "We haven't got any by-law regarding distribution of profits co-operatively; the only thing they've got to go on is that circular. They're beginning to get scared of us and they see a chance to put us out of business."
If this were the object, it looked as if it might be achieved in short order. The grain was pouring in steadily by the carload and with no buyer daring to deal with them in face of the mandate from the Exchange, of which they were all members, the new company was in a quandary to dispose of the incoming grain on a falling market. The only thing they could do was to wait until they had sufficient of any grade to make a shipment of from 8,000 to 10,000 bushels of that grade and try to place it somewhere in the East. The Manager was sent east hurriedly to see what connections he could establish while his office assistant mailed letter after letter to eastern points in an endeavor to work several contracts.
The farmers who shipped their grain to the new company were expecting to receive seventy-five per cent. of an advance from the bank on their bills of lading and a prompt remittance of the balance when the Inspection Certificate and Outturn were in the hands of the Company. With the grain piling up on their company day by day, it was not long before the overdraft at the bank began to assume alarming proportions.
Luckily the Assistant Manager succeeded in making several sales in the East, which eased away from the crisis which was shaping. It was quite patent that it would have been suicide for the young trading organization to notify the farmers to stop sending in business. They dare not do that.