For three months the overdraft at the bank had averaged $275,000, due almost entirely to the conditions resulting from the action of the Exchange. It was useless to worry over the amount of interest which this accommodation was costing and the profits which might have been rolled up had things been different; the real worry was to keep going at any cost. For, as the bank manager had intimated, the whole thing was just hard luck rather than any unsoundness in the business. It was a fine paradox that the more pronounced the success of the idea itself became, the greater grew the danger of complete failure because of the predicament! Death by wheat! An ironical fate indeed for a grain company!
Upon investigation, the farmers' company discovered that their original idea of distributing their profits co-operatively—as embodied in the circular to which the Exchange had objected—was contrary to the provisions of the Manitoba Joint Stock Companies' Act under which they held their charter. Therefore the co-operative idea in connection with profits was formally dropped by the Grain Growers' Grain Company. This had been done at a directors' meeting on December 22nd (1906), when a resolution had been passed, cancelling the proposal contained in the objectionable circular.[3] But although the Exchange had been notified immediately and repeated applications for reinstatement had been made, the farmers' company was still struggling along in the throes of their dilemma—proof positive, concluded the farmers, that the Grain Exchange had used the co-operative suggestion as a mere pretext to oust the Company from the field altogether.
In piled the wheat, car after car of it! A considerable portion of it had been bought on track and farmers who had consigned their grain were anxious, naturally, to have it disposed of without delay. With prices going down and navigation on the point of closing, the best hopes of the management became centred in getting a big shipment away to Buffalo by boat. That would enable them to escape a big item in storage charges and to place the grain in line for export at rates considerably below the all-rail figures.
"With those bills of lading in the bank, we've no control of them and the bank can do just about as it likes," reviewed the President one night. "If they should come down on us to sell our wheat inside of forty-eight hours—we're goners, boys! All that those fellows over at the Exchange have got to do is to shove down the market thirty points and our name is mud! The loss to the farmers who've shipped us their grain will kill this movement and every one like it in the West for all time to come. This company will be as dead as a doornail and so will we financially as its bonded backers."
Kennedy was running a finger tentatively down the window-pane. It left a streak in the forming frost.
"What I want to know is, how long ought it to take to load up this whole boatload we're trying to move?"
"Oh, about seventeen hours or so."
"And how long have they been at it already? Five days, ain't it? And she's not away yet! What d'you suppose that means?" he snapped. He began to throw things into a grip. He made for the door.
"Where'n the mischief are you going, John?"
"Fort William—can just make the train if I hustle. The J. P. Walsh gets out of that harbor with that wheat of ours, by Hickory!—if she has to be chopped out with an axe!"