"Sell May oats! Sell May oats!"
On every side of the Pit they were being offered by thousands of bushels—five—twenty-five—fifty thousand! The idea was to load up the Grain Growers' Grain Company to the point where their line of credit with the Clearing House would become exhausted, after which every bushel would require a marginal deposit. Then when the Company could carry no further burden the Clearing House would be forced to dump back the oats onto the market, breaking it several cents per bushel. At this lower price the traders who had obligated themselves to make these big deliveries would buy back the necessary supply of oats at a profit and everything would resume the even tenor of its way—except the Grain Growers, of course. Their serviette would be folded. Their chair would be pushed back from the table! They would be through!
Up until now all the troubles of the farmers in marketing their own grain may be said to have come from sources outside themselves; but in the present instance they had nobody to blame but themselves for the predicament. It arose at a time, too, when the other grain dealers were beginning to recognize the farmers as a force in the grain market—a force which had come to stay. It was unfortunate, therefore, that just as they were beginning to acquire a standing as a solid and sensible business concern, the Grain Growers' Grain Company should find themselves driven into a corner, their backs to the wall, the focus of pointing fingers and gleeful grins.
The fact that a salaried employee, not an officer of the Company, had acted on his own initiative without the consent of the directors was no excuse for a reliable business concern to tender as such. The first question flung back at them naturally would be: "Then your 'Board of Control' doesn't control, eh?" For although the Board of Control did not know what their Manager was doing until it was too late to prevent it, they should have known. That is what they were there for—to protect the shareholders from managerial mistakes.
However, there they were. The only thing they could do was to fight it out to a finish in the Pit and, if they survived, to see that no similar mistakes occurred in the future.
All sorts of rumors were flying about the corridors of the Exchange, gathering momentum as they passed from lip to lip, swelling with the heat of the excitement until it was a general guess that the Grain Growers must be loaded with anywhere between five and eight million bushels of oats more than they had been able to sell.
It was only a guess, though, and a wild one. Many traders would have given a good round sum to know exactly how the farmers' company stood on the books of the Clearing House. Only the Clearing House and the Company itself knew the true figures and the Clearing House officials were men of the highest integrity who dare not be approached for secret tips.
Thanks to the splendid export connection which had been built up in the Old Country and to the equally solid financial relations with the Home Bank, the farmers' agency was selling oats for export very rapidly. It began to look as if they would get out from under the threatening avalanche without much loss, if any.
The Company's old-time enemies apparently saw an opportunity to undermine its credit at this crisis; for attacks began to appear in print—accusations of speculation, of official negligence and so forth. If the Grain Growers could be prevented from paying for the large quantity of oats, delivery of which they would have to take on May 1st to complete the export sales made during the winter—if they could be made to fail in filling these export orders when navigation opened, they would be smashed.
But in attacking the credit of the Grain Growers, these opponents overlooked the rapid increase in paid-up capital and the ability of the farmers to secure money outside of Winnipeg. It was not being forgotten by the Grain Growers that upon the first day of May there would be delivered to them over 2,200,000 bushels of oats.