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, tied and duly attended to for the improvement of conditions in Alberta. Here and there a difficulty persisted in breaking away and running about bawling; but even these finally were coralled.
Along with the Grain Growers of Manitoba and Saskatchewan the United Farmers of Alberta had campaigned consistently for government ownership of elevators, both provincial and terminal. They had received assurance from Premier Rutherford that if a satisfactory scheme could be evolved, the Provincial Government was prepared to carry out the establishment of a line of internal elevators in Alberta. It looked as if all that remained to be done was to follow the lead of Manitoba or Saskatchewan.
But on careful consideration neither of the plans followed in the other two provinces appeared to fit the special needs of the Alberta farmers. The province at the western end of the grain fields accordingly experienced quite a delay in obtaining elevator action.
In the meantime the discussion of terminal storage facilities was going on at Ottawa. The need for such facilities at Calgary and Vancouver was pressed by the Alberta representatives on various farmer delegations and finally the Dominion Government declared its intention of establishing internal elevators with full modern equipment at Moose Jaw and Saskatoon in Saskatchewan and at Calgary in Alberta; a Dominion Government terminal elevator at the Pacific Coast likewise was on the programme.
By this time the government operation of the Manitoba elevators had proved a complete failure and they had been leased by the Grain Growers' Grain Company. In Saskatchewan, however, the co-operative elevators were proving successful.
A close study of the co-operative scheme adopted in the province just east of them enabled the United Farmers of Alberta to work out a plan along similar lines. This was presented to the Premier, whose name meanwhile had changed from Rutherford to Sifton. The Act incorporating the Alberta Farmers' Co-Operative Elevator Company, Limited, was drafted in the spring of 1913 and passed unanimously by the Legislature. The new company held its first meeting in August, elected its officers[1] and went to work enthusiastically.
It had been decided by the United Farmers that full control and responsibility must rest in their own hands. They proposed to provide the means for raising at each point where an elevator was built sufficient funds to finance the purchase of grain at that point from their own resources, at the same time providing for the handling of other business than grain.
Under the Act the Provincial Government made cash advance of eighty-five per cent. of the cost of each elevator built or bought by the Company, but had no say whatever as to whether any particular elevator should be bought or built at any particular place, what it should cost or what its capacity or equipment should be. In security for the loan the Government took a first mortgage on the elevator and other property of the Company at the given point. The loans on elevators were repayable in twenty equal annual instalments.
The Company started off with the organization of forty-six Locals instead of the twenty which the Act called for and the construction of forty-two elevators was rushed. Ten additional elevators were bought. Although construction was not completed in time to catch the full season's business the number of bushels handled was 3,775,000, the Grain Growers' Grain Company acting as selling agent. By the end of the second year twenty-six more elevators had been built and the volume of grain handled had expanded to 5,040,000 bushels.