Not yet!
But while all this agitation of the Grain Growers one time and another seldom has resulted in assent to their full requests, certain compliances have been made on different occasions with beneficial results. For instance—to mention three—the Royal Grain Commission of 1906, the permanent Grain Commission, and the Government Terminal Elevators are an outcome of various requests and delegations of the Grain Growers.
Certainly the organized farmers of Western Canada have attained a measure of self-confidence which enables them to declare themselves in definite language. While seeking wider markets and the real value of their products, they have been opposed always to any scheme which accomplishes higher prices at the expense of the consumer or of the British workman. They do not believe in import duties on food stuffs, clothing, fuel or building material. Rather do they favor bringing closer together the producer and consumer to the advantage of both. They believe in cheaper money for the development of agriculture and other industries and in such utilization of natural resources that the homes of the people may be improved.
They have stood consistently behind woman suffrage and the abolition of the liquor traffic. They would adopt direct legislation through the Initiative and Referendum. They believe in the principles of Co-Operation in buying and selling. They have urged extension of the parcel post system, the reduction of traffic charges to a reasonable basis, Government control of waterways and all natural resources that they may be developed only in the public interest.
Does a creed like this spell class legislation? Does it indicate that in his eagerness to improve the conditions surrounding his own life the Grain Grower is forgetting the general welfare of the Dominion of Canada? Listen to the doctrine which the leaders have inculcated on every occasion—to President T. A. Crerar before the War:
"You have a very clear-cut and distinct responsibility in supporting the whole movement of the organized farmers in Western Canada; for this means that you are improving not alone your own environment and condition, but also creating the conditions and influences that will develop a higher and purer ideal of public service upon the part of our people than we have in Canada to-day. It should be a source of great satisfaction that upon all important matters the policies adopted and supported by the organized farmers in the past have been formed upon what in their judgment would benefit the country as a whole and not from the narrow view of selfish interest.
"During the past ten years the people of Canada have mortgaged the prosperity of the future to far too great an extent. Our total borrowings as a nation, for public and private purposes, have run into such a colossal sum that it requires about $160,000,000 annually to pay interest on the amounts borrowed. This constitutes a very heavy task on a country with about eight millions of a population. Manufacturing industries have been built up with a view of developing home industry and furnishing home markets, but often at a very heavy cost to our agricultural development, with the result that we have been travelling in a circle, reaching nowhere, rather than along the road that leads to Progress.
"We hear considerable nowadays of the necessity of a 'Back to the Land' movement. It is necessary, however, to do a little more than get people located on the land with a view of increasing agricultural production. It is necessary to free agriculture from the burdens now resting upon it and make it the first business of the country.
"Much of our natural resources has been recklessly handled, and as a people we are faced with the necessity of overcoming the evil effects of our unbusinesslike methods as a nation in administering resources. If we are to surmount our shortcomings in this respect and pay our obligations as a nation to the outside world, we must place agriculture throughout Canada upon a thoroughly sound and profitable basis. The creation of wealth from our wonderfully rich natural resources, in which agriculture stands in the forefront, is the essential thing and should receive most consideration from our Governments—both Dominion and Provincial.
"We must learn to respect each other's differences and, if we do, with the development of that democratic spirit which is now day by day becoming more manifest in Western Canada, we need have no fear of our usefulness as an agency in bringing about the ultimate triumph of the principles of justice between man and man."