wheat is
hauled to market, and it is November before it reaches seaboard. In
November navigation on the Bay closes, and one hundred, perhaps two
hundred million bushels of wheat must be held by the farmers, or the
elevators, till May. This means interest on money out of the farmer's
pocket for six months, or storage charges. On the other hand, there
will be no danger of stored wheat "heating" on the Bay. The cold there
is of too sharp a type, but this is a danger in many of the
all-the-year-round open harbors.

For twenty years the Hudson Bay railroad has been a project up in air.
It is now a project on graded roadbed. Before these words are in print
Hudson Bay Railroad will be on wheels and tracks. Then the real
difficulty of the Straits will be faced, and probably--as Russia has
overcome the difficulties of the Baltic--so will the Canadian Northwest
overcome the difficulties of this hyperborean sea.

CHAPTER XII

SOME INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS

I

The contest between capital and labor in Canada has never become that
armed camp divided by a chasm of hatred known in other lands. This for
two reasons: First, the labor of yesterday is the capital of to-day,
and the labor of to-day is the capital of to-morrow. Second, from the
very nature of Canada's greatest wealth--agricultural lands--the
substantial proportion of the population consists of land owners,
vested righters, respecters of property interests because they
themselves are property holders. The city dweller in Canada has been
from the very nature of things the anachronism, the anomaly, the
parasite, the extraneous outgrowth on the main body of production.

To take the first reason why capital and labor has not been divided in
hostile camps in Canada, because the labor of yesterday is the capital
of to-day--I am not dealing with speculative arguments and opinions. I
am trying to set down facts. The owner of the largest fortune west of
the Rocky Mountains in Canada began life with a pick and shovel. The
owner of the richest timber limits in British Columbia began at a
dollar and twenty-five cents a day piling slabs. The wealthiest meat
packer east of the Rocky Mountains was "bucking" and "breaking"
bronchoes thirty years ago at twenty-five dollars a month. The packer
who comes next to him in wealth began life in Pt. Douglas, Winnipeg,
loading frozen hogs. The richest newspaper man in Canada began life so
poor that he and his father hauled the