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.

Now, this progress had been achieved in the face of continuous
difficulties of one kind and another. Chief of these was the attempt
to finance such a large amount of grain upon a small paid-up capital.
The Company found that after finishing constr