as our boost for $400 farm land was concerned. But before long we had the farmers coming to the bank to consult with us, and the outcome of it all was that we profited handsomely on both sides.

Convinced that what could be done in one community could be done in every community in the state, if the proper machinery could be set at work, we carried our idea to the Illinois Bankers' Association. No argument was needed, of course, to convince that organization of the pressing importance of the problems we had attacked, but there was much debate, ethically and otherwise, about whether a bankers' association — or even an individual banker should actively take an interest in such matters of public welfare, an example of that ancient practice of refusing to act through fear of being misunderstood. However, the Association's standpat policies were eventually abandoned, with the result that it became probably the first great organization of its kind to proclaim its ambition to justify its existence by making use of its “talents' in matters of human interest, as well as of good citizenship.

It began its work by naming a committee on agriculture - later enlarged to include vocational education. One of the first tasks undertaken by that committee was an investigation to find out just how many points of contact there really were between the Association and the farmer. When it found that 60 per cent. of the bankers of the state owned altogether two and a half million acres of farm land, and were directly or indirectly interested in farming it, there was no longer any doubt that the proper agency had been put to work for the mighty cause of agriculture in Illinois.

I do not know of any better way to summarize what the Illinois Association set its hand to do from that time on than by quoting from the committee's first report, which it was my privilege to write:

In all the discussion and literature of the great Conservation Congress and the conservation movement, popularly understood as covering forests, water powers, mineral rights, etc., we have lost sight of the greatest of all assets, the preservation and conservation of

the soil itself, and the millions of boys and girls who are now on or are all too rapidly drifting away from the farm, because so little intelligent effort has been made to bring it and them into their rightful heritage. .

We believe in a campaign of education and propaganda along these lines; we believe in coöperation by this committee and this Association with every other organization that has for its honest purpose the improvement of agricultural methods, agricultural education, good roads, and the general betterment of social and physical conditions of all farm life and work.

We feel that a system of schools, supported at public expense, can better justify itself by the further incorporation of agricultural and vocational education in its curriculum, and that the country schools in particular can be made more helpful in agricultural education and in increasing the interest of our children in the greatest and most necessary of all professions -the profession of agriculture. If this committee, or this great Association of Illinois bankers, can lend its help to the effort now appearing from all sides and sources toward bringing agriculture, our farmers, and their sons to the real position that is theirs, we shall have rendered one of the greatest services that one body of men can render to another or to civilization.

First of all, we realized that, if we were to make prompt headway in bettering agricultural methods, in restoring and maintaining soil fertility, and in increasing crop yields in this generation, we should have to do it largely with our present farmers. And we knew that the best — the only really practical way to reach the great mass of farmers and to arouse their ambitions was by the field demonstration plan, the sending of qualified demonstrators right to the farmers on their farms, to work with them and to show them on the spot how to get better results. We had before us the marvelous results that had been produced by seven years of such work in the South, and we took the initiative in drawing and preSenting to Congress the first bill providing

for such work in the North and West. In February, 1912, our representatives appeared before the Committee on Agriculture of the Senate and the House in support of the bill, thus presenting the unusual spectacle of a committee of bankers lobbying for the farmers.

OUR HANDICAP IN COMPETITION

THE EXTRAORDINARY DECLINE IN THE VALUE OF THE AMERICAN DOLLAR, AS COMPARED WITH THE EUROPEAN DOLLAR, PUTS BEFORE OUR FARMERS A POWERFUL INCENTIVE ΤΟ INCREASE THEIR EFFICIENCY

that "the schools are held to be largely responsible for ineffective farming, lack of ideals, and the drift to town." I am reminded of a story in this connection. The farmers of a certain district in the state got the notion that they wanted to improve the breed of their horses. They clubbed together and bought a fine stallion for $3.500 or $4,000. Of course, they had to have a groom, so they hired one at a salary of $75 a month. A little.

What we are working for in Illinois is legislation to encourage, through state aid. the establishment and maintenance of vocational and prevocational courses of instruction and training in agriculture and commerce, and in the domestic and industrial arts. And again, in this connection, it was the bankers who appreciated and seized the opportunity to get all the important interests of the state together in one conference to secure the best and the most comprehensive educational bill that could be drawn.

Meanwhile, we have been zealously preaching the gospel of coöperative organzation among the farmers. Statistics gathered from all over the world show that, although in the last fifteen years the European dollar has shrunk to about eighty-three cents, our dollar, measured by its purchasing power of necessities, is down to about seventy-one cents. Thus we are handicapped by Europe twelve cents on the dollar. The only reasons we can see for this phenomenon are that European farmers not only get greater yields but that they are better organized to sell their products, as well as to purchase what they require. We believe that, though we cannot employ in this country all the European methods, we can profit by studying them, and that we shall be able to handle the problem in such a way that the farmer may make more profits on products that will cost the consumer less than they now cost.

Finally, an essential part of our creed is that good roads good in all seasons are second in importance only to railroads, and that they are even more necessary in the social life and in the inter-communication of rural communities. We are trying t make the farmer see that roads are ar index of the character of every community. determining its importance and limitir or aiding its advance; and that a countr

that isn't worth a good road isn't worth what it sells for, and soon won't be worth living in.

To sum up, we are working to solve four of our greatest state and national problems to check four of our greatest sources of waste: an impoverished soil, impractical educational methods, lack of farm organization, and poor roads. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment that has thus far been put to the credit of the Illinois Bankers' Association is that it has awakened other associations to their responsibilities and opportunities for usefulness in these directions. We have participated in conferences called by bankers in various sections of the country; and, at our call, banker-farmers from twentyfour states met at New Orleans, where we were largely instrumental in getting the great American Bankers' Association to appoint a permanent Committee on Agriculture and Financial Development and Education. The movement is already nation-wide.

"But," someone will ask, "have you not overlooked the most important of all the farmer's problems his lack of adequate credit facilities?" Not at all. Indeed, the various aims of the bankerfarmer movement, which I have undertaken to describe particularly the aim that contemplates the building up of a soil reserve and the adoption of businesslike methods of agriculture—are in the final analysis the conditions precedent to any change in our system of farm finance. This problem of farm credit is precisely the same as the problem of credit in any other industry, except that the use of such farm credit as is already available is as little known and efficiently employed as is the soil. Honesty and good judgment, with an industrious application of both, are the basis of good credit. The good farmer, as the good business man, with these attributes of credit and with a good farm on which to display them, makes an ideal debtor. We believe the majority of country bankers appreciate this fact, though their appreciation of it does not produce so much business as the fact warrants. We want the country to know this and to know also the direct mutual

and public benefit that flows from an increase in business between the farmer and the banker. Official data shows that the farmer is getting as good treatment as his town neighbor, but we must do more than that if the farmer is to begin improved farming that shall be constructive alike for agriculture and the Nation.

We cannot afford to furnish money at any price for "soil robbers," "land skimmers," and farm exploiters. The farmers do not properly employ any large fraction of their present borrowings in constructive, permanent, investment farming. The reason they do not is usually given somewhat like this: "Because the loans that are available are for short periods, three to five years, and must be paid long before any material returns can be got from the investment." The facts, however, prove quite the contrary. Every agricultural college bulletin, every farm paper, and the practice of all progressive farmers are daily demonstrating that almost all the newer methods will pay themselves out at a profit in one, three, or five years at the most.

The American farmer has had great opportunities to invest his money more profitably outside than by putting it into the funds of the loan societies, and this has helped to keep interest rates higher. And the independent and individualistic tendencies of our people make doubtful the success of coöperative banking on any extended scale, though it would, of course, be interesting to see it tried out under proper safeguard. The result might be beneficial in developing business ability and vision among the farmers.

It is timely to point out that all farm financing is intimately associated, or should be, with the greater problem of a new currency system, the most pressing of all our needs. With a needs. With a modern banking and currency system, there would be no objection—indeed, there would be great advantage-in permitting national banks, especially rural national banks, to invest at least 80 per cent. of all their savings deposits, and the bulk of their surplus, in good mortgages. The same privilege might well be extended to the Government's system of postal savings banks. A sur

plus of 25 per cent. of its capital is all that is required of a national bank, whereas permission to invest its surplus, or excess surplus, in approved mortgages would be a certain incentive for it to build up a large reserve. Such permission Such permission would enable it properly to accommodate nearly all desirable borrowers, and the increased surplus would give added strength to the bank and added security to its depositors, and in turn would increase the limit of its lending power. National National savings bank deposits total $750,000,000, and surplus and undivided profits amount

to $950,000,000. Our suggestion would, therefore, enable the national banks to take on a billion or more dollars in real estate security, and still not carry so large a proportion as that which the state banks now carry.

The farmer's need of improved farm financing is not so great as the whole country's need of a new currency and credit system; and as the farmer's individual requirements are comprehended in the larger plan for the whole people, he ought to lend his influence to secure the legislation needed for this purpose.

BY

T

HERE is nothing revolutionary about the so-called Canadian Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, which provides the machinery that is used in Canada to prevent strikes and lockouts and to bring about the settlement of disputes between the labor and capital of transportation agencies and of mines and of other industries of public service, as, for example, gas, electric light and power companies, and all other forms of public utility industries. Not only was this Act of March, 1907, a direct and logical result of conditions in Canada at that time, and of experience previously gained in meeting similar conditions, but it was also a direct and logical evolution from statutes already on the Canadian books and similar enactments which had been thoroughly tested and tried out in Great Britain. We were forced to look conditions in the face. We did it and evolved an Act to meet those conditions and similar ones which we felt might arise in the future.

It might assist in an intelligent appreciation of the main provisions of the Act and

the ends it seeks to serve, were I to tell something of the conditions that brought | it into being, so that an American reader may understand those conditions and decide for himself whether or not they have been paralleled in the past or are likely to be duplicated in the future on the American side of the international frontier. I do not say that the Canadian Act will solve even this one aspect of the labor problem. I do not presume to suggest that it would be a good Act to adopt in the United States. I shall endeavor simply to give a correct idea of its principles and of its operation in my own country.

In the spring of 1906 the coal mines of the province of Alberta ceased operations in consequence of a strike. The strike ran on all through the summer and late into the fall. But few of the people in the vast territory lying between the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains realized what became so painfully obvious later. that the effect of the strike was not a local matter at all, but that it cut off the supp'v of one of the most vital necessities of life throughout a large part of the whole ot

that great region. It was not until the cold of autumn foretold the approach of winter that the people of that country came suddenly to realize that they were soon to be face to face with a Canadian winter with practically no supply of fuel on hand or obtainable. To show the condition as it developed, I quote herewith a letter addressed to the Right Honorable Sir Wilfrid Laurier, then Prime Minister of Canada, by one of the settlers in Saskatchewan. In graphic relief, the situation as it existed over miles and miles of sparsely settled prairie is depicted in this letter, and it is deserving of record for this, if for no other reason. But more than that, as the assertion by a free man of his rights and of the obligations which as a freeman he has the right to expect from the State it is, I think, an historic document.

Dear Sir Wilfrid:

The hamlet of Bladworth is the supplying point for settlers in approximately 12 townships surrounding.

These townships have approximately 50 settlers, each settled therein. The country is open rolling prairie, devoid of trees. The settlers depend for fuel on wood or coal obtained at the nearest railway station-Bladworth.

The local dealers secure their wood from the Prince Albert country, and their coal from the Galt mines, Lethbridge. No coal has been obtained from this latter source since April 1st. One car was obtained from Banff in September last, since which no coal has been received here. Ten cars are under orders from Lethbridge and none delivered. One car is ordered from Estevan and promised by the mine operator for December 17th next.

Wood has been ordered from the Cowan Company, Prince Albert, and their answer is: "We have neither slabs, edgings, nor cuttings, and though we have inquired we are unable to buy any cord wood as there is none in the city." Settlers have been burning lumber at $30 a thousand, willow bramble, twisted hay, and grain. These sources are well nigh exhausted.

All

Dr. J. Fyfe reports from observation that no fuel is in the settlers' hands, and that suffering and perhaps death will ensue therefrom. public schools are closed for want of fuel. The Saskatchewan Hotel, a 30-roomed house, has but one fire.

A blizzard has been blowing on November 15th, 16th, and 17th, with zero weather. I leave you, sir, to imagine what the condition of

your fellow subjects is in the electoral division of Batoche a name not unknown in history. This condition is not local but general.

We are informed that those persons operating the mines of the people are disputing over their rights, regardless of the right of the people to live. I would respectfully ask that you, sir, put an end to a dispute that is intolerable and the maintenance of which endangers the life and happiness (inalienable rights of all free people) of all settlers.

I ask you, sir, on behalf of a suffering people that by the powers vested in you the right of eminent domain be exercised.

I can assure you, sir, without exaggeration that this matter is one of life and death to the settlers here, one requiring immediate action. Your obedient humble servant,

WILLIAM L. RAMSAY.

Chairman of Committee Local Improvement District of Ramsay, Saskatchewan, Nov. 19th, 1906.

This letter was but one of many similar communications received.

I was, at the time, the Deputy Minister of the Department of Labor of Canada, and while in this office had frequently been called upon to intervene in industrial disputes that directly affected the public welfare. Following precedent, I went to Lethbridge on this occasion and there encountered two difficulties which are almost always chiefly responsible for the prolongation prolongation of industrial disputes. It was, in the first place, all but impossible to get the parties to the dispute to meet together, and in the second place, when at last they were brought together, it was difficult to obtain accurate information in regard to the points in dispute.

The question at issue at the beginning of this srike had almost ceased to be the real issue at the time I reached Lethbridge. Instead, there had grown up innumerable petty disputes, many of them wholly personal, and the constant bickerings over these matters had created so much bitterness, prejudice, and hatred, that the parties to the conflict seemed hopelessly antagonistic. Studied at closer range, it seemed a wholly unnecessary waste of capital, labor, and resources, and at the same time a criminal injustice to the public dependent upon the mines for their sources of heat and power.