"THE HOUSE WITH THE CLOSED SHUTTERS"

Knock, knock, knock! Whos there, i the name of Beelzebub? Heres a farmer . . . Macbeth.

When wheat ceased to be grown for local needs and overflowed upon the markets of the world, becoming a factor in finance, arenas where its destiny was decided were established in the large centres of trade. In these basins of commerce the never-ending flow concentrated and wheeled for a short space before in re-directed currents it rolled on its way to ocean ports. Here, according to the novelists, frantic men were sucked into the golden eddies, their cries strangled and their fate forgotten even as they were engulfed by the Leviathan with which they adventured; or they emerged with eyes bloodshot, voices gone and clothes torn, successful speculators of a day. Perhaps the general reader is more familiar with these mad scenes of “The Pit,” as the trading floor is called, than with the steadily turning marketing machinery of which they are but a penumbra.

The modern grain exchange is much more than a mere roulette wheel for the speculator. Its real purpose is to provide a centre for the legitimate trader. It is a great information bureau of world happenings where every item of news concerning the wheat in any way is gathered and classified drouth, rain, frost, rust, locusts, hail, Hessian fly, monsoon or chinch bug. In every corner of the earth where the wheat streams take their rise, from green blade to brown head the progress of the crop is recorded and the prospects forecasted on the steppes of Russia, the pampas of the Argentine, the valley of the San Joaquin, the prairies of Western Canada and the Dakotas, the fields of India, Iowa, Illinois and Kansas. Good news, bad news, the movements of ships, the prices on the corn exchanges of London and Liverpool, at Chicago, on the bourses of Paris, Antwerp and Amsterdam all are listed. With such a Timepiece of International Exchange ticking out the doings of nations, both buyer and seller can know what prices will govern their dealings. In office or farmhouse an ear to a telephone is all that is necessary.

A grain exchange, then, is the market-place where grain dealers meet to secure information and maintain regulations for the prompt performance of contracts. The exchange organization does not deal in grain, but has for its sole purpose the protection of those who do and the facilitating of transactions; in other words, it is on the ground to see that the grain trade is carried on in an honest and capable manner and to punish offenders against proper business ethics and established rules.

Its membership is composed of grain dealers doing business in the exchange’s territory milling companies, exporting companies, line elevator companies as well as independent dealers and “commission men.” Besides seeking a supply of wheat to keep their mills busy for the season, the milling companies sell wheat. It is the business of the exporters to make shipment to other countries. Wheat is sold to exporters and millers by the elevator companies, who are interested in running as much grain as possible through their elevators at country points. The chief business of independent dealers is to handle wheat that stands “on track,” ready for shipment, either buying outright from the farmer or handling it for him on a commission basis.

The “commission man” is in an especially good position to do a clean-cut business. He assumes no burden of large capital investment and operating expense, as do the elevator companies. His chief need is a line of credit at a bank and from this he pays advances to his clients, his security being the bills of lading of wheat consigned to him. He does not need to buy or sell on his own account and, unlike the exporter, he does not have to risk changes in freight rates or in prices or make deliveries by given dates. As for the satisfactory milling quality of the crop that is something for the miller to worry over. In order to do business it is necessary only for the commission man to be a member of the exchange and to obey its rules.

For a long time Winnipeg has been known as the greatest primary wheat market in the world. That means that a greater volume of new wheat, direct from the producer, passes through the Winnipeg market than anywhere else, not even excepting Chicago where the first grain exchange to reach international development was established in 1848. The Winnipeg market is fed by the vast wheat area of Western Canada and frequently between two and three million bushels of wheat go through Winnipeg in a single day. During the rush season sixty or seventy cars of wheat leave Winnipeg for the East every twenty minutes of every twenty-four hours. The freight boats on the lakes load 460,000 bushels in three-and-a-half hours.

It is interesting to note that nowhere else in the world is a great public grain market like the Winnipeg market found located four hundred miles away from the storage point where grain dealt in is kept for sale delivery. Geographically Fort William and Port Arthur at the head of the great lakes water route would provide the natural delivery point for Western grain which has been routed eastward and there the location of the exchange might be looked for logically. It so happens, however, that the eastern edge of the vast grain fields lies four hundred miles west of the twin harbors, the country between not being adapted for farming, and to avoid the delay of mail transit and to operate the trading effectively it was necessary to locate the exchange at Winnipeg, the great metropolitan railway centre where the incoming grain concentrated.

In Western Canada the grain is stored in bulk by grades, thereby cheapening handling cost. Unlike most countries which sell grain on sample Western Canadian grain has been sold by grade. The inspection and grading of wheat, therefore, is a very important factor in the grain trade of Canada and is in full charge of Dominion Government officials. Upon their verdict depends the price per bushel which will be paid for any shipment of grain, market quotations varying for different grades; whether stored, sold at home or sold abroad their certificate of grade brands that particular wheat throughout. The huge river of grain flows in upon them unceasingly; at times the inspectors have to work at top speed to avoid being engulfed. The variety of Nature’s response to the growing conditions in changing seasons must not confuse them from year to year; but with sharpened senses and sound judgment they must steer a sure course through the multiplicity of grades and grade subdivisions.

The thoroughness of the system adopted by the Grain Inspection Department is shown by description of the work done at Winnipeg. Offices and staffs in charge of deputy inspectors are maintained in the different railway yards. They work in shifts night and day; for during the mad seventy-or-so days in which the Western crop stampedes for the lakefront there is no let-up to the in-rolling wheat-bins which come swaying and grinding in over the rails like beads on a string the endless rosary of harvest thanksgiving. Wheat samples must be obtained from each car and no train can be moved until a placard has been placed at the end of it, reading: “Grain Inspectors have finished this train.” A fifty-car train can be sampled in about an hour and a half, which is comfortable time for a change of engines and crews.

The sampling gangs work with all the precision of gun crews each man with a particular thing to do. One goes down the train, opening car doors and leaving an empty sample bag in each car. Running up a short ladder, the sampler climbs over the top of the inner door, which extends above the “load line”; the standard sampler which he uses is a cylindrical brass rod, so constructed that when it is “stabbed” to the bottom of the car the grain which fills it is a correct sample of wheat at every depth. Seven such samples are procured from different sections of the car, and the track foreman, standing on a ladder, watches these poured onto a cloth with an eye to detecting evidence of “plugging” with an inferior quality of grain; these seven samples having been mixed thoroughly, a canvas bag is filled from the result and the two-and-one-half pounds which it will hold become the official sample. The rest of the mixture is dumped back and the car resealed.

The foreman has filled out a sample ticket with car number, date, load line, initials of sampler and any other notations necessary such as leakages, etc. His own name is stamped on the back of the ticket, which goes into the sample sack. Copies of the way bills with full information as to all cars, shipping points, consignees or advisees and destinations are obtained from the railway yard office and these, together with the samples, are sent twice a day to the Chief Grain Inspector’s office at the Grain Exchange.

Here the samples are inspected and graded in a room with special lighting facilities. The grading is done only in broad daylight. The quality of the grain, its condition and the admixtures are determined respectively by judgment of hand and eye, by elaborate mechanical moisture tests and by a sieving and weighing process. The whole sample is examined closely for color, plumpness, weight, etc., in order to fix its grade as N Hard, N Northern, 2 Northern, 3 Northern; 1 Hard and 1 Northern must weigh at least sixty pounds, 2 Northern fifty-eight pounds, and so on. Grades below these are set by the Grain Standards Board. Damp or wet grain is marked “No Grade,” which means that it is considered unfit for storing and therefore has a lower market value. Grain which is heated or bin-burnt is “condemned.” If it is unsound, musty, dirty, smutty, sprouted or badly mixed with other grain, etc., it is “rejected.” Grain which, because of weather or other conditions, cannot be included in the grades provided by statute is given a “commercial grade.”

It will be seen at once that here is work requiring great nicety of judgment and that long experience is necessary to enable the grader to reach his decisions quickly and accurately. When the grading is completed the sample is placed in a small tin box and filed systematically; it is supposed to remain thus stored until there is no longer the possibility of a demand for re-inspection and finally the samples are sacked and sold to the miller with the highest bid, the money being paid to the Dominion Government.

Grade certificates, bearing the Chief Grain Inspector’s signature, are issued for each shipment and sent at once to the elevator company, miller or commission agent to whom the car is consigned. These grade certificates, together with the weight certificate and the bill of lading, make the grain negotiable on the market; the dealer does not see the actual grain, merely handling these papers.

If dissatisfaction with grade or dockage arises, the owner of the grain or his agent can obtain re-inspection at the office of the Chief Grain Inspector free of charge, and, if still dissatisfied, appeal can be made to the Survey Board. This is a board of twelve men; the governing rules and regulations are established by the Grain Commission. Six members are recommended by the Winnipeg Board of Trade and two each by the Minister of Agriculture in each of the three prairie provinces. The verdict of the Survey Board is final.

Now, back in 1905 the machinery for moving the crop upon its way was little understood by the average Western Canadian farmer. The wheels went around, gave a click and away went his wheat; but in approaching it all with the idea of understanding everything he was in the position of the small boy examining the works of a watch to see how it told the time. He felt that he ought to understand what went on down at Winnipeg; for of course where there were so many rules and regulations to be broken there must be “funny work.” It was the natural suspicion of the man who lived much to himself in the quiet spaces, who could not believe that grain dealers could be honest and build palatial residences in Winnipeg while his own toil in producing the grain was rewarded with a living only. It looked as if the roost was being robbed and with his newborn initiative he wanted to find out how it was done and who was doing it.

The satisfactory manner in which things are conducted in the grain trade to-day is the result of long experience and gradual improvement of conditions. It must be remembered that in the earlier days the trade was not so well organized for efficiency and in 1905 when E. A. Partridge began to probe for “plugging” he had a big job on his hands, especially in view of the fact that he was treated for the most part as a meddler who was not entitled to reliable information.

There are two ways of reaching a conclusion one by approaching it logically on facts laid down; the other by jumping to it across a yawning lack of detail. At the end of his month of investigation the farmer’s scout had a regular rag-bag of material out of which to fashion a patchwork report. A grain man might have condemned it as a “crazy quilt” because bits of high color obtruded inharmoniously. But if here and there an end was short or a bit of information on the bias, it was because the “Farmers’ Representative” had not been treated with sufficient frankness. He had to make the best of the materials allowed him and his natural tendency to bright-colored metaphor may have been quickened. He hit out straight from the shoulder in all sincerity at conditions as they appeared to him.

He thought he saw five companies controlling the exporting business, and also their margin of profit, so that they were able to keep out smaller dealers who might have the temerity and the necessary capital to try exporting on their own account. He saw the smaller dealers in turn stem-winding their prices by those of the exporters, controlling the prices paid for street and track wheat throughout the country; thereby, he reasoned, it became possible to set special prices at any given point by the simple expedient of wiring the necessary instructions to the operator at that point to pinch independent competition. He saw elevator companies cutting their charges at certain points to kill off competition from “farmers’ elevators” which sold to independent dealers. All this he was sure he saw.

The sampling appeared to be carried on in a systematic and satisfactory manner. The grading, too, appeared to be uniform enough as regarded the standard grades; but in the item of color there seemed just cause for complaint. Lack of color, a trifling number of imperfectly formed kernels or the suspicion of a wrinkle on the bran apparently doomed a sample to low grade no matter how heavy and flinty the wheat might be.

This seemed scarcely fair to Partridge, who bore in mind that the sunny seasons of past years had been succeeded by cloudier ones, the dry autumns by wet ones and that with stacking discontinued and much of the farmers’ wheat left long in stock, bleaching was bound to follow. So that if the Chief Grain Inspector were a “crank on color,” he should remember that beauty was only skin deep.

The fracture and microscopic and weighing tests seemed to be the only reasonable tests which could be applied quickly; the milling test was the only one which was absolutely correct. Any rapid eye test which pretended to determine whether there was sixty-one per cent. or fifty-nine per cent. of Red Fife wheat in a given sample struck the Farmers’ Representative as farcical; yet this was sufficient to make the difference of a grade and sometimes a difference of seven cents per bushel in the price obtained.

The whim of the Inspector likewise decided how many lean berries in a plump sample would disqualify it for “plump” classification and how many mature or defective berries among sound wheat, would disqualify it from being classed as “sound.” With a single concocted sample as a basis of judgment Partridge considered that the grading of the lower grades often was very unjust to the producer, especially to the owners of plump frosted wheat; the process of concocting the basic sample was very interesting; but the result was “a nightmare.”

W. H. Gaddes, who had preceded him to Winnipeg, agreed with him in this. Also, Mr. Gaddes denounced the Survey Board at that time as unsatisfactory in its composition, open to suspicion in its findings and in practice so far as outsiders’ wheat was concerned simply a machine to register confirmation of the Inspector’s previous grading.

It was Partridge’s belief that “many a fraud perpetrated in a line elevator” was added to the “iniquities” of the Inspector, in whose personal integrity he had every confidence. For this reason he was inclined to be lenient with the hard-working and conscientious officials of the Government. Nevertheless, it appeared wise that a farmers’ special agent be maintained permanently at Winnipeg to safeguard the interests of the farmers, especially if certain powers were allotted to him under the Inspection Act.

In making his report to the Territorial Grain Growers’ Association Partridge went into the whole situation as he saw it and particularly was he outspoken in regard to “that House with the Closed Shutters,” as he called the Winnipeg Grain and Produce Exchange. In fact, his gas attack upon the Exchange was ablaze with the fires of hostility.

And for the use of his reckless language Partridge was to be called to account in due course.