ould be impossible for a hydroelectric
company ever to go in there and purchase each farm separately at a
price that would enable it to develop the power.

The contradictions in the above interviews are to be explained by the
settlers' misunderstanding of the company's general policy and methods.
In their eyes everything in the colony belongs to and is managed by the
company, which is quite true at the beginning of the colony, and which
cannot be otherwise at that time. The new settlers know little of one
another, and are ignorant of the local conditions. They lack both
business experience and capital. Therefore, as a rule they are not able
to conduct, either individually or on a co-operative basis, commercial
or industrial establishments at the start. It is therefore up to the
company to see that there is a town, a hotel, a grocery store, a bank, a
creamery, or cheese factory, a shipping office, etc., in the colony.

The fact that the company has interests in, and even controls, these
concerns at the beginning, and that all these business branches work
together, conducting their financial transactions through the same bank,
has led the settlers to believe that everything is permanently owned and
controlled by the company. The settlers in a new colony do not know that
as soon as the success of these business organizations is secure and the
settlers have been assisted to a firmer footing the company will turn
the organizations over to the settlers themselves on a co-operative
basis, as has already been done in the company's oldest colony. It is
the company's policy, as above stated by its head, to specialize in the
land colonization work only, leaving banking, commerce, and
manufactures to others.

COLONY SNAPSHOTS

The writer visited and investigated two colonies of new settlers founded
by the colonization company within a distance of about twenty to thirty
miles from one another. The following field notes taken during
interviews with the company's local officials and the settlers
themselves give a general picture of the conditions of the colonies.

In the first colony, the first families settled about twelve to fifteen
years ago. At that time a logging camp was operating and the country was
covered with standing timber. As fast as the loggers cleared the timber the
land was opened for settlement by the colonization company. Land buyers
were taken into the logging camp, were given meals and sleeping quar