l stability to provide for all responsibilities should
occasion arise through failure of any firm. All futures which have not
been cancelled before delivery date are negotiated through the Clearing
House and with its assistance the grain can be placed just where it
should go and tremendous quantities of it are handled without a hitch
and with the utmost despatch.

Excitement in the Pit is not always over wheat. It may be oats. It
was Canadian Western Oats which became the storm centre in 1911 when
the Grain Growers got into difficulty with the "bears." Traders who
attempt to boost prices are known as "bulls"; those who are interested
in depressing the market are "bears." A trader may be a bear to-day
and a bull to-morrow; thus the opposing groups are constantly changing
in make-up and the firm which was a chief opponent in yesterday's
trading may be lined up alongside the day following, fighting with
instead of against. It is all in the day's business and the strenuous
competition on the floor, into which the uninitiated visitor reads all
manner of animosity and open anger, is a very misleading barometer to
the actual good feeling which prevails.

In recording what now took place in the Pit in connection with the
farmers' commission agency it will be well to remember that the rest of
the traders would have acted in the same way toward any firm which was
fool enough to leave the opening for attack. It may be that as the
thing developed some of those who were specially interested in the
downfall of the farmers' organization seized the opportunity to ride
the situation beyond the pale of business ethics and in their eagerness
to be "in at the death" revealed special vindictiveness. But in view
of the long struggle with this element it was only what the Grain
Growers should have expected when they ran their heads deliberately
into the noose.

The situation was this: Shortly after New Year's the export demand for
Canadian Western Oats became heavy and it looked as if in Great Britain
and all over Europe, where the oat crop had been small, there would
continue to be a shortage of oats. In spite of this situation,
however, no sooner was the proposed reciprocity agreement reached
between the Canadian and United States governments of the day, on
January 26th, than market prices began to go down.

The then Manager of the Grain Growers' Grain Company came to the
conclusion that this price lowering was a local conditio