be a source of great
satisfaction that upon all important matters the policies adopted and
supported by the organized farmers in the past have been formed upon
what in their judgment would benefit the country as a whole and not
from the narrow view of selfish interest.

"During the past ten years the people of Canada have mortgaged the
prosperity of the future to far too great an extent. Our total
borrowings as a nation, for public and private purposes, have run into
such a colossal sum that it requires about $160,000,000 annually to pay
interest on the amounts borrowed. This constitutes a very heavy task
on a country with about eight millions of a population. Manufacturing
industries have been built up with a view of developing home industry
and furnishing home markets, but often at a very heavy cost to our
agricultural development, with the result that we have been travelling
in a circle, reaching nowhere, rather than along the road that leads to
Progress.

"We hear considerable nowadays of the necessity of a 'Back to the Land'
movement. It is necessary, however, to do a little more than get
people located on the land with a view of increasing agricultural
production. It is necessary to free agriculture from the burdens now
resting upon it and make it the first business of the country.

"Much of our natural resources has been recklessly handled, and as a
people we are faced with the necessity of overcoming the evil effects
of our unbusinesslike methods as a nation in administering resources.
If we are to surmount our shortcomings in this respect and pay our
obligations as a nation to the outside world, we must place agriculture
throughout Canada upon a thoroughly sound and profitable basis. The
creation of wealth from our wonderfully rich natural resources, in
which agriculture stands in the forefront, is the essential thing and
should receive most consideration from our Governments--both Dominion
and Provincial.

"We must learn to respect each other's differences and, if we do, with
the development of that democratic spirit which is now day by day
becoming more manifest in Western Canada, we need have no fear of our
usefulness as an agency in bringing about the ultimate triumph of the
principles of justice between man and man."

Listen to President J. A. Maharg, addressing the Saskatchewan Grain
Growers' Association in 1914:

"What is wanted is the general recognition by all classes of the
importance o