or
education. The Farmer to-day is a different man to what he was ten years
ago--indeed, five years ago.

It has taken fifteen years of bitter struggle for the Western farmers to
win to their present position and now that they are far enough along
their Trail to Better Things to command respect they are going to say
what they think without fear or favor. They believe the principles for
which they stand to be fundamental to national progress.

If there is to be any attempt to cram the old order of things down the
people's throats; if, under cloak of all this present talk of winning the
war, of new eras and of patriotism, profiteers should scheme and plan
fresh campaigns--then will there be such a wrathful rising of the people
as will sweep everything before it. In the forefront of that battle will
stand the rugged legions of the organized farmers.

Make no miscalculation of their ability to fight. This year, 1918, will
see them sawing their own lumber in their own saw-mills in British
Columbia. If necessary, they can grind their own flour in their own
flour mills, dig their own coal from their own mines, run their own
packing-plants, provide their own fidelity and fire-insurance, finance
their own undertakings. They grow the grain. They produce the new
wealth from the soil. They are the men who create our greatest asset,
everything else revolving upon the axis of Agriculture in Canada.

If, then, the farming population has learned to co-operate and stand
solid; if in addition they have acquired the necessary capital to educate
the masses and are prepared to spend it in advancing their ideals; if the
working classes of the cities and the soldier citizens of Coming Days
join their ranks--what chance will Special Privilege have against the
public desire for Equal Rights?

Is it to be co-operation in all sincerity or class warfare? If the other
great interests in our national life will meet the Farmer in a fair
spirit, approaching our national problems in an honest attempt to
co-operate in their solution for the common good, they will find the
Farmer meeting them eagerly. They will find that these farmer leaders
are reasonable men, broad-minded, square-principled and just--no less so
because the class they represent is organized to stand up for its rights.

The situation is not hopeless. Most of these pages we have been turning
are Back Pages. Old conditions and much of the bitterness which they
generated h