ially interested in the grain trade.

Meanwhile the railway companies had hastened to announce that they
would furnish cars to farmers who wished to ship direct and do their
own loading. This concession, made in 1898-9, resulted in somewhat
better prices and better treatment from the elevator operators. But
farmers who lived more than four or five miles from the shipping points
could not draw in their grain fast enough to load a car within the time
allowed by the railway; so that the situation, so far as these farmers
were concerned, remained practically unchanged.

In March, 1900, the Royal Commission made a complete report. They had
done their work thoroughly. They found that so long as any farmer was
hampered in shipping to terminal markets himself he would be more or
less at the mercy of elevator operators and that the only proper relief
from the possibility of undue dockage and price depression was to be
found in the utmost freedom of shipping and selling. To this end they
considered that the railroads should be compelled by law to furnish
farmers with cars for shipping their own grain and that flat warehouses
should be allowed so that the farmer could have a bin in which to
accumulate a carload of grain, if he so wished. This, the
commissioners thought, should be the farmer's legal right rather than
his privilege. Loading platforms for the free use of shippers were
also recommended.

It was the further opinion of the Commission that the law should compel
elevator and warehouse owners to guarantee the grades and weights of a
farmer's grain and to do this the adoption of a uniform grain ticket
system was suggested. At the same time, the commissioners pointed out,
these guarantees might lead to such careful grading and docking by the
elevator operator as might appear to the farmer to be undergrading or
overdocking; so that the farmer's right to load direct on cars was a
necessary supplementary protection.

The annual shortage of cars during the rush season following harvest
was found to be a direct cause of depression in prices. When cars were
not available for immediate shipments the grain soon piled up on the
elevator companies who were thereby forced to miss the cheaper
transportation by boat from the head of the lakes or assume the risk of
carrying over the grain until the following spring; in buying,
therefore, they naturally allowed a wide margin to cover all possible
contingencies. Increase of tr