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Economic Effects of the War on the Prairie Economy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
Extract
The effects of the war on the prairie economy can best be considered against a background of three elements—one of them general and two more specific. The first, and most general, of these elements is the historical position of Canadian agricultural groups and agricultural communities in war-time situations. The second is the specific position of the prairie economy in relation to the First World War. The third is the familiar record of prairie agriculture throughout the depression of the nineteen-thirties. These background elements will be sketched in briefly.
Canadian agriculture conforms historically to the typical pattern of agriculture developed within a mercantilistic framework. Though traditionally solacing itself, and being solaced, with the belief that it is Canada's basic industry, Canadian agriculture has most readily attracted attention and secured encouragement and support in situations where mercantile or industrial groups have considered that agriculture should be encouraged and supported. The French fostered the original agricultural settlement on the St. Lawrence in order to secure their fur-trade route against the Iroquois. The English considered agricultural settlement to be an indispensable adjunct to their military strongpoint, Halifax. United Empire Loyalists were welcomed to the upper St. Lawrence after 1780 so that they might settle around the frontier posts at Cataraqui, Niagara, and Detroit and thus strengthen the respective garrisons. Plans for the settlement of the prairie regions, put forward before and after Confederation, envisaged the establishment of a strong and vigorous agricultural community north of the forty-ninth parallel of latitude, a community which would forestall the threat of economic and even military occupation of Rupert's Land by the Americans. These historical examples illustrate the extent to which Canadian agricultural communities have derived significance from situations involving war or the threat of war.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , August 1945 , pp. 373 - 387
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1945
References
1 See Burt, A. L., The Old Province of Quebec (Minneapolis, 1933), pp. 364–5Google Scholar; Innis, H. A. and Lower, A. R. M. (eds.), Select Documents in Canadian Economic History, 1783-1885, pp. 10–11, 18–20.Google Scholar
2 Sharp, M. W., “Allied Wheat Buying in Relationship to Canadian Marketing Policy, 1914-18” (Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, vol. VI, no. 3, 08, 1940 pp. 374–5).Google Scholar
3 A Submission by the Government of Saskatchewan to the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, Canada, 1937 (Regina, 1937), p. 148.Google Scholar
4 Eighth Census of Canada, 1941 (Ottawa, 1944) vol. II, p. 3.Google Scholar
5 First Report of the Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies, 1921, p. 9 Google Scholar, as cited by Sharp, M. W., “Allied Wheat Buying,” p. 372.Google Scholar
6 See for example Britnell, G. E., “Saskatchewan 1930-1935” (Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, vol. II, no. 2, 05, 1936, pp. 143–66)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “The Rehabilitation of the Wheat Economy,” ibid., vol. III, no. 4, Nov., 1937, pp. 508-29); also The Wheat Economy (Toronto, 1938).Google Scholar
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8 Canada Year Book, 1940 (Ottawa, 1940), p. 204.Google Scholar
9 Waines, W. J., Prairies Population Possibilities; A Study Prepared for the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (Ottawa, 1940), p. 44.Google Scholar
10 Britnell, G. E., “The War and Canadian Wheat,” p. 399.Google Scholar
11 See Table I below.
12 This plan was announced on March 12, 1941. See Canada, House of Commons Debates, 1941, pp. 1, 595-1, 601.Google Scholar Amendments to the Canada Wheat Board Act had moved toward restriction as early as the summer of 1940 when the Wheat Board was given power to regulate the deliveries of all kinds of grain to elevators and mills. See Statutes of Canada, 1940 4 Geo. VI, c. 25, sec. 5. The Board instituted the quota system of deliveries for wheat, oats, and barley on August 7, 1940. See Report of the Canadian Wheat Board, Crop Year 1940-1941, p. 4.
13 See Table I below.
14 Report of the Canadian Wheat Board, 1941-1942, p. 7; Report of the Canadian Wheat Board, Crop Year 1942-1943, pp. 1-2.
15 See Economic Annalist (02, 1945), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar
16 Report of the Canadian Wheat Board, 1942-1943, p. 1.
17 Quarterly Bulletin of Agricultural Statistics, 10, 1942-March, 1944, p. 62.Google Scholar At the same time the Dominion government suspended trading in wheat futures on the Winnipeg Grain Exchange and authorized the Canadian Wheat Board to take over all commercial wheat in Canada at the closing prices on the Winnipeg market on September 27.
18 Patton, H. S., “Wartime Wheat Policy in Canada” (Journal of Farm Economics, 11, 1942, p. 784).Google Scholar
19 Quarterly Bulletin of Agricultural Statistics, 10, 1942-March, 1944, p. 68 Google Scholar, and ibid., December, 1944, p. 155.
20 The crops of 1915, 1928, 1940, and 1942 rank as “bumper” crops in prairie parlance.
21 A Submission by the Government of Saskatchewan to the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, p. 194.
22 Ibid., pp. 195-6.
23 A Survey of Agricultural Land Debt and of Ownership and Tenancy in Saskatchewan as at December 31st, 1943 (Regina: Provincial Mediation Board), p. 2.Google Scholar
24 Waines, , Prairie Population Possibilities, p. 55.Google Scholar
25 Report on Farm Mortgage Debts in the Three Prairie Provinces (Dominion Mortgage and Investments Association, March 28, 1945).
26 Ibid.
27 Sales of Farm Implements and Equipment in Canada, 1942 (Ottawa, 1943).Google Scholar
28 Report on Farm Mortgage Debts in the Three Prairie Provinces.
29 Quarterly Bulletin of Agricultural Statistics, 10-December, 1944, p. 138.Google Scholar Provincial averages may, however, disguise local increases of considerable proportions.
30 Retail Merchandise Trade in Canada and the Provinces, 1942 and 1943 (Ottawa, 1945).Google Scholar
31 Canada Year Book, 1942 (Ottawa, 1942), p. 568 Google Scholar; ibid., 1943-4, p. 556.
32 This and succeeding data on Saskatchewan nural municipalities taken from a memo on “Municipal Organization and Finances in Saskatchewan,” prepared by Mrs. W. K. Bryden for the Saskatchewan Economic Advisory Committee.
33 That is, comparing the revenues on revenue account for the fiscal years ending April 30, 1940 and April 30, 1944.
34 For a critical analysis of Canadian population movements of recent decades, presented in considerable detail, see Hurd, W. Burton, “Contemporary Demographic Movements Underlying Canadian Agricultural Developments,” a memorandum prepared for the Advisory Committee on Reconstruction (Ottawa, 1943).Google Scholar
35 Earlier releases of 1941 census data gave papulation figures for the Pirairie Provinces totalling 2,398,592 for 1941. Corresponding and revised figures published in the population volume of the Eighth Census of Canada—for 1941 also—total 2,421,905. The latter data are used for Tables IV and V above. The earlier figures indicated that prairie population had declined between 1936 and 1941. See e.g., Hund, W. Burton, “Contemporary Demographic Movements,” pp. 13, 24 Google Scholar; also The Interests of Western Canadian Agriculture in the Peace Settlements (Midcontinent and the Peace, no. 2, Minneapolis, 1943), p. 9.Google Scholar
36 Eighth Census of Canada, 1941, p. 7. Census Division no. 14 is the one with this very pronounced increase.
37 Data secured by correspondence from C. B. Howden, Regional Insurance Officer of the Unemployment Insurance Commission, at Winnipeg, Manitoba.
38 See Count of Ration Book Number 4 as an Indication of Post-Censal Migration (Ottawa, n.d.).