86 RURAL LIFE IN CANADA 



eggs, they get, as a premium, more than we spend on 

 our rural schools from the Atlantic to the Pacific."* 



Moreover, the farmer bears economic wrongs as well 

 as suffers under economic failure. The report of the 

 Commission on Country Life transmitted by President 

 Roosevelt to the Senate and House of Representatives 

 in 1909 lays the chief emphasis upon this feature of the 

 farm problem. In the view of the members of the Com- 

 mission the first of the main special deficiencies in coun- 

 try life is " disregard of the inherent rights of the land- 

 worker." The handicaps which they have specially in 

 mind are: the speculative holding of lands, the mon- 

 opolistic control of means of transportation and of 

 streams; wastage of forests, with consequent exposure 

 to floods and to disastrous soil erosion ; and restraint of 

 trade. They find that farm property bears an unjust 

 share in taxation. And among the remedies which 

 they recommend are " a thoroughgoing investigation by 

 experts . . . into the farmer's disadvantages in re- 

 gard to taxation, transportation rates . . . and 

 credit, . . . and careful attention to the farmer's 

 interests in legislation and the tariff, "f 



Speculative holding of lands has not as yet become a 

 handicap to farmers in Eastern Canada. But specula- 

 tive buying of farm lands is a menace of the near future. 

 Throughout New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, 

 and Illinois farm lands have more than doubled in 

 price within a decade. So soon as there is any check 

 upon the freeness of land for settlement in our own 

 West, the conditions which prevail in these States will 

 be found in Canada as well. The rise is speculative in 



*The same, p. 104. 



t Country Life Commission, Report, p. 8. 



