RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 139 



As far as Canada is concerned this problem has not been created, 

 although it has been intensified, by the war. It had become so acute 

 in 1913-14, before the war started, that in 1914 a special Commission 

 of Inquiry was set up to study it. In the report of that inquiry some 

 conclusions are set forth which have a bearing on the subject of 

 this report. These may be summarized as follows: 



(1) The main factors in restricting supply and enhancing 

 cost are depopulation of rural districts, concentration of popula- 

 tion in towns and cities and uneconomic methods of distribution. 



(2) The means of securing improvement are greater atten- 

 tion to mixed farming, increased production, standardization and 

 improvement of quality of farm products, co-operation in dis- 

 tribution, extension of parcels post system, making of good roads, 

 cheaper working capital, improved system of education, voca- 

 tional training, and improved conditions of living. 



In a statistical examination of economic causes of the high cost 

 of living laid before the Commission of Inquiry by the Department of 

 Labour, it is pointed out that the remedial lines which the inquiry 

 indicates are the encouragement of food production and the removal 

 of every possible economic weight in the distribution process. Sir 

 George Paish is quoted as saying that it is of the greatest possible 

 importance that the work, of directly increasing the productive power 

 of Canada by placing a larger proportion of the population upon the 

 land and in the mines, should be carried out with the least possible 

 delay. 



While the stimulation of agricultural production is suggested 

 in the above conclusions as the principal means to counteract the 

 high cost of living, it must be borne in mind that we have to avoid 

 over-production as well as under-production of raw materials; indeed, 

 Sir Robert Giffen has pointed out that new countries like Canada are 

 apt to suffer in bad times more than manufacturing countries, owing 

 to the greater liability of the latter to produce raw materials in excess. 



The important things to aim at are to secure a satisfactory and 

 stable equilibrium between town and country, to encourage the dis- 

 persal of manufacturing industries over the whole country instead of 

 concentrating them too much in large cities, and to so plan and develop 

 the land as to enable the facilities for improving distribution, educa- 

 tion and living conditions to be provided. The main factors which 

 are shown by the above report to cause the high cost of living are pro- 

 ducts of an unscientific system of land development, and the means of 



