RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 245 



Although the increase of agricultural production in Canada is 

 essential at the present time yet, in order that over-production in the 

 future may be avoided, it is equally essential to promote the estab- 

 lishment and extension of other forms of industry; so long as the 

 policy pursued has regard to sound economic principles and healthy 

 industrial conditions. If there should be a period of depression after 

 the war it will be less injurious to Canada in proportion as we are 

 able to create a satisfactory equilibrium between agricultural and manu- 

 facturing industries. 



At the close of the war it seems inevitable that countries like 

 Great Britain which have depended in the past on large imports 

 of foreign produce will, as a result of improved organization and the 

 giving of greater stimulus to agricultural production, greatly lessen 

 their dependence on outside supplies. Legislation has already been 

 passed in Britain to artificially maintain the price of home grown 

 wheat at a level which will enable the British farmer to grow it at a 

 profit for some years after the war. This is certain to reduce the demand 

 for Canadian wheat, for a time at least, and provides a reason why 

 any effort to increase agricultural production should be accompanied 

 by efforts to promote rural manufacturing and thereby to increase 

 the home market for raw materials and food. One of the best means of 

 achieving this object is to create new industrial settlements. 



The failures of co-operative forms of agricultural or industrial 

 settlement which have been noted in this report merely suggest 

 what should be avoided in applying co-operative methods, and do not 

 suggest that co-operative enterprise cannot be made successful if 

 rightly applied. 



To make co-operative settlements permanently successful care 

 has to be taken to keep them free, on the one hand, from coercive 

 or paternalistic control and, on the other hand, from unbridled specula- 

 tion. Past failures have not been due to any inherent weakness in 

 co-operative organization but rather to attempt to substitute socialis- 

 tic for individualistic forms of co-operative enterprise. Co-operation 

 should be stimulated and encouraged by government action, and the 

 facilities for co-operation should be provided by skilled planning but 

 this should be done without imposing 'undue restraint on personal 

 initiative or freedom. Co-operative effort should be organized indivi- 

 dual effort. In a co-operative scheme artificial control should be limited 

 to the prevention of wrong-doing, including the prevention of such 

 forms of land development as are economically unsound and socially 

 injurious. 



