140 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



securing improved conditions can only be attained by re-laying the 

 foundations on which that system is built up. 



Unemployment and Land Development 



During the same period that witnessed an increased cost of living 

 in Canada before the war, there was much suffering due to want of 

 employment in the cities. Whatever may have been the main causes 

 of this parallel condition there is no doubt that the condition was 

 largely artificial and that, having regard to the need for the applica- 

 tion of human resources to develop the natural resources of the coun- 

 try, there was no necessity for there being any serious lack of employ- 

 ment, had it not been that the cities had been over-developed in pro- 

 portion to the development of the rural districts. Nor could it be 

 expected that the orgy of land speculation, and the investment of 

 large sums of borrowed money in railway enterprises prior to 1913, 

 would leave no traces of unsettlement and disorganization of labour 

 behind them, after the speculation and railway development practi- 

 cally ceased. The issue of the exhaustive Report of the Ontario Com- 

 mission of Unemployment (1916) makes it unnecessary to do more in 

 this report than to briefly refer to the conclusions arrived at by that 

 commission. 



One of the proposals outlined by the commission is as follows: 



"A vigorous policy of community and assisted land settlement 

 would develop natural resources and assist in restoring industrial 

 activity. Training schools for agricultural labourers, in connection 

 with provincial farms, are desirable as a means of lessening unemploy- 

 ment and training for employment. Greater access to the land by 

 means of cheap and rapid transit would prove of great advantage to 

 urban workers, especially in periods of unemployment. An im- 

 provement in methods of taxation, by which speculation in land would 

 be made unprofitable, would assist in making this possible, and is 

 equally desirable for other reasons." 



The policy here outlined cannot be achieved without better 

 organization of land settlement itself. It is fundamental to any satis- 

 factory system of settlement, and to any scheme for restoring indus- 

 trial activity, improving rural education and means of communica- 

 tion, and rendering speculation unprofitable, that a sound scheme of 

 development, so designed as to accomplish these objects, is formu- 

 lated in the first place. To attain the conditions of success outlined 

 in Section IV of the above report, such as the transfer into new settle- 

 ments of the occupations and variations of older communities, the 

 improvement of marketing and facilities for co-operation, the with- 

 drawal of Crown lands open for settlement after careful study of these 



