RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOP ML NT 245 



Although the increase of agricultural production in Canada is 

 essential at the present time yet, in order that over-product inn 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 1 

 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 win- 

 any effort to increase agricultural production should be accompanied 

 by efforts to promote rural manufacturing and therein- 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 sugj 

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

 suggest that co-operative enterprise cannot be made successful it 

 rightly applied. 



To make co-operative settlements permanently successful rare 

 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 tin- 

 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 efforl Bhould be organized indivi- 

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

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

 forms of land development as are economic ally unsound and socially 

 injurious. 



