270 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



were unable to do so. Seven had farms or homesteads at the time the 

 investigation was made but were unable to start on them for want of 

 ready money. 



Bearing on Problem of Returned Soldiers 



Now if we are right in our first premises, must we not consider 

 the problem of the returned soldiers in the light of other problems? 

 If increased agricultural production means increased manufacture, 

 and if increased manufacture is the best means of absorbing our return- 

 ed soldiers, and if our returned soldiers will not readily submit to 

 being placed on the land, then surely we must attack the problem 

 of the returned soldier indirectly — by assisting those who are willing 

 and who can produce from the land to do so, so that their pro- 

 duction may indirectly benefit the returned soldier. Slavs and many 

 others who are at present working in our cities in every kind of 

 occupation, will be displaced by returned soldiers to a large extent, 

 but it will indirectly work to the detriment of the returned soldiers 

 if they are allowed to constitute an unemployment problem. If 

 there is an ever present surplus of labour, the general tendency will be 

 to keep the wages down, and this must sooner or later affect the wage 

 of the returned soldier; if, on the other hand, those whom returned 

 soldiers have displaced can be assisted to produce, the surplus of 

 labour will be reduced automatically, while the requirements of the 

 producers purchased from the sale of wheat they produce will offer 

 work for increasing numbers in our cities. 



Our Archaic Labour Market System 



The study of the methods of marketing labour has been a hobby 

 with the writer for several years. It is almost impossible to realize 

 how archaic is our present system by which labour outside the trade 

 unions is marketed through competitive commercial exchanges. 



To the writer one immediate step seems of prime importance. 

 The Dominion Government spent thousands of dollars registering 

 our man power for war-time industry. If this information is not suffi- 

 cient, then we must at once re-register our man and possibly our woman 

 power for the purpose of readjustment after the war, and, having done 

 this, we must have ready machinery in the form of at least a Dominion 

 controlled system of provincial labour exchanges, so that we may be 

 conscious of the existence and extent of the disease of unemployment 

 and be better able to apply the remedy. The information obtainable 

 through a centralized authority would soon create a public opinion 

 which would demand, if necessary, adjustment of the use of public 

 capital so as to dovetail into the use of private capital. 



