COOPERATIVE GRAIN MARKETING. 3 



simply because the grain eventually had to move through them. The 

 result of their efforts was the Manitoba Grain Act, which later 

 became the Canada Grain Act. This act is very comprehensive, and 

 it specifically prescribes how nearly every phase of the business of 

 grain marketing in Canada shall be carried on. Among its many 

 provisions are regulations relating to the distribution of cars and 

 the establishment by railroad companies of loading platforms for 

 the convenience of individual shippers. There is also provided a 

 licensing system for country elevators, commission merchants, termi- 

 nal elevators and track buyers. Under this act comes also the author- 

 ity for and the establishment and administration of grades, as well 

 as weighing and inspection. The law is administered by a commis- 

 sion appointed by the Governor in Council of Canada. 



It was not until extensive investigations by the Government had 

 been made of the entire grain-marketing system at the instance of 

 the grain growers' associations of some of the Provinces, and the 

 passage of the Manitoba Grain Act, that the grain growers in Canada 

 engaged in cooperative marketing, and then they entered the termi- 

 nal markets without first establishing country elevators. Their first 

 activity was the establishment of the Grain Growers' Grain Co., 

 Ltd., at Winnipeg, now the United Grain Growers, Ltd. During 

 the first years of its existence this company conducted a purely 

 commission business, receiving shipments of grain direct from mem- 

 ber growers. It will be seen, therefore, that the farmers of Canada 

 went into the terminal markets even before they established elevators 

 at the country railroad stations, whereas in the United States farmers' 

 elevators were first established locally. 



Just why the grain growers in western Canada should begin their 

 actual marketing activities in the terminal markets, while in the 

 United States the farmers' elevator movement originated with the 

 establishment of country elevators, may not at first appear clear. 

 However, it must be remembered that in Canada the efforts of the 

 grain growers to market cooperatively began while the country was 

 still new and sparsely settled. Capital with which to erect elevators 

 at the county points was not readily available. Most of the growers 

 had scarcely enough capital to carry on the business of growing 

 wheat, and in that thinly populated section a capital subscription 

 sufficient to erect a modern grain elevator at each shipping point 

 would have amounted to a considerable per capita cost. The wheat 

 farms were large; farm storage was not so adequately provided as 

 it was in Iowa, Illinois, and other Middle Western States when the 

 movement started there, and consequently the establishment of load- 

 ing platforms, and the possibility of shipping grain direct, without 

 having it pass through the hands of the country dealers, seemed to 

 the growers the most logical way out of their difficulties. 



