This matter settled, I made it impossible for the millers to obtain more than 25 cents' profit on every barrel of flour, and compelled them to dispose of the offal-bran, shorts, etc.-without a profit at all. In the States a profit of 50 cents a ton is allowed on these by-products. I may add that the United States feels that if it could get its bread prices on a parity with ours it would be doing great things.

In the main, however, no public action was taken as to prices and they remained without regulation. Efforts at controlling conditions were made, but without resort to compulsion. Gradually, the organization of the Food Controller became a most elaborate affair with three officials at $4,500 a year each; a Central Advisory Committee composed of representatives of the Government, the Churches, Labour organizations, Educational departments and institutions, urban interests, farmers, rural municipalities, and men's and women's organizations; Provincial Committees similarly composed were appointed with, also, the Food Consumption and Fish Committees. Following the United States example, meatless days in restaurants, etc., were ordered on Aug. 9, together with the prohibition of the use of wheat in making alcohol, and, on the 24th, addressing a Toronto meeting Mr. Hanna promised to take up the question of prices-especially of bread-stated that a Bacon Commission had been appointed and read a message from Lord Rhondda, declaring that: "It is now vital for the United Kingdom and the Allies in Europe to obtain from Canada foodstuffs in far larger quantities than under peace conditions. That must necessarily entail effort and far-reaching economy, with their attendant sacrifices on the part of the Canadians." On the 21st the Food Controller issued another appeal for conservation of wheat, beef and bacon, another declaration as to coming world-famine in these products. The sale of canned vegetables to the public was forbidden on Aug. 24 for the season during which fresh ones were available; it may be added that on Aug. 31 a Montreal Star reporter visited 50 local restaurants of all classes in that city and found that this rule was almost entirely disregarded. In the autumn, under urgent requests from Mr. Hanna (Sept. 14) Food-pledge cards (1,150,000 in number) were widely distributed and signed and the women of Canada asked to promise the use of other flours for the white, the use of a portion of brown bread daily, the substitution of fish and vegetables as often as possible for beef or bacon, and the elimination of waste.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hanna and his Department were the objects of ever-increasing criticism. Some of it was unfair and ignorant; some of it was purely malicious-such as the statement that he had recently made $2,000,000 in food speculations or that he ate meals opposed to his own regulations; some of it was deserved by the apparent fact that whenever he made a move in connection with articles of food the prices went up. Everything that took place, or was rumoured, in profiteering, little or big, was laid upon his shoulders; he was blamed for bread being higher here than in Britain, for its increasing price and that of milk and fish; he was denounced for prohibiting the use of a small quantity of wheat in making whiskey when 88,000,000 lbs. of other grains were so used; the Toronto Star had a series of articles (Aug. 31, etc.) declaring Canadian food control

a farce, and in this view was joined by The Globe. On Sept. 26 Mr. Hanna issued a statement which brought him renewed criticism but was quite explicit in its terms as to control of prices:

Unless the consumers in the cities of Canada signify their willingness to face a complete disruption of all trades, a total breakdown of real estate values, and the utter demoralization of labour conditions in their cities, the Food Controller cannot possibly accede to the demand made in some quarters to 'cut prices down,' to 'sell food at cost,' or, as it is otherwise expressed, 'to do away with the middleman.' Such goals may be partially achieved. How much or how little can be done will be made known to the public from time to time, as I find necessary. . . . But I must remind those Canadians who are perhaps unaware of the fact, that seven main factors may be said to govern the present prices of food: (1) The disproportion between demand and supply, consumption and production. Food cannot be cheap while there is such a growing disparity between the numbers of consumers and producers; (2) unrestrained competition between great foreign buyers of foodstuffs in our markets; (3) unequal distribution of the available supplies, surplus production in one Province being unavailable for Provinces in which shortages exist; (4-7) the food speculator, the greedy, unnecessary and inefficient middleman, and the waster.

Technically, the economic argument based upon these premises had strength; practically, it did not appeal to the over-burdened consumer or critic who wanted to get away from precedents as the War itself had long since done. The document was generally accepted as a refusal to control prices as they were controlled in Britain-as to jams, meats and cheese, bacon and hams, lard, sugar, bread, tea, coffee, milk, etc. There was continued criticism in the press-Conservative as well as Liberal-but so far as Mr. Hanna was concerned his duty was claimed to be not regulation of prices but (1) to stimulate production, (2) to discourage waste and conserve food, (3) to promote economy and substitutions, (4) to work in co-operation with the United States authorities, and (5) to prevent hoarding. Following this incident action was taken in certain directions. On Oct. 11 an Order-in-Council gave the Controller power "to require wholesale producers and wholesale dealers in articles of food to make returns giving their names and addresses, the particulars with respect to the purchases, sales, shipments and prices of articles of food dealt in by them and the capacity and equipment of their premises"; on Nov. 15 the Food Controller was given, and at once enforced, the power of licensing all wholesale or retail dealers in food commodities, all manufacturers, brokers, commission merchants, etc.-the Order-in-Council also giving Mr. Hanna the right to prescribe units of weights or measures, the designation, marking, or grading of food, and the maximum. amount to be bought or sold. Meanwhile (Oct. 16) H. B. Thomson, ex-M.L.A., and General Manager, Turner, Beeton & Co., of Victoria, was made Assistant Food Controller; and on Oct. 19 wholesale and retail dealers or manufacturers had been forbidden, after specific dates, to sell cereal foods in packages of less weight than 20 pounds and were made subject to license from the Food Controller.

On the 23rd an Order-in-Council, as a War-time measure, abolished the prohibition as to Oleomargarine, permitted its importation, manufacture and sale in Canada, and gave the Controller power to regulate its price. Of course, there was opposition. The grocery

99

trade objected to the ban on cereal sales, the farmers objected to the competition of oleomargarine, and so on. On Oct. 26, Mr. Hanna announced a shortage in sugar and, as in previous cases, the wealthy began storing that article and it became still more scarce; on Nov. 5 an Order-in-Council was passed upon Mr. Hanna's advice, and supplementary to that of Aug. 9, enacting that "no grain of any kind and no substance that can be used for food shall be used in Canada after Nov. 30 for the distillation of potable liquors. At this time a vigorous campaign for increased production of Hogs was carried on by the Departments of Agriculture and Mr. Hanna, with the fact of British imports in that respect increasing in three years from 638 to 1,006 million lbs., as the basis of urgency; earnest appeals came from France for more food, more bacon, more sugar. At the close of the year the Food Controller issued a Letter to the Clergymen of Canada in which he stated that the French crop was less than half normal, thousands in Italy on the point of starvation, neutral countries suffering keenly, the United States without any supplies for shipment abroad, the Allies without ships for Australian, Indian and other reserves, and that the outlook in Europe was unfavourable for next year. He urged the supreme need Overseas for wheat and wheat flour, meatsespecially beef, bacon and ham-sugar and fats.

Incidents of this work included the publication of all sorts of regulations, rules or suggestions as to eating or the canning, drying and preserving of fruits and vegetables for home use; instructions and hints for women and house-wives, for men in their gardens, for all who wished to help; statements that every year $50,000,000 worth of good food was wasted by kitchen carelessness; the appointment of a Millers' Committee to assist the Controller with licensed flour mills and products; the prohibition by Order-in-Council of the exportation, except under license, of food commodities, feeding stuffs, fats, oils, soap, fertilizers, etc., to other destinations abroad than the United Kingdom, British Possessions and protectorates; the attempt to regulate the potato problem by persuasion, by more even distribution, and the movement of potatoes from P.E. Island to Ontario and Quebec, the greater use of a product which had over 6,000,000 bushels of a surplus in 1917; the explanation in this and other connections that continued congestion of freight and distribution facilities must affect prices as well as supplies. The shortage of tin and tinned containers for dairy, cheese and fish or food-canning industries was serious and the use of substitutes and public economies carefully studied, while agitation was carried on against wastage, etc.; the utilization of garbage was urged for hog-feed, as a fertilizer, and for fat in glycerine when used in nitro-glycerine and soap; the fact was pointed out that at the close of 1917 the per capita consumption of beef (November) was reduced to 58.39% of the November, 1916, figures, and of bacon 44 85%, while the use of white flour was reduced 20% and that of fish increased 14%; the campaign at this time for increased hog-raising, for "keeping a pig," was illustrated by a conference at Ottawa on Nov. 7 with Delegates present from all the Provinces, and a similar one for the

West at Winnipeg on Nov. 29 which proclaimed the intention of doing everything possible; the work in this connection of the Dominion Department of Agriculture, with its speaking advertisements spread all over the country, was of great value. More than 1,500,000 pamphlets were issued during the year by Mr. Hanna's Office, together with the Canadian Food Bulletin, daily War menus; meatless days in 16,000 eating houses effected a saving estimated at several hundred tons per month of beef and bacon. The chief officials of his organization in December, 1917, were as follows: Chairman, Central Advisory Committee, Dr. J. W. Robertson, C.M.G., Ottawa; Chairman, Dominion Advisory Council, T. B. Macaulay, Montreal; Chief of Staff, S. E. Todd, Ottawa; Legal Adviser, F. H. Keefer, K.C.,

Thorold.

Agricultural
Conditions,
Free Wheat

Growers.

CANADA AND THE WAR-THE PEOPLE

During 1917 the farmer became one of the pivots upon which the destiny of nations and the conduct of and the Grain the World-war turned. In Canada he did not always understand or appreciate what this meant; occasionally it conveyed to him only an opportunity of getting higher prices for a stated product or better returns for a given amount of work. It really was possible to be an individual profiteer on a farm as it was in the manipulation of munitions or some other War industry. But, upon the whole, the Canadian farmer worked hard in these war-years, did his duty well, and profited by substantial prices even while paying more for seed and wages and supplies. According to the best available statistics there was in 1917 a deficit between the world's requirements and estimated supplies; complicated by the difficulty of shipment to the chief market in Great Britain and the fact of Australia, India and the Argentine being prevented by the Submarine menace from sending their grain surplus to Europe. As eventually worked out the statistics of crops in Canada and countries specially associated with wheat production were as follows:*

Totals......

2411

26,000,000 231,730,000
210,000,000

156,000,000 115,000,000

379,000,000

Exports 1916-17 Bushels 201,032,000 174,600,000 55,376,000 100,000,000 70,632,000 85,000,000 52,504,000 65,000,000

204,000,000 1,586,558,000 554,144,000 575,000,000

The requirements were put at 595,000,000 bushels-excluding, of course, the Central Powers and their Allies. Meanwhile, in annual products Canada (year ending Mar. 31) had exported 225,372,941 lbs. of lard, bacon, beef, hams, mutton, pork and canned meats in 1915-16, and 279,399,867 lbs. in 1916-17, compared with 41,523,714 lbs. in 1913-14. The United States, in the same years (June 30) under the heading of lard, canned and cured beef, bacon, hams and fresh beef, had exported 1,609 million and 1,702 million pounds, respectively, compared with 874 millions. As to values and comparative production, the farmers and farm-workers of Canada, occupying 109,000,000 acres and worth in land, buildings, implements and live-stock or a total of $4,231,000,000, produced in 1910† field crops valued at $384,513,795; in 1914 the total was $638,580,300, in 1915 $825,370,600, in 1916 $886,494,900, and in 1917 $1,144,636,450. Higher prices had more to do with this progress than increased production, as the following figures of the chief cropst indicate:

Article by T. K. Doherty in International Review of Agricultural Economics and also Ottawa official publications.

† Census of 1911.

Census & Statistics Monthly, Ottawa, E. H. Godfrey, F.S.S., Editor.