| Summary: | This Thesis aims to set forth the
marketing problem that has forever confronted
the grain producers of the Canadian West, and
attempts to portray the relationship of Co-operation
in Grain Marketing to the solution of
that problem.
The method adopted has been, first
of all, to place agricultural co-operation in
its' natural setting; and it has therefore been
necessary to introduce considerable historical
narrative, as well as accredited technical data.
The writer has discovered that
co-operative marketing has developed in the Canadian
West with little regard to pure theory or to
established principle; therefore, of necessity,
the subject of our enquiry forces us to approach
it from the practical side-- the resulting
deductions being formed upon the facts revealed
by investigation.
It has been the aim of the writer to
treat the subject as a dispassionate outsider,
and not from the point of view of any particular
group interested in the problem.
The hypothesis is that prior to the
instigation of the large Co-operative movement,
there was amongst Canadian farmers a chronic
state of dissatisfaction with the prevailing system
of marketing their grain. The widespread belief
that certain "middlemen" were consuming a share of
agricultural sales out of all proportion to the
services rendered, either to consuming companies,
or to the producers, and were making an excessive
profit, became acute. The Canadian Wheat Pool
is the physical evidence of this dissatisfaction.
The importance of the grain trade to
Canada is noted in the first chapter--"Canada is
a Grain Producer", and because of this importance
the most efficient system possible should be
established for the marketing of Canadian Grain.
To what degree the Wheat Pool adds to "Grain
marketing efficiency" will be seen in the final
chapters of this study...
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