The Anti-Pool:

“Better Farming, Better Business, Better Living”
— Sir Horace Plunkett

Anti-pool cartoon 141 Anti-pool cartoon 142 Anti-pool cartoon 143
A source of frustration for many organizers were the farmers who, though not actively undermining the pool-movement, were felt to be reaping the rewards of pooling without assuming any of the risks.

 

Speculation came to be seen as detrimental to the producer. As such, much of the Pool-generated propaganda characterized the open market as either evil or fool-hardy.

 

Anti-pool cartoon 144 Anti-pool cartoon 145

“Speculation does not increase nor decrease the supply of actual wheat. Supply and demand conditions make the price. Speculation merely tries to anticipate these changes. What the Pools did was to inaugurate a new type of speculation, withholding actual wheat from the market, thereby building unwieldy surpluses some of which had to be carried over from year to year. In my opinion, such a policy is very detrimental to the price structure in Canada and elsewhere.” [Address by H Gauer to the Grain Exchange Lecture Club, nd.]

“The elevator owners reacted to the Manitoba Grain Act, which required that railcars and flat warehouses be available to farmers, by forming the North-West Elevator Association, later renamed the North-West Grain Dealers’ Association.”
 [www.westmanitoba.com] 

"For Your Choice!" 146  

“…restraint and autocratic coercion are the distinguishing features of the Sapiro contract as adopted in Alberta. (…) [t]he Alberta contract is, in many of its parts, utterly repugnant to the privileges of justice and is unenforceable. There is in it neither mutuality nor reciprocity, either of obligation or of interest; and unless its fabricators can conceive themselves above the law of the land, there is no law in this land to enforce it. In other words, it is a superb farce, though it might be a very expensive farce for the duped participators of it.” [letter from Bram Thompson to The Regina Morning Leader, 18 August 1923.]

Anti-pool cartoon 147 Anti-pool cartoon 148

“The only method, however, by which we could expect to reply to all the attacks upon our organization would be to start an extensive advertising campaign in the Old Country, and this we do not believe desirable or profitable at the present time. (…)

The friendly attitude of the Old Country co-operative organizations like the English and Scottish Wholesale Societies, to the Wheat Pools (an attitude which I may say, in confidence but not for general circulation, is not always shared by their grain buyers) is one of the best factors in the situation and we do not feel that the anti-Pool propaganda can do us any great harm as it is, as I said before, very largely inspired by the private grain trade.” [letter from WA MacLeod, SWP Director of Publicity to RB Evans, SWP Asst. Secretary, 25 March 1930.]

Co-operative Propaganda 149 Scoop and Shovel 150 Worth Remembering 151

“If the individual farmer was aware of the methods under which his grain was handled (…) there would not be any necessity for the Wheat Pool. (…) [T]he average farmer is not properly educated (…) there were more paramount reasons why farmers were not succeeding than the price he was getting for his grain (…) if a farmer would take ordinary care of his implements, the West would be saved several million dollars. If he would watch his business transactions more carefully, he would not be tied up so much in a financial way.” [Mitchell Grain Company response to a SWP member, 9 June 1927.]

Anti-pool cartoon 152 Correspondence from Crowther to Macleod 153

 

1 | 2 Correspondence from Crowther to Macleod 154 Correspondence from Nesbitt to Macleod 155 Correspondence from Macleod to Nesbitt 156

“In 1923 I received 67 cents for my wheat. In 1925 I received twice that amount. Now broadcast that fact, damn you.
I am, Yours Truly, A. Currie”

 


Previous  —  Women & Pool  |  Next  —  How an Elevator Works