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| Floor of the Winnipeg Grain Exchange. 24 |
The growers’ associations, farmer-owned elevators and government regulations were content to operate within the existing Grain Exchange system, however, farmers were given a taste of an alternative method when, in 1917, the government of Canada began marketing grain as a war measure. Grain prices fell when the Exchange resumed business after the armistice, convincing many farmers of the need for a federally-run grain marketing board.
“the memory of the season [that the government sold their grain] created an entirely different orientation in the ideas of Canadian farmers’ organizations. Their old ideas had been service, their new idea was control”
“All farmers, rich or poor, confronted a different
circumstance after the First World War. They had once been in the van of economic
progress, the admired pioneers of empire and nation; now they were perceived
to be slow-witted, eternally bitching ‘sons of the soil.’ They had
once possessed political influence; now they had to fight for every adjustment
in national economic policy. Farmers, whatever their social status, were beginning
to see themselves as a distinct ‘class’ in the 1920s.”
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| Original Pool Contract - Front, 1923. 25 | Original Pool Contract - Back, 1923. 26 |
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| Pool Share Certificate. 27 | Pool Capital Stock Certificate.28 |
“The dramatic collapse in wheat prices in 1920, just as Canada returned to the private grain trade, was at the root of farm protest for the next decade. Prices had been high during the era of government marketing; they had been low before the war and were low again in the early 1920s. The farmers’ conclusion was inescapable: no longer would they be satisfied with mere regulation of the open market system; henceforth, they would be committed to abolition of the private grain trade. The Winnipeg Grain Exchange had become the enemy.”
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| Source 29 | Source 30 |
Low prices following the discontinuation of the wheat board brought renewed cries for its return. The failure of the government to reinstate the board convinced farmers that “if they wanted a new system, they would have to build it themselves.”
Aaron Sapiro, a Californian lawyer, was brought to Saskatchewan for the first time by the Farmers’ Union of Canada. His great oratory skills and enthusiasm drew crowds to hear him speak about co-operative marketing.
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| Aaron Sapiro, Saskatoon, 1926. 31 |
“Throughout Saskatchewan, banks, boards of trade, retail merchant associations, municipal councils and service clubs jumped into the organization drive.”
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| Petition, 1924. 32 | SWP Publication. 33 |
The 12 September 1923 deadline saw the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool in possession of only 29% of the province’s total wheat acreage. 50% had been required, so initial contract-signers were asked to sign a waiver carrying over their contracts for the following season. The Pool officially reached the mark of 50% of Saskatchewan’s wheat acreage on 16 June 1924.
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| Contract Drive, 1923. 34 |
Saskatchewan's contract committee (pictured below) was composed
of, left to right:
George Robertson, R. B. Evans, Fred Pragnell, A. E. Wilson,
J. A. Watson, A. J. McPhail.
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| Saskatchewan's original contracts. 35 | The Pool acquired its head office in 1926. 36 |
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