National policy and Prairie agrarian development: a reassessment

The shift from labour- to capital-intensive agricultu- ral production in the Prairie Region of Canada during the past thirty years, and the consequent disruption, erosion, and decline in the number of rural com- munities have not gone unnoticed (Dawson, 1965; Report of the Federal Task Force on Agriculture, 1969; Tremblay and Anderson, 1966; Veeman and Veeman, 1979). One convenient explanation for the changes in the kind and number of rural communities is to point to changes in agricultural production, and to account for these changes with reference to the revolution in the range and kind of farm machinery.

These socioeconomic trends are not at issue. We question, rather, the adequacy of this frequently offered explanation (if not justification) for these changes. In the first instance, the discovery of a trend and a measure of association between two variables does not in every case warrant the inference that it is inevitable. In the second instance, this shallow account conceals an important reality: behind statis- tical trends so tediously enumerated lie the struggles and endeavours of human groups, struggles and en- deavours related to the determining of the conditions under which life and communities unfold. It is to these struggles and endeavours that one must turn for a more adequate and valid account of the changes transforming prairie, agrarian communities.

N A T I O N A L P O L I C Y A N D R E G I O N A L

D E V E L O P M E N T

To date, the most authoritative study of the trans- formation of the Prairie Region from a fur-trading to an agricultural domain remains Vernon Fowke’s The

K . MURRAY KNUTTILA I University of Reginu

JAMES N . MCCRORIE I University of Regina*

National Policy and the Wheat Economy (1957). The study was part of a landmark series of regional inquiries sponsored by the Social Science Research Council under the editorship of S.D. Clark.

It was Fowke’s contention that the decision to settle the prairie region and develop therein an agri- cultural economy dominated by wheat was a result of a number of antecedent decisions and policies which together were ‘functionally integrated toward the furtherance of fundamental and persistent govern- ment aims’ (19572)). These decisions and policies included: the determination of the British North American colonies to confederate and affect a poli- tical union, coast to coast north of the 49th parallel and independent of the United States (1867); the purchase of Rupert’s land from the Hudson’s Bay Company (1869); the provision to convert public land in the Prairie Region to private property (Dominion Lands Act, 1872); the construction of a transcontinental railroad ( I 879-85); the facilitation and promotion of immigration and settlement; and a tariff policy ( I 879) designed to foster industrializa- tion in the central provinces of the nation.

Fowke maintained that the tariff, transportation, settlement and immigration policies of the federal government combined to provide a captive, expand- ing, non-competitive market in the Prairie Region for manufacturers in Ontario and Quebec. The settle- ment of the West and the development therein of a wheat economy became functional, yet subordinate to the industrialization and urbanization of the cen- tral provinces. As Phillips has argued: ‘(t)he aim of the national policy . . . was to monopolize for Cana- dian capital the profits of western development. . . . it

* The information for this study comes, in part, from the association of the authors with Prairie farmers movements over a period of twenty years. Many of the insights developed in the paper grew out of conversations with farm men and women active in the movement. We are indebted to J.K. Roberts and R.M. Stirling for a critical evaluation of an earlier draft of this manuscript.

Rev. canad. Soc. & Anth./Canad. Rev. Soc. & Anth. 17(3) 1980

264 / K.M. Knuttila and James N. McCrorie

T A B L E I

C H A N G E S I N T H E N U M B E R O F C O M M E R C I A L F A R M S I N T H E P R A I R I E R E G I O N ( M A N I T O B A , S A S K A T C H E W A N , A L B E R T A )

Year Number of Commercial Farms Percentage Change

1901 191 I 192 1 193 1 1941 1951 1961 197 1

87,428 199,203 255,657 288,079 296,469 248.7 16 210,442 174,653

127.3 28.3 12.7 2.9

-16.1 - 15.4 -20.5

~~

SOURCE: Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 1961 Census of Canada, Catalogue 96-538,96-539.96-537. Statistics Canada, 1971 Census of Canada, Catalogue 96-708,96-709,96-710

was imperialist in its designs in the western hinter- land . . , a counter imperialism to American imperial- ist designs on the western British North America’ (1978:86).

Since the publication of The National Policy and The Wheat Economy, a number of studies have drawn attention to the fact that from the point of view of protecting and promoting Canadian-owned manu- facturing, national policy failed (Levitt, 1970; Nay lor, 1975). Legislative intentions notwithstand- ing, American capital discovered, with the co- operation of many, if not all Canadian businessmen, that the tariff provided an opportunity to capture ‘protected’ Canadian markets through the avenue of the branch plant (Clement, 1977). The consequence of this practice for the farm machine industry is particularly arresting - apoint we will return to later.

Important as this modification of Fowke’s argu- ment has been, it is our contention that two serious flaws remain. First, Fowke’s attempts to account for the one-sided development of one region in relation to the development needs of another without sufficient reference to the divisions, particularly the class divisions, within each (Craven and Traves, 1979). Second, his analysis lacks a dialectical char- acter - an intentional omission, we are bound to add. While Fowke illuminates an earlier period of Prairie history, expansion and development, he does not offer a basis for predicting and explaining the socioeconomic transformation of agriculture result- ing from the developments he explores and analyses. In other words, it is our contention that an earlier period of settlement, growth and expansion, and a more recent period of farm enlargement, decline in the number of farms, and rural depopulation are not separate events, requiring different accounts. They

are, rather, opposite and antagonistic expressions of the same development.

The merit of this proposition can be initially de- monstrated with reference to the pattern of settle- ment, and changes in the number of tractors and combines employed in production.

During the first decade of the century, the number of commercial farms in the three Prairie Provinces rose by 128 per cent. The number continued to increase, albeit at a slower rate, until a peak of 269,469 units was reached in 1941 (See Table I). Following the Second World War, the pattern was reversed. Between 1941 and 1951, the number of commercial farms dropped by 16 per cent. In the next two decades, the rate of decrease increased and by 1971, there were fewer commercial farms in the region than in 191 I . If the number of commercial farms can be taken as a rough measure of the market for farm implements and machinery, it can be seen that an expanding market turned into its opposite.

During the first two decades of the century, horse power, manpower, and related technology domi- natedagriculturalproduction. Butby 1931, thetractor and the combine had begun to replace horse power and thrashing machines (a labour-intensive technol- ogy). While the number of tractors and combines reported on farms continued to increase in the fol- lowing forty years, the rate of increase tells a diffe- rent story. In the case of tractors, the rate of increase dropped to 23 per cent between 1951 and 1961, and declined even further to 6.5 per cent between 1961 and 1971. A similar, if not a more dramatic pattern, is evident for combines during the same period (See Table I:).

Accompanying the decline in the number of trac- tors and combines reported on farms was an increase

I It is recognized that the Prairie Region provided an important market for additional manufactured goods. We have chosen to focus on farm machinery since it relates directly to the question of agricultural production.

National policy and Prairie agrarian development / 265

7 ’ A B L E 11

C H A N G E S I N T H E N U M B E R O F T R A C T O R S A N D C O M B I N E S I N T H E P R A I R I E R E G I O N

Year Number of Tractors %Change Number of Combines %Change

1931 8 1.659 10,256 1941 112,624 37.9 3 1,635 208.5 1951 236,930 52.5 87.51 1 176.6 1961 290,700 22.7 128,429 46.8 1971 309,464 6.5 127,509 0.7

SOURCE: Statistics Canada, 1971 Census of Canada, Catalogue 96-708,96-709,96-710

in the size, complexity, and capital value of farm implements sold and purchased (Report of the Royal Commission on Farm Machinery, 1971). The aver- age capital investment in farm implements in the prairie region increased dramatically between 195 I

and 1971 .’ T H E C L A S S C H A R A C T E R O F R E G I O N A L

D E V E L O P M E N T

The significance of these trends can be more fully appreciated if one considers the corresponding changes in agricultural production on the one hand, and in the farm machine industry on the other. We will examine the farm machine industry first.

It is one of the ironies of Canadian industrial development that as far as farm machinery was con- cerned, the tariff policy of 1879 did not succeed in preserving an expanding, captive prairie market for Canadian capital. To the contrary, the industry was one of the first in North America to assume an ‘international’ character - a development no less significant to Canadian than to American capital (Phillips, 1956; Woods and Gordon, 1956).

As early as I 861, there were 46 companies pro- ducing farm implements in Canada. The number rose to 252 by 1871. The early development and expansion of the industry was assisted in no small measure by a series of protective tariffs, dating from 1 8 4 7 . ~ In 1874, the tariff was raised to 174 per cent and there is reason to believe that the industry viewed the rate as more than a d e q ~ a t e . ~ Neverthe- less, the Macdonald government raised the rate to 25

per cent in 1879. A further increase was introduced in 1883; however, the overall general rate was

lowered to 20 per cent in 1894. Significantly, the American government reduced its tariff to the same rate in 1897 (Woods and Gordon, 1956:5).

In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the number of farm machine companies in Canada began to decline. A process of merger and elimina- tion through competition encouraged the concentra- tion of capital and centralization of production in Ontario - a development which eventually led to the expansion of Canadian capital into the American market, and the establishment of branch plants in Canada by American capital. The principal com- panies involved were Massey-Ferguson (Canadian), Cockshutt (Canadian), International Harvester (American), and John Deere (American).

In 1891, the Massey Company and the Harris Company merged and proceeded to diversify their productive capacities through the acquisition of a number of smaller companies (Denison, 1948; Neufeld, 1969; Phillips, 1956). They acquired the Verity Plow Company and Patterson Wisner Com- pany in 1891, the Corbin Disc Company in 1893, and the Bain Company in 1895. In 1910, Massey- Harris purchased an American plant capable of pro- ducing gasoline engines and in 1928 it purchased the J . I . Case Company (American). The acquisition led to the establishment of Massey-Harris (United States) and while they sold the ‘Case’ name to another company, they acquired the rights to pro- duce the Wallis tractor. The American company became the principal source of the largest tractors produced by Massey-Harris.’

In contrast, the Cockshutt Company, incorporated in 191 I , was unable to match record of growth and expansion set by Massey-Harris (Phillips, 1956;

2 The increase in the average capital value of the farm implements between 195 I and 1971 was from $4,425 to $ I I ,763 in Manitoba, from$4,693 to$13.336 in Saskatchewan, and from $4,646 to$13,834 in Alberta. 3 The tariff in 1847 was set at 10 per cent. It was raised to 124 per cent in I 849 and 15 per cent in 1856. The rate was raised again in 1856 to 20 per cent, but reduced in 1866 in anticipation of Confederation. 4 Canadian firms such as the Massey Company argued that lower labour and material costs gave them sufficient advantage to meet world competition. (Phillips, 1956:41-2). 5 In 1953. Massey-Hanis merged with Harry Ferguson Company (an English firm) to form Massey-Harris-Ferguson Limited. The name of the Company was changed to Massey-Ferguson in 1958.

266 I K.M. Knuttila and James N. McCrorie

Woods and Gordon, 1956). Although the company was successful in producing a full line of imple- ments, it failed to acquire or build production facili- ties in the United States. It relied, rather, on Amer- ican companies for a supply of tractors, first with Allis-Chalmers and later (1930) with the Oliver Farm Equipment Company. The Company later merged with the White Motor Corporation.

In 1902, the five largest harvester equipment manufacturers in the United States merged to form the International Harvester Company (McCormick, 1931; Phillips, 1956). In the same year, the new company purchased a Canadian implement manu- facturer, enabling the company to gain access to the protected Canadian market, particularly the growing market in the Prairie Region. Like Massey-Harris, International Harvester developed a full reproduc- tive line and eventually acquired production capacity in Britain and Europe.

The John Deere Company was established in the United States in 1837 (Woods and Gordon, 1956). Originally confined to the production of tillage im- plements, the company was forced by International Harvester to expand and diversify its production lines. Between 1911 and 1915, the company ac- quired a number of companies, enabling it to meet the competition, and become the second largest farm machine manufacturer in the us.

-While it is important to acknowledge the impor- tance of the larger North American market to the farm machine industries in both societies, it is clear that the opening up and settlement of the Canadian Prairies coincided with and was related to capital expansion and concentration in the farm implement industry, centralization of manufacturing in Ontario, and the domination of the Prairies, not to mention the lesser Canadian market by international companies producing a full line of technology (Schwartzman, 1970).

But as we have pointed out, the very success of the farm machine industry significantly changed the na- ture of that market. In a penetrating study of the industry in the 1960s, the Royal Commission on

Farm Machinery (197 I ) found that mechanization of agriculture resulted in the diminution of what was once an expanding market, particularly in the Prairie Region, and the creation of a new, more limited demand for specialized and high energy tech- nology.’ In Canada, the share of this ‘new’ market by the big three - John Deere, International Harves- ter, Massey-Ferguson - declined, permitting the en- try of small, more specialized firms (e.g., Versatile and CCIL in Winnipeg and Morris Rod-Weeder in Yorkton); this development was hitherto discour- aged by the high degree of concentration and price fixing in the industry.*

The decline in the number of farms, unit enlarge- ment and rural depopulation obliged the farm machine companies to reorganize and exert a greater measure of regulation and control over the distribu- tion, wholesaling and retailing of machinery and implements; this was not without consequences for the economic survival of declining rural hamlets and villages.

The Commission further found that the rate of profit for the farm machinery industry in comparison to the rate for other manufacturers declined, and was significantly lower than the rate before the Second World War. The impact of production was described by the commissioner as follows:

It is clear from the evidence that a number of the full line firms today do not have enough sales volume on tractors, combines and other major products to achieve adequate economies of scale. As a result their production costs on many machines are from 10

to 20 per cent higher than they need be. Even some of the largest firms such as Deere and International Harvester do not have sales volume on tractors and combines that gives them the full advantage of large scale production. (Barber, 1973:824)

The evidence submitted to and adduced by the Royal Commission is clear. The very success en- joyed by the farm machine industry in producing for a captive, expanding Prairie market transformed that

6 For example, between 1926 and 1935, the percentage of sales in Canadaof the four largest companies was 76 per cent. International Harvester accounted for 33 per cent and John Deere maintained a I 2 percent share of the market. Massey-Harris accounted for 19 percent of the sales and John Deere I 2 per cent. 7 For a further analysis see Barber (1969), Donaldson and McInernery ( I 973) and Stirling (1979). 8 The Commissioner of the 1971 Royal Commission on Farm Machinery summarized the process in the following way: Although the barriers to entry are substantial, they have not prevented new firms from entering. Indeed, in the Canadian market, the share of the Big Three - International Harvester, John Deere, and Massey-Ferguson - has fallen in almost every major product line over the decade ending in 1967 . , , this decline has been partly due to the fact that the major firms have maintained prices at levels high enough to attract new entrants or to allow smaller firms to expand in spite of the barriers to entry that exist. However, high prices have typically not shown up as high profits, for the major firms have not fully utilized theeconomiesof scale that are potentially available (Barber, 197392 I) .

National policy and Prairie agrarian development / 267

market, and while the process to date is not com- plete, the impact on the farm machine industry has been visible and significant. The paradoxical charac- ter of achievement abetting problems cannot be denied.

Let us now turn to the other side of the equation: prairie, agrarian producers. The trend in farm size and numbers which we have described and summa- rized conceals an important development in farm production; that is, the development of differential access within the agrarian community to the princi- pal means of production - land and farm machinery.

Important as this process has been, the study of stratification within the region had not yielded agree- ment as to an appropriate conceptual frame of refer- ence. Macpherson’s (1968) pioneering study of the tendency towards one-party dominance in Alberta provincial politics emphasized the economic homogeneity of farmers as independent commodity producers and favoured a Marxian tendency - at least in North America and Europe - to conceive of agrarian producers as members of a rural, petite bourgeoisie. More recent studies by Marxists, hav- ing a bearing on rural Canada, have followed Mac- pherson’s example (Hedley, 1976; Johnson, 1972).

Two studies of Saskatchewan (Lipset, 1959; McCrorie, 1971) and one of Alberta and Saskatch- ewan (Richards and Pratt, 1979) have questioned the degree of economic homogeneity among producers and have drawn attention to the relation between, on the one hand, differential participation in and sup- port for radical agrarian organizations such as the Pools, the United Farmers and later farmers unions, the CCF and the Social Credit and, on the other hand, differences in farm size.

Whether one wishes to follow the more conven- tional Marxist tendency to view farmers as members of the petite bourgeoisie and examine factional ten- dencies within this class (Poulantzas, 1973) or con- ceive of rural communities as generating - for a period of time - an internal class structure of their own (Marshall, 1965) is less important than the recognition that over time, differential access to the means of production became a vital issue.

While the provision of the Dominion Lands Act ( I 872) offered certain equality of opportunity to homesteaders, a combination of factors - variations in the productivity of the soil, period of settlement, discrimination respecting the pattern of settlement, weather, fluctuations in the demand for and price of wheat on the international market, variation in man- agerial skills - contributed to a pattern of differentia- tion in farm size and capitalization.

By 1921, some fifty per cent of the commercial farms had expanded beyond the homestead quarter

T A B L E 1 1 1

P E R C E N T A G E D I S T R I B U T I O N O F C O M M E R C I A L F A R M S I N T H E P R A I R I E P R O V I N C E S B Y S I Z E : 1931-71

Size 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971

Manitoba Small Medium Large Saskatchr Small Medium Large Alberta Small Medium Large

82.1 81.0 75.2 65.2 53.7 16.1 16.7 21.4 28.6 33.4 1.8 2.3 3.4 6.2 12.9

66.9 65.0 51.3 40.2 31.9 27.4 28.3 36.9 40.9 39.2 5.7 6.7 11.8 18.9 28.9

w a n

75.1 72.9 66.0 57.4 48.7 19.1 19.9 23.6 28.0 30.1 5.8 7.2 10.4 14.6 21.2

SOURCE: Statistics Canada, 1971 Census of Canada, Catalogue 96-708,96-709,96-710

section, and within ten years it was possible to speak in terms of three categories or groups of farm oper- ators - the small, marginal producer, the medium- size farmer, and the large producer.

This pattern of stratification has not been the sub- ject of rigorous and exhaustive study. Variation in soil productivity within and between provinces and the absence of serial census data linking farm size with machinery inventory and investment in land have restricted and hampered analysis. Admittedly, farm unit size (acres) alone is not the best criterion of differential access to the means of production, yet it remains the only available index upon which aggre- gate, inter-provincial comparisons over time can be made.

We have accordingly classified commercial farm units by size and summarized the data in Table 111.

We have defined a small farm as a commercial unit of 320 acres or less, a medium farm as a unit of from 480 to 960 acres, and a large farm as a unit of I .5 sections (960 acres) and above.

At one extreme is the small farm operator. The operation is best described as marginal, providing in some, but not all instances, sufficient income to survive another day. In time, a growing number of small producers have been forced to augment farm income with wages from off-farm employment (Pat- terson, 1971; Steeves, 1980). In any event, on- and off-farm income is rarely sufficient and cannot be relied upon for sufficient long-term accumulation to finance farm enlargement. Familial relations of pro- duction become interrupted through the necessity of obtaining off-farm income, involving the producer

268 / K.M. Knuttila and James N. McCrorie

in what is for him a new and different set of relations of production - wage labour.

At the other extreme is the large producer, com- mitted to a capital-intensive farm operation and able to finance farm expansion and enlargement partly through the accumulation of capital from produc- tion. In time, the large producer comes to depend less and less on members of his family as machinery reduces the amount of labour necessary to maintain and / or increase production. Family needs become differentiated from production decisions, which in turn are increasingly governed by ‘principles’ of farm management. Farming, as a ‘way of life’ be- comes a ‘business’ devoted exclusively to capital accumulation (Mumey, 1967). It is the large produc- er who has become the cause cCl2bre of those econo- mists, sociologists, and farm management special- ists committed to the further intergration of agricul- ture into an advanced capitalist mode of production.

In between the two extremes has been the medium-sized farm operator, large enough to gener- ate income for family needs and accumulate capital necessary for the maintenance, if not the expansion, of the farm unit. In most cases, the medium-sized producer was dependent upon members of his family to provide the labour necessary for production. Accordingly, the income and social needs of the family were prominent in the calculations that went into production decisions. Farming, for many, was a ‘way of life.’ A commitment to the preservation of the family farm and the rural community challenged and repudiated the drive on the part of the larger producer to view fanning as a means to another end - the pursuit and renewal of profit.

To return to Table 111, an unmistakable pattern is apparent. An early period of settlement, charac- terized by a relative degree of homogeneity in re- spect of farm size, gave way to a more diversified period. In 1931, small farms accounted for two- thirds of more of all the commercial farms in the three Prairie Provinces. By I 97 I , their proportion of the total had dropped to 53.7 per cent in Manitoba, 3 I .9 per cent in Saskatchewan, and 48.7 per cent in Alberta. At the other extreme, the number of large commercial farms in 1931 was insignificant. Forty years later, their numbers were increasing at the highest rate, accounting in addition for an even lar- ger share of agricultural productivity.

Related to these changes in the pattern of stratification has been the conversion from horse power to fossil-fuel energy, and the corresponding

shift from labour-intensive, to capital-intensive technology.

As long as production was dependent upon horse power, the possibility of expanding family-operated farm units was limited by the supply of family labour and the availability of migrant, part-time labour. The conversion to the gasoline tractor encouraged the development of new and improved cultivating and harvesting technology, providing in part the means, and in part the necessity, for unit expansion.’

The conversion from horse power to fossil fuel power was made, in the main with little complaint. But is was not a uniform and effortless transition. Although a systematic analysis of the conversion has yet to be done, there is reason to believe that the change was made in the first instance by those able to afford the price of dependency associated with the tractor and petrol, and who possessed the ability to master with ease the skills and knowledge necessary to operate and repair the new source of power. Con- versely, for those, who for reasons of economy and mechanical ability could do no more initially than depend on their own resources for power (i.e. horses) and fuel (i.e. feed grains), the conversion occurred at a slower rate and during a later period.

Oil and tractors in turn created an unanticipated dilemma for many. On the one hand, the purchase of a new and more expensive line of cultivating and harvesting technology significantly raised the cost of production, encouraging producers to expand the size of their farm operations in order to increase their gross receipts. On the other hand, expansion and enlargement of the unit of production encouraged some and persuaded others to invest further in even more capital-intensive technology.

There is a temptation in considering changes with- in the capitalist mode of production to reify concep- tual conveniences and so distort the real world one seeks to describe, analyze and comprehend. The Marxian distinction between the relations and the forces of production has tempted some to forget that the one is in a dialectical relationship with the other; capital and labour are different and in time anta- gonistic and contradictory manifestations of the same thing. ‘O

Characteristic of petite bourgeois production is the initial, non-antagonistic unity of labour and capital. Agrarian radicals celebrated with reason the family farm as a productive unit within which the production of wealth was a direct function of human ingenuity and labour; it was cause for celebration

9 For a more detailed discussion and analysis, see Barber (1969). and Phillips (1956: Chapter 3). 10 See further M a n , 1967; Marx and Engels, 1962; and Braverman, 1974.

National policy and Prairie agrarian development I 269

when both were inextricably tied to family rela- tionships and functions.

New technology was not adopted blindly, mecha- nically, automatically. Indeed it became a matter of family and community inquiry, discussion and de- bate. Should one buy a new and larger tractor? And if one did, would the present inventory of farm imple- ments suffice? What would it cost? How much would one have to borrow? Would the investment be ‘economical’? And how did the answer to each and all of these questions relate to the demands on revenue made by family needs and concerns? And lurking in the background was the gnawing question: What were the neighbours doing?

It is easy to acknowledge in retrospect that the cumulative answers to these questions changed and polarized agricultural production, decreasing the de- pendency of the large producer on family labour, forcing the small producer into the ranks of wage labour in order to survive, and reducing the number of farm units actively engaged in production. But why? Given the social context within which produc- tion decisions were made, why did the agrarian population nevertheless so readily embrace and adopt a series of technological innovations which modified the relations of production, led to farm unit enlargement, and contributed directly to a decline in the farm population?

For those social scientists who have become accustomed to discovering trends and assuming they are both ‘natural’ and ‘inevitable,’ the question we raise is not self-evident. At one time it was, howev- er, a question which was of more than passing in- terest and concern to farm implement manufactur- ers. More than anyone else, the farm machine com- panies were painfully aware that the pursuit of profit within the requirements of mass production made it increasingly necessary to produce a line of machin- ery at odds with the specific technological needs of many, if not all, agrarian producers (Marchak, 1979:68-76). Two students of the industry have put it thus:

To an increasing degree . . . the farmer has to make do with whatever manufacturers produce. Despite the diversity of agricultural situations, . . . the reduction in the number of manufacturers and the growing

dominance of a few giants leads to a smaller range and variety of equipment being available. The com- panies can produce most profitably for large, re- latively homogenous groups of farmers; and, while their products meet the needs of many farmers in this way, others are less adequately equipped . . . In general, as the numbers of small farms progressively decline, manufacturers perhaps find it less profitable to cater for this contracting section of the market. Thus, new machinery lines of suitable capacity and cost for the small farm unit are not developed, fur- ther underlining the competitive disadvantage of the small farm and hastening its decline. (Donaldson and McInerney, 1973:832).

As Braverman has correctly noted (1974: Chap. IZ), the farm machine industry, like other manufac- turers within the capitalist mode of production, was obliged to reduce the autonomous character of de- mand for its product within the market-place and increase its induced character. In view of the hostile atmosphere in western Canada towards the industry, this was no mean accomplishment.

Consider the record. The tariff, the line elevator companies, the lake-head terminals, the Winnipeg Grain Exchange, the retail trade, the railroads, the banks, the mortgage companies, the established or ‘old line’ political parties, all, along with the farm machine companies, became objects of agrarian dis- content, crititque, and attack, particularly within the ranks of what we have referred to as the medium- sized farm operators.” No serious student of what may be called an era of agrarian protest and reform can remain unimpressed by the capacity of the agra- rians, particularly the more radical members of the farm unions and their predecessors, to identify the economic and political factors operative in national policy - an accomplishment that continually chal- lenged and unmasked dominant ideology. ’*

In view of this record of protest and analysis one is arrested by the inescapable fact that in dealing with the farm machine industry, the agrarian radicals failed to identify the induced character of the farm implement market. Their attack and analyses, rather, focused on the tariff (up until 1944), the price, availability, and distribution of implements and spare parts.I3 The underlying concern was with

11 For different accounts and interpretations of this protest movement, see Conway, 1978; Lipset, 1959; and McCrorie, 1971. 12 They included the United Farmers of Alberta, the United Farmers of Manitoba, and the United Farmers of Canada (Saskatchewan Section). 13 This conclusion is based on a study which deals in part with prairie, agrarian discontent concerning the farm machine industry, including an analysis of submissions to numerous Royal Commissions dealing with the industry by prairie-based farm organizations (Knuttila, n.d.), For one of the more detailed assessments of agrarian discontent in these matters, see the Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture and Rural Life, 1956: Nos. z and 14.

270 I K.M. Knuttila and James N. McCrorie

the cost and availability of technology, not its suita- bility to the production and community aspirations of many, if not all agrarian producers (Segall, 1969). The occasional claim that the farm machine com- panies were manufacturing and merchandising ex- pensive, unsuitable, and unnecessary or wasteful technology never gained widespread credibility within the agrarian community. Indeed, most agra- rian complaints concerning advertising were directed to its cost, not its content. (Segall, 1969:28). Perhaps most telling of all, the establish- ment of Canadian Co-operative Implements (CCIL)

in I941 did not result in adeparture from the produc- tion agenda of the dominant farm machine com- panies; to the contrary, CCIL undertook long, and for them anxious, negotiations with Cockshutt to pro- duce implements for the co-operative (Sirnkin, 1970).

C O N C L U S I O N

Regions exist, and the interrelationships among them can be, as Fowke discovered, revealing. But insofar as we are dealing with a capitalist mode of production, it is essential to acknowledge and ex- plore their class character. It is only through the study of the intersection of class and region that the paradoxical nature of regional growth and decline can be grasped.

Central to the capitalist mode of production is the pursuit of profit. In this connection, Marx made a proposition that deserves to be recalled.

The circulation of money as capital is . . . an end in itself, for the expansion of value takes place only within the constantly renewed movements . . . As a conscious representative of this movement, the pos- sessorof money becomes a capitalist. His person, or rather his pocket is the point from which the money starts and to which it returns, the expansion of value . . . becomes his subjective aim, and it is only in so far as the appropriation of ever more and more wealth in the abstract becomes the sole motive of his opera- tions, that he functions as a capitalist, that is, as capital personified and endowed with consciousness and a will. Use-values must therefore never be looked upon as the real aim of the capitalist; neither must the profit of any single transaction. The restless never-ending process of profit-making alone is what he aims at ( I 967: I 5 I -3).

If we recognize this dynamic nature of the mode of

production, it becomes obvious that in terms of the requirements of industrial capital the simple estab- lishment of an agricultural region and the ‘one-time operation’ of supplying their settlement needs would not provide the market conditions necessary to the development and maintenance of capitalist relations of production. The agricultural settlement of the Prairies therefore provided an expanding market, indeed a captive market, but only for a relatively short period of time.

The solution for the farm machine companies lay in the development, manufacturing, and merchan- dising of new and ‘improved’ lines of implements. It was through the provision of changing technologies that capital became assured of an ever-expanding market. But the very success enjoyed by the farm machine companies in this connection resulted in a fundamental change in the market. The tendency over time to concentrate production along the lines of capital-intensive technology resulted in a change in and diminution of the market.

It is important to note that Prairie farmers were themselves producing for a world market, compet- ing for sales with growers in Australia, Argentina, and the United States. Since the international market was highly competitive, the purchase of technology which promised to increase volume and / or decrease cost was viewed as a rational production decision. The adoption, therefore, of new and improved lines of implements was seen, at least initially, as advan- tageous to the agrarian community.

The impact of these decisions on the producers as a class was another matter. It is our contention that the production decisions of the farm machine manu- facturers led to the concentration and centralization of agricultural production. As the forces of produc- tion, i.e., lines of machinery, were altered by the farm machine companies and purchased by agri- cultural producers, changes were occurring in the social relations of production. As the farm unit be- came larger and more capital intensive, the role of family labour changed. And as farm units grew in size and decreased in number, the very fabric of rural communities began to change.

What we find striking about this process was the absence of major. agrarian protest, particularly with- in the ranks of the medium-sized farm operators. More than any other economic faction within the agrarian community, they were historically commit- ted to subordinating, on occasion, the economic requirements of production to family and commun- ity needs. As a group, they could not see that the farm machine companies were increasingly obliged to produce lines of technology unsuitable to the

National policy and Prairie agrarian development / 271

maintenance of a rural community based on small and medium-sized family farm units.

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