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1911
The early farm organizations came into
being as ways of helping produce better crops, sharing
agricultural information and educating the settlers in
better farming practices. They also served as a
communication conduit for the farming community. Many US
settlers were drawn up into the Canadian frontier with
advertisements places in equivalent US farmers
publications. As the railways and the eastern business
interested found it convenient to work together in
squeezing the farmers by charging them higher freight
rates and increased prices for production goods while
keeping the agricultural prices suppressed.
At he twentieth century arrived new
farming organization also were born but these were
specifically to protect the farmer against the power of
big business. In 1902 the Farmers Association was formed
in Ontario and combined with another organization called
the Grange in 1907. In the west the Territorial Grain
Growers Association was formed and quickly spread
throughout Manitoba and Saskatchewan. They fought for
fair prices from the grain elevators and fair shipping
prices from the railways. An equivalent organization was
formed in Alberta called the United Farmers of Alberta.
The next organization,
and most powerful yet, to form was the Grain Growers
Grain Company or the G.G.G.Co.. They lobbied and
pressured the Government in Manitoba to concede some
influence to them in matters of agriculture. They were
granted a seat on the Winnipeg Grain Exchange to sell
their own wheat and helped the Federal Government
establish fairer systems of grading the grain so that
big business could not fudge the system and pay lower
prices for higher grades of grain.
The high tariff rates
that protected Canadian industrial manufacturing
resulted in higher prices for the farmers when they
wanted to buy farming equipment, manufactured goods and
also restricted their grain from the lucrative US
market. In 1909 he Canadian Council of Agriculture was
formed and in 1910 they backed the "Siege of Ottawa"
which sent over 1000 farmers to the capital to present
their grievances to the Laurier Government. Although
Laurier and the Liberals made some tentative concessions
to the farmers during the 1911 election, they real
progress would not occur until the 20's and 30's when
the farmers became directly involved in politics through
their own political parties. It also did not help their
cause when Laurier lost the election to the
Conservatives.
The labour movement started off in much the same
manner as the farmers movement when in the 1860's
societies for the aid of the workers began to spring up
as relief organizations rather then political action
groups. In 1872 the Globe was in a battle with type
setters and Macdonald took a huge step forward by
recognizing and passing legislation which legalized
trade unions.
The first real labour
movements, such as the Knights of Labour, came from the
United States. Several groups developed from there along
with some political rivalry between them. The Unions in
Quebec tended to be closely associated with he church
while those in Ontario sprang from the industrialized
segments of society and on the west coast the forest
industry aligned itself with the Workers of the World
from the US.
From 1900 to 1914 labour unrest rose steadily and the
battle between them and big business and other labour
unions became more and more frequent. I 1907 Mackenzie
King makes his first really important appearance on the
political scene when he helps get the Lemieux Act passed
by the Federal Government which formed an arbitration
board composed of one labour representative, one
business representative and one representative from the
public who would recommend and arbitrated agreement for
Managermen/labour actions. This seemed to work
relatively well and in 1909 King became the first
Minister of Labour when he was elected to Parliment.
The labour movement during this period
never became very politicized and sought action through
their support of old guard parties. It would take a
world war and a vastly changed political landscape for
that t occur. |
