University of Manitoba - Brown and Gold Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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14 Z Front Row-J. Barker, E. Rankin lPresidentj. H. Morton. Back Row-J. Hillman, P. Kelly. R. Dingle. Missing-N. Wildgoose, J. Gohl, M. Reid, W. Irvine, J. Ellis, R. Lavender lC.A.S.F.1 HE Chartered Accountants Students' Society of Manitoba welcomes the opportunity of greeting members of all other faculties in the annual Year Book. Unfortunately, students in our faculty, owing to day time audit- ing employment and evening lectures, are unable to participate as freely as they desire in U.M.S.U. activities. However, this year we did again take part in Inter-faculty Soccer, Curling and Basketball. Our Students, Society activities, which included an inter-office bowling and curling league, a stage banquet and an annual supper dance were as usual very successful. We are again proud of our scholastic record. A Manitoba student, Mr. Wilmot Shepherd, won the gold medal for the highest standing 1n the Dominion of Canada, and another Manitoba student, Mr. Ewen Rankin, Jr., placed third. The Manitoba students for the second suc- cessive year had a higher percentage of successful candidates than any other province. Students qualifying for the degree of Chartered Accountant in December, 1940, were: DESMOND CAMPBELL ALBERT RILEY HERBERT HARTLEY J. MURRAY REID DOUGLAS McKAY EWEN RANKIN WALTER C. MACDONELL WILMOT SHEPHERD A. VERNON NEIL WILFRED WADGE GEOFFREY PATRICK SYDNEY WHITE 80

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rom the early days of the Province, or rather from the period when wheat became an important export crop in Manitoba, and Manitoba Wheatf' took its preferred place on world mar- kets, the farmers who grew the wheat felt that they should have something to say as to how their grain should be handled and marketed. A steadily increasing percentage of producers began to realize that marketing of Farm products was just as properly the farmers' business as producing the crop. This view aroused strong opposition from other interests which held that the farmers should confine themselves to producing and let others handle and market their grain. For nearlv fifty years the controversy has continued, and while the grain growers have had setbacks and reverses they have never lost sight of their goal, and have made substantial pro- gress, towards their objective: complete control of the handling and mar- keting of their crops by the producers. The first outstanding victory won by the farmers was in the House of Commons, when the Manitoba Grain Act, now the Canada Grain Act, was enacted in 1901. In quick succession came the organization of the Terri- torial Grain Growers' Association, the smashing of the railway and ele- vator monopoly in the famous Sintaluta case, the formation of the Grain Growers' Grain Company, the establishment of the Saskatchewan and Alberta Co-Operative Elevator Companies. The World War of 1914-18 and the present War have temporarily infer- rupted the forward march of the farmers. During the first World War there was a spectacular increase in world wheat acreage in all the prin- cipal wheat exporting countries to offset a sharp decline in wheat acreage and yield in European importing countries. The increase in world wheat acreage stimulated by the war continued during the decade that it took European farmers to get back to pre-war wheat production, but world trade in wheat rose to record figures while European Agriculture was struggling to its feet after the disorganization caused by the war. Wheat prices in Canada declined sharply after the first Canadian Wheat Board of 1918-19 suspended operations, and after the failure by producers to have the Wheat Board re-established, the prairie farmers organized the three Western Wheat Poolsg the Alberta Wheat Pool start- ing operations in 1923 and the Saskatchewan and Manitoba Pools in 1924. the three organizations joining together in a central body, Canadian Co- Operative Wheat Producers Limited, which marketed all the grain deliv- ered to the Provincial Pools. For six years the prairie wheat Pools marketed more than half the wheat delivered by producers. The tremendous stock market crash in 1929 affected wheat prices as it did that of all other world commodities, and world wheat trade declined more than three hundred million bushels for the crop year 1929-30. The initial price of 31.00 per bushel, set by the Central Selling Agency of the Pools on July 11th, 1929, when the Winnipeg cash price was 351.44 per bushel resulted in an overpayment to Pool mem-- bers of over twenty-two million dollars. This overpayment, borrowed from the Canadian banks, was guaranteed by the prairie governments and 82