The securing of steel plates for Canadian shipbuilding industries was one of the board's most arduous and continuous tasks. Profiteering in steel-plate and boiler-tube stocks was sternly checked in the cases where complaints were well founded. Canadian steel companies were induced to make all the car plates necessary for the Government's car program. The pyrites exports were increased to meet the needs of the sulphuric acid makers in the United States. Nitroglycerine was conserved by restricting the content in commercial explosives.

The commandeering powers of the board were not often exercised, its authority to do so alone being amply sufficient to obtain the ends for which it was created. Most of the money made by the board was in connection with its wool purchases. The money obtained for the tops and noils from the United Kingdom it sent to the British Treasury. With the proclamation of peace the board passed out of existence.

CHAPTER XXIII

FROM TRENCHES TO FARMS

The war left Canada, as it did other countries, with an army of demobilized men, able and disabled, who needed Government help to reestablish themselves in civilian life. For soldier citizens who were attracted by farming, an extensive land settlement policy was devised, and to a large extent its application solved one of the Government's problems in affording thousands of ex-soldiers the means of settling on the land, of which Canada had more to offer than anything else. "The corner stone of Canada's industrial fabric is and must continue to be the land," said Arthur Meighen, M. P., the Minister of the Interior, "and to utilize this heritage to the best advantage—to build into it and upon it as large a proportion as possible of the best blood and spirit of our country, thus solving a problem of reconstruction than which none is more vital in its bearing on national well-being—is what is sought to be achieved."

The war, in effect, had created an opportunity for land development by producing a colony of soldier settlers who readily turned to farming after their open-air life in the battle areas. But the Government was careful not to subject them to the hazards and isolation which the ordinary, prewar settler had to face. Only land of good value, well located, and of such fertility as to insure profitable returns, was allocated among them. A search was made through the prairie Provinces for areas suitable for soldier settlement contained in forest reserves or held under grazing leases. The Government held a number of these reserves so that men whose demobilization was deferred could have an equal opportunity with those who were discharged first. Inadequate means of communication affected the disposition of immense areas of arable land, which would otherwise have been available for soldiers. But it was decided to develop and close in settlement only those areas that were contiguous to existing or promoted railroad lines. The Government considered it inadvisable to encourage the veterans of the Great War to settle on free homesteads at a greater distance than fifteen miles from market facilities. This policy was especially designed for soldiers who labored under some physical disability and who were in receipt of pensions, and for such settlers small holdings, close to large centers of population, were selected.

Canada had early anticipated the problem of rehabilitating her returned soldiers. The Soldier Settlement Board was created long before the Armistice, and was in good working order when the time for demobilization arrived. Hence, when the stream of returned soldiers began to flow toward the fertile farm lands which the Dominion Government opened to them for ownership and development, the machinery for so settling the incomers was ready for operation.

The Government not only settled soldiers on homesteads, but lent them money to stock and equip their farms and afforded them training knowledge. They could borrow up to $4,500 on the purchase of land; up to $2,000 on the purchase of live stock, implements, and other equipment; and up to $1,000 on the erection of buildings and other permanent improvements. This made a total of $7,500, all of which, except the $2,000 for equipment, was repayable in twenty-five years on the amortization plan. The acquisition of farm equipment was rendered easier by an arrangement with agricultural implement firms, who undertook to charge specially low prices to soldier settlers. The Government also employed experts to purchase horses, cattle, sheep, and swine at the best prices obtainable, and resold them to settlers at the price paid for them. Lumber dealers in the western Provinces undertook, by arrangement with the Government, to provide lumber at prices considerably below those charged the public. A soldier settler had similar facilities for erecting a home on his land, the Government providing plans for standard houses of four types, ranging from a modest dwelling suitable for a bachelor settler to more commodious and convenient six-roomed houses.

Before the stage of actual occupation was reached in the case of settlers lacking sufficient farming experience, they were placed in agricultural training centers, especially equipped, where they obtained a practical knowledge of farm work, or else with selected farmers throughout the Dominion, who regarded them as students eager to know how to run a farm rather than as mere farm hands. The prospective farmer's womankind, if likewise unversed in farm work and house management, received the needful instruction from the home branch of the Soldier's Settlement Board. In order to enable him to tide over his non-productive period of training, the Government made allowances to a returned soldier both for himself and for the support of any dependents he might have. He likewise received free board as well as free tuition, and if engaged with a farmer was entitled to retain any remuneration his services yielded. While on a farm, representatives of the board visited him to ascertain his progress, so that they could determine when he was qualified to take over a farm of his own.

The railroads, like the farmers and agricultural firms, cooperated with the Government in assisting returned soldiers to settle upon the land. A special low transportation rate of one cent per mile, applying to the whole of Canada except northern Alberta, was fixed, but the prospective farmer was not entitled to the reduction for ordinary journeys. The rate only applied to the soldier's first trip to work with a farmer, or to attend an agricultural school or to look for land, or for a return journey home to transport his family and chattels to his homestead. Choice of land and location lay wholly with the soldier, but was subject to the judgment of the board's land inspectors, who passed upon its value, and determined whether it was suitable for the purchaser and was worth the price. When an inspector approved the soldier's selection, the land was purchased by the board and sold to the applicant.