41. THE GRAIN TRADE. The Cana dian grain trade has been subject to legisla tive control from an-early date; but the first enactment after confederation applicable to the whole of Canada was in 1874 when the Dominion Parliament passed the General In spection Act dealing with a large variety of staple commodities. Under this act the dif ferent brands of flour and meal were legally defined, and special provisions were included for the grading of grain. After the establish ment of a grain-growing industry in the prov ince of Manitoba, an act of 1885, in further amendment of the General Inspection Act of 1874, considerably extended the grades of grain and introduced for the first time grades descriptive of the hard wheats of Manitoba and the Northwest territories. Subsequently the legislation affecting the warehousing and transportation of grain became merged in the Manitoba Grain Act of 1900 and amending acts. The Inspection Act covered the inspec tion, grading and weighing of grain up,to 1904, when all matters affecting grain were with drawn from that act and embodied in the Grain Inspection Act, 1904, which on the re vision of the statutes in 1906 became Part II of the Inspection and Sale Act.
The Canada Grain Four years ago the Dominion legislation affecting the Canadian grain trade was codified by the Canada Grain Act of 1912, which also included numerous ad ditional provisions of important character. The act pros-ides for the appointment by order in council of a hoard of three commissioners, known as the Board of Grain Commissioners for Canada, who are charged with the manage ment and control of the grain trade for the whole of Canada in accordance with the terms of the act. The offices of the board are at Fort William where, and at the twin city of Port Arthur, are situated the large terminal elevators from which grain is discharged into the lake steamboats plying eastward. For the purposes of grain shipment Canada is divided into two inspection divisions, the Eastern and Western. The former comprises the portion of Ontario lying cast of Port Arthur and Que bec and the Maritime provinces, while the lat ter comprises the portion of Ontario lying west of and including Port Arthur, the North west provinces and territories and British Columbia.
Grain These constitute an integral part of the grain trade as controlled by the act, and the development of grain growing in the Northwest made their introduction into Canada a necessity. The first Canadian grain elevators were constructed shortly after the year 1880. Before this date grain grown in Canada was shipped through flat warehouses built by grain dealers at points along the rail way line. The grain was bought by the deal ers, stored in the warehouse and shipped in car lots for sale in Winnipeg. The warehouse was a simple wooden storehouse, built parallel with the railway track. A passageway across divided the house in two and each end was sub divided into bins. The machinery usually con sisted of a scale in the passageway, a trolley for pulling the sacks and a grain cart to han dle the grain in bulk. The grain was weighed, piled loose in the bins and drawn in the cart to the railway car. This system has become an tiquated, and the flat warehouses, of which there are now only about 24 in Canada, tend annually to disappear.
Dissatisfaction on the part of grain grow ers with the management of the elevators led to the introduction of what are called °loading platforms.° The platform is a wooden struc ture on a railway siding to which a farmer can drive his team and from which he can shovel the grain into the car. When the grain has been loaded, he can either sell it on the spot as track grain, or consign it to a commis sion firm in Winnipeg to be sold for his ac count. By using the platform a farmer can protect himself from the possibility of mal practice on the part of the elevator, and can save the elevator charges amounting to about $17 per car. On the other hand he has to se cure the car, make his own arrangements for selling the grain and load the grain into the car with his own labor. In spite of these dis advantages as compared with the elevators, the loading platforms are popular, and applications for new and larger ones are constantly being made. There are at present about 1,600 of these platforms, and Dr. Magill, when chair man of the Board of Grain Commissioners, in a report on grain inspection in Cana4 estimated that the proportion of grain loaded over platforms was about one-third of the whole.