JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.Agricultural implement tariffs, the national policy, and income distribution in the wheat economy. The paper deals with the effects of the national policy tariffs on farm implements on the level and distribution of Prairie income in the development phase of the wheat economy. A simple model of Prairie agriculture is developed and used to simulate hypothetical income shares in the absence of the tariff. A comparison of these with actual values indicates the extent of income redistribution occasioned by this feature of the national policy. The conclusions are that functional income distribution within the Prairies was significantly affected, with the brunt of the burden borne by landowners, but that interregional income transfers were inconsequential.Les droits de douane sur l'equipement de ferme, la 'politique nationale,' et la distribution du revenu dans l'conomie du ble. La majorite des ecrits sur la 'politique nationale' portent sur les questions generales relatives a l'efficacite de cette politique comme strategie de developpement. Cet article est limite aux droits de douane sur l'equipement de ferme. Il porte sur les effets de ces derniers sur le niveau et la repartition du revenu de la region des Prairies, quand l'economie du ble en etait 'a sa phase initiale de developpement. L'auteur elabore un modele simple de l'economie agricole des Prairies; il l'utilise pour simuler, de fagon hypoth6tique, la production et la repartition du revenu dans tine situation sans droits de douane. Par la suite, les parts hypothetiques du revenu sont comparees aux valeurs observees pour evaluer l'importance de la redistribution 'a l'interieur de la region et avec les autres regions, comme consequence de la politique tarifaire.L'article conduit a la conclusion centrale suivante: les droits de douane sur les facteurs de capital materiel ont modifie de facon significative la distribution fonctionnelle du revenu dans les Prairies. Le revenu de rente a ete plus faible tandis que les revenus du capital et du travail ont ete plus eleves. Avec les meilleures 'valeurs hypothetiques' des parametres, la reduction des rentes a varie entre $12.09 par ferme en 1941 quand les droits etaient faibles, 'a $56.18 par ferme en 1921; en pourcentage, la reduction a varie de 1.5 'a 14.8. Cette constatation confirme le point de vue que l'effet principal du tarif de la 'politique nationale' a ete une reduction des rentes et des valeurs du sol dans les Prairies.

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An issue of continuing interest in Canadian economic history is the lag between the formulation of policies directed toward settling the prairies and the appearance of any significant agricultural population. Proposals to develop the region preceded the union of the British North American colonies in 1867. By 1872 the first Homestead Act had been passed and a commitment made to construct a transcontinental railway linking the western provinces to Central Canada. Yet except for a brief speculative boom in the early 1880's, occasioned by the CPR reaching Winnipeg, the rate of settlement remained well below expectations. Homestead entries averaged under 3,000 from 1874 to 1896, and in many years there were nearly as many cancellations as new entries. In the same period adjacent American lands were filling up, in large part with emigrant Canadians. Settlement of the Dakotas, beginning in 1870 but depressed from 1873 to 1878, boomed from 1879 to 1886. Over the thirty years from 1870 to 1900 an estimated 120,000 Canadians chose the American prairies over the Canadian.