Mac Runciman: A Life in the Grain Trade

Bruce Grainger is head of the Public Services Department, Macdonald
Library, McGill University.

The more interesting parts of this book are the early chapters
describing Runciman’s family life in Scotland and Saskatchewan, and
his military experience in the Canadian army during World War II. Having
failed at farming in Scotland, Runciman’s father decided to bring his
family to Saskatchewan just in time for the stock market crash of 1929
and the catastrophic economic circumstances of the Dirty Thirties.”
Runciman’s father, brother, and Runciman himself supplemented their
meagre earnings from prairie wheat growing with off-farm employment;
eventually they all left farming.

In 1961, Mac Runciman became president of the United Grain Growers, a
farmer-owned grain company, and continued in that position for 20 years.
Late in his presidency, the company opposed the statutory fixing of
grain freight rates and the Canadian Wheat Board’s extensive control
over the marketing of prairie wheat and supported railway line
abandonment, a drastic reduction in the number of grain elevators, and
consolidation of ownership of the grain companies. With the exception of
abolishing the monopoly power of the Canadian Wheat Board, Runciman’s
controversial positions have all triumphed.

This book is based on interviews with Runciman and documents he wrote
(Runciman even played an active role in several revisions of the
manuscript). The author makes clear his admiration for the man and his
support for Runciman’s views on the issues facing the grain industry
during his presidency. Unfortunately, the latter half of the book
dealing with Runciman’s company career is marred by tedious detail and
excessive repetition as the author seeks to prove over and over again
that Runciman’s opinions about the grain industry were right and his
opponents’ views were wrong. His decision to ignore nearly all sources
of information not provided by Runciman or the United Grain Growers has
resulted in a narrowly focused book and a much less balanced,
interesting, and useful narrative of the prairie grain industry during
the 1960s and 1970s.