grain elevators. There were many local co-ops that owned a single elevator, but the two most important were the United Grain Growers (U.G.G.) and the Saskatchewan-government backed Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Company (Sask. Co-op Elevators). U.G.G. was formed by merger of two smaller co-ops: the Alberta government-backed Alberta Farmers' Co-operative Elevator Company and the Grain Growers Grain Company (G.G.G.C., which had previously acquired the elevators of failed Manitoba government elevator company) in 1917. Following the merger, U.G.G. was a powerful force with 300 elevators and a terminal at the Lakehead. While U.G.G. and Sask. Co-op Elevators were farmer-owned, they did not follow the traditional co-op structure of paying dividends back to the users on a patronage basis (per the amount of business), instead they paid dividends to shareholder-investors. For diehard co-operators this was unacceptable. Furthermore, the two companies were unable to negotiate a merger between themselves and were not involved in marketing grain overseas. They lacked the size or reach to challenge the open-market system. Government marketing During the Great War the Canadian government had completely taken over the grain industry. The government created a series of boards in and around the war, each with progressively more power to control the grain trade. The Board of Grain Commissioners of 1912 was purely for regulation (to supervise grading, etc.), but by 1915 the government had seized control of all wheat exports to help the war effort, and by 1917 futures trading on the Winnipeg Exchange was banned. In 1917, the new Board of Grain Supervisors was given monopoly powers over wheat, and fixed uniform prices across the country. Soon after the Board took over marketing of crops as well. Farmers were worried that after the war prices would crash and various agrarian groups lobbied Ottawa to keep the Board in place. The government relented by creating the Canadian Wheat Board for the 1919 crop only. Farmers got a guaranteed price for that crop, paid immediately, and later a further payment once the Board had sold all harvest and made a profit. This system of guaranteed prices and distributed income was extremely popular and when the Board dissolved in 1920, farmers were livid. It certainly did not help that, "from a peak of $2.85 per bushel in September, 1920 [prices] began a slow and sickening decline to less than a dollar a bushel in late 1923." This marked contrasted to the stable prices