1936-1939 - An All-Time Low       During the next four years, economic conditions slowly improved and surveying activity gradually increased, but Association affairs were never more stagnant than during this period. Only two new members were registered, while half a dozen died or retired and, by 1939, the membership figure reached an all-time low of 38 and the Association was having difficulty in making ends meet financially. It was reluctant to draw upon its assets, as these consisted entirely of provincial government bonds on which interest payments had been stopped by the new government and the bonds themselves were worth less than half their face value. The best policy seemed to be to hold on to them until such time as the moratorium on interest payments might be lifted, which hopefully would restore their market value to a higher figure. A membership levy was considered impractical, because most members felt that the normal membership fee of $10.00 was as much as they should be expected to pay for the support of an organization that seemed to be doing little or nothing to further their interests, and those who could not attend meetings even with the aid of the railway fare rebate would have objected to paying higher annual fees for the benefit of those who could. The Council was thus obliged to hold expenditures down as much as possible, and any ideas that might entail the spending of money received little encouragement. However, this austerity did not extend to the annual meeting, which continued to be held at the best hotels and wound up with the usual sumptuous repast and concomitant entertainment and refreshments for which the Association footed the whole bill. Nor did it prevent the members present at the 1938 Annual Meeting from having second thoughts about boycotting the Canadian Institute of Surveying, when they voted an annual expenditure of $30.00 in renewing their group subscription to The Canadian Surveyor. But even these modest extravagances were looked at askance by some, and at the 1939 meeting a formal resolution was passed, instructing the incoming Council to give serious consideration to "ways and means of reducing our expenditures." Meanwhile, very little action of a constructive or enterprising nature was in evidence. In 1937, the Association did manage to persuade the provincial government that approval and registration fees for subdivision plans should be reduced, but this benefitted their clients rather than the surveyors themselves and was in any case not particularly significant in view of the relatively small number of subdivision being made at that time. At the 1938 Annual Meeting, the members adopted a resolution recommending that legislation be enacted to require the filing of plans showing any re-establishment of section, quarter section or legal subdivision corners carried out by Alberta Land Surveyors, and the Alberta Surveys Act was amended accordingly in 1939. The 1938 meeting was also notable as the first which Mr. P.N. Johnson had failed to attend since the founding of the Association. Ill health kept him at home and in the spring of that year obliged him to retire as Director of Surveys, thus ending an outstanding career that had been marked throughout by his devotion to the surveying profession and the public interests served by the work of land surveyors. The 1939 Annual Meeting saw a revival of interest in the provision of a surveyors' manual, and the Publications Committee, after many years of inactivity, was enlarged and instructed once more to look into the matter of contents and cost. This time the project was diligently pursued, and eventually, by dint of the Secretary-Treasurer's efforts in compiling and personally preparing the copy from which it was printed, the first edition of the first ALS Manual was published in 1944.   Back - 1935 - The Old Mistrust of Ottawa Forward - 1940-1942 - Difficult to Believe