bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Unused Capacity as a Factor in Canadian Economic History
Authors: Innis H. A.
Published: June 2006

The significance of navigation in the economic development of a region penetrated by the St. Lawrence to the south and by Hudson Bay to the north has been evident in concentration on production of raw materials for consumption in the highly industrialized area of Europe, and in problems which have arisen with intense specialization, such as unused capacity in terms of vessel space as a result of inability to secure a balanced two-way cargo. The green fishery as conducted from French ports on the banks and along the coast required heavy outbound cargoes of salt to balance return cargoes of fish, but the dry fishery, which became important with the development of Spanish trade at the beginning of the seventeenth century, required smaller quantities of salt and equipment on the outgoing voyage and made necessary the carrying of ballast. The English dry fishery in Newfoundland involved a further lack of balance in that crews necessary to carry on the industry were larger than those necessary to man the vessels, and, because of the seasonal fluctuations and agricultural limitations of that area, men were carried back at the end of the season. Sale of fish in the markets of Spain and the Mediterranean necessitated the dispatch of vessels to England with the men necessary to carry on the fishery, and additional larger vessels (sack ships) with cargoes of fish to market. The addition of sack ships lowered the cost of provisions and facilitated the beginnings of a settlement in which men remained over the winter. Consequently, competition between sack ships and fishing ships for cargoes of fish and for profitable return cargoes of salt, tropical products, and specie from Spain and the Mediterranean to England, contributed to the long severe struggle which dominated the history of Newfoundland and placed severe restrictions on the introduction of political institutions. New England, with a winter fishery and a favourable area for the development of agriculture, lumbering, and shipbuilding, offered possibilities of all-year-round operation. Settlers rather than ballast, therefore, were brought to New England. Expansion of settlement contributed to more effective exploitation of the fishery, shipbuilding, and trade and to the decline of control of fishing ships from England. Numerous small New England vessels extended the fishery to the banks and the shores of Nova Scotia, participated in the coastal trade to Newfoundland in spring and summer, and carried products to the West Indies to exchange for sugar and molasses in winter when these products came on the market and there was freedom from hurricanes. Relative absence of unused capacity in New England shipping meant low costs and contributed to rapid economic development which facilitated control over Nova Scotia after the expulsion of the French in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. The expansion of New England involved a continued drain of labour from Newfoundland and weakened the position of settlement in that area.
Public Utilities and Administrative Boards
Authors: Dafoe J. W.
Published: June 2006

The question discussed in this paper is, How can the state, in the collective facilities which it supplies to the community, best ensure the maximum service in efficiency. Involved in the issue is the question of the functions of the state itself.

Upon this question there is a controversy of steadily-deepening vigour covering a very wide range. At the one extreme are those who hold that the state has no duties towards the citizens except to “keep the ring”. There must be such people in the world, for I hear them constantly denounced; but I have never met any of them. So far as I know, no one now questions the necessity of the state playing a great and ever-increasing part in the functioning of the community. Or, as Lord Salisbury said. “We are all socialists now”. At the other extreme is the hundred per cent. socialist who regards the state not as a functioning agency of the community but as embodying in itself the total activities of the state. In the words of G. D. H. Cole:

The essence of Socialism is to be found, not in a particular way of organizing the conduct of industry, but in a particular relationship among men. Socialists hold that this relationship, which they desire to see established throughout the world, cannot exist where industries and services and the ownership of capital are left in private hands; and for this reason as well as in the interests of productive efficiency they wish to socialize the business of production and exchange.
A Loan Council for Canada: The Australian Experience
Authors: Herbert C. H.
Published: June 2006

It is felt by many people that the refusal of the government of Alberta to accept the Loan Council principle, and the similar views expressed by other provincial governments, have sounded the death knell of a Loan Council in this country; and moreover, that Mr. Dunning's recently announced modifications of the plan will have little effect as a revitalizer. It is my belief that the scheme of individual provincial Loan Councils, while desirable as a means of giving the Dominion government a measure of control in situations where it has been obliged to become financially interested, is not calculated to pave the way towards a more comprehensive system of controlling government borrowing, along the lines of the Australian Loan Council. A more effective instrument for this purpose might well prove to be the National Finance Council; its evolution into a body with effective powers of control may take a period of years, but that is not necessarily an objection, since in matters of constitutional development the tortoise not infrequently defeats the hare. This, in brief, is the thesis which is developed in the following paper.

For the purpose of this paper, discussion is limited to the control of federal and provincial governmental borrowing, and no consideration is given to the control of municipal borrowing. This is not because the latter problem is lacking in importance, or is irrelevant to the whole problem, but since the municipalities are the creations of the provincial government, and because they vary so widely in size, etc. , their control presents many fresh problems, the consideration of which would more than double the length of the present paper.
The Penetrative Powers of the Price System
Authors: Innis H. A.
Published: June 2006

Two years ago the chairman of this evening's meeting stood in my place and delivered a scintillating address on “Statistics Comes of Age”. A year ago Professor Mackintosh gave his presidential address on “An Economist Looks at Economics”. I propose, therefore, to follow them in these subjects and to pursue an inquiry which occupied the time and energies of the first important Canadian economist, Adam Shortt. Economics is an older subject than statistics but I shall confine myself in this paper to the period since statistics began to leave its impression on economics and reached that stage, fatal to economics, when it came of age. Professor G. N. Clark in Science and Social Welfare in the Age of Newton (Oxford, 1937) has traced the background of statistics, in the growing importance of mathematics through astronomy, surveying, and book-keeping which followed the discovery of the new world, prior to its beginnings with the publication of John Graunt's Observations upon the Bills of Mortality in 1662, or four years before the census of Talon in Canada. An important statistical department was set up in England under an inspector-general to collect statistics on imports and exports about 1695. The effects of the imports of treasure from North America were becoming increasingly evident and William Fleetwood with a strong vested interest in stability in the value of fellowships published his Chronicon Preciosum in 1706, a first book on prices. And so the snake entered the paradise of academic interest in economics. Under the stimulus of treasure from the new world the price system ate its way more rapidly into the economy of Europe and into economic thought.
Resale Price Maintenance
Authors: Curtis C. A.
Published: June 2006

Resale price maintenance raises not only economic problems but also legal ones. Indeed, much of the material on the subject is legal in origin. These legal aspects are, of course, important in showing the nature of the arguments—economic and other—involved, but their importance is mainly with respect to the technique of maintaining the system. For the immediate purpose one can assume that the economic aspects of resale price maintenance are the same, irrespective of the actual technique of enforcement and therefore the legal aspects, as such, can be ignored here.

It may be pointed out, however, that the methods used to enforce compliance with the system are various. In Great Britain, for example, the trade association with contracts for its members and dealers is common. These may be enforced by legal action or economic action such as refusal to sell. In other cases it may be handled by contracts between the manufacturer and the jobber and then jobber and dealer. The actual technique used is usually dependent upon what the law permits; accordingly it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Of course, the effectiveness of the scheme depends upon enforcement. Paradoxically enough, the better the system is maintained, the greater are the gains to any one dealer in evading it. Thus success tempts the very forces which if not checked will break it.
Bank Cash
Authors: Elliott Courtland
Published: June 2006

Structurally, one of the principal contrasts in Canadian banking between 1914 and 1938 is to be found in the accessibility of cash. In 1914 cash was available to a bank only in the same way that it was available to any other business concern which wished to avoid borrowing. A bank had access to cash only by disposal of its own assets and a change in the cash position of the system was almost wholly represented by a corresponding change in metallic reserves. Both an individual bank and the banking system had to be self-reliant as far as the maintenance of an adequate cash position was concerned, and for this purpose nest eggs were maintained at home or abroad. In 1938 cash is available to a bank, not only by the orthodox redistribution of its assets, but also by its access to the lending and rediscount facilities of the Bank of Canada. Moreover, cash may be forced on the banking system by definite action of the central bank, and changes in the cash reserves no longer correspond to changes in the gold holdings of the financial organization. In brief, the passing years have brought Canadian banks around to a point where an individual bank need no longer be wholly dependent upon its own resources for an adequate cash reserve and where the aggregate reserves of the system are not dependent upon the accessibility of metallic reserves.
A Rejoinder
Authors: McDougall John L.
Published: June 2006

I have read Professor Jackman's very long criticism of my two articles with the greatest of interest and with some relief. In each I tried to say things which appeared badly in need of expression. If this is the worst criticism I must face, then I feel very much more confident of the soundness of my general position. I can find very little in the above article which is not answered in what I have already written. In the main my answer is to ask those readers who may be interested to refer to my previous articles, but there are one or two points which may be dealt with briefly below.

The main assumptions which seem to underlie Mr. Jackman's criticisms of my article in the University of Toronto Quarterly are: (a) that all political and sectional pressures upon railway management would instantly cease if the Canadian National lines were turned over to the Canadian Pacific for administration; (b) that the continuous decline in gross revenues from 1928 through 1933 is, relatively, a factor of minor importance, the more permanent factor of competition between the two railways completely overshadowing it; (c) that a fruitful discussion of the present situation of the railways can be carried on without reference to the general economic balance of the country. In the light of our past history the first of these assumptions rises to heights of optimism to which I dare not aspire. If the millenium is to arrive after the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National lines are operated as one, far be it from me to stand against it.
Price Raising in the Dairy Industry
Authors: Drummond W. M.
Published: June 2006

From an early date Canada has been on an export basis in respect of dairy products considered as a group. From Confederation until the early years of the present century, expansion of production was to a large extent dependent upon the expansion of export markets. The extent of this dependence is indicated by the figures showing the exports of cheese and butter which, in the period in question, were the only dairy products exported. In the case of cheese, exports mounted steadily from 6,141,570 pounds in 1868 to the high point of 233,980,716 pounds in 1904. As for butter the amount exported, while somewhat irregular, was on the whole very considerable and in the later years of the period became extremely large. In 1868 exports of butter amounted to 10,649,733 pounds, whereas in each of the two high years, 1903 and 1906, they exceeded 34 million pounds. Since the latest years mentioned above, however, exports of both cheese and butter have tended decidedly downward. From the high point reached in 1904, cheese exports have fallen until for the year ending March 31, 1935, they were only 60,213,000 pounds. The amount of butter exported has varied widely but in only three different years since 1906 have exports exceeded 20 million pounds and in most years they have been well under 10 million pounds. In several years they have been from one to two million pounds and in the year ended March 31 last they fell to the record low level of 446,600 pounds.
Transfer of Means-of-Payment and the Terms of International Trade
Authors: Elliott G. A.
Published: June 2006

In the recent English literature of international trade theory, one element in the adjustment of the balance of international payments has been brought once more into prominence, especially with regard to unilateral payments. It is described by various writers as the transfer of “purchasing power”, or of “buying power”, or of “means of payment”, or as a “shift in demand schedules”, which induces the receiving country to buy more goods and services and the paying country to buy less goods and services “in the absence of price changes”. This factor in the adjustment of the balance of payments was implied by Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Wheatley. Longfield referred to it explicitly. Bastable mentioned it in a journal article and Nicholson placed considerable emphasis on it. Mill, however, omitted it from his analysis. After 1900 it dropped from sight until 1918 when it cropped up again in a controversy in which Taussig, Wicksell, and Hollander took part. It was noticed in Viner's Canada's Balance and by 1931 had been developed considerably by Wilson, Ohlin, and Robertson. Since that time it has appeared in the published works of a large number of economists.

Many of the earlier proponents of the theory denied that unilateral transfers could change the terms of trade. To them it seemed obvious that the payment would by itself increase the purchases of the receivers and diminish the purchases of the payers by the amount of the payment. Thus the commodity balance would become unfavourable to the receiving country by the amount of the payment without price changes. Mill, on the other hand, and those who accepted his analysis in its entirety, claimed that the familiar specie-flow-price mechanism would necessarily lead to a change in the terms of trade in a direction favourable to the receiving country.
Disallowance of Provincial Acts, Reservation of Provincial Bills, and Refusal of Assent by Lieutenant-Governors Since 1867
Authors: Forsey Eugene
Published: June 2006

Until last August, it was widely assumed that the Dominion's power to disallow provincial Acts was fast becoming obsolete. No disallowance had taken place since 1924; and the minister of justice, the Right Honourable Ernest Lapointe, speaking in the House of Commons on March 30, 1937, had said : “For many years the power of disallowance has not been resorted to by the government of Canada…. I do not think that in a federation such as this the power of disallowance could be exercised by the central government.” On the question of reservation of provincial bills, there was no official pronouncement; but as there had been no case of reservation since 1920, the same dictum would doubtless have been considered to apply to that power also. On August 17, 1937, the Dominion government disallowed three Alberta Acts, and two months later the lieutenant-governor of Alberta reserved three bills for the signification of the governor-general's pleasure. The discussion which arose out of these events has been more remarkable for heat than light. It seems pertinent, therefore, to try to set down clearly the constitutional law and practice governing these two powers, and incidentally the lieutenant-governor's power to refuse the royal assent outright.
William James Ashley: A Pioneer in the Higher Education
Authors: Usher A. P.
Published: June 2006

Professor Ashley was a pioneer in the most explicit meaning of that term. His work at Oxford identified him with a small group that was deeply concerned with the exploration of new fields of history. He was called to the University of Toronto in 1888 to establish a new Department of Political Science. In 1892, the subject with which he was most intimately concerned was formally recognized by his appointment to a chair in Economic History at Harvard. Distinguished work in this field, however, merely served to reveal new opportunities. Professor Ashley became increasingly aware of the possibilities of developing a programme of instruction for business executives. His work at Harvard was being developed to meet these new needs, when an opportunity was presented to develop such a programme on a larger scale at the University of Birmingham. His appointment as professor of Commerce in 1901 was thus a natural development of his thought and activity, and he gave the rest of his career to a programme which embodied important anticipations of the further development of economic history.
Mr. Mackenzie King's Foreign Policy, 1935–36
Authors: Reid Escott
Published: June 2006

Since the War imprecision has been the common characteristic of most statements on foreign policy by Canadian prime ministers. In this the prime ministers of Canada have not been unique. As Mr. Harold Nicolson has pointed out, though “the essence of a good foreign policy is certitude” and though “an uncertain policy is always bad” yet “on the other hand, parliamentary and press opposition is less likely to concentrate against an elastic foreign policy than against one which is precise. It is thus a grave temptation for a Foreign Minister under the democratic system to prefer an idealistic formula, which raises only intellectual criticism, to a concrete formula which is open to popular attack.”

Canadian political leaders have been vague about the principles of their foreign policy, not only because of a shrewd calculation of political interest (the fact that a forthright statement on foreign policy would lose more votes than it would gain) but also out of regard for the national interest. There are deep divisions in the Canadian nation—divisions arising out of race, religion, section. These divisions are likely to be deepened—over the short-run at least—by facing the Canadian people with the necessity of choosing between a number of clearly defined policies on external affairs. For Canadian foreign policy, as Mr. Mackenzie King has recently pointed out, is concerned with the problems which arise out of “the unparalleled complexity of our position as a member of the league, a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations and one of the nations of the American continent”.
Saskatchewan, 1930-1935
Authors: Britnell G. E.
Published: June 2006

In this article an attempt is made to present in summary form a description of the impact of drought and depression on Saskatchewan. Important problems of public policy and difficult problems of economic analysis arise in the course of the description, but a full treatment of these problems has been postponed. It seemed that the intelligent discussion of national problems could best be promoted at the present time by making available an account of the facts relating to this one province.
The Problem of Public Debt in Canada
Authors: MacGregor D. C.
Published: June 2006

The slowness of the industrial recovery is gradually disclosing unmanageable situations in public finance. From the standpoint of public debt, countries engaged in the export of staples fall into three classes: (1) those where widespread default occurred in 1931 or 1932 on both public and private debt and where little or no resumption of debt service has occurred, such as most of the South American republics; (2) those where a critical position appeared early in the depression, followed by collective adjustment of internal debts and measures designed to maintain the level of prices, such as Australia and New Zealand; and (3) those where little or no public default or manipulation of debts, foreign exchange, or price levels has hitherto occurred, such as the Union of South Africa and Canada. Newfoundland occupies a curious position, more like that of European countries, having undergone a political as well as a financial reorganization. The Argentine occupies a position intermediate between groups (1) and (2).
The Evidence Presented to the Duff Commission
Authors: McDougall J. L.
Published: June 2006

It is the purpose of this article to do for the evidence presented to the Royal Commission to Inquire into Railways and Transportation in Canada, 1931-32, what Mr. Plumptre did in a preceding number for the Canadian Macmillan Commission. In this case the need is even greater. To the writer's knowledge the only copy of these Proceedings which is available to the general public is the one in the Parliamentary Library in Ottawa. The current press affords only a fitful light upon the evidence; and from some of the hearings it was excluded altogether. If, therefore, any part of this material is to be made generally available, it must be through some such report as is here attempted. The difficulties in the way of condensation are clear to anyone who has attempted it; and in this case some 2136 pages, a large part of it closely argued, must be reduced to some 12 to 15 pages.
The Political Principles of Federalism
Authors: Rogers Norman McL.
Published: June 2006

Federalism has been described by Dicey as “a political contrivance intended to reconcile national unity and power with the maintenance of ‘state right’”. Dr. Schmitt, a contemporary German student of federal institutions, has stated that “the nature of union consists in a dualism of the political existence, in a combination of federative common existence and political unity on the one hand with the continuance of plurality, of a pluralism of political individual unities, on the other”. Lord Bryce had expressed the same thought in more picturesque language in his earlier study of federal institutions in the United States.

The central or national government and the State governments may be compared to a large building and a set of smaller buildings standing on the same ground yet distinct from each other. It is a combination sometimes seen where a great church has been erected over more ancient homes of worship. First the soil is covered by a number of small shrines and chapels, built at different times and in different styles of architecture, each complete in itself. Then over them and including them all in its spacious fabric there is reared a new pile with its own loftier roof, its own walls, which may rest upon and incorporate the walls of the older shrines, its own internal plan. The identity of the earlier buildings has, however, not been obliterated; and if the later and larger structure were to disappear, a little repair would enable them to keep out wind and weather, and be again what they once were, distinct and separate edifices.
Social Reform and the Constitution
Authors: Claxton Brooke
Published: June 2006

Between 1867 and 1934 over 136 constitutional cases have faced the Privy Council with the task of saying what the Canadian constitution means. Despite those cases, or because of them, it is still quite certain that unless legislation falls clearly within one of the specific heads of s. 91 or s. 92 of the B.N.A. Act, it is virtually impossible to guess where legislative authority over any question will finally be found to reside. In practice this depends not only on the Act and the cases but in part on the way the issue is raised and presented and in part on each judge's personal inclination towards federal or provincial authority. The further circumstances that the form of the proposed reform legislation has not been finally settled at the time of writing increases the difficulty of even describing fairly the constitutional issues raised by the government's social legislation which is the subject of this paper. It is like guessing what attitude the Privy Council in England will take to a series of constitutional earthquakes that have not yet happened.

In all this uncertainty one thing at least appeared to be certain. This was that everything proposed in Mr. Bennett's policy of social reform was beyond the powers of the Dominion. Out of all those who considered the question before the current session of Parliament, only four authorities seem to have thought it possible that the Dominion might have jurisdiction. The situation was recognized by Mr. Bennett last August when he wrote to the provinces indicating his intention to call a Conference to discuss, among other matters, the question: “Are the provinces prepared to surrender their exclusive jurisdiction over legislation dealing with such social problems as old-age pensions, unemployment and social insurance, hours and conditions for work, minimum wages, etc., to the Dominion Parliament? If so, on what terms and conditions?” But the provinces' cool response to this letter led to the proposed Conference being abandoned, and in January Mr. Bennett in five radio speeches broadcast the policy of reform. In introducing the Employment and Social Insurance Act on January 29, 1935, Mr. Bennett set under way the coach and four he was starting to drive through current conceptions of the constitution, if not through the constitution itself. It might almost seem that his reading of the speeches of the Fathers of Confederation led him into the error of thinking that the constitution was what they intended it to be.
The Pulp and Paper Industry
Authors: Forsey E. A.
Published: June 2006

The pulp and paper industry has fallen on evil days since 1929. It is still our largest manufacturing industry both in value of output and amount of payroll, and still ranks second only to wheat among the export staples on which our economic life is built: in the calendar year 1934, wheat provided just over 20 per cent, of the value of our exports; pulp and paper, 17¼ per cent, a gain of 4¼ per cent, since 1930. Unhappily it is also second only to wheat in the calamities which have overtaken it. In 1933, its salary payments were barely 68 per cent, of the pre-depression figure, its wage bill not quite 50 per cent., its bond and debenture interest payments less than 15 per cent., its dividends about 9 per cent. Mr. C. P. Fell, in his valuable chapter in The Canadian Economy and its Problems, says that “mills having 58 per cent, of the total Canadian [newsprint] capacity are in bankruptcy or receivership, or are passing, or have recently passed through, some form of reorganization; … they include five out of eight of the larger newsprint manufacturers in North America.”

The general decline in prices and consumption will explain only a small part of the disaster. It is tempting to dismiss the rest as no more than an instance of the common plight of all export industries; especially as the only section of the pulp and paper industry in a reasonably satisfactory financial position is the small group of firms producing fine paper and specialty goods for the protected home market. But this explanation also is hardly adequate. The Canadian wheat grower has had to contend against the vagaries of nature, against foreign tariffs, quotas, and other such restrictions, against a considerable expansion of home production in his chief markets, and against the formidable competition of exporters from countries with depreciated exchanges. The Canadian newsprint manufacturer, on the other hand, faces no such obstacles. On the contrary, he has free entry into the United States market, and, until the worst of the depression was past, enjoyed the advantages of a depreciated exchange, netting him at times as much as $8.00 a ton, and an average of $3.00 in 1933. It is necessary, therefore, to look deeper to discover why the industry has suffered such exceptionally severe losses.
Economic Implications of the Report of the Royal Commission on Price Spreads
Authors: Taylor K. W.
Published: June 2006

Whatever may be regarded as the immediate motives which impelled the Price Spreads investigation it will be generally agreed that a careful examination of the Canadian economy as a whole is long overdue, and that present conditions and current trends require the formulation of intelligent and co-ordinated economic policies. We are now in the sixth year of a major industrial depression and, while there has been a substantial measure of recovery from the low points of 1933, there is no clear indication of continued improvement and there is at least a possibility of the crumbling of the statistical ledge to which we have been rather precariously and nervously clinging for the past twelve months. Canada, with its large measure of dependence on the exports of two or three staple products, has always been in a vulnerable position, but this has been greatly accentuated by the widespread trend towards economic nationalism and self-sufficiency. Our professional optimists to the contrary, Canada has been one of the heaviest sufferers during the past five years and the outlook for the future is still uncertain and still threatening.

It is not necessary to elaborate the familiar problems of the Canadian economy: an income that fluctuates violently with the volume and value of our exports, and expenses that are made highly rigid by the dominating factors of heavy overhead costs; the wide differences in the technological problems of the several major industries; the concentration of staple industries in specialized geographical areas and the growing political and cultural domination of metropolitan centres which accentuate political and economic sectionalism, and at the same time a high degree of concentration of the control of finance, commerce, and manufacturing on a national scale—a concentration to which it is difficult to apply social regulation and control within the present framework of the British North America Act.
The Working of Confederation
Authors: Brossard Roger , Angus H. F.
Published: June 2006

The word “Confederation” is often used in a restrictive sense to refer merely to the “British North America Act”; in this restricted sense, it refers to the constitution of Canada. In its broader sense, it should refer to the union of the entire population of Canada, grouped together, on the one hand into provinces, and on the other hand into Canadians of French and English descent, for the attainment, the development, and the protection of interests common to all, while safeguarding for each group, whether province or race, the rights and traditions peculiar to it. These two understandings of Confederation are indispensable for a better comprehension of the attitude of French Canada towards it.

Two lines of thought as to the understandings, agreements, pacts, or contracts—call them what you like—which were satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily formulated by the British North America Act must be noted. While for the majority of Anglo-Canadian constitutional authors the pacts of 1864, 1865, and 1866 were primarily made between provinces, one of which happened to be populated for the most part by Canadians of French descent, for French-Canadian constitutional writers these pacts were at one and the same time agreements between the four original provinces on the one hand and between the two great races on the other hand. The fact that Sir George Etienne Cartier and other French Fathers of Confederation did not, at the time, foresee that at some future date the provinces of Canada other than Quebec would also be populated by an important number of French Canadians, and that they consequently directed all their efforts for the safeguarding of the rights of French Canadians to securing for the province of Quebec the largest possible amount of independence, does not, in our opinion, change the above views on the matter.
Problems of Public Finance in the Prairie Provinces
Authors: Waines W. J.
Published: June 2006

“All economic problems which are concerned with overhead costs, whether those of the individual farm enterprise or those of communities or governmental bodies, are rendered active or quiescent by the fluctuations of net agricultural income.” Herein, lies the fundamental economic problem of the West. It is the purpose of this paper to examine provincial and municipal finance in the Prairie Provinces in the light of this fact, in an attempt to reveal some of the more important problems and possible lines of attack on them. The area designated as the Prairie Provinces, however, is not a unit with uniform geographic and economic characteristics. Therefore, the factors of diversity, as well as those of variability, constitute the background against which the problems of government finance should be examined. Since these factors are vital to a consideration of the problems, there must be some preliminary account of them.

The prairie economy is “exposed” to the fluctuations characteristic of a variable climate, of extreme specialization, and of dependence upon prices determined in world markets. The contrast between an almost exclusively agricultural and an agricultural-industrial region, sheltered by a kindly federal government, is most marked. The climatic and economic instability of the West has been thoroughly studied by Professor Mackintosh in two volumes in the series “Canadian Frontiers of Settlement”. The instability reflected in variable community income is highly significant, because it is the net income “which must carry the fixed charges of both the individual enterprise and the agricultural community at large”.
The Saskatchewan Debt Adjustment Programme
Authors: Britnell G. E.
Published: June 2006

On September 28, 1936, Premier Patterson of Saskatchewan announced that his government had reached an agreement with the Dominion Mortgage and Investments Association under which a comprehensive scheme of agricultural debt adjustment on a voluntary basis would be established in the province. The new scheme involved partial abandonment of the principle of individual adjustment and aimed at the rapid scaling down of the debt burden by effecting what would be in essence a blanket reduction of certain classes of debts. However, since crop failures had not afflicted every part of the province with equal severity, it was decided to divide the province into three areas, the extent of each area being determined by the crop returns of the previous six years. An area comprising 158 rural municipalities and local improvement districts in the south (making up approximately one-half of the settled region of the province), and designated as the drought area, was to be given substantial reductions in relief, tax and mortgage indebtedness. A marginal area of 18 rural municipalities which had suffered less acutely was to receive special consideration and smaller adjustments to be determined by subsequent negotiation. A third area making up the balance of the province was to receive no reduction of indebtedness but was to enjoy, along with the drought and marginal areas, a reduction in the interest rate on all farm mortgages and agreements of sale of land to 6 per cent, as from January 1, 1937, together with extension of such mortgages and agreements for a period of ten years.
Monopolistic Competition and Economic Realism
Authors: Cassels John M.
Published: June 2006

From one of the outstanding theorists in the field of economics to-day, Professor Pigou himself, we have the statement that, if economics is to be more than “merely an amusing toy”, it must be “realistic”, in the sense that its “interest is concentrated upon the world known in experience”, and “fruit-bearing”, in the sense that its ultimate objective is to contribute to the attainment of “practical results in social improvement”. Few will disagree with a general statement of this sort; yet none of us can fail to be conscious of the difficulties involved in maintaining a really close and useful relationship between our theoretical analyses and the most urgent practical problems of the economic world around us. It is with these difficulties and with the effect upon them of recent theoretical developments that this paper is primarily concerned.
Allied Wheat Buying in Relationship to Canadian Marketing Policy, 1914–18
Authors: Sharp Mitchell W.
Published: June 2006

At the outbreak of war in August, 1914, plans to cope with a possible food scarcity in the Allied countries were of a rudimentary character. For example, in the War Book of the British Government, there was only one measure dealing directly with food, and that a measure for obtaining information. In France the only legislation on agriculture or foodstuffs existing at the outbreak of war was a law of the period of the Revolution, dating back to July, 1791, which authorized the fixing of retail prices for bread and meat. Hence, methods of procedure had to be improvised as difficulties arose and it was not until well on towards the close of hostilities that anything like a comprehensive food policy had been devised.

As the central foodstuff in the diet of the peoples of the western Allied powers, bread came to play a leading role in the development of food policy. In the words of the body that was later to dominate world import trade in wheat, bread was “the only diet which sufficed in isolation and was therefore, indispensable.” Other foods might fail or be in short supply, but starvation seemed a long way off so long as there was enough bread. In the United Kingdom an implicit “breadstuffs policy” underlay the whole structure of food policy. Though never expressed in any one document, that policy has been stated in these words: whatever else was allowed to be in short supply, whether for human or for animal consumption, there should be a sufficiency of breadstuffs to meet in full all demands for them without rationing. In the other European Allied countries the direction of policy is not so clear but, with surprising unanimity, efforts were directed to keeping bread cheap and plentiful.
Mortality Tables in Life Insurance Management
Authors: Campbell J. A.
Published: June 2006

In all popular discussions of death rates or of the probable duration of human life one finds the phrase “according to the mortality table.” Sometimes it even appears that a writer is assuming that a definite law of mortality has been discovered from which deviations are not to be expected and which has been embodied in the mortality table. Every serious student of the subject knows that this is far from the truth and that there are many mortality tables, each representing the mortality which was experienced by a specified group of lives during a specified time.

To the actuary, any mortality table is simply a mathematical tool with which to study such problems as population growth or change, or to calculate the monetary values of benefits dependent on life contingencies. It is a tool in the same sense that a gauge is a tool for a machinist. In some parts of a machinist's work only the most accurate precision gauges are acceptable, and similarly in calculating premiums for non-participating insurance or rates for life annuities, the actuary must use the most accurate and up-to-date mortality table available. On the other hand, a machinist may use a less exact gauge for other types of work where conditions are suitable. For certain purposes such as calculating policy liabilities, the actuary has a corresponding choice, for, as will appear later in the paper, reserves by all mortality tables are remarkably similar.
The Social Significance of Recent Trends in Economic Theory
Authors: Roll Erich
Published: June 2006

The story of the relation between political philosophy and economics records many curious twists and turns, anachronistic survivals, and striking anticipations. But nothing is more astonishing than the contrast between the current preoccupations of economists and their tacit methodological beliefs. During the last war and today economic enquiry has inevitably been harnessed to problems of government. But even during the two decades of armistice the bulk of the work of economists has been intimately related to policy. Not only has activity in the empirical and applied fields increased greatly, but purely theoretical analysis, too, has had a strong practical bias. Probably the three outstanding topics in theoretical discussion during the last few years have related to the problems of crises, monopoly, and planning. All three, even when debated in the most abstract terms, have an obvious “tendency to use,” in the sense that they envisage the application of measures of control by government or other social agencies.

Thus, judged by their choice of topics, economists seem to have given up any implicit unquestioning belief in the virtues of laissez-faire, and, to some extent, even in the capitalist system. Yet there seems still to be lurking in their minds an inherited regard, if not for the Smithian “hidden land,” at least for the so-called economic case for laissez-faire as expounded by such members of the first generation of modern economics as William Stanley Jevons, Philip Wicksteed, and J. B. Clark. There are left, it is true, only a few citadels which would put up a full-bodied defence of this case. But a great many of the less intransigent economists still appear to subscribe to it when they are asked explicitly to discuss it.
The Earning Power of Canadian Corporate Capital, 1934-40
Authors: McDougall J. L.
Published: June 2006

There are two approaches to questions of earning power, the first, annual, which is the one adopted in this paper, the second, a whole-life study. Of the two the latter is incomparably superior. A study of annual rates of earnings is inevitably biased by the fact that it can include the surviving corporations only. Those which fail make no reports, nor are the capital losses in failure offset against the profits of the survivors to show the net return to capitalists as a class upon their ventures. In addition, the rates of earnings of any year are affected by the business conditions of that year. It is only when one has a series extending over a full business cycle that one has material from which to compute a “normal” rate of return, subject to the inclusion therein of a bias which is not open to any reasonably dependable estimate.

In the whole-life study the rate of return found is that rate which will equate the in-payments of capital by investors to the corporation with the dividends paid to investors including therein the liquidating dividend(s) if the corporation is wound up (or the current market value as a reasonable substitute therefor if it still continues). The beauty of this method is that it avoids the whole problem of allocating earnings to particular time-periods and escapes the illogicality of showing as earnings what never reaches the owner. Its disadvantage is that it is applicable to long periods only. A decade is probably the minimum and two are preferable. It is the only method of determining earning power which is logically defensible; but for many purposes the annual data, with all their imperfections, are still useful and it is for such uses that this study is presented.
The Impact of War Taxation on Eighty Canadian Corporations
Authors: Morgan Lucy
Published: June 2006

In pre-war days corporations paid a Dominion income tax of 15 per cent on net income, or 17 per cent if they consolidated their returns with those of subsidiaries. In the case of unincorporated businesses—partnerships and sole proprietorships—income tax was levied on the individual incomes of the persons participating in the business; no tax was levied on the business as a unit. Under present taxation schedules, the corporation income tax stands at 18 per cent; 20 per cent for companies making consolidated returns. Proprietorships pay higher taxes through the steeply increased individual income tax rates. And, finally, the excess profits tax has been superimposed on the previous tax structure.

The excess profits tax applies to all businesses, incorporated and unincorporated. In addition to the taxes assessed under the Income War Tax Act, they have paid up to the present either a flat rate on their total profits (in 1940, 12 per cent for all businesses; in 1941, 22 per cent in the case of corporations, 15 per cent in the case of other businesses) or 75 per cent on profits in excess of pre-war profits, whichever tax was the larger. The provisions listed in the Income War Tax Act for the exemption of educational, charitable, labour, farmers', and other such organizations apply equally to this tax. Otherwise it was assessed in 1940 and 1941 against every business in Canada having a profit, before any payments to partners, proprietors, or shareholders, of more than $5000, with the proviso that any part of the tax which would reduce the profit thus defined to less than $5000 was not to be paid.