bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Post Office since 1867
Authors: Currie A. W.
Published: June 2006

Throughout its history the Canada Post Office has faced substantially the same set of problems but the emphasis has shifted. For instance, technology, which formerly was mainly related to the use of railways and then of automobiles and airplanes, is now concentrated on the problem of sorting mail by electronic means. At one time the Post Office devoted much attention to extending postal services to all parts of Canada, however remote. Now it is increasingly concerned with providing service intensively, that is, with giving door-to-door delivery in suburban areas and in every community of 5,000 or more people. Postal authorities and the general public have always been interested in the relative rates on letters, magazines, advertising circulars, and parcels, as well as in the allied question of a surplus or deficit on the operation of the Post Office as a whole. In the last few years rising wage-rates and rapid growth in the volume of second- and third-class mail have made the matter of pricing for postal services more significant than ever before. This article deals first with the history of the Canada Post Office and then with problems of the postal service which remain unsolved.

Before 1851, all postal services in British North America were ultimately controlled by the Postmaster General in London. Even after the reforms of Rowland Hill, the Postmaster General’s policy for the colonies was to secure a profit which was remitted to Britain. After the colonies assumed control they rapidly increased the number of offices and the milage of postal routes. Internal postage rates, which had averaged 18 cents per half ounce and were graduated for distance, became uniformly 2d. sterling or 5 cents anywhere in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada. The colonists bore the resultant deficits without much complaint.
On the Present State of Economic History
Authors: Aitken Hugh G. J.
Published: June 2006

It is far from easy to decide, at any given moment, whether the state of a particular branch of intellectual inquiry is to be described as healthy or unhealthy, as full of promise or stagnant and moribund. The criteria of advance are not clear and personal bias may distort judgment. Development seems to take place not in a smooth upward trend but in a series of discontinuous steps. What seems at first sight to be a period of inactivity or even decline may on a longer view turn out to be merely a necessary pause preparatory to further growth. Anyone undertaking to appraise the present state of an intellectual discipline such as economic history must therefore be aware that his task is a hazardous one.

There is no scarcity of evidence to suggest that economic history is at present in critical condition, at least in the United States. Traditionally tied to both history and economics and called upon to meet the expectations of each, it has always led a somewhat precarious existence. At least since the First World War its relationship to economic theory, always debatable, has become tenuous, until today it is a common experience to find in the same university department economic historians who know little economic theory and find no use for what they do know, and economic theorists who know little history and have no interest in learning more. This alienation has proceeded far beyond the normal differences of emphasis that might be expected to exist between specialists in the inductive and the deductive methods. Economic theory today, in most of its branches, neither draws on economic history for its data nor goes to economic history for empirical verification. Economic history, for its part, commonly uses only the crudest of the tools in the economist's tool-box, and displays almost complete indifference to the refinements in analytical methods that occupy the theorist's working time. The consequences of this divorce have been unfortunate for economic history. Some would say they have been unfortunate for economic theory also.
The Appointment of the Governor General: Responsible Government, Autonomy, and the Royal Prerogative
Authors: Mallory J. R.
Published: June 2006

The public face of events is often very different from their true inward nature. Sometimes it is possible so to arrange things that the real facts have been wholly concealed and a harmless but false conclusion is drawn from events. The appointment of John Buchan as Governor General of Canada in 1935 is a case in point. MacGregor Dawson, like everybody else, drew a conclusion from that appointment which can now be shown to differ from the actual constitutional lesson which emerges from the evidence. He said: “Mr. Bennett stated in 1936 that when Lord Tweedsmuir's name was being considered, he, as Prime Minister, first discussed the matter with Mr. Mackenzie King, the Leader of the Opposition, so that the Governor's appointment was in effect quite non-partisan in character inasmuch as it carried the approval of the leaders of both major parties.”

This arrangement of bi-partisan recommendation, he said, “may prove to be an accepted practice.” Whatever its practical advantages, a moment's reflection will show that it is hardly in accord with the theory of responsible government. Furthermore, the events which led up to this particular appointment were far more complex, and lead inescapably to a rather different set of conclusions.
Staff Relations in the Civil Service: Who Represents the Government?
Authors: Frankel S. J.
Published: June 2006

The words “collective bargaining” are gaining wide currency in the context of civil service staff relations in Canada. The term, however, seems to mean different things to different men, and is sometimes used to confound the real issues. Thus, if one wishes to resist any basic adjustments in existing procedures for staff representation the words may be given their strictest construction. This suggests collective bargaining as it is practised in private labour relations. It implies a process involving the certification of associations, the signing of periodic written agreements, the institution of conciliation boards and, in the last resort, strike action. On the other hand, if one recognizes the shortcomings in present experience, collective bargaining may imply nothing more than some adjustment of the machinery of staff relations in response to growing pressures for more meaningful negotiations. The point to be stressed is that constitutional democratic government cannot afford to be forced into rigid positions, hog-tied by precise definition and institutional inertia. It must seek accommodation with, and among, the many interests that exert their pressures within a given community and it must do so in a way that is consistent with the general climate of opinion and expectation.
Political Ideology as a Tool of Functional Analysis in Socio-Political Dynamics: An Hypothesis
Authors: Dion Léon
Published: June 2006

There is so little agreement concerning theories of political ideology that it may be appropriate to devote some preliminary remarks to the main orientations of recent research. I shall then state the approach to political ideology which is adopted in this paper.

“Political ideology” has different meanings in the two principal fields of knowledge in which it is used: sociology and political theory. The ambiguity which results is the greater because neither of these disciplines has as yet integrated this notion into the main body of its operational concepts. If the Marxist school of thought be excepted, one may well state that the notion of political ideology plays only a secondary and marginal role as a tool of sociopolitical analysis.

Political theorists and philosophers generally view political ideologies as a part of the complex of forces which sustains the political structure or tends to its overthrow. For them, political ideologies are one of the means to power, or, as stated recently by Anthony Downs, of getting votes. This approach is adequate so far as it goes, but in my view it narrows the notion of political ideology to one of its most manifest functions in democracies. Furthermore, most such treatments of political ideology assimilate it to a pseudo-philosophy. When this pseudo-philosophy is considered good, it is said to uplift and educate the people; when it is considered bad, it is held to mystify and corrupt them.
Europe's Unification and Canada's Trade
Authors: Caves Richard E.
Published: June 2006

The first day of January, 1959, saw the opening moves in the formation of the European Economic Community, the most spectacular experiment in regional economic integration to occur in recent history. If no hitches occur, within fifteen years West Germany, France, Italy, and the Benelux countries will have formed something between a customs union arid a full economic union, with internal free trade, a common external tariff, partial freedom of internal factor movement, partial co-ordination of economic and social policies, and a common framework of agricultural protection and control. There is a small and wildly fluctuating probability that this “common market” will become embedded in a larger European free trade area organized by Great Britain and including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, and possibly other small European nations.
The Problem of Succession in the Soviet Political System: The Case of Khrushchev
Authors: Bociurkiw Bohdan R.
Published: June 2006

The mode of succession has long been recognized as one of the principal factors in determining the stability of a given political system and a key datum in the analysis of power relations within such a system. Essentially, the problem can be stated as involving (a) the technique of choosing a successor to a political leader, and (b) the successor's legitimization in the legal, traditional, or charismatic sense. This paper will deal primarily with the technique of succession in the Soviet system, touching only marginally on the question of legitimization. While drawing analogies from the post-Lenin succession crisis, the paper will attempt to identify the factors that shaped the nature and the course of the post-Stalin power struggle and the technique that ensured Khrushchev's victory over his rivals. Needless to say, limitations of evidence have introduced a considerable speculative element into the discussion, and some of the generalizations are therefore, at best, only tentative hypotheses that will have to be tested against such empirical evidence as may become available in the future.

Although modern constitutionalism has largely resolved the problem of succession by legally defining the technique of succession and making the technique the criterion of legitimacy, the very nature of the totalitarian dictatorship that emerged in Russia after 1917 precludes a constitutional solution to the problem. “… dictatorship,” Lenin wrote in 1920, “means neither more nor less than unlimited power resting directly on force, not limited by anything, not restrained by any laws or any absolute rules.”
Extension of the Life of Legislatures
Authors: Forsey Eugene
Published: June 2006

One of the most fundamental of democratic rights is the right to representation in a free parliament. A legislature which is in a position to prolong its own life indefinitely can nullify that right.

That is why the United States Constitution lays it down that there must be a general election for the House of Representatives, and for one-third of the Senate, every two years. Nothing except a constitutional amendment can change this; and the process of amendment is so elaborate and difficult, and takes so long, that we can be certain that there will never be any lengthening of the term of either House of Congress unless American public opinion emphatically and overwhelmingly desires it. The same is true of the individual states. If Congress or any state legislature tried to prolong its own life, the “act” would be void, and any citizen could have it annulled by appealing to the courts.

In Canada, the Dominion Parliament can prolong its own life, but only “in time of real or apprehended war, invasion or insurrection” and only “if such continuation is not opposed by the votes of more than one-third of the members” of the House of Commons. In other words, one-third plus one of the members of the House of Commons can prevent prolongation even in the midst of war, invasion, or insurrection. Any extension “act” passed contrary to these provisions would be void, and any citizen could have it annulled by appealing to the courts.
Agrarianism in Israel's Party System
Authors: Etzioni Amitai
Published: June 2006

The agricultural sector of Israel's Jewish population is not very large; nevertheless the role of agriculture in the political life of the country is of the utmost importance. Seven of the sixteen members of the present cabinet (July, 1956) are members of kibbutzim (collective agricultural settlements). Twenty-six of the seventy-five Jewish members who support the government coalition in the 120-member Knesset (Israel Parliament) are members of kibbutzim or of moshvei-ovdim (co-operative agricultural settlements). David Ben-Gurion, Israel's outstanding leader, who is the Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, retains his affiliation with a kibbutz and declares himself to be an agricultural labourer. Recently, for example, he relinquished all his official positions and left for a year and a half to do agricultural work in a kibbutz in Israel's pioneering frontier area, the Negev. The Minister of Finance, the Director General of the Ministry of Defence, and the Secretary General of the Histadrut (Federation of Labour)–three of Israel's key positions–consider themselves members of kibbutzim and take pride in their past as agricultural labourers. The Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces, a most popular figure with the youth of the country, was born and raised in a co-operative agricultural settlement, and his father, himself a farmer, is a member of the Knesset.
Capital Accumulation, Technological Change, and Economic Growth
Authors: Urquhart M. C.
Published: June 2006

This paper is limited to a narrow portion of the field of economic growth. Its purpose is to discover how growth in the labour force, capital accumulation, and technological change have affected the movements of factor prices (particularly the return to capital) in a private enterprise economy. The question of what may happen to the return on capital, and indeed to all factor prices, is an old one. There is now material to provide some evidence of what has happened.

The first part of the paper deals briefly with the theory of the matter and provides a rough model. The second part explores the dimensions which quantitative data for the United States for a period of 100 years put on the variables and parameters of the model. Finally there are some comments related to the possible bearing of the results on future changes in the economic variables dealt with. The analysis is entirely for the long period.

It is evident from the discussion that I assume that factor prices are determined by the factors' marginal productivities.

In what follows I take much that is commonly accepted for granted and use many obiter dicta, some of which are justified in footnotes.
The Development of a Capitalistic Labour Market in Canada
Authors: Pentland H. C.
Published: June 2006

It has been the custom of economists since the Mercantilists to assume the existence of a capitalistic labour market. It appears that this abstraction was adopted, not from ignorance of labour conditions–Malthus, who sponsored the bleakest model of a labour market, after all possessed exceptional knowledge of contemporary social conditions–but because it simplified the economists' main task, as they conceived it, of expounding how a capitalist economy works. The abstraction had the disadvantage, however, of diverting attention from how a capitalistic labour market might develop. This question, besides its historical and sociological interest, is relevant to the study of labour markets, and of “economic development.” Yet, in Canada, it has received only brief attention. This paper proposes a more detailed view of how our capitalistic labour market arose.

By a capitalistic market is meant one in which the actions of workers and employers are governed and linked by impersonal considerations of immediate pecuniary advantage. In this market, the employer is confident that workers will be available whenever he wants them; so he feels free to hire them on a short-term basis, and to dismiss them whenever there is a monetary advantage in doing so. Hence, the employer takes no responsibility for the workers' overhead costs: labour, to the employer, is a variable cost. From a broader viewpoint, the capitalistic labour market represents a pooling of the labour supplies and labour needs of many employers, so that all of them may benefit by economizing on labour reserves. Economy is possible because the labour requirements of employers collectively are less than those of employers individually, to the extent that short-term needs for labour dovetail, and to the extent that a worker can stand as a reserve to many employers. When the demand and supply conditions of labour are dependable enough to permit this pooling, the overhead costs of labour can be transferred from individual employers to the market, that is, to the workers themselves and to the community at large. The essential historical aspect of the capitalistic labour market, then, is the development of the supply and demand conditions that will support it. Two questions are especially critical: How are workers induced to flow into the labour market pool? And how are they prevented from flowing out again?
Inflation in the Context of a Mixed Economy
Authors: Solo Robert
Published: June 2006

It is increasingly clear that inflation cannot be explained simply by reference to changes in aggregate demand. Some economists have tried to distinguish between different “types of inflation” and to conceive of variations in the price level as the consequence of a multifunctional process. Dean Edward Mason, going deeper than most, explains changes in the general price level by the interaction of the highly diverse market structures of which the modern economy is composed. This paper, building on Mason's foundation, will relate the movements of the price level (including the so-called cost-push and demand-pull types of inflation) to the general process of allocating resources in the context of an economy composed of very diverse forms of market organization.

It will be assumed that the economy consists of an oligopolistic sector and a competitive sector. Each market of the oligopolistic sector is served by large firms, each with a sufficient share of the given market to permit it to exercise, both as buyer and as seller, a significant influence on price and output. Price and the terms of sale are controlled as a matter of company policy, that is, are “administered.” It follows that, since price is administered, output and hence the influx of resources into the industry are similarly controlled.
The Availability Doctrine: Development and Implications
Authors: Scott Ira O.
Published: June 2006

According to the classical theory of interest, which long served as a framework for the theory of money, prices, and income, the rate of interest is determined by the supply of and demand for savings. Monetary theorists, such as Wicksell, Fisher, Hawtrey, and Keynes, erected an imposing edifice on this foundation. Then came the Great Depression and disillusionment, the Second World War and the pegged market régime. At the same time, a growing ferment in the literature undermined the classical foundations. With regard to the savings function, agnosticism prevailed. As for investment demand, empirical studies and theoretical developments alike relegated the rate of interest to a minor role in entrepreneurial decision-making. In deference to considerations of debt management, open market operations were held in abeyance. Thus, little was to be expected of quantitative credit control as an instrument of public policy in the post-war period.
The Origins of Canada's Department of External Affairs
Authors: Eayrs James
Published: June 2006

On June 1, 1959, Canada's Department of External Affairs may look back upon a history of half a century's duration. Even so it is not the oldest foreign ministry in the overseas Commonwealth. That distinction belongs to the Australian Department of External Affairs, which became one of the original departments of the new federation created in 1901. The Canberra innovation seems not to have excited the slightest interest in Canada, despite the appearance during the same year of a book by a Canadian author containing what is probably the earliest written advocacy of separate foreign ministries for the self-governing colonies or dominions. In The Canadian Contingents and Canadian Imperialism, W. Sanford Evans developed at considerable length the case for “the creation in Canada, and in each of the other self-governing Colonies, of a Ministry of Imperial and Foreign Affairs.” It was, however, far from his intention to provide machinery for conducting a foreign policy distinct from and perhaps in defiance of that of the mother country. Evans was a staunch supporter of imperial federation, who looked on his project as a means of strengthening the imperial connection by adding to the power and influence of the centre.
The Midwestern Case: Canadian Gas and the Federal Power Commission
Authors: Aitken Hugh G. J.
Published: June 2006

The historian of the future, in attempting to interpret developments in the middle years of the twentieth century, may well be appalled by the mass of documentary evidence that confronts him. Particularly is this likely to be the case if he is foolhardy enough to explore the decisions of governmental regulatory agencies and the processes by which such organizations undertook to define the public interest. These public bureaucracies, exposed to strong political pressures and staffed largely by lawyers, characteristically accumulate very large masses of testimony, oral and written, in the course of their hearings. Partly for reasons of expense, this testimony is seldom published, and the lay inquirer, if he delves into the morass, is more than likely to find himself confused rather than enlightened by the unfamiliar phraseology and by the sheer bulk of the record.

Nevertheless, such agencies have come to play a very significant role in determining the rate and direction of economic development in the United States and Canada, and it is important that we should understand the kind of reasoning that underlies their decisions. The present inquiry stemmed initially from an interest in the Canadian natural gas industry, and from curiosity about the impediments that seemed to be delaying the export of Canadian gas to the United States.
The Political Economics of the Bank of Canada
Authors: Gordon H. S. , Read L. M.
Published: June 2006

Central banks are unique institutions. Most of them, including the Bank of Canada, are endowed with powers and charged with responsibilities that are as heavy and as general as those of the most important departments of government. Yet, by contrast, they usually enjoy a legal status which provides them with a degree of autonomy that greatly exceeds that of any department. In a political system based on parliamentary and responsible government, a central bank is, indeed, almost a constitutional anomaly.

A central bank, uniquely constituted or not, is a necessary organ of any monetary system based on an inconvertible paper currency. When money has a marginal cost of zero, it is necessary that the amount of the issue be limited by some means or another if its average market value is not also to become zero. Both logic and history seem to indicate that this limitation is best achieved by placing a monopoly of the note issue in the hands of a central bank or a similar agency. The creation of such a monopoly does not, of course, provide any indisputable answer to the important question of the degree of discretion which such an issuing authority might be permitted to enjoy. There are still some economists extant who advocate that the central bank be bound to a prescription so rigid that its role in the monetary system would be entirely mechanical. However, this view has a rather archaic quality. The dominant current opinion is quite different. Most economists and monetary analysts regard the central bank as, properly, an instrument of monetary management operating in an economy that requires, if it is to be stable and efficient, the continuous discretionary influence of such a management authority.
Language Differences and Occupational Experience
Authors: Brazeau E. Jacques
Published: June 2006

Because Canada has a labour force composed of more than one language stock, it is of interest to ask what social organization has developed to take account of this pluralism in her work world. Such an interest may take two main forms. First, with respect to a language variable, differences in occupational opportunities may be seen as the sole problem of Canadian Indians and Eskimos, of French Canadians, or of New Canadians. Second, we may wish to find out how our different language groups achieve interdependence in actual work situations and with what consequences for society as a whole. It is the second approach which will be adopted here; in a sense it includes the first, since the problem of any group stems in large part from the ways in which groups act on each other. The groups to which I shall limit my discussion will be the English and the French Canadians, but my remarks will undoubtedly apply, at least in part, to groups who speak other languages.

The view taken in this paper is that in our society, because English is the sole language which has currency in all aspects of social activity, people of different mother tongues have unequal opportunities for work. In a plural society, two consequences follow from the dominance of one language: a limited utilization of the potential skills of those who do not know the dominant language perfectly and a disengagement of the other mother tongues from important aspects of social reality.
The Market for Books in Canada
Authors: Wolfe J. N.
Published: June 2006

The market for books in Canada is of some interest in itself and as an example of the competition between British and United States goods in an important area. But perhaps no apology is required for addressing an article on such a subject to an academic audience, many of whom have an active and substantial personal interest in the matter.

The market for books in Canada is in reality several different markets, sometimes sharply differentiated on the side of the consumer, and often on that of the producer as well. There is, first of all, the division between French- and English-language books, bookstores, and publishers. Then there is the large and valuable market in school books, which is, in the main, dominated by provincial authorities and by a group of publishers catering to the very special and often parochial tastes of these bodies. The university market, though not so clearly differentiated, is coloured to some extent by the necessity of winning “adoptions” of a given text by the instructor, and by the importance of the university bookstore. There is again the substantial market organized by the United States book clubs. Even more important is the competing market in reprints and paperbacks. That sub-section of the English-language market on which most interest centres in this paper is that for so-called trade books, that is, books which are sold to the general reading public.
Sir Halford Mackinder: Theorist of Imperialism
Authors: Semmel Bernard
Published: June 2006

Halford John Mackinder, who has enjoyed considerable recognition as a founder of modern geographical study, achieved a widespread renown over a decade ago as the pioneer of the “science of geopolitics” of which Hitler had become a disciple. His other accomplishments, however, have been rather neglected, especially his work as an economic theorist and politician. At the beginning of the century, Mackinder was a principal spokesman for the Liberal-Imperialists; he was, in fact, well on his way toward a cabinet post. As a free trade Imperialist, he described with unusual insight the imperialism of capital export, anticipating at some points the later analysis of Hobson and the neo-Marxists, Hilferding and Luxemburg. Then, after a remarkable and sudden conversion to the Chamberlain programme of protection, he demonstrated a similar grasp of the rival neo-mercantile imperialism, and became one of its leading public advocates.

Mackinder was born at Gainsborough in 1861. His father was a doctor and, his first interests being in the field of science, he accepted, in 1880, a junior studentship in physical science at Christ Church, Oxford, where he intended to specialize in biology. While at Oxford, Mackinder discovered how broad and varied were his interests and his talents. He read for two honours schools, natural science and modern history, and for the bar–he was called at the Inner Temple in 1886. More and more, however, he devoted himself to geography, a subject to whose acceptance as an academic discipline he was to make so signal a contribution.
Regional Decentralization of Government Departments in Britain
Authors: Harris John S.
Published: June 2006

Vast changes have been wrought in the British governmental machinery during the past quarter-century—alterations in scope, structure, and administrative procedures made necessary in part by the rigours of economic depression and war and further intensified by the demands of an emerging welfare state. Of these changes one of the more significant has been the development by the central government departments of a complex and intricate system of regional organization to decentralize many of their more important functions. Today “administrative regionalism” characterizes the administration of fifteen major government departments. On January 1, 1956, 16,318 non-industrial civil servants (the national total was 636,771) were stationed outside Whitehall in regional offices established in eleven “regional capitals” and were working (with minor exceptions) in uniform geographical areas in accordance with established government policy. Several hundreds of thousands of the other civil servants were employed in local offices, such as post offices, employment exchanges, national insurance offices, pensions offices, district works offices, and so on. Some departments have regional offices and local offices; others have regional offices only.

Decentralization of national programmes is unavoidable if governmental machinery is to function at all effectively. This is true not only in democracies, but also in countries under authoritarian rule, such as the Soviet Union. The administrative problems encountered in the decentralization of governmental functions are many. The purpose of this article is to examine Britain's experience in order to secure answers to a number of important questions. Why has it been necessary for the British to establish a system of regional administration? To what extent can the responsibilities of a national government be decentralized? What form does such decentralization take—policy formation, or administration and execution, or both? What type of administrative organization has been developed on the regional level? How is the work of a particular ministry in each of the eleven regions co-ordinated and to what degree have procedures been devised for standardizing work programmes throughout the country? Within a given region, how are matters that concern two or more departments dealt with?
The Movement towards Labour Unity in Canada: History and Implications
Authors: Forsey Eugene
Published: June 2006

One of the marching songs of the labour movement on this continent is “Solidarity Forever!” But in Canada, its exhortation has sometimes been more honoured in the breach than in the observance. At intervals over the last half-century and more, Canadian trade unionism has been “by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distrest.” In 1902, the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada (T.L.C.) threw out the Knights of Labor and national unions which were “dual” to international unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (A.F.L.). The twenty-three expelled organizations promptly formed the National Trades and Labour Congress. In 1908, this became the Canadian Federation of Labour, a name which has kept cropping up in Canadian labour history ever since. In 1919, just after the Winnipeg strike, and partly as a result of it, a considerable number of western unionists left the T.L.C. to form the One Big Union (O.B.U.). Between 1901 and 1921, small local Roman Catholic unions sprang up in the province of Quebec, and in 1921 these formed the Canadian and Catholic Confederation of Labour (C.C.C.L.). In 1927, the Canadian Federation of Labour and other national unions formed the All-Canadian Congress of Labour (A.C.C.L.). In 1936, some of the officers of the A.C.C.L. seceded to form the present Canadian Federation of Labour, which is no longer even mentioned in the Department of Labour's annual Report on Labour Organization in Canada (and has not been since the 1950–1 edition), and which the orthodox union movement never considered a genuine labour organization at all. (About ten years ago, a secession from the Canadian Federation of Labour formed the National Council of Canadian Labour, which —in spite of its grandiose title, and the faint air of respectability imparted to it by inclusion in the Department of Labour's report, which gives it 42 locals and 5,640 members—is also beyond the pale of orthodox unionism.) In 1939, the executive of the T.L.C. suspended the Canadian unions affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (C.I.O.) in the United States. These unions formed a Canadian C.I.O. Committee.
Conservatives, Liberals, and Labour in the 1880's
Authors: Ostry Bernard
Published: June 2006

In the 1870's, party attitudes to Canada's nascent labour movement were clearly reflected in the federal legislation of successive Conservative and Liberal administrations. Especially was this true of the Trade Unions Act of 1872 and the Breaches of Contract Act of 1877. The bill concerning trade unions was guided through the House a few weeks before a federal general election by Sir John A. Macdonald, conscious of the special contribution it would make to the success of his National Policy. It was passed in response to organized labour's outspoken demands and in the face of George Brown's determined efforts to destroy trade unionism. The Breaches of Contract bill was driven through the Commons for no clear electoral purpose by Edward Blake and Alexander Mackenzie, conscious of the special contribution they could make to the success of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. It was passed in spite of labour fears and in the face of stiff opposition from Macdonald, Irving and other leading Conservative and Independent politicians. Whereas the famous Trade Unions Act asserted the right of all workers to organize and to strike, the less well-known Breaches of Contract Act denied the right to strike to all employees of public utilities. Thus the seventies, while witnessing some major federal legislation directly affecting Canada's young trade-union movement, also saw labour inevitably moving within the orbit of Macdonald's Conservative party.
Capitalization and Profitability in Canadian Banking
Authors: Moore B. J.
Published: June 2006

In view of the approaching revision of the Bank Act in 1964, it may now be appropriate to re-examine contemporary opinion and practice concerning commercial bank capital. It is tempting to inquire whether there is an optimum ratio of capital to assets towards which commercial banks should aim. The traditional economic function of capital accounts has been to protect bank depositors against loss caused by depreciation of bank assets. “Bank capital is in effect a first line of deposit guarantee. Any supervisory standard for measuring capital adequacy should be expressed in terms of the function of bank capital. The function of bank capital is to protect the bank creditors, mostly depositors, against ultimate loss.”

Taking a literal view of this function, supervisory authorities in the United States came to apply a standard ratio of capital to deposits of 10 per cent; “there appears to be no scientific basis for this particular ratio. It is simply a good round decimal, easy to calculate at a glance.” Then, as the capital: asset ratio fell substantially with the increase of bank holdings of government securities, a capital: asset standard was suggested. Since losses result from asset depreciation, and bank assets do not all involve the same degree of risk, assets seemed a more relevant guide to capital requirements than deposits. Such an assets standard would not indicate a need for more capital until earning assets of some inherent risk were being acquired. Incidentally, if protection of assets were the accepted function of bank equity, it would only be that portion of capital funds in excess of fixed assets which would be relevant for the numerator.
The Representative Firm and Imperfect Competition
Authors: Hollander Samuel
Published: June 2006

In a recent paper, J. N. Wolfe has interpreted P. Sraffa as having exposed a logical inconsistency in Marshall's Principles of Economics. According to Wolfe, Sraffa interpreted Marshall as being concerned with perfect competition and yet as allowing his representative firm to possess unexhausted internal economies; he therefore believed that Marshall was inconsistent, for the two phenomena are incompatible. Wolfe himself interprets the Marshallian representative firm as an oligopoly model.

This note discusses the following points. First it will be shown that Marshall's model when discussing increasing returns and the representative firm involved neither perfect competition nor oligopoly but imperfect competition. Second, I shall argue that the representative firm was largely designed to describe the problems which exist when product differentiation is recognized but when the industry is retained as a meaningful concept. That is, Marshall faces the same difficulties as those faced by J. Robinson and E. Chamberlin, but his solution involves a different approach. This is not to suggest that there was no need for the Robinson and Chamberlin volumes; indeed their appearance, together with Sraffa's article, reflected the unsatisfactory state in which Marshall left his analysis on this topic. Third, it follows from our interpretation that for Marshall the representative firm was a structure of the mind, a tool of analysis, and not a real firm. To clarify his views, I reproduce certain passages from which it is clear that he is not guilty of logical inconsistency either in the case of actual firms, or in the case of the representative firm.
Canada's Economic Prospects: A Survey of Ten Industries
Authors: Markham Jesse W.
Published: June 2006

Historians will probably mark the 1950's as the period in which the economists' two-decade preoccupation with stability gave way to a revival of their long-run and continuing preoccupation with economic growth. If they do, they will be under obligation to explain the coincidence of economists' renewed interest in growth and the economic affluence attained by those societies which produced most of them. Why should economists of the Western world assign primacy to growth and at the same time voice concern that most of their fellow citizens already earn larger incomes than they can dispose of intelligently? An obvious explanation, but not necessarily a full explanation, is that in the mid-twentieth century economists have become very much aware of the political interdependency of nations. The growing economic strength of the Soviet Union and Communist China, and the poverty and illiteracy of new African and Asian nations, not the low income of Mississippi dirt farmers, Belgian coal miners, and Sicilian fruit pickers, spark the interest of Western economists in economic growth. Growth rates otherwise sufficient to produce consumer affluence in Western countries may not in prevailing political circumstances assure this affluence and adequate defence, supremacy in space technology, and large aid programmes to underdeveloped countries.
Organisation Sociale et Valeurs Culturelles Canadiennes-Françaises
Authors: Garigue Philippe
Published: June 2006

L'orientation culturelle des Canadiens-français est devenue une des questions les plus importantes de l'analyse sociologique de ce groupe ethnique. Ainsi une des tâches principales des sociologues qui se sont intéressés à la question a été le développement d'une définition de la culture canadienne-française. Cependant, malgré l'ampleur et le nombre des travaux publiés, il n'existe pas de synthèse permettant une vue d'ensemble de la question. Notre but dans cet article est de formuler les étapes nécessaires à une présentation synthétique de la culture canadienne-française du point de vue de ses fondements sociologiques. Ce que nous allons dire ne prétend pas être une analyse complète de la question. Nous avons voulu retenir dans notre présentation, et de l'ensemble des situations et des problèmes susceptibles d'être examinés, seulement ceux qui nous semblent soit particulièrement importants, soit nettement révélateurs. Nous avons donc conscience d'être incomplet, mais nous pensons pouvoir présenter l'essentiel de la question.

Pour les fins de la présentation nous avons divisé notre article en trois parties que nous jugeons d'égale importance. Les deux premières parties consistent en une analyse: premièrement, de la tradition culturelle de la Nouvelle-France; et deuxièmement, des traditions culturelles nées après la Conquête de 1760. La troisième partie consiste en une analyse de la conjoncture culturelle actuelle. Il existe une raison fondamentale à faire précéder l‘analyse « synchronique » par une analyse « diachronique »: sans l'analyse des traditions culturelles il est pratiquement impossible de saisir la conjoncture sociologique actuelle, et ceci en raison des ambiguités qui existent aussitôt que l'on veut définir ce qu'est le Canada français du point de vue politique ou géographique, ou même purement sociologique. Mais, en partant de l'analyse des traditions culturelles il est possible d'établir les grandes lignes de ce qu'est présentement le Canada français du point de vue de la culture canadienne-française. Nous procéderons de la même manière dans l'analyse de chacune des parties de la présentation. Nous essaierons de faire le point sur la documentation en existence et nous émettrons des conclusions.
Canadian Life Insurance Companies and the Capital Market, 1890–1914
Authors: Drummond Ian M.
Published: June 2006

In this paper I propose to examine the placement policies of Canadian life insurance companies, and the campanies' place in the Canadian capital market, during the period of rapid agricultural and industrial development which preceded the First World War. It is no longer possible to maintain, as Buckley could maintain in his study of capital formation, that before the War Canada had a very undeveloped domestic capital market. McIvor's recent work has increased our knowledge of Canadian financial history, a subject strangely neglected since the work of Shortt and Breckenridge some sixty years ago. Kilbourn's study of the Steel Company of Canada has provided valuable evidence on the early stirrings of our capital market. I have argued elsewhere that these stirrings were both vigorous and significant for Canadian economic development before 1914, and that particularly in the field of government finance they cannot sensibly be ignored. The following pages discuss selected aspects of the financial history of this most interesting period. I shall try to show not only what the life insurance companies were doing with their funds but why they were doing what they did. The paper concludes with some reflections on the social rationality of their investment policies.

First, some description of the Canadian life insurance companies themselves. By 1895 they already bulked large on the domestic scene, though not so large as the chartered banks. Their assets were valued at $32,000,000 in 1895, and their annual premium income then amounted to $5,703,000 from domestic business and $595,000 from foreign business. By 1914 the companies' assets were worth $257,800,000, their annual domestic premium income was $26,047,000, and their foreign premium income was $12,680,000. Throughout this period they faced vigorous competition from British and especially from American firms, which collected 45 per cent of the total Canadian life insurance premia in 1895 and 40 per cent in 1914.
The Taxation of Capital Gains: An Economic Analysis
Authors: Goffman Irving J.
Published: June 2006

Few areas of taxation have been the subject of more controversy than capital gains and losses. In some countries, Canada for example, capital gains are excluded from the concept of taxable income, while in others such gains are partially excluded or are subjected to preferential tax rates. This article is divided into two parts. The first deals with the economic nature of capital gains and the relation of these gains to ordinary income. The second examines critically the arguments for and against the taxation of such gains. Basically, it will be argued that there is no fundamental fiscal difference between capital gains and “ordinary” income which could justify preferential tax treatment of the former. While the two types of personal economic accretion exhibit superficial distinctions, these are of little, if any, relevance from the standpoint of the income tax. It is admitted that more complete taxation of capital gains will present some complications. While the problems are suggested, their solutions are properly left to the lawyer, accountant, and legislator. Suffice it to say that solutions exist.

The conceptual distinction between capital gains and ordinary income has been described as follows:

In both law and common speech, capital gains are generally regarded as the profits realized from increases in the market value of any assets that are not a part of the owner's stock-in-trade or that he does not regularly offer for sale; and capital losses, as the losses realized from declines in the market value of such assets. Ordinary profits and losses, in contrast, are realized on the sale of goods and services that are a part of the seller's stock-in-trade or that he regularly offers for sale.
Corporate Saving Behaviour
Authors: Smith David C.
Published: June 2006

The expected behaviour of aggregate corporate saving is an unsettled problem that has received considerably less attention in economic research than personal saving behaviour. In part this has reflected the rather uncertain status of the corporation as a separate behavioural entity in much of economic analysis. Keynes in the General Theory emphasized personal saving behaviour, and in a brief discussion of saving by corporations, governments, and other institutions he suggested rather obscurely that their motives for saving were “largely analogous to, but not identical with, those actuating individuals.’ Keynes's neglect of corporate saving was not new in the development of economic analysis, and H. G. Johnson has argued that it “reflects Marshall's inability to integrate the modern corporation into his system of economic analysis.”

An attempt to sort out some of the significant determinants of corporate saving is particularly important for two broad questions in economics. First, is the cyclical behaviour of corporate saving an important stabilizer? This question involves a study not only of the marginal relationship between changes in planned corporate saving and corporate income but also of the interdependence between planned corporate saving and planned corporate investment. Secondly, does the behaviour of corporate saving in our society adversely affect the allocation of economic resources? This question is important for the position one takes on whether or not government policy should be designed to increase the distribution of corporate income and thus to increase the channelling of new corporate funds through the capital market.