bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Constitutional Adaptations to Changing Functions of Government
Authors: Scott F. R.
Published: June 2006

It is appropriate that we should be studying today the growth in the functions and powers of the state. Whether we look at our federal, our provincial, or our municipal governments, whether we look abroad at our sister democracies or toward the less democratic régimes, the same phenomenon is evident; everywhere there is occurring an enlargement of the role in society which is being played by the political organisms created by man for his security and welfare. Political man is at last resurrecting himself, and political science seems likely to challenge the erstwhile supremacy of her dismal sister, economics. As this paper is being written, a second attempt is being made to build an international organization endowed with important functions in the world society, an attempt which, if successful, will add a supra-national authority to the existing state organs on the national plane. Whatever the end result may be, it is apparent that the trend away from an individualistic and unplanned society toward one that is more integrated and organic is not only continuing but is greatly accelerating.

Such a development both within and between the nation states puts a strain upon national constitutions. New functions for the state mean new organs for the fulfilment of those functions, or new uses for old organs. New organs must be added to an existing structure, causing shifts of power and frequent disequilibriums. Legislative processes designed for a smaller sphere of state duties and a more leisurely pace of social change are found inadequate for the increased responsibilities of governments, and a rapid, sometimes alarming, expansion of administrative processes results. No type of state escapes these pains of adjustment, be it unitary or federal. But in the federal state a special aspect of the problem arises, with respect to the distribution of the new functions between the central and local governments. Many fear that a growing centralization may tend to destroy the regional autonomy which is a fundamental part of the federal idea.
The Board of Transport Commissioners as an Administrative Body
Authors: Currie A. W.
Published: June 2006

The great expansion of governmental activities into social and economic affairs during the last few decades has led to an enormous increase in the amount of “delegated legislation” or “administrative law.” The necessity for such delegation and the dangers to individual liberty which it involves have been fully explained elsewhere. It is the purpose of this article to discuss these problems in so far as the Board of Transport Commissioners is concerned. Known for thirty-four years after its inception in 1904 as the Board of Railway Commissioners, this body is not only the oldest but by far the most important administrative board in Canada. A study of its powers and performance should reveal the strengths and dangers of this type of administrative authority.

The chief function of the Board is to control steam railways under the jurisdiction of the Dominion government including those which, according to the terms of the B.N.A. Act, have been declared to be “works for the public advantage of Canada.” All other railways come under the Board where their connections with, or their crossing of, a Dominion railway is concerned and with respect of navigable waters. The Board also controls the rates charged by certain telegraph, telephone, and marine cable companies and the tolls of express companies and international bridges. It has authority to license ships operating between certain ports of Canada including control of their rates, and from 1938 to 1944 it supervised transport by air. Where water-power has been acquired under lease from the Crown, the Board may fix the quantity to be developed and the price to be paid in case of dispute. Authority for every order of the Board must be found in the Railway Act as amended. The Board is limited by certain Special Acts notably the Crow's Nest Pass Agreement, as amended, and the Maritime Freight Rates Act.
Social Psychological Characteristics of Evacuated Japanese
Authors: La Violette Forrest E.
Published: June 2006

There is current in Canada very little accurate information about the evacuation of Japanese from the defence area of the Pacific coast between February and October, 1942. Widely in use across the Dominion, but in the process of change, are the pre-war stereotypes of Japanese character which are still basic to some proposed solutions for the settlement of the so-called Japanese problem. This paper deals with aspects of the problem on which there is no recorded information, namely the reaction of the Japanese people to the handling of the Japanese problem since December 7, 1941.

In the process of working out a status for people of Japanese ancestry in British Columbia, the main historical effort of the Caucasians has been to limit as much as possible their acceptance in British Columbian society. These desires for total rejection have been supported by three major stereotyped rationalizations: the Japanese maintain a low standard of living, the Japanese are penetrating peacefully into this country, and the Japanese are unassimilable. We did not know before the Pearl Harbor attack just how widely these stereotypes were distributed, nor did we know their potency. But as a result of years of agitation and manipulation by politicians together with the breakdown of international security, vague fears, although not always verbalized, came to be widely held. Thus the war crisis made the historically developed stereotypes suddenly effective among many more people than they were before Pearl Harbor. As a result, attitudes based upon traditional conceptions of rights of citizenship and civil liberties were more than neutralized: they were completely ineffective in the presence of individual and organized demands for stringent action, justified by these rationalizations, especially by the one regarding peaceful penetration.
Arctic Survey Part IV. A Yukon Domesday: 1944
Authors: Taylor Griffith
Published: June 2006

The second part of my journey in north-west Canada began when I left Tuktuk on July 25 for Aklavik and Norman Wells. I had hoped to fly from Aklavik to Norman Wells, and so save a week's delay, but the planes are very irregular to the north of Norman Wells and it did not seem advisable to leave the Distributor until I was back in the regular “flying area.” We left the flying field at Norman Wells at 4 p.m. on August 1, and flew across the river to Canol. Here, after a short stop to pick up passengers, the plane proceeded south to Fort Simpson, which we reached in about two hours. We flew at a height of about 10,000 feet at about three miles a minute, so that it was impossible to make detailed notes. There was, of course, no settlement, and the only variations in scenery were in the character of the streams and sloughs. Occasionally outcrops of rock were visible, reminding one of whitish rounded scales in a green hide.

We waited only twenty minutes at Fort Simpson Airport, which is some distance from the settlement, and then flew south-west over unoccupied country to Fort Nelson on the Alaska Highway. We could make out the “winter road,” at times crossing from lake to lake, with one group of huts near Petitot River about sixty miles from Nelson. We landed at the huge airport of Muskwa (Fort Nelson) about 8 p.m. I stayed a day at Fort Nelson, and made a survey of the old fur-trading settlement, but it will be more convenient to consider this district after the Yukon area has been described. The distance from Nelson to Whitehorse is about five hundred miles, and we flew this between 8.30 p.m. and midnight.
Vocational Rehabilitation During and After the War
Authors: Amos J. L.
Published: June 2006

As the trend toward total war creates an ever increasing demand for manpower, the necessity for establishing a programme for the rehabilitation of the physically handicapped becomes a national necessity. Industry is forced to employ marginal workers and to plan conservation of manpower. Rehabilitation, therefore, can no longer be regarded solely as a welfare measure designed to salvage the morale of the disabled. The handicapped person is a valuable person; he must be rehabilitated because the nation needs him. He must be vocationally trained, not in some diverting handicraft, but in skills that will fit him for a place in war-time industry.

The problem of the handicapped is essentially that of vocational maladjustment caused by social and economic prejudices. These prejudices are based on false concepts of working capacity which have developed social attitudes that serve to handicap the disabled in their efforts to earn a livelihood. Instead of utilizing their capacity for productive work, society has attempted to compensate them by providing relief.
The Cultural Effects of Population Changes in the Eastern Townships
Authors: Ross Aileen D.
Published: June 2006

This paper presents the first or exploratory phase of research in a study of the effect of invasion on the morale of a community. Although many studies have been made of spacial succession, and some of changes in social attitudes, there has been little attempt to investigate the relationship between these two phenomena, in other words, to show whether, or how, the solidarity of a group is affected by an ecological succession. The process of invasion has been described in connection with different areas of a city. The invasion of one section of a city by an outside ethnic group is a common phenomenon. The general pattern is that, with its first indication, the morale of the resident group strengthens, but eventually one point breaks, that is, someone sells out to one of the invaders. Then another gains a foothold—a house or a shop—and, once the area is well penetrated, both the invasion and exodus gather momentum.

This is a study of a large rural area in which the invasion has taken place over so long a period of time, and over such an extensive region, that the invaded population as a whole has taken longer to realize its significance. In this situation it is much easier to trace and observe the psychological effect of invasion on the invaded group.

The field of research chosen for this study was made up of the four counties of Compton, Richmond, Sherbrooke, and Stanstead in the Eastern Townships of the Province of Quebec. Interviews, practically all indirect, were obtained from the different sections—industrial towns, county towns, summer resorts, villages, and rural areas.
The Nature and Function of the Social Sciences
Authors: MaCkay R. A.
Published: June 2006

The time is, I think, opportune for introspection by Canadian social scientists. The present is a transitional period in the life of the nation. Five years of war have profoundly altered Canadian society: Canada has become a great industrial nation; the paternalistic state has arrived at least at adolescence under the stimulus of war; for the time being the Canadian people have become military-minded, a condition which may well continue into the peace in view of the shift of world power in favour of North America; everywhere social values hitherto accepted are under fire, and traditional folkways have been rudely disturbed; new social goals are being raised and new patterns of life are being established.

It is probable also that we are in a transitional stage in higher education. At any rate Canadian universities, like other social institutions, will be compelled to adjust themselves to the changed conditions of the post-war world. One condition likely to obtain is an increasing interest in the social sciences, if for no other reason than the increasing demand for social technicians to manage a paternalistic society. It is not improbable also that Canadian society faces a prolonged and acrimonious, if not violent, debate on social objectives. Under these conditions I suggest it is of first importance that social scientists should have firm opinions as to the nature of their calling, both with 'a view to guiding educational expansion, and assisting them in deciding their personal responsibilities in a distracted world.
Public Investment in Canada
Authors: Urquhart M. C.
Published: June 2006

Prior to 1930 discussion of public investment was conducted largely on the basis of an assumption of full employment within a closed economy. Consequently it centred around the productiveness of public investment as opposed to that undertaken in the privately-operated sector of the economy, the appropriate methods of financing the projects undertaken, and the legitimate spheres of operation of public bodies. The usefulness of public investment projects was believed, in the main, to be confined to their long term contribution to the productiveness of the economy. In practice, even well into the nineteen-thirties, governments, with exceptions, undertook public projects when finances were buoyant and borrowing relatively easy, and curtailed them, in attempts to balance budgets, when depression became serious.

After 1930 both in the thought and practices of some central governments and in economic writing the pendulum swung the other way. Main emphasis was laid on the current employment and income giving effects of public investment. This change in emphasis received additional impetus after the advent of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money when economic discussion became much more concerned with the level of employment than the distribution of the factors of production among alternative uses.

The transfer of attention from the long term aspects of public projects to their effect on current employment and income maintenance was accompanied by the shortcomings of practice and thought which are inevitable in an undeveloped field. While a good deal was written and spoken about the desirability of well thought out and well planned investment, insufficient attention was given to its attainment and in practice resort was had to many undertakings whose value, from either a short or long term viewpoint, was dubious. The shortcomings were largely associated with failure to cope adequately with the institutional and administrative problem involved. Further, there was a penchant for fastening on single devices to meet the overall employment problem.
Collective Bargaining and the Competitive System
Authors: Lindblom Charles E.
Published: June 2006

It is extraordinary that almost all the well developed analysis of the alleged drift toward collectivism in economic organization is composed of studies of industrial concentration, of the banking system, and of the relations in general between government and economic life. We have no comparable studies of labour markets. It is the intention of this paper to offer hypotheses relating to the part played by collective bargaining in the alleged decline of competition and the inevitability of its attacks on competition and also to make several suggestions on public policy.
Newspapers and the Moral World
Authors: Hughes Helen MacGill
Published: June 2006

Charles Merz, editor of the New York Times, once observed that there is nothing like a good murder for giving the nation something on which to test its moral values. He had in mind, of course, the newspaper accounts of murder, seeing that most citizens, even in a thrillingly wicked place like Chicago, must be content with getting their murders at secondhand. On occasions of murder and other exciting events, the newspaper functions as a social conversation.

In these times, when virtually everyone reads newspapers, there are in every large city several sorts of journal to satisfy the demands of several types of reader. At one extreme is the newspaper for the least literate level of society. It reflects the very ordinary man's tastes. It can always be identified by the conspicuousness of its sporting news and the quantity of news pictures, comic strips, stories of radio and film stars, and the whole gamut of current fads and fancies. For the ordinary man, be he a street-car conductor, janitor, sales clerk, or factory worker, may in his tastes in newspaper reading be called the complete layman. If his paper seems to consider crime and the movies more important than anything else, it is because it is seeking the widest possible market for itself, by catering to the greatest common denominators of interest. Men whose daily occupation calls for little thought or learning, whether in this country, in England, France, or Germany, are prone to look upon the newspaper as a diversion.
Union-Management Co-Operation at the Toronto Factory of Lever Brothers Limited
Authors: Dymond W. R.
Published: June 2006

This case study of union-management co-operation at the Toronto factory of Lever Brothers Limited was undertaken for several reasons. It is an example of the union-management co-operation in which increases in productive efficiency were brought about solely by savings in man-power requirements. Further it is a case of the fulfilment of a collective bargaining demand by co-operation. These two facts, in themselves, are highly unusual. Although this case of co-operation took place during the war and was influenced by war-time conditions, it is in no way a part of the general war-time pattern of labour-management co-operation, stimulated in Canada by the Industrial Production Co-operation Board and in the United States by the War Production Drive.

Historically, industrial relations can be divided into an area of conflict of interest or collective bargaining and an area of mutuality of interest or co-operation. Employee representation tried to integrate these areas, but without the presence of an independent union, management tended to determine unilaterally the conditions of employment. Union-management co-operation later developed the area of mutuality in parts of the railroad, clothing, steel, and printing industries, but with the exception of the clothing industry, little integration was affected with the area of bargaining. During the recent war labour-management co-operation had a mushroom growth, but little attempt was made to integrate the two areas of industrial relations. In Canada, particularly, the role of the union on the co-operation committees was largely undefined. Co-operation at Lever Brothers is significant because it provides a clearcut case of integration between co-operation on productive efficiency and bargaining on wages and hours. Co-operation arose as a result of a demand by the bargaining agency for increased wages and shorter hours, while their achievement was brought about by the joint action of union and management. This, then, provides an example of union-management relations which may have profound implications for the achievement of industrial peace.
Patents in Relation to Monopoly: A Rejoinder
Authors: Fox Harold G.
Published: June 2006

Mr. Mackeigan has done me the honour of contributing, in the November issue of this Journal, full-length “Notes” in answer to my article on “Patents in Relation to Monopoly,” published in the August issue. If I now appear for the purpose of making the usual rejoinder it is not to be taken that I do so in any controversial spirit but only in an endeavour to answer his allegations and, if I can, to restore the patent system to the position it was in before it suffered the not inconsiderable knocking about which it has received at his hands. In doing so, I hope that I may make my points as temperately and as gracefully as has my learned friend, whose treatment of the subject from his point of view has been, if I may say so without impertinence, wholly admirable.

I must begin by taking sharp issue with Mr. MacKeigan on one point. I did not, as he says, extol the “theoretical adequacy of the Canadian Patent Act as an instrument to prevent abuses of patents.” I did and I do extol its practical adequacy for such purpose by reason of the provisions regarding compulsory licensing and revocation in case of abuse. And in this I interpose no mere ipse dixit. It would be a simple matter to append quotations from a multitude of sources which would build up an impressive body of opinion confirmatory of my statement. But I shall content myself with two extracts: The first of these is from an author in the United States who, in discussing cartels and the patent system, observes: “The most concrete and constructive suggestion for patent reform as a solution of the cartel problem calls for the compulsory licensing of patents when they have been used to foster international cartels, e.g. by the allocation of markets. … Compulsory licensing would be expected to remove the most serious obstacles which our patent laws at present interpose to the solution of the cartel problem.”
Unionism in the Fishing Industry of British Columbia
Authors: Jamieson Stuart , Gladstone Percy
Published: June 2006

Among the multitude of unionized occupations that have been analysed by labour economists and others, fishing, for some reason or other, has received scant attention. Few articles and no books, as far as the authors are aware, have been written about unionism in the fishing industry of the United States. College text-books and surveys of labour rarely if ever mention the subject. Yet fishermen's unions in that country have been organized and active for more than a half century, and the International Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union today is an important affiliate of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Their origins and history remain hidden in obscurity.

Much the same situation exists in Canada. Some incidental attention has been paid, in regional surveys like that of the Dawson Commission published in 1944, to trade unions and co-operatives among fishermen in the Maritime Provinces. The far larger, more active, and more important fishermen's unions of British Columbia have been virtually ignored. The 1948 edition of Professor H. A. Logan's Trade Unions in Canada, for instance—by far the most thorough and authoritative survey of the organized labour movement in Canada to date—gives passing reference to the Canadian Fishermen's Union of Nova Scotia, but makes no mention whatever of the Deep Sea Fishermen's Union or of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union, both of British Columbia. Yet these two organizations are, or should be, of considerable interest and importance to labour economists and other students of trade unionism. Their history reaches back through more than a half century of diverse organizational growth, numerous and sometimes violent strikes, and generally turbulent labour relations. Both unions are today affiliated with the Canadian Trades and Labor Congress. The U.F.A.W.U. has a membership of some 8,000 fishermen and allied workers and jurisdiction over several thousand more. It negotiates province-wide master agreements with employer associations, governing labour matters in all major branches of one of the most important primary industries in British Columbia. Over one special group of fishermen it shares jurisdiction with the much smaller organization, the D.S.F.U.
Local Government Reorganization in Alberta
Authors: Hanson E. J.
Published: June 2006

Among the few Canadian provinces and American states which have effected major changes in the structure of local government in recent years is the province of Alberta. During the last fifteen years, rural local government in that province has been reorganized extensively. It is the purpose of this paper to describe the main features of the reorganization, to suggest why it took place, and to appraise briefly its effects and implications.

Local Government Units in Alberta. The structure of local government in Alberta finds no counterpart elsewhere except in the other Prairie Provinces of Canada. In Alberta, the municipal district is a rural local government unit which is empowered and required by the provincial government to provide for local public works, public welfare, sanitation and health, and the protection of persons and property. Such a district levies the property taxes required to pay for these services as well as to pay the requisitions of school and hospital districts. Towns and villages within the boundaries of a municipal district are not under its jurisdiction; they are small urban incorporated municipalities operating under a special statute, The Town and Village Act. Cities are self-governing under separate charters. Thus a municipal district is peculiarly rural in character. It is governed by elected councillors, while a secretary-treasurer and office staff appointed by the council administer the district's affairs in accordance with the council's by-laws and the provincial statutes.

The less-developed rural areas of the province are divided into improvement districts. These are administrative areas in which the provincial government performs the functions alloted to the elected councils and the administrative staffs in the municipal districts.
South African Capital Imports, 1893–8
Authors: Duncan Acheson J.
Published: June 2006

In 1886 a large gold field was discovered in the heart of South Africa. This led not only to a significant change in the comparative advantage of the country, but also to a considerable inflow of both labour and capital. The movements of these productive factors came in spurts and for many, years set the pattern for, or at least synchronized with, the cyclical swings in the South African economy.

One of the most striking of the capital movements of this period was occasioned by the gold mining boom of 1894-5. The initial wave of foreign investment in the gold mining industry came in 1888-9. However, the excessive exuberance of the early speculators, the difficulties arising from the occurrence of pyritic ore below water level, and the development of a world-wide business crisis in 1890 all conspired to make this initial boom short lived. Furthermore, the gold mining industry needed to acquire maturity and respectability before it could arouse the interest of more conservative investors. It was therefore not until the middle nineties that the major wave of foreign investment developed.
Keynes as a Public Servant
Authors: Mackintosh W. A.
Published: June 2006

Of the forty years of his working life, John Maynard Keynes spent approximately eleven as a public official. These years of public service were broken into three widely separated and differing periods. Of the first two, I know no more than does most of my audience. The Keynes of the third period I had some limited and intermittent opportunity to observe.

The Civil Service was Keynes's first choice as a career—or at least as the beginning of a career. Not achieving the first place necessary for the Treasury, he was assigned to the India Office where he remained from 1906 to 1908. John Morley was the secretary of state for India and the permanent secretary, Sir Arthur Godley, was an experienced and skilful administrator. I mention John Morley because it is well to remember that Keynes knew and understood Morley's generation though the Keynesians do not. I mention Godley because it was under him that Keynes acquired his knowledge of the workings of government and of the official's point of view. He was never thereafter completely an outsider as far as the government service was concerned. There too began his interest in Indian currency and finance which bore fruit in his Essays and in his work as a member of the Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance in 1913. To this period too may perhaps be attributed his readier knowledge of India than of the Dominions.
The Rural Community and Political Leadership in Saskatchewan
Authors: Lipset S. M.
Published: June 2006

The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (C.C.F.) movement in Saskatchewan is the first avowedly socialist group to win an electoral majority in any province or state of Canada or the United States. Many have expressed surprise that a socialist party should have won office in the most rural province in Canada. This paper is an attempt to throw some light on this question through a study of the leadership of the C.C.F. as compared with that of other community groups and political parties in that province.

The significance of the growth of the C.C.F. party can best be expressed in economic class terms. The movement has two important aspects. Essentially, it represents the latest historical phase of the almost continuous conflict of the western grain farmers of the United States and Canada with eastern business interests. Secondly, within the province, success of the movement has resulted in a political transformation in which the representatives of the rural majority supported by the working class of the cities and towns rejected the political control of the urban middle-class business and professional groups which dominated the Liberal and Conservative parties and the government of the province.

Since 1901, the farmers of the West and of Saskatchewan in particular, have been attempting to reduce the hazards of a one-crop wheat economy which is perennially subject to extreme fluctuations in income, as a result of the variability in grain prices and climatic conditions. At the turn of the century, Saskatchewan farmers organized the Territorial Grain Growers' Association (later the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association) to force the Canadian Pacific Railroad to provide loading platforms and freight cars for their wheat.
Financial Relations Between the Australian Commonwealth and the Australian States
Authors: Moffat Robert E.
Published: June 2006

The maintenance of a satisfactory relationship between the financial resources and the responsibilities of a government is one of the most fundamental problems of all states. The difficulties are greatly complicated in those states in which a central government shares its tax resources and its responsibilities with local administrations. The complexities reach their peak in federations where central, provincial, and municipal governments all have strong traditions of independence, all draw their revenue from sources which overlap to a greater or lesser degree, and all compete for the support of the same voting public. As there develops a recognition of the nation-wide and not merely the local significance of such services as schools, roads, welfare services, etc., it becomes increasingly necessary for each local government to keep its services up to a level not too far below the accepted national standard. As the cost of these government services increases, an ever increasing proportion of the wealth of the community must be diverted to these uses and the point is eventually reached where the less wealthy communities are unable to raise the tax revenue necessary to maintain an acceptable standard.

Two conflicting courses of action offer themselves as possible solutions to such a situation. On the one hand there has been a movement toward larger administrative areas and toward centralization of services under the control of the authority operating over the larger area.
Some Aspects of Population History
Authors: Taylor K. W.
Published: June 2006

I deeply appreciate the honour which the Canadian Political Science Association has done me by inviting me to fill this vacant place in the programme of these meetings. More than most of those present, I profoundly regret the necessity for the invitation which was extended to me. Professor William Burton Hurd, the president of the Canadian Political Science Association for 1949-50, had been one of my close friends for twenty-five years. We had worked together on various research projects and we were colleagues at McMaster University. The severe illness which came upon him more than a year ago, against which he maintained a gallant struggle, but which terminated in his death last February, cut short a career of distinguished research, of brilliant teaching, and of effective university administration at a time when it had reached the height of its power. In terms of the normal span of life we had the right to expect another dozen or fifteen productive years of maturing wisdom and scholarship. The deprivation we have sustained is a serious loss to Canadian thought and life.

I do not know what topic or what aspect of his work Professor Hurd would have chosen for his presidential address this evening, but it is natural that I should turn to a field of study in which we were both deeply interested, but which I have been forced to relinquish for the past twelve years. Our interests in population studies were different but complementary. Professor Hurd was trained and took his first degree in mathematics and, as an adolescent and as a young man, he witnessed the great wave of population movement which during the half-dozen years preceding the First World War poured more than a million migrants through the portal city of Winnipeg. It was natural, therefore, that after serving with distinction in the Canadian army overseas, and after turning to economics during his deferred tenure of a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford, he should develop a special interest in the statistical analysis of Canadian population trends with particular reference to their growth factors, our absorptive capacity, and the problems of assimilation into a developing Canadian culture.
Multilateral Trade in an Unbalanced World
Authors: Bernstein E. M.
Published: June 2006

A system of multilateral trade means no more, fundamentally, than the right of exporters of a country to sell in any market and the right of importers to buy in any market. The right to export must be without discrimination and with complete freedom to transfer the proceeds of exports; and the right to import must be without discrimination and with complete freedom to transfer the funds to pay for imports. In short, multilateral trade involves the convertibility of currencies for current payments and the absence of any discrimination in exports and imports on the basis of the country with which or the currency in which the trade is undertaken.

On the face of it, multilateral trade yields the greatest benefits to each country from any given volume of exports and imports. As the exports can be sold in the highest-priced markets, without regard to the currency in which payment is received, the money value of the exports will be maximized. And as the imports can be bought in the lowest-priced markets, without regard to the currency in which payment is made, the money cost of the imports will be minimized. On the other hand, under bilateral trade, it becomes necessary to import, even at higher cost, from those markets whose currencies are available from export proceeds. And it becomes desirable to export, even at lower price, to those markets whose currencies are needed to pay for more essential imports. Because it is difficult to direct exports on the basis of social need for currencies, there will be a strong tendency to secure the bilateral balancing of payments through a restriction of imports by the country with a bilateral deficit.
Some Aspects of the Treatment of Time in Economic Theory
Authors: Hood Wm. C.
Published: June 2006

The present period is one in which emphasis on the need for rendering economic theory “dynamic” is widespread. Yet there is little reference in the literature to the concepts and measures of time which are appropriate for the economist. Indeed one is sometimes at a loss in examining certain dynamic theories to know precisely what notion of time is held by the authors. It is this situation which has prompted the present writer to ask a few questions concerning the problems posed for the economic theorist who would treat time specifically.
The Pragmatic Basis of Economic Theory
Authors: Gordon H. Scott
Published: June 2006

Although the English tradition of analytical economics was established at least as long ago as the publication of David Ricardo's Principles in 1817, doubt has never ceased to exist concerning the fruitfulness of abstract and deductive methods in economics. Indeed, although the significant advances made since Ricardo's day were the products of men following closely the theoretical tradition, this doubt has increased rather than lessened. While the established methods weathered the attacks of the historical school during the latter part of the nineteenth century, they were severely shaken by the fundamental questionings of Thorstein Veblen. No one has emerged in our day as a true inheritor of the Veblenian mantle, but the institutionalist school of economics, which acknowledges him as its source of inspiration, is undeniably a very serious critic of orthodox economic theorizing.

This paper stems in part from the most recent controversy on the methods and conclusions of economic theory. It attempts to meet the sense of dissatisfaction with which I read the arguments of both attackers and defenders. Perhaps also the fact that during the past few years I have frequently been asked embarrassing questions by students may have something to do with my interest in this problem. I am surely not the only person who has had to contend with the remark that “it looks all right in theory but how does it work out in fact?” For some time now I have been either a consumer or a purveyor of economic theory and I feel motivated to demonstrate (at least to myself) that the activity constitutes productive labour. If that has given this paper the character of rationalization, I hope that it will not be one that cannot be put to good professional service.
Socialism and the Theory of Bureaucracy
Authors: Bendix Reinhard
Published: June 2006

Throughout the world governmental regulation of social and economic affairs has increased during the first half of the twentieth century. Whether prompted by the emergencies of two World Wars, by the wide-spread extension of social welfare measures, or by the rise of totalitarianism, this increase has caused apprehension among liberals and socialists alike. Enthusiasm for social reforms, whether they be moderate or radical, has declined in the face of these developments. The many social problems, which remain unsolved, call for reform measures as insistently as ever; yet the fear of governmental regulation besets the advocates of social change. They are confronted by the danger of regimentation in every extension of governmental power.

This concern with the danger of bureaucracy has grown apace with the realization that the countries of Western Europe and North America are on the road to a planned society. It is curious that among the advocates of a planned society, socialists are perhaps more apprehensive of these dangers of regimentation than are New-Deal liberals. In fact, fear of bureaucracy and dictatorial methods has been a recurrent theme of socialist thought. Before and after World War I the Revisionists advocated a gradual transition from capitalism to socialism in order to safeguard the institutions of democratic government; during the same period the Guild Socialists attempted to formulate a programme of industrial democracy, which would regularize worker-participation in the management of industry and government; and throughout the nineteenth century anarchists and “utopian socialists” sought to safeguard the freedom of the individual by conceiving of voluntary associations and co-operation in community organizations as the foundation of the ideal society of the future. Others, then as now, retained the belief that a proletarian revolution was necessary or inevitable; but they insisted that democracy could be preserved, if the people gave full support to the revolution; indeed, only then was a successful revolution possible. All these interpretations were concerned with the transition to a planned society. They were concerned to retain democratic institutions in this transitional period. Yet it is fair to say that the interpreters who were specific in proposing organizational safeguards against a future tyranny were usually vague when they discussed the political means by which socialism was to be established. Conversely, those who specified the necessary political means were ordinarily vague when they discussed how a revolutionary dictatorship could avoid a new oppression.
Unionism in the Fishing Industry of British Columbia
Authors: Gladstone Percy , Jamieson Stuart
Published: June 2006

Fishermen’s organizations in British Columbia present an interesting and in many ways unique case study of unionism among a distinct occupational group. The peculiar economic and social factors which have conditioned their growth were examined at some length in a previous article. A brief recapitulation may be in order at this point, as a background to the more factual history that follows.

Unionism among the fishermen of British Columbia has experienced an intense and diversified organizational growth, accompanied by frequent and at times violent industrial disputes. As may be seen from Tables I and II below, there have been at least thirty different fishermen’s organizations formed at one time or another since 1893, and members of these, as well as numerous non-union fishermen, have engaged in more than forty strikes. The fishing industry of British Columbia today is highly organized, and industrial relations are relatively stable and harmonious. The majority of fishermen now belong to one union that has collective bargaining jurisdiction over all major branches of the industry. Most of the non-union fishermen (as well as a considerable number of union members) belong to processing and marketing co-operatives.

Yet it would be difficult to imagine an occupational group less amenable to unionism. Strictly speaking, most fishermen in British Columbia are not employees or “workers” in the usual sense of the term. They are proprietors who own and operate their own capital, that is, their boats and gear. Their occupation is by nature highly migratory, individualistic, and competitive, as it is carried on in many scattered operations along thousands of miles of rugged coastline. Their employment and income are very insecure by reason of the characteristically extreme seasonal and cyclical fluctuations in the supply, demand, and prices of fish.
The Multi-Product Firm
Authors: Weldon J. C.
Published: June 2006

It appears that very little has been written about the multi-product firm. What has been done is largely an extension of single-product theory to those multi-product firms which have their origin in related demands and related supplies. For example, the utilities of two or more products may be so interrelated as to produce a joint demand. In such event, if the products are linked in a technical sense, as, say, the pieces and pawns of a chess-set, then they will be marketed by a single firm, usually under a name inclusive of the component products. If there is no such technical link, still the products (e.g., knives and forks) are more likely to be produced by a single firm than are unrelated products. Again, regardless of demand, the production of one product by a firm may necessarily result in the production of other products. To take the classic example of joint supply, the production of wool entails the production of mutton.

Each of these cases presents special analytic difficulties, notably problems of cost imputation. Various writers have essayed solutions, some of which have found their way into text-books, and some of which (by no means a separate class) are still matters of controversy.

The present paper, however, is not concerned with the extension of single-product theory to multi-product situations. Rather, it is an effort to analyse those features of the multi-product firm which belong to it as such. In effect, this means that it concerns costs and receipts peculiar to the multi-product firm, other costs and receipts being considered as given. This approach serves to emphasize those factors which give rise to the multi-product firm and which limit its size. It must be remembered that all firms are potentially producers of all products. Single-product theory demonstrates why no single-product firm expands its production without limit, and shows on what grounds a choice of output is made. Multi-product theory is required to show why expansion by variation is also limited, and on what grounds a choice of output is made when there is no restriction of the number of products.
The Break-up of the Poor Law in Britain 1907–47: An Historical Footnote
Authors: Morgan John S.
Published: June 2006

It is too often assumed that the social legislation which has been hammered out in the British Parliament of the last two years is the product of some purely socialistic blue-print. In reality it is the culmination of a process dating back to the first decade of the twentieth century, which has been carried out by Liberal, then Conservative and now Socialist governments over the whole period from 1907 to 1947. Although there are differences of opinion on the timing of this process, and on many administrative and legislative details, the broad pattern of development has almost common acceptance. In its essence this pattern is simple. It is no less than the replacement of the Elizabethan Poor Law, with its emphasis on the relief of poverty, by a more modern structure of social legislation intended to ensure the freedom of the individual from the major evils of a modern industrial society. These evils have been aptly summarized by Sir William (now Lord) Beveridge: “physical Want, … Disease which often causes that Want and brings many other troubles in its train, … Ignorance which no democracy can afford among its citizens, … Squalor which arises mainly through the haphazard distribution of industry and population, and Idleness which destroys wealth and corrupts men, whether they are well fed or not, when they are idle.”

The accompanying table sets out the steps in this process of social change in the chronological sequence of the legislative measures by which it has been achieved. In order to prevent the confusion of over-elaborate detail, this tabulation gives only the major changes as they occurred. To have included, for example, the complete tally of unemployment insurance acts from 1911 to 1944 would have been unprofitable and would have obscured the issue.
The Farmer and the Market
Authors: Burton G. L.
Published: June 2006

Twice during the past five years the peculiar problems of the agricultural industry in the political economy have been analysed with acute perception in papers presented to this Association. There is a surprising unanimity of opinion among economists as to the nature of these problems; there is also, I believe, a rather wide area of agreement as to the general principles upon which policy designed to cope with these problems should be based. There is something of a gap between the way in which organized agriculture would attempt a solution to what, for the moment, I shall call “the farm problem” and that recommended by the economist. It is my purpose in this paper to attempt to explore the nature of this gap. Since more often than not this discrepancy in policy recommendations revolves around the function of the price system I have chosen the label “the farmer and the market.”