bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The National Policy—Old and New
Authors: Fowke V. C.
Published: June 2006

The Canadian system of protective tariffs has long been known as the National Policy. Professor Underhill describes this designation as a stroke of genius. We gladly bow to the judgment of Professor Underhill, with one proviso, namely, that we may regard this description of the protective system as a stroke of political genius, and not necessarily as genius in the abstract and absolute. No one can doubt the political sagacity of the appeal made to the Canadian electorate in 1878 which claimed for the Conservatives an exclusive proprietary right to the formula for nation building. In retrospect we can readily recognize the contribution of the protective system to the creation of the Canadian nation. We are, nevertheless, by no means able to identify the protective system as the only nation-building instrument of the past century of Canadian history.

Professor Underhill does not, of course, attribute to Sir John A. Macdonald the genius which he finds implicit in the designation of the protective system as the National Policy. This indicates the exercise of proper caution, for it is clear that Macdonald displayed little originality in thus describing the tariff system. Many years ago Professor O. D. Skelton stressed the evolutionary nature of the concept of the National Policy and referred to the term as “a phrase which Rose devised, Hincks stamped with his approval, and Macdonald made current.”
Public Finance in Alberta Since 1935
Authors: Hanson E. J.
Published: June 2006

Before World War I a relatively high degree of regional specialization in the production of agricultural commodities had developed throughout the world, and the Canadian prairies had turned to the production of wheat. During the 1920's this structure of regional specialization was seriously undermined and the depression of the 1930's brought disaster to many specialized regions, including the Canadian prairies. Two significant conditions upon which the settlement of the prairies had been premised, relative freedom of trade and an upward trend in the population of Occidental countries, were altered adversely. When, in addition, a series of droughts afflicted the prairies during the 1930's, the economic plight of the region became nothing short of desperate. Its inhabitants felt that they had been “let down” by their own federal government and by the world in general, and they protested in a variety of ways. In Alberta, a dynamic leader spearheaded the Social Credit movement which captured the provincial government, attempted to set up a provincial monetary system, and defaulted on the provincial government debt.
Foreign Trade and the Level of Economic Activity in Canada in the 1930's
Authors: Safarian A. E.
Published: June 2006

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of exports on the economy, particularly in the perspective of the over-all recovery in the thirties. In assessing the conclusions, the reader should note particularly that many other aspects of Canada's dependence on foreign countries, such as capital movements, have had to be neglected. The first part of this paper gives some statistical measurement of the role of exports, stressing both the great importance of exports to several large industries and the lead in exports at the turning points, but also suggesting that both the over-all level of exports and the proportion of an industry's product which is exported may be misleading indicators of the impact of exports on the economy. Changes in the composition of exports, and the reaction of the more or less domestic factors in the economy can affect the force of the stimulus from expanding exports. In particular, the paper suggests that while a rising or high level of exports may be a necessary condition for prosperity, it need not be a sufficient one.
A Revised Classification of Forms of Competition
Authors: Birch Cecil M.
Published: June 2006

In the present stage of development of economic theory there is found even at the most elementary level a general theory for pure competition, for monopolistic competition, and for monopoly, but there is not to be found anywhere a general theory of oligopoly or circularity. Thus, there is a general theory for all branches of the modern classification of types of competition except one branch, namely, oligopoly. The explanation given for the absence is that a rival's possible reactions to price or output alterations by some particular firm are unlimited in number; there are indeed many oligopoly or circularity theories—a theory for each of many sets of specific assumptions.

It is not the purpose of this essay to set forth a general theory of oligopoly, but rather to move in the direction of a general classification of forms of competition. An attempt is made to retain one special characteristic of Professor Chamberlin's work viz., that of proceeding by degrees from one extreme to another, a characteristic Professor Chamberlin achieved with his “number of firms” and “degree of product differentiation.” At the same time it is attempted to break up oligopoly situations; thus, for example, “leadership oligopoly” is as distinct from “collusive oligopoly” as it is from pure competition, or as monopolistic competition is from pure competition.
The British Election of 1874: Frederic Harrison and the Liberal-Labour Dilemma
Authors: McCready H. W.
Published: June 2006

The role of such left-wing Liberals as Frederic Harrison, Professor E. S. Beesly, A. J. Mundella, Vernon Harcourt, and Tom Hughes in bringing the English working classes into politics on the side of the Liberals in the late 1860's and early 1870's has long been appreciated. What has not, perhaps, been sufficiently realized is the quandary in which these middle-class radicals found themselves when the general election of 1874 approached. The years following the Hornby v. Close case and the appointment of the great royal commission on trade unions in 1867 had seen a rapid development in the political consciousness of the workmen—especially of the unionists—which was, from the point of view of the radicals, all to the good; but they had also seen the politically conscious among the working classes turning bitterly against the Liberals. The milestones in the latter of these two important political trends were the Liberals' Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1871, the Gas Stokers' and Chipping Norton cases and the persistent refusal of the Gladstone Government to respond to the demands of the unions' lobby for the reform of the labour laws of the country. Labour feeling with regard to the Liberal party was reflected, for example, in the discussions of the Labour Representation League in 1871. A meeting of September 2 voiced strong disapproval of the Government's treatment of the working-class legislative demands and of its general attitude of hostility. The meeting decided to initiate discussions on the advisability of forming a third party. There was also a great deal of criticism of the Liberals at the Trades Union Congress of 1872 and, in the following year, the Parliamentary Committee of the Congress minced no words in discussing the matter in its report on the year's work. After reciting the fruitless efforts of the labour lobby during the 1872 session, the report concluded with the remark that a Liberal government under which such a legal situation could be consolidated was a mockery. And in two bye-elections in August, 1873, at Dundee and Greenwich, the workmen supported independent candidates in opposition to the official Liberals. Gladstone's cabinet shuffle of that same month probably did little to improve relations. Robert Lowe, who took the Home Office, was considered an enemy of the working classes and John Bright was well known as an opponent of unions and of all state action in industrial affairs.
British Monopoly Legislation in Practice
Authors: Guenault Paul H. , Jackson J. M.
Published: June 2006

The purpose of this article is neither to consider the formal provisions of the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Acts, 1948 and 1953, nor to outline the findings of the Commission set up under the 1948 Act. These have been dealt with elsewhere. Our more limited purpose is to examine the operation of the 1948 Act and the efficiency of the machinery set up in the light of a recent report of the Select Committee on the Estimates. The function of this Committee is to investigate items in the Government estimates for expenditure to see whether public funds are being properly and economically applied to the purposes for which they are voted. The Committee therefore does not question the policy laid down by Parliament. On the other hand, in questioning whether the Commission and the Government departments concerned are making the best use of the funds available in accordance with the provisions and intentions of the Act, the report and the minutes of evidence allow us to judge whether the Act, as it stands, provides an adequate basis for inquiry into and the control of monopolistic practices.

At the outset it should be borne in mind that there are important differences between the British legislation and that of the United States and Canada. Both North American countries have legislation which forbids specific practices and creates offences under the criminal law. The British legislation does neither. There is a commission which investigates industries referred to it by the President of the Board of Trade and makes its report upon these industries to him. Following a report by the Monopolies Commission that certain practices are contrary to the public interest the President of the Board of Trade or the minister in charge of certain other Government departments may make an order forbidding the practices in that industry only.
The Two-Party System and One-Party Dominance in the Liberal Democratic State
Authors: Smiley Donald V.
Published: June 2006

Most serious students of modern politics in the English-speaking democracies have regarded the two-party system as the norm of the liberal-democratic polity. The arguments for the superiority of such a pattern proceed along the following lines: (a) stability is encouraged when the powers of the political executive are at all times monopolized by members of a single party who are united by mutual adherence to common leaders, traditions, and policies and whose past and future fate at the polls is to a significant degree interdependent; (b) effective accountability of government to electorate is encouraged when power is not shared among parties and when a ruling party is therefore completely responsible for the use of such power; and (c) constructive opposition is encouraged when the party out of office is constantly faced with the challenge of justifying itself to the electorate as an effective alternative to the party in power.

Professor Leslie Lipson has defined the two-party system as one in which: “1. Not more than two parties at any given time have a genuine chance to gain power. 2. One of these is able to win the requisite majority and stay in office without any help from a third party. 3. Over a number of decades two parties alternate in power.”
Aspects of Speculation in the Canadian Market for Foreign Exchange
Authors: Eastman Harry C.
Published: June 2006

Since the fourth quarter of 1950 the Canadian dollar has been allowed to find its price in terms of foreign currencies, usually with little official interference. During this period special interest groups have occasionally complained about the level of the rate of exchange, but, on the whole, the operation of the new system of exchange has met with satisfaction at home and admiration abroad. This success has depended on the small amplitude of the fluctuations that have taken place in the rate of exchange during short periods of time, say quarter to quarter. However, very little is known about the mechanism that has operated to maintain such stability as the rate has shown in practice. Confidence in the future stability of the rate can easily be mistaken under these circumstances. It is the purpose of this paper to shed some light on the equilibrating process in the market in foreign exchange by identifying the stabilizing influences in the balance of payment and by developing a possible explanation of their movement.

The items in the balance of international payments can be divided into two categories according to the manner in which they are related to the rate of exchange if it is assumed that they have demand and supply functions that are independent of each other and that they have ordinary Marshallian elasticities. The appropriate assumptions about other things to be held constant when analysing merchandise trade, for instance, include income and its distribution, relative prices, tastes, and production functions. The things held constant do not include other items in the international accounts such as movements of capital from which come the offsetting net supply or demand for foreign exchange. Some of the items are not independent: freight and shipping are obviously related to trade; but the smaller items are not taken up separately in this analysis.
Political Necessity and Moral Principle in the Thought of Friedrich Meinecke
Authors: Sterling Richard W.
Published: June 2006

The publication of an English translation of Friedrich Meinecke's Die Idee der Staatsraeson has stimulated a renewal of interest in the political ideas of Germany's most eminent twentieth-century historian. Particularly in the United States, newly emerged from isolation and suddenly finding itself at the centre of world power and world conflict, thinking people have been seeking a more satisfying approach to the intellectual and moral dilemmas posed by the possession of great power and great responsibility. The old confidence in an inevitable progress and in an uncomplicated harmony between reason, power, and morality has vanished with the elimination of the geographic and strategic barriers which once insulated America from the harsher realities of world politics.

In such a situation, the reflections of a scholar who probed more deeply than any of his contemporaries into the ethical problems of foreign policy are peculiarly appropriate. Meinecke's sense of the tragic conflict between political necessity and moral principle can now find an understanding response in a country which has borne the terrible responsibility of making the crucial decisions in the long series of crises since 1945–Hiroshima, Berlin, Korea, Hungary, Suez, and again Berlin. Each of these crises has harboured complex ethical as well as expediential challenges. All have demonstrated the ambiguity of both moral and political standards of conduct. It was precisely this ambiguity of standards to which Meinecke addressed his thought. His reflections have, if anything, more significance today than when they first found expression.
Inter-Establishment Dispersion of Occupational Wage Rates, Ontario and Quebec, 1957
Authors: Ostry Sylvia W.
Published: June 2006

The phenomenon of inter-establishment variation in occupational wage rates is of considerable significance not only to the economist concerned with wage theory but also to the unionist, the employer and those government agencies concerned with wage policy. In view of its importance it is unfortunate that in Canada there has been virtually no analysis of questions of inter-establishment wage diversity. In this vast and neglected field, it is difficult to choose a specific plot for cultivation or to know what size to make it. Since inter-regional differences are of great interest and significance to Canadians, it was decided, for a start, to attack the problem first by comparing the extent of dispersion in Ontario and Quebec. Further, the study is concerned with an examination of the factors which might explain the relatively greater dispersion found in Quebec. These factors include both inter- and intra-industry variation in rates, the “economic geography” of the two provinces, the effects of differences in plant size on plant wage rates, and the influence of unionism.

The data consist of more than 1,250 establishment rates for hourly rated male common labour in the manufacturing industries of Ontario and Quebec for the year 1957. Common labour was chosen as a measure for comparing wages in different plants not only because it is a fairly homogeneous occupational group but also because it is the one occupation for which extensive cross-industry rate data are presently available in Canada. There is no doubt that some variation in the rates for any occupation will arise because of differences in ability—and effort—within the occupational group. A perfectly homogeneous group of workers is a textbook abstraction which can only be approximated in the real world in a very crude fashion.
On the Character and Achievement of Sir Winston Churchill
Authors: Lewis Gordon K.
Published: June 2006

There are names in English history—Pym and Cromwell, Walpole and Pitt, Cobbett and Gladstone—that sum up in themselves the supreme embodiment of the English character. Mr. Churchill belongs indisputably to that great company. He has symbolized in his person the characteristics that have become known as English since the Henrican Reformation. In a fantastically varied lifetime he has moved from one role to another with all the calm assurance of the aristocrat-politician for whom occupation has been not so much a necessary vocation as a high adventure to be sought out. In each of the roles he has displayed ability and genius sufficient to endow half a dozen reputable careers. If to his English ancestry he owes his natural aptitude for affairs and a grand style of entering upon them, to his American background he owes his flair for self-advertisement and his genius for the melodramatic. He has managed to personify the national hero-figure of John Bull in much the same way as Lincoln, with the aid of the able cartoonist Thomas Nast, came to embody the American symbol of Uncle Sam. He has personified homo anglicanus: a being with all kinds of crotchety prejudices, frequently wrong in his opinions, rarely mean in his battles, suspicious of general ideas, with admiration for the courage that stands up for what it believes in and with no pity for the weakness that cringes, possessed of a capacity to be curiously sentimental and passionately angry.
The Decline of Shipbuilding at Quebec in the Nineteenth Century
Authors: Faucher Albert
Published: June 2006

The construction of wooden vessels was an outstanding achievement of nineteenth-century Quebec. It spread along both shores, mainly on the north shore, from Sillery coves to the Isle of Orleans. It was the staple industry of Quebec city, for “half the men were engaged in shipbuilding and nearly all the rest in doing business with them.” At one time, twenty or more yards employed about five thousand workers, a good many of whom lived in what is now regarded as the parish, one and a half miles long and thirty feet wide. In the years of peak production, shipbuilding was closely associated with the lumber-export business. It supported a way of life characteristic of the nautical city which once hoped to become a great seaport in North America.

In the early fifties, indeed, Quebec-built ships commanded high prices in the British market; activity was brisk on the shores, tavern keepers did a good business, and some of them won the reputation of being effective crimps. Someone has said of this phase of prosperity that “the profiteers tried giving least and getting most,” and it was a byword that the “ordinary lumberjack and sailorman earnt like a horse and spent like an ass.” A feature of Quebec city and its vicinity at that time was the mingling of the French- and English-speaking people, as the proportion of the latter reached about 40 per cent of the total population. But this study need not elaborate ethnical folklore. Rather, it seeks to inquire briefly into the decline of the basic industry of Quebec city.
The Federalization of the Australian Cabinet, 1901–39
Authors: MacKirdy K. A.
Published: June 2006

During the debates in the Australian federation conventions of 1891 and 1897–8, Canadian experience was usually cited to indicate practices to be avoided rather than emulated. J. W. Hackett, addressing the 1891 convention as a representative of Western Australia, which was then the least populous of the Australian colonies, stressed the need of a strong senate whose function it would be to convert the popular will into the federal will. From the viewpoint of a defender of the interest of the smaller colonies, the weakening of the prestige of the senate, through the cabinet's being responsible in practice to the lower house, made responsible government a threat which Hackett was ready to attack. He questioned whether responsible government could be successful under any conditions. The experiment of the Canadian Dominion was hardly a success. “It was begun … in bribery and is continued by subsidies.” Pointing to the agitation for home rule in Ireland, he suggested that responsible government was a failure in Britain itself. “If that is the responsible government which they wish to graft into our federation,” he asserted, “there will be one of two alternatives—either responsible government will kill federation, or federation, in the form in which we shall, I hope, be prepared to accept it, will kill responsible government.” Responsible government has, in fact, proved rather deadly to Hackett's idea of federalism. Nevertheless, in Australia, as in Canada, the cabinet itself has been federalized, although the process in Australia has not been recognized by the quantity of academic and popular commentary which has marked its Canadian counterpart.
Likely Trends in Canadian-American Political Relations
Authors: Ferguson G. V.
Published: June 2006

I doubt very much if I can effectively shovel any more platitudes on the huge heap of them that have been piled on Canadian-American relations in the past. I will, however, do my best to produce a few more. I have been lured on to this platform by nothing more worthy than personal vanity, and, since accepting the invitation, I have been regretting my weakness. There is nothing I can add to this subject that has not been said, in one or another form, a score, a hundred times, before. Yet here I am, pretending to have a thesis, and I suppose I had better produce one.

What I have to say, such as it is, is addressed to persons my own age or older, and I was 59 last April. Younger persons, or most of them, will wonder what all the shouting is about—if there is any shouting; and I would suggest to the programme committee of this association that they might consider having a repetition of this paper next year, or the year after, read to them by somebody who is 29, and not 59 years of age. The effect, at least on the older members, might be salutary and perhaps even startling.

The reason why I make this suggestion is that I was brought up in an old school, a school which thought about Canadian-American relations in a context very different from that which has become necessary now. It was a school in which one of the great teachers was John W. Dafoe, who was my master for 20 years and whose memory I will honour for whatever years are left to me. But the cardinal thesis of that school was that, at all costs, Canada had to fight its way out from under the traditional influence of British imperialist and colonial rule; and that one of the best ways of doing it was to use the influence of the United States as a counter-balance against the pressure from Westminster.
The Role of the Canadian Life Insurance Companies in the Post-War Capital Market
Authors: Hood Wm. C. , Main O. W.
Published: June 2006

The increasing importance of institutional investors in the provision of private and public long-term credit has focused the attention of economists on the activities of these investors in the saving-investment process in the economy. Institutions have become crucial factors in the determination of the nature and the extent of the expansion that takes place in industry and business, and of the nature and extent of credit supplied, including the relationship between equity and debt in the capital structure of corporations. In addition, they are important suppliers of public credit, particularly in time of heavy government borrowing, as in wartime. Also, from the point of view of government policy, they are important in determining the nature and types of credit controls needed in inflation and deflation.

The life insurance companies merit particular attention not only because of the size but also because of the nature of the funds under their administration. Their funds, amounting to some $6 billion, represent almost 50 per cent of institutional funds, excluding those administered by the banks. The assets of these funds comprise approximately 20 per cent of the total long-term public and private debt, including mortgages, in Canada. In contrast to other institutions, life companies acquire their funds as the result of contractual saving on the part of millions of policyholders. Thus their funds exhibit, and will continue to exhibit, a sustained growth. Since they are the result of personal saving, the income arising from their investment is important to a large segment of the economy, and the way in which they are invested is important for the nation as a whole.
Parliamentary Government in Manitoba
Authors: Donnelly M. S.
Published: June 2006

Students of the national institutions of government in Canada are safe in taking a great deal for granted; the phrase in the British North America Act “a constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom” is perhaps as important as all the rest of the act put together. It assumed a transfer of parliamentary institutions of the British type to Canada and, in fact, the transfer had taken place in eastern Canada well before 1867. The main change that has come about since is the adaptation of parliamentary government to the federal system. An assumption that provincial governments follow the parliamentary system and observe the conventions and usages associated with it may or may not be justified. In many cases provincial characteristics and habits of mind have moulded the institutions of government so as to make the features of the British ancestor barely discernible. Manitoba is a first-class example of this process of adaptation at work. The great forces that have operated are the fur trade, the premature creation of the province, and its primarily agrarian outlook. This paper is an attempt to describe and assess their influence on parliamentary government in the province.
The Nature and Control of Hostile Crowds
Authors: Westley W. A.
Published: June 2006

This paper is an appraisal of the theory of crowds from the perspective of a study of how metropolitan police see and control them. Students of the behaviour of crowds have commented on the almost complete absence of empirical studies and of the consequent highly speculative nature of the major theories. To a great extent this state of affairs is a result of the difficulty of studying crowds, which are unpredictable in appearance, and formidable to study when identified. Furthermore, owing to the highly dramatic nature of the phenomenon, the usual secondary sources, both journalistic and historical, are quite unreliable.

A study of how the police see and control crowds obviates some of these difficulties. Individual policemen have recurrent experiences with most types of crowds. To control them they must make some appraisal of their origin, nature, and organization. The success or failure of the tactics they adopt functions as a test of their appraisal. The researcher, interviewing these policemen, is able to apply the test of consistency, and to check the most frequently recurrent statements against those of policemen with a great reputation for being able to control crowds. All the points presented in this paper have been validated in this way.
Resourcefulness and Responsibility
Authors: Scott Anthony
Published: June 2006

The subject of this paper is the economic analysis of the alienation of natural resources, by which is meant not only the disposal of a resource by outright sale but also the disposal of rights, perhaps for a limited period, to exploit, perhaps in a limited fashion, one or more of the natural resources of a specified area. In order to illustrate current procedures and their trends, I begin by describing very briefly the methods by which enterprises obtain rights from the province of British Columbia to exploit resources. (Readers interested only in analysis may wish to skip this first section.) In the next sections I discuss the contribution economic theory can make to an appraisal of methods of alienation; then, in the light of this discussion, I suggest a few desiderata in policy.

Since provinces are fairly free to make their own policies on alienation, procedures differ from region to region. Before the procedures followed in British Columbia are outlined, it should be emphasized that the more complete and absolute alienation to private ownership, the more the rights of the province shrink to the regulation of industry, collection of taxes, and other general powers enumerated in the British North America Act. It should also be kept in mind that the administration of natural gas and petroleum carried across provincial boundaries, of fisheries, and of rivers that cross the international boundary may be affected by both federal and American regulations and laws.

Agricultural land. Some land is alienated by pre-emption but in most cases it is sold on a first-come-first-served basis after survey and some development work by the government. On alienation, the land generally passes into private ownership, though mineral and water rights are reserved.

Fisheries. Anyone may fish, on conditions imposed mainly by the federal government.
A Study of One Constituency in the Canadian Federal Election of 1957
Authors: Fox Paul W.
Published: June 2006

This article attempts to describe the process of election as it occurred in one Canadian constituency in the federal general election of June 10, 1957. Since it would be foolish to generalize on the basis of one example, no effort is made to draw conclusions. The article is expository and intended only to illumine one of the unexamined corners of Canadian political science after the fashion of Larzarsfeld’s work on the 1948 American election and the valuable constituency studies contained in Butler’s book on the British election of 1951.

Constituency X is a large residential electoral district, part of which lies within Metropolitan Toronto. Brought into being by the Redistribution Act of 1952, the riding grew quickly because of the flight to the suburbs and the rapid growth of Toronto. Between 1951 and 1956 the population more than doubled, from 72,117 to 167.310. The huge size of the constituency and its swift increase presented a challenge in organization that is worth noting in itself.

The task rested in the hands of a woman who had served as returning officer in the previous election also. For the 1957 election she began in October, 1956, to make preparations for taking the vote and by the following April she was giving all her working hours to the job. For the three months immediately preceding the election she had a full-time assistant and two part-time workers helping her. The extent of the operations involved can be gathered from the statistics. Enumerating the riding required the appointment of 636 enumerators and the assignment to them of 318 election kits containing about a dozen items each. In addition to supervising the drawing up, posting, and revision of the lists of electors, who totalled 104,000, the returning officer was also responsible for splitting the constituency into 318 polling divisions, for establishing 427 polling stations, and for appointing a deputy returning officer and an election clerk in each. On voting day, with a staff of four people, she tabulated the 74,995 votes cast and was among the first to report results.
The Break-Up of the Czechoslovak Coalition, 1947–8
Authors: Skilling H. Gordon
Published: June 2006

For one year after liberation in 1945, Czechoslovakia seemed to offer a picture of relative harmony between the political forces of democracy and communism personified by Eduard Beneš, the President, and Klement Gottwald, deputy Prime Minister, and leader of the Communist party. The themes of continuity and revolution, introduced during the wartime struggle for national liberation and developed for one post-war year in apparent concord, were soon to break off in open disharmony. Profound divergences appeared within the National Front of the six political parties concerning the course to be followed in future. On the Communist side there was a wish to complete a revolution that remained, in their view, unfinished. On the non-Communist side, there was a desire to end the course of drastic change and to establish order and legal stability on the Western pattern. These differences were for some time hidden by, or at least subordinated to, the unity symbolized by the National Front. By late 1947 what amounted to a deadlock had resulted, and prospects of continuing co-operation of Communists and non-Communists were slight. The climax in February, 1948, to be correctly appreciated, must be placed in the context of this deep and protracted crisis.

The first year of the liberated republic was one of reconstruction and revolution. The legal order was restored, with substantial new elements incorporated. The main organs of government were reconstituted, sometimes in greatly changed form. The punishment of war criminals, and the purification of Czech and Slovak life of “fascist elements,” were begun, through special “people's tribunals.” The property confiscated from German and Czech “traitors” was placed under “national administration.” Extensive nationalization of industry was begun, and a system of planning was prepared.
Monopoly and Wages
Authors: Schwartzman David
Published: June 2006

Monopolistic firms pay higher wages than competitive firms, according to J. W. Garbarino and J. K. Galbraith. Some writers believe that monopolistic firms balance the interests of employees, consumers, suppliers, and stockholders rather than maximize profits, a belief which suggests that they are generous employers rather than competitive firms who must strive for high profits. A few economists, in the taxonomic tradition, have suggested the possibility of high wages under monopoly, without expressing any opinion on the matter. The usual belief that monopolists take from the poor and give to the rich thus may be wrong. A finding that monopolists pay high wages also would imply that, for them, profit maximization takes second place to goals associated with public responsibility.

In the main stream of neo-classical theory is the opposite view that wages are low under monopoly. The exposition by Mrs. Joan Robinson assumes an upward-sloping supply curve of labour not only to each industry but also to each firm. Labour economists in recent years have followed Mrs. Robinson in stressing the prevalence of monopsony. It may be shown that product monopolists are likely to have more monopsony power than competitive firms, so, according to neo-classical theory, monopolists transfer income from the poor to the rich through low wages as well as through high prices.

I propose to test the proposition that monopoly raises wages and the opposite—that it lowers them—by comparing average annual earnings in Canadian monopolistic industries with those in matched United States industries which are competitive, or less monopolistic. The theories together with the evidence on which they are based will be presented first.
Group Formation among Immigrants: Criteria and Processes
Authors: Breton Raymond , Pinard Maurice
Published: June 2006

Much attention has been devoted by sociologists and social psychologists to the question of the introduction of new members into a group or society. Preoccupation with this broad problem is visible, for instance, in studies of conversion to a religion, of movement from one social class to another, and of change of residence from one community or country to another. Not all studies, however, deal with the same aspects of the problem. Some focus on the factors which bring about such movement from one group to another. Others are concerned with the effects the movement has on both the group of origin and the group of destination. Finally, a good proportion of the studies purport to answer the following questions: What changes occur in the basic values, sentiments, and ways of behaving of the individual? To what extent are there such changes, and through what processes do they take place? This latter group of studies centres on concepts such as acculturation, integration, assimilation, adaptation, or absorption.

These concepts all refer to the same phenomenon, although perhaps from different angles. Park and Burgess, for instance, present the following general notion of “assimilation”: “A process of interpenetration and fusion in which persons and groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons or groups, and by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated with them in a common cultural life.” Blau has a very similar conception of the integration of the socially mobile into a new class. So does Eisenstadt with the concept of “adaptation,” although his definition is stated in terms of the final result rather than in terms of the process whereby it is achieved.
Louis XIV and the Theories of Absolutism and Divine Right
Authors: Fox Paul W.
Published: June 2006

The political theory of Louis XIV is contained for the most part in the King's manuscripts which repose in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. These include the longest and most fruitful source, the Mémoires de Louis XIV pour l'instruction du Dauphin, some of his letters, and some of his miscellaneous short pieces. Many of the several thousand additional letters which Louis wrote either have been destroyed or scattered far and wide. There are a number of editions of his works but they have been almost entirely literary and designed for the popular market.

In spite of the plethora of literature on Louis XIV and his grand siècle (1638–1715), no systematic exposition of his political theory has ever been published, though a number of authors have touched on his ideas in passing, including the historian Lacour-Gayet who promised a study of Louis' political theory but completed only a preliminary survey of its antecedents. The purpose of this paper is to attempt in brief compass to remedy this deficiency.

Louis XIV is a classic example of a political thinker whose ideas are frequently alluded to but rarely examined. The popular tendency to refer to him as the prototype of all autocrats suffers the usual inadequacies of a stereotype; it overlooks the subtleties in his theories which greatly affect their interpretation. In order to avoid semantic wrangles it may be useful to follow the broad lines of Aristotle's analysis of monarchy presented in his Politics, Book IV, chapter x.
Some Recent Econometric Developments
Authors: Brown T. M.
Published: June 2006

This paper is an attempt to give the interested economist who is not an econometrician a general picture of some of the developments in the specialized field of econometrics. It is hoped thereby to enable him to see how this field is related to the general science of economics, and how he may be able to make use in his own work of the results obtained in econometrics. The implications of the current rapid innovations in the field of electronic computers are stressed, since these may soon help to produce an ever increasing flow of econometric results.

In an address given in 1897, Alfred Marshall suggested that economics should develop not only as a quantitative science in many of its aspects, but also as a numerical science. Professor Schumpeter, in appraising Marshall's advice, observes that it follows the line of development begun by Sir William Petty in his Political Arithmetick of 1672. Schumpeter came down firmly on the side of this prescription himself. He too emphasized the importance of economics' being able to “figure out results.” Professor Pigou also reveals how Marshall, well aware as he was that much in economics cannot be described by numbers, hoped to see the areas that could be so described brought to the same stage as physics, where the amount of an effect produced by a cause can be estimated by numerical methods, using statistical data.
The Political Economy of Opulence
Authors: Johnson Harry G.
Published: June 2006

“Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.” Lionel Robbins' well-known definition of their subject is one which most economists would probably accept, at least as a description of their workaday activities. The definition allows—and it was specifically framed by its author to allow—for the pursuit of other ends than purely material ends; but in practice economists devote themselves predominantly to the study of the allocation of material means between ends conceived and defined in material terms. Inherent in the way economists set about their task is the implicit assumption that material means are scarce and material wants are pressing—in short that economic society is materially poor, and resources must not be wasted.

This assumption permeates the theoretical apparatus of the subject; it also directs what economists have to say about economic policy. In the debate which has been going on over the general problem of inflation, for example, economists have been divided between those who stress the loss of production and potential growth of output that results from anything less than full employment of labour, and those who stress the loss of production and potential growth of output that results from the misallocation of resources brought about by inflation. Again, in making comparisons between the Russian and Western economic systems, economists have generally tended to accept as their standard of performance the rate of growth of output per head, a standard which gives away most of the positive points on the Western side. In both cases, the adoption of the output standard implicitly assumes that the economic problem is of prime importance.
The Inter-Industry Structure of the Canadian Economy
Authors: Caves Richard E.
Published: June 2006

This article explores the structure of the Canadian economy revealed in the recently published inter-industry table for 1949. It seeks not to treat exhaustively any aspect of Canada's economic structure, but to use inter-industry methodology to test a variety of familiar hypotheses about that structure. In announcing the coming of input-output analysis to the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, S. A. Goldberg heralded the appearance of an “experimental table for the year 1949.” He stressed its prospective value for checking the consistency and completeness of the Bureau's statistical coverage. But he added the hope that the table would “help to strengthen the habit of looking at the economy as being composed of interrelated variables and in this manner … assist economic as well as statistical analysis. If the data provided by the table are useful for the purpose of appraising emerging trends in the economy, there will be an additional gain.” A demonstration of the uses and limits of “input-output analysis” may give some help to those who must estimate the marginal productivity of gathering further data in this area. Thus, a subsidiary theme of this article is the potential usefulness of inter-industry analysis for the formation of policy, both by government agencies and private firms.
Depreciation in Disequilibrium
Authors: Kemp Murray C.
Published: June 2006

Under what conditions can depreciation of the currency be relied on to correct a passive balance of payments? The question has interested theorists at least since Bickerdike's pioneering article of 1920 and in the post-war years has been the subject of an intensive and.long-drawn-out polemic. There is now on file a formula for each of umpteen different situations and one might feel tolerantly towards anyone who cried “Enough.” Yet, as I hope to show, important work remains to be done.

Almost without exception, existing solutions to the exchange stability problem have been derived by analysis of the “comparative equilibria” variety. It is assumed that, before and after depreciation, all commodity markets, international as well as purely domestic, are in equilibrium, in the sense that ex ante demand is equal to ex ante supply at the going price. Analysis of the problem consists in the location and, with an eye on the balance of payments, the comparison of the two equilibria.

I suspect, however, that depreciation often is mooted in a context of widespread disequilibrium in commodity markets. For, granted only that at some previous point in time the balance of payments was in equilibrium, present difficulties must be the aftermath of a “disturbance,” and it is difficult to conceive of a disturbance which impinges on the market for foreign exchange but not on the markets for individual commodities. In a context of market disequilibrium, then, what are the minimal conditions of exchange stability?
Some Technical Factors in the Production and Marketing of Canadian Wheat
Authors: Irvine G. N. , Anderson J. A.
Published: June 2006

This year farmers in western Canada planted about 23 million acres to spring wheat. It was mainly Triticum vulgare (common bread wheat) with a small acreage of Triticum durum (macaroni wheat), but within each of these species any one of five or six varieties might have been used depending on location. Wheat is grown throughout the entire length and breadth of the crop land of western Canada, on soils of widely different types and under a considerable range of weather conditions. During the growing season and at harvest time, the wheat is subjected to numerous hazards, but eventually some 300 to 550 million bushels are harvested. In addition, there will be a carryover from the last crop or two representing wheat grown under other seasonal conditions. This large quantity of wheat will be far from uniform; it will vary in appearance from near perfect to mere chicken feed, in weight per bushel from 45 to 70 pounds, in protein content from 9 to 18 per cent, and in many other physical and chemical characteristics.

This wheat must be classified into grades of dependable and uniform quality, for Canada exports wheat to countries all over the world; and when a food product moves in bulk, in large volume, over great distances, a major factor in maintaining stable markets is the buyer's confidence in what he will receive from the seller. This is especially true when the sales are made on the basis of “certificate final.” In effect, the certificate issued by the Board of Grain Commissioners for Canada when a boat is loaded guarantees that the parcel represents the specified weight, that it is of the specified grade, and that it is equal to the current Standard Export Sample of that grade. Should the buyer be dissatisfied he has no legal recourse, though he may, of course, refer the matter back to the Board. Obviously, under such a system of marketing, the seller must establish a world-wide reputation for unimpeachable integrity and an almost infallible expertness and efficiency, both to attract new customers and to retain old ones.