bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Parliamentary Privilege in the Canadian House of Commons
Authors: Dawson W. F.
Published: June 2006

Practically the only public acknowledgment of the vast powers of the House and the protection which is afforded the House and its members by the tradition of centuries is contained in the statement of the Speaker at the beginning of every new Parliament. When the Speaker leads the members of a new House of Commons to the Senate he claims from the governor general on their behalf “all their undoubted rights and privileges, especially that they may have freedom of speech in their debates, access to your Excellency's person at all reasonable times, and that their proceedings may receive from your Excellency the most favourable consideration.” These are, of course, immediately granted by the governor general.

The privileges of Parliament so briefly referred to and so perfunctorily granted are of two types. Some, are personal to every member of the House and enable him to carry out his parliamentary responsibilities without interference; others are the additional privileges of the House as a body, breach of which is considered in law to be analogous to contempt of court.

The former enable a member to speak on any subject free of any fear of legal responsibility for anything he may say. He is free from arrest under civil process while the House is in session and for a reasonable time before and after the session. He is also exempt during the session from duty as a witness or as a juror. Threats against a member and attempts to bribe him are likewise considered as breaches of privilege.
Parliament and Policy-Making: The Case of the Trans-Canada Gas Pipeline
Authors: Thorburn Hugh G.
Published: June 2006

“Your business is not to govern the country; it is, if you think fit, to call to account those who do govern it.” This remark of Gladstone to the House of Commons during the Crimean War applies with equal validity to the Canadian House today. If Parliament is to call the Government to account, given party discipline as we know it, it must do so through the Opposition or it will not do so at all. Jennings comments: “The Opposition demands that policies be formulated openly, and the consequences of policies revealed. Parliament compels the Government to defend itself by open and rational argument; but it also compels the Opposition to state what is the alternative.”

This process of government by discussion involves more than the trading of facts and argument at arm's length between Government and Opposition. It enlists more than the intellects of the members; it involves their emotions as well. Members are conscious that they are the representatives of the people of the country, to whose desires and interests they must give voice. They are led in the course of debate to refer, usually in general terms, to the desirability of action along a certain line, or to express disapproval of another possible course. The Government, if it is wise, pays close attention to such remarks since the members' opinions are the most sensitive indicator of feelings in the constituencies. A rather vague agreement, usually transcending party, emerges on proposed lines of policy. It does not suggest a definite course of action at a given time; rather it indicates the trend and intensity of opinion in the country. In this vague and general sense, Parliament assists in the formulation of policy. As Lord Balfour said, “our whole political machinery presupposes a people so fundamentally at one, that they can afford safely to bicker.” It is up to Parliament to make clear on exactly what the nation is at one, as well as to take the lead in the bickering.
Ethnic Assimilation and Differentiation in Canada
Authors: Vallee Frank G. , Schwartz Mildred , Darknell Frank
Published: June 2006

Despite the fact that ethnicity is an important principle of social organization in Canada, there are very few studies that attempt to describe and analyse how it operates at different levels and in different parts of the social system. In this paper we suggest ways that might lead to a clearer understanding of the significance of ethnicity in the country and its communities. In its relevance to research, this paper is both methodological and programmatic. We hope that it will provide fruitful suggestions for research and for the clearer formulation of problems for study.

Students in the field of ethnic studies seldom consider more than one ethnic group or category at a time. Where the group selected for study forms an autonomous community, we get an exhaustive account of the group and its relations with the “outside world,” rather like the account of an individual's life history. Even where the people who are being studied make up a large element in our population and are dispersed both geographically and socially, there is a tendency to follow the same procedure and to deal with what is really a category as though it were an autonomous, discrete group; the picture we get is of individuals of such and such an ethnic group (as though their only identity were an ethnic one) and their relations with outsiders. This procedure is comparable to making an analysis of a small group by taking each individual in turn and describing him exhaustively without taking into account the structure of the group itself.
The Manipulation of Popular Impulse: Graham Wallas Revisited
Authors: Qualter T. H.
Published: June 2006

When Graham Wallas published his Human Nature in Politics, just over fifty years ago, it was already becoming apparent that the machinery of representative democracy was not working as smoothly as its liberal creators had intended. The successful operation of its institutions, which implied the existence of a society of rational well-intentioned individuals, was being frustrated by oligarchic party structures, self-interested pressure groups, the apathy and ignorance of the mass of the population, and the power of irrational persuasion. As the gulf between the theory and the practice of democracy became more obvious, there resulted a disillusionment which led many to a complete rejection of the democratic thesis. It was this setting that led Ostrogorski, Michels, and others to prophesy the collapse of democratic political machinery.

But to prove that the institutions set up by men to achieve a certain ideal are inadequate for that purpose is not the same as to prove the worthlessness of the ideal. Such was the essence of Graham Wallas' thesis. The founders of democratic theory believed they had discovered the means for a fuller expression of human dignity and a more complete development of the individual's potential. An unfortunate over-emphasis on the role of reason in political activity, however, made impossible the realization of their ideal through the machinery they had established, especially the machinery for the election of representatives. Democracy, nevertheless, remained an ideal that might still be attainable if some adjustments were made to account for previously neglected facts about human nature.
Higher Public Servants and the Bureaucratic Elite in Canada
Authors: Porter John
Published: June 2006

There is now an extensive literature on bureaucratic organization in general, and on governmental bureaucracies in particular. Recently there has been a tendency to view social power as being distributed through a set of counter-bureaucracies, each of which is a development within a particular institutional order. Modern corporations, the trade unions, the departments of state, the armed services, the church, and so forth are all bureaucratically organized. In other words they have an intensive division of labour, a hierarchical system of command and co-ordination, and an emphasis in recruitment on expert qualifications. Consequently, as bureaucratic organization pervades the entire social structure, we enter the age of the “managerial society,” the “organization man,” and “government by expert.” Hence bureaucracy takes on its true meaning of rule by officials.

While much of contemporary sociology in the fields of industrial relations and business and public administration is given over to improving the techniques of bureaucratic control, less attention is paid to the relationship of the various bureaucracies to one another within the total system of power. In this paper I have brought together data on the careers and social backgrounds of the top men—the élite—of the Canadian federal public service. The ordering of these data has been guided by models of governmental bureaucracy in relation to other institutional structures. Limitation of space precludes a full exposition here of these models, but a brief outline is necessary to give some meaning to the empirical materials that follow. The significant variables in these models are rationalization, rivalry, and openness.
Administrative Decision and the Law: The Views of a Lawyer
Authors: Willis John
Published: June 2006

The purpose of this paper is to consider the implications for Canadians of the recent report of the Franks Committee on administrative justice in England. This is the second English report of its kind to be made in twenty-five years, the first being the famous Report of the Committee on Ministers' Powers in 1932. Both committees made exhaustive inquiries into the actual day-to-day working of English administrative justice and in the light of that knowledge made recommendations for its improvement. In the United States, the Report of the Attorney General's Committee on Administrative Procedure reviewed in 1941 the federal administrative process as it actually operated; in the light of that report, Congress passed in 1946 the Administrative Procedure Act laying down in fairly general terms the minimum standards of procedure to be observed in the administrative exercise of delegated powers of adjudication; and in 1955 a Task Force on Legal Services and Procedure made a year-long study of the entire field of federal administrative law and submitted its conclusions in a 442-page report to the Hoover Commission. In Canada there has never been any offiicial inquiry into such questions.

For this reason—and we should do well to admit it before we begin trying to learn lessons from the Franks Report—we Canadians do not know much about our own situation. We do know that in our country, as in England and in the United States, there is at the federal level and at the provincial level a heterogeneous collection of bodies other than courts—independent commissions, civil service departments, and other statutory authorities—deciding disputes between that mighty engine, the state, and the individual citizen or business corporation; but of what most of them in fact do, how they do it, and to what extent they are supervised, checked, or controlled, we have only hazy and rather general knowledge.
Administrative Decision and the Law: The Views of an Administrator
Authors: Angus H. F.
Published: June 2006

Modern legislation, in Canada as elsewhere, has entrusted important functions to boards or commissions and has conferred very wide powers upon them. The basic purpose of such legislation is to supplement legislatures, courts of law, and ministers of the Crown by providing these venerable institutions with subordinate agencies which, within a strictly limited sphere, can act more effectively.

The legislative functions of a board consist in making regulations with the force of law. These regulations often require the approval of the supreme executive authority. They provide a necessary type of legislation which our legislatures, let us say it quite brutally, are not competent to consider in detail.

A second function of boards is to decide disputes. Not only do they supplement the action of the legislatures in cases in which it is likely to be cumbersome or ineffective, but they also replace judicial action in cases in which it is disliked or distrusted. Although control by courts of law may remain formally unimpaired, boards acting within the scope of the law which creates them are able to interfere, ostensibly in the public interest as they themselves define it, with many established or traditional rights.

A third function of boards is administrative. They are in principle able to act with complete immunity from the political pressures to which a minister of the Crown may quite properly be exposed. Their administrative work is facilitated by their legislative and judicial powers and part of their usefulness derives from their ability to combine three functions which cannot be conveniently—and perhaps cannot be safely—combined at higher levels.
Changing Structural Factors in Canada's Cyclical Sensitivity, 1903–54
Authors: Rosenbluth G.
Published: June 2006

An earlier paper examined changes in Canadian sensitivity to United States business fluctuations. The evidence suggested that this sensitivity may have declined from the ten years preceding the First World War to the twenties, and that it undoubtedly declined between the twenties, on the one hand, and the thirties and post-war period on the other. Changes in sensitivity were measured by changes in the average percentage amplitude of fluctuations in Canadian output indicators associated with given percentage fluctuations of the corresponding United States indicators. The changes in sensitivity observed in this way were very small, but the decline from the twenties to the thirties and the post-war period was statistically significant.

The present paper attempts an explanation of these findings by examining changes in structural factors that can be assumed to have influenced Canada's cyclical sensitivity. Most of these factors have been frequently discussed by Canadian economists.

Since exports are a major channel for the transmission of cyclical fluctuations (indeed, in the thinking of many economists they appear to be the only channel), and since United States business conditions influence, directly and indirectly, Canadian exports to all countries, the sensitivity of total Canadian exports to United States business fluctuations must be examined. Since the United Kingdom has been a major market for exports, the influence of its business fluctuations on the relation between United States and Canadian fluctuations is also relevant.
The Impact of the Post-War Industrial Expansion on Ontario's Agriculture
Authors: Drummond W. M.
Published: June 2006

For most of the past century an expansion of secondary industry has been taking place in Ontario. During most of this period, however, the process of industrialization has been quite gradual, somewhat intermittent, and often fairly closely related to agriculture. Such was only to be expected so long as the general economic expansion of the country was centred in agriculture and particularly in the development of the agricultural resources of the Prairie Provinces. In recent years, however, the general expansion has been concentrated in the non-agricultural sectors of the economy. Moreover a very large part of the total activity has been occurring in the province of Ontario and at an extremely rapid rate. It is because there has been so much industrial development in so short a time that the impact on agriculture has been so pronounced.

In considering the specific ways in which agriculture has been affected it may first be noted that the industrial expansion has meant a pronounced and continuous increase in non-farm employment at steadily rising wage-rates. The ability to obtain these new well-paid jobs has made it possible for many people to improve their economic lot by shifting from farming to other occupations. It has also forced farmers to choose between paying much higher wages (and also providing greatly improved working and living conditions for hired workers) and finding some less expensive method of getting work done. It has also led to the abandonment of farms in numerous cases where, because of factors such as inferior soil, insufficient area, or poor location, continuance in farming had depended on the ability to obtain cheap labour.
Central African Enquiry
Authors: Conway John S.
Published: June 2006

The Report of the Advisory Commission on the Review of the Constitution of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, the Monckton Commission, will undoubtedly be a document of historic significance. Not only will its findings be certain to affect the destinies of the seven and a half million inhabitants of Rhodesia and Nyasaland; not only does it form yet another in the long series of stepping stones of liberal imperialism leading to the creative abdication of imperial responsibilities; but the assumptions it starts from and the appeal it makes for a partnership between the races will also be important for the future relations between black and white in all Africa.

The Monckton Commission was established in 1959 at the instigation of the British government, to advise that government, the federal government of the Central African Federation and the three territorial governments of Southern and Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland on future constitutional developments. Led by Lord Monckton, a distinguished former British cabinet minister, the Commission was composed of members appointed by these governments. The importance of the constitutional review was emphasized by the selection of a Canadian and an Australian to sit on the Commission. Professor D. G. Creighton of the University of Toronto was invited by the British government to serve as the member from Canada.
Tropical African Contributions to Federal Finance
Authors: Due John F.
Published: June 2006

Few questions are more vexing in the development of an optimum tax structure than that of allocation of tax sources between federal and territorial governments in a federal system. The need for a substantial degree of uniformity in tax structures and burdens in the interest of optimum resource allocation, effective tax administration, and tax compliance conflicts directly with the need for fiscal autonomy on the part of the territorial governments. The result is inevitably a compromise, and in many countries, including Canada, an unstable one, with constant complaints leading to frequent review of the system. Attainment of an optimum solution is difficult at best, and in the older federations, such as Canada, the United States, and Switzerland, change is impeded by tradition, by the doctrine of states' rights, and by the reluctance of one level of government to surrender any of its control over taxation to another level. A review of the solutions to the problem adopted by three federal systems in British tropical Africa, all of relatively recent origin, is of interest both in terms of African problems and for the light which it may throw on the search for better solutions elsewhere.
Size of Firm, Oligopoly, and Research: The Evidence
Authors: Hamberg D.
Published: June 2006

For many years the defence of the giant corporation and oligopoly has been rooted in the argument that both were the product of a technology that requires large-scale enterprises for efficient production. In brief, the economies of mass production are supposed to give rise to optimum-scale firms that are too large, relative to the size of markets, to permit the large numbers of sellers needed to minimize monopoly powers over prices and production.

Although still possessing many adherents, this defence of the giant corporation and oligopoly has recently fallen from favour, perhaps mainly for lack of empirical support, but probably also for other reasons that need not be examined here. In its place has come a new defence. The large oligopolistic corporations, we are now told, have become the principal sources of research and development, and thus of the technological progress which is the backbone of economic growth.
Politics and Broadcasting: Case Studies of Political Interference in National Broadcasting Systems
Authors: Qualter T. H.
Published: June 2006

Broadcasting is the most pervasive, and therefore one of the most powerful, of agents for influencing men's thoughts and actions, for giving them a picture, true or false, of their fellows and of the world in which they live, for appealing to their intellect, their emotions and their appetites, for filling their minds with beauty or ugliness, ideas or idleness, laughter or terror, love or hate.

The truth of this statement from the Beveridge Committee on British broadcasting is not now questioned. Indeed the danger today is that governments, instead of ignoring the power of radio to influence opinion, will exaggerate it and take needless precautions against the “contamination” of the public mind. Such an attitude has long been recognized as characteristic of totalitarianism, but in this paper I am concerned to show that the “fundamental freedoms” of speech and of the press do not always extend to the broadcasting services, even in states with otherwise strongly established democratic traditions. In the two countries examined, Great Britain and New Zealand, broadcasting is a government monopoly, operated in Britain through the British Broadcasting Corporation, a semi-independent public corporation, and in New Zealand through the New Zealand Broadcasting Service, a government department under the control of a minister. According to a recent announcement from New Zealand, however, the Government intends “to end direct state control of radio and television in New Zealand and create an independent three man corporation to assume control from 1st April 1962.” The governments of both countries have demonstrated that they regard broadcasting rights as a privilege not to be extended to all who might claim access to them.
The Fiscal Implications of a Housing Program
Authors: Binhammer H. H.
Published: June 2006

In February, 1959, the Minister of Public Works, the Honourable Howard Green, said in the House of Commons that “the government went into the home financing field to such a large extent in the last two years for one reason, to provide employment.” He went on to say that “this was done deliberately as the best means of creating jobs.” The Honourable D. J. Walker, after he took over the Public Works portfolio later that year, presented estimates to the House of the actual labour content of residential construction. On November 22, 1960, he said that “at this time every house that is built gives six months' employment to two men on the job and two men off the job, and also another man who is employed getting the sewers, and so on ready.” A year later, when introducing yet another amendment to the National Housing Act, the Minister stated that “if each new dwelling unit financed under the National Housing Act involves 2½ man years of employment on and off site, the N.H.A. mortgage lending for eight months of this year has contributed to more than 112,000 man-years of employment and of these, direct federal lending has been responsible for 46,000 man-years.” In the light of the statements by two ministers of Public Works, this paper attempts to present more precise estimates of the labour income that is generated by an expenditure for residential construction.
Recent Contributions to the Theory of Economic Growth
Authors: Green H. A. John
Published: June 2006

The theory of economic growth is concerned with the behaviour over time of the major economic aggregates—among them consumption and investment, wages and profits. At the present time growth theory is the field of a methodological dispute between the so-called “neo-classical” and “neo-Keynesian” schools of thought. In this paper, in the course of a brief consideration of recent major works in this area, an attempt is made to discover the nature of the disagreement.

Let us begin with Meade's Neo-classical Theory of Economic Growth. In a lucid introductory chapter, the assumptions common to the two sides in the dispute are set forth. We are to consider a closed economy, with no government expenditure or taxation. There are two types of goods: machines and a homogeneous consumption good, each produced by means of machines and labour (and perhaps land). The assumption of competitive conditions throughout the economy is interpreted somewhat differently by different authors. To Mrs. Robinson in her Essays (p. 8), it means that in long-run equilibrium a uniform rate of profit rules in all sectors of the economy. To Meade it means, in addition, that each factor of production receives as payment the value of its marginal product.
Western Europe's Demand for Canadian Industrial Materials
Authors: Reuber G. L.
Published: June 2006

One of the most important developments in the world economy since 1945 has been the emergence of strong and rapidly growing economies in Western Europe. This expansion has been accompanied by the formation of two free-trade blocs, with growing prospects for an association between them. Canadian reactions to these changes have ranged from apprehension and pessimism, on the one hand, to considerable optimism on the other and in the course of the discussion a number of suggestions have been advanced for modifying Canada's commercial policy. It has been suggested, for example, that because of these and other developments we should increase protection to domestic industry; another suggestion that has been advanced in several forms is that we should ourselves consider promoting some regional free-trade association.

These reactions and policy suggestions necessarily involve assumptions about the future of Canadian trade, particularly with Western Europe. In most discussions these assumptions remain implicit and unclear. The purpose of this paper is to identify and to assess some of these assumptions, recognizing fully all the hazards, difficulties and qualifications that inevitably attend forecasting exercises in economics. Specifically, I try to shed some light on the following two questions: (1) Given likely increases in Western Europe's national income over the next ten years, by how much is Europe's demand likely to increase for industrial materials that are important Canadian exports? (2) How great a barrier to Canadian exports, and how costly for Canada, are likely to be the tariff arrangements that EEC and EFTA propose to establish over the next decade?
Canada's Unemployment Problem
Authors: Barber Clarence L.
Published: June 2006

Canada's unemployment record during the post-war period falls readily into three distinct periods. Before 1954 unemployment averaged about 2.5 per cent of the labour force and was never a significant problem. Since it has been estimated that seasonal unemployment alone amounts to about 2 per cent of the labour force, non-seasonal employment was almost non-existent in this period. During the next four years a moderate increase occurred and in this period unemployment averaged about 4.2 per cent. Then, in late 1957, unemployment passed the 5 per cent point; for the three years 1958 to 1960 it averaged 6.7 per cent of the labour force and in early 1961 it has been running close to 8 per cent on a seasonally adjusted basis. The moderate increase that occurred after 1953 was due in part to a more rapid growth of the labour force. In two years, between 1955 and 1957, the labour force increased some 6.9 per cent and the non-agricultural sector rose by more than 9.5 per cent, an increase that reflected the heavy immigration following Suez and the uprising in Hungary. But the further increase in unemployment that developed in late 1957 cannot be attributed to a similar cause. For since 1957 there has been some decline in the rate of growth of both the total and the non-farm labour force (see Table III). Nevertheless, the non-farm labour force has continued to grow rapidly and this explains the recent paradox of increasing unemployment at a time when total employment is still rising.
Increasing Misery of the Proletariat: An Analysis of Marx's Wage and Employment Theory
Authors: Gottheil Fred M.
Published: June 2006

The intent of this paper is to demonstrate (1) that Marx's analysis of the workers' fate under capitalism is not quite as scientific as he had professed, and (2) that, on the other hand, his analysis of wage and employment determination in a capitalist economy is not quite as misleading as many critics contend.

If Marx's theoretical contributions in this area have been unjustly discounted by “bourgeois economists,” much of the fault may be traced directly to Marx himself. For it was he who suggested that the veracity of his economic analysis could be measured by the accuracy of his economic predictions. Non-Marxists and neo-Marxists alike have faithfully followed his suggestion. Thus, since overwhelming evidence of rising standards of living in Western capitalist countries clearly discredits Marx's prediction concerning the increasing misery of the proletariat, we generally discard not only the prediction but also the theoretical apparatus whence it was allegedly derived.

To reject Marx in this matter on his own grounds, however, is to acknowledge logical consistency in his derivation of prediction from model. It is the consistency that is questioned here. And if Marx's prediction of misery is found not to derive from his wage and employment theory, then the Marxian theory of wages and employment may prove to be a more valid view of capitalism than is generally suspected.
Canada: Two Nations or One?
Authors: Forsey Eugene A.
Published: June 2006

You will perhaps think that, with that introduction, I have already answered the question in the title. Don't jump to conclusions! Attendez un peu!

When I was elected president of this Association last year, I could scarcely have been more astonished. Obviously, there were dozens of people far better qualified. I asked myself why I had been chosen, and there was only one possible reason that seemed to me to make any sense. The Association was to become bilingual, and I was one of the few senior English-speaking members who could make a respectable noise in French. I hasten to agree that this is a most inadequate reason for my election, but it is still the only one I can think of.

Be that as it may, the twin facts that the Association is now to be officially bilingual, and that I can make a respectable noise in French, seem to me to impose upon me a double duty: first, to say something about our bicultural state (you observe how carefully I avoid, so far, the controversial word “nation”), and second, to say at least part of it in French.
The Politics of Combines Policy: Liberals and the Stevens Commission
Authors: Forster D. F.
Published: June 2006

This paper is not designed primarily as a contribution to the theory of political decision-making. Nor is it an economic analysis of the problems studied by the Royal Commission on Price Spreads and Mass Buying. Rather, it is an attempt to show how the opposition Liberal party developed a strategy to deal with the important issues of economic policy raised by the investigation and how it developed an alternative policy position.

On February 2, 1934, the Prime Minister, R. B. Bennett, moved that a Select Committee of the House of Commons be established to inquire into the causes of price spreads and a variety of related problems in the areas of distribution, inter-firm relations, and labour conditions. From the beginning, H. H. Stevens, the chairman and Minister of Trade and Commerce in the Bennett administration, dominated the Committee's hearings—selecting witnesses, scheduling proceedings, and stretching the Committee's already elastic terms of reference in search of new abuses and new sensations. He denounced unfair trade practices and what he felt were flagrant abuses of economic power by department stores, meat packers, and other mass buyers, economic power which he charged was used to squeeze the small retailer, supplier, and producer and destroy decent working conditions. The public interest in the hearings was high and the press coverage was extensive and full, particularly when the Chairman had angry exchanges with the presidents of Canada Packers and the Imperial Tobacco Company.
Democracy as Perceived by Public Opinion Analysts
Authors: Dion Leon
Published: June 2006

The political ideas of public opinion analysts–pollsters as well as theoreticians–have often been submitted to rather harsh criticisms from political philosophers and scientists. On occasion, however, the analysts have reciprocated by accusing the latter of being poorly acquainted not only with the techniques and purpose of polling but also with the basic political assumptions that underlie their work. Public opinion analysts in the United States present themselves as champions of democracy; as a consequence, it is only natural that they should above all resent criticisms asserting that they hold naïve, false, or even subversive notions concerning democracy.

In the present article, I intend to explore the ideological conceptions of American public opinion analysts concerning the position and function of polling in a democracy. Reference to their critics will be made only when one or another public opinion analyst is known to have explicitly answered a specific point. Since many contemporary analysts acknowledge their debt to Bryce's The American Commonwealth, I shall start by presenting the pertinent views of the British author concerning public opinion; second, I shall summarize the views which present polling as a new technique of democratic government; third, I shall consider what public opinion analysts have to say about the impact of polling on the democratic process as such. Finally, I shall conclude by indicating how public opinion analysts view their research in relation to political theory in general.
The Role of Education in the Development of Underdeveloped Countries
Authors: Waines W. J.
Published: June 2006

During the last decade and more there has appeared a vast literature on economic growth, especially with reference to underdeveloped countries. This literature ranges from the sophisticated models of the mathematically inclined to the very practical down-to-earth reflections of the less erudite technical assistance expert with experience in the field. The literature demonstrates that there are many approaches to the problem of economic development and also that there are still areas of controversy to be resolved. In fact, while we have learned much about economic growth and much more about underdeveloped countries it seems that we are still feeling our way towards devising a satisfactory analytical framework for economic growth.

There has been waste of manpower and capital not only because the processes of economic growth are imperfectly understood, but also because governments of recipient countries have a propensity to ask either for the wrong things or the right things in the wrong order of priority. Waste also results from the failure of assistance agencies, even within the framework of the United Nations, to co-ordinate their activities, from competition amongst the departments of government in the recipient countries for preferred treatment in the matter of aid, and competition amongst assisting countries, agencies, and organizations in giving aid for political and prestige reasons.
Constitutional Amendment and the Federation
Authors: Brady Alexander
Published: June 2006

An amending procedure is integral to a scheme of free and responsible government. Liberal constitutions are not formed on the naive assumption that they are immune from obsolescence. Their architects, unlike the Emperor Justinian, are never confident that their legal handiwork can endure for all time. They accept the necessity for change as self-evident and provide the means for achieving it.

In a liberal federation, however, the devising of a satisfactory procedure for amendment is rarely easy and seldom gives satisfaction, mainly because in such a state constitutional rigidity no less than flexibility has a raison d'être. The communities associated in the federation want a measure of security, a guarantee that their individual identity and integrity will never be lightly sacrificed in the process of change. This was illustrated long ago in the most influential federal union in history. The men who deliberated at Philadelphia in 1787 agreed that amendments must be sanctioned by a special majority in Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the states. They were confident that they had thus made change difficult, but not difficult enough to prevent it when necessary. Actually, for many reasons, it proved more difficult than they could have envisaged. Since the first ten amendments were little more than supplements to an unfinished document, there remain only twelve effected in 170 years, and of these three were obtained under very abnormal circumstances when the South was under the heel of the North. Important as some of them have been, most of the crucial adjustments and changes in the federation have been achieved in other ways, by judicial interpretation, usages, conventions, and a network of agreements.
The West Indies: Improbable Federation?
Authors: Wallace Elisabeth
Published: June 2006

Political opponents of Mr. Norman Manley, Jamaica's able chief minister, whose party has supported federation, once quoted against him a speech in which he referred to The West Indies as “the most improbable federation ever conceived.” Even its friends must admit that the original federal agreement lent colour to his description, by establishing a central authority which the Prime Minister, Sir Grantley Adams, recently characterized as both weak and poor. The constitution of 1958 gave the national government very limited jurisdiction and no power to tax. Its main sources of income were contributions from the unit governments, which produced an annual revenue of some nine million West Indian dollars—less than one-fifteenth of that in Trinidad or Jamaica. Profits on the currency issue yielded an additional three million dollars.

Thus the political framework of The West Indies resembled the American Articles of Confederation or the Federal Council of Australasia far more closely than that of a genuinely federal state. West Indians have sometimes said that their constitution was modelled on the Australian, because each assigned residual powers to the units. This view, however, is misleading, since in Australia as in Canada the national government has paramount power to tax and thus authority has inevitably gravitated to the centre.
Ballot Behaviour in Halifax Revisited
Authors: Davis Morris
Published: June 2006

This paper has two aims, one substantive and the other methodological. Substantively the paper presents data from the April 1963 parliamentary election in Halifax in an array parallel to that in my article on the June 1962 election there: this presentation can be brief since the reader may refer to the earlier study if he desires amplification of the argument. On the other hand, the methodological problems involved in repeating a case study and in generalizing one's findings raise issues that must be discussed in greater detail.
The Residual Error in the Canadian National Accounts
Authors: Smyth D. J.
Published: June 2006

Gross national product is estimated in the Canadian National Accounts in two substantially independent ways: by adding the various components of production (mainly incomes); and by adding the various components of final expenditure. As both aggregates measure the value of goods and services produced by Canadians in a given period they should be equal. However, all measurements are subject to some error so that there is a statistical discrepancy between the two totals. In this way the residual error item arises.

The procedure adopted in the tables in the National Accounts is to present one half the difference between the independently calculated aggregates as an addition to the smaller aggregate or as a deduction from the larger aggregate. This averaging procedure is regarded as preferable to showing the entire amount of the discrepancy on one side of the Accounts (as is the practice in most countries) for two reasons. First, rough appraisals of the relative accuracy of the product and expenditure sides of the Accounts suggest that they have approximately equal reliability and so should be given equal weight on the average. Secondly, the aggregate which generates the residual error is considerably larger than gross national product itself. This is so because the error-generating aggregate is obtained by summing the components of gross national product and gross national expenditure without regard to sign and then deducting certain items common to both totals (such as the imputed items) and this is considerably larger than gross national product or expenditure as both gross national product and expenditure contain very large negative quantities (such as imports and farm operating expenses). Consequently, comparing one half the basic discrepancy with gross national product gives roughly the same result as comparing the whole discrepancy with the larger aggregate.

Clearly there will be some tendency for errors to cancel out so that a small residual error does not mean that components are free of error.
Les Elites Politiques de Montreal: De l'Aristocratie a la Democratie
Authors: Bourassa Guy
Published: June 2006

Cette étude s'inscrit dans le cadre plus large d'une analyse de la vie politique montréalaise. Vouloir répondre à la question « qui gouverne ? » exige que l'on considère d'abord les détenteurs offlciels de la puissance politique. L'objectif à long terme que nous poursuivons amènera ensuite à tâcher de saisir le processus en action, à cerner les rôles et combats réels au moment de la mise en train d'actions importantes, de la prise de décision. Pour le moment, la recherche présentée ici porte sur un aspect très précis: la connaissance des élites politiques officielles entre 1840 et 1960.

Montréal reçoit sa première charte municipale en 1833 mais son autonomie, tout au moins formelle, ne sera acquise pour de bon qu'en 1840. Entre cette date et 1960, trente-huit maires ont dirigé près d'une centaine de conseils municipaux. Voilà donc un personnel politique de bonne dimension. Qui ont été ces élus du peuple depuis cent-vingt ans ? A quels groupes ethniques appartenaient-ils, à quelle religion; quel était leur statut social: leur occupation, leur niveau d'instruction; ont-ils participé à la politique à d'autres niveaux, provincial ou fédéral, sous quelle bannière ? Telles sont les questions que nous nous sommes posées. Les éléments de réponse ont pu en général être obtenus et une forte majorité de ces élus possède une fiche à peu près complète. Les sources sont assez diverses, mais les dossiers d'archives en constituent l'essentiel. Mentionnons tout de même quelques recueils biographiques qui ont été précieux. Voilà d'ailleurs un des aspects les plus étudiés de notre vie politique, grâce d'ailleurs à des recherches patientes et tenaces. Nous avons eu à les compléter dans le cas des conseillers municipaux surtout, et encore davantage à les soumettre à des analyses propres à la science politique.
Optimum Consumption Patterns in High-Income Nations
Authors: Strassmann W. Paul
Published: June 2006

A transformation in the pattern of consumer expenditures has occurred in the nations that have reached high income levels during the past century. Smaller fractions of national income are spent on food, clothing, and shelter; larger fractions on recreation, medical care, education, and luxury goods. Cross-sectional studies of family budgets have been fairly reliable indicators of this trend. As early as 1857 Ernst Engel had pronounced his famous law about food expenditures on the basis of Edouard Ducpetiaux's Belgian budget studies. Similar assertions by others about clothing, fuel, and shelter followed; and in 1919 William Ogburn published his statistics of Washington, D.C., family budgets, indicating, in effect, that income elasticities of demand were highest for amusement and education. As the pattern slowly emerged, economists were not much disturbed. Why should consumers not be left alone in choosing between carrots and bedrooms? Interference with choices among luxury goods and services seemed even less warranted. Advertising posed no problem beyond encouragement of elementary veracity.

In the past decade, however, this unconcern has faded. Several economists have joined sociologists, moralists, and general philosophers in questioning trends in consumer expenditures. Their concern is less with morals and social repercussions than with optimum consumption patterns in terms of economic value and resource allocation. Advertising in particular is no longer reproached merely for a bent towards mendacity. It is seen as more insidious, as manipulating consumers' choices by kindling subconscious anxieties. It puts consumers in a squirrel cage in which production and the want-satisfying process create wants that would otherwise not exist.
The First Dominion Companies Act
Authors: Currie A. W.
Published: June 2006

The concept of a corporation was familiar to the first settlers in Canada, both French and English. The Company of New France and the Hudson's Bay Company are examples of the importance of trading companies in our early economic development. Moreover, colonial legislatures incorporated several dozen companies by special acts before deciding to allow companies to come into being without each one having to go directly to Parliament for its own charter. But a companies act which would permit companies to be expeditiously incorporated for manufacturing, trading, mining, and other ordinary kinds of business was not evolved without some experimentation, a good deal of borrowing from other jurisdictions, and the creation of two rather special methods of our own.

Until about 1850, the principle of limited liability was not generally accepted either in Canada, Britain, or most of the United States. Even as late as 1862 Nova Scotia's “Act for the incorporation and winding-up of Joint Stock Companies” (25 Vict. c. 2) forbade the incorporation of companies for “ordinary, mercantile and commercial business.” Legislators were afraid that a company might purchase excessive amounts of merchandise on credit and so take unfair advantage of its creditors, as individual traders often did during the nineteenth century.

Limited liability was permitted for banks, but only on certain conditions. In Canada, bank shareholders were usually liable for twice the par value of their stock and bank charters were valid for only ten years, so that periodically the government could review and perhaps amend the pertinent statutes.
Regional Factors in Industrial Conflict: The Case of British Columbia
Authors: Jamieson Stuart
Published: June 2006

There have been a number of ambitious studies on an international scale in recent years attempting to identify and compare “industry patterns” or “national patterns” of industrial conflict in different countries. Outstanding among these have been two analytical surveys, “The Inter-Industry Propensity to Strike,” by Kerr and Siegel, and Changing Patterns of Industrial Conflict, by Ross and Hartman. One of the findings in this latter study, incidentally, was that, among the fifteen countries surveyed, there has been a relatively high incidence of strikes in Canada—second only to the United States, in fact.

This paper is based on the premise that, in Canada, the individual province, or perhaps better, the region, is the most fruitful unit for studying such phenomena as industrial conflict. For regional differences in several respects are more pronounced in Canada than in most comparably industrialized countries, so that the portrayal of behaviour patterns in terms of national averages or configurations can lead to highly misleading conclusions.

British Columbia, next only to Quebec, perhaps, offers a particularly interesting area for research in this field, because it is a separate and distinct industrial complex, and has experienced patterns of industrial conflict that differ markedly in certain important respects from other major regions of the country.

It is not my intention, however, to emphasize the unique or special features of the labour scene in British Columbia. The field of industrial relations in general has suffered too much already, perhaps, from a plethora of detailed descriptive studies of matters of purely local scope and interest.