bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Saskatchewan Liberal Machine before 1929
Authors: Reid Escott 
Published: June 2006

From 1905, when Saskatchewan was made a province, to 1911, the Liberal party in Saskatchewan controlled both the federal and the provincial patronage. These six years gave it an enviable opportunity for laying firm foundations for a political organization. During the next ten years the federal patronage was in the hands of a Conservative or a Union party but the more important provincial patronage remained with the Liberals. Then in their last eight years of uninterrupted power, the Saskatchewan Liberals once more had the support of a federal Liberal government. Thus for twenty-four years after the formation of the province the Liberal rule over Saskatchewan was uninterrupted, and for fourteen of those years the Liberals also ruled over the Dominion. Until a few years before its defeat in 1929, it seemed as if the longer the party remained in power the stronger grew the party organization. It is this long period of development under favourable conditions which makes the Liberal organization in Saskatchewan worthy of close study.The Liberal party in Saskatchewan, like Liberal and Conservative parties in the other provinces, had two sides to its organization—one formal and ineffective, the other informal and effective. In its formal aspect it resembled party organization elsewhere. The Liberals in each polling sub-division elected one or two representatives. These met to elect a constituency executive. Each constituency executive had one representative on the central council of the provincial party, on which there also sat the executive elected at a party convention. This formal organization, which paid so strict a homage to democratic theory in its pyramidical structure based upon the people's will, was unimportant. The constituency organization, for example, did very little; it met, perhaps, once a year. The formal organization constituted a democratic façade which hid from the common gaze the naked autocracy of effective party management. In the effective party organization which did the work, won the elections, and consequently possessed the reality of political power, appointments were from the top down.
The Evidence Presented to the “Canadian Macmillan Commission”
Authors: Plumptre A. F. W. 
Published: June 2006

The evidence presented to the Royal Commission on Banking and Currency in Canada, 1933, is preserved in some three thousand five hundred multigraphed foolscap pages. There are fifty or sixty copies in existence. A number of these are in the possession of those who were attached to the Commission and of the Canadian banks: others are to be found in certain Canadian libraries: and that is about all. There is only one other avenue of access to the material. During the course of the proceedings the Financial Post of Toronto published a weekly summary of the more important submissions; and the daily papers throughout the country printed extracts irregularly. It is, therefore, clear that few people have had, or will ever have, the opportunity to become familiar with the evidence. And even those who have access to the copies available in libraries will be confronted by a vast, undigested, poorly indexed mass of material.Hence this article. It has two objects. It attempts, in the first place, simply to describe the evidence to those readers who either have not the inclination or the ability to consult it. In the second place, it attempts to guide those who may in the future wish to consult it away from the more arid patches and towards the oases. In what follows, I find myself between two fires. Since I was fortunate enough to be attached to the Commission in a minor capacity, and the only economist so attached, I am tempted to give a critical review from the standpoint of an economist. On the other hand, my connection with it imposes some restraint upon my remarks both regarding the Commission itself and those appearing before it. Indeed, as I write, I feel acutely conscious that I am compassed about by a great cloud of witnesses. To those who, reading this article, feel that I have done them any injustice, I apologize, asking them to bear with me, remembering the magnitude of the task of condensation which I am undertaking.
The Adjustment of Federal-Provincial Financial Relations
Authors: Maxwell J. A. , MacG. D. A. 
Published: June 2006

It is only since the War that federal-provincial financial relations have received serious attention. In the years up to 1914 there was much petty bickering about better terms, but most of this was political by-play. The growth of Dominion and provincial expenditures was at about the same rate, and the distribution of functions and fiscal resources between the governments appeared to be in balance. The War was responsible for a major dislocation. The Dominion was forced to reach into the field of direct taxation and since 1921 the balance of fiscal superiority has swung heavily in its favour.During the post-War decade 1919-29 the Dominion proceeded to liquidate some part of its War debt, and, while reducing rates of taxation, it did not feel able to relinquish its hold on any important sources of revenue. The trend of Dominion expenditure and debt was slightly downward. But, as everyone knows, the trend of provincial expenditure and debt was sharply upward. Ordinary provincial expenditures were $76,404,000 in 1919 and $177,542,000 in 1929 (an increase of 132 per cent.), while bonded debt and treasury bills amounted to $304,146,000 in 1919 and to $895,334,000 in 1929 (an increase of 198 per cent.). The increase in the burden of the debt was greater than these figures indicate, because interest payments grew from $11,926,000 in 1919 to $41,207,000 in 1929 (an increase of 245 per cent.). It is not possible to show in detail for what purposes the increase in expenditures took place. Ordinary expenditures can, of course, be analysed and it will be convenient in considering them to omit expenditure for interest. Ordinary expenditures (omitting interest) rose by 112 per cent, from 1919 to 1929. But there was great variation in the rate of increase of the principal items. Thus ordinary expenditure for highways and bridges rose by 152 per cent., for education by 145 per cent., and for welfare functions by 154 per cent. All other items increased only by 78 per cent. In this remainder is expenditure for such purposes as legislation, legal administration, and civil government, which rose by 34 per cent., 69 per cent., and 83 per cent. respectively.
Real Wages in the United States and Great Britain
Authors: Tarshis Lorie 
Published: June 2006

In this paper certain statistical and theoretical problems connected with changes in the level of real wages will be examined. In the first place, information is presented which deals with recent trends in real wages in the United States and in Great Britain. Next, there follows a more or less sketchy treatment of the conventional theory of distribution—this, to provide the analytical tools for the interpretation of these movements. Finally, the significance of these various determinants of the level of real wages is discussed, in the light of statistical and descriptive material to be presented in this paper.It must be noted at the outset that no very careful treatment is accorded the British material. For the purposes of this survey, the British experience—which was perhaps “normal” in some vague sense—is used as a basis for comparison and contrast with the distinctly “abnormal” American experience. The statistical data presented deal only with the six-year period beginning with 1932 and ending in January, 1938. Prior to the earlier date (1932) adequate information about wages and hours of work in the United States was not available. In any case, even six years, if studied by months, provide quite a wealth of statistical data—enough at least for a preliminary survey such as this.The subject of the investigation has been the changes in real hourly earnings. This was decided upon for reasons of convenience and not because it was supposed that such an index offered the most significant measure of change in the workers' income. Very probably, most of us would feel that changes in the purchasing power of weekly or annual earnings, or even of working-life earnings, would more satisfactorily measure such alterations. But it is difficult to establish such indices, and the concepts they measure are not so amenable to theoretical treatment.
Geography the Correlative Science
Authors: Taylor Griffith 
Published: June 2006

In the present paper I propose first to discuss the place of geography among the sciences, and then to show how modern geographical technique can be applied with fruitful results in the fields of history, economics, anthropology, sociology, and linguistics.At the University of Chicago, one of the three leading research institutions in America, the four general divisions of undergraduate study are the social, physical, and biological sciences and the humanities. It was found desirable to give geography a place in the first two divisions, thus emphasizing its liaison character. Indeed the relations between geographical research and such subjects as history and biology are so close that the writer feels that geography might well have been given representation on the boards of all four divisions!
Dominion Legislation of 1935 an Economist's Review
Authors: Curtis C. A. 
Published: June 2006

The legislation of the past session of the Canadian Parliament is of particular interest for three reasons. Firstly, it was a pre-election session; secondly, it witnessed further “anti-depression” efforts; and thirdly it indicated the nature of Mr. Bennett's “reform” programme. The purpose of the present article is to review the legislation passed at this session of Parliament and to attempt a brief analysis of it. Some sixty-six public Acts were passed but not more than twenty will be mentioned by name here, and only a few of these twenty require any detailed discussion. The forty or more undiscussed Acts consist of Supply Bills, minor Acts, and minor amendments to existing statutes. Although it is difficult to draw a precise line between “reform” legislation and any other kind, the analysis here will be in terms of “reform” Acts and of other general Acts. This division allows some general discussion on a topical basis.In his radio broadcasts in January, 1935, Mr. Bennett announced a programme of “reform” legislation including certain general proposals then outlined, and other legislation arising out of the recommendations shortly to be made by the Price Spreads Commission. The report of the Royal Commission was presented in April, 1935. The legislation originating from these two sources will be discussed under the general heading of “reform”.First in the “reform list” come the Acts whose constitutionality—because their subject matter is assigned to provincial jurisdiction—depends upon the treaty-making power of the Dominion. The specific Acts so passed are the Employment and Social Insurance Act, the Minimum Wage Act, the Limitation of Hours of Work Act, and the Weekly Rest in Industrial Undertakings Act. The preambles of these Acts indicate clearly that their constitutionality is tied to the treaty-making powers of the Dominion government.
International Labour Conventions in Australia
Authors: Stewart Robert B. 
Published: June 2006

The opinion of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Attorney-General for Canada v. Attorney-General for Ontario, dealing with the cornpetence of the Dominion Parliament to implement international labour conventions, has received widespread comment not only in Canada and in England but particularly in Australia and even in the United States. The Commonwealth of Australia, like Canada, suffers certain disabilities peculiar to federations, because there, too, the power to legislate on conditions of labour rests in general with the Legislatures of the several states and not with the central Parliament. It is interesting, therefore, to compare Canadian and Australian procedures with respect to international labour conventions.The Commonwealth constitution contains no exact parallel either to section 132 of the British North America Act, giving to the Dominion express power to perform obligations of Canada arising under treaties made between the British Empire and foreign countries, or to the residuary powers of the Dominion under section 91. The Commonwealth Parliament is endowed with the power of legislation only upon certain enumerated subject-matters, the residuary powers remaining with the states. Somewhat comparable to section 132, however, is the provision in section 51 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act that the Parliament of the Commonwealth shall have power “to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to … (xxix) External Affairs”. In regard to the meaning of this provision a Commonwealth communication of February 26, 1909, was addressed to the secretary of state for the colonies, informing him that the law advisers of the government had expressed the view that the Commonwealth Parliament possessed the power under section 51 (xxix) “to make such legislative provision as is necessary to secure the fulfillment of treaty obligations, and that accordingly the powers of the Commonwealth Parliament are substantially identical with those of Canada”. This interpretation had been reaffirmed by Justice Evatt in 1933.
Labour Organization: A Critical Review
Authors: Logan H. A. 
Published: June 2006

I speak as an economist and not as a physical scientist or an engineer. I accept as an accomplished fact, or as a fact in process, that ours is an age of technological advance. I assert that in all this there is only a limited significance unless its benefits come to the masses of the people. The lead that the British nation has given toward industrial democracy over three-quarters of a century through collective bargaining and through the other expressions of the will and desires of the workers is one of the finest achievements of modern civilization. Marching with political democracy and the democratization of education, it represents the most widespread set of benefits, materially and morally, that has come to humanity in our day and the day of our fathers and grandfathers. And I say this in full knowledge of the limited success of the British Labour party while in power in Parliament.First, the political expression of labour in Britain is a part of the recognized functioning of democracy and as such is freely admitted. Second, the co-operative movement represents in a limited way the democratization of the property institution. Control over the buying and the production is as wide as the membership, and there is no profit running with investment. Third, the organization into unions partakes also of the nature of democracy so far as relations within the unions is concerned. But beyond that, when it comes to dealing with the powerful competing elements in an organized economy, viz., the capital-owning and profit-taking interests, it drops in large measure the democratic methods of discussion and decision and concern for the individual expression of every man. It takes up rather the weapons of the capitalist economy, viz., the concentration of power to drive hard bargains and even to force them upon the other party. Unionism—and I am thinking chiefly of its chief strand, the collective bargaining unionism—assumes a continuing opposition of interest between the propertied and controlling interests on the one hand and labour on the other, and between them battle must be done. That assumption brings in a point of view that is narrower in its compass than a democratic concern for the whole society and a methodology that seeks to elevate a single group with little concern for other sections of the community.
Newfoundland, Economic and Political I. The Amulree Report (1933): A Review
Authors: Plumptre A. F. W. 
Published: June 2006

A sorry state of affairs was discovered by the Newfoundland Royal Commission of 1933. This article is a review of its Report. No attempt is made to describe subsequent events or to consider the actual results of the publication of that remarkable document. These matters are treated elsewhere. Here we are only concerned to disclose its substance and to criticize its arguments and recommendations.The immediate cause of the appointment of the Commission was financial. The government of Newfoundland was unable to meet its obligations. At the end of 1932 the governments of Canada and the United Kingdom had arranged an advance to save Newfoundland from default and a further advance had been made by the United Kingdom on the following first of July (p. 55). This explains why the Commission was appointed by His Majesty on the advice of his ministers in Canada and Great Britain, as well as in Newfoundland. The commissioners were Lord Amulree, a British lawyer with wide experience of official investigations and industrial conciliation, raised to the peerage under the Labour government of 1929-31; Mr. C. A. Magrath, whose most outstanding work had been as chairman of the Canadian section of the International Joint Commission; and Sir William Stavert, who had “had the privilege of establishing the first Canadian Bank, the Bank of Nova Scotia, in the island” (p. 29), whose later banking connections had been with the Bank of Montreal, “bankers of the Government” (p. 45), and who had become in 1932, on the recommendation of the latter bank, the government's “financial advisor” (p. 55). The secretary was Mr. P. A. Clutterbuck of the Dominions Office; and two other British civil servants were also assigned to assist in the Commission's work (p. 233). The whole of the terms of reference consists in the few words: “To examine into the future of Newfoundland and, in particular, to report on the financial situation and prospects therein” (p. 1).
An Economist Looks at Economics
Authors: Mackintosh W. A. 
Published: June 2006

Last year you heard my distinguished predecessor, Dr. Coats, set forth a by-no-means modest claim for statistics in his brilliant address “Statistics Comes of Age”. Sweeping as his claim was, Dr. Coats, by his great organizing and administrative abilities, has established it in this country. That he has through the shifting experiences of more than thirty years of public administration retained his vision and resourcefulness, is evidence of a high courage.It is now more than a hundred and sixty years since Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, popularly conceived to be the beginning of specialized study of economics, was launched into the world of letters and affairs, and it is about fifty since Economics became a subject of specialized study in Canadian universities. One has only to scan university examination papers of the late eighties, based mainly on John Stuart Mill and Fawcett's little manual, to realize that in form at least the subject has changed profoundly. But what has been accomplished? Is it an instrument or a game that has been fashioned? If an instrument, what are its limitations?These and related questions have often been asked and answered, and the answers are not always to the economist's liking. Three years ago the then president of this Association asked, “What is left of Adam Smith?” and answered in substance, nothing except the economic man. Avoiding discussion of his exception, and adding one or two of our own, we can accept his answer as broadly not untrue. The implication, however, that modern economics even in rudimentary form is set forth in the Wealth of Nations, needs emphatic denial. As Professor Schumpeter has justly said: “Classical theory has no other claim to its epithet than pristine simplicity.” And yet, the economics of the Wealth of Nations is of a type which the economist's critics would have him adopt—the espousal of a doctrine, the initiation of a movement, propagandizing a policy. Any body of doctrine limited and attached to a policy is necessarily tied to a particular era; most of the Wealth of Nations is now of historical interest only.
Dominion Aids to Wheat Marketing, 1929–39
Authors: Fowke V. C. 
Published: June 2006

Dominion aids to Canadian wheat marketing extend back at least to the beginnings of the western wheat trade and have been of three traditional types, viz.: (1) regulation, (2) investigation, and (3) elevator operation on a limited scale. Regulation of the Canadian grain trade has long been of a quality unsurpassed in other grain producing countries and has evolved in recent decades through repeated revisions of the Canada Grain Act. Investigation dealing specifically with the western wheat trade has involved a notable series of royal commissions commencing with the present century. Elevator operation by the Dominion Government started in 1913 with experimentation and compromise as its objects, and the Dominion Government still retains substantial interests in interior and other terminal elevator plants. In addition to the customary federal aids to wheat marketing before 1929, mention should be made of the exceptional intervention accompanying the Board of Grain Supervisors, which marketed part of the 1916 wheat crop and the crops of 1917 and 1918, and the first Canadian Wheat Board, which marketed the crop of 1919.Important as the above-mentioned aids have been in shaping the destiny of the Canadian grain trade, they form a striking contrast in simplicity compared with the interventions of the decade4 herein considered. Dominion regulation, investigation, and elevator operation have continued to the present time, but the notable innovations in Dominion activity after 1929 lie beyond the traditional categories and include more or less sustained sorties in attempted stabilization, in bonusing, in international consultation, and in various types of wheat board operation. Dominion aids to wheat marketing, of special significance from 1929 to 1939, may therefore be classified as follows: (1) stabilization activities, (2) bonus payments, (3) international consultation and agreement, (4) wheat board operations; and since several important federal investigations of the grain trade took place within the decade, there should be added (5) investigation. These topics have, for the most part, been analysed individually and at short range in various current writings, so that factual material may here be reduced to a minimum and the emphasis placed upon interpretation in perspective.