bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Fiscal Policy and Tariffs in Post-war International Trade
Authors: Marsh Donald B. 
Published: June 2006

Recent developments in economic theory are especially rich in policy implications for a single country seeking to maximize its welfare through international trade. They make necessary a restatement of certain parts of the ancient controversy over free trade and protection; namely, those affected by the theory of employment and the theory of imperfect competition.There is little to add to the broader classical conclusions on the maximization of welfare in the world economy, or to the general, if cautious, acceptance of the infant industries argument. However, the former must be qualified in the light of the theory of imperfect competition, particularly the theory of monopsony, and the implications of decreasing costs; while the latter depends on technological considerations normally impounded in ceteris paribus even in modern value theory.The special relevance of any of these universes of discourse in terms of which international trade policy may be discussed and evaluated is itself a controversial point. If, for example, a reasonable and steady approximation to full employment is considered of paramount importance, the practical alternatives of fiscal and international policy are considerably narrowed. The most efficient allocation of resources among alternative uses may have to wait on policies for getting all available human resources into some use. At another level, the optimum allocation of resources for one country may be defined for a national real income made possible by exploiting its neighbours. It is the duty of the economist, not to ignore or to condemn these judgments, but to show how the desired ends may be achieved in practice, and to point out any inconsistencies among ends of policy simultaneously desired.
Social Security: An Administrative Solution to the Dominion-Provincial Problem
Authors: Tuck Raphael 
Published: June 2006

This article is an attempt to evolve an administrative technique for Dominion-provincial co-operation in the social services—with particular reference to public health—within the framework or confines of the existing British North America Act of 1867.The recent war has brought the need for social services into sharp relief. The realization has finally dawned that in the complex society in which we live, a comprehensive programme of social progress is now essential, but such a programme must necessarily be nation-wide, since we can no longer afford disparities in the social services on account of the serious reactions such disparities have on the general welfare and national unity of the country. To develop such a national system of public welfare services, it is vitally necessary that the Dominion should extend its influence, leadership, and activity, but here we are at once confronted with the vexed—and, as yet, unsolved—problem of Dominion-provincial relations. Valiant attempts have been made to solve this problem, but two main obstacles still obstruct all efforts.
Some Aspects of the Problem of Fulll Employment
Authors: Beattie J. R. 
Published: June 2006

The purpose of this paper is to raise issues and provoke discussion, not to present a blue print. Although war-time experience has contributed much to the education of economists, I suspect there are few who would be dogmatic about whether, or how, full employment can be maintained after the war. The problem is not entirely and indeed may not even be mainly one of economic analysis. The most important question may be a social or political one, viz. whether the desire for full employment is so compelling that people will be willing to subordinate personal and group interests sufficiently to achieve it.War-time developments have emphasized how far Canada was from full utilization of its resources during the thirties. In August, 1939, after nearly a decade of struggle against mass unemployment, we now know there were still more than half a million Canadians who were unemployed. In addition, many were working on short time, or were being supported in concealed unemployment on farms, and many farmers were on relief. Since then, the gainfully occupied have increased from about 3.7 million to about 5.1 million, including the armed forces. In addition, our capital equipment has been increased, new skills have been developed, and new production techniques have been worked out under the forced draught of war. The indications are that full employment of all who really want to work after the war will probably involve jobs for about 4.7 million people, or one million more than in 1939, and a volume of production perhaps 50 per cent greater than the pre-war level.
French Canada and Social Security
Authors: Angers François-Albert 
Published: June 2006

Social security is a rather new concept on which ideas have not yet really crystallized anywhere. And this is, of course, true of French Canada as well as of English Canada, or England, or the United States. For the present, the initiators of social-security plans have had the best of it, because their proposals have awakened sympathies everywhere in the people in general. As to the élites, they have not yet had much time to turn around, analyse the idea in depth, and pronounce a definitive judgment, the less so because it is considered good propaganda for the time being not to cool the hopes which it may have raised among the common people.Social security, then, is a new idea in its presentation, which has just been launched and is still taking profit of the smooth seas on which one can almost always count when one is still manoeuvring along the drydocks. Later it will have to meet rough seas, it will have to meet the inquisitive eye of scholars, dissecting it in the light of their philosophy of life, of society, it will have to meet the acid test of experience. When this time comes, and it is coming rapidly, what opinion will definitively take shape in French Canada? French Canadians being what they are, i.e. Gallic-minded and imbued with a Catholic conception of life, what can one expect to meet on that subject in Quebec, if not as a unanimous opinion, at all events as a current of thought more pronounced there than anywhere else? What course can one expect French Canada to take if it is to remain faithful to the essentials of its culture? That is what I shall try to explain, putting before you, first, the essentials which have a direct bearing on the concept of social security. Then I shall proceed, in the second' place, to draw your attention to certain practical points which will show that the views coming out of that process are not at all devoid of factual value.
Rate Control of Public Utilities in british Columbia
Authors: Currie A. W. 
Published: June 2006

The report of the provincial Public Utilities Commission into the rates and services of the British Columbia Electric Railway Company Limited and its affiliates breaks new ground as far as rate control in Canada is concerned. Because of the war, the Commission did not consider it opportune to make a complete review of the rate structure. Nevertheless it laid the basis for such a review when normal conditions return and dealt realistically with many problems which have not heretofore been carefully considered in Canada.In the process of regulation the first task of any Commission is to arrive at a rate base, that is, the amount on which the Company is entitled to a fair return. The Commission emphasized that such a base is for rate-making purposes only and has no necessary relation to value for any other purpose such as sale, taxation, or judicial condemnation (10).
International Investment: Some Post-War Problems and Issues
Authors: Buchanan Norman S. 
Published: June 2006

No one can delineate the precise state of affairs likely to prevail at the conclusion of the present world conflict. The drama is too kaleidoscopic, too much is hidden in the wings, and the number of acts is uncertain. The best that one can hope for is to distinguish the main threads of the unfolding mystery and to guess the probable position of the dramatis personae at the final curtain. Yet a few things are becoming increasingly apparent.From facts already before our eyes it is clear that economic rehabilitation and reconstruction on a grand scale will be necessary before life can begin to function again in many parts of the world. Moreover economic reconstruction will be something more than the distribution of “K” rations and bowls of soup to the undernourished peoples of Europe and Asia. The physical destruction of factories, industrial plants, railways, harbours, gas and electric works, and all the rest of the means of production by which civilized peoples provide themselves a living, of course will have to be made good. Yet this is not all. Much of the world's population—in south-eastern Europe, in China, in India—subsisted at an almost unbelievably low standard of living even before the war began. To tender these peoples no better prospect than a return to the miserable pittance that was theirs before the war would not augur well for world peace and order, nor make more than a hollow mockery of the solemn promises of the United Nations. Their standards of living cannot be raised by driblets of charity and pious good wishes, but only by making available to them the capital instruments by which they themselves can raise their per capita productivity and hence their material welfare. The task of relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction, and development that will confront the world at the war's end promises to exceed anything of a similar nature that has ever been undertaken. Yet it is a task which lies inevitably before the world and one for which the penalties of inept handling are certainly severe and possibly disastrous.
Imperfect Competition in Agricultural Processing and Distributing Industries
Authors: Nicholls William H. 
Published: June 2006

Among persons unfamiliar with agricultural markets, it is not uncommonly assumed that here, if in no other area of economic activity, prices are established through the free play of competitive forces in an environment at least approaching the perfect market. To be sure, agricultural production is carried on by atomistic units and, at least prior to the inauguration of government crop-control programmes, there have been few limitations upon competition among farmers for the use of productive resources. And, in the processing and distribution of farm products, the illusion of pure competition has been strengthened by the relatively large number of firms and the fact that they frequently do not have direct control of the short-run supply of their raw material.But those who are familiar with actual conditions in these markets know how unrealistic it may be to proceed on the assumption of pure competition. It has become increasingly evident to the agricultural economist, for example, that typically—even where the number of processing firms is large—a few firms dominate a given industry, often aided and abetted by active trade associations. Again, in the local market, where assembling and processing is done by a relatively large number of small independent agencies, differentiation of services—including that of location—may lead to non-aggressive buying policies. Finally, the fact that processor-distributors do not control the short-run supply of farm products does not preclude monopoly elements. For imperfect competition in a processing-distributing industry implies control of the supply of processing-distributing services, hence the price of these services (the margin or spread).
The Courts and the Sovereignty of the Canadian Parliament
Authors: Mallory J. R. 
Published: June 2006

One of the great elements of stability in the British constitution has been the sovereignty of parliament. The fact of parliamentary sovereignty has given the British constitution a flexibility which has enabled it to serve the changing needs of different periods by modifying the inflexibility of the common law by direct changes in positive law. Even before the period of deliberately created law the fiction of the king's conscience enabled the courts of equity to introduce an element of peaceful change into the legal structure of England.The supremacy of the will of parliament involved in the notion of parliamentary sovereignty presupposes two things. Firstly, it assumes a single supreme legislature, and secondly it assumes the superiority of legislation over the will of the courts. If, as Walter Bagehot contended, the efficient secret of the British constitution lay in the almost complete fusion of the executive and legislative functions, it equally depended upon the supremacy of the legislative branch over the judiciary. It was no abrogation of that theory that it was the business of the courts to determine whether the subject was bound by the words of a particular expression of the will of the legislature. That was merely a protective device against an administrative abuse of power. What that theory cannot logically contain is the notion that the courts could say that the legislature was or was not exceeding its powers in legislating. For by definition those powers are unlimited.
Dominion Nationalism and the Commonwealth
Authors: Brady A. 
Published: June 2006

The life of the overseas Dominions in the past generation has been dominated by the related movements of democracy and nationalism. Here my concern is with a general and comparative treatment of the nature of Dominion nationalism and its influence on the relations of the Dominions to the outer world.In some important and obvious respects nationality within all the Dominions has common features: it is a growth among immigrant peoples not politically severed entirely from the parent state, and not devoid of loyalty to the parent stock; it is mainly rooted in a culture derived from an older land, and draws inspiration from no wells of a past distinctive only to itself; it cannot in the nature of things nurture the sentiment of “we alone,” and it has not attempted to do so; it is expressed principally in a language common to two powerful world states, one of which has had a great literature for many centuries, and hence it has to be content only with such idioms of speech as local environment slowly brings. In all cases this Dominion nationality has a short history with the emotional shallowness of such. Its spirit is not steeped in the legendary glories of country and town. Unlike the small and intense nationalities of Europe, including the Irish, it rests its claims upon present achievements and future hopes rather than on reference to an epic past, or the tale of oppression suffered at the hands of another. In every Dominion it was both inspired by and expressed in the struggle of people for self-government and democracy, and the political institutions arid ideologies to which it is wedded have a common ancestry. It has arisen within Communities which grew big and prosperous quickly, thanks to a conjuncture of highly favourable world circumstances, notably the rapid industrialization which brought speedy benefit to frontier countries with rich natural resources and abundant land, countries linked to the heart of industrialism and world trade in the period, the British Islands. Related intimately to this circumstance was the Pax Britannica, or long era of relative peace secured by British sea power, which controlled the exits and entrances to the strategic seas and enabled the flow of people and capital, the unhampered occupation of wide territories, and the pursuit of the arts of peace to absorb these frontier communities, and thus achieve that sense of community expressed in their nationality.
Medieval Unity and the Economic Conditions for an International Civilization
Authors: Deutsch Karl W. 
Published: June 2006

In a world torn with nationalistic conflicts, men's minds are naturally turning to projects of international government and to hopes for a wider acceptance of international loyalties, language, and civilization. One of the last epochs in which a measure of such international unity can be said to have actually existed was the European Middle Ages. The following study of the conditions underlying medieval unity, therefore, may offer some information on a topic of present interest.Accounts of the rise of modern nationalism frequently begin with a picture of the spiritual, linguistic, and cultural unity of medieval Christendom. Mr. Carlton Hayes speaks of “the traditional internationalism of civilized Europe” before the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; other authors similarly use the Middle Ages as a point of departure. New forces are then pointed out, which in their rise toward the end of the Middle Ages broke up that unity into the present multitude of nations and sovereign states. This useful method of exposition, however, suggests further questions. How did that “traditional internationalism” of medieval Europe come to exist? What were the conditions favouring its spread, and how durable was it likely to be under the law of its own growth? Can the medieval vision of cultural unity again be recreated on similar foundations?
The Edict of Diocletian: A Study of Price Fixing in the Roman Empire
Authors: Michell H. 
Published: June 2006

In 301 A.D. the Emperor Diocletian, with whom were associated his three co-rulers, promulgated an edict which fixed for the whole Roman Empire maximum prices for commodities, freight rates, and wages. According to the evidence available, and it is certain that the whole edict has not been recovered, price “ceilings” for over 900 commodities, 130 different grades of labour, and a considerable number of freight rates, were fixed and severe punishment promised to all “black market” operators who dared to buy or sell above the maximum. So elaborate a scheme of price control was not tried again until 1,600 years had passed. The reasons that led to this drastic interference in the economic life of the Empire and the success it attained, or rather did not attain, in regulating prices, provide a study for the historian which is well worth while.The Chaos of the Third Century. In order to understand the circumstances that led to the issuing of this edict, it is necessary to envisage the appalling state of affairs which marked the third century of the Christian era. Utter anarchy engulfed the Roman world; emperors and pretenders to the imperial throne struggled for the great prizes of power. Armies marched and remarched over every province, plundering the wretched inhabitants. In 193 the Empire was put up for sale by auction by the Praetorians, the imperial guards, and bought by Didius Julianus. It is interesting to note that he enjoyed his bargain for exactly sixty-six days. Such cynical disregard for the glory of the imperial purple was too much even for those days and he was murdered. As each claimant reached the goal of his ambition, the first thing he had to do was to pay the soldiery that backed him. The imperial treasury was looted and empty, and the enormous sums necessary to satisfy the army could only be met by piling tax on tax, by confiscating the wealth of opponents and, worst of all, by debasing a currency that already was fast approaching the point when it was next to worthless. In 260, there came the last and most shocking degradation when the Emperor Valerian, who was trying to defend the eastern frontier, was captured by the Persians and held for six years in captivity until his death. The Empire was clearly breaking up in misery and confusion, bankruptcy and anarchy.
Canadian War-Time Fiscal Policy, 1939–45
Authors: McIvor R. Craig 
Published: June 2006

Modern war has frequently been described as “total” war. While such a description may not be precisely meaningful, it serves to emphasize the magnitude of the social changes which are now inevitably associated with a major war effort. Modern war has been well described as an industrial art, whose effective prosecution necessitates fundamental alterations in the manner of operation of the democratic peace-time economy.The basic problems which confront a country in time of war may be classified as follows: (1) producing the goods and services necessary for carrying on the war; (2) paying for the goods and services used for war purposes; (3) supplying the everyday needs of the civilian population. While it is with the second problem, that of financing the war effort, that we shall be directly concerned in this paper, the fundamental and most immediate problem is that of production, to which all others must always be subordinated. Because of the enormous technological advances in the methods of modern warfare, World War II presented all of these problems on a scale vastly greater than ever before.In time of war there occurs a revaluation of social ends, and maintenance of the state itself becomes the supreme social objective. To accomplish this objective under conditions of modern warfare, it is essential that, the organization and expansion of war production be accomplished with the utmost, possible speed. This point was well illustrated by the experience in World War II, where the problem of mobilizing the required quantities of productive resources was extremely complex, and where various nations with superior economic war potentials found themselves in imminent danger of suffering defeat before their full economic strength could be directed effectively against the enemy. Under these circumstances, where speed is the essence of effective economic mobilization, the sudden demand for an ever-increasing quantity and variety of war goods and services is likely to be highly inelastic, since the needs must be satisfied, if at all possible, regardless of price. But in the short run, supply is also relatively inelastic, and the government consequently finds itself confronted with immediate problems of procurement.
Municipal Finance and Provincial-Federal Relations
Authors: Curtis C. A. 
Published: June 2006

I have taken as the basis of my presidential address the subject of Municipal Finance and its significance for provincial-federal relations. This is a subject of deep interest to me, and one which I think has not been given the consideration it warrants. It is an aspect of public finance which is of real importance, particularly in a federal state.I do not propose to spend any time discussing the importance of local government. I know some authorities question the future place and use of local government so I shall simply state that I regard it as having a permanent and significant place in our structure of government. It is valuable for the training and interest which it gives to a large number of citizens, making them sources of information and political experience within the community. It serves a useful purpose by keeping many local and controversial issues out of the range of provincial and federal decision. That is, when problems can be settled locally, it means less detail and argument in the administrative and political fields of provincial and federal governments. It also permits, within its scope, a closer approximation to government by the people than is possible at any other level.