¹ Some of the interest in land economics, however, influenced international trade theory, and in Ohlin, Bertil, Interregional and International Trade (Cambridge, Mass., 1933)Google Scholar in particular, we have a balanced and detailed account of the effect of an area’s stock of natural resources on the distribution of its trade, its production, and its income.

² This possible disadvantage has much to do with the fact that rent is a surprisingly small component of the national income. Not only is much “rent” actually shown as direct taxation (property and corporation taxes), but much of the residue is not taxed by the provincial government, and is allowed to become higher profits, wages, interest, or lower prices.

³ The present tax rental agreements make some concession to the solution of this problem, though Moore, Milton in his Forestry Tenures and Taxes in Canada, 211–14Google Scholar, would disagree on this point.

⁴ See, however, the remarks on this subject in the second Sloan report. In his original report in 1945, Chief Justice Sloan recommended perpetual tenure in forest management licences. The second report recommends reducing tenure to twenty-one years.

⁵ In the phrase “balanced development” I also include policies aimed at what we may call sociological, as distinct from economic, objectives. The parcelling out of agricultural land in small holdings, with concomitant support of family farms, is one of these. So also is the lack of interest in the rationalizing of the fisheries, the continuation of policies that favour small prospectors and small loggers, the unconditional allocation of many resources to Indians, and the preservation of the rights of hunters and sport fishermen.

⁶ The Wenner-Gren enterprise has, so far, done no more than indicate an interest in the trench and obtain rights as sole concessionaire in prospecting, surveying, timber-cruising, and so forth. It is forming a sort of planning-council which, I gather, co-ordinates the activities of the exploring parties and evaluates the prospects reported by each; the ultimate aim is the compiling of a report that will indicate which of the reported opportunities is worth exploiting, and which of the conflicting and complementary opportunities should also be developed in order to make the best use of the whole region. If the development is to proceed, enough activity must be initiated to cover the costs of a transportation system, in this case the famous mono-rail railway. The social requirements in the form of townsites, schools, roads, and hospitals would also be joint costs of all the industries established.

⁷ Even in this instance, where tenure is in effect offered as the incentive for prospecting, some use of the price mechanism would seem to be possible. For example, the original prospector or company could be given a lease, as now, and the unalienated adjoining land could become Crown reserve, to be auctioned or sold by tender, perhaps to the original company. Such a system would discourage much uninformed speculation in the stock market, prevent impecunious firms from retaining promising sites at no cost to themselves, and permit active firms to acquire the size of site they need, at the market price. The system would be unpopular with the little man in the mining industry, who cherishes his right to stake claims in any new, promising camp or region, because, like the system in use in petroleum and natural gas fields it would tend to favour the large, well-capitalized enterprise.