On these annual ceremonial occasions it has been customary to have an Economist look at Economics, a Statistician discuss the role of Statistics, the Historian look at History, or all the Social Scientists look concertedly at some synthetic product called Social Science. There have been some exceptions to this type of procedure. I shall take my cue from the latter and discuss some matters in the Canadian scene in which the various Social Sciences have a common interest.

Canada's Population Possibilities. In the first place, let us consider Canada's population. In recent years we have heard much about the so-called over-populated and under-populated countries. The crudest form in which notions of this kind are presented is in terms of number of people per square mile of land surface. By this device Canada's 2½ per square mile seems to demonstrate obvious under-population as compared with England's 390, forgetting that this 390 involves resources not only at home but also abroad. We seem to be on safer ground when we take arable land surface as a base for presenting population densities. Then Canada seems not so vacant with 121 to the square mile. The arable land index should be supplemented by indices of available minerals and closely allied items. Such measuring rods could be extended to include (1) real income trends for the country as a whole as well as for its varied occupations, (2) the employment index, and (3) trends in population growth. These merely suggest some of the indices that could be used to make comparisons of population pressure on the living space of different countries.

The Canadian Political Science Association, half-way through the second year of the Century of the Common Man, naturally devotes some of its attention to the prospects of democracy in our own country. It is fitting that we should inquire into what has been happening to our party system, for we have had as long an experience as most modern countries in the working of popular political parties as part of the machinery of democracy, and our experience should be of some significance to other peoples as well as to ourselves. How little systematic study has been done on this subject, however, is brought home to a Canadian after he has lived for a time in the United States and has had to try to answer Americans when they ask for books on the principles, organization, and history of Canadian parties, such as they produce so abundantly on their own parties. It might not be a bad idea, therefore, to begin this paper with some reference to recent American discussions of their party system. One can usually derive from a study of American experience the most useful categories of thought in which to arrange our own Canadian experience. And American books on democracy in general and on political parties as one of the techniques of democracy have been pouring from their presses in great profusion in recent years.

American study of the subject of political parties in America has now reached the stage at which text-books digesting for university undergraduates the conclusions of the experts are almost as standardized as American motor-cars. When one reads the new ones that appear with each new publishing season one gets a strong impression that the chief reason for the new publication is not the author's urge to throw fresh light on the subject but simply the reason which produces new text-books in most subjects, namely the urge to supplement a meagre salary by a comfortable income from royalties.

This paper is concerned with the changes in types of power in the Atlantic basin following the discovery of America. Direct control from Europe under the French, Dutch, Spanish, and British Empires has gradually changed with emergence of independent states in North and South America and of the British Commonwealth of Nations. In Canada European institutions were more strongly entrenched and feudalism continued to exercise a powerful influence, latterly, for example, in the control of natural resources by the provinces. The provinces have become land-lords with great disparity of wealth varying with federal policy, technological change, and provincial policy. The changing disparity enhances the complexity of democracy in Canada.

The advantages of the British Empire in its struggle with the French Empire were in part a result of the implications of imperfect competition between drainage basins in the interior as contrasted with more effective competition between the maritime regions of the Atlantic seaboard. In the latter region, imperfect competition was reflected in the slowness with which adjustments were made between the West Country in England, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New England. In the interior of the continent competition was less effective in the struggle between traders of various nationalities or of the same nationality as it was carried on between drainage basins. Trunk rivers and tributaries with low heights of land between drainage basins facilitated the tapping of vast regions. The relative effectiveness of competition on the seaboard and in the interior of the continent had implications for the struggle of empire.

Apart from its legal aspects, and legislative promptings and permissions, collective bargaining on this continent is pretty much of a single piece. The international trade unions play out their bargaining offers and techniques in Canada as in the United States, with little attention to the boundary line. In this paper on trends, therefore, I have chosen to move freely over the whole movement rather than limit the study to Canada where in fact little of the pioneering has been done.

Expansion. Collective bargaining on this continent is enjoying rapid growth after marking time or even falling back for a decade in the 1920's and early 30's. In the United States, the year 1933 marks a dividing point in time. But the longer history of trade union development has in fact been characterized by a series of up-surges followed by slow-downs or flat periods. These have been affected in some measure by business cycle conditions, but the sequence of prosperity and depression is not always the central and frequently not a very revealing feature in their explanation. One needs to consider the unevenness of trade union advance in relation to many matters such as changing attitudes toward recognition by employers, attitudes of different governments as expressed through legislatures and courts, periods of war and cost-plus contracts, the social and political philosophy of the men who give leadership to the two sides, the Carnegies, Girdlers, Fords, Gompers, Hillmans, and Lewises. Above all, one must examine its different rate of progress among different industries and trades. With respect to the last, one must examine the areas of early conquest and the special additions made from time to time. This paper attempts to examine only two or three strands of causation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the main problems involved in collective bargaining legislation and to indicate how they have been dealt with in Canada. The study is confined mainly to provincial legislation, since the Dominion Industrial Disputes Investigation Act deals with conciliation machinery, and not collective bargaining, and the validity of the Dominion Trade Union Act has been strongly impugned by the courts. The discussion will be -confined to five main headings: (1) the right to organize; (2) the right to bargain collectively; (3) the bargaining unit and the bargaining agency; (4) the extent of the duty to bargain; (5) administration.

The Right to Organize. The first main problem is the question of the right to organize. I use the term “right” advisedly, for lack of a better. The developed liberalism of modern times does not seek to define the rights of citizens in terms of strict indefeasibility. Everyone, at common law, has always been free to organize or join a trade union, so long as its purposes did not violate the criminal law. Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan declare that it shall be lawful for employees to organize and join a trade union; Ontario substitutes the term “collective bargaining agency” for “trade union,” the former term, by definition, excluding company unions “dominated, coerced or improperly influenced by the employer.” The rest of the provinces recognize the right of both employers and employees to organize for any lawful purpose. In connection with this latter group, if the word “lawful” means not criminal—then it is superfluous; if it means lawful, as not being in restraint of trade, the declaration is of little value, since most trade unions have objects, such as strikes, pickets, etc. which are in restraint of trade.

It is not easy to establish a set of working standards with which to appraise the efficiency of Canadian business in the war economy. The industrial revolution through which this country has been passing for three years has changed the pattern of our economy to such an extent that profit, the conventional yardstick of efficiency, ceases to be significant.

The rules of the game have been rewritten and are still under revision. Free private enterprise is hardly free, nor is it altogether private. Most of the business done today is on government account and under government control. Government is engaged in the largest business enterprise in Canada's history. It owns $865,000,000 of the new plant that has been created for war production, or about 80-5 per cent of the nation's total new productive capacity. Its 1943-4 war budget of $4,490,000,000 exceeds the 1939 national income.

Government is the nation's greatest order-placer, employer, and producer. Canada's war production is estimated to reach a new peak of $3,600,000,000 in 1943. This figure represents a 75 per cent increase over the total net value of Canada's manufactured products, mining output, and construction projects in 1938, the last full year of peace.

The pre-war pattern of the Canadian business system has become so interwoven with government business, government controls over wages, man-power, raw materials, tools, power, and prices, that it presents a difficult analytical problem. None of the factors involved is constant, and the pattern will undoubtedly continue to be one of transition.

During the past year, agricultural man-power in Canada has assumed a new importance. With a growing recognition that food is a vital weapon of war and the realization that the farm working force has been seriously depleted during the past three and a half years, the problems of farm labour have been forced into the foreground.

It was natural perhaps, during the first years of war, when munitions, aeroplanes, army vehicles, and ships were in such great demand; when men were needed in large numbers for the armed forces; and when surpluses of many essential farm products existed, that farm production should be considered of secondary importance. Today, the situation has changed. The relative importance of food has sharply increased. Not only have the surpluses of bacon, dairy, and poultry products disappeared, but the requirements of the Allied Nations for these and other provisions have greatly expanded. To contribute her share in supplying essential foods and fibres to the Allied Nations and to meet home requirements, Canada must have adequate farm man-power.

It is proposed in this paper to deal with the subject of agricutural man-power largely from an economic point of view. In making this limitation, it is realized that the economic considerations cannot be divorced arbitrarily from other ever-present social factors. These latter factors cannot be ignored, and will have to be considered, at least indirectly, in several parts of the discussion. The main economic aspects of agricultural man-power covered here might be briefly indicated. In the first place, the nature of the present farm man-power problem will be outlined. The extent and character of the existing farm working force will be analysed and the sources of additional labour discussed. The mobilization of this man-power through measures introduced by the federal and provincial governments will be reviewed. Finally, some problems for the immediate and long-run future will be raised and discussed.

The great increase in the construction of index numbers of economic data, particularly of prices, since the turn of the century, has increased our knowledge of the mechanism of the economic system. One of the earliest uses of index numbers of prices was to measure the long time movements of the general price level. Later, index numbers of prices were used a great deal in studying the movements of the business cycle. Within more recent years they have been used to study changes in the relative positions of different types of economic activity.

The world-wide depression of the 1930's stimulated the use of index numbers of prices in indicating the relatively unfavourable position of agriculture. As a result of the widespread use and study of index numbers of prices in this period, the “Parity Prices for Agriculture” slogan was born. The acceptance by the Government of the United States of the parity principle, based on price ratios, as a basic government agricultural policy has had a profound influence on the thinking of the farmers of Canada. Within recent years the distressing position of agriculture in the Canadian economy has resulted in a widespread demand by the farmers for parity prices for agriculture.

Recent research on national income in Canada and the United States has enabled estimates to be made of the total national income and break-downs of some of its more important parts. In Canada three agencies have computed these estimates, the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, the Bank of Nova Scotia, and a special committee for the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations. The yearly levels of national income as computed by these three agencies do not agree exactly, as one might expect due to somewhat different methods of calculation, but the general trends correspond fairly well.

This paper is an attempt to relate briefly the impact of the Canadian war organization on local governments in Canada; most of the experience and fact are derived from the Province of Ontario although they apply in large measure to the municipalities throughout Canada. In the course of the paper some criticisms will be made, not for the sake of being critical, but in the hope that they may influence coming developments.

In view of the confusion that seems to exist concerning the functions of municipal government, the division of constitutional powers in Canada is relevant and may be reviewed briefly. The British North America Act formally establishes only two divisions of government—the Dominion and the provinces. The provinces, under section 92, sub-section 8, are given exclusive power over “municipal institutions in the Province.” Certain other matters of local importance such as licences, charities, hospitals, and asylums, are also given to the provinces. These specific items along with the allocation generally of “all matters of a merely local or private nature” have been taken as indicating that the traditional social services in the first instance are a provincial responsibility although in fact they have been shared with the local government from the beginning. It is thus clear from the British North America Act that municipal institutions are under the province and are legally the creation of the province. Naturally, the experience has not been the same in all provinces and some have gone further than others in the development of local government. But one thing is clear: the provinces are familiar with the municipal governments which they have created; they have worked with them, they have argued with them, and they understand them. They appreciate that they are, to use the words of the sixteenth-century poet, “a proud and yet a wretched thing.”

Economic literature of the past decade suggests, and most economists would surely agree, that there are two fundamental economic problems: unemployment and monopoly. Together, enforced idleness of resources and maldistribution of resources due to monopolization of all kinds are responsible for whatever gap exists between actual and potential national real income. They account for a good deal of the inequity of income distribution as well. Economic policy has as its chief concern the elimination of monopoly without loss of efficiency, and the elimination of unemployment without inflation or misuse of resources.

The post-war period will present these two basic problems in aggravated form. Exigencies of war have led to increased concentration of industry, which could easily crystallize into enhanced monopoly power. With half our national income now generated by war expenditures, the task of maintaining full employment while shifting production from things that win wars to things that promote welfare will be of unprecedented magnitude. At the same time, vast new holdings of cash and other liquid resources, combined with the backlog of demand for both consumers' and producers' goods that will have accumulated, will constitute a grave threat of inflation. The balance of the economy, which must be maintained by what Professor Lerner has aptly called “functional finance,” will be delicate indeed.

This article suggests an approach to post-war tax policy designed to meet these problems. While the setting is Canadian, the analytical tools and even the policies proposed would be applicable to the British or American scenes with minor modifications.