The time is, I think, opportune for introspection by Canadian social scientists. The present is a transitional period in the life of the nation. Five years of war have profoundly altered Canadian society: Canada has become a great industrial nation; the paternalistic state has arrived at least at adolescence under the stimulus of war; for the time being the Canadian people have become military-minded, a condition which may well continue into the peace in view of the shift of world power in favour of North America; everywhere social values hitherto accepted are under fire, and traditional folkways have been rudely disturbed; new social goals are being raised and new patterns of life are being established.

It is probable also that we are in a transitional stage in higher education. At any rate Canadian universities, like other social institutions, will be compelled to adjust themselves to the changed conditions of the post-war world. One condition likely to obtain is an increasing interest in the social sciences, if for no other reason than the increasing demand for social technicians to manage a paternalistic society. It is not improbable also that Canadian society faces a prolonged and acrimonious, if not violent, debate on social objectives. Under these conditions I suggest it is of first importance that social scientists should have firm opinions as to the nature of their calling, both with 'a view to guiding educational expansion, and assisting them in deciding their personal responsibilities in a distracted world.

Liberalism is based upon bold assumptions. It is a political doctrine built upon confidence in the rationality and good will of men. Crisis might well be treated as endemic to any theory so premised. Hence, difficulties caused by the failure of men to act in a manner consistent with such assumptions could be easily anticipated and readily dismissed. The present difficulty seems to go much deeper and to rest upon a questioning of liberal assumptions as valid guides to action.

It is but a step from such pragmatic probings to a challenge of the essential philosophic value of liberalism. To lose faith today in the values of liberalism would, I think, be tragic. The liberal tradition is the strongest political heritage of western culture, and particularly of the United States and the British Commonwealth of Nations. What are the essentials of this heritage?

The essentials of liberalism are familiar to us all—civil rights, the tolerance of political differences, freedom of opportunity and a career open to talents, belief in the dignity and integrity of human personality, the acceptance of diversity and of compromise. These are the elements, and to many bred in the liberal faith they are taken as universal truths.

In a consideration of the economic problems that confront agriculture there is much wisdom in a return to the classical tradition of treating these problems within the context of the political economy. In our division of labour in professional effort we have departed from this tradition; and our work has been weakened as a consequence. The Older Economists were deeply concerned about agriculture. They did not, however, make the mistake of treating agriculture in isolation, as if it belonged in another category to be studied, one might be led to suppose, by a different set of analytical models and presumably, largely by surveys and statistics. Such procedures certainly are not in keeping with what the Older Economists did as they put together an engine for economic analysis and laid down a roadbed for policy. On the contrary, their major premises and the basic policies that emerged were heavily weighted with agricultural affairs. This is evident when we consider the attention they gave to the production of food, the distribution of rewards to factors, particularly to rent and land. Whether our analysis pertains to labour, finance, trade, agriculture, or any other problem sphere, we will do well to formulate our approach in terms of the economy as a whole. We need especially to view agriculture as an integral part of the political economy and not as a series of particular farm problems treated as if they were self-contained.

Two features of Canada's international economic position stand out so conspicuously that everyone is familiar with them. We are dependent upon foreign markets almost as completely as a country could be; and we depend upon an export surplus in markets overseas to pay for an import surplus from the United States. Our interest, therefore, lies in the freest possible access to the markets of other countries and in the unrestricted convertibility of world currencies at stable rates of exchange. During the inter-war years the attempt to secure stable exchange rates under the gold standard system failed, and thereafter restrictions upon international trade multiplied. The fact that the system broke down during a very severe depression has associated the gold standard with deflationary tendencies so strongly in the popular mind that, apart from any question of its merits, it is now impracticable to suggest its general restoration. Government experts have therefore been at work on a series of related plans for a new and improved international economic framework. By setting up an international monetary system which will not periodically collapse they hope to create an atmosphere in which nations will be willing to remove barriers to trade and in which international investment may revive. They design an international economic order within which nations may strive for a high level of employment and national income without being thwarted at once by the international consequences of expansion.

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.

In this paper only two aspects of the problem are explored: first, the case for anti-trust; and second, the adequacy of the existing legislation. Other aspects of great importance are neglected. Three which call for serious discussion in the near future are: the criteria for judging the behaviour of monopolists, as a basis for regulation in cases where monopoly is deemed desirable or inevitable; the problems presented by the widespread development of international cartel agreements especially in relation to government negotiations for freeing international trade; the difficult problems of eliminating the abuse of patent rights as an instrument of monopoly while retaining the advantages of the patent system. These last two aspects have received much attention in the United States, and Canadians would be well advised to study the findings of the Bone Committee on Patents1 and the Kilgore Committee on Scientific and Technical Mobilization.

One other limitation should be stated: this paper, like most discussions of post-war problems, is based on the assumption that there will be a return to something like the pre-war system of capitalist free enterprise. Though the degree of government interference with the system proposed by even the most conservative groups would constitute a considerable advance from the pre-war status, this assumption appears not unreasonable for Canada in the calculable future (no long period, in my view). The importance of the matters discussed depends on the correctness of this assumption; but the making of the assumption implies no preference, one way or the other, as between possible economic systems.

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.

Let it be clear at the outset that the title of this paper should not be interpreted too broadly. The Quebec dealt with here is not the whole province but the region and the city of Quebec. So far as social research is concerned, no general account will be given of the numerous investigations and studies, more or less related to what is specifically meant by social research, which have been carried on by French-Canadian scholars during the last few decades. I refer particularly to the valuable contribution made in recent years by the economists and human geographers of L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales of Montreal to research work in Canada, notably in the highly interesting series of studies on Notre Milieu, published within the last three years under the directorship of M. Esdras Minville. The more immediate concern of this paper is to discuss the origin and the first experiments of one institution, which in my opinion represents something specifically new in the province, the Department of Social Research of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Laval University.

At the School of Social Sciences of Laval University in Quebec, which last December became officially an autonomous and full-fledged Faculty of the University, a Department of Social Research was founded in the autumn of 1943. Its staff consisted of a few full-time professors and its general aim was to carry on social-research projects and studies of significance to the French-Canadian milieu. The Department was favoured from conception to birth and during its infancy by the fruitful guidance of an expert and great friend, Dr. Everett C. Hughes of the University of Chicago, formerly of McGill University. Professor Hughes came to Quebec in September, 1943, to help shape the new institution as well as to outline the first general projects to be undertaken. During the past year, additional valuable assistance was given us by Dr. C. A. Dawson of McGill University, Dr. Carl C. Taylor of the United States Department of Agriculture, Dr. Léon Gérin, the venerable French-Canadian sociological pioneer, and a few other individuals.

This paper deals with some of the problems which confront immigrants who strive to become adjusted to a new environment in Canada's largest cities. The materials presented refer to people from the continent of Europe who have settled in Montreal or Toronto during the present century. The point of view taken here is that the experiences of European immigrants, as told by themselves or by their Canadian-born children, contribute valuable information and significant insights into the processes by which they become assimilated toward one or the other of Canada's two major cultures.

As a social term, assimilation commonly refers to a political rather than a cultural concept. As R. E. Park points out, “it is the name given to the process or the processes by which people of diverse racial origins and different cultural heritages, occupying a common territory, achieve a cultural solidarity sufficient at least to sustain a national existence.” In this country, as in the United States, an immigrant is usually considered assimilated when he has learned the language and the social usages of the native community well enough to participate in its economic, political, and social life without encountering prejudice. The emphasis is here on external indices, such as ability to speak French or English, achievement of the status of a citizen through naturalization, and adoption of the dress, the manners, and the social ritual of the Canadian-born with whom the immigrant comes in contact.

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).