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.

The socialist movement in Great Britain has been characterized by a combination of dynamic reformism and liberal reasonableness which is all too frequently lacking in the histories of left-wing movements in other parts of the world. While this may be explained to some extent by the traditional character of English habits of thought and political institutions, one organization is, more than others, responsible for the preservation of the liberal philosophy in an age of great social change. The Fabian Society came upon the scene when the economic foundations of that change were already well established. The development of the new industrialism had shown inequities and injustices which called for radical measures of economic reform. Yet while this economic change had been taking place, political institutions had undergone a considerable measure of liberalization. The latter was a development highly valued by the economic revolutionaries, and the Fabian Society was, from the very first, an effort to combine the two desiderata—to change the economic structure of society while preserving the democratic political achievements so newly gained and so highly prized.

The important early Fabian writings which dealt with matters of abstract economic theory were motivated by the belief that the great unsolved questions of the day were the economic. During the latter part of the nineteenth century, from 1870 on, the economic world was stricken with controversy. The placid perfection of the Ricardian classicism had been shattered by the frontal attack of the marginalists and the usurpation of Marx.

The comparative student of man's work learns about doctors by studying plumbers; and about prostitutes by studying psychiatrists. This is not to suggest any degree of similarity greater than chance expectation between the members of these pairs, but simply to indicate that the student starts with the assumption that all kinds of work belong in the same series, regardless of their places in prestige or ethical ratings. In order to learn, however, one must find a frame of reference applicable to all cases without regard to such ratings. To this end, we seek for the common themes in human work. One such theme is that of routine and emergency. By this I mean that one man's routine of work is made up of the emergencies of other people. In this respect, the pairs of occupations named above do perhaps have some rather close similarities. Both the physician and the plumber do practice esoteric techniques for the benefit of people in distress. The psychiatrist and the prostitute must both take care not to become too personally involved with clients who come to them with rather intimate problems. I believe that in the study of work, as in that of other human activities and institutions, progress is apt to be commensurate with our ability to draw a wide range of pertinent cases into view. The wider the range, the more we are forced to find a fundamental frame of reference.

For some time past the market has been flooded with books and articles on the weaknesses of modern liberalism. They differ on many points, but on one at least they show a remarkable degree of agreement. What liberalism lacks, it seems, is a truly living faith. The Communists are united throughout the world in passionate allegiance to the doctrines of orthodox Marxism, and are inspired thereby to prodigies of self-confident action. The supporters of constitutional democracy, on the other hand, are paralysed by doubts and self-questionings. The only way to remedy this situation, so the argument runs, is to restore liberalism as a fighting faith, and to arm liberals with a doctrine at least as sure and fanatical as that of their enemies. Attempts to discover such a doctrine, or laments for its non-existence, have become one of the staple products of current political thought.

Out of this background there has emerged a movement which is best described as “The New Fidelity.” “The Revival of Christianity” would be a more usual, but less accurate designation for this particular current of thought. For true Christians love of Christ is the end of human existence, and everything else is significant only as a means to that end. The New Fidelity is distinguished not by faith in Christ, but by faith in faith. Starting from the proposition that the end of human existence is to achieve political and social stability, it regards belief in Christ as a desirable and even indispensable means to the attainment of this end. Unlike Christianity, it has its eyes fixed not on a heavenly but on an earthly kingdom.

Much of the activity relating to the support of agricultural prices in Canada is conducted under the authority of the Wheat Board Act and the Agricultural Prices Support Act, but the programme in its broadest sense involves other legislation and a variety of government policies. Part of this programme originated in the inter-war period and earlier years. This paper, dealing with various aspects of the programme, is introduced by a brief outline of background developments.

Governments, both federal and provincial, have traditionally been concerned in the main with activities aimed at increasing efficiency in the production and marketing of farm products. These have included experimental and scientific research; efforts to improve the quality of plants and animals; the introduction and enforcement of grades and standards for marketing; and extension work designed to acquaint farmers with useful information as it became available.

During the First World War this pattern of activity was enlarged. At that time the federal Government took over control of the marketing of wheat. It gave to a body known as the Board of Grain Supervisors authority to fix the prices and to market the crops of 1917 and 1918. This proved to be the forerunner of a development that has since come to occupy an important place in government activity.

While there is nothing unusual about the practice of giving special price assistance to particularly needy producers in times of emergency, the provision of agricultural price support as a matter of general policy is a comparatively recent development. Despite this fact the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the policy have indicated a considerable variation in objectives. The diversity of aims can perhaps best be shown by a few specific examples.

The agricultural price support provided in the United Kingdom during the past decade or more was designed to achieve several purposes. It was supposed to bring about a very definite improvement in the net income and purchasing power position of farmers generally. It was intended to act as a stimulant to production so that the country could become, agriculturally, more self-sufficient and foreign exchange could be conserved. In addition there was the hope that, by increasing the profitability of farming, it would make it financially possible to take advantage of the latest technological developments and thereby increase productive efficiency. All these results were expected to flow from guaranteed prices based on costs and announced well in advance of production.

In both Canada and the United States the agricultural programmes that attempt to support or raise the level of farm prices were conceived during the inter-war period of readjustment and depression. Now that we have had ten years of full employment and high-level incomes in our respective economies, it is perhaps time to reassess the role of support prices.

The reassessment that I propose to make is based on the assumption that we will be able to maintain full-employment economies most of the time and that if a depression should come, it will be relatively mild and of reasonably short duration. Fear of war, war, and preparation for war are likely to lead to a full-employment economy for some time. It may not be too much wishful thinking to believe that if the happy era should come when war no longer serves as an impetus for aggregate demand, our economies will be guided by competent monetary and fiscal leadership and will be able to maintain a fairly even keel. The mild recession which the United States experienced in 1949 and which had almost ended before the fateful attack in Korea offers some support for, though obviously not confirmation of, this view. In any case, we should clearly separate in our thinking and in our actions the problems of agricultural price policy as they relate to conditions of full employment and to conditions of depression.

During the last two centuries economic and demographic changes have taken place with unprecedented speed. The population of the world, after several centuries of stability, has increased from 728 million in 1750, to 1,171 million in 1850, and then to 2,171 million in 1940, a phenomenal leap of 1 billion in ninety years. Meanwhile the European whites, the most prolific of the world's races in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, were streaming overseas. From 1815 to the 1920's, some 55 million Europeans emigrated; about 19 million of them were from the British Isles. Some 36 million settled in the United States, over 4 million in Canada, 10 million in South America.

The outlines of the demographic phenomena associated with this expansion are well known; perhaps even better known are the revolutionary agricultural, scientific, industrial, and commercial changes of the same period. The succession of events need not be traced here; and of the actual increase in aggregate or per capita productivity of the industrialized nations no precise estimate can be made. The rise in the gross value of international trade from $3 billion in 1840 to $40 billion in 1913 is one indication of the expansion of economies.

On May 1, 1851, Queen Victoria, accompanied by the Prince Consort, to whom must be given credit for the undertaking, with the royal family, the ministers of state, ambassadors, and a great throng of all who were famous in the United Kingdom, opened the Great Exhibition housed in the Crystal Palace, “that blazing arch of lucid glass.” A massed choir of a thousand voices—the Victorians loved massed choirs and massed orchestras—sang an ode composed by Tennyson, the Poet Laureate, in which they praised “the invisible, universal Lord,”

Who lets once more in peace the nations meet,
Where Science, Art and Labour have outpour'd
Their myriad horns of plenty at our feet.

The exhibition was off to a good start, and its success was phenomenal. Fourteen thousand exhibitors from all the leading nations of the world had brought the best they had of their wares. Six million visitors, brought to England by the new steamships and to London by the new railways, came to see the marvels displayed, and thought it all very wonderful. And it was wonderful; nothing like it had ever been seen before. It was the apotheosis of the Industrial Revolution. The Victorians believed in Progress; they had every reason to believe in it and the Crystal Palace was its outward and visible sign. The entrepreneurs, the manufacturers were entirely satisfied with things. Everything was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. God was in his heaven and all was right everywhere; or at least it was all right in Manchester where they made fortunes from cottons; and in the Black Country where, under the shadow of those “dark satanic mills” which had vexed the gentle soul of William Blake, they were making even greater fortunes.