Canada is the Scotland of America, and a proof is before you. Scotland gave a King to England in 1603; today Canada gives a President to the American Statistical Association. James Sixth of Scotland and First of England whose vasty shoes I thus inherit is, I fear, “mixed grill” to many. He was an apriorist, and he was a pedant. Though his education was bleak and early as Stuart Mill's, he hadn't a good style. His personal appearance was against him, also his northern accent, even his table manners (he drank his cocky-leekie from the bowl). He was given to cursing and swearing. It is a chilling historicism. Yet, despite that Professor Laski still uses him austerely in the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, from a boy with the Fortunes of Nigel in my school-desk I have liked its “principal personage” (as Scott called him) James. And of course he is the James of Jamestown, first permanent English settlement, first cradle of representative government, in these United States.

The reform of the Canadian civil service in 1918 largely destroyed the influence which the members of Parliament had been able to exert on the administrative personnel; but it apparently did not diminish their interest in the subject. Some wanted to keep in touch with the service because they hoped to discredit reform and abolish the merit system; others wished to assure themselves that their relinquishment of power did not result in its unfair use by someone else; others desired to improve the service by studying its faults in order to provide remedies which would make it more effective. The result of these mixed and even conflicting motives has been that the members have been unusually sensitive to the faults and needs of the service, and unusually desirous of keeping themselves informed of its condition. The obvious device for carrying out this purpose has been the parliamentary committee, and this form of collective surveillance has been used no less than seven times since 1918. The Royal Commission, which used to be the recognized instrument for conducting enquiries into the service, has at the same time fallen into desuetude, only one, the Beatty Commission of 1930, having been appointed in the past twenty years.

[1] In a recent paper the thesis was advanced that while it is not possible to demonstrate rigorously that free trade is better (in some sense) for a country than all other kinds of trade, it nevertheless can be shown conclusively that (in a sense to be defined later) free trade or some trade is to be preferred to no trade at all. I should like here to amplify these remarks with respect to the last point, that some trade is better than no trade.

This is by no means a novel proposition. Indeed, it can be traced back to the beginnings of the Classical theory of international trade. It has become associated, however, quite unnecessarily in my opinion, with a labour theory of value, or a “real cost” theory of value, or more recently, with an opportunity cost theory of value. All of these have come in for considerable criticism in recent years as restrictive special cases of the so-called theory of general equilibrium. Those writers who have insisted on the need for a modern theory of value for a positive description of behaviour in international trade have in general ignored the normative aspects of international trade, presumably in the belief that as soon as one gives up the inadmissible special theories indicated above, nothing can be said concerning this problem. It will be argued here that this is a mistake, that from the most general theories of equilibrtlim all valid normative propositions can be derived.

The major factor in determining the production of western farms is the amount of water available for plant growth. Climatic fluctuations apart, this quantity has apparently diminished as a result of settlement. This diminution of the water supply seems to be the main cause of the disquieting decline in the productivity of the Canadian prairies; though the decline may have been due in part to the loss of those advantages which are enjoyed for a brief time by newly cultivated land, viz., relative freedom from plant disease, insect pests, and weeds.

The supply of soil water depends on three factors—precipitation, evaporation, and the nature of the soil, each of which is subject to considerable local and regional variation, and the variations in which are roughly indicated by the natural vegetative cover. The northern forest belt indicates a plentiful water supply; the long grass region of the foot-hills and the park belt areas have normally an adequate supply, which, in spite of sporadic drought, can be depended upon to yield a satisfactory volume of agricultural produce. The short grass area, extending along the forty-ninth parallel from the Manitoba boundary to the foot-hills, and narrowing northward to the Saskatchewan River in the vicinity of Battleford, has an inadequate supply of water, yet it is one of the most highly developed areas in Western Canada. Here the decline in productivity has been catastrophic. In spite of occasional wet years, there appears to be a chronic and increasing shortage of soil water.