Among the multitude of unionized occupations that have been analysed by labour economists and others, fishing, for some reason or other, has received scant attention. Few articles and no books, as far as the authors are aware, have been written about unionism in the fishing industry of the United States. College text-books and surveys of labour rarely if ever mention the subject. Yet fishermen's unions in that country have been organized and active for more than a half century, and the International Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union today is an important affiliate of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Their origins and history remain hidden in obscurity.

Much the same situation exists in Canada. Some incidental attention has been paid, in regional surveys like that of the Dawson Commission published in 1944, to trade unions and co-operatives among fishermen in the Maritime Provinces. The far larger, more active, and more important fishermen's unions of British Columbia have been virtually ignored. The 1948 edition of Professor H. A. Logan's Trade Unions in Canada, for instance—by far the most thorough and authoritative survey of the organized labour movement in Canada to date—gives passing reference to the Canadian Fishermen's Union of Nova Scotia, but makes no mention whatever of the Deep Sea Fishermen's Union or of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union, both of British Columbia. Yet these two organizations are, or should be, of considerable interest and importance to labour economists and other students of trade unionism. Their history reaches back through more than a half century of diverse organizational growth, numerous and sometimes violent strikes, and generally turbulent labour relations. Both unions are today affiliated with the Canadian Trades and Labor Congress. The U.F.A.W.U. has a membership of some 8,000 fishermen and allied workers and jurisdiction over several thousand more. It negotiates province-wide master agreements with employer associations, governing labour matters in all major branches of one of the most important primary industries in British Columbia. Over one special group of fishermen it shares jurisdiction with the much smaller organization, the D.S.F.U.

Thinking on balance of payments matters has been dominated for so many years by particular day-to-day problems that a reconsideration of longer-run factors seems clearly to be a timely topic for discussion. Admittedly, in times like these, this type of study has severe limitations: of necessity it has to be largely speculative, and one can certainly not expect it to yield a blueprint for the future. Nevertheless, it is the aim of this paper to suggest that a careful study of current and prospective developments is more rewarding than might appear at first sight; that it discloses or emphasizes a number of important enduring tendencies that are bound to have a decisive influence on our balance of payments for a long while to come; and that a realization of them will provide some bearings in a realm which nowadays involves all too large an element of dead reckoning. Needless to say, owing to reasons of space it will not be possible to do more than sketch the principal changes and suggest some tentative conclusions.

The first of these trends, and perhaps the most important so far as the domestic economy is concerned, is the rebirth of natural resource development. Such development was, for many years, the main dynamic behind Canada's growth; however, it was in large measure inhibited for the better part of a generation except for a few specialized instances, first by the depression and later by the war. In spite of several recent spectacular discoveries, it is doubtful whether the full potential impact of these developments on our future balance of payments is adequately appreciated. Possibly the long interval of stagnation and reverses has tended to make Canadians rather cynical about favourable reports even when well substantiated. Admittedly nothing is easier than to be dazzled by thoughts of future riches; at the same time, however, a balanced appraisal of future prospects involves a realization of potential strengths as well as calculable risks. A good many of the projects referred to below are in their early stages and fall in the realm of the engineer and the geologist. But a general pattern of their magnitude and significance is beginning to emerge that merits the economist's attention.

The mishandled problem of reparations and inter-Allied war debts looms large in customary analyses of the wreckage of the European peace settlement after World War I. The seminal source of trouble then was the insatiable appetite of the Versailles victors for “spoils,” joined by the Shylock American insistence on repayment of war debts.

After World War II the war debt problem was gently erased, but reparations proved even more troublesome. Although those powers which a generation before had moulded the Versailles Treaty were, under American leadership, comparatively tame in their reparations demands, the Soviets were not. This is readily understandable, since the German armies spent their destructive fury on Eastern and not on Western lands. The Soviet loss of life and resources in repelling German armies from the heart of Russia was truly colossal. The war wiped out hard-won advances (factories, inventories, power plants, residences, tractors) achieved since 1917 under lash and by dint of incredible austerity.1 The Soviet economy was planned and, with its insistent commodity needs, could absorb immense quantities of manufactured goods. Despite bomb-smashed German city centres and residences, German manpower remained, as well as powerful industrial facilities which operated up to the closing months of the war. Any trained observer would expect the Soviets to demand maximum one-time drainage and continuing arrangements whereby some German industrial facilities would be worked by some German labour to produce goods and services for Eastern benefit. This was precisely the policy later carried out within the Soviet Zone of Germany which, if it was not “milked dry,” was converted into a massive pumping station for current product reparations.2 A less self-regarding Soviet policy toward the leading “ex-enemy” country would have been astonishing in view of the substantive drainage from “liberated” satellite areas.

The year 1948 goes down in the history of Canadian politics as the year of national party conventions. Meeting at Ottawa, both the Liberals and the Conservatives used national party conventions to select new national leaders, to revitalize their national party organizations, and to revamp their party platforms. The C.C.F., meeting in Winnipeg, although not in the throes of change of party leadership, likewise used a national convention as a vehicle for discussion of organization and platform problems. That the questions of leadership, organization, and platform are properly subjects for deliberation by representative assemblies of party stalwarts is today unquestioned in Canada.

Yet, so far as the Liberal and Conservative parties are concerned, acceptance of the convention procedure for consideration of important party matters is based upon limited experience. While national party conclaves have not been uncommon, national party “conventions” especially designed to include delegates selected by and representing the individual federal ridings have been infrequent. Actually, the first truly representative national convention after confederation was that of the Liberal party in 1893.1 In 1919, Mackenzie King was selected as leader of the party at another great convention2 and it was not until 1948 that the Liberals met again. As a party in opposition, whose path back into office has been far from smooth, the Conservatives have in recent years had more occasion to use national party conventions. They assembled in 1927, 1938, 1942,3 and again in 1948.

The national party convention appears to have challenged the role of the party’s elected members of parliament as the dominating ruler of the party in selecting the party leader and formulating the party platform and organization. Of course the parliamentary party group plays a prominent part in convention proceedings, but the significant thing is that the parliamentary group now must, in some instances, exercise its influence through the medium of a representative convention in which the members of parliament can be outvoted by the local delegates.

Among the few Canadian provinces and American states which have effected major changes in the structure of local government in recent years is the province of Alberta. During the last fifteen years, rural local government in that province has been reorganized extensively. It is the purpose of this paper to describe the main features of the reorganization, to suggest why it took place, and to appraise briefly its effects and implications.

Local Government Units in Alberta. The structure of local government in Alberta finds no counterpart elsewhere except in the other Prairie Provinces of Canada. In Alberta, the municipal district is a rural local government unit which is empowered and required by the provincial government to provide for local public works, public welfare, sanitation and health, and the protection of persons and property. Such a district levies the property taxes required to pay for these services as well as to pay the requisitions of school and hospital districts. Towns and villages within the boundaries of a municipal district are not under its jurisdiction; they are small urban incorporated municipalities operating under a special statute, The Town and Village Act. Cities are self-governing under separate charters. Thus a municipal district is peculiarly rural in character. It is governed by elected councillors, while a secretary-treasurer and office staff appointed by the council administer the district's affairs in accordance with the council's by-laws and the provincial statutes.

The less-developed rural areas of the province are divided into improvement districts. These are administrative areas in which the provincial government performs the functions alloted to the elected councils and the administrative staffs in the municipal districts.