The appearance of a wide range of cultural phenomena at different periods in the history of western civilization has been described by Professor A. L. Kroeber in Configurations of Cultural Growth (Berkeley, 1946). He makes suggestive comments at various points to explain the relative strength or weakness of cultural elements but refrains from extended discussion. I do not propose to do more than add a footnote to these comments and in this to discuss the possible significance of communication to the rise and decline of cultural traits. A medium of communication has an important influence on the dissemination of knowledge over space and over time and it becomes necessary to study its characteristics in order to appraise its influence in its cultural setting. According to its characteristics it may be better suited to the dissemination of knowledge over time than over space, particularly if the medium is heavy and durable and not suited to transportation; or to the dissemination of knowledge over space than over time, particularly if the medium is light and easily transported. The relative emphasis on time or space will imply a bias of significance to the culture in which it is imbedded.

Immediately we venture on this inquiry we are compelled to recognize the bias of the period in which we work. An interest in the bias of other civilizations may in itself suggest a bias of our own. Our knowledge of other civilizations depends in large part on the character of the media used by each civilization in so far as it is capable of being preserved or of being made accessible by discovery as in the case of the results of archaeological expeditions. Writing on clay and on stone has been preserved more effectively than that on papyrus. Since durable commodities emphasize time and continuity, studies of civilization such as Toynbee's tend to have a bias toward religion and to show a neglect of problems of space, notably administration and law. The bias of modern civilization incidental to the newspaper and the radio will presume a perspective in consideration of civilizations dominated by other media. We can do little more than urge that we must be continually alert to the implications of this bias and perhaps hope that consideration of the implications of other media to various civilizations may enable us to see more clearly the bias of our own. In any case we will become a little more humble as to the characteristics of our civilization.

The Canadian House of Commons, superficially at least, is so obviously a representative assembly that an examination of the basis of representation therein may perhaps seem a waste of time. Yet one cannot proceed far in a study of the House of Commons without becoming aware that some aspects of representation rest on bases whose existence receives little explicit recognition, and that the theories of representation which are explicitly accepted in Parliament are often contradicted by the facts.

A major obstacle to the understanding on parliamentary representation is the broad disagreement among authorities as to what representative government is, and what it ought to be. This problem will not be settled here, but it must be recorded that the best-known works on representative government, which range from the reasoned pronouncements of John Stuart Mill to the impatient murmurs of proportional representation societies, are uniformly reticent in defining the institution which they are discussing. Concise descriptions of particular kinds of representative government are common, but genuine definitions are not. A British Royal Commission on Electoral Systems worked for several months in 1909 and neither the commissioners nor the witnesses who appeared before them attempted to assess accurately what the fundamental purpose of an electoral system was. Again, John Stuart Mill believed that a single legislature could represent a nation, and being happily ignorant of twentieth-century psychology, he was able to argue further that representative institutions could be improved by taking thought. G. D. H. Cole, on the other hand, has stated that the representation of a whole population by one body is impossible; Parliament, he says, represents everybody for everything, and therefore nobody for anything—and his way out of this impasse is to urge the creation of an apparently indefinite number of representative assemblies, each of which would discharge one specific function.

Canadian universities have not been as enterprising as their American neighbours in seeking out new ways of serving the community; but they have deviated far enough from the straight and narrow path of academic scholarship to develop a sense of guilt for which atonement may be offered by devoting a part of their resources to the promotion of graduate studies.

In the United States we find a desperate effort being made to save the M.A. degree from the fate which has befallen the B.A. degree, by applying truly heroic remedies, such as insistence on serious qualifications for admission to candidacy, on “graduate standards of attainment,” on “proper use of spoken and written English,” on “a reading knowledge of at least one foreign language … as indispensable background and not merely as a tool for research.” A candidate should have obtained “an average grade which places him in at least the first third of his class” and “due attention should be paid to those qualities known as personality and, in particular, to moral character.”

A sense of guilt may be a very potent force, but it requires rationalization. Various reasons have been assigned for promoting graduate studies in Canada. Professor Brebner contends that an increased output of scholars, retained in Canada, could be employed in “the creation of Canadian culture.” In so doing they would solve what Professor Brebner considers ought to be “the most urgent problem for Canadian post-war planners,” namely “how to make Canada so cordial and attractive a place” that Canadians “who excel in any field” will be content to live and work there. It is nearly fifty years since American universities set about the task of meeting “needs for the satisfaction of which approximately 300 out of a total of some 500 advanced students at the time considered it necessary to go abroad.” Canadians have continued to pursue graduate studies in other countries, but it is possible to argue that young Canadians cannot rely as much as in the past on the opportunities offered for advanced work at British and American universities.

During the past two hundred years students of public affairs have been stimulated to an exceptional degree by the very evident radical transformation of life in human societies. Some have observed, named, and analysed the changes in material goods, building up an impressive structure of economic science and culminating in the popular controversy over capitalism and socialism. Others have investigated man's cultural development, though with less success in naming the elements being studied or in defining the units of measurement or valuation, but reaching a general climax of opposing nationalism to cosmopolitanism. The greatest number of observers, however, have been concerned with political changes, for if politics is not truly the queen of sciences, it has at least been thought to be so from antiquity on. Whether the subject is more difficult than others or whether too many have rushed in without appropriate training or adequate consideration of the subject-matter, it must be admitted that the heavy hand of tradition has lain heavier on political analysis than on other fields of knowledge. Students of politics have continued to use the historic names of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, discussing constitutionalism (polity, the old composite form) in Greek terms with modern instances such as checks and balances, separation of powers, fundamental law, etc. In popular controversy, however, the line of dispute has been drawn between democracy and dictatorship, which are also concepts derived from antiquity.

This paper is a consideration of the possibility of combining sampling procedures and role theory as methods of social research. It is one contention of this study that these are currently the chief centres of interest in sociological theorizing. The first, shared by several other sciences, is part of a broader interest in statistical procedures. The other is an integral part of the renewed interest in the study of social organization as such.

On the surface it might appear that these two interests are complementary in character, and that both would share in the attention of persons inclined to considerations of theory. Actually the situation is quite otherwise. Students in the two fields have remained isolated from each other to an eminent degree. The intent of this paper is to attempt a bridge between these two interests, by exploring the possibility of extending the techniques of sampling to the analysis of social organization.

The paper is divided into three parts. The first section is a very abbreviated introduction to some general features of sampling procedures and of the nature of social organization. The second part is a consideration of a specific study in each of the two fields. The final section deals with the application of both types of approach to a research situation.

A chemist who either discussed his subject, or worked in his laboratory, on the assumption that all elements were equal, or that matter was composed of single homogeneous units called “molecules,” would not remain long in his profession. Force of ridicule, or of some even more drastic happening, would remove him. But the economics of many practical and pressing problems is continually bedevilled by discussions, and even on occasion policies, which involve a sort of stubborn simplification quite unworried by the facts. It is certainly understandable that, in the field of housing, this complaint has arisen frequently from those who have tried to deal with the subject from a social rather than a particularist viewpoint, and in its full dimensions rather than within the limits of some familiar phase. In the effort to get low-rent housing into its proper perspective, there are two obstacles which are particularly troublesome. One is the assumption that all housing “units” are the same, the kind of view which leads to the belief that “one thousand houses built” is the same contribution to national need, no matter what kind of houses they may be. The other is the argument or belief which really involves the assumption that peoples' incomes are broadly equal, and all comfortably above the average. The most frequent version is that most people, or at least a majority, can afford to own their own home, or should be encouraged to do so. A more valid but troublesome one in its “all-or-nothing” form is that cheapening the cost of construction is the “real” problem; and there are other variants. Another version, less frequently heard in these days of pressure, is that people live in slums because they like it.

Twice during the past five years the peculiar problems of the agricultural industry in the political economy have been analysed with acute perception in papers presented to this Association. There is a surprising unanimity of opinion among economists as to the nature of these problems; there is also, I believe, a rather wide area of agreement as to the general principles upon which policy designed to cope with these problems should be based. There is something of a gap between the way in which organized agriculture would attempt a solution to what, for the moment, I shall call “the farm problem” and that recommended by the economist. It is my purpose in this paper to attempt to explore the nature of this gap. Since more often than not this discrepancy in policy recommendations revolves around the function of the price system I have chosen the label “the farmer and the market.”

The adaptability of the British form of cabinet government to local conditions in many lands is illustrated in a unique fashion in Prince Edward Island. The same type of executive which governs in the large and populous parts of the Commonwealth has developed in miniature in the tiny and isolated province which boasts a land area of only 2,184 square miles and a population of little more than 93,000 persons; and, on the whole, it has worked extremely well. Broadly speaking, most of the principles associated with cabinet government elsewhere are recognized in theory on the Island. The familiar steps in the development of responsible government have taken place in much the same way as in other provinces. The idea is generally accepted that the Cabinet is a team operating on the basic principles of mutual confidence and solidarity among its members, collective responsibility to the Crown and to the legislature, and popular endorsation through the electoral machinery and the political party. The peculiarities of cabinet government in Prince Edward Island lie not in the principles, but in the way some of the principles have been altered, sometimes almost beyond recognition, to meet local conditions and political expediencies, and in the occasional reversion to colonial practices which have long been considered extinct. These features are manifest in the Cabinet's composition, procedure, solidarity and responsibility, and judicial functions.

Which candidate ought to be elected in a single-member constituency if all that we take into account is the order in which each of the electors ranks the various candidates? The most reasonable answer, I think, is that that candidate ought to be elected who, on the whole or on the average, stands highest on the electors' schedules of preferences.

At the very outset of the argument we try to move from the is to the ought and to jump the unbridgeable chasm between the universe of science and that of morals. Some discussion of this step should be given, even though it does no more than point out the assumptions under which the jump is made.

We assume that, in a constituency which is to elect a single member, we know the order in which the candidates are ranked on the schedule of preferences of each elector. If the electors had only been allowed to cast a single vote and the record of this was all the information at our disposal, inevitably, I think, we would have to conclude that the candidate most deserving of election was the one with the greatest number of first-preference votes. As against this, however, our assumption will be that each elector expresses his attitude to each of the candidates in the field, and that we have this record of the electors' attitudes.

World events during the past twenty years, the great depression and the war, have challenged economists to improve and enlarge their theoretical framework. The stresses and strains of this period have brought forward vitally important problems which demanded solution. At the same time, these events helped to produce an environment which responded more generously to the social scientist's quest for new data. There can be little doubt that there was an intimate interdependence between developments in economic theory and analysis, and the growth and systematization of quantitative data.

Perhaps the most significant of these developments has been in the field of national accounts. The purpose of this paper is briefly to describe and illustrate this development in Canada, as follows: (1) summary of work on national income in Canada, 1918-41; (2) some principles involved in the new departure of national accounting; (3) the work of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics in preparing national accounts for Canada; (4) some illustrative applications of national accounts to economic analysis and policy; (5) problems of concepts and statistics involved in national accounting; and (6) lines of future development.

A Summary of Work on National Income in Canada, 1918-41. When it was decided in 1944 to undertake the preparation of a new set of national accounts, in line with Canadian needs and developments elsewhere, we were fortunate in having at our disposal a great deal of pioneer work on national income in Canada.

In view of Newfoundland's long tradition of separation from Canada, and its rich heritage of anti-confederation feeling, how does it happen that union has come about on March 31 of this year? The answer is best seen as it emerges from the background of recent events in Newfoundland.

Faced with imminent default in the early nineteen-thirties, the Newfoundland government resorted to all the traditional tactics, such as reductions in the salaries of civil servants and teachers, and increases in the rates of the customs tariff; and under the spur of necessity resorted to more ingenious measures. The stream of willing foreign lenders had dried up by 1932, and the government fell back upon temporary loans from Canadian banks, upon a deal with the Imperial Oil Company, and upon joint advances from the governments of the United Kingdom and Canada. When to these was added a controller of the treasury, Newfoundland had in fact lost full control of its finances, and hence of its political destiny, even before self-government was formally abrogated.

It was in the midst of this desperate situation in 1933 that the Royal Commission presided over by Lord Amulree was appointed, at Newfoundland's request, “to examine into the island's future and finances.” The Commission duly found bankruptcy imminent, and the debt burden beyond the capacity of the island to carry. Newfoundland's public debt had grown but slowly in the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth. Including $13 million added for war purposes, by the beginning of the nineteen-twenties, the debt stood at only $43 million. More spectacular increases occurred after 1920, the total debt being more than doubled in the space of twelve years. Throughout this period the average annual deficit was some $2 million, including losses on operation of the railway system which, early in the decade, passed from private hands to government ownership. The current deficits, together with capital expenditures upon public works, were covered by borrowing from abroad at interest rates from 5 to 6½ per cent, to the extent that in each year some $4.8 million was added to the public debt, which by 1933 reached nearly $100 million. This was the period when, according to the Amulree Commission, the country “was sunk in waste and extravagance,” and displayed “a reckless disregard for the dictates of financial prudence.”

Within recent years significant additions have been made to the theory of the multiplier in its application to the study of income movements among economic systems. It is the object of this paper to introduce a graphical method into the analysis of the bi-system multiplier, to develop a generalized formulation of the bi-system multiplier of which the formulas presented up to now are special cases, and to indicate a variety of uses (in addition to the familiar use in foreign trade problems) to which the concept may be put.

There is much talk in our time about freedom and economists have not been silent on the subject. It is apparent that in discussing the meaning and conditions of freedom they are moving beyond the limits of economics “proper” into the realm of political economy, which as O. H. Taylor has recently pointed out “… involves the latter [economic science] plus all other social or human sciences, plus philosophical, ethical and political reflection, plus thoughtful study of human history.” And since freedom involves value judgments, “ … is itself an ethical category …,” economics, in so far as economists concern themselves with freedom, cannot be regarded as a neutral science. There are deep waters here, deeper than many of freedom's advocates seem to realize. It is argued in this paper that while many economists writing about freedom will pay lip-service to the ideal of political economy as described by Professor Taylor, the strong tendency to remain economic scientists in thought and method is likely to produce in the end a flabbier economics and very little new light on freedom.

An approach very common in economic literature is to identify extremes of (i) freedom in thought and behaviour and (ii) authoritarian control, and then to suggest some happy middle way, preferably one which combines the “best” features of each. Freedom is identified with change, uncertainty and “progress” (these somehow identified with competition in free markets) and its absence with concentrations of power which threaten essential liberties. The problem appears to be that of reconciling liberty with stability, freedom of competition with an unseemly demand for security. To make the best of both worlds there must be some planning for stability, but not too much planning because it is so debilitating. Extremes must be avoided, some compromise sought; it is as simple as that.

We have already considered the election of a single candidate to represent a constituency. Now we turn to the problem of choosing the group of representatives who will best reflect the political opinions held throughout a country or constituency. The desirability of proportional representation, ceteris paribus, we take to be self-evident; a change in the electoral system that makes the legislative bodies more truly reflect the citizens' opinions will certainly be desirable, provided the party system and the system of cabinet government remain as effective after the change as they had been before. Of course, the source of difficulty, the opponents of proportional representation would add, is that when proportional representation is introduced other things do not remain the same: instead a degeneration of the party and cabinet system sets in.

These “dynamic changes” include alterations in party structure, a heightening or lessening of the political interest of the voters, alterations in the type of persons who stand for Parliament, new problems of cabinet formation, and increased or lesser control by the electorate over the course of government. And we readily concede that these are the aspects of the problem that it is most important to investigate to decide whether proportional representation would, in practice, do good or harm. The present paper will make no reference to them, and is not, indeed, much concerned to answer the broad question of whether proportional representation would, in any particular circumstances, be a good thing or a bad thing. A proper scientific procedure permits the treatment in isolation of particular aspects of each wider problem; and our concern is with the “statics” of the problem. (We only consider one or two small dynamic changes which are intimately connected with the course of the argument.)

The basic characteristics of Quebec parties and politics have always been somewhat of an unknown quantity in the rest of Canada. The average English-speaking Canadian finds it difficult to appreciate the significance of the issues on which electoral battles are won and lost, the underlying ideology of Quebec parties, and the relationships existing between these parties and those of the rest of Canada. This difficulty is particularly apparent when he focuses his attention on the political developments of the last fifteen years which have resulted in the emergence of the Union Nationale party of Mr. Maurice Duplessis as the dominant party in the province.

It is proposed in this paper to throw some light on this little-known area in the field of Canadian politics by presenting an analysis of the nature of the new party, the factors which have resulted in its rise to power, its relationships with federal parties, and finally the future role it may be expected to play in Quebec politics.

In order to understand the nature of the Union Nationale, and the reason for the dominant position it holds in the political life of the province today, we must analyse its growth against the background of the Nationalist movement which swept the province in the early thirties, and which still is the most important factor in the thinking of the French Canadian. This Nationalist movement had two phases, the first from around 1930 up to 1939, and the second from 1939 to 1948. Examination of the first phase will show the reasons for the birth of the Union Nationale and the nature of the policies for which it stood. Consideration of the second phase will reveal the further stages in the evolution of the party after its defeat in the provincial election of 1939, and the factors entering into its slow but steady progress towards the smashing victory of 1948.

The aim of this paper is to consider the connexion between social theory and research in the field of “industrial relations,” drawing particularly upon the empirical data which have been acquired by a sociological investigation of the city of Windsor, Ontario. Even a cursory investigation of a city like Windsor indicates certain tendencies to be at work in highly unionized towns which do not seem to be adequately encompassed by the existing literature of industrial relations. We are concerned here to define what these tendencies are, to suggest some of the inadequacies of existing theory to handle them and to indicate a more adequate theoretical basis for the discussion of them.

The traditional academic and research approach to trade unionism has always been that of economics, and it is usually within an economic framework that unionism is discussed. A sociologist, however, who approaches the subject for the first time, begins immediately to wonder why trade unions should have become, in our universities and research institutions, so exclusively matter for study by economists, whereas other social groupings in which men live and to which they give their time and their loyalties—churches, for example, or gangs, or families—have not excited the slightest interest on the part of that discipline. The answer to this question has its roots, it would seem, in the classical view that since everything in the market is a commodity, and labour is in the market, therefore labour is a commodity, and as such, has to be treated and studied by the academic discipline whose job it is to analyse market factors, of which labour costs are one.

Malthus's Investigation of the High Price of Provisions, hitherto available in Canada only on microfilm, is a pamphlet well worth republication here both for its topicality and its economic content. Many of Malthus's views on inflation, particularly his discussion of opposing theories, have direct application to current economic controversy. And while the late Lord Keynes, with that excess of generosity which he reserved for the underdog in academic debates, seems to have exaggerated the extent to which Malthus here expounds the principle of effective demand, the pamphlet does anticipate several important elements of the modern theory of income determination.

The Investigation was written in a hurry—in much the same way as a modern British economist takes time from his academic pursuits to dash off a quick pamphlet setting the public straight on some problem of grave national importance. It records, Malthus says elsewhere, “an idea which struck him so strongly as he rode on horseback from Hastings to Town” that he stopped two days in his “garret in town,” “sitting up till two o'clock to finish it that it might come out before the meeting of Parliament.” As a result of this rapid writing, it is clear, incisive, and delightfully personal, in the manner of the first Essay; by the second Essay, for reasons of his own, he had reduced his style to a pedantic verbosity almost worthy of Adam Smith himself.