The concept of a corporation was familiar to the first settlers in Canada, both French and English. The Company of New France and the Hudson's Bay Company are examples of the importance of trading companies in our early economic development. Moreover, colonial legislatures incorporated several dozen companies by special acts before deciding to allow companies to come into being without each one having to go directly to Parliament for its own charter. But a companies act which would permit companies to be expeditiously incorporated for manufacturing, trading, mining, and other ordinary kinds of business was not evolved without some experimentation, a good deal of borrowing from other jurisdictions, and the creation of two rather special methods of our own.

Until about 1850, the principle of limited liability was not generally accepted either in Canada, Britain, or most of the United States. Even as late as 1862 Nova Scotia's “Act for the incorporation and winding-up of Joint Stock Companies” (25 Vict. c. 2) forbade the incorporation of companies for “ordinary, mercantile and commercial business.” Legislators were afraid that a company might purchase excessive amounts of merchandise on credit and so take unfair advantage of its creditors, as individual traders often did during the nineteenth century.

Limited liability was permitted for banks, but only on certain conditions. In Canada, bank shareholders were usually liable for twice the par value of their stock and bank charters were valid for only ten years, so that periodically the government could review and perhaps amend the pertinent statutes.

I wish to consider how industries exploiting natural resources may be expected to develop. It is not my purpose to consider their entire relation with the economy of which they form a part. Rather, I wish to examine the logic of their own changes in technology and technique in response to stimuli from the rest of the economy. In tracing this development, I shall stress the changing technology itself; the adjustment of property and tenure concepts; some aspects of location and transportation; and the impact of all these changes on industrial and market organization.

As an analytical technique for tracing these changes, I shall make use of a “stages of development” approach. It will be shown that most industries working natural resources may be said to be in one of three, roughly consecutive stages. The precise dating of the transitions between the stages is highly arbitrary, but this defect is unimportant since the chief function of the stages approach in its present context is to bring out the successive impacts on resource exploitation of two outside forces. The first of these is a mechanical, capital-using technology. The second is the application of science to “control” the resource, biological or mineral, in the same sense that agricultural and manufacturing industries have control over their processes.

In the model, stress is laid on the industries that today are still extracting raw materials from nature: fishing, hunting, logging, oil and gas, metals, and water. Agricultural activity also properly belongs with these industries. However, since agriculture has already passed well into the third stage, it is referred to chiefly for purposes of example and comparison. The farmer no longer “hunts” his cattle, nor “collects” wild rice or fruit.

Newfoundland before 1934 had a Governor, a responsible Executive Council, and an appointed Legislative Council. The Governor “with the advice and consent” of the Executive Council, summoned and called together the General Assembly, and “the persons thereupon duly elected to be members of the said Assembly,” before their sitting, took the Oath of Allegiance. The Governor from time to time prorogued the Legislative Council and the House of Assembly, and also from time to time dissolved the House of Assembly. Laws were made by the Governor “with the advice and consent of the said Legislative Council and Assembly.”

From February 16, 1934, to March 31, 1949, Newfoundland was ruled by a Commission of Government. Upon the union with Canada in 1949, the constitution of the legislature as it existed immediately prior to February 16, 1934, continued as the constitution of the legislature of the province of Newfoundland, except in so far as it related to the Legislative Council. Laws are now “enacted by the Lieutenant-Governor and the House of Assembly” only.

Prior to 1928 the Assembly contained thirty-six members. In that year (by an act passed in 1925) the number was raised to forty, but in 1932 it was reduced to twenty-seven. In 1949 it rose to twenty-eight, and in 1956 (by an act passed in 1955) it once again reached thirty-six. Now, by an amendment adopted in 1962, the House of Assembly consists, from the dissolution of the General Assembly in October, of forty-two members.

Canada's unemployment record during the post-war period falls readily into three distinct periods. Before 1954 unemployment averaged about 2.5 per cent of the labour force and was never a significant problem. Since it has been estimated that seasonal unemployment alone amounts to about 2 per cent of the labour force, non-seasonal employment was almost non-existent in this period. During the next four years a moderate increase occurred and in this period unemployment averaged about 4.2 per cent. Then, in late 1957, unemployment passed the 5 per cent point; for the three years 1958 to 1960 it averaged 6.7 per cent of the labour force and in early 1961 it has been running close to 8 per cent on a seasonally adjusted basis. The moderate increase that occurred after 1953 was due in part to a more rapid growth of the labour force. In two years, between 1955 and 1957, the labour force increased some 6.9 per cent and the non-agricultural sector rose by more than 9.5 per cent, an increase that reflected the heavy immigration following Suez and the uprising in Hungary. But the further increase in unemployment that developed in late 1957 cannot be attributed to a similar cause. For since 1957 there has been some decline in the rate of growth of both the total and the non-farm labour force (see Table III). Nevertheless, the non-farm labour force has continued to grow rapidly and this explains the recent paradox of increasing unemployment at a time when total employment is still rising.

There have been a number of ambitious studies on an international scale in recent years attempting to identify and compare “industry patterns” or “national patterns” of industrial conflict in different countries. Outstanding among these have been two analytical surveys, “The Inter-Industry Propensity to Strike,” by Kerr and Siegel, and Changing Patterns of Industrial Conflict, by Ross and Hartman. One of the findings in this latter study, incidentally, was that, among the fifteen countries surveyed, there has been a relatively high incidence of strikes in Canada—second only to the United States, in fact.

This paper is based on the premise that, in Canada, the individual province, or perhaps better, the region, is the most fruitful unit for studying such phenomena as industrial conflict. For regional differences in several respects are more pronounced in Canada than in most comparably industrialized countries, so that the portrayal of behaviour patterns in terms of national averages or configurations can lead to highly misleading conclusions.

British Columbia, next only to Quebec, perhaps, offers a particularly interesting area for research in this field, because it is a separate and distinct industrial complex, and has experienced patterns of industrial conflict that differ markedly in certain important respects from other major regions of the country.

It is not my intention, however, to emphasize the unique or special features of the labour scene in British Columbia. The field of industrial relations in general has suffered too much already, perhaps, from a plethora of detailed descriptive studies of matters of purely local scope and interest.

The political ideas of public opinion analysts–pollsters as well as theoreticians–have often been submitted to rather harsh criticisms from political philosophers and scientists. On occasion, however, the analysts have reciprocated by accusing the latter of being poorly acquainted not only with the techniques and purpose of polling but also with the basic political assumptions that underlie their work. Public opinion analysts in the United States present themselves as champions of democracy; as a consequence, it is only natural that they should above all resent criticisms asserting that they hold naïve, false, or even subversive notions concerning democracy.

In the present article, I intend to explore the ideological conceptions of American public opinion analysts concerning the position and function of polling in a democracy. Reference to their critics will be made only when one or another public opinion analyst is known to have explicitly answered a specific point. Since many contemporary analysts acknowledge their debt to Bryce's The American Commonwealth, I shall start by presenting the pertinent views of the British author concerning public opinion; second, I shall summarize the views which present polling as a new technique of democratic government; third, I shall consider what public opinion analysts have to say about the impact of polling on the democratic process as such. Finally, I shall conclude by indicating how public opinion analysts view their research in relation to political theory in general.

The intent of this paper is to demonstrate (1) that Marx's analysis of the workers' fate under capitalism is not quite as scientific as he had professed, and (2) that, on the other hand, his analysis of wage and employment determination in a capitalist economy is not quite as misleading as many critics contend.

If Marx's theoretical contributions in this area have been unjustly discounted by “bourgeois economists,” much of the fault may be traced directly to Marx himself. For it was he who suggested that the veracity of his economic analysis could be measured by the accuracy of his economic predictions. Non-Marxists and neo-Marxists alike have faithfully followed his suggestion. Thus, since overwhelming evidence of rising standards of living in Western capitalist countries clearly discredits Marx's prediction concerning the increasing misery of the proletariat, we generally discard not only the prediction but also the theoretical apparatus whence it was allegedly derived.

To reject Marx in this matter on his own grounds, however, is to acknowledge logical consistency in his derivation of prediction from model. It is the consistency that is questioned here. And if Marx's prediction of misery is found not to derive from his wage and employment theory, then the Marxian theory of wages and employment may prove to be a more valid view of capitalism than is generally suspected.

In a previous article in this Journal, I discussed the prospects for the stabilization of democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany. I considered the factors which I thought to be favourable, and then noted certain problematic features inherent in both the constitutional structure of the Federal Republic and in the political praxis—the “unwritten constitution”—as it has developed under the chancellorship of Konrad Adenauer. Some of these danger points will be the subject of the present paper. Our concern will be with certain structural weaknesses which are, so to speak, built into the system of government, structural features which are independent of issues and ideologies.

A brief commentary on certain recent events will serve as background for our discussion. In the election campaign of 1961 one observed a rather desperate attempt by the Social Democrats (SPD) to broaden their support among the intellectuals and the petite bourgeoisie, and also the farmers, by modifying their economic programme to such an extent that very little was left of specifically socialistic propositions. Marx was relegated to history; the party made it very clear that it is no longer a Marxist party. No longer does the party demand socialization of the “means of production” except in cases where private enterprise cannot meet the needs of the community. On the contrary, as a major “plank” in its election platform, it advocates a wider distribution of property by a new scheme of profit-sharing. In its foreign policy the party has abandoned its former proposals for gradually intensified contacts with the East German regime, and in striving for a “joint foreign policy” has come very close to the course of the Adenauer government.

Both Canadian and Australian governments were quick to appreciate the benefits to be gained from wireless broadcasting. In 1905 in Australia and in 1913 in Canada, ministers of the Crown were given the power to oversee the development of wireless telegraphy. Shortly after the First World War, technical advances made possible the broadcasting of music and the human voice; in 1919 the Marconi Company, through its station XWA, Montreal, initiated radio broadcasting in Canada; in the same year, Amalgamated Wireless of Australasia Pty. Limited, through a small station in Sydney, broadcast Australia's first radio programmes. By the late 1920s, Canada boasted seventy-nine broadcasting stations and 297,000 licensed receivers, while Australia had twenty broadcasting stations and approximately 225,000 receivers. With few exceptions, these stations were privately owned, subject to little government regulation and, in Canada at least, supported entirely by commercial revenues.

In the first thirteen years of Australian broadcasting, from 1920 to 1932, at least three different attempts were made to find a satisfactory economic basis for broadcasting. Each reform, however, failed to silence the complaints about poor reception, tardy news reporting, indifferent programming, and the concentration of broadcasting in the urban areas of the country. Limitations of space prevent a discussion of all the schemes attempted, but brief mention will be made of one of them which, if not unique in the annals of broadcasting, is of interest as an historical oddity and an example of man's ingenuity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the behaviour of the rate of increase in the money stock as a leading indicator of the Canadian economy over the period 1924–58. The study was suggested by work done by Milton Friedman for the United States showing that changes in the rate of increase in the stock of money lead changes in economic activity. Section I presents the theoretical framework underlying the concept of “leading monetary indicator.” Section II presents the specific cycles of the seasonally adjusted rate of change in the Canadian stock of money and the relation of this series to Canadian reference cycles. Section III presents the conclusions. An appendix discusses the sources of the Canadian stock of money and its components.

The quantity theory of money is the theoretical framework underlying the “leading monetary indicator” approach. This theory argues that the stock of money is an important determinant of economic activity. On this view individual non-bank holders of money cannot change its nominal quantity, but they can in the aggregate change the real value of their cash balances. Thus, holders of money may decide that they are holding excessive cash balances which they may individually attempt to reduce by an increase in their rate of spending. In the aggregate, however, they cannot do so for the money disposed of by one holder will be acquired by another so that the nominal stock of money will remain unchanged. The attempts by holders of money to reduce their nominal cash balances will raise the flow of expenditures and so money income and prices.

Economists and statisticians are gradually amassing new knowledge of economic processes and enlarging the range of data which provide the underpinnings of their craft. Since the end of the Second World War, a number of new statistical tools have been developed for measuring the performance of the economy, and a good deal of new quantitative information on the structure and behaviour of the economic system has been collected. Among these new tools have been developments in the field of social accounting, and new and improved techniques for isolating and studying fluctuations in the business cycle. It is with the latter question that this paper is concerned-the decomposition of time series into their trend-cycle, seasonal, and residual elements. While the work in this field in Canada in the early 1950's was initially focused on measuring cyclical fluctuations in the quarterly national accounts, it has long since evolved a full-fledged life of its own, and a general programme of time series analysis has been under way at the Dominion Bureau of Statistics since 1955. The recent application of electronic computers to the problem is rapidly transforming the entire field.

The present paper has a three-fold aim: to review the rationale of time series analysis; to give an account of the background and status of the work at the Dominion Bureau of Statistics; and to provide a brief outline of the electronic computer programme now in use in this area.