In the recently recovered Preface to the French edition of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money Keynes refers to Montesquieu (1689–1755) as the greatest French economist. Addressing the French public Keynes writes that “Montesquieu was the real French equivalent of Adam Smith. The greatest of your economists, head and shoulders above the physiocrats in penetration, clear-headedness and good sense (which are the qualities an economist should have).” The admiration that Keynes expressed for Montesquieu in that document led me to undertake an investigation of Montesquieu's works. This research has made it possible to show that Montesquieu, though never fancying himself as an economist, had been creatively concerned with a crucial economic problem: the comparative statics of economic welfare.

Keynes was conscious mainly of Montesquieu's interest theory. He admired this theory in passing in the French Preface, but mentioned in no other of his works the influence that Montesquieu had on him. Nowhere did Keynes undertake to elaborate on or indeed justify any of his extraordinary remarks about Montesquieu. There is no reference to Montesquieu in the text proper of either the English or the French edition of the General Theory, or in any other of Keynes's works. As it stands, Keynes's sudden conviction that Montesquieu was the greatest French economist is hardly convincing. In this essay on attempt has been made to collect some of the evidence necessary for us to appraise the economic work of Montesquieu. I hope to vindicate the introduction of Montesquieu as an economist to the Anglo-Saxon world and to put Keynes's extraordinary contentions into proper perspective.

Communist experience in the field of investment policy for economic development is particularly instructive in connection with such problems as the determination of the rate of investment which results in the highest possible rate of growth; balanced versus unbalanced development; and the role of the rate of interest in the efficient allocation of investment funds. Our purpose is to examine this experience in relation to the first of the above problems. Since the three problems overlap, however, the paper relates to some extent to the other two.

It is suggested that the investment experience of Communist countries is relevant for developing countries in general. Although the results of various policies have been conditioned by the specific institutional framework of the Communist countries, they seem to depend also on the logic of the process of economic growth and of the basic economic problem of allocating scarce resources. Communist economists have been forced to admit that some aspects of economic development are as difficult under socialism as they are under capitalism, although until recently this fact was consistently denied. It is also possible, as has been suggested by Professor T. Haavelmo, that the process of economic growth can be seen most clearly when it is studied in a centrally planned economy, where major complications of a market economy are absent. Moreover, some features of the Communist system reflect the leaders' desire to achieve fast economic growth, and such measures as a high rate of forced saving and a large volume of public investment may be found in any country trying to accelerate its development.

Partly because there is at present so much concern with problems of economic growth and partly because much has already been done to account for the years before the First World War, interest is now quickening in the process and magnitude of capital formation in Canada between Confederation and the end of the nineteenth century. An important part of Canadian capital formation has been in housing, and a historical series on housing investment, covering the years 1926–1941, was presented in an official publication prepared by Firestone and Urquhart in 1945. This series was superseded by revised estimates (which still form the basis for the historical figures in the National Accounts) made by Firestone in 1951; Buckley, partly on the basis of Firestone's later estimates, produced a series going back to 1896; and Firestone has recently returned to the problem. A consistent series from Confederation to the turn of the century is, however, still lacking.

The main purpose of this paper is to derive and present annual estimates of residential capital formation for the years 1871–1921. It is in three parts: the first presents annual estimates of the number of dwellings completed; the second considers the problem of securing annual average values and presents the final estimates of residential capital formation; and the third compares the new estimates with those published earlier, discusses the estimates and their limitations, and makes suggestions for their improvement. An effort has been made to present the material in such a way that the reader could go a long way towards reproducing the results. Inadequate data invite endless ingenuity: but unbridled wit can sometimes be dangerous and an effort has been made to keep the paper within the bounds of the plausible.

Political parties have come to be accepted as at least a partial solution to the problem posed for the political system by the gap between society on the one hand and the state, the locus of decision-making authority, on the other. Generally, such questions as the social basis of party affiliation and the extent of participation of party supporters have been approached, at least by the major and best known studies of popular political participation in the United States, from the electoral side: a sample survey of a single community or a national electorate is made while an election campaign is in progress. Through such surveys, a substantial amount of information has been accumulated. In Canada few surveys have been conducted, and apart from the efforts of the Gallup poll no national sampling of the political community has been attempted for public consumption.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the most significant gaps in the Canadian criminal statistics. It seems fairly obvious that in order to achieve this end, an answer has first to be given to the question, “What are the objectives of criminal statistics?” This sets the stage for working out, in far more specific terms, why the collection of statistics is undertaken, what information is sought, and what use is to be made of the findings, and by whom.

The term “criminal statistics” is used very broadly to refer to all material collected regularly which gives information on any of the various phases of the law-enforcement process. Criminal statistics are an essential tool of administration and social planning for crime reduction. The basic postulate of this paper can be summarized as follows: Quantitative data obtained from the normal flow of activities of law-enforcement agencies at the various phases of the law-enforcement process become more meaningful when related to each other.