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The Provincial Incidence of the Canadian Tariff

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

D. C. MacGregor*
Affiliation:
The University of Toronto
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Extract

In the brief for the Province of Nova Scotia, presented to the provincial Royal Commission inquiring into Nova Scotia's disabilities under the Canadian federal system, Professor Rogers includes an estimate of the regional incidence of the customs duties. This is the first study of its kind to be made in Canada. It may be expected to give rise to a good deal of controversy on account of the complexity of the problem and because other provinces are already beginning to make parallel estimates which do not altogether agree with those made for Nova Scotia. Professor Rogers's discussion of the burden of the tariff was condensed into a single chapter, owing to the large amount of general historical and argumentative material which it was necessary to include. It is therefore desirable to quote from the unpublished minutes of evidence in order to do full justice to the reservations which Professor Regers made in putting forward his estimates. In Halifax on August 13, 1934, he said:

It is desirable to emphasize again that this table representing the provincial distribution of tariff subsidies and tariff costs is chiefly valuable as an indication of a condition. It is not an exact statement of the effects of the tariff upon the incomes of the several provinces of the Dominion. It does not indicate the tendency of the tariff to contract the income of the export industries by reason of the increase in costs of such industries. It does illustrate, however, the effect of the tariff upon the internal distribution of the national income…. Personally I would hardly suggest that this is more than an approach to a method of measuring the provincial incidence of the tariff. But I do feel convinced that the results which attend a computation of this kind bring out a condition which really exists, and that the final result in respect to the provincial incidence of the tariff is probably an under-statement rather than an over-statement. I do feel that we have reached a point where we are compelled to try to express the effects of the tariff in more complete terms.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1935

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References

1 A Submission on Dominion-Provincial Relations and the Fiscal Disabilities of Nova Scotia within the Canadian Federation presented by Rogers, N. McL. (Halifax, 1934), ch. viii.Google Scholar Hereinafter referred to as the brief.

2 The Australian Tariff: An Economic Inquiry (Melbourne, 1929).Google Scholar This is the report of a Committee consisting of J. B. Brigden, D. B. Copland, E. C. Dyason, L. F. Giblin, and C. H. Wickens.

3 Brief, p. 92.

4 Loveday, A. in the Economic Record, 11, 1930 Google Scholar; Plant, A. in the Economic Journal, 06, 1930 Google Scholar; Copland, D. B. in the Economic Record, 06, 1934.Google Scholar A further criticism has since appeared by Alford, F. S., The Greater Illusion: A Critical Review of Australia's Fiscal Policy (Sydney, 1934).Google Scholar

5 Their subsequent argument suggests that this is an under-estimate. See p. 392.

6 In a period of falling prices the tariff probably helps the protected industries to withstand a tendency towards price reduction more successfully, making competition even more imperfect than it would otherwise be.

7 Brief, p. 101.

8 Ibid., p. 102.

9 This is the percentage which duties collected are of total dutiable imports.

10 At the seasons of the year when Canadian butter output is low, butter prices benefit to some extent from protection, and so indirectly do those of other dairy products.

11 Referred to below as group IIa. In the case of goods produced within the tariff wall under monopolistic conditions (e.g., lead), the domestic price may be higher than the export price.

12 As exports are valued f.o.b. factory they do not embody values added by transport and can be applied without correction to Census of Industry figures of production. The figure here quoted is from The Manufacturing Industries of Canada, 1931 (Ottawa, Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 1933), table vi.Google Scholar

13 If the tariff makes it possible to charge higher prices in Canada in order to subsidize exports which could not otherwise be made, exports may depend on the tariff.

14 Certain errors which result from the use of figures of gross value are discussed below.

15 Includes gross value of production of all textiles and textile products, all iron and its products, all miscellaneous manufactures, one-half the value of all chemical manufactures, as well as the output of printing and book-binding, petroleum products, cement and glass products. The total is $919,000,000.

16 This roughly corresponds to group “Q” in The Australian Tariff: An Economic Inquiry, pp. 47, 65. The extent to which this group needs protection is largely determined by how far the tariff raises its costs of production and forces it to rely on protection to offset these higher costs.

17 Cf. the argument on p. 386.

18 The compromise estimate of $1,400,000,000 of protected production amounts to slightly more than 25 per cent. of the national income. A rough estimate of the amount of protected and unprotected capital investment, made elsewhere, indicated that tariff sheltered capital was only about 11 per cent. of total capital. The smaller proportion of protected capital is due chiefly to the very large capital investment in proportion to annual output in agriculture and transport. See MacGregor, D. C., “Weighing up the Tariff” (Commerce Journal, University of Toronto Commerce Club, 02, 1934, p. 19).Google Scholar

19 Brief, p. 96, s. 5.

20 Mr. Whiteley raises other points: “Figures of retail trade in 1930 show that the Prairie Provinces had about 20% of the sales for the Dominion. However, the sales of petroleum products to consumers in the Prairie Provinces formed in the neighbourhood of 35% of the total trade in these products, and for agricultural implements and machinery about 73% of the total sales made in Canada. These proportions, of course, would vary from year to year as trade conditions differed between the provinces. It is clear, however, that depending upon the relative proportions of commodities purchased in various provinces and the effect of the tariff upon the prices of such commodities the actual burden of the tariff may not be distributed in the same manner as the total retail trade.

Another factor which must be borne in mind in considering the provincial distribution of retail trade in relation to the tariff is the effect of transportation costs on retail sales figures. The price of automobiles, for example, is considerably higher in British Columbia than in Ontario. When, therefore, the burden of the tariff is distributed on the basis of retail sales figures, those provinces in which commodities sold at retail bear relatively high transportation costs are probably having attributed to them too large a proportion of the tariff burden.” While the cases cited are not directly relevant to Nova Scotia, it should not be hard to find other cases involving the same principles which would be of importance.

21 The Australian Tariff: An Economic Inquiry, p. 63.

22 If the reasoning of the Australian Committee is accepted, the smaller exploitation of low-grade resources has increased real incomes and been a benefit wherever alternative occupations enjoying increasing returns existed.

23 Cf. the estimate in The Australian Tariff: An Economic Inquiry (pp. 75-81), of how much production might have increased had selling prices been higher. Cf. also Brief, p. 183: “It is impossible to say to what extent the income of export industries would have been increased ….” Except in the case of fisheries, the opportunities for expansion of export industries in response to a higher rate of profit are very limited, owing to scanty and depleted resources in Nova Scotia.

24 Brief, p. 185.

25 In the opinion of the Australian Commonwealth Grants Commission, it would also be necessary to introduce standardized accounting systems in all the states. The report of this Commission (Canberra, 1934) is reviewed by Brigden, J. B. in the Economic Record, 12, 1934.Google Scholar