The literature on the relationship between Keynesian and classical economics lays almost exclusive emphasis on monetary phenomena; relatively little attention is paid to technological relationships, although an understanding of the precise nature of the production function assumed in each system is clearly of relevance. In particular, the assumption of variable proportions between inputs is crucial to Keynes' approach, and it is usually taken to be an assumption of classical writers too. At times, it is recognized that the classics denied the possibility of obtaining additional output by increasing the quantity of labour used with other (given) inputs, but rarely is this seen as important. The customary interpretation possibly derives, in part, from the fact that the classics made use of the wages fund theory whereby full employment of labour is assured; attention is diverted, by this theory, from technological capital to wage-goods capital, and it becomes easy to jump to the conclusion that output in the classical system can be regarded as a simple function of the quantity of labour employed.

In this paper I shall argue that in fact considerable attention was given to the assumption of fixed coefficients of production in classical economic literature (Section I). It will be necessary to show how this assumption could reasonably be maintained by writers who, at the same time, advocated the wages fund theory (Section II). In concluding the paper, I shall suggest a possible implication of the classical authors' approach to technology for their macro-economic policy, in particular for their tendency to minimize the significance of aggregate demand as a determinant of aggregate output (Section III).

It is generally known that John Stuart Mill spent his working career in the service of the East India Company, but very little has been written about him in this capacity. As an administrative official of the company, the home government of India, John Mill's activities have been greatly overshadowed by the influence exerted upon Indian policies by his father, James Mill, historian of British India and a member of the Examiner's Office of the Company from 1819 until his death in 1836. Like his father, John Stuart recognized the company's government of India for what it actually was—a despotism of an alien race, which, despite the good accomplished by it in the last decades of its existence, was established by conquest, treaty, and annexation. And yet, he spent almost half of his life as an official of this establishment, drafting dispatches to the India government, and, in defence of the company's rule against extinction by Parliament, wrote what Lord Grey described as the ablest state paper he had ever read.

How did John Mill, the great exponent of nineteenth century liberalism, reconcile his employment as an official of a despotic government with his espousal of the principles of civil and political freedom? How, in other words, did he reconcile this freedom with colonialism? What conceptions did he entertain concerning: (1) the place of India in the history of civilization; and (2) its eventual emergence from British rule as an industrially transformed self-governing nation? These questions, arising out of Mill's career with the East India Company, have not been discussed in any of the numerous treatises on the great man. In considering them here we hope to fill this gap in the literature. Other questions, such as Mill's administrative skills and his influence upon the company's policies, cannot be taken up in this paper. The author does not share the view that Mill's influence at India House was insignificant. He is inclined to a moderate version of Henry Fawcett's opinion that all the important principles for governing the great dependency of India were laid down by Mill in the documents he drafted for the East India Company.

The role of interest groups in influencing policy decisions in Canada has received little close analysis, yet it is obviously important. Lobbying is inevitable when government regulations touch everyone's affairs; the only defence for those adversely affected is to seek to influence the government itself. Anti-combines legislation offers a particularly good example of this process because it is the case par excellence in which the interests of business, particularly big business, and those of the public, both as citizens concerned with freedom and as economically self-interested consumers, conflict. The 1960 amendments to the Canadian anti-combines legislation were implemented by a new government whose attitude on the combines question when it assumed office was not clear. Consequently those concerned with anti-combines questions set about converting the new government to their point of view. Fortunately for the researcher, the written submissions to the government on this question were tabled in the House of Commons, and of course the proceedings in Parliament and its committees are part of the public record. Consequently in this instance the general pattern of lobbying and its effects can be pieced together.