To understand the peculiar implications of sterling devaluation for the Maritimes, it appears necessary to review briefly the nature of the Maritime economy. The economy of the Maritime region, including Newfoundland, has long been based upon the exploitation of the major resources of the area: the forest, the farm, the sea, and the combination of Newfoundland iron ore and Nova Scotia coal. It was aptly termed by the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations a “wood-wind-water” economy. The Maritimes are essentially a primary producing area, and the secondary industries are for the most part engaged in processing forest, farm, and sea products, and in the production of steel and steel products. There are, of course, other secondary industries producing consumer goods such as textiles, boots and shoes, brushes, and other specialized products. These plants are usually small, and confined to the local market. Many have survived competition from Ontario and Quebec with difficulty.

Traditionally most of the Maritimes' key products—lumber, pulp and paper, fish, apples, and potatoes—have been exported. With the exception of pulp and paper produced on the mainland, these exports have gone for the most part to sterling markets; in Newfoundland, even pulp and paper products have gone to Britain. The United Kingdom has been the traditional market for lumber and apples; fish has gone to the United Kingdom, the British West Indies, and Australia. Most of the exported potatoes have gone to the Latin American countries, principally Cuba and the Argentine, as seed stock.

Last December the chairman of the Programme Committee for the 1950 Conference of the Canadian Political Science Association asked me if I would prepare a paper on aspects of the relations between governments and the universities. I agreed to do so, on the understanding that a good deal of the work would have to be done by others of my colleagues in consultation with myself. For that reason the present paper falls into two parts: the introductory section and the second and principal section prepared by Mr. D. C. Rowat.

The subject which I have chosen is not one that it is possible to discuss adequately, much less exhaust, in a short paper. I believe, however, that it is fast becoming one of the major fundamental problems of democracies. With a world-wide challenge confronting democratic institutions, no one can feel complacent about our political future in the broad sense, and no amount of wishful or traditional thinking will replace serious reconsideration of some aspects of government as we understand it.

It might be appropriate to start with a few definitions. It is relatively easy to find a comprehensive definition of the term “public administration.” A former president of the United States, some fifty years ago, defined it as “a detailed and systematic execution of public law.” Leonard D. White, in his book Introduction to the Study of Public Administration, writes: “In its broadest sense, public administration consists of all those operations having for their purpose the fulfillment or enforcement of public policy, as declared by the competent authorities.”

It is not so easy, however, to obtain agreement as to what exactly represents public interest as applied to public administration. In a democracy, the public must reach wide agreement on the duties to be performed by government; or in other words, the objectives of public policy must correspond fairly well with public views concerning the proper functions which should belong to governmental activity. Otherwise the efficient administration of these functions becomes almost a practical impossibility. But the word public is difficult to encompass in a restrictive definition. It is composed of individuals, groups, institutions with different ideals, philosophies, and interests. Consequently, public interest must necessarily represent a working compromise and be subject to continuous redefinition, as need arises, in the process of achieving an often delicate balance among conflicting interests.

This paper has been written with only limited objectives in mind; the subject has too many ramifications throughout the fields of population and economic theory to make possible even rudimentary analysis of all its aspects. The first section will give consideration to the usefulness of optimum theory and general economic theory in the formulation of immigration policies; the second section will give a brief outline of a few of the hypotheses suggested by theory and of some of the quantitative inquiries which would be useful in testing hypotheses. Two great fields of inquiry must for the most part be left out; the systematic discussion of the relations between immigration and emigration and of the relations between population increase and wage theory cannot be undertaken here. Either one of them, attacked singly, would be probably too extensive for a paper of this length. Certain aspects of both will however enter briefly into other phases to be discussed below.

The welfare state—as a term of abuse or approval, depending on the point of view—is a phrase which has only recently come into common use, although contrasts between the so-called “negative” and “positive” state have been frequently drawn during the past two decades. The idea that the primary function of government is to make a good life possible, is, however, as old as Aristotle, and political theorists in democratic countries have long been agreed that the state exists for the well-being of its citizens, and not vice versa, although their views of what constitutes the welfare of the people have been markedly divergent. The expansion of government activities, which is conveniently summarized under the term “social welfare state,” in this country as in others is usually considered a twentieth-century phenomenon. Its origins in Canada, however, may be traced to the first thirty years after Confederation, when the proper function of government was a matter of general concern and wide debate. During this early period public opinion as to what the state ought to do for the social well-being of its citizens developed rapidly, and underwent a marked transformation.

Present-day critics of the British North America Act are given to pointing out that, as a nineteenth-century document drawn up when laissez-faire theories were at their height, it has become increasingly ill-adapted to further social welfare by state action. Yet contemporary historians have shown that in both Great Britain and the United States, during the past century, the classical doctrine of laissez-faire, interpreted as government abstention from interference with individual or group action, was more honoured in theory than in practice. This contention is supported by illustrations of early factory, mines, public health, and education acts in England, and of such American intervention in economic affairs as tariffs and grants to individual industries. There is much evidence that similar developments took place in Canada, which lends support to similar conclusions concerning the mythical nature of laissez-faire.