By “The Social Sciences and Public Administration,” the title assigned me by Professor Clokie, I am assuming he meant “Special Teaching in the Social Science Departments of Canadian Universities for Students Contemplating the Civil Service as a Career,” which is both more definitive and (being of eight words or over) even long enough for copyright. It is to “lead off” a symposium on “Training for Public Administration,” a vasty frame of reference indeed, taking in (some might go so far as to think) a course in the great school of Practical Politics itself.

Insinuating this role upon me, Professor Clokie pointed out that I had been a long time in the Public Service, and was now a teacher in a university. It is the logic of the redoubtable Pott, Mr. Pickwick's editor-friend, on Chinese metaphysics—an impregnable logic, says Mr. Bernard Shaw. In my case, however, whilst I was undoubtedly in the Service a long time indeed, at Toronto I am only what is called a “Visiting Professor,” i.e., one who lectures merely on what he knows, and can be let out at any time. Moreover, that new flower, the Course in Public Administration, which (again in the search for the particular) seems to represent a fortiori the “special teaching” aforesaid, was unknown in my generation as a student, and late-blooming in my generation as a civil servant. But one must not let one's style be cramped, and today therefore I take it as a sort of text, if only in the grand manner to which educationally speaking so old-fashioned a civil servant is accustomed.

The signing by forty-four nations at Bretton Woods, N.H., on July 22, 1944, of articles of agreement for the establishment of an International Monetary Fund marks the third stage in the process of setting up an organization which is intended to control international exchange operations after the war. The first stage was initiated by the publication by the British Treasury of Baron Keynes's scheme for an International Clearing Union concurrently with the publication by the United States Treasury of the draft outline of a plan for a United and Associated Nations Stabilization Fund prepared by Dr. Harry White. These were made available to the public on April 8, 1943. Subsequently in June of 1943 experts of the Canadian Government issued a third plan for an International Exchange Union. A revised edition of the American plan appeared July 10, 1943. As collateral to these proposals in October, 1943, the United States Treasury released a text entitled, “Guiding Principles for a Proposed United Nations Bank for Reconstruction and Development.”

All these schemes were at once subject to a critical examination by monetary experts in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Meanwhile negotiations were being carried on in Washington with a view to ironing out the differences revealed between the British and American point of view. Experts from other countries in time entered into these discussions. In the end by mutual concessions substantial agreement was reached upon the main points under consideration. With the putting forward in Washington on April 21, 1944, by the monetary experts and treasury technicians of thirty-four governments of a plan covering their tentative conclusions, the second stage was reached and the way cleared for a definite step forward to be attempted.

It is appropriate that we should be studying today the growth in the functions and powers of the state. Whether we look at our federal, our provincial, or our municipal governments, whether we look abroad at our sister democracies or toward the less democratic régimes, the same phenomenon is evident; everywhere there is occurring an enlargement of the role in society which is being played by the political organisms created by man for his security and welfare. Political man is at last resurrecting himself, and political science seems likely to challenge the erstwhile supremacy of her dismal sister, economics. As this paper is being written, a second attempt is being made to build an international organization endowed with important functions in the world society, an attempt which, if successful, will add a supra-national authority to the existing state organs on the national plane. Whatever the end result may be, it is apparent that the trend away from an individualistic and unplanned society toward one that is more integrated and organic is not only continuing but is greatly accelerating.

Such a development both within and between the nation states puts a strain upon national constitutions. New functions for the state mean new organs for the fulfilment of those functions, or new uses for old organs. New organs must be added to an existing structure, causing shifts of power and frequent disequilibriums. Legislative processes designed for a smaller sphere of state duties and a more leisurely pace of social change are found inadequate for the increased responsibilities of governments, and a rapid, sometimes alarming, expansion of administrative processes results. No type of state escapes these pains of adjustment, be it unitary or federal. But in the federal state a special aspect of the problem arises, with respect to the distribution of the new functions between the central and local governments. Many fear that a growing centralization may tend to destroy the regional autonomy which is a fundamental part of the federal idea.

This being the first meeting of the Club devoted to methodology, we are following a rather consistent tradition among economists of being mainly interested in economic problems, not in the problem of what economics is. Fifty years ago John Neville Keynes wrote the Scope and Method of Political Economy and since that time only one full book in English, that I know of, has been published on this topic—Lionel Robbins's The Nature and Significance of Economic Science.

If I seem to adopt a tone of finality upon matters concerning which we all speak with equal authority, excuse it as the necessary brevity to avoid a tedious repetition of “it seems to me” and “in my opinion.” The ideas presented are all simple, one-cylinder ideas, meant as an introduction to discussion and presented, not by an authority but by someone who, like you, is an economist and needs occasionally to pinch himself and say, “What manner of man am I?”

The first thing that should be stressed about economic method is that it should be economic method, not methods. It would be bad to think of method as deductive or inductive, for the interrelation is too close. For an economist, the division is fatal. Put them in different stalls and there is no offspring.

Deductive is the often criticized a priori reasoning. If demand is constant and elastic, what happens to total revenue when price is cut? Answer: total revenue increases.

The great expansion of governmental activities into social and economic affairs during the last few decades has led to an enormous increase in the amount of “delegated legislation” or “administrative law.” The necessity for such delegation and the dangers to individual liberty which it involves have been fully explained elsewhere. It is the purpose of this article to discuss these problems in so far as the Board of Transport Commissioners is concerned. Known for thirty-four years after its inception in 1904 as the Board of Railway Commissioners, this body is not only the oldest but by far the most important administrative board in Canada. A study of its powers and performance should reveal the strengths and dangers of this type of administrative authority.

The chief function of the Board is to control steam railways under the jurisdiction of the Dominion government including those which, according to the terms of the B.N.A. Act, have been declared to be “works for the public advantage of Canada.” All other railways come under the Board where their connections with, or their crossing of, a Dominion railway is concerned and with respect of navigable waters. The Board also controls the rates charged by certain telegraph, telephone, and marine cable companies and the tolls of express companies and international bridges. It has authority to license ships operating between certain ports of Canada including control of their rates, and from 1938 to 1944 it supervised transport by air. Where water-power has been acquired under lease from the Crown, the Board may fix the quantity to be developed and the price to be paid in case of dispute. Authority for every order of the Board must be found in the Railway Act as amended. The Board is limited by certain Special Acts notably the Crow's Nest Pass Agreement, as amended, and the Maritime Freight Rates Act.

Charles Merz, editor of the New York Times, once observed that there is nothing like a good murder for giving the nation something on which to test its moral values. He had in mind, of course, the newspaper accounts of murder, seeing that most citizens, even in a thrillingly wicked place like Chicago, must be content with getting their murders at secondhand. On occasions of murder and other exciting events, the newspaper functions as a social conversation.

In these times, when virtually everyone reads newspapers, there are in every large city several sorts of journal to satisfy the demands of several types of reader. At one extreme is the newspaper for the least literate level of society. It reflects the very ordinary man's tastes. It can always be identified by the conspicuousness of its sporting news and the quantity of news pictures, comic strips, stories of radio and film stars, and the whole gamut of current fads and fancies. For the ordinary man, be he a street-car conductor, janitor, sales clerk, or factory worker, may in his tastes in newspaper reading be called the complete layman. If his paper seems to consider crime and the movies more important than anything else, it is because it is seeking the widest possible market for itself, by catering to the greatest common denominators of interest. Men whose daily occupation calls for little thought or learning, whether in this country, in England, France, or Germany, are prone to look upon the newspaper as a diversion.

Social, economic, and technological developments forced the six Australian states in 1900 to constitute themselves into a federal Commonwealth. Many decades of agitation and deliberation were needed until the states finally agreed to submit themselves to a central government. Reluctantly they renounced some of their sovereign rights and granted to the Commonwealth a restricted number of defined and specified powers. Powers not specifically named in the constitution as belonging to the Commonwealth remained with the states. Within the scope of their power, the Commonwealth and the states are independent.

One of the guiding principles of the makers of the constitution was, of course, to transfer those powers to the central government which were believed to be needed for the adequate handling of nation-wide affairs. The regulation of matters of more regional concern remained in the hands of the states. However, the developments which brought about the necessity for federation did not cease with the establishment of the constitution. The borderline between matters of national and matters of regional concern shifted further, increasing the field of national affairs. The constitutional distribution of powers between the Commonwealth and the states was soon outmoded by events. Almost immediately after the inauguration of the constitution, criticism arose from many sides because the powers granted to the Commonwealth were considered insufficient for the proper discharge of the central government's obligations toward the nation.

With the growing demands made upon the state in Australia, as everywhere else, the volume of this criticism increased. The dissatisfaction found expression in eighteen proposals for constitutional change between 1900 and 1944, almost all of them dealing with the extension of Commonwealth power.

The quality of the administration in a municipal government is probably more dependent on the quality of the officers and employees than is the case in either of the senior levels of government, for there is not that constant daily supervision of the work of the permanent personnel which obtains where the various departments operate under the full time direction of a member of the elected body. It is probable also, although one of those things which cannot be proven with exactitude, that the permanent personnel in the higher ranks in municipal service has more influence upon the policies of the elected body than is the case in either the provinces or the Dominion.

The purpose of my remarks is to raise for your consideration some thoughts with respect to the possibilities of public administration training at the municipal level and to outline briefly what is being done in the matter. It is not necessary here for me to argue the desirability of the aims of such training.

In considering what might be done it is necessary to keep in mind the circumstances of employment peculiar to the municipal field, some of which are advantageous to our purpose and some are not. It is difficult to generalize with respect to municipal problems because the range is so great. In the Province of Ontario for example, we have over 900 organized municipalities varying from a township with an assessed population of 78 and a total tax levy of $1,692 per annum to a city of 674,000 people with an annual tax levy of over $29 million. Consequently, we have a wide variation in the problems of administration. The public employees in municipal government fall into two general groups. There are those who are employed on a part time basis, usually at a very low salary, and whose public employment is not their main source of livelihood. These occur in the smaller or rural municipalities and probably form the larger portion of the total number. There are also those who are employed on a full time basis, who are paid a reasonable (?) salary and among whom are many extremely competent administrators.

The large part of Canadian experience with controls affecting primary products has been acquired under the peculiar conditions of war. With expanding income in the hands of consumers, prices generally rose rapidly during 1941, and the general price ceiling was established in December of that year. Since then the incomes of consumers have continued to expand, and the general ceiling has been supported by taxation, borrowing, and informal and formal rationing. However, given the ceiling and the level of spendable incomes on the one hand, and the supplies of labour and equipment available to producers on the other, producers' prices were frequently too low to induce sufficient production to prevent the necessity of more extended formal rationing; to provide for desired expansion in domestic consumption, and to meet the urgent need for food for export. Producers' prices have therefore been supported; the object of the supports being primarily to direct production in line with the national policy, and only incidentally to raise producers' incomes. In a few cases, notably, wheat and apples, supported prices have been applied to maintain incomes against a decline in demand. The price of wheat has been supported by stock accumulation, quotas, and acreage reduction. Apples have been purchased and diverted to alternative markets.

In 1942, wheat, dairy products, hogs, cattle, and poultry products together provided more than 70 per cent of the gross, cash income from the sale of farm products in Canada. Wheat has been purchased by the Canadian Wheat Board at a fixed statutory price. Minimum prices have been established for beef and butter, which are sold mainly on the domestic market; export contracts assisting in clearing the Canadian market of surpluses. Prices of hogs, cheese, and eggs have been supported by contract prices agreed upon by the British Ministry of Food, and financed largely under the provisions of Mutual Aid.

The importance of fire to mankind has been understood from the earliest times and is indicated by the inclusion of fire in the four elements recognized by the Greeks and by mediæval scientists. Its significance was augmented during the Industrial Revolution and its aftermath, the Communication Revolution, when heat began to be used to generate power for driving machinery and for transporting people and materials over ever-increasing distances at higher and still higher speeds. It is not too much to say that modern civilization is largely based on heat, as energy derived from other sources forms a very small fraction of the world's consumption. In 1936, it was estimated that, of the world's supply of energy, coal contributed 63 per cent, oil 18 per cent, wood 12 per cent, natural gas 5 per cent, and water power 2 per cent. Many attempts have been made to obtain power from the sun, to tap the heat of the earth, to use wind and tidal power but, though some of these projects have worked satisfactorily, the total amount of power produced by them is negligible. About 40 per cent of the energy derived from fuel is used as power, the remaining 60 per cent being employed for heating purposes.

The question of training for administrative posts in the Public Service gives rise to certain questions regarding administration in general, and public administration in particular. What do we mean by administration? Does public administration differ from private administration? What qualities are necessary to make a good public administrator? Can training aid in the development of these qualities? If so, what form should it take? And how can it best be given?

“Administration” has been defined as “the performance of the executive duties of an institute or business”; and “public administration” as “the activities of the executive departments in the conduct of government.” “Executive duties” as related to public administration have again been defined as “pertaining to the execution of the country's laws,” and for the purpose of this discussion, we can perhaps agree that the public administration which we have in mind consists of the carrying out of the law in the various departments of government.

Are there fundamental differences between this form of administration and that which prevails in private business? There are at least certain distinctive elements in each. In industry the profit motive is a much more important factor than it is in government. Similarly the question of remuneration bulks more largely in private industry than it does in public administration. While the old conception of a post in the Public Service as “a job for life and a pension afterward” may have passed away, the financial rewards at present attached to administrative positions in the Public Service are not such as to render the public administrator subject to what Seneca speaks of as the most fertile source of human sorrow, namely, great possessions. A public servant, on the other hand, must be much more responsive to public opinion than his counterpart in industry. He must not only carry out a policy but must sense whether or not that policy meets with public approval. He is subject at all times to public criticism and to investigations as to his acts, and this factor has a determining effect upon his methods of administration to a greater degree than exists in industry.

Let us start by comparing the Mackenzie Corridor with that great Canadian highway the St. Lawrence. In the sixteenth century the latter offered the obvious means of entry into the new land of Canada. The pioneers could not have realized the cluster of large towns and cities which was to arise along the great waterway; but most of them were sure that the St. Lawrence would always be the main surface route whereby the resources of eastern and east-central Canada would be reached and exploited. Hence all detailed accounts of the geography of this area in the early days are of special interest, since in general the route is still as important as ever.

It seems to the writer that we of the twentieth century can consider the Mackenzie Corridor in somewhat the same light as the pioneers did the St. Lawrence. There is not much in the way of settlement in the north-west region at present; perhaps the total, including Indians and Eskimo, is less than seven thousand settlers. But of one thing we may be sure, and that is that in the next century the population will increase largely, and that the chief centres of settlement and supply will be much where the pioneer folk built their dwellings.

One of the chief purposes of this study is to put on record in a somewhat uniform manner the main characteristics of all the famous posts along the Mackenzie River, and, in a later paper, along the Yukon River, and this for two reasons. Canadians of today will welcome a detailed account of the way of life of the pioneers in geographical language; while the writer hopes that this somewhat hasty survey will be a sort of jumping-off place for similar surveys made, say, every fifty years in the future.

The effects of the war on the prairie economy can best be considered against a background of three elements—one of them general and two more specific. The first, and most general, of these elements is the historical position of Canadian agricultural groups and agricultural communities in war-time situations. The second is the specific position of the prairie economy in relation to the First World War. The third is the familiar record of prairie agriculture throughout the depression of the nineteen-thirties. These background elements will be sketched in briefly.

Canadian agriculture conforms historically to the typical pattern of agriculture developed within a mercantilistic framework. Though traditionally solacing itself, and being solaced, with the belief that it is Canada's basic industry, Canadian agriculture has most readily attracted attention and secured encouragement and support in situations where mercantile or industrial groups have considered that agriculture should be encouraged and supported. The French fostered the original agricultural settlement on the St. Lawrence in order to secure their fur-trade route against the Iroquois. The English considered agricultural settlement to be an indispensable adjunct to their military strongpoint, Halifax. United Empire Loyalists were welcomed to the upper St. Lawrence after 1780 so that they might settle around the frontier posts at Cataraqui, Niagara, and Detroit and thus strengthen the respective garrisons. Plans for the settlement of the prairie regions, put forward before and after Confederation, envisaged the establishment of a strong and vigorous agricultural community north of the forty-ninth parallel of latitude, a community which would forestall the threat of economic and even military occupation of Rupert's Land by the Americans. These historical examples illustrate the extent to which Canadian agricultural communities have derived significance from situations involving war or the threat of war.

I have little to add to this discussion for the simple reason that my colleague, Dr. Coats, has said much of what I wanted to say, said it more interestingly, with a Dorothy Dix touch which I, in my academic restraint, cannot give, and also said it with more authority because of his long and distinguished public service. I can do little more than underscore a few broad propositions.

My first proposition is an emphasis upon the basic fact that public administration is the administration of the state, and not simply the administration of individual departments of government. It has to deal with the management of the state in its aggregated activities, and hence broadly with the whole subtle art of government. The tone of that management never depends simply upon what industrious and zealous civil servants in their offices may do, or how they may do it, but, among other things, upon the effective organization of parliamentary committees, the conscience and intelligence of their members, the modes of planning parliamentary work, and even the quality of discussion within the conclaves of parties, or the antics and verbal orgies of the demagogue in public debate. The genuine and profitable study of public administration in a democratic state cannot be narrower than the broad frame of government, if we are to appreciate duly the ultimate end sought—the competent management of the state. One phase of national government, designated by text-book writers as the administrative, cannot logically or wisely be isolated from other phases which in turn determine its character. To the institutions of general government must be applied those principles and axioms concerning organization which Henri Fayol, Major Urwick, Mary Follett, and many others, with varying wisdom and clarity, have done much to elaborate.

In this section, consisting of five parts, we examine: (i) Malthus's views on “luxury”; (ii) his appraisal of the frequently expressed “export of work” argument; (iii) in what sense his doctrine was counter-revolutionary; (iv) his stand on measures to encourage marriage and natality; and (v) his position on optimum population.

The following analysis is primarily concerned with definite mathematical expressions of the relationship between export and national income values in Canada as it developed during the inter-war period, with an attempt to measure the export multiplier and the influence of the barter terms of trade upon the national income, and to make tentative projections into the future.

The mathematical expressions for this relationship are alternatively based (1) on the time series for exports and national income and (2) on the deviations from the linear trends of exports and national income over the period 1923-38. The year 1939 is omitted as the war distorted the relationship even then. The years prior to 1923 are eliminated as their inclusion would lead to inverse correlations in individual cases owing to disturbances in currency relations, abnormal lags and leads in the equilibration of the respective balances of payment, and sudden shifts in the proportional evolution of domestic and foreign markets in the countries concerned.

In this paper it is proposed to discuss the post-war economic problems of New Zealand, not so much because of their intrinsic importance, as because they raise questions of some general interest and fairly widespread application. It is not intended to pursue an elaborate statistical enquiry and as far as possible the facts selected will be confined to those having a direct bearing on problems and policies.

As elsewhere, the nature of these problems will be determined by the “fundamental” characteristics of the economy, the changes which have occurred during the war, and the nature and intensity of the forces which impinge on it from the world at large. The nature of the response to those forces will be greatly influenced, of course, by the prevailing political attitudes and the sort of administrative machinery and techniques to which the country has been accustomed.

Production and Trade. Since New Zealand is a small country with a population of less than 1,700,000 people, and with a comparatively simple economic organization, its problems tend to be sharp in outline, and readily amenable to analysis. Production is highly specialized. On the average of the ten years prior to the war somewhat over 60 per cent of the value of physical production was provided by farm products (when processed). About 53 per cent of the value of all production consisted of grass land products, in respect of which New Zealand has enjoyed unique comparative advantages.

Hobbes is as renowned a name in political science as is Adam Smith in economics. Accordingly, prevailing notions of what Hobbes meant to say have varied from time to time. While his materialist utilitarianism has been a strong current since he propounded it, Hobbes's modern reputation dates from the re-emphasis on sovereignty and utilitarian morals by the Benthamists. The reaction against Benthamism led to strong criticism of Hobbes by English idealists such as T. H. Green. Their criticism of his materialist metaphysics and of his behaviourist ethics set the tone of the standard treatment of Hobbes, and seemed to have rendered his political views harmless. As long as Hobbes was regarded as primarily a materialist and his political doctrines were seen as consistent deductions from his materialist position, it was relatively easy to dispose of his unpleasant theory of the state, for materialism has had little standing in English political thinking since the eighteenth century when the historical materialism of Millar, Ferguson, and Robertson enjoyed some prestige.

Hobbes's stature, however, was too great for his political ideas to be tidied away in this fashion. Later generations of scholars set out to detach Hobbes's political theory from his materialism. Croom Robertson in 1886, John Laird in 1934, and Leo Strauss in 1936 have taken the position that Hobbes's political philosophy was not derived from his materialism or decisively influenced by his concept of science. While it is possible to show that Hobbes might have reached his political conclusions from certain moral attitudes and preconceptions unrelated to materialism or science, this position raises other difficulties. In view of the emphasis which Hobbes placed on his materialism and in view of his insistence on the scientific nature of his method it seems unsatisfactory to dismiss these attributes of his thought as merely his share in the current intellectual fashion, especially when the result is to say, as does John Laird, that his thought is mediaeval, or, as with some current text-book writers, to leave his theory rootless and unexplained except as the reaction of a timid man to the disturbed political conditions of his time.