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An attempt has been made in this volume to describe basic trends in Canadian development and to provide an introduction to a series of volumes dealing with the particular problems of staple industries. The chapters are arranged to suggest the relation of the geographic background, especially the influence of water transportation, on the production of staples, and to emphasize the problem of overhead costs, incidental to the production of wheat, which have been crucial to our present difficulties. The effects of the pressure of debts during the depression have become evident in the problems of all governments and in political realignments. Scaling down of debts has become conspicuous all along the line, but has not been sufficient to check the move toward inflation. The disparity between prices of agricultural products and of manufactured products continues to create serious maladjustments. The difficulty of economic adjustments tends to accentuate the importance attached to political adjustments.

Recent trends in governmental policy have been directly a result of the enormous pressure of fixed charges in relation to depreciated exchange in a principal market for our raw materials, and to appreciated exchange in the market to which we pay a large proportion of our debts and interest charges. We have been caught in the vital problems of world post-war adjustment. We can hope for release through the scaling down of war debts and the efforts of the United States to stimulate recovery, but it is the intention of this volume to suggest that continued efforts are vital to the solution of deep-rooted problems of our national life. Such efforts involve an attack along four lines.

1. Checks on the growth of the burden of debt:

(a) Cutting down government expenditures, although it is possible that this has gone as far as is economically feasible.

(b) Extension of control, such as planned under the railroad arbitration board which will be able to draw on the accumulated experience of the railways and the Board of Railway Commissioners, in relation to governmental finance, federal, provincial and municipal drawing on the accumulated experience of the financial authorities involved—recognizing the differences of Australia, but attempting to set up a loan council to control borrowing.

(c) Improvements in the administration and control of issues of corporate securities to meet serious weaknesses in existing legislation.

(d) Continued rigid restriction of immigration.

2. Adjustment of the burden of debt by extension of the powers of existing machinery:

(a) The Tariff Board working with the Board of Railway Commissioners to even the burden as between western Canada or the main staple producing region and the more highly industrialized areas in the east.

(b) Combines investigation act machinery with a view to ironing out discrepancies between prices of manufactured products and agricultural products in so far as combines are a possible source of rigidity.

(c) Improvement of tax machinery, particularly in relation to income taxes, with a view to taxing at the source.

(d) Extension of existing machinery to protect labour along the lines of the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act and other legislation in the Dominion and the provinces, and the creation of new machinery such as wage boards.

(e) Improvement of marketing methods through encouragement of co-operation.

(f) Improvement of machinery for the relief of unemployment.

3. Reduction of the burden:

(a) Reduction of interest rates on government debts by tax or conversion.

(b) An extension of machinery in relation to debt adjustment boards and moratoriums with a view to continued scaling down of debts and reduction of interest rates.

4. Strengthening support for the burden:

(a) Continued attempts to develop external trade^[1] along the lines of the imperial preference agreements and possible reciprocal agreements with the United States and the improvement of the position of trade commissioners.

(b) Reduction of costs particularly through support of research organizations with a view to increasing integration, conservation and the elimination of waste.

(c) Possible arrangements with Newfoundland.

(d) Improvement of banking machinery with a view to protection from governmental interference and to the avoidance of intense hostilities arising out of present arrangements.

(e) A search for possible avenues to attract capital with a view to increasing ultimate returns—such as St. Lawrence waterways and the Peace River outlet.

(f) Close co-operation between governmental organizations.

These suggestions are made on the basis of the analysis presented in this volume.

I have preferred to publish material of the sections with only slight alteration, since a consideration in making them available has been the demands of students for a volume which would include studies published in widely scattered and relatively inaccessible media. This plan obviously involved duplication, but on the other hand serves to emphasize and build up a cumulative argument. The sections have been arranged with this effect in mind.

Acknowledgment for permission to republish articles in this volume is gratefully made to the publishers of Papers and Proceedings of the Canadian Political Science Association, for “Transportation as a Factor in Canadian Economic History”; The Dalhousie Review, for “The Jubilee of the Canadian Pacific Railway”; Moderne Organisationsformen der öffentlichen Unternehmung, for “Government Ownership in Canada”; University of Toronto Monthly, for “The Canadian North”; Report of the International Geographical Congress, Cambridge, for “Industrialism and Settlement in Western Canada”; Economic Journal, for “Staples and the Depression”; The Financial Post, for “The Imperial Economic Conference.”

I am indebted to Prof. C. R. Fay and to Prof. W. T. Jackman for criticisms on various sections.

H. A. I.

[1]	See H. Laureys, Foreign Trade of Canada (Toronto, 1929), passim.