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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
Early in the 1938 session of Parliament the Canadian Senate appointed a Special Committee to “enquire into and report upon the best means of relieving the country from its extremely serious railway condition and financial burden consequent thereto.” After hearing extensive evidence from the officials of both railways and of the labour unions, the Committee stated that through lack of time it was unable to analyse this material in a satisfactory manner and therefore recommended that it be reappointed early in the 1939 session. It is the purpose of this article briefly to review the evidence presented and in particular to suggest lines along which further investigation by the Committee might profitably be undertaken.
The Duff Commission believed that the policy of co-operation which it espoused would lead to annual savings of at least $35,000,000, though it developed that it had never secured, or been given, detailed information on which to base this estimate (1374). The actual joint net economies after five years' trial were only $1,772,000 per annum (121).
This article is a by-product of a study of the Canadian railway problem with special reference to freight rates on grain made by the writer at the School of Business Administration, Harvard University, while holding a fellowship awarded by the Royal Society of Canada.
2 Page references in parenthesis refer to the Proceedings of the Special Committee (Ottawa, King's Printer, 1938).Google Scholar
3 In addition to verbal evidence, full details on pooling are given in Exhibits A to L accompanying Exhibit 40 (227-300).
4 That a continuance of the type of competition castigated by the Commission is not a remote possibility is illustrated by the discussion of the Rouyn-Senneterre line (220-4, 310-12, 326-7, 587-91).