The appearance of a wide range of cultural phenomena at different periods in the history of western civilization has been described by Professor A. L. Kroeber in Configurations of Cultural Growth (Berkeley, 1946). He makes suggestive comments at various points to explain the relative strength or weakness of cultural elements but refrains from extended discussion. I do not propose to do more than add a footnote to these comments and in this to discuss the possible significance of communication to the rise and decline of cultural traits. A medium of communication has an important influence on the dissemination of knowledge over space and over time and it becomes necessary to study its characteristics in order to appraise its influence in its cultural setting. According to its characteristics it may be better suited to the dissemination of knowledge over time than over space, particularly if the medium is heavy and durable and not suited to transportation; or to the dissemination of knowledge over space than over time, particularly if the medium is light and easily transported. The relative emphasis on time or space will imply a bias of significance to the culture in which it is imbedded.

Immediately we venture on this inquiry we are compelled to recognize the bias of the period in which we work. An interest in the bias of other civilizations may in itself suggest a bias of our own. Our knowledge of other civilizations depends in large part on the character of the media used by each civilization in so far as it is capable of being preserved or of being made accessible by discovery as in the case of the results of archaeological expeditions. Writing on clay and on stone has been preserved more effectively than that on papyrus. Since durable commodities emphasize time and continuity, studies of civilization such as Toynbee's tend to have a bias toward religion and to show a neglect of problems of space, notably administration and law. The bias of modern civilization incidental to the newspaper and the radio will presume a perspective in consideration of civilizations dominated by other media. We can do little more than urge that we must be continually alert to the implications of this bias and perhaps hope that consideration of the implications of other media to various civilizations may enable us to see more clearly the bias of our own. In any case we will become a little more humble as to the characteristics of our civilization.

The Canadian House of Commons, superficially at least, is so obviously a representative assembly that an examination of the basis of representation therein may perhaps seem a waste of time. Yet one cannot proceed far in a study of the House of Commons without becoming aware that some aspects of representation rest on bases whose existence receives little explicit recognition, and that the theories of representation which are explicitly accepted in Parliament are often contradicted by the facts.

A major obstacle to the understanding on parliamentary representation is the broad disagreement among authorities as to what representative government is, and what it ought to be. This problem will not be settled here, but it must be recorded that the best-known works on representative government, which range from the reasoned pronouncements of John Stuart Mill to the impatient murmurs of proportional representation societies, are uniformly reticent in defining the institution which they are discussing. Concise descriptions of particular kinds of representative government are common, but genuine definitions are not. A British Royal Commission on Electoral Systems worked for several months in 1909 and neither the commissioners nor the witnesses who appeared before them attempted to assess accurately what the fundamental purpose of an electoral system was. Again, John Stuart Mill believed that a single legislature could represent a nation, and being happily ignorant of twentieth-century psychology, he was able to argue further that representative institutions could be improved by taking thought. G. D. H. Cole, on the other hand, has stated that the representation of a whole population by one body is impossible; Parliament, he says, represents everybody for everything, and therefore nobody for anything—and his way out of this impasse is to urge the creation of an apparently indefinite number of representative assemblies, each of which would discharge one specific function.

Twice during the past five years the peculiar problems of the agricultural industry in the political economy have been analysed with acute perception in papers presented to this Association. There is a surprising unanimity of opinion among economists as to the nature of these problems; there is also, I believe, a rather wide area of agreement as to the general principles upon which policy designed to cope with these problems should be based. There is something of a gap between the way in which organized agriculture would attempt a solution to what, for the moment, I shall call “the farm problem” and that recommended by the economist. It is my purpose in this paper to attempt to explore the nature of this gap. Since more often than not this discrepancy in policy recommendations revolves around the function of the price system I have chosen the label “the farmer and the market.”

In view of Newfoundland's long tradition of separation from Canada, and its rich heritage of anti-confederation feeling, how does it happen that union has come about on March 31 of this year? The answer is best seen as it emerges from the background of recent events in Newfoundland.

Faced with imminent default in the early nineteen-thirties, the Newfoundland government resorted to all the traditional tactics, such as reductions in the salaries of civil servants and teachers, and increases in the rates of the customs tariff; and under the spur of necessity resorted to more ingenious measures. The stream of willing foreign lenders had dried up by 1932, and the government fell back upon temporary loans from Canadian banks, upon a deal with the Imperial Oil Company, and upon joint advances from the governments of the United Kingdom and Canada. When to these was added a controller of the treasury, Newfoundland had in fact lost full control of its finances, and hence of its political destiny, even before self-government was formally abrogated.

It was in the midst of this desperate situation in 1933 that the Royal Commission presided over by Lord Amulree was appointed, at Newfoundland's request, “to examine into the island's future and finances.” The Commission duly found bankruptcy imminent, and the debt burden beyond the capacity of the island to carry. Newfoundland's public debt had grown but slowly in the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth. Including $13 million added for war purposes, by the beginning of the nineteen-twenties, the debt stood at only $43 million. More spectacular increases occurred after 1920, the total debt being more than doubled in the space of twelve years. Throughout this period the average annual deficit was some $2 million, including losses on operation of the railway system which, early in the decade, passed from private hands to government ownership. The current deficits, together with capital expenditures upon public works, were covered by borrowing from abroad at interest rates from 5 to 6½ per cent, to the extent that in each year some $4.8 million was added to the public debt, which by 1933 reached nearly $100 million. This was the period when, according to the Amulree Commission, the country “was sunk in waste and extravagance,” and displayed “a reckless disregard for the dictates of financial prudence.”

The basic characteristics of Quebec parties and politics have always been somewhat of an unknown quantity in the rest of Canada. The average English-speaking Canadian finds it difficult to appreciate the significance of the issues on which electoral battles are won and lost, the underlying ideology of Quebec parties, and the relationships existing between these parties and those of the rest of Canada. This difficulty is particularly apparent when he focuses his attention on the political developments of the last fifteen years which have resulted in the emergence of the Union Nationale party of Mr. Maurice Duplessis as the dominant party in the province.

It is proposed in this paper to throw some light on this little-known area in the field of Canadian politics by presenting an analysis of the nature of the new party, the factors which have resulted in its rise to power, its relationships with federal parties, and finally the future role it may be expected to play in Quebec politics.

In order to understand the nature of the Union Nationale, and the reason for the dominant position it holds in the political life of the province today, we must analyse its growth against the background of the Nationalist movement which swept the province in the early thirties, and which still is the most important factor in the thinking of the French Canadian. This Nationalist movement had two phases, the first from around 1930 up to 1939, and the second from 1939 to 1948. Examination of the first phase will show the reasons for the birth of the Union Nationale and the nature of the policies for which it stood. Consideration of the second phase will reveal the further stages in the evolution of the party after its defeat in the provincial election of 1939, and the factors entering into its slow but steady progress towards the smashing victory of 1948.