TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 737 



preliminary for economic action than neglect. Knowledge must be souglit by the 

 study both of economic method and of economic facts. 



The particular question which has occupied our attention illustrates very 

 rividly the great advance made in economic knowledge of recent years. Taken by 

 itself as a type of the general progress which has taken place, a review of its 

 course should serve to reassure those who are tempted in moments of depression 

 to believe that the want of adequate recognition of the study is in some way or 

 other a symptom of its backwardness or failing vitality. The reverse is true. It 

 is the living character of Economics which leads to the demand that its importance 

 should be duly recognised. The advance has been remarkable. The spirit which 

 animates inquiry is as vigorous in the field of Economics as anywhere else. But 

 this much must be remembered. In Economics, as elsewhere, the attainment 

 to anything approaching a perfected theory is very far distant, for a complete 

 iheory implies not only full knowledge of facts, but their correct treatment. 

 How distant such a goal is the hardest worker in the field knows best of all, for 

 the circumstances of his inquiries teach him how slow progress is, and how great 

 the continent into which his enthusiasm as a pioneer has enabled him to penetrate 

 some little distance. A few generalisations which may endure, a somewhat 

 mixed mass of material, a brief influence, constitute the work of the foremost. 

 And yet in the history of any science there come times when things move more 

 rapidly than is their wont, as when waters chafing in a narrow passage suddenly 

 burst down all obstacles, and establish themselves once and for ever in a wider 

 channel. It is possible, it .seems even probable, that some such moment of advance 

 is before Economics. Materials have been accumulated with .singular diligence, 

 critical sagacity has discriminated and classified, and some great constructive 

 Advance seems not far distant. The atmosphere of economic thought is instinct 

 with expectation. With a new realisation of the economic elements and motives 

 of society, in the light of some conception perhaps little taken into account as yet, 

 we shall stand nearer to the problem one part of which we strive to unravel — 

 the forces which govern action and constitute society. > 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. The History of Trade Combination in Canada. By W. H. Moore. 



There hava been trade monopolies in Canada since the first settlement of the 

 country. The present movement toward trade combination began in the years of 

 depression caused by the low prices of agricultural products and the excessive 

 amount of capital invested in manufacturing industries. The latter, in part, the 

 result of the introduction of a system of high protection. The result of the com- 

 petition has been destructive, and with the development ofmachinery the economies 

 which give to a large business an advantage over a small business have had the 

 efifect of increasing the size of the factories, mills, and shops, and decreasing the 

 number of producers. The natural end of this destructive competition is monopoly 

 in the hands of one producer. This result has been hastened in some instances by 

 voluntary amalgamations of the businesses of different producers, and in others 

 deferred by a combination of independent producers for the regulation of matters 

 in which they have a common interest. This latter form of union is most common 

 in Canada. The agreements usually contain provisions for the arrangement of 

 •uniform price-lists, the diminution of the output, or the division of the market. 

 Combinations of this kind exist, or have existed, in the production or sale of the 

 following goods : — alkali, agricultural tools, biscuits, baking powders, blacklead, 

 blacking, blues, buckwheat flour, building paper, bolts and nuts, barbed wire, 

 binder twine, cigars, cheese (certain brands), cottolene, cocoas, chocolates, con- 

 densed coffee, canned salmon, cut nails, coal, canned vegetables and fruits, cotton 

 threads, cordage, dyes, drugs, flour, gelatine, grain, hides, horseshoes, horseshoe 

 nails, ice, lead pipe, linseed oil, matches, oatmeal, petroleum, pickles, prepared 



1897. 3 B 



