Suchergebnisse

John A., the Sachem, speaks:………."It must be grantedThat our friends are badly scattered,And the chances are against usIn Ontario at presentAs the country is divided.Therefore let us re-distributeWhat constituencies are doubtfulSo as to enhance our prospects;Hive the Grits where they alreadyAre too strong to be defeated;Strengthen up our weaker quartersWith detachments from these strongholds;Surely this is true to natureIn a mighty Tory chieftain!"Environment and heredity affect the development of the nation as much as they affect the development of the individual; and Canadian history is written, for the most part, around the conflicting forces of British inheritance and American propinquity. An excellent example of the latter is found in the low condition of Canadian political morality which was most conspicuous during the first fifty years of responsible government. While this was unmistakably national in many of its manifestations, its rise and continuance were due in no small measure to the proximity of the United States; and the temptation for the Canadian politician to emulate in a modest way the methods of a Tweed, a Croker, or a Philadelphia Gas Ring, proved in a deplorable number of instances to be irresistible. The prevalence of bribery at elections (particularly before the introduction of the ballot in 1874), the strengthening of the party position by the award of contracts and the appointment of supporters to office, the series of questionable "deals" and practices of which the Pacific Scandal was the most notorious—these were evidences of native sins which had received American inspiration and encouragement and which corrupted extensively Canadian political life.

The aim of the present treatise is to illustrate the connection between the ever-changing economic situation and the anti-social activity of a group living under a uniform juridical system. In the sphere of anti-social activity which presents so many aspects—numerically summarized in the statistics of morality— the student is confronted with several conflicting theories in causality research. The extremes are repressented by the "indeterminist theory of free will" and the "determinist doctrines of environment and heredity". Whichever theory is accepted is of decisive importance in considering the principles of the policy of criminal law to be applied and its administration at any given period.The present investigation does not confine itself in the matter of deduction to one of the above theories. It also avoids the analysis of isolated cases. It endeavours to obtain some insight into the functional and causal relationships between the two classes of phenomena by comparing data provided by mass statistics relating to economic and anti-social life.After introductory expositions on both the significance and nature of the position of the problems and the method underlying the investigation, the historical part of the study deals with the phenomena of crimes against property and the connection between them and economic conditions in Germany during the years 1882—1936. This period is divided into three sections. The years 1882—1913 cover the period of steady development. The war period (1914—18), owing to lack of statistical data, is only treated summarily. In the post-war section the law reforms begun in 1933 are not taken into account, because they did not yet cover the legislative repression of crimes against property.