Suchergebnisse

The rupture of modernity in the nineteenth century, the 'disembedding and recombination' of social space and the new production of local place and global order that it occasioned, are perhaps nowhere more visible than in its most classic location, as expressed by Baudelaire and Benjamin, the city. The 'city', that is, both political and physical, the cité of the Enlightenment philosophes that had also belonged to a deep Mediterranean genealogy of political thought, back through the 'umrān of Ibn Khaldun to the polis of Aristotle: the functional and ideological centre of governance, civility, law and learning, the local hub of far-flung patterns of production and exchange, the space in which public affairs could be transacted by those who recognised each other as equals.

In December 1960, Le Progrès, a regional newspaper published in southeastern France, carried a story about the ceremonial inauguration of a "new village" in the region of Oran in northwestern Algeria. Previously referred to as "El Ouennane number 3", the settlement was now named the "village de l'Ain", after the rural département of metropolitan France, located between Lyon and the Swiss border, that had substantially financed its construction by public subscription. According to the report, twenty-two million old francs – or 220,000 new francs, since the currency reform of January 1960—had been raised by contributors to pay for new two-and three-room houses in which five hundred Algerians were to be resettled. In officially opening the village, Jean SaintCyr, the President of the Conseil-général of the donor département and head of the twinning committee responsible for the newly-affirmed links between the foothills of the Jura and the western Algerian plains country, addressed Jean Morin, the Republic's Délégué général (the new title for the head of the colonial government in Algeria) on behalf of his metropolitan constituents: "We follow every day with intense interest the unfolding of the events that have marked the course of the Algerian drama. We know that history provides few examples of missions as difficult as that entrusted to General De Gaulle. We should be very happy if, tomorrow, it should prove that the département of the Ain has been able to bring its own small contribution to the generous and humane 2 work to which, monsieur le Délégué général, you have so fortunately devoted yourself, in the service of France and Algeria." Replying, Morin declared that the day's event marked "a victory of solidarity and fraternity for those who live on either side of the Mediterranean. […] Here, in this part of Algeria, we have thought for man and with him; in building this village, you have desired to show how firmly, in the metropole, we believe in the indissolubility of the ties that join us with Algeria."

There are two approaches to questions of earning power, the first, annual, which is the one adopted in this paper, the second, a whole-life study. Of the two the latter is incomparably superior. A study of annual rates of earnings is inevitably biased by the fact that it can include the surviving corporations only. Those which fail make no reports, nor are the capital losses in failure offset against the profits of the survivors to show the net return to capitalists as a class upon their ventures. In addition, the rates of earnings of any year are affected by the business conditions of that year. It is only when one has a series extending over a full business cycle that one has material from which to compute a "normal" rate of return, subject to the inclusion therein of a bias which is not open to any reasonably dependable estimate.In the whole-life study the rate of return found is that rate which will equate the in-payments of capital by investors to the corporation with the dividends paid to investors including therein the liquidating dividend(s) if the corporation is wound up (or the current market value as a reasonable substitute therefor if it still continues). The beauty of this method is that it avoids the whole problem of allocating earnings to particular time-periods and escapes the illogicality of showing as earnings what never reaches the owner. Its disadvantage is that it is applicable to long periods only. A decade is probably the minimum and two are preferable. It is the only method of determining earning power which is logically defensible; but for many purposes the annual data, with all their imperfections, are still useful and it is for such uses that this study is presented.

The underlying assumption of Dr. Rollit's paper is that transportation ought to cover its own costs, and I should like to register my general agreement with it. But the main argument is to the effect that the present difficulties of the railways are the result of unequal subsidies, unequal regulation, and unequal labour costs. By inference, one would expect that when public bodies come to their senses and when the abnormally low wages paid to transport operators are brought to a proper level, then railways would be restored to prosperity. It is a much rosier picture than the available facts appear to justify.A study of table I would suggest that the relative retrogression of the railways is not at all closely connected with the rise of direct motor competition. The peak in per capita use of rail service would appear to have been reached well before such competition became effective and the persistence of the subsequent decline in railway gross revenues as a percentage of the national income would suggest that even the most sudden and devastating access of sanity on the part of the taxing authorities would not restore the railways to that position in the life of the community which they once held. Humpty-dumpty has fallen off his wall for good and the sooner he learns to get along on a footing of equality with common mortals the better it will be for all of us.

It is the purpose of this article to do for the evidence presented to the Royal Commission to Inquire into Railways and Transportation in Canada, 1931-32, what Mr. Plumptre did in a preceding number for the Canadian Macmillan Commission. In this case the need is even greater. To the writer's knowledge the only copy of these Proceedings which is available to the general public is the one in the Parliamentary Library in Ottawa. The current press affords only a fitful light upon the evidence; and from some of the hearings it was excluded altogether. If, therefore, any part of this material is to be made generally available, it must be through some such report as is here attempted. The difficulties in the way of condensation are clear to anyone who has attempted it; and in this case some 2136 pages, a large part of it closely argued, must be reduced to some 12 to 15 pages.