The Problem The subject of this paper is the Canadian chartered banks during the period from 1930 to 1935. In these years of economic disruption, strains were imposed on the banking system and criticisms levelled at the banks to an unprecedented extent. These strains and criticisms came from diverse sources, and the problem has been to identify the demands which they made on the banks, the sources of the demands, the nature of the banks' responses, and the effectiveness of the banks' reactions. The Investigation The problem was tackled first through a consideration of the main features of the Canadian banking system. This involved not only the determination of the machinery of the banks but also the main ideas which determined the conduct of the bankers. The former aspect of this question was determined not only from statements by the bankers and books published under the aegis of the banks, but also from governmental and academic accounts of the system. The question of the bankers' rationale was largely investigated through the statements of the leading bankers and from the nature of the proposals made by the bankers in response to specific situations. The investigation was then concentrated on the position taken by the banks with respect to certain economic problems of importance. The period saw considerable discussion of these problems by both bankers and non-bankers, and much of the commentary on the questions was garnered from that discussion. The final area investigated was that of problems raised by various groups in Canada and the response of the banks to these. In general, the method followed was to determine the precise nature of each problem, the sources from which these came and their reasons for raising the questions, and the position taken by the banks in response. Conclusions The study concludes that the Canadian chartered banks performed a commendable function for Canada during the first years of the Great Depression. In a period which saw financial disruptions and innumerable bank failures in other countries, the chartered banks provided Canada with stable institutions which commanded national as well as international respect. The security of Canada's banks was never seriously questioned. It is not possible to evaluate the importance of this confidence instilled by the banks; that it was essential to the economic welfare of the nation was evident. That the bankers pursued policies which showered on their heads the abuses of many people does not alter the fact that those policies in the long run were essential to the financial well-being of the nation. The bankers must be commended for pursuing unpopular courses. But this praise of the banks is tempered. They were private institutions of national importance. Consequently they had a responsibility for the public repercussions of their policies. They must be criticised not that they pursued policies antagonistic to the general welfare but rather that they were never willing to consider the broader consequences of their actions. Compounding this shortcoming was the fact that the 'laissez-faire' philosophy expounded by the bankers could no longer be sustained, since the gold standard, on which the operation of that philosophy had rested, had been abandoned. In the hiatus of leadership, the banks declined to contribute to the creation of a managing authority. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

This M.A. thesis written at the University of Victoria during 1968-69 seeks to determine the causes, nature and effects of the Great Depression of 1929-1939 on the important Western Canadian metropolitan centre of Greater Victoria, British Columbia. Comprised of four municipalities - Victoria City, Esquimalt, Oak Bay and Saanich - Greater Victoria had an image of itself as an affluent, conservative, geographically isolated urban centre. Furthermore, the capital city region had, from the turn of the century, become less and less important in relation to its larger, burgeoning sister, Greater Vancouver; which in turn provided a perfect opportunity for life in the Island community to become even more insular than it had before. As the critical decade of the 1930's began, however, events forced Victorians to discard their protective coccoon in order to survive as a city. Compounding their difficulties, the city's overall economic decline was broad and swift; while recovery, when it finally did occur between 1933 and 1939, was slow and sporadic. In the early years of the Depression, however, many citizens in the area still tended to regard their fundamental economic and social problems as local ones; and therefore, attempted to marshal local resources in the forms of charities, municipal governments', and service organizations so as to bring a measure of relief to everyone. Yet their efforts were not enough. Sometimes, as in the case of Victoria City for example, there were insufficient economic and financial resources on hand. / Graduate / 0334

This M.A. thesis written at the University of Victoria during 1968-69 seeks to determine the causes, nature and effects of the Great Depression of 1929-1939 on the important Western Canadian metropolitan centre of Greater Victoria, British Columbia. Comprised of four municipalities - Victoria City, Esquimalt, Oak Bay and Saanich - Greater Victoria had an image of itself as an affluent, conservative, geographically isolated urban centre. Furthermore, the capital city region had, from the turn of the century, become less and less important in relation to its larger, burgeoning sister, Greater Vancouver; which in turn provided a perfect opportunity for life in the Island community to become even more insular than it had before. As the critical decade of the 1930's began, however, events forced Victorians to discard their protective coccoon in order to survive as a city. Compounding their difficulties, the city's overall economic decline was broad and swift; while recovery, when it finally did occur between 1933 and 1939, was slow and sporadic. In the early years of the Depression, however, many citizens in the area still tended to regard their fundamental economic and social problems as local ones; and therefore, attempted to marshal local resources in the forms of charities, municipal governments', and service organizations so as to bring a measure of relief to everyone. Yet their efforts were not enough. Sometimes, as in the case of Victoria City for example, there were insufficient economic and financial resources on hand. / Graduate / 0334

vii, 303 leaves : ill. ; 31 cm / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of History, 1976

The purpose of this thesis has been to examine the effects of the Great Depression on the rural Cowichan Valley district of Vancouver Island. During the period under consideration the Cowichan area contained a small city which was surrounded by an area of expanding rural settlement, which was in turn encompassed by a vast, heavily timbered hinterland. As a result, it has been possible to view the consequences of the depression on a variety of types of people, and on two of the province's principal economic concerns, namely agriculture and lumbering. The introductory section of the paper gives a brief review of the valley's economic, political and social background from 1850 to 1912. It is contained in the thesis in order to familiarize the reader with the Cowichan region and some of its traditional problems and biases. Chapter I, "The People: a Builder", is a chronological investigation of the political, social and economic developments which took place in the 1920's decade, and is in essence a preparatory chapter, giving pertinent background material to the actual study of the depression. It reveals the slow currents of change which took place in the years following World War I. Many of the problems experienced during the reconstruction period and throughout the post-war depression, particularly in the field of provincial politics, will be seen to fade in importance during the prosperous years toward the end of the decade, only to re-emerge even more forcefully during the thirties. This is particularly true with regard to political disaffections expressed by the farmers of the community. This chapter also reveals the growing importance to the valley's economy of the local lumber industry. Before World War I agriculture was regarded as Cowichan's basic source of income, but by 1929 the forest industry was employing many hundreds of men and distributing thousands of dollars annually in the valley. The first chapter concludes with a review of circumstances in Cowichan as they stood in 1929. The citizens of the district could look back over a decade of ever-increasing prosperity, and look forward to the future with a sense of unbounded optimism. From the quantities of raw material available in the local newspaper, church records, municipal minutes, local histories and government publications, the story of the Winter Years in Cowichan has been gathered. Three years of unemployment, deprivation and suffering, the likes of which had never before been experienced in the valley, were ushered in with the collapse of British Columbia's lumber industry early in 1930. Chapter two gives witness to the gradual deterioration of community life which took place between 1930 and 1934, in spite of the continued efforts of individuals, civic organizations, and the local municipal governments to meet the needs of the ever-increasing number of unemployed. Chapter three relates the story of Cowichan's struggle to throw off the mantle of the Winter Years and to regain the prosperity which the community had enjoyed in 1929. The key to this recovery was discovered in 1934 with the establishment of new world markets for British Columbia's lumber trade. Within a matter of weeks the problems of the depression seemed to belong to the past as the majority of the valley's population began to reap the benefits of the renewed harvest of forest products. It was during this period of recovery, however, that the most forceful reactions were registered in Cowichan against the preceding years of misery and suffering. The old-line political parties were accused of gross inadequacies as the traditionally Conservative Cowichan-Newcastle riding elected a new provincial representative whose platform was based solely on the tenets of the Oxford Group. Unrest was also prevalent among many of the young men who were employed in the local logging camps. They felt that a certain degree of responsibility for the depression lay with the capitalistic "boss-loggers". The men were encouraged in these beliefs by the machinations of a group of militant Communists who had gained control of the province's lumbering and longshoremen's unions. For three consecutive years these men threatened Cowichan's economic recovery by taking the loggers and the longshoremen out on strike in an effort to disrupt production in British Columbia's primary industry. It was only with the settlement of the last of these labour problems in 1936, that the Cowichan area threw off the last vestiges of the depression. The general conclusions reached in this study indicate that while the depression in Cowichan was relatively short-lived, and was not as severe as that experienced in other parts of the province, it did have some very decisive effects. Politically it resulted in a definite swing from right to left, as Cowichan went into the depression a traditionally Conservative riding and emerged supporting the C.C.F. party. Economically, the depression saw the virtual collapse of Cowichan's agricultural economy, while the position of the lumber industry was greatly strengthened. Socially, the depression witnessed many changes. The effect of years of deprivation and uncertainty on the individual was traumatic. For the community as a whole the early 1930's had been a severe test, but in the long run they had resulted in a stronger sense of understanding and solidarity among the varied groups which were included in the valley's population. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

No description available.

No description available.

The depression of the 1930s had an early effect on the state of Oregon. A decline in timber and agricultural production resulted in severe unemployment in the late 1920s. State and local charitable organizations attempted to care for the unemployed but they did not have the financial resources to do so. Although President Herbert Hoover was worried about the effects of the growing economic crisis on the business community, he continued to believe that the depression would be short lived despite the worsening social conditions. When Franklin Roosevelt was elected president he initiated a series of measures aimed at ending the depression and bringing people back into the work force. Among those measures was the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In Oregon the WPA built upon earlier state relief organizations. However, unlike the earlier Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the WPA was a federal organization staffed with federal employees. Its programs were run according to federal guidelines and regulations and much of its funding came from the federal government. Those guidelines often worked against the state programs. The means test, quota systems, and the need to refer programs to Washington D.C. prevented the Oregon program from being as effective as it could be. In addition, the Oregon legislature and governor acted against the program by not providing adequate funding to support it. However, even though Oregonians did not always accept the WPA, they were dramatically changed by its programs. The most obvious change was in the physical appearance of the state - new roads and highways, more bridges, expanded parks, additional airports, and many new services. The state was altered politically because by World War II, the federal government had permanently insinuated itself into the life of most Oregonians. / Graduation date: 1991

In the first essay of this thesis I test long-run monetary neutrality (LRMN) using the longhorizon approach of Fisher and Seater [18]. Using United States' data on M 2 and Net National Product they reject LRMN for the sample 1869-1975. However, I show that this result is not robust to the use of the monetary base instead of M2. Nor is it robust to the use of United Kingdom data instead of United States data. These results are consistent with the interpretation that Fisher and Seater's result is a consequence of the financial crisis of the 1930s causing inside money and output to move together. Using a Monte Carlo study I show that Fisher and Seater's rejection of LRMN can also be accounted for by size distortion in their test statistic. This study also shows that at longer horizons, power is very low. In the second essay I consider the financial crisis of the 1930s in the United States as change in regime. Using a bivariate version of Hamilton's [24] Markov switching model I estimate the probability that the underlying regime was one of financial crisis at each point in time. I argue that there was a shift to the financial crisis regime following the first banking crisis of 1930. The crucial reform in ending the financial crisis appears to have been the introduction of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in January 1934.1 also find that the time series of probabilities over the state of the financial sector contain marginal explanatory power for output fluctuations in the inter-war period. A problem when testing the null hypothesis of a linear model against the alternative of the Markov switching model is the presence of nuisance parameters. Consequently, the likelihood ratio test statistic does not possess the standard chi-squared distribution. In my third essay I perform a Monte Carlo experiment to explore the small sample properties of the pseudo likelihood ratio test statistic under the non-standard conditions. I find no evidence of size distortion. However, I do find that size adjusted power is very poor in small samples.

No description available.