Decentralization and Democracy

• Published in: Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science
• Main Author: Innis, H. A.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1943
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; General Environmental Science; Canada; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/137247; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0315489000020624

This paper is concerned with the changes in types of power in the Atlantic basin following the discovery of America. Direct control from Europe under the French, Dutch, Spanish, and British Empires has gradually changed with emergence of independent states in North and South America and of the British Commonwealth of Nations. In Canada European institutions were more strongly entrenched and feudalism continued to exercise a powerful influence, latterly, for example, in the control of natural resources by the provinces. The provinces have become land-lords with great disparity of wealth varying with federal policy, technological change, and provincial policy. The changing disparity enhances the complexity of democracy in Canada. The advantages of the British Empire in its struggle with the French Empire were in part a result of the implications of imperfect competition between drainage basins in the interior as contrasted with more effective competition between the maritime regions of the Atlantic seaboard. In the latter region, imperfect competition was reflected in the slowness with which adjustments were made between the West Country in England, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New England. In the interior of the continent competition was less effective in the struggle between traders of various nationalities or of the same nationality as it was carried on between drainage basins. Trunk rivers and tributaries with low heights of land between drainage basins facilitated the tapping of vast regions. The relative effectiveness of competition on the seaboard and in the interior of the continent had implications for the struggle of empire.