bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 3 (2001) — Fall 2001 // Automne 2001, pp. 30–31
Before, during and after the Second World War, economic issues were increasingly prominent on the international agenda as well as in the reckoning of Canada’s interests in world affairs. Though there were some members of the foreign service with a sound grasp of questions of finance and trade, the Department of External Affairs did not have a stellar reputation in this realm as its officers tended to have a more lively appreciation of matters of foreign and defence policy. The significant problems of post-war reconstruction and external economic policy (including international financial and commercial institutions, bilateral loans, commodity deals, multilateral recovery programmes and national budgetary complications arising from overseas commitments) posed major challenges for the Canadian government and especially for its foreign ministry. One response to these demands was the exceptional recruitment of Arthur Fitzwalter Wynne Plumptre, who joined the department as an ESO 7 and as head of its Economic Division in January 1949.
By then, Wynne Plumptre already enjoyed a significant reputation as an economist who understood public policy. He had been a lecturer and then an assistant professor of economics at the University of Toronto from 1930 to 1941 (with an interlude lecturing on finance at Cambridge University). In wartime, he had worked in Washington for the Office of Price Administration, as a financial attaché in the Canadian embassy and as Director of the Washington Division of the Wartime Prices and Trade Board (of which he was the secretary when he relocated to Ottawa after the war). In wartime, Plumptre had also published two books, Central Banking in the British Dominions and Mobilizing Canada’s Resources for War. Plumptre had left the WTB to work as an associate editor for Saturday Night magazine for two years before joining the Department of External Affairs. After over five years with DEA, Plumptre worked for more than a decade in the Department of Finance, where, as he put it, he was “in charge of most of the international work” until he returned to the University of Toronto in 1965. After his retirement in 1972, he came back to Ottawa, where he was a Visiting Professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University. In 1975, he published Three Decades of Decision: Canada and the World Monetary System, 1944-75, which is still the definitive account of that topic.
Plumptre’s writing — whether private or public — was characterized by clarity and conciseness. He was unafraid to grasp the nettle of a problem, even that which seemed intractable or, more commonly, that which was enmeshed in seemingly endless spools of the fine but strong twine of bureaucratic procedures and interdepartmental rivalries. As the memorandum reproduced below indicates, Plumptre also believed that it was impossible to obtain the right answers if one did not ask appropriate questions. As readers of bout de papier know, the problems that Plumptre identifies below have long since been solved.
The document comes from file 6750-40 of DEA, now part of Record Group A.F. W. Plumptre (Head, Economic Division) to A.D.P. Heeney (Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs), Confidential & Personal, April 5, 1949.
Canada’s External Economic Policies
View from the Stratosphere.
1. The Western world we live in is dominated by three historic movements: i. The United Kingdom and Western Europe have been laid low by the war and will continue to be weak for many years to come; ii. The United States now dominates most of the world economically and therefore politically; ill. The only effective challenge comes from the 2. Canada’s external economic policies must be gradually brought into line with these movements. The problems involved for Canada may be viewed geographically: i. :. What can we now sell to the United Kingdom and other countries of Western Europe, and what can we buy from them? ii. What trade should we carry on with the United States? iii. What trade should we carry on with the 3. Exactly the same group of problems can be viewed as a series of choices about how we manage our external trade and currency arrangements: i. Discrimination vs. non-discrimination. Can we go on treating all countries alike when our real post-war problem is how to import more from some and export more to others? ii. Trade controls vs. uncontrolled trade. Should we advance along the wartime road of government export-contracts, supported by the necessary restrictions on private trading and if necessary by extensions of credit, or should we try to scuttle all remaining trade controls?
iii. Fixed exchange rates vs. “realistic” rates. Are we satisfied with present currency values or with present arrangements for changing them? Do we want to see other countries adjust their rates, or let their rates go free to “find their own level”? Are we willing to practise what we preach!
iv. Economic warfare, hot or cold. How far will we go in restricting our exports or imports to achieve our political objectives abroad, and do we know what these objectives really are?
View from the Grass-Roots.
4. The general problems sketched above seldom emerge in these forms in day to day administration. Instead, particular problems have to be solved:
Shall we suspend dumping duty on Belgian glass? Shall we refuse to sell a tire manufacturing plant to Hungary just because the USA has refused to do so? Shall we enlarge the import quotas for textiles from the USA?
Shall we force the United Kingdom to use Canadian dollars, obtained from a special source, to buy surplus products in this country?
Shall we appoint a Canadian official to a Committee in London dealing with arms for Western Union supplied from the United States — and perhaps from Canada?
5. None of these questions is a “policy” question; yet each involves policy. The question comes up: Is policy being thought out in advance or is it just growing, perhaps in divergent directions in different departments?
6. To some extent policy is worked out in advance. This takes place (i) within the department most directly concerned, (ii) between two or three departments, and (iii) between several departments represented on interdepartmental committees. However, the view seems fairly general that policy is “just growing” to too great an extent — that there should be rather more discussion in advance of decisions.
What Sort of Discussion?
7. It is inevitable that most policy should grow out of individual decisions — common law rather than statute law. This means that, in order to get more discussion of policy, more individual cases must be thrown into the arena. Individual problems of a sort now settled within a department must be reviewed with other departments. In addition, there is room for general discussions of policy from time to time. As an antidote to a continual grass-roots’ decisions, an occasional flight into the pure stratosphere may be useful.
Stratospheric discussion, on a rather abstract level, may exaggerate differences instead of eliminating them. It may be easier to get agreement on a practical issue (e.g. that dumping duties against Belgian glass should be suspended) than on a hypothetical issue (e.g. that Canada should draw “towards” Europe and “away from” the United States). However, it seems fairly widely agreed that more discussion and collaboration are needed, both on immediate problems and also on general policies.
Is the Machinery All Right?
8. Part of the present deficiency may lie in the existing machinery. There are already interdepartmental committees but they may need more care and attention: more careful chairmanship, more productive secretariats, more regular meetings. These things can and should be improved. Members of the committees may be able to suggest improvements.
Are the People All Right?
9. On the whole, the people seem worse than the machinery. Everybody seems ready to complain about somebody-else. The machinery — even the existing machinery which could be improved — would work well enough if all the people who are complaining would do something to improve the situation. And improvements begin at home and in one’s own department not in someone else’s department.
10. The following factors are always working against collaboration: “Too little time!” — Consultation always takes time and energy and, above all, patience. “It’s not really their business!” – The department primarily concerned with a decision must bring it forward for discussion with others less directly concerned. “It’s a secret!” — If more people know about a problem it is more likely to appear in the Financial Post.
11. To make collaboration a success, heads of departments must be willing: i. To delay decisions instead of making them immediately, ii. To invite comments from other departments that are less interested and less well informed, iii. To run some risk of “leaks”, iv. To keep officials below them fully informed as to their wishes, so that most interdepartmental questions may be thrashed out below the top level. What is each head-of-department willing to do?
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 3 (2001) — Fall 2001 // Automne 2001, pp. 30–31. Read the rest of this issue →
