P HE controversy over stability or lack of stability of relative shares continues unresolved. Good men and true among our colleagues, such as G. J. Schuller (io), D. G. Johnson (5), E. H. Phelps-Brown and M. H. Browne (8), R. M. Solow (i i), and I. B. Kravis (6), take a hard look at pretty much same data, allocate a few accounts differently, and come up with widely diverging answers. Johnson and Phelps-Brown and Browne see stability, rigidity, fixity. Solow and Kravis, however, take issue with those who, in Solow's spritely phrase hold view that, the share of national income accruing to labor one of great constants of nature, like velocity of light or incest taboo. (ii) New interest and significance has been injected into this controversy of late by S. Weintraub (I4), (I6) who forcefully restates contention that labor's share analogous to a natural constant like law of gravity or Senator Goldwater's views on taxation. On this fixity he erects a wage cost mark-up equation to replace venerable equation of exchange and a law of price level with strong wage push inflation implications. Weintraub shifts discussion from labor's share of National Income to labor's share of Business Gross Product, or rather its reciprocal which he dubs k, and concludes that the practical constancy of k an empirical fact, [(I4), 39] and further holds that k's constancy is probably most important law, in true sense, that economists have to work with. [(I4), 33] A. P. Lerner's review article (7) concedes this constancy, but deplores Weintraub's excitement over this near fixity and his building a Law of Price Level on it. I cannot decide for others such a question as how big a fluctuation a small fluctuation, but if Solow, Kravis and others, like Lerner, will accept k as practically constant, it would appear that rest of what Weintraub has done, including getting excited, follows logically. Acceptance of a truly constant wage share as fact calls for much recasting of distribution and price theory and a basic policy change. Some sort of wage control machinery would become our chief weapon to fight inflation rather than our present reliance on monetary policy. As indicated by its title, this paper a study of statistics on labor's share in Canada. I hope that similarities and contrasts developed between Canadian and United States experience will resolve some of points at issue in this controversy. Since it Weintraub's formulation which has given fresh interest to topic I shall follow his lead in concepts and presentation. Because it somewhat easier to think in terms of percentages than of mark-ups, however, I shall include percentages also. Weintraub defines k as ratio of gross product (Z) to employee compensation (W) and takes as empirical measures of them U.S. Department of Commerce series Business Gross Product (BGP) and Compensation of Business Employees (Wb). Thus symbolically;

I accept Robert Eisner's thesis that . . . the tax surcharge should never, on basic theoretical grounds, have been considered an effective anti-inflationary device and that, given a sufficiently excessive rate of government spending, there is little that any meaningful monetary policy can do to stop (p. 898). I also share his concern that the failures of current policies will turn our fates back to know-nothings. I am critical not so much of what Eisner says, as of what he omits. Is the Johnson administration's desertion of the Guideposts in the presence of the inflationary enemy in 1966 of no -value in explaining our quickened inflation since then? If the administration had escalated that particular effort, had rallied public opinion, had acquired ultimate legal sanctions against noncompliance, would not the inflation have been lessened? George Perry's findings that the guideposts had a significant effect on the pace of wage changes (1967, p. 903) appear to have survived all attacks to date.1 Perry found that during 1965 and 1966 the guideposts were reducing wage increases by about 2 percent below what would otherwise be obtained. If this level of effectiveness had been maintained, wage payments would have been reduced by about $10 billion in 1968.2 This is as large as the impact upon demand which was expected from the $10 billion surtax, an impact which Eisner argues did not materialize because the surtax did not change personal and corporate estimates of permanent income (p. 898). Moreover, wage restraint holds down the cost level; in contrast a policy which allows excessive income gains, and then tries to tax them away involves us with barn doors and stolen horses. The Keynesian economists would be less discomforted by know-nothings, in my opinion, if they themselves had been closer students of Keynes. No better place for a fresh start for arriving at correct analysis can be found than in the good book General Theory. It is all there: the Phillips curve,3 the guidepost prescription,4 and Keynes' Theory of the Price Level of which so few Keynesians appear to be even aware.