The Place of Finance Committees in Non‐Labor Politics, 1910–1930

Abstract

[The] enumeration of the different 'external organizations which may bring about the creation of a political party would not be complete without mention of the action of industrial and commercial groups: banks, big companies, industrial combines, employers federations, and so on. Unfortunately here it is extremely difficult to pass beyond the bounds of generalizations and hypotheses, for such action is always cloaked in great discretion. In the Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences, E. H. Underhill demonstrates the part played in the birth of the Canadian Conservative party in 1864 by the Bank of Montreal, the Grand Trunk Railway, and by Montreal 'big business generally. Similar influences could no doubt be discovered at work in the formation of almost all right‐wing parties; but on this point we have for the most part at our disposal only presumptions (well‐founded, it is true) but not evidence: very tactful investigations would be required to make clear the forms and degrees of influence exerted by capitalist groups on the genesis of political parties.