In its report of 1926 the Duncan Commission found the claims of the Maritime Provinces for a larger federal subsidy so just and so urgent that it recommended an immediate increase in the form of interim payments (which were to form the minimum of any increased subsidy) and that the Dominion government should take immediate steps to secure “a complete revision”, “by detailed determination and assessment”, “of the financial arrangements as between them and the maritime provinces”.
The White Commission was accordingly appointed by the federal government in September, 1934, on the written request of the premiers of the Maritime Provinces to make this financial settlement. Sir Thomas White, as chairman, and Edward Walter Nesbitt, both of Ontario, and Chief Justice J. A. Mathieson of Charlottetown, P.E.I., were the Commission. Judge Mathieson brought in a dissenting report. Another Maritime commissioner would probably have changed materially the amount of the increase recommended, since in a report based not upon any accurate standards of measurement but upon “broad and general considerations”, political opinions and personal bias are important. Probably the personnel of the White Commission was not so favourable to these provinces as was that of the Turgeon Commission to the province of Manitoba. Yet the White Commission accepted without question the recommendations of the Duncan Commission and the Maritime Provinces were allowed to present their case before the Duncan Commission without any contesting case of the federal government.