Felix:

      With respect to the Staple Theory of Economic Development:
it is not just the export of primary products that brings about successful
development, it is the presence in the exporting country of other
agents and forms of development that make it possible for the
benefits of exports to be captured in balanced growth.  The success of
staple (primary product) exports in the Canadian case depended
on the presence of human capital in the form of European immigrants and
the advance of an agricultural and then a manufacturing frontier west
from Europe and north from the United States.

      The general point here, a criticism of the so-called North/Innis Staple
Theory, is  not mine.  It was made in an article or two published in an
American journal in the  1950s (I believe).  Unfortunately it would
take me away from other matters for too long if I looked it up.
Perhaps someone else remembers the piece.

Robin Neill.