1904-06-14

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr.  R. L.@: BORDElN. I would like to ask the government whether all the measures in the shape of legislation which are to be brought down this session are before the House, and if not, what other measures, if any, the government propose to bring down?


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: I think there are perhaps one or two minor measures to be brought down, and we propose an amendment to the election law, which will be brought down at a very early day, and perhaps another measure, the tenor of which I will give my hou. friend later on.



WAYS AND MEANS-THE BUDGET.

[Stage Direction]
House resumed adjourned debate on the proposed motion of Mr. Fielding :
That the Speaker do now leave the chair, for the House to go into committee to consider of the ways and means for raising the supply to he granted to His Majesty.
['INGRAM (East Elgin) moved the adjournment of the debate.\nMotion agreed to and debate adjourned.\nOn motion of Mr. Fielding, House adjourned at 11.30 p.m.', 'Wednesday, June 15, 1904.']
Mr. ROBT. HOLMES (West Huron).: In resuming. Mr. Speaker, the debate on the fiscal policy of the government, I wish to state at the outset that in my opinion the budget is one of which the hon. the Finance Minister has every reason to be proud. It is one which, I believe, the country will cordially and heartily endorse, and on which the Liberal party lias reason to congratulate itself and the country. It is a budget that will bring to every patriotic Canadian a sense of pleasure and gratification, a

feeling of confidence and hopefulness for the future and the assurance that the affairs of this Dominion are in good hands and will continue to be managed in the best interests of the people. I. well remember a prophecy made on the accession of the Liberal party to power by one who proved himself a false prophet, that the Liberal party would not be able to govern the country more than six months. Our record, Sir, of the eight past years flatly contradicts that prediction, and shows that the affairs-of this country have been well managed and are perfectly safe in the hands of the Liberal party.
The hon. member for South Simcoe ('Mr. Lennox), in the course of his remarks, said be would not discuss the budget at length, because there was nothing in it. Well, Mr. Speaker, I would ask is it nothing that the Finance Minister was able last year to announce a surplus of over $14,000,000 ? Is it nothing that he is able to estimate this year a surplus of $10,500,000, the largest in the history of the Dominion ? Is it nothing that the Finance Minister has been able to announce substantial surpluses seven years in succession, and that the total of these amounts to over $57,000,000? Is it a fact not worth mentioning that we have been able to deepen our canals, enlarge and improve our harbours, extend the Intercolonial, erect the necessary public buildings in various parts of the Dominion, and carry on the general affairs of the country without adding one cent 'to our taxation ? Is it nothing that the Finance Minister has been able to announce a reduction of over $1,000,000 in the public debt this year below what it was when the Liberal party took office ? Is it nothing to be able to prove that while the Conservatives added an average of $6,500,000 to the debt every year for the eighteen years they were in office, the Liberals have not added one single cent ? Is it nothing that the per capita debt to-day is only $46 f.s compared with $50 in 1896 ? Is it a fact not worth noting that our commercial prosperity to-day is not only greater than it ever has been in our history, but exceeds that of any other country in the world ? Is it a matter of no consequence that our imports are $241,000,000 to-day as against less than $120,000,000 eight years ago, and that our exports are nearly $230,000,000 as against $121,000,000 eight years ago ? Is it nothing that our total trade, which is the barometer of a country's prosperity, amounts to $467,000,000 to-day as compared with $224,000,000 in 1896, being an increase of $243,000,000, and that our increase alone is $19,000,000 ever the total trade of 1896 ? Is it nothing that our export trade with the mother country is $63,000,000 more than it was eight years ago, and that our total trade with the mother country is $88,000,000 more than it was in 1896, and that, in fact, our increase is as large as our entire trade with that country was in 1895 ? Are we to be told that it is really of no account whatever that Mr. HOLMES.
cur railway tonnage should be 23,000,000 more than it was eight years ago and that our business failures are $8,000,000 less in value than they were eight years ago, and much less than at any time during the last twenty-one years ? Is it nothing that the deposits in our chartered banks to-day are $196,000,000 more than they were in 1896. the increase alone being greater than the total deposits in that year ? Is it nothing that the deposits in our savings banks amount to $21,000,000 more than they did in 1896 V Yet in the face of all these incontrovertible evidences of marvellous and unequalled prosperity of this wisely and well governed Dominion, there are some members who have the audacity to say of the best budget ever brought down, ' there is nothing in it.'
My hon. friend from South Wentworth (Mr. E. D. Smith), who preceded me in this debate, endeavoured to belittle the administration of my hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher) in so far as the hon. minister had endeavoured to do something for the farmers. The hon. gentleman, in an interesting speech from the standpoint of a fruit exporter, dealt with the question of cold storage and its effect on the transport of apples and other perishable fruits. With that question I do not purpose dealing, because I think there are others in this House who are more competent to discuss it, but I would make a brief reference to the course which the1 hon. Minister of Agriculture took with regard to the quarantine. The hon. member for South Wentworth endeavoured to belittle what the hon. minister did, and in order to give point to his arguments he sought to convey the idea that because our exports of cattle to the United States last year were smaller than in other years, therefore the Minister of Agriculture had accomplished nothing in the interests of the farmers. But he omitted to tell this House that in the four and a half years which preceded the removal of the quarantine-the removal of which was brought about, as everybody knows, through the efforts of the Minister of Agriculture-we only sent to the United States 3,672 head of cattle, or an average of a little over 700 head, and that in the succeeding four years, after the removal of the quarantine, we sent an average of 87,343, or a total value of $5,329,000. Nor did he inform the House that prior to the removal of the quarantine our farmers had on hand a large number of Stockers, which were of comparatively small value, and for which they had no market at the time ; and while I would agree with him that it would be wise for our farmers to feed all their cattle possible on their own farms, it is my firm conviction that the price of the stockers has increased by virtue of the removal of the quarantine, as our farmers now enjoy the benefit of an increased market, and there is no demand in the United States for stockers which there was a short time ago.

He also dealt with the question of an increase in the duty on market-garden products. He was very earnest in his advocacy of the claims of the market-gardener, hut as that question has been dealt with recently from this side of the House, I do not propose to weary the House by entering into it again. I would only call attention to the fact that my hon. friend, who is an exporter of fruit, makes as much use of the American market as is possible under present circumstances, and I do not think he would like to toe thrown out of that market, to which market-gardeners from the Niagara section have convenient access. And he also endeavoured to convince us that it would be the part of wisdom for the government to increase the tariff so far as small fruits are concerned. He laid special stress upon the fact that California fruit was preferred in the west and more especially in Winnipeg, over Canadian fruits. But he did not tell this House, as he might have done, that one reason for this is that the Canadian packers do not take quite the same interest, I am sorry to say, in placing their fruit properly on the market that the California Fruit Agency does. It is a well known fact, and I am not impugning the Canadian packer. But those who have made inquiries for fruit sent out by the California fruit agency know that that fruit can be depended upon to be exactly what it is represented. And, by this means, the California people have established themselves in the western market while our Canadian packers have not met the conditions by proper care with reference to packages and the putting up of the fruit. Now, let me call attention to the duties that are now charged upon some of these articles. The duty on peaches coming into Canada is ouet cent a pound. The duty on plums is 25 per cent. The hon. gentleman (Mr. E. D. Smith) instanced plums in particular. The Canadian plum is admitted to be superior in flavour to the American1 plum, but they cannot be transported with the same degree of ease, and that is one reason why they do not get the preference in the market. The duty on tomatoes is 20 cents per bushel, and 10 per cent ad valorem. The duty on grapes is 2 cents per pound. Now, I am not a consumer of grapes to any great extent, but I think I know something of the conditions of the market. I believe I am not underestimating the value when I say that, in certain seasons of the year and in certain sections of the province of Ontario, grapes are sold as low as 2 cents per pound. At- those seasons, the duty represents 100 per cent. It seems to me that, on some lines of fruit, the duty is large enough. On blackberries, gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries and currants, the duty is 2 cents per pound. Cranberries, plums and quinces, 25 per cent. Prunes, including raisins, dried currants and California or silver prunes, 1 cent per pound. The hon. gentleman (Mr. E. D. Smith) laid great stress upon the opinion that we ought to look after the producers, and said that if we looked after the producer the consumer would be able to look after himself. Well, I think there are times when it is right to look after the producer, but there are certainly times when it is the duty of the government to look after the consumer as well. The consumer has interests that deserve consideration as well as those of the producer. I do not know but that sometimes the hon. gentleman's expression could be reversed and that, with regard to some things in Canada, if we look after the consumer the producer is able to look after himself. The producer is less important, certainly so far as numbers are concerned. It is the duty of the government to look after the consumer as well as the producer.
Then, the hon. gentleman from South Wentworth dwelt at length on the argument that we ought to protect the farmers.
I think the time has come, so far as the general principle is concerned, when we ought to cease statements of that kind in this House. I think almost everybody will admit that, so far as protection to the farmers is concerned, we can do comparatively little. We may do something but, generally speaking we cannot protect the farmer. And I think the House knows that perfectly well, and that the members of tha opposition know it as well as we do, and,
I think, in private conversation they would be prepared to admit it. But, in connection with their argument in favour of protection to all classes they feel it necessary to advocate protection to the farmer though they know that it cannot be carried out to its logical conclusion.
Now, one of the important features of the budget is the reduction of the duty on coal oil. I do not profess to be an oil man or to know much of the oil trade, beyond what I have read in the newspapers and gathered from conversation. I am free to admit that the newspapers are not always reliable. Sometimes, their statements are hardly in accordance with the facts. For instance, I read in the Hamilton ' Spectator ' the following*;
The reduction in the duty on coal oil amounts to exactly nothing. The Standard Oil Company may want It for its own purposes ; but the people of Canada will benefit not a cent from it.
Then, in the Ottawa ' Free Press,' the day after the change was made in the coal oil duties I find this advertisement;



[Stage Direction]
We have reduced our prices on all grades of refined oil, benzine and gasoline 2J cents per gallon in consequence of a reduction of the same amount made in the tariff.
The Queen City Oil Company, Limited.
[Stage Direction]
I also read in interviews the opinions of producers who are, apparently, in sympathy with a reduction of the duties. The Toronto ' News,' no matter what may be the personal opinion of the editor, is not a paper that is regarded as especially friendly to the Liberal party. It is well known that the proprietor is a Conservative, and therefore, we must count the paper as an ^independent paper with Conservative leanings. Speaking of the oil duties, it says :
The immediate changes are regarded as undoubtedly a step in the right direction. The reduction of duty on refined oil is excusable by the fact that Canadian oil wells and refineries are not able to produce sufficient oil to^ supply the market, while the placing of fuel oil for manufacturing purposes on the free list will be of the greatest assistance to manufacturing interests.
The needs of the oil refiners are met by cutting the duty in two, while the domestic producer is rewarded with a bounty. The price of oil to the consumer should fall at once.
Mr.  A. D.@: Gall, of the Gall, Schneider Company, makes this statement:
Every consumer of coal oil in Canada will now be able to get oil at least 2J cents cheaper per gallon, and a further reduction may be possible as soon as the question of the bounty adjusts itself.
Mr. Fairbank, who is spoken of as one of the largest oil producers in the Petrolia section, is quoted thus :
J. H. Fairbank said he thought it a wise piece of legislatiou on the part of the' government, and that from the information at hand the crude producers would not materially suffer.
The argument has been advanced that the effect of the reduction in the duty on oil will be to endanger the oil business in Lambton and other counties in western Ontario. I do not suppose that any one will call in question the party fealty of the Petrolea correspondent of the Toronto ' Mail and Empire.' I assume that this correspondent Is a Conservative and voices the sentiments of his political friends. Speaking of the reduction of the duty on coal oil this correspondent, as will be seen in the ' Mail and Empire ' of June 9th makes the following statement :
The fact that the government had announced a bounty of 1J cents per gallon on all crude oil produced from this date did not at first strike the minds of the inhabitants, and it was felt that the town had received a blow which it would take years to recover from. This morning, however, it was realized that while the situation is not to the liking of the inhabitants, it is not as bad as It might be. The price of crude oil yesterday morning was reduced from $2.09 per barrel to $2.06, and this 'morning a further drop was announced to $1.65 per barrel, but this later figure is supplemented by the bounty of 521 cents to be paid by the government, making the price now $2.17J per barrel.
If the producer had any guarantee of the length of time the government would keep the bounty Mr. HOLMES.
in force, he would feel much easier in his mind	 Leading producers are all rather chary at the present time of expressing an opinion, but whatever the outcome, the people of the town will not be knocked out by the blow, but will go ahead and develop oil territory wherever they can get it, and will try and make the production reach the present and future wants of the people.
So, on that point at any rate, this correspondent who I presume is a Conservative, [DOT]speaks rather favourably, if we read between the lines.
I have here one or two other expressions of opinion from producers about Petrolia similar to those of Mr. Fairbank. It is not necessary to quote them in full, but I may merely say that they show that these producers are satisfied with the reduction both on crude and on refined.
Now, I wish to quote from a Liberal paper, but only as to what I take to be a statement of fact as to the opinion in the west. The Winnipeg ' Free Press ' says :
One of the tariff changes that will be most popular in the west is the cut in the coal oil duty. When the Liberals came into power they found this duty six 'cents a gallon. In their first revision they cut it to five cents per gallon and this has now been reduced to two and a half cents. The record gives ground for hoping that ultimately the whole duty will go and coal oil
will be free	The new duty came into
effect on Wednesday. To-day the wholesale price of oil is 2J cents per gallon less than It was on Wednesday. The whole benefit of the reduction will be enjoyed by the consumer.
In another item the Winnipeg ' Free Press ' has the following :
Immediately upon receipt of the information the Imperial Oil Company notified all its agents to put the selling price 2J cents a gallon less than it has been ; and the reduced rates went into immediate effect. The reduction applies to all grades of illuminating oils and naphtha. On the stocks already in hand, imported under the old duty, the company will lose by the reduction, but large shipments are coming in under the new rate.
The reduction will be greatly appreciated throughout the west, where the high price of coal oil has for years been a grievance.
While there are some who take a view the .very reverse of that which I hold, and who believe that the oil industry has received a blow from which it cannot recover, I believe I am divulging no secret when I say that hon. gentlemen In this House who have received letters and telegrams approving the change in the oil duties and congratulating the Liberal party upon it. find that those messages come signed by Conservatives as well as by Liberals.
It is not my purpose to deal at any very great length with the tariff. We on this side are charged with inconsistency because we do not follow out the radical ideas we held at one time. But it has been well said that the man who never changes his

views is likely to hold views that are very much in need of changing. In a practical world we must govern ourselves to some extent by the conditions as we find them. We may not be prepared to go as far as hon. gentlemen opposite are, but we are prepared to recognize the changes in conditions, and, in a practical way, to modify our policy to meet the circumstances of the country as they actually exist.
With the general tariff changes, I have no fault to find. If the argument advanced by our friends opposite is a good argument that with increased duties, competition among the manufacturers will keep down prices of manufactured articles there is no reason to fear increased prices as far as woollens and other manufactured articles are concerned. If the manufacturers do not enter into combines I believe the people will derive benefit ip connection therewith. I am not one of those who believe in the spirit of retaliation. I do not believe in erecting a tariff wall against our American friends simply because they have a tariff against us. Being contiguous to the United States we must trade with them and the best policy we can pursue is one of maintaining amicable relations as far as it is possible to -do so. I admit that I do not like the) spirit manifested by our American friends. I do not like the spirit of tariff hostility that they have frequently displayed towards us, but I do not know that it would be wise to raise our tariff as high as theirs, although in the nature of things there may be and I dare say there will be a general revision of the tariff which will perhaps place us in a more equitable position than that which we occupy at the present time. It seems to me that the government have dealt with a serious situation in so far as the dumping clause is concerned. How that will work out and how it may prove by experience, I am not prepared to say. I anticipate that it will prove to be an obstacle greater than anything we have at the present time in the way of the undue and unfair slaughtering of goods which has been carried on by our American friends. But. I would like to see our own Canadian people manifesting a greater spirit of selfdependence than we have displayed up to the present time. I think, that, with our national resources and with our circumstances as favourable as they are, we should endeavour by self-assertion and independence to control our own markets without depending so much on paternal assistance or aid.
There are one or two points not specially dealt with in connection with the tariff that I want to allude to. They are perhaps the outcome of our system. Reference was made the other evening to the question of immigration. ' One of the speakers on the other side of the House with a swing
of his arm and a good deal of force in his manner said that he did not think we ought to encourage immigrants to come here from the slums of Europe. I agree with him entirely but I think we have very little reason to find fault, as far as the immigrants which we are receiving are concerned. It is well known, and if it is not well, known it ought to be, that the government make no special arrangement as far as immigrants are concerned except to look after immigrants and do what they can to secure them by legitimate means. No assistance is offered to immigrants and as far as undesirable immigrants are concerned I do not think we have a great deal to fear ip that respect. I well remember that when the Mennonites came into the Northwest Territories as settlers some of our friends of the opposition offered very strong objections against them. They were said to be an undesirable class. It was saidi that they ditfered from our own people in their habits of life, and in their religion. It was said that they had certain peculiarities which our people did not approve of. But I believe that our hon. friends on the other side of the House will now admit that the Mennonites are among the best settlers we have in the Northwest. The Mennonite settlers are the wealthiest in that western country. Objection has been taken to the Doukliobors and Galicians on the score that they are undesirable settlers. I am quite free to say that the hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden) is himself a convert to the view that the Galicians are a desirable class of settlers. I do not know that he has ever taken exception to them but' there have been hon. members on the other side of the House who seemed, fo think that it was not advisable to allow these immigrants to come into our territory. What are the facts as far as the Douk-hobors are concerned ? I am told by those who reside in the neighbourhood of the Doukhobors that a Doukhobor's word is as good as his bond, that if he goes into a store and asks for credit promising to pay for his goods at a specified time in the future the merchant will give him the credit which he desires and he will meet his engagements on the very day that he promises to do so. I find on looking into their transactions that when they require any article for their use they buy, for instance, ploughs by the hundred, overalls by the thousand, and sugar by five carload lots, I find that notwithstanding their peculiar views and religion they are assimilating themselves very rapidly with our own peo-pel, and I believe that within a very short time they will be a very desirable class of settlers indeed. When we take the figures showing the number of settlers who have come in during the last year I do not think we have very much ground to fear as far


Mr. WILSON.: I don't know.


Robert Holmes: Well, I do know, and whether the hon. gentleman knows it or not, I know further that whenever the estimates come up for consideration, my hon. friend who interjects the remark, and others of his friends with him, have asked for increased expenditure.


Uriah Wilson: I would like the hon. member to name a single item that I asked for.


Robert Holmes: It is not easy for me off hand to mention a particular item that the hon. gentleman has asked for, but I am within the judgment of this House in saying, that he as well as other members of the opposition have asked for increased expenditure when the estimates were under consideration. If he has not so asked, he is an exception on the other side of the House, and I accept his apology. Now, Mr. Speaker, we spent $500,009 more on lighthouse and ocean service, than was spent in 1896.
I suppose our friends on the other side will; admit that this money was not improperly spent. Indeed the Conservative press are contending now, in view of the lamentable ' accident which occurred the other day, that we should spend, more money on this service so as to improve our navigation system. We spent $100,000 more on the fisheries service, and about $500,000 more on immigration than we did in 1896, and lam sure my hon. friends opposite will not object to that expenditure. We spent $332,000 more on the customs service than we did in 1896, but against that we collected $17,170,000 more in customs revenue. We spent $8.000 more on excise service than we did in 1896, but our revenue from this source increased by $4,000,000. We spent on postal service for the benefit of the people of Canada $400,000 more than we did in 1896 but the revenue from our postal service has increased by nearly $1,500,000. Let me digress for a moment at this point. I wish to call attention to the exceptionally favourable condition of our postal service under the able administration of the present Postmaster General (Sir William Mulock). The business people of the country admit, and the people of Canada generally admits that we have at the present day the best postal service we ever had in the history of the Dominion. We not only have had a saving of one-third on our domestic postage, but we have had a saving of one-third on our foreign postage. I well remember when Sir William Mulock proposed to reduce the rate of postage, member after member on the Conservative side of the House got up in their places and predicted it would be necessary to put a special tax upon tea or upon sugar, in order to make up the deficit they thought would follow7 the reduction of the postal rate. They could hardly be blamed for this, in view7 of the fact under Conservative rule w7e had a deficit of $700,-

000 or $800,000 annually In the Post Office Department, notwithstanding that we also had a three cent rate of postage. To the credit of the present Postmaster General, be it said, that it was not only unnecessary to put a special tax upon any article of consumption, but that be has been able to give us increased facilities all over this Dominion, and in addition to that he has turned the old annual deficit of Conservative days, into a surplus. The people of this broad Dominion appreciate the fact that they are now reaping advantages and benefits in the post office service to which they were strangers before the Liberals came into power. It is true that the expenses of the Intercolonial Railway have increased over $5,000,000, but every dollar of that has come back to the people of this country.
Now Mr. Speaker, I have given a brielf review of the expenditure made by this government, and in conclusion permit me to say that the prosperous state of the country, as revealed through the budget speech, is sufficient to justify the warmest eulogy of this government. Some of our Conerva-, five friends say : that the government are entitled to no credit for the existing prosperity, but the member for South Wentworth (Mr. E. D. Smith) was frank enough to admit that government was responsible to a certain extent for prosperity or for depression. No less an authority than the Toronto ' Mail,' commenting on the budget speech delivered in 1882, said :
Instead of bringing the country to the brink of insolvency, the present government has caused evbry vein to quiver with healthy activity.
If that be true, what language could be more suitably applied to the present government ? What government ever in Canada before has caused every vein to pulsate with healthy activity ? Our friends on the other side of the House have endeavoured as far as they can, to minimize the credit that should accrue, and has accrued, to the government because of their wise administration of public affairs, but the people of Canada know better, and I have not the slightest doubt that they will pay their tribute of confidence in this Liberal government in the days to come. The prosperous state of the country, as revealed in the budget speech, must commend itself to both Liberals and Conservatives who look upon the question from an impartial standpoint. There are Conservatives who are willing to admit, that Canada now enjoys a higher state of prosperity than ever before ; there are Conservatives who are candid enough to say, at least in private conversation, that thisi government has been a good administration ; there are Conservatives who are frank enough to acknowledge that the administration of this government has been superior to that which preceded it. And, Sir, whether these Conservatives are will- I


Robert Holmes: ing to vote for the government or not, it makes no difference so long as in their heart of hearts they give the credit to this government for its wise acts of public policy. The good times have been shared in by all ; by the farmer, by the manufacturer, by the artisan, by the invester; and the record of the government as portrayed in the budget speech is one on which the government can confidently appeal for the approval of the country. I am satisfied, Mr. Speaker, that be the day near or be it far, when it shall be necessary to appeal to the electorate for the endorsation of the policy of this government, the far-seeing, hard headed, thoughtful electors of the Dominion, will show their appreciation of a governrfient whose policy has worked to the best interests of all classes of the community. We on this side of the House claim with pride, that this government is the best government Canada has ever known. We make that claim in view of the facts which have been disclosed ; we claim it in view of the record of the government which stands without parallel in the history of the world, and which record has been ably presented to the country by the Minister of Finance in his bud-.get speech.


Mr. R. L. BORDEN (Halifax).: Mr. Speaker, the remarks of my hon. friend from West Huron (Mr. Holmes) are for the most part of a very general character, and I think they have already been pretty well answered by hon. gentlemen who have spoken. I do not propose to speak at any great length, and therefore my hon. friend (Mr. Holmes) will excuse me if I fail to follow him through all the phases of his eloquent speech.
Perhaps just a passing word might be given to the eloquent peroration with which he concluded. I do not quite remember whether he described this government as the best government this country ever possessed or the best government the world ever possessed-some hon. gentleman on that side of the House go that far occasionally. He claimed for it, that it had caused the veins of the country to pulsate with a splendid activity. Well, he was altogether too modest. Why did he not claim that it had caused the veins of the whole commercial world to pulsate with a splendid activity ? He has as much justification for the one contention as for the other. But I observe that my hon. friend, like a great many others who address the House on this question, fails absolutely on every occasiou to point to one single measure introduced and carried out by his administration to which the prosperity of this country is in any way due. That is the difficult aspect of the question from their standpoint. It is all very well to claim for Canada prosperity. We know we have it; we know also that we have had prosperity all through the

world ; and unless we can attribute the prosperity which prevails in Canada to some act of the present administration, are we not forced to agree with an hon. gentleman whose authority my hon. friend from West Huron will not dispute, the hon. member for North Norfolk (Mr. Charlton), who said that the prosperity which Canada in common with the rest of the world has enjoyed during the past eight years is due to causes over which governments have no control whatever.
Having said so much, I shall now refer to the speech with which my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Fielding) introduced his budget. Although that speech contains some rather noteworthy statements, I may be permitted to draw attention to the fact that it was perhaps as remarkable for its omissions as for what.it actually contained. The hon. Minister of Finance, as was pointed out by my hon. friend from Pictou (Mr. Bell), made no estimate whatever of the revenue or the expenditure for the coming year. In that respect he departed from the course which he and all the other Ministers of Finance have followed on previous occasions. Not only did he make no reference to the revenue or the expenditure for the coming year, but he gave the House not the slightest explanation of that remarkable omission. Let me point to another omission in the speech of the hon. gentleman. One would have supposed that the Minister of Finance, speaking on a matter not only of political import, but of business importance to the whole country, would have been disposed to give to the people a fair and accurate statement of our affairs, and not to confine himself solely to those aspects of the business and the finances of the country which might be of use to his party in the distribution of campaign literature. The hon. gentleman went over a period of years with regard to our trade returns, but he made not one reference to the increase of taxation or the increase of expenditure. My hon friend dealt generally with the increase of trade in this country during the past eight years, but he made not one reference to a subject on which the hon. gentleman who sits beside him (Sir Bichard Cartwright) has dilated at great length in days gone by-the relative trade of this country with the United States as compared with its trade with Great Britain. Not one word out of the niouth of the Minister of Finance ; and stranger still, not one word out of the mouth of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, who used to continually harp on that matter in days gone by. That indicates that these hon. gentlemen were not giving fair candid statements with reference to the business of this country, but were making campaign speeches for distribution throughout the country, and therefore saw fit to omit from their remarks every possible aspect of our
present conditions which might in any way call for criticism from gentlemen in this House or from business men throughout the country as a whole.
Now, it will be necessary for me to lay before the House some statements, which I will do very briefly, to remedy the omissions from the speech of the hon. Minister of Finance. Let me say, in the first place, that I do not object to a reasonable expenditure in this country. We could hot reasonably expect that from . 1896 to the present time there would not be some increase of expenditure in a rapidly-growing country such as this. The point we have taken in this House is that expenditure, especially on public works, should be conducted on some systematic basis, and should not be made the means of distributing favours to partisans, and should not be regulated solely by partisan considerations. We are glad to see money expended in this country, and we expect that our expenditure shall reasonably increase ; but let us bear in mind that we have been warned by the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Trade and Commerce that matters shall not always be in this country as they are today. It was only a day or two ago that the Minister of Trade and Commerce uttered a last warning on that point-a warning which had been given to this country many times before by the Minister of Finance. That warning declared that just as surely as night follows day so periods of expansion and prosperity are followed by periods of depression, by lean years such as we have had in days gone by ; and what I have said in this House before, and what I say now, is, that if you fix a standard of expenditure upon an unduly high scale in the years of prosperity, you will find it very difficult indeed to reduce that scale to the proper standard when you come to the lean years of depression. Let me point out the record of the administration during the past years as compared with the five years of the late Conservative administration :


TOTAL EXPENDITURE.
[Stage Direction]
1892		$ 42,272,136
1893		 40,853,728
1894		 43,009,234
1895		 42,872,338
1896		 41,702,383
1899		$ 51,542,635
1900		 52,717,467
1901		 57,982,866
1902		 63,970,780
1903		 61,746,572
$210,709,819	$287,960,320
In 1892 total expenditure by Conservatives	$42,272,136
In 1896 total expenditure by Conservatives	   41,702,383
Decrease (under Conservatives. .$	569,753
In	1903	total	expenditure	by	Liberals	$61,746,572In	1899	total	expenditure	by	Liberals	
51,542,635Increase under Liberals	$10,203,937
Let us look at the matter in another way :
Total expenditure from 1899 to 1903.$287,960,320 Total expenditure from 1892 to 1896. 210,709,819
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Average annnul expenditure during
past 5 years	$57,592,064
Average annual expenditure, 1892 to
1896	 42,121,964
Average increased expenditure under Liberal government	$15,470,100
Now, I do not for one moment say that some portion of this increase was not justified ; but let us compare what the Conservatives did during the period from 1878 to 1896 with what the Liberal administration now in power has done from 1896 to 1904 in the construction of great public works. Look at the deepening of the canals, the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the construction of great public works throughout the country under the Conservatives. Under the present administration the work of completing the canals has been carried on and there has been an extension of the Intercolonial Railway at some considerable cost; but no such great work has been undertaken during the past six years as that which was so bitterly opposed by lion, gentlemen opposite, the building of a great highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific, binding together all the scattered provinces of Canada.
Another matter which was brought to the attention of the House by my hon. friend from Pictou, and to which I will very briefly refer, is the increased taxation during the past six years. I shall give to the House a few comparative figures on that point, and X shall do this because in all sincerity I do not understand that any of the members of this administration, who claim that taxation was too high under Conservative government have ever been able to give any satisfactory reason why that taxation should be maintained at its present figure. The hon. gentleman who just sat down (Mr. Holmes) claimed as a great boon to the country that we are taking $14,000,000 or $15,000,000 out of the people every year beyond the actual necessities of government. Does not m? right hon. friend remember the declaration of the Minister of Trade and Commerce in days gone by ? It is well perhaps for the right hon. the Minister of Trade and Commerce to sit in his seat and wear a sneering smile when his past utterances are brought back to him. I am sorry he is not here today, because I would like to put to him one or two questions. But he and other members of the administration will have to square themselves with the people some day on this point. The gentlemen who stated that taxation was too high in days gone by, that surpluses were an evil, that Mr. R. L. BORDEN.
the exaction of one dollar from the people beyond the actual requirements of the government was highway robbery, cannot justify themselves to-day by sitting quietly in their seats, wearing a jaunty smile and drawing their salaries from month to month. That will not do. Let me point out what a comparative statement of the taxation shows, and then I will give you another table and will have the pleasure of quoting my hon. friend the Minister of Customs (Mr. ' Paterson), who spoke for his party in days gone by, and I am sure there is no member of the administration-least of all the Prime Minister-who will for one moment dispute the authority of that hon. gentleman or deny that the principles which he then laid down are those to which regard should be had at present.
In the first place let me point to a comparative statement of the total receipts from taxes under the Conservative and Liberal administrations.
Under five years of Conservative administration the total receipts each year were as follows :
1892		 $28,446,157
1893		 29,321 367
1894		 27,579,203
1895		 25,446,199
1896		 27,759,285
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Under Liberal administration the following is the record :
1899		$ 34,958,069
1900		 38,243,223
1901		 38,745,550
1902		 43,389,112
1903		 49,015 506
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This shows that whereas in 1892 the taxation under the Conservative government was $28,446,157, in 1896 it declined under the same administration to $27,759,285, showing a decrease under Conservative government of $686,872.
In 1903 the taxation under Liberal administration amounted to $49,015,506 and in 1896 the taxation under Conservative rule was but $27,759,285, showing an increase under Liberal government of $21,256,221 between 1896 and 1903. And that was under the administration of these gentlemen opposite who were writing letters to the ' Economist ' newspaper in Great Britain, when the Conservatives held office, for the purpose of decrying their own country ; pointing out that the people were being bled white by taxation.
The total taxes collected from 1899 to 1903 inclusive, under Liberal government, amounted to $204,348,460 and from 1892 to 1896 inclusive, under Conservative government,
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$138,552,211, showing an increase in taxation in five years of Liberal government of no less than $65,756,249.
And yet the Minister of Trade and Commerce, when these things are brought to his notice, and when his former utterances are quoted to him, has no answer but a jaunty and often sneering smile and a tirade of more or less senseless epithets applied to hon. gentlemen who sit on this side. I do not know whether the right, hon. gentleman was sincere in what he said with regard to these and many other matters in days gone by, but I am giving him credit for sincerity, and I suppose it is from that standpoint that iwe must consider his present dumbness. If he makes no answer to our arguments, it is simply because he has nothing to offer but the smile he usually wears when any of these questions are discussed.
The average annual taxation during those five years of the present administration is $40,869,692 and the average annual taxation during the five years of Conservative government amounted to $27,710,442, making an average annual increase during the last five years of $13,159,250. What was the view which these gentlemen took in the olden days of excessive taxation and especially of undue exaction from the people ? I take the liberty of quoting, because the Minister of Trade and Commerce himself quoted the remarks I am about to read, only two years ago ; and when we find one minister of the Crown turning to another as the Minister of Trade and Commerce turned to his leader on that occasion, I think a special significance may be attributed to the remarks to which he then directed the attention of the Prime Minister. And this was the view of the Prime Minister in days gone by, given expression to in a very meaning quotation of the Minister of Trade and Commerce only two years ago :
I do not tell you that we must have no taxation, but I do say that the government has no right to take a cent from you or me, except that for the necessities of the revenue, and if the government takes from you any portion of your earnings, whether the portion be large or small, to give to somebody else, that government is as much a robber as the highwayman who puts a pistol to your forehead and says : ' your purse or your life.'
That was the view of the right hon. gentleman and that was the view emphasized only two years ago by the right hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce. Well, Mr. Speaker, have those words any application to present conditions when we find that men who denounced surpluses in days gone by as no better than robbery, stand up in this House and pride themselves on the fact that they have taken from the people fourteen and a half million dollars more than the necessities of the revenue demanded ?
151i
But we are told that the rate of taxation has not been increased, that it has actually decreased. Now, to meet that, I shall repeat the figures that have already been given to the House by my hon. friend from Pictou (Mr. Bell) in the very able address he delivered in the course of this debate. This table shows the taxation per head and the expenditure per head for the several years since 1895 :
Year.	Taxation per head.	Expenditure per head.
	$ cts.	$ cts.
1896	5 46	8 141897	5 57	8 281898	5 69	8 631899	6 65	9 721900	7 19	9 951901	7 19	10 701902	7 95	11 721903	8 87	11 17
The amount of taxation per head counts for nothing nowadays, I understand, in view of hon. gentlemen opposite, for they tell us it is not a fair way of looking at the burdens of the people. Is it not ? What did the Liberal party say about it in 1894 and 1895 ? My hon. friend the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) will remember what the Liberal party said about it then, because he spoke for the Liberal party on that subject. I have here a quotation from his utterances. He spoke in 1894 and again in 1895 to a resolution presented by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir Richard Cartwright) in which he demanded among other things, that the tariff should be so adjusted as to make taxations conform to the requirements of the expenditure. That was the position of the Liberal party at that time. Here are the words of the Minister of Customs on the subject :
The hon. gentleman said that the taxes we had in 1878 were heavier then than they are now. That is a very strange statement for any one to make. I want to give hon. gentlemen opposite what I consider is a true way of measuring this, because the mere assertion made on one side of the House or the other will carry no weight. I would ask those hon. gentlemen to turn to page 11 of the Trade and Navigation Returns, prepared, not by Mr. Laurier or by the member for South Oxford, but prepared by the government themselves, and what is that statement ? One of the columns shows the amount of the customs duties paid per head of the population-
And now will my hon. friend the Minister of Customs and the right hon. Prime Minister who would defer to the Minister of
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Customs, I am sure, on a question of that kind mark the words as follows :-
That is the way to measure your taxation. Take the 'taxes of 1878 and see how much was paid by the population then. You. will find it was $3.13 per head. Take the sum this last year, and it was $4.26 per head.
Now, will my right hon. friend say that the Minister of Customs did not make a perfectly clear statement, or that I have not made a perfectly fair comparison, in giving the statement which I have just laid before the House ? And if they admit that, if they are not prepared to withdraw that as well as every other principle on which they relied in those good old days, they will concede. I am sure, that they have increased the taxation so much per head as appears in the statements which I have just read. Let my hon. friend the Minister of Customs bear this in mind-that the taxation per head for this country according to the statement I have laid before the House and according to the public returns, has increased 37 per cent since the present administration came into power and the expenditure per head has increased, for the same period, by no less than bi per cent.
Now, my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) dwelt on the question of preferential trade. He says that the attitude of the two parties in Canada is practically the same on that question. X am glad to hear my hon. friend the Minister of Finance make that statement. The agreement must have come about very speedily, if it has come about at all. The policy of the Conservative party was set forth by a resolution in this House. I do not recollect that hon. gentlemen on the other side were prepared to support the policy which we then declared. But I want to tell them, speaking with whatever authority I may possess, that the Conservative party has not changed its policy on this point since 1899, when a resolution, proposed by Sir Charles Tupper was voted down by hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House. If there has been a change it is on the other side, not on this, because we are prepared to stand by the words of the resolution now as we did then. The words of the resolution are these :
This House is of opinion that a system of mutual trade preference between Great Britain and Ireland and the colonies would greatly stimulate increased production in and commerce between these countries and would thus promote and maintain the unity of the empire, and that nothing which falls short of the complete realization of such a policy should he considered as final or satisfactory.
Therefore, if the Minister of Finance says that the parties are at one in regard to the question at the present time, it means that these hon. gentlemen are doing in policy Mr. R. L. BORDEN.
what, I trust, they will very soon do otherwise-cross from that side of the House to this. What was the attitude of the right hon. gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) himself long after we proclaimed that policy. Why, his contention in 1901 and 1902 was that it would be absolutely absurd to expect any system of preferential trade with the mother country unless we adopted free trade and did away with our tariff altogether. I have the right hon. gentleman's words under my hand, but, unless he contradicts what I have said, I will not weary the House with them for I have already too many quotations in this speech. And what was the attitude of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) in those days. His attitude was that any effort to be made by Sir Charles Tupper along the lines he had suggested-that is, any effort to obtain a preference in the mother country in return for a preference given to the mother country -was arrant humbug ; and he went further and characterized as arrant humbug resolutions of boards of trade throughout the country urging upon the government to make efforts in that direction with the least possible delay. The two parties stand on the same platform now, do they 7 Well, I have some recollection that my right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) when he was in Great Britain did not stand on the same platform or advocate the same policy as that announced by the Minister of Finance this year, and announced with even greater emphasis by the Minister of Finance in his budget speech of last year. What did my right hon. friend say when he was in Great Britain, after he had secured the return to office of his party in this country pledged to do whatever he could to obtain a preference for the products of Canada in the mother country ? He went to the mother country and told the people and statesmen of Great Britain that we wanted no preference in their makets for our products. But only last year, and previously at the Colonial Conference, we were treated to a series of threats by these gentlemen directed against the mother country, that the preference we had granted in 1897 would be withdrawn unless a similar preference were granted to the products of Canada by the mother country. The people of Great Britain were told in 1897-were they not ?-that Canada had not granted the preference which was then given to the mother country with any hope, or, indeed with any desire, of obtaining anything in return. It was given-said my right hon. friend-' in return for the splendid freedom with which you have endowed us. ' And further he said-and this is especially to be noted-we do not want any preference in return, because we do not wish to see the mother country cursed by that protection which has wrought so much of evil in Canada. My right hon. friend will not deny, and has never denied that utter-

ance. The published reports of his speeches contain these words, and I have them under my hand, if he should see fit to deny them. Why should we now demand a preference in return if we had already received compensation for the preference we gave ? Why do we now desire to see the mother country cursed by that protection which has destroyed Canada in the view of my right hon. friend ? !Why ido we make these threats against the mother country ? My hon. friend the Minister of Finance, in his speech of this year-and I have a number of quotations from his speech of last year, with which I shall not weary the House- says :
For the present we think it is a wise policy to adhere to the preferential system in the hope that it may be adopted more generally throughout the empire and that by and by a better understanding may be come to in the mother country and that it will be adopted there as well.
But no one understood that to be the policy of this government up to 18 months ago because the language of the Prime Minister in 1897 was followed by words of the Minister of Agriculture in two or three speeches in Great Britain in 1901 in which, speaking with all the responsibility of a Minister of the Crown, he again repeated to the British people that no preference was desired by Canada because the preference which we had given was accorded to the mother country for altogether different reasons and upon an altogether different principle. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer was asked in the parliament of Great Britain : ' Do you propose to exempt Canada from the tax on food products ? ' he replied :
' No. X do not propose to exempt Canada from this tax because Canada desires no such exemption.' Does my right hon. friend now desire to see the mother country cursed by protection ? Does he stand for and believe in Mr. Chamberlain's policy ? I am sorry that if he has repented, his repentance has come so late because I venture to say that if the government of this country had expended as much time and effort in procuring a reciprocity treaty with Great Britain^-because that is all it amounts to-as they have expended in endeavouring to obtain reciprocal trade relations on fair terms with the United States, we would have had preferential trade on a fair basis and we would have had that preference in the markets of the mother country which would have done so much not only for the east but for the west of Canada and which would have poured population into this country in even greater numbers thau we have beheld with so much satisfaction during the past three or four years.
The terror of imperialism in invoked whenever this question is raised. Well, I would like to know what greater danger we run
by making a reciprocity treaty with the mother country, which is not a foreign country, than by making a reciprocity treaty with the United States of America ? What greater dangers are there in making a reciprocity treaty with Great Britain and Ireland than in making a reciprocity treaty with the United States of America ? Gentlemen who are very much alarmed at the prospect of reciprocity with the mother country were not afraid to take part in the deliberations of the commission which sat at Washington. Is there any greater danger in one case than in the other ? I would like to know what the danger is.
Let us look at it in another aspect. We have given a preference to the mother country. Do we run any greater danger of imperialism by receiving a preference in return ? Where does the danger come in ? I have endeavoured to concern myself with this a little as I propose to stand as strongly and as firmly as any one for all those liberties which we enjoy in Canada, and especially for the right of self government in Canada, which we shall never give up. But I do not understand why we run more risk in the one case than in the other, and I do not understand that we incur any risk at all, having given a preference to the mother country, by merely receiving one in return. When any government in Great Britain proposes to give to us a preference in their markets upon terms which are inconsistent with our rights of self-government we shall know very well, on this side of the House at least, what answer to give and we will say that no advantage of that kind would for one moment be considered if it involved the least diminution of those rights of self-government which we have enjoyed for so many years and have won by so much effort and at so great a cost.	That is my position
and I believe it is the position of hon. gentlemen on this side of the House. Then we are told that this government dare not interfere, dare not announce any policy on the subject, dare not become a party to any resolution because, forsooth, this has become a party question in the mother country and it would be impolitic to express our opinion. Well we have not always been so careful in the past. We interfered for example in connection with the war in South Africa by passing a resolution in this House, yet, I think that there was somewhat of a party question in the mother country even at that time. When will this cease to be a party question in Great Britain ? Suppose that Mr. Chamberlain's project carries eventually and he comes into power and is prepared to negotiate with Canada ; does any one suppose that the free traders of Great Britain will be absolutely eliminated, or that this will not continue to be a party question in the mother country ? Is it the policy of the
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government that we shall sit still and fold our hands until the last sole survivor of the Cobden club has passed away ? If not, it seems to me we are a little too careful in Canada at the present time and that we might well in this country state at least our willingness to enter into negotiations for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not some fair basis of mutual preferential trade cannot be obtained. I have always thought that when the principle was once adopted by the statesmen of the two countries it would be largely a matter for the business men of the two countries to work out. I believe it could be worked out and worked out with advantage to the mother country as well as to Canada herself.
The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir Richard Cartwright) contends that Canada led the way in preferential trade. We know how Canada led the way. She led the way because there were two warring factions in the cabinet and a system of preferences to the mother country was agreed upon as a compromise between these two factions; and we know that the leader of one of the factions, the present Minister of Trade and Commerce, stated distinctly and emphatically when he spoke upon the subject in 1897 that he agreed to it because it was some installment of free trade and because the ship's head was now at last pointed towards the open sea of free trade. Now that same lion, gentleman will stand up in the House and vote, if a vote should be taken, in favour of an increase in the woollen duties that takes away 60 per cent of the preference upon those articles and he will rejoice no doubt to see in that regard the ship's head pointed in exactly the opposite direction.
I do not know that I need discuss the attitude of the hon. gentleman very much, particularly in his absence to-day, but I am almost inclined to think that his views upon that question or any other question will not be very highly regarded by very many of his fellow countrymen until he can give some better explanation than his leader has given of his attitude between 1878 and 1896 as compared with his attitude from 1896 to the present time. We have an explanation from the right hon. gentleman of the attitude of the right hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce from 1878 to 1896 and I am bound to say that if the remarks of the right hon. Prime Minister on that occasion were intended as a eulogy of Sir Richard Cartwright it was the most cruel eulogy that one friend ever pronounced upon another.
I spoke of omissions from the speech of the hon. Minister of Finance. He said not one word about the conditions of our import trade with Great Britain as compared Mr. R. L. BORDEN.
with our import trade with the United States. This was a favourite text in days gone by. How does the matter stand today ? The British preference was given for the purpose of encouraging trade with the mother country and Conservatives have been taunted with this, that whereas their policy led to an increase of our trade with the United States, the Liberal policy was especially designed to bring about larger trade and better trade relations with the mother country. I have here a statement of imports from the United States for home consumption, excluding coin and bullion from 1896 down to the present time, distinguishing dutiable from free goods. In 1896 our dutiable imports from the United States amounted to $29,101,646 and our free imports to $24,427,744 or a total of $53,522,390. I trace it up from year to year until I come to 1903. Then I find our dutiable imports from the United States amounting to $68,538,323 and our free imports amounting to $60,251,914, or a total importation from the United States of goods valued at $128,790,237, a percentage of increase from 1896 'to 1903 of no less than 120 per cent in our importation of free and dutiable goods from the United States of America. I come now to Great Britain. Our dutiable imports from Great Britain in 1896 amounted to $24,360,179, and our free importations amounted to $8,458,326, a total importation in that year of $32,824,505. Tracing it up year after year, distinguishing in the same way between dutiable and free imports, I come to 1903 and find then that our dutiable importations from the mother country were $42,210,165 and our free importations from the same country $16,582,873, making a total importation from Great Britain and Ireland of goods valued at $58,793,038 or an increase during the period that I have mentioned under the British preference of 78 per cent or a little more than half of the percentage of increase of importations from the United States of America during the same period. Taking our importations from all the world and tracing them iq# in the same way I find that in 1896 our total imports amounted to $67,349,759 and our free importations to $38,128,402, making a total in that year of $105,361,161. In 1903 our dutiable importations from all countries of the world amounted to $136,796,065, and our free importations amounted to $88,017,667 making a total importation of goods from all countries of $224,813,719, or an increase from 1896 to 1903 of 86J per cent, being 81 per cent of an average increase from all countries over the increase from the mother country which has been blessed by this preference upon which hon. gentlemen pride themselves so much.
47S3

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-	1896.	1897.	1898.	1899.	1900.	1901.	1902.	1903.	Percentage of increase, 1903 over 1896.$	$	$	$	S	$	*	$	p.e.Dutiable.... Free	29,101,646 24,427,744	30,482,509 26,540,833	38,063,960 36,700,963	44,471,824 43,995,349	53,897,561 48,182,616	53,600,278 53,549,047	60,181,808 54,562,888	68,538,323 60,251,914	53,529,390	57,023,342	74,824,923	88,467,173	102,080,177	107,149,325	114,744,696	128,790,237	120

Dutiable ...: Free	24,366,179 8,458,326	20,217,422 9,183,766	22,556,479 9,486,982	27,521,508 9,409,815	31,561,756 12,718,227	31,701,654 11,118,341	35,062,564 13,960,162	42,210,165 16,582,873	32,824,505	29,401,188	32,043,461	36,931,323	44,279,983	42,819,995	49,022,726	58,793,038	78


FROM ALL COUNTRIES.
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Dutiable.... Free	67,239,759 38,121,402	66,220,765 40,397,062	74,625,088 51,082,074	89,433,172 59,913,287	104,346,795 68,160,083	105,969,756 71,730,938	118,657,490 77,822,694	136,796,065 88,017,654	105,361,161	106,617,827	126,307,162	149,346,459	172,506,878	177,700,694	196,480,190	224,813,719	86 50(*From United States . - ....	75J millions.Increase since 1896s	[DOT]<	Great Britain	
26	m^ it	all countries	
119'.	n
It Is to be observed that the increase of our total importations since 1896 is as follows from the different countries that I have named: from the United States $75,250,000, Great Britain $26,000,000 and from all other countries $119,500,000. Let us remember that in days gone by this was a favourite subject of comment by the right lion. Minister of Trade and Commerce who spoke at that time as the financial exponent of the Liberal party. He especially emphasized one point, he emphasized it over and over again and although I have called his attention to it at least three times in this House on every occasion he has evaded any answer. Our imports from the United States for home consumption during 1903, less coin and bullion amounted to $128,790,237, our exports to the United States, excluding gold bearing quartz, silver concentrates, coin and bullion amounted to $49,532,827 leaving a balance of trade against us and in favour of the United States of no less than $79,257,410. Our imports from Great Britain for home consumption, less coin and bullion, in the same year amounted to $58,793,038, our exports to Great Britain excluding gold bearing quartz, silver concentrates, coin and bullion amounted to $125,198,057, leaving a balance of trade in our favour and against the mother
country of no less than $66,405,019. The
statement is as follows :
1903.
Imports from United States-
Home consumption and less coin
and bullion	$128,790,237
Exports to United States*	 49,532,827
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Imports from Great Britain-
Home consumption and less coin
and bullion	 [DOT][DOT]$ 58,793,038
Exports to Great Britain*	 125,198,057
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* Less gold-bearing quartz, silver metallic, coin and bullion.
One thing that ought to be remembered is that if we take the $66,000,000 balance of trade in our favour with Great Britain and add $13,000,000 of our own money, the product of our resources in Canada, we are just able to make up the $79,000,000 which we have to pay to the United States. How does it come about that with the British preference the relative conditions of trade between this country and the United States as compared with those between this country and the mother country as so extraordinary as I have pointed out ? Of course, one realizes that the mother country is our
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customer. The United States can never be our customer in respect to many of our products. The United States is our rival in the markets of Great Britain and it is for that reason that I for one am prepared to support proposals for a reciprocity treaty with Great Britain rather than for a reciprocity treaty with the United States pf America. The people of the United States are our commercial rivals; the British people afford us our market, and I suppose it will continue in future that our exports to the mother country will be greater than our imports from the mother country.
Bet us look for one moment at the rate of duty. The rate of duty upon dutiable goods imported from the United States during the past year was 24-91 ; the rate of duty upon dutiable goods imported from the mother country was 23:32 : the rate of duty on all goods, dutiable and free, from the United States during the past year was 13-25 ; while the rate of duty upon all goods imported from Great Britain was considerably higher, being no less than 16-71 ; showing to what extent the United States has the advantage over the mother country in respect to free goods at least. Let us remember that both with respect to the trade from Great Britain and with respect to the rate of duty, there will probably be a still greater change in favour of the United States, in view of the proposed alterations in the tariff. I do not wish for one moment to be understood as not standing for protection to the woollen industry of Canada, but I do not forget that when this preference was given to the mother country, the duty upon many articles which we especially import from the mother country was raised, while the duty upon some at least which we import largely from the United States was correspondingly lowered.
I shall consider the tariff proposals of the government only briefly now. because they will more properly be discussed in committee. They are described by the government press in certain quarters, as being in the direction of higher protection, while in other quarters the idea of increased protection is discounted, and attention is called solely to certain reductions. It is interesting to see the Minister of Trade and Commerce and the Minister of Finance drawn as willing captives in the train of the so-called robber barons who were described in such terms of opprobrium in days gone by by the member for South Oxford (Sir Richard Cartwright). If the government is adopting any measure of higher protection, let us remember that according to the right hon gentleman (Sir Richard Cartwright) the government is embarking upon an orgy of the most awful corruption, because it is not long since he said :
I do not mean to say that a government may not be corrupt and yet not protectionist. That '
Robert Laird Borden: may be. But I do say that human nature being as it is, it is almost impossible for a government to be protectionist and escape being corrupt.
And I will add this further ; I will add that while I think protection and corruption are practically inseparable ; I will add that I likewise believe for my part, that protection and true freedom are all but absolutely incompatible.
According to the view of the right hon. gentleman, then, this government is plunging into a career not only of wild corruption, but into a career which will land the country in an absolute condition of slavery. I have before quoted the remarks .of the Prime Minister on this question and I need not quote them again. Sufficient it is to say that the Prime Minister, only two years before he came into power, denounced protection as absolute slavery and robbery and he has since prided himself that having begun life as a protectionist he is now a free trader. Be that as it may, a more recent utterance of the Prime Minister in Montreal, informed us that he is now neither a protectionist nor a free trader, but a practical man. Let me remind the right hon. gentleman that almost the last public utterance of the Minister of Trade and Commerce upon this question, before 1896 was in moving a resolution in 1895, when he said :
I doubt if there ever was a country so wholly and utterly unsuited to protection as a country like Canada.
Might we be permitted to inquire whether he still adheres to that view so honestly and firmly pronounced. No one has questioned the honesty of his former utterances except his leader.
If inquiry into the tariff be necessary before revision takes place one would have supposed that such inquiry would be required as to certain matters that are dealt with in the tariff, notably the oil industry, which, as I understand it, presents a pretty complicated question for consideration. But the pretense of a necessity for inquiry was not always put forward by the government. In 1901 those who desired to revise the tariff were told by the government that the Joint High Commission was sitting ; in 1902 the excuse of the government was that the Colonial Conference was about to take place, and in 1903 the excuse was that until we learned the exact outcome of Mr. Chamberlain's agitation for a system of mutual preferential trade within the empire, it would be unwise to interfere with the tariff. But this year, there being no other excuse available for the government, we are told that these ministers who have been collecting information on this subject for the last four years, must have an inquiry. Have they not technical officers in their departments ? Have they not received delegations from the manufacturing, the agricultural, the lumbering, the

mining, and indeed all industries in Canada ? Have they not had an enormous mass of information placed at their disposal, and why is it that they shirk from making a tariff revision this session ? That question will present itself to every thoughtful man in the country.
In connection with the oil duties, the Minister of Finance presents a very charming picture by which the people will be saved $643,886 per annum upon the oil duties, while they pay a bounty of nearly $225,000. That is a very excellent condition of affairs, if the government could have any assurance' that under existing and probably future conditions, the reduction in the price of oil will correspond with the reduction in the duty. When we get into committee I would like to hear some explanations from the Minister of Finance on that point before I would be prepared to join in his felicitations to himself on making that change in the tariff. There are various interests to be reckoned with in this connection. There is the oil refining industry which must not be lost sight of by any means, because it affords remunerative employment to many Canadians. There is the producer of crude oil to be considered, and his interests are very important.
I would not at first blush, and without hearing something further from my hon. friend the Minister of Finance than I have been able to hear so far, be inclined to agree with him that the interests of those producers are so thoroughly safeguarded by the proposed bounty as he seems to imagine. Is this bounty to be permanent ? Bounties are not usually provided with the intention that they are to be permanent. What is the view of the government on that point ? How is this difficult situation to be adjusted ?-because we must endeavour as far as possible to do justice to all. How is it that under conditions of that kind the government were able to spring to a conclusion without any difficulty whatever, whereas with regard to a great many other industries of Canada, the conditions of which are not of so complicated a character the government have found it absolutely necessary to postpone their decision ? One would like to understand something of the reasons why very difficult and complicated conditions were met promptly in the one case, and why less difficult and less complicated conditions in other cases receive 110 amelioration without a certain inquiry. These are considerations to which we cannot shut our eyes, and as to which we shall exact certain information from the government when we come to discuss this matter in committee.
With regard to the increased duty on woollens, I speak with all the diffidence of one who has not the experience possi-essed by a great many other gentlemen in this House. I have not had. an opportunity
of consulting very much those familiar with the conditions of the woollen industry; but, speaking from what I know on the subject and simply from the standpoint of common sense, I would have thought that the importation of shoddy would have been better met by a specific duty. I think that the importation of what is called shoddy ought especially to he dealt with, because not only is it destructive of the interests of our manufacturers, but it seems to present unfortunate conditions from the standpoint of the purchaser, consisting as it does of goods which look well, but which do not wear well, and in the end do not give that value to the purchaser which he has a right to expect in consideration of the money he pays for them. However, we shall have further opportunity of discussing that question when we get into committee.
As to the provision against dumping, this I am sure, must have been enthusiastically heralded by my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce. 1 was very much struck with certain observations which he made on that subject two years ago, and I was especially struck with an article in the leading organ of the .Liberal party in the province of Ontario, the Toronto ' Globe,' on this very subject only last autumn. The argument presented by the Toronto ' Globe ' was this : Far from dumping being any disadvantage to the people of Canada, it was the very thing the people of Canada wanted. How, asked this great organ of public opinion, can it be of any disadvantage to Canadians to buy for $1.00 goods worth $1.50? Shall we -exhort our fellow countrymen to refrain from purchasing them ? The trend of the argument was that if there was one thing above another that we should welcome in Canada, it would be the wholesale importation of manufactured goods from the United States to be sold in Canada for one-half of what they could be purchased for in this country. I went through a great jrart of the maritime provinces, into the eastern townships of the province of Quebec, and into the western part of the province of Ontario, and I pointed out to the people whom I addressed from every platform,, that dumping, as I believed, was a very serious evil. I said to them :	When the
Canadian industry has been wiped -out;, when the Canadian factory has been closed, when the Canadian employee has been driven to seek his home in the United States of America and to work in those very factories which are sending these goods into Canada, and when you come to add up the account, even then, with the dumping of goods at reduced prices, I believe you would find the account against this country ; but add to that consideration the fact that when our factories have been once closed, and the employees driven to

a foreign country, you will find these trusts closing their hands, and compelling the people to pay 50 per cent more than the value of the goods; then make up the account and see where this country will be in the long run. I was not heralded by any Liberal newspaper as setting forth sound doctrine. My arguments were ridiculed; and yet when the Minister of Finance utters practically the same doctrine only the other day in the budget speech, he is heralded as the proclaimer of glad tidings by every Liberal journal throughout the country. That shows to what extent partisan politics will drive us.
Let us see what my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce thinks of his question of dumping; and I commend his remarks especially to the Prime Minister, because we all know . that that right hon. gentleman put forward the present Minister of Trade and Commerce as the great exponent of the fiscal policy of the Liberal party in days gone (by. Surely nothing has occurred since which would cause him to lose confidence in the well weighed utterances of that hon. gentleman. I will not put this statement forward as the utterance of the Minister of Trade and Commerce merely. I have a right to put it forward as the deliberate utterance of this government through the Minister of Trade and Commerce on this very question only two years ago; and T will let my right hon. friend repudiate it, if he sees fit to do so, as the deliberate utterance of the government of which he is the head. Here is a statement of the views of the government on the question of dumping :
I have heard it said by hon. gentlemen opposite, and even by some friends of mine, that Canada is a dumping ground for American manufacturers. I have heard plaintive wails that heathen Yankees, not having the fear ct God or of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association before their eyes, come to Canada and actually have the audacity to sell goods to Canadian consumers at a lower price than that at which they sell them to their own people.


Mr. SAM. HUGHES.: Whose views are those, please ?


Robert Laird Borden: These are the views of the government as pronounced by the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce less than two years ago. That was In the finest vein of sarcasm of the hon. gentjleman'; and he continued as follows.
It is even said, though this lacks proof, that they sell them at less than 'cost in their greed to monopolize so profitable a trade ; and it is said that there are many Canadians so unpatriotic, so dead to all lofty feeling, that they will actually purchase American goods for no better reason than the fact that they can obtain them better and cheaper than they can similar goods in their own country.
That was the sympathetic way in which the government only two years ago treated Mr. R. L. BORDEN.
the complaint by the producers and manufacturers of this country that they were suffering from the dumping of American goods. Once more we have a right about face by tbe administration and we welcome it if the measures taken to cure the evil will only prove effective, but I believe the government are taking these measures in a very half-hearted way and that they will not prove effective. We will have some opportunity no doubt hereafter to consider the reasons which lead us to that conclusion. My right hon. friend seems to be touched with the merry spirit of this utterance of the Minister of Trade and Commerce. I do not know which portion of it has excited his risibility.


Wilfrid Laurier: The comments of my hon. friend.


Robert Laird Borden: I was endeavouring to be a little humourous and am glad that I hit the mark. Well, we. are to have a very curious system, very curious measures to remove this evil, and very effective no doubt my right hon. friend thinks.


Wilfrid Laurier: I hope so.


Robert Laird Borden: I suppose those hopes will be realized just as was the expectation of my right hon. friend that he would absolutely destroy protection when he came to office or that he would reduce our expenditure by $4,000,000. Does my right hon. friend think these hopes will materialize any better than did his splendid prophecy at Toronto with regard to the fast Atlantic ocean service ? He only hopes now but then he had a certainty. Then he produced a telegram. At present, however, we are not on very safe ground. Then we had an assurance and a certainty, but now we have only a hope. What then is likely to result since our expectation now must be so faint as compared with that which the good people of Toronto and all the good citizens of Canada were led to entertain at that time ? Goods have at present to he entered at their market value in the country they come from. The customs law requires that, and no change in that respect has been outlined by the Minister of Finance. The imposition of a special tax will turn therefore altogether upon the individual discretion of each customs officer, and we will have this extraordinary condition of things all over Canada. Importers will be met with one reception at Toronto, another at Montreal and another at Halifax, depending altogether on the judgment, vigilance, experience and knowledge of each customs officer. A thousand things which are uncertain will enter into the enforcement of this statute, and I venture to say that the expectations of my right hon. friend as to the effect of this measure will be found hardly up to the results even of his assurance with regard to the fast Atlantic service, because the expec-

tation in that ease was kept up at least two or three years, although it has absolutely faded away for the present. Cannot the increased duty be evaded by some system of annual discounts or some other such arrangement ? Men familiar with business life can inform the House better on that point than I can. Last but not least, the hon. gentleman's remedy will absolutely fail to operate when prices are generally depressed to an undue degree in other countries. When prices come down all over the United States, goods will be sold in Canada at what might be called dumping prices otherwise, but at the same prices as in the United States. Where will the protection be found then? The market may be so glutted at home that the American manufacturers will be compelled to send their goods to Canada at the prices ruling in the United States. We must not forget that the United States produced thirteen thousand million dollars worth of manufactured goods in 1901 and exported only three and a half per cent of that quantity. Let us consider for a moment what an enormous surplus they would have for export in a time of depression. If only ten per cent instead of three and a half per cent had to be marketed in some foreign country, that would mean an increase of exports to thirteen hundred and fifty million dollars. Where would those goods be dumped first? No doubt in Canada, which is the best customer of the United States for manufactured goods. I venture therefore to think that this provision will not prove a sufficient safeguard for Canadian interests. Further than that, if goods should be sold in the United States as low as fifty per cent of their value, the duty proposed would still enable them to be sold in this country at lower prices than they can be manufactured at in Canada. Canadian manufacturers cannot specialize their manufacture as the Americans can. We have only a home market of 6,000,000 as against a home market of 80,000,000 which the Americans enjoy. I have been astonished sometimes, on going through the industrial establishments
of our country, to observe the enormous number and variety of articles which men are compelled to manufacture in order to retain the Canadian market. I have not been able to understand how it is possible to turn out such an extraordinary variety of articles and carry on business with any profit ; but I have been told that unless they do turn out this almost infinite variety of articles, it is absolutely impossible for them to hold the market, because the dealers demand this large variety and if they cannot get it at home they will get it from the United States or Great Britain.
Another criticism which has been mentioned is one to which attention is directed by a very able man, Mr. William McMaster of Montreal. I am not sufficiently familiar with the tariff to know how much importance is to be attached to it, but I attach importance to it because Mr. McMaster has raised the point. He says :
' Our important point,' said Mr. McMaster,
' is what effect this will have on free trade. For instance, steel for many edged tools is admitted free. Would it he fair to allow a man importing free to get the advantage of slaughter prices, while others importing, say under a five per cent duty, would have to pay this additional charge ; it would really amount to a bonus on the free goods. No doubt these points will be settled ere long, but in the meantime I can certainly endorse the principle of the change.'
But Mr. McMaster is very careful not to endorse the means by which that change is to be carried out. The general conditions of trade call strongly for a tariff on fairly protective lines. I have a statement here of the principal dutiable imports from Great Britain and the United States and I will call attention to some of the figures. I shall not read the whole statement, as it would take up too much time-and I fear that I have already unduly trespassed on the time of the House-but I shall quote some of them. The increase in imports from Great Britain and the United States was as follows from 1896 to 1903 :-


STATEMENT OF PRINCIPAL DUTIABLE IMPORTS FROM GREAT BRITAIN AND UNITED STATES.
[Stage Direction]
(Total Imports.)
	Great Britain.			United States.		
1896.	1903.	Increase.	1896.	1903.	Increase.$ 6,069 79,983	<C 15,807	$ 9,738	$ 206,999	1,007,979	$ 1,400,980 1,414,015 986,433Bread stuffs	304,325	224,342	6,023.992 1,114,180	7,437,907 ^ 100,613	28,832	127,153	98,32113,923 25,711 12,709	20,324	6,401	37,733	98,888	61,15534,300	8,589	1,177,848	1,774,896 607,000	597,04829,722	17,013	171,097	435,903123,436	185,751	62,315	22,642	323,932	301,290
Cotton and manufactures	
Drugs, &c	
Earthen ;md chinaware	
Electric apparatus	
Fancy goods	
Flax, &e	
Glass and manufactures	
Hats and caps	
Leather and manufactures	
Iron and steel metals and manufactures Brass, copper, gold, silver and manfs...
Agricultural implements	
Paints and oils	
Paper and manufactures	
Rubber and manufactures	
Wood and manufactures	
Wool and manufactures	
Great Britain.			United States.		
1896.	1903.	Increase.	1896.	1903.	Increase.$ 3.366,502 250,689 381,495 8,581 916,933 1,414,404 215,344	$ 5,512,475 667,545 785,270 53,214 1,280,140 1,923,862 460,945	$ 2,145,973 416,856 403,785 44,633 363,207 509,458 245,601	$ 1,076,081 510,667 55,892 309,911 230,988 64,125 419,179 404,050 1,024,285 6,395,765 555,589 414,933 1,215,534 673,875 211,669 7K7 QQ3	f>
1,765,491 899,731 258,665 1,580,021 432,076 99,489 592,052 1,032,489 1,530,248 18,048,450 973,852 1<!1 4SS	689,410 389,064 202,773 1,270,110 201,088 25,364 172,873 628,439 405,963 11,642,685117,315 2,733,860	316,966 7,394,643	199,651 4,660,783	597,686 249,139 118,657	649,633 401,681 446,811	51,947 252,542 328,154	2,965,643 1,575,736 573,421 1 K7S mi	1,750,109 901,861 361,7526,970,010	11,134,201	4,164,191	208^430	573,421	364,99i
This table showns very important increases in importation of a great many different articles. First, there are seven articles of animal products and of farm produce and then there are some twenty articles of manufactured goods. I realize that, with respect to some of these manufactured articles we cannot legitimately hope to have the whole Canadian market. But I do believe that with respect to many of these articles we should have full control of the Canadian market, or at least to a far greater extent than we have at the present time, Look at iron and steel manufactures, in which we increased our importation from Great Britain and the United States by more than $16,000,000 in the period which elapsed between 1896 and 1903. The tariff on iron and steel and manufactures of iron and steel has not been touched at all, except in so far as it may be modified by the proposed dumping provision in which I have not a great deal of confidence. One of our great iron industries, that in the province of Nova Scotia has been in more or less trouble. Another, that at the Soo is being re-orgauized. In respect of both industries, we have reason to believe that the government his been asked to give greater protection. I should think that in that respect, and in respect of many other articles which I have enumerated the interest of the country calls for a readjustment of the tariff upon a fair and reasonable basis having regard not so much to the interest of the manufacturers themselves-because I am not standing for their interest especially-but having regard to the interest of the whole country, the interest of the people who obtain employment in great manufacturing establishments. These, even more than the men whose capital is invested, are interested in seeing that these manufactures are put upon a thoroughly sound basis, a basis which will enable the men who have employed their resources in these industries to give to the labouring men a fair and reasonable wage.
Robert Laird Borden: For the year ending June 30, 1903, Canada imported :
Breadstuffs, to the value of	$11,557,644
Provisions and vegetables to the
value of	 2,572,876
Agricultural implements to the value
of	 3,155,779
Woollen and cotton goods* to the
value of	 24,045,709
Hats, caps, leather and manufactures of, to the value of	 4,024,616
Iron, steel and manufactures of. to
the value of	 42,156,215
Electric apparatus to the value	of..	1,646,489Paints and oils to the value	of..	..	2,864,000

* Raw cotton not included.
From 1896 to 1903 our-
Importations of breadsbuffs increased

	$ 5,139,887
Importations of iron, steel and manufactures of, increased	 31,953,163
Importations of woollens and cottons
increased	 8,827,213
Importations of electric apparatus
increased	 1,324,558
Importations of hats, caps, leather,
&c., increased	 1,295,761
Importations of agricultural implements increased	 2,685,904
Importations of paints and oils increased	 1,269,715
Total increase in these articles. .$52,496,191
And the question for this parliament and for the Canadian people is whether or not the labour involved in the manufacture of a great many of these articles, a very large proportion of the total of that sum of fifty-two and a half million dollars might not have been given to our own people at a remunerative wage rather than to the people of other countries.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I have detained the House very much longer than I expected to do when I began. Let me say, in order


M- 1904
[Stage Direction]
to be brief, that I stand by the principles which I advocated last year as those upon which we should proceed in the re-adjustment of the tariff. And, for the purpose of being brief, I will read those principles instead of describing and elaborating them :
Our policy should be to accomplish the following object® :-
1.	To so arrange our tariff that all legitimate industries at present established in this country should be so protected as to insure as far as possible permanency under conditions of depression as well as in times of commercial expansion.
2.	To invite capital and attract labour to the establishment of other industries which the resources and raw material of our country amply justify.
3.	To preserve by means of an adequately protective tariff our own home market for our own people and to have the policy of the government so declared and understood.
Because that is the very basis of all investment for the purpose of expanding the industries of Canada.
4.	In framing our tariff to have regard solely to the interests of Canada which have been committed to our charge, although recognizing that in consulting our own interests we must not be unmindful of the tariffs raised against us by other countries.
5.	To so frame our fiscal policy that labour in Canada shall be paid a fair living wage, remembering always that our labouring classes and therefore our producers and manufacturers cannot be expected to compete on even terms with countries in which the condition of life among the labouring classes is altogether different. We do not desire to reduce our labouring population to the low standard of living, to that-hard fierce struggle for existence which prevails in many countries. We do not want our labouring classes to compete without protection against the pauper labour of any country.
6.	To utilize the labour of our own people in the conversion of our own raw material into finished products required for use in our own country. It is surely bad policy to export our raw material, to send our labouring classes abroad to another country to find work in its manufactories and to send after both our money to pay for the finished product which we require.
And I say that not only the labouring men of Canada, not only the manufacturers of Canada, not only those who have capital invested and those who receive a wage out of the investment of capital, but the farmers of our country as well are intensely interested in seeing that we have a stable policy of protection carried out. The people of Canada are beginning to realize, the farmers I think are beginning to realize the value to them of the home market and of important industrial centres, of which we have few in this country to-day. Farmers, newly arrived farmers in the Northwest, pointed out to me a year and a half ago that in making their homes in Canada they felt the disadvantage of not having in western Canada those great industrial centres and centres of population that afforded them a market in the United States. That condition would come to us in the west of Canada, as well as in the east, if we had in force a policy such as I suggest, and such as we on this side of the House have fought for. Winnipeg and other great points in the west would become manufacturing centres, great industrial centres, before many years had passed, if we had in Canada a tariff adequately and firmly protective of our home market. And, Sir, with a policy such as I have outlined and with a thoroughly national system of transportation, whereby the people shall own and control the national highways, constructed by means of the national credit and out of the national resources, the development of this country will proceed on sure lines, on a stable basis and in a legitimate direction, and we shail have no cause to fear for the future material prosperity of the country which we love so well.
1 therefore beg to move :
That all the words after ' that ' in the proposed motion he left out and the following substituted therefor :
No readjustment of the tariff can be regarded as satisfactory which does not provide such protection to our labour, agricultural products, manufactures and industries as will secure the Canadian market for the Canadian people.
That at the present session there should he a thorough adjustment of the tariff based on a declared and stable policy of adequate protection. '
Rt.   H@: Mr. Speaker, I am sure my hon. friend (Mr. R. L. Borden) will be the first to admit that the speech which we have heard to-day from his lips is a very old friend. At all events, it is an old friend of hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House ; it Is on this side of the House an old acquaintance. We have heard it before, and we have heard it during the present session even, from the lips of the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Bell). I shall not say we have heard it too often ; quite the contrary, because if, after all, the policy of my hon. friends on the other side of the House is confined within the four corners of that speech, and if, as time goes on, and year after year rolls -upon us, we have the same thing over and over again, then after all we on this side of the House should be comforted with the thought that there is not much to find fault with in our policy. My hon. friend (Mr. R. L. Borden) has dilated at some length on the question of figures. He has reproached us once more upon the fact that we have increased the expenditure. I do not know that it requires any justification on my part, or if I should endeavour to make a justification, that much labour would be required for that purpose, because I think that the expenditure which we have incurred has been amply justified, not only by hon. gentlemen on this side of the House, hut even by hon. gentlemen on
r

[DOT] the other side. I would like to know, Sir, during the years we have been in office what items of the expenditure which have been proposed by this government have been opposed by hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House ? The truth is that we are not sufficiently extravagant in the eyes of hon. gentlemen opposite, because again and again we hear them proposing to us to increase the expenditures which we have brought to the attention of the country. I have not time to go over these, but if I had time I am sure I could recall many instances in which hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House have asked us to supplement estimates which we were bringing before the House and to vote more money than we were providing for. The chief object of my hon. friend's criticism has been the question of surpluses. My hon. friend, I may tell him again, is a good hand-not yet equal to Sir Charles Tupper, I admit-but not a bad hand at a scrap-book. He has quoted some sentences from speeches of my hon. friend (Sir Richard Cartwright) to the effect that the Minister of Finance had no need of having surpluses. Sir, I do not think if the hon. the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir Richard Cartwright) were here he would have anything to recant, to apologize for or to explain on this subject. X have to say to my hon. friend that in such a new country as this a large amount of public money must be expended. We have to build railways, to build wharfs, to improve the canals and this involves a large expenditure. In the eight years we have been in office we have spent no less than $56,000,000 on capital expenditure providing for the construction of railways in different parts of the country and for the improvement of the canals, and I may say that at this time the country is the wealthier for the expenditure which we have made in that direction. Not only have we made the country all the wealthier for the expenditure which we have made, but 1 venture to say we should perhaps have spent a little more. We have been able to expend no less than $56,000,000 in that way on improvements which have added to the wealth of the people, and have been able to do this without adding one dollar to the public debt of this country.
There is our justification and I ask my hon. friend what are we to do 1 We have carried on this work with our surpluses. It is because my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding), year after year has been able to make a record as that which he has made, it is because, year after year he has been able to have surpluses amounting to this large sum of money that we have been able to add to the wealth of the people of Canada without adding one cent to the public debt. If we had followed the suggestion of my hon. friend, if indeed it was a suggestion, or if we had done what his words imply, we would have taken means to reform the tariff in such a way Sir WILFRID LAURIER.
that instead of having this surplus to carry on these public works we would have been obliged borrow the money in the markets of the world. Is that the policy of my hon. friend ? If the argument advanced by my hon. friend this afternoon means anything it means that my hon. friend objects to the policy we have pursued. If it means anything it means that instead of carrying on these public works and of meeting these expenditures out of the money which we have placed in the public treasury he would have done the same thing by borrowing the money in the markets of the world. It means that instead of carrying on the public works of the country without putting any greater burden on the shoulders of the people, and without adding to the public debt we should have borrowed the money. If that is the position which my hon. friend takes I am willing to take issue with him. I am not only willing to take issue with him in this House, but am willing to allow that issue to be placed before the Canadian people. My hon. friend a moment ago rather stated that we would change sides in this House; he rather intimated that when the general elections came on in this country he and his friends would come to this side of the House and we would go to the other side of the House.


An hon. MEMBER.: So you will.


Wilfrid Laurier: I have heard that before. I heard that in 1900 and it is a promise which has not yet been fulfilled. I am not strong in the line of prophecy but if my hon. friend wants to come into power it will not be by suggesting that in order to carry on the public works we should borrow the money instead of meeting these expenditures out of the revenue of the country. That is the difference between my hon. friend and myself on this question and I am willing to leave it to the clear judgment of this House as to the better policy to pursue.
My hon. friend spoke at some length upon the dumping clause of our tariff. I could not say from the statement of my hon. friend whether he was in favour of our policy or against it. I gathered that two years ago when my right hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir Richard Cartwright) made a speech rather against it, my hon. friend was rather in favour of it. But since that time it seems to me that my hon. friend has changed his mind and that he is now rather against it. At all events he did not speak enthusiastically about it. He said that I did not speak enthusiastically about it. My hon. friend spoke of my previous statements about the fast Atlantic service. I well remember that on a certain occasion when I was in Toronto I received a telegram from England. I thought it was settled and I so stated to the people of Toronto but I have learned since that occasion that it is not always best to be too sure. But, we have reason

to hope that this policy will bring about the effect for which it has been designed. My hon. friend did not dare to attack it but he rather suggested that it would not be effective because it might be evaded. What feature of the tariff law is there that is not liable to be evaded ? I am sure there will always be some parties in this country and on the other side of the line also who will endeavour to evade the law and I have no doubt that my hon. friend the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson), within six months, or perhaps within a less time, will have to deal with that question. There are parties who will try to get over this law, to defraud the revenue and to prevent the Canadian people from deriving the benefit from it, but that is no argument against the law. If that were an argument against this law' it would be an argument against the whole tariff. My hon. friend cannot point to a single law of any kind whatever and especially one which put a restriction upon free importation or free act of any kind on the part of the community which will not be subject to being evaded, and certainly when a law of this kind is adopted to put a stop to an illegitimate traffic which has been taking place for many years as it has been for the protection of the Canadian manufacturers in the lines of business in which this traffic has been carried on, I have no doubt that great efforts will be made to get over the law. I have no doubt that many hon. gentlemen opposite who are in favour of it are disposed to damn it with faint praise because it comes from this side of the House. Well, we will have to see how it will work. All the business men the country will concede that not only is this a good measure but that it is a bold course which has been taken by the government and one which shows that this government is alive to the necessities of the trade of this country.
My hon. friend also stated that he did not altogether approve-I do not know that I understood him correctly,-of the commission which we were instituting in order to have an inquiry as to how the tariff has been working and as to how it can be improved. My hon. friend did not altogether, as I understood him, condemn the idea, but he did not commend it either. He stands betwixt and between ; he says neither yes nor no. He said :	If you have an inquiry
in order to deal with the tariff why should you deal with the oil duties ? Again on the oil duties my hon. friend did not say very much. He did not attack us on our policy. In regard to the oil duties we did not have any hesitation or difficulty, in deciding upon the policy which we have adopted and I think that policy can be very well defended in very few words. We found the duty on refined oil when we came into office six cents per gallon. We then reduced it by one cent per gallon and this year we have cut the duty in two. We have
reduced the duty on refined oil to two and a half cents per gallon. We have wiped out altogether the duty on crude oil but we have given a bounty of a cent and a half per gallon to the producers of crude oil. Why did we do that ? The reason is obvious and I hope it will commend itself to my hon. friends opposite. The producers of Canadian oil cannot supply the Canadian market. The production in Canada cannot supply more than one-third of the total consumption of oil in Canada. Two-thirds have to be imported. It is a well known fact that if we had wiped out the duty on crude oil without giving any bounty to the producers we would have closed up every oil well that is producing oil in the province of Ontario. There is no doubt as to that. It is a serious question and it is one in regard to which there can be no dispute. I do not think the oil industry has been a very profitable industry to anybody for many years past but it is a well -known fact that thousands if not millions of dollars of Canadian money have been invested in that industry. It so happens that we cannot compete on equal terms with American oil and if we had not given to the producers in the province of Ontario a bounty of one and a half cents a gallon which enables them to keep their wells open the whole of the plants and the -whole of the money which have been invested would have been wiped out and Canada would have lost probably millions of dollars instead of having a profitable industry going on. Instead of having that condition of things, in order to give the consumer the benefit of cheap oil, we thought we were justified in giving a bounty out of the public treasury which will amount to from $150,000 to $180,000 a year. We rely upon the good sense of the people of Canada that they will agree to give this bounty to their fellow citizens who have invested their money in the oil regions so as to keep their industry in operation. This is the justification for our policy and if we are wrong we invite the criticism of our friends on the other side.


Mr. CLANCY.: Why does not the right hon. gentleman apply that rule to all other industries ?


Wilfrid Laurier: That is what we have been doing.


James Clancy: Oh, no.


Wilfrid Laurier: That is what we have been doing as I shall show. My hon. friend (Mr. Clancy) is too critical ; I will be able to show him that we have done that for every other industry. At all events, if we have not the approbation of his leader, we have his own approbation with regard to this particular item of our policy because my hon. friend has approved of it.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Wilfrid Laurier: He approved of it, and I understood his leader to say

that he was not sure whether or not our policy would decrease the price of oil. My information at the present moment is, that the day after the Minister of Finance delivered his budget speech the price of oil was reduced two and a half cents a gallon to the consumer, and that is the best justification for the policy we have adopted.


Mr. ARMSTRONG.: How long will you continue the bounty to the producer ?


Wilfrid Laurier: There is no time limit contemplated in the resolutions. The policy of the government is to maintain it, so long as the conditions require that it should be continued.
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.


Wilfrid Laurier: Mr. Speaker ; we are now face to face with an amendment moved by the leader of the opposition, no doubt with the full concurrence of his party, by which the people of Canada are invited to abandon the policy under which this country has thrived and prospered this last seven years. It is now seven years since the Minister of Finance introduced the tariff which has since been known, and will long continue to be remembered by grateful generations as the Fielding tariff. When the Minister of Finance concluded his first budget speech in 1897, we on this side of the House believed that he had opened a new page in the fiscal history, nay, in the general history of Canada. Great were our expectations then, but greater still has been the reality. Under the Fielding tariff, Canada has developed as no country has developed during the same period!. Our, languishing industries have been revived ; new industries have sprung into life ; agriculture, long depressed and sore tried has flourished ; trade has more than doubled in volume ; the revenue has become unprecedentedly buoyant; hope, confidence, national pride have risen high in the hearts of Canadians. The name of Canada, up to that moment scarcely known beyond her borders has since become a synonym for national progress, and an object of attention from the whole civilized world. True it is that during those seven years this tariff has been the object of constant carping and cavilling on the part of the opposition-an opposition which styles itself His Majesty's loyal opposition, but which never loses an opportunity to arouse passions and prejudices. It is also true, Sir, that during these seven years, the opposition has been forced to shift its ground more than once. Scarcely had the Minister of Finance uttered the last word of his budget speech in 1897, than the leader of the opposition arose and with tears in his eyes and indignation in his voice, he denounced the tariff which had been introduced as the death knell of the industries of Canada. In


Wilfrid Laurier: .
the face of what followed it was absurd to maintain that line of attack, and as Canada developed and prospered the opposition had to change their batteries and adopt other means of attack. They passed without compunction from one extreme to another ; from the extreme of vilification to what must have been to them the extreme of laudation, for they said that the tariff was simply their own tariff, the old national policy under another name. When the absurdity of this position became manifest, once more they changed their ground, and then stated that if the country had prospered it was not due to the tariff, but was the work of Providence. That has been repeated all through this debate. Well, Sir, I may tell my hon. friends opposite, that no one on this side of the House will take exception to that argument. We recognize that we owe an immense debt (of gratitude to Providence. Providence has blessed us with good crops, good prices, buoyant revenue and increased trade, and I may say without boasting that for these blessings our prayers go forth to Heaven every day. I would like to invite hon. gentlemen opposite to join with us in those prayers, did I not fear that their gratitude would be insincere. In human affairs we know that Providence acts through human agencies and we are inclined to think that these gentlemen opposite cannot forgive Providence, because it suited Providence to choose us poor Grits to be the instruments through which to lavish His bounty upon this fair land of Canada, of which my hon. friends opposite are the fortunate though disgruntled citizens. In the 16th century there lived in France the celebrated surgeon, Ambrose Pare. He was eminent in his profession, and he was as modest as he was eminent. One day he was called to the bedside of am illustrious patient, and he was lucky enough to bring him back to life and health. On being asked how he managed to do it, he simply uttered these words : ' I treated him, God cured him.' My hon. friend the Minister of Finance, who is also a modest man, who adds modesty to all his other good qualities, was called in 1897 to the bedside of a patient endowed with a strong constitution, but whose constitution had been much impaired by empirical treatment ; and in the same way, he may say of this patient,
' I attended him, God cured him.' Mr. Speaker, hon. gentlemen, on the other side of the House tell us, and repeat every day, that if the country is prosperous, it is all the work of Providence ; yet they are not willing to leave that work in the hands of Providence. They think-it is one of their pet notions-that they can perform the work much better than Providence can. This is the object of the amendment which they have placed in your hands ; and they expect that the Canadian people will take the work out of the hands of Providence in which they have placed it, and put it

into theirs. Well, I do not expect that because Providence is with us, the Canadian people will be against us, though that apparently is a reason why the hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House should be against us. Sir, when we adopted the tariff which has been in force since 1897, we did not act from any set notions ; we did not pretend to give expression to any fad or any stereotyped theory ; but we thought it was a tariff well suited to the needs of the country. We thought it was the application of practical notions to the requirements of all classes of ' our population. It was a tariff which was devised first of all to promote the revenue, and next, as an incident, to protect Canadian productions against foreign productions. It never entered our minds that this tariff was to be eternal-that it was to, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, be there for ever. .My hon.' friend the Minister of Finance stated on more than one occasion that the tariff should be revised from time to time as necessity required. He has been invited more than once to revise the tariff -invited by friends, invited by foes. Up to this year my hon. friend has resisted all such invitations ; but to-day there are signs of the rising storm-signs of the rising of economic disturbance ; and it would be well to trim our sails and set the ship, so as to have her ready to weather the storm. This is what is done by the changes this year. They are reform, and nothing but reform. My hon. friend the Finance Minister has stated that they do not go as far as he would like ; and he has stated the course he intends to follow with reference to future changes. My hon. friend the leader of the opposition also proposes changes of the tariff, but very different changes. He does not propose to reform ; he proposes to revolutionize. He practically says to the people of Canada, let us undo what we have done in the last seven years ; let us tear out our tariff. Sir, it is always an easy task to destroy. The difficulty is to build up again. What is proposed by my hon. friend 7 He proposes to destroy the tariff, but what will he substitute for it ? My hon. friend wants what he calls adequate protection. But what is adequate protection ? He says it is-no, he declines to tell us. Again, I make a slip : but I am sure I can correct it without a murmur from the other side of the House. He has not declined to tell us what adequate protection means-he has not declined, because he cannot do it. He cannot any more tell us what is adequate protection, and what is not, than he can tell us the difference between tweedledum and tweedledee. The two things are not definable. My hon. friend has chosen to keep us in the dark as to his meaning. But though my hon. friend has not told us what he means by adequate protection, at all events we have it from his own lips, from the lips of some of his fol-152
lowers, and from some of his organs, what is at the bottom of his thought, and what he means by adequate protection. In his own mind it means high protection, the very highest protection, American protection, i I am quite warranted in what I say, that what my hon. friend means by adequate protection if he means anything, is the American standard of protection. I find this in the chief organ of the Conservative party, which is to-day, and has been for some months past, I may say for some years past, the Montreal ' Star.' The chief organ of the Conservative party is no longer the Toronto ' Mail,' the Hamilton ' Spectator '. or the Toronto ' World,' but it is the Montreal ' Star,' which is like the sheep of Jacob-all the other sheep have to pay it obeisance. For more than twelve months the. Montreal ' Star ' has had this placard at the top of its editorial page, though I may say it no longer appears :


BUILD UP CANADA.
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To the government of Canada.
Give ]tile manufacturers, workingmen, and farmers of Canada the same kind of tariff as that which has made the United States the home of the most prosperous manufacturers, workingmen and farmers in the world.
To the manufacturers of Canada.
Force the government to give you as good a tariff as that which has made the American manufacturers rich. When you get this tariff, pay your Canadian workmen American wages.
To the workingmen of Canada.
Take a leaf out of the hook of the American workingmen. Help your employers to obtain for themselves and for you a Canada-for-Canadians tariff.
To the farmers of Canada.
Profit by the experience of the American farmers, the wealthiest farmers in the world, who support a high tariff and prosper under it and because of it.
This, then, so far as it can be, is the adequate protection of my bon. friend. Therefore, if I am right in my conclusion, and I think I am, we have to choose between the Canadian tariff and the American tariff. If that be the issue, iSir, we on this side of the House are ready to accept it, and we stand by the Canadian tariff. It so happened that in the year 1896, on this continent there) were two general elections, one in the United States and one in Canada. It so happened that in both countries the party in power was defeated. It so happened that in both countries the [DOT] tariff was revised, but it was revised on very different principles. In the United States the tariff was levelled up ; in Canada the tariff was levelled down. In the United States the McKinley tariff, which had been the highest tariff ever adopted by any na-iton, was found to be inadequate-not high enough. It was supplemented by the Dingley tariff, which was still higher. In Canada the tariff of the day was considerably low-
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4T76
ered. What was the result ? You have it in the condition of the two countries and the two peoples at the present time. In Canada you have hope, abundance, contentment ; in the United States you have dejection and almost despair. Who can doubt that ? True it is that immediately after the adoption of the Dingley tariff there was a boom, to use an American expression. Everything was booming. Capital flowed into many industries, because a fictitious atmosphere had been created which tempted adventurous men with money. Many industries were denuded of their legitimate capital in order that it might be put into trusts and combines ; and for a time everything was booming in the United States. That was the time when it was stated that England was invaded by American products. That was the time when the Montreal ' Star ' advised Canadian workmen, manufacturers and farmers to adopt the American tariff. That was the time of combines and trusts. During the few years which followed from 1897 up till last year, no less than fifteen combines and trusts were organized in the United States. There was the coal trust, which as you know caused the largest strike which ever took place in any country, which almost created a revolution in the United States ; the iron and steel trust; trusts on farm implements, on chemicals, on sugar, on tobacco, on paper, on glass, on leather, on rubber goods, on electrical apparatus, on radiators, on elevators, on flour, on clocks, and even on beef for some time. But the time came- and it was not very long-when, to use an American expression, the bottom was knocked out of this tariff, and to-day the United States are in a most deplorable condition. The steel trust, for example, which threatened at one time to capture the whole iron and steel industry of the world, is no longer a dangerous competitor, but is struggling for its own existence and has had to dis charge thousands of its operators. The railways, which at one time had not sufficient rolling stock to carry their traffic, are discharging their operatives by the thousands. Within the last few months the Pennsylvania Railway Company-the largest in the States-has discharged no less than 11,000 of its operators, and the New York ' Herald ' fifteen days ago published a statement, which has not been contradicted, that the total number of men discharged by the railway companies since last April is no less than 75,000. We have escaped all this. Our railways are doing good business and so are our manufacturers. Is this then the moment when we should abandon our tariff and'adopt the American tariff ? Nor is this all. Many a time in this House we have been told of what wonderful things another very highly protected country was accomplishing. I refer to Germany. How inhny times have we not heard from the other side of the prosperous condition of the Ger-Sir WILFRID LA CHIRR.
man people, how their trade was invading the world, how German manufacturers were even crushing the trade of old England ? Sir, while it may have been true for a time that Germany was making headway, what is her condition to-day ? Germany followed the example set by the United States, the same example which hon. gentlemen opposite urge us to imitate. Germany adopted a tariff copied largely from the tariff of the United States. And in Germany, as in the United States, trusts and combines ruled the roost. I have a list here of the German trusts and combines in operation in Germany, taken from the consular reports of Great Britain and Germany. There are combines in coal, iron, steel, sewing machines, farm implements, enamelled ware, chemicals, sugar, flour, twine, cotton and woollen yarn, linen goods, ribobns, lead pencils-nothing too small-wood pulp, cement, glass and rubber goods. Unfortunately, there as elsewhere the day of retribution came, and came also the inevitable crash. And in the year 1900, three years ago. Germany began to suffer the first pangs of depression and hard times. The trusts had absorbed a large portion of the capital of her land banks. The land banks commenced to fail right and left, and it is estimated that $200,000,000 of capital was lost by the failures of these banks. Wholesale dismissals of mechanics took place, and the wages of those who remained were gradually lowered. Strikes among the working classes have become a by-word in Germany to-day, and to add to all this, socialism has become rampant in that Country, and yet this is the tariff you are invited to adopt in this country. I do not think that the Canadian people, in the full enjoyment of the results achieved under our tariff, will make the mistake of abandoning it at a time when the country is so prosperous.
But what are the objections raised against our tariff ? I listened this afternoon to my hon. friend, I have listened to this debate very attentively, and have heard the same song sung by every hon. gentleman opposite. We have been told again and again that our relations with our neighbours are not satisfactory, because the balance of trade against us with the United States is yery large. 1 do not deny it. I wish it were otherwise. But if it is in that condition, it is not our fault but theirs, and they have much more to suffer than we. Trade between nations, to be profitable, must be like trade between individuals ; but unfortunately, while we unwilling to trade with the Americans, they are not willing to trade with us. What is the remedy suggested by hon. gentlemen opposite 7 They say, since the Americans will not buy from us, we should not buy from them. I am ready to adopt that policy to a certain extent; and so far as we can dispense with trading with the United States, I should be prepared to do so. But to tell us simply that the balance of trade is

against us is no argument at all. What we must look at is what is behind the balance of trade. To tell us simply that we have a balance of trade against us is an exploded argument, but I shall discuss it because it has been advanced again. It is such an old fallacy that I would have expected it to be discarded long ago. It is a fallacy so glaring and so manifest that I am almost surprised it should be advanced in a House like this ; but as it is pleaded, let us examine it. Bastien, in one of his books, gives a very striking example of how the balance of trade works. A ship left Havre, in France, in 3840 or thereabouts, loaded for New Orleans with a cargo of articles de Paris, valued at 200,000 francs. She reached New Orleans. The freight on these goods amounted to ten per cent and the customs duty to thirty per cent, and they were'sold at twenty per cent profit. The sale therefore realized 352,000 francs. The money was immediately invested in cotton, and the same ship came back to Havre with a cargo of cotton. The cargo was charged in France with ten per cent freight and sold at twenty per cent profit, realizing 464,000 francs. Therefore the shipper made a double profit. He made a profit on his outward cargo of articles de Paris and also upon his inward cargo of cotton. He made over 100,000 francs altogether, and enriched himself and his country to that extent. Buc how did the entries balance in the customs ? In the customs returns there appeared an export value of 200,000 francs and an entry of imports to the value of 352,000 francs, showing thereby a balance of trade against France of 152,000 francs. Therefore, France, according to the argument of hon. gentlemen opposite, was a loser by the operation. But what followed ? That same gentleman, encouraged by his first experience, thought he would tempt fortune again, and he shipped another cargo of the same goods to New Orleans, valued at 200,000 francs. Then an occurrence happened which would cheer the hearts of my hon. friends on the other side. The entry in the customs returns showed an export of 200,000 francs from France, but the ship was lost at sea, and therefore the balance of trade remained in favour of France to the extent of 200,000 francs. This is an apt illustration of the logic of the hon. gentlemen opposite. Let us, Mr. Speaker, be spared this bugbear of the balance of trade because it is simply a nonsensical bugbear. Let us go beyond the figures and examine the situation.
Last year our imports from the United States all told, including bullion and everything else, amounted to the very large figure of 8137.000,000 and our exports only amounted to $71,000,000, showing a very large discrepancy between the two. These are the figures which startle my hon. friends opposite and lead them to exclaim : How can it be possible that we should trade with such a country ? She sells us $137,000,000 1525
worth and will only buy $71,000,000 worth. Is there not something wrong ? Well, let us examine. First of all, out of this $137,000,000 imports from the United States the goods on the free list amount to no less than $69,000,000.
I ask any hon. gentleman on the other side whether we could dispense with any of these goods ? That is the question. Could we, for instance, provide our own raw cotton ? Can -we provide the coal that is needed for use in Ontario ? Can we produce many other of the articles that are required in connection with our industries ? Sir, this free list has been canvassed and compared with the greatest care possible. It has been made to include only raw material or products which the country cannot manufacture at all or cannot manufacture with success. Therefore, I say we cannot dispense with the goods imported from the United States which are on this free list. I have never heard in this House, outside of one item, any exception taken to this free list. The only objection taken is with reference to the matter of corn. We have been told more than once that corn ought not to be on the free list. I take issue at once with our friends opposite on that point and declare my opinion that when we put corn on the free list we conferred on the farmers of Canada one of the greatest boons we could confer upon them. The result has been an increase of the exportation of our animal products, especially the products of our pork-packing establishments. On the other hand, there are some articles that, we are told should be on the free list that are now dutiable. For instance, it is said that coal should be on the free list. We have not thought it possible to make this .change, though I must say there are many good reasons why it would be advantageous to have coal free. It so happens that on this continent the distribution of coal is peculiar. On both shores, the Atlantic and the Pacific the coal beds are in Canada ; in the centre of the continent the coal beds are in the United States, it woukf seem natural under such circumstances that we should have reciprocity in coal. That policy would be to the advantage of the Americans on the Atlantic and on the Pacific, and to those Canadians who live in the interior. Up to the present time we have thought-and in that I think we are supported by hon. gentlemen opposite-that it would be advantageous to put coal on the free list but that we had better keep the duty on it in order to have if possible, the exchange of that commodity in the near or distant future as the case may be. I have here a list of some of the leading dutiable articles coming from the United States to this country. Let me examine briefly some of the articles in that list. The first is coal oil crude and refined, of which we import $1,414,319. Could we dispense with that ? Everybody would be very glad if the
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Canadian oil wells could produce all that we need. But they are insufficient. We have tried it again and again, and all that they can furnish is about one-third of our consumption. Therefore, we must have American oil. Then, there is bituminous coal of which we import about $7,000,000 worth. Can the people of Ontario dispense with the coal of Pennsylvania and Ohio ? Of coal dust we import about $400,000. That also is necessary. Of sugar and molasses we import $352,000 worth. Molasses is on the free list. Of locomotives, we import $1,106,521. We have some plants in Canada for the manufacture of locomotives, but, unfortunately, they are insufficient for the requirements of the Country. We must import American locomotives whether we wish to or not. There is a duty on locomotives which must be paid by the Canadian railways whenever they import the locomotives from the United States. They would prefer to buy locomotives in Canada, but they cannot find them here and they must go to the American market for locomotives. Of fertilizers we import $100,000. We cannot dispense with that. Our importation of rails from the United States amounted to only $S6,000. Our rails came chiefly from Europe. In the case of this article, what can we do more than we have done ? We are all anxious to have rails manufactured in Canada. Last year, we put a duty on rails, to become effective as soon as they are manufactured in this country, and we are still waiting for somebody to undertake this manufacture. Oranges and other tropical fruits-our imports were $600,000. We imported of printing paper $246,000 worth. Who can cavil at that 7 We have a duty on printing paper, but it was reduced some years ago. That reduction was made at the prayer of the press themselves, because there was a combine in Canada who were exacting an undue price from them. In order to relieve them from the influence of this combine we reduced the duty, I believe, to fifteen per cent. Altogether this list covers items of importation under duty amounting to $12,000,000. And I am sure that I am within the mark when I say that we have to import these articles from the United States and could not get them from anywhere else. This list added to the free list of $69,000,000 makes a total importation of these articles free or dutiable of over $80, 000,000 where we benefited by the American trade. Now, let us pass to other articles which we import from the United States on the dutiable list. Somebody will ask me -in fact the question was asked this afternoon-why do not you manufacture these articles in Canada ? Sir, we have a tariff against the United States varying from 25 per cent to 35 per cent, an average of 28 per cent. Under that tariff manufactures ought to thrive. I am told, however, that they do not thrive and that we ought to increase the tariff- For my part, I am al-Sir WILFRID LATJRIER.
ways prepared to consider the case of an industry which, being in existence, finds itself pressed by foreign competition. But, when I am told that we should increase the duty with a vague expectation that, by so doing, we shall found an industry and build it up. I am always more or less sceptical. I am sceptical because of the experience of the Canadian people as I have seen it exemplified in this House. I remember the occasion-I was sitting on the other side of the House ; it wTas in 1885 or 1887-when Sir Charles Tupper then acting as Minister of Finance introduced what was called the iron policy. He more than doubled the duties that had, up to that time, been paid on iron, and he made bold to say that within five years, Canada would produce all the iron needed for our market. Well, nearly twenty years have elapsed since- that time. In the meantime, not satisfied with the duties placed upon iron, the government of that day introduced legislation to give bounties upon the production of iron. And still the industry did not thrive and prosper. Not satisfied with this, the present government increased the bounties given to iron producers. And what is the result ? To-day, the iron industry of Canada is not able to supply the wants of the Canadian people. It has not been a success. And, though the Canadian people have been paying heavy duties and heavy bounties ever since to establish that industry, yet, after more than fifteen years, we have not reached the goal which i hope we shall reach some day or other. But there is one class of goods which come from the United States, which have come in in a manner which we regal'd as undue and to which we want to put a stop. That is the class of goods that have come in by dumping and slaughtering, by making Canada a dumping ground and slaughter market. We have taken means to prevent that if we can.
My hon. friend rather jeered us this afternoon when he spoke of the policy we have introduced upon this subject. He asked how this policy could be conciliated with the old declarations of free trade. Sir, 1 care not for theories, I want to be practical, and tlfis country must be practical above ail things. Well, Sir, let me say this, and I think I am speaking words which will be understood by everybody, the last word on free trade and protection has not yet been spoken. The conditions of manufacturing are changing every day. The shoemaker, the cabinet maker, all the old craftsmen with which we were familiar in our younger days, have disappeared. Formerly, in every village, boots, and shoes and furniture were made by the people of the locality. The shot-maker, the tailor, the cabinet maker were artisans in every locality. They have all disappeared. To-day these things are all made in large brick manufactories, where there is a great aggregation of capital, where there are thousands and
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thousands of men congregated, not only men but women and children also. But if it so happens that through new methods which have been adopted in highly protective countries such as the United States and Germany, if it so happens that large combinations engaged in manufacture, after supplying the local market, resort to slaughtering their goods, in this country for example, flooding the market and depriving our' artisans of their work, scattering them, ruining the capital which has been invested in them, I say that under such conditions theory must be abandoned, and it behooves every parliament to try to remedy such a situation. That is the thing we have to do at the present moment.
How will our policy work out, was the question put us this afternoon by my hon. friend. It will work out in this way : As soon as it has been shown to us that an article is being slaughtered in this country, then the Minister of Customs will immediately be able so-to arrange the tariff and so to tax that article as to make the slaughtering of the article impossible of accomplishment. A few months ago I was shown an invoice from Detroit in which an article was set down at a certain price for the American consumer, and at another price, at least 30 per cent below, for the Canadian consumer. This is the regular practice, and I know there are business men in this House who are aware that this is the regular practice, where American shippers, American manufacturers make invoices in which theVe ai'e double prices, a price for the American consumer and a price for the Canadian consumer. I may be told : But is it not to the benefit of the Canadian consumer ? Certainly it is to that extent. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance dealt with that question in his budget speech. It will be to the profit of the individual consumer who may purchase that article at a cheaper price than it can be sold in the United States. But whilst it may be a benefit to the individual Canadian consumer, it is to the detriment of our community as a whole, because it throws a number of our people out of employment, and causqg the destruction of large amounts of capital invested in these industries. At all events, such is the jiolicy we have adopted, and I think it will work well. But I may be told : Why, instead of making a contingent tariff that will go up or down as necessity arises, why not make it absolute so that it will apply under all circumstances ? For this reason, that we do not wish to tax the Canadian people on other industries without any profit to the Canadian consumer ; therefore we have preferred, instead of adopting a regular, absolute, and tyrannical tariff, to adopt a contingent tariff that will go up or go down as the circumstances of the case may require. At all events, this is an ex- . periment. It is not only an experiment, but it is a new device which has been introduced into the world, because I do not think that anything like it has before been tried anywhere. We invite the fair consideration of our friends on the other side of the House to this policy. We have prepared it according to our best judgment, and we think it ought to work satisfactorily, and will destroy an evil which is becoming manifest in modern industrial conditions. We have in ' this country, as in other countries, and indeed in all countries, manufactures carried on under a customs tariff, whereby a fictitious atmosphere is created, artificial conditions, under which manufacturers are carrying on their operations. They have a right to' expect therefore that the condition of things under which they have built up their manufactures shall be maintained. This policy which we have adopted w'e believe will commend itself to the fair 'judgment of the Canadian people the more it is debated and discussed.
Now, Sir, I have stated the policy of the government upon this occasion. This is not, as has been stated, a regular revision of the tariff. That may come or it may not come, it will depend upon circumstances. At all events, there is one thing which I think we ought to do. We are not above being instructed. We are not above receiving outside information. My hon. friend rather jeered us this afternoon because we proposed to make an inquiry into the industrial condition of the country. If there is one thing for which the country will be grateful to my hon. friend the Minister of Finance it will be this, that he has announced that at the proper moment he will have an inquiry made into all the conditions which at present regulate Canadian manufacturers and Canadian production. I have no doubt that we will receive valuable information, we will receive instruction. We will not be above receiving information, and acting upon the information received, as the occasion may demand it, and as opportunity arises.
Sir, we have now been eight years in power. That is not a very long time in the lifetime of a nation, though it may be pprhaps a long time in the life of a party. But after having been eight years in office I think I can say in the presence of friends and adversaries that we have not been imitators, we have been ourselves. We have not walked merely in beaten paths, we have hewed out our own way. We have altered our policy according to the difficulties that arose, and we have endeavoured to solve the problems as they presented themselves to us, not by the application of antiquated formulae that had been in vogue in older communities, but by framing a' policy that wrould be applicable to our own conditions and to our own circumstances. In the first budget [DOT]speech which was presented to this House by my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, we introduced a preferential tariff. We did
[Stage Direction]
not imitate any other nation, we were the originators. We adopted a policy which we thought suited to our condition, both as a colony and as a young nation, believing it to be in accord with sound economic conditions. We adopted a policy which we thought would advance Canadian trade with Great Britain, our mother country, and Which would at the same time afford considerable relief to the Canadian consumer. A year ago we imposed the German surtax. In doing so we did not borrow legislation from other countries, we devised a remedy which we had reason to believe would compel a powerful nation to give us the fair treatment which that nation denied us, or at all events, would force it to respect us. This year again, in order to meet a modern evil .which has resulted from new methods in highly protected countries, we have invented a policy which we have every reason to believe will prove entirely effectual. As it was in the past so it shall be in the future ; we shall face any difficulties, we shall face any problems as they arise and we shall endeavour to settle them by ways and means altogether Canadian in their conception, altogether Canadian in their character.
Mr. ANDREW BRODER (Dundas).: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to detain the House at any great length but I wish to make a few remarks on some of the things referred to by the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurler) who has just taken his seat and then to deal with some matters which should be touched upon. I was rather amused at the statement of the right hon. gentleman when he said that the speech of my hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden) reminded him of his old friend. It was an old friend that he was bringing to life. Well, all I wish to say is that we will never be able to cause hon. gentlemen opposite to bring in their old friends. They will never be accused of standing by their old friends, and I have noticed that whenever an intimation is given by the right hon. gentleman or By any of the members of his cabinet, that they intend to invite to their presence even in the smallest degree the friend of my hon. friend, protection, they are cheered to the echo. They would like to make him their guest. They are stealing him inch by inch. But, they will never be found standing by their old friends. They remind me a good deal of a character in the book of Ur. Drummond-Batiste Trudeau. He went away from home and when he came back he came on the fast express. When he got home he did not know some of his old friends. He could not drink the old whisky, or eat the old food, or smoke the old cigars, but by and by Batiste came home in the caboose of the freight train. It is in the caboose that hon. gentlemen opposite will come home, and when they do they will know their old friends. They are on the Sir WILFRID LAURJER.
fast express now riding roughshod over all their principles. I heard the right hon. gentleman state in 1895 in my own riding, in the town of Morrisburg, that the goal of the Liberal party was free trade as it was in England and that they would stand by that principle to the death. Why are they changing 7 They are turning their backs on every profession they ever made and the right hon. gentleman's party are cheering to the echo every intimation that they intend "to adopt protection. They are trying to get away from themselves. I do not blame them for trying to get away from themselves. If I were ever in their company I would be one of the first to try to get away from them. England has had free trade for fifty years. They claim that they have improved the conditions of this country. The right hon. gentleman gave us the reason why7 a large expenditure was necessary by saying that this was a young country. When he was discrediting and condemning expenditure ten years ago the country was younger then than it is to-day. The right hon. gentleman speaks about the changed conditions. Sir, every man in this country knows that but for Manitoba and the Northwest having been opened up our factories would be filled to the doors with unsold goods. Who deserves the credit for having opened up that country 7 The Conservative party built up that country, as the ancient city was built up with sword in one hand and trowel in the other, fighting hon. gentlemen opposite. They deserve the credit. Providence forsooth. Balaam wanted to serve God but he wanted to sei've him in his own way, until the ass had to tell him he was wrong.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


Andrew Broder: Balaam was riding [DOT] the ass and he must be on that side of the House. There is no trouble on that score. We will see about this patient that the right hon. gentleman referred to. He referred to the patient being very ill when* they came into power and he said that they had administered the medicine and that the providence had cured him. Let us see whether they administered the medicine that they had prescribed for the patient. Let us look for a moment at the doctor's book, let us look at the records of the drug store and see whether or not the hon. gentlemen gave the patient the medicine they prescribed, i am sorry the right hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir Richard Cartwright) is not in his place because he is the mouthpiece of his party and he is the man who gives Pointers Nos. 1 and 2 when he goes to Toronto to speak on behalf of his party and instruct the country as to the keynote of their new policy. What did the right hon. gentleman say in 1894 ? Take ' Hansard ' of March 28, 1894, page 314 and see the prescription that the right hon. gentleman laid down for this sic-k patient :
47S5

Sir, I think calm reflection on the part * of our people will endorse the statement that Canada to-day, above all things and before all things, must be made, if it is going to prosper, a cheap country to live in and a cheap country to produce in. More than that, Canada, above all and before all things, must have access to larger markets, and notably to the most important of all markets, the market which lies to the south of us.
That is the prescription that was laid down for the patient hut have they given the patient the medicine which they prescribed ? The patient is well without that remedy. They dare not apply the remedy and they know it. Nobody knows it better than the right hon. leader of the government. They never applied the slightest portion of the remedy that they proposed for this country, they dare not live up to their pfofessions and principles and they dare not apply them. Then, the right hon. leader of the government says that we would introduce the American tariff. What is portrayed in the speech of the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) ? He has proposed as the goal of his party in the future a minimum tariff, a maximum tariff and a preference. That maximum tariff is to meet the maximum tariffs of other countries. What ddes that mean if it does not mean in part at least the application of the American tariff to this country ? He has fixed bis tariff in his coal oil deal for the express purpose of encouraging the greatest monopoly that the United States possesses to-day-the Standard Oil Company. He refers to Oer-many as a country that has combines. Has not England combines with her free trade policy ? An American combine has dictated to some extent the policy of hon. gentlemen opposite. They have allowed them to use tank vessels to bring oil into this country in order to coerce our Canadian industry and now they are putting down the duty so as to enable them to bring crude oil into this country, in competition with the wells which the right hon. gentleman says are being kept open by the bounty which the government are giving. When the right hon. gentleman makes a statement that but tor this bounty every well in Canada would be closed, where was the right hon. gentleman when he was preaching free coal oil in this country a few years ago ? He wanted to close every well in this country. That must have been His goal. Why not apply the remedy ? He says :	We built our public
works out of the surplus. Hoes any man pretend to say that it is a correct policy to tax the people on the ordinary articles of consumption for public works V This is a new principle in this country, and Sir, 1 want to say while I am on my feet that number of boxes of cheese shipped from Montreal as a whole. Now', let it be remembered that this cold storage output is shipped from Montreal, because it is shipped during the warm months while the port of
after year and w'hile turning their backs on their principles they pretend that they are applying their surpluses somewhere else.
And as to reviving the industries ; have: the woollen industry and the steel industry been revived ? It is a peculiar thing with these gentlemen that when the doors of an industry are closed under their policy, they take enough of the old Conservative policy to pry the doors open again, and then they shout ' hurrah boys ' all along the line. It is not the policy of the Liberal party that helps the woollen industry ; you had to take some of the Conservative policy to do that. The right hon. gentleman is not willing to trust Providence altogether. He is like the old Methodist minister who came home from' the conference on Saturday night to preach on Sunday, and who was hurrying back on Monday morning. One of his people asked him : why are you ip such a hurry ? And he replied : I must get back because the stationing committee is in session. His friend said to him : why don't you trust in Providence ? And the minister answered : I trust in Providence, but I don't like to trust Him with the stationing committee^ And so, the Prime Minister will not trust Providence under certain circumstances; neither would I, if I were in his place.
Now, the most pernicious form of protaction may be a bounty ; it gives us no revenue, it does not give you a market, and it takes revenue out of the public chest. And yet the right hon. gentleman praised highly to-night the bounty they are giving to crude oil and steel.
I wish to refer now more particularly to the policy of the government in relation to the dairy products of this 'ouotry. A great deal has been said w'hich is wide of the mark by hon. gentlemen opposite on this question. I would not like to say anything unparliamentary, but I think it would be perfectly parliamentary to say that some of these gentlemen opposite can make a little truth go further than any men I ever saw. For instance, the gentleman from West York (Mr. Campbell) in eulogizing the Minister of Agriculture made this statement, speaking of cold storage :
He has established the system on the railways throughout the Dominion, giving the railway companies a bonus to induce them to fil up their cars so that perishable products would be carried from the farmers' doors to the world's markets.
That statement is made all over the country by Liberal speakers, and that statement is not true. I will read from the report of the hon. Mr. Fisher himself to show that the statement is not true. In his report of 1896, which embraces six months of the Conservative regime, and six months of the Liberal regims, the Minister of Agriculture makes this statement:
A cold storage for the safe carriage of butter was begun in 1895. Arrangements were

made whereby refrigerator cars for carrying butter were run during the summer on the main lines of railways leading into Montreal. These cars were used to pick up small lots of butter as offered at the different railway stations. Shippers by- these cars were allowed to ship butter at the usual * less than carload rates ' without any charge for icing or special service As far as space permitted, merchants were allowed to use these cars for the shipment of dairy and creamery butter between points at which the cars touched. During 1895 cars were run for at least part of the season on the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific Railways
Here we have the positive statement made by Hon. Mr. Fisher in bis report, that the arrangement for carrying butter on cars from the producers' factory to the port of outlet, was made by bis predecessor ; and yet the member for West York (Mr. Campbell) gives the present Minister of Agriculture the full credit for it. I think this statement should set that question at rest. While the Minister of Agriculture and his friends take such wonderful credit for the increase in shipments of dairy produce, let us see whether or not they are keeping pace with our competitors. It is all very well for these gentlemen to eulogize the Minister of Agriculture (Hob. Mr. Fisher) and to declare that there was nothing done in this country until the Liberals came to power, but let us look at the record. I quote from the report of the Department of Agriculture for the year 1895, and the Liberals were not in power then.
Thu action was followed by the inauguration of the cold storage service, in which arrangements were made whereby refrigerator cars for butter were run during the summer on the main lines of railway leading to Montreal. These were used to pick up small lots of butter offered weekly. The shippers of butter by these cars were allowed to ship at the usual * less than carload rates ' without any charge for the icing or special service. As far as space permitted, merchants were allowed to use these cars for the shipment of dairy and creamery butter between points at which the cars touched.
Now. that is an extract from the report of the Department of Agriculture for the year 1895, and yet hon. gentlemen opposite will get up in this House and say that the Liberal government instituted this whole business. This extract proves that the formula laid down by the Conservative party before they left power has not been exceeded by hon. gentlemen opposite. Further than that, they have not opened to us one new market that we did not have when the Conservatives were in power. In the trade returns there is a larger amount shipped under the heading of ' other countries ' but every country we ship to now we shipped to exactly the same country when the Conservatives were in power,' But the most serious part of it is, that these gentlemen opposite with all their boasting are not Mr. BRODER.
keeping pace with our aggressive competitors, and that is a very serious matter for the Canadian farmer.
Instead of eulogizing each other through the country, these hon. gentlemen might better sit down and study the conditions of the markets to which we .ship our products, and endeavour to overcome the difficulties that hinder us in those markets. Now. I will [DOT]take the liberty of proving the statement I make. I have some figures here compiled from the Eugl'sh trade returns, with this exception, that, as the shipments of butter made from Canada through Portland in the winter are credited to the United States, in order to guard against any inaccuracy in the statement, I have rectified that by taking our own full returns without giving any credit to the Americans for any part of the butter or cheese shipped through Portland. In 1896 Canada shipped 5,889,241 pounds*of butter of 1-73 per cent of what England imported ; in 1903 Canada shipped 24,283,271 pounds, or 5:34 per cent, which is 4 of 1 per cent less than we shipped the year before. Victoria shipped 17,344,880 pounds in 1890. and 10,995,824 in 1903. New South Wales shipped 871,024 pounds in 1S96 and 2 281,552 pounds in 1903. New Zealand, which will be one of our most serious competitors in the future, shipped 6,313,776 pounds in 1896, or 1-85 per cent, and in 1903, 27,986,448 or 6-15 per cent. Russia-and here is a most extraordinary thing to prevail as against Canada-in 1896 shipped to Great Britain 17,002.160 pounds or 4'99 per cent, and in 1903, 54,244.736 pounds, or 11-93 per cent- away ahead of Canada, notwithstaning the boasting of hon. gentlemen opposite. Is that the kind of thing that ought to prevail ? And I might say right here that the greater bulk of that butter is shipped from Siberia. If Canada is not able to compete with Siberia under such wonderful rule as she gets from the other side of the House, it is time our people did something about It. Sweden shipped to Great Britain in 1906, 36,238.848 pounds of butter and in 1903, 23.769.984 pounds. Denmark, a country that might be compared with the province of Ontario, with about 2,000,000 people, sent to England in 1890. 137.623,808 pounds of butter or 40'45 per cent and In 1903, 198 425.248 pounds, or 43-03 per cent. In other words that little country of Denmark is supplying England virtually with one-half of all the butter she imports. If England would bring the 4S.OOO.-000 acres of tillable land which she has to such a state of cultivation as lands in Denmark and Sweden, she would not need to buy a bushel of wheat or a pound of butter or cheese from abroad. I want to call the attention of this House to another feature of this return which is very serious. England has increased her import of butter from 1896 to 1903 by 114,572,192 pounds. What part of that increase .has been contributed bv Canada ? I want to draw the attention of this House and the country to the fact

that notwithstanding the boasting of hon. gentlemen opposite, of that amount-taking into account the falling off in the imports from the other countries-Denmark has contributed 60,000,000 pounds, Russia 37,000,000, New Zealand 21,000,000, Holland 12,000,000, aud Canada 18 000,000 pounds. Hon. gentlemen opposite need not stand up and boast of what they have done for the prosperity of this country while they have this problem to deal with. Hon. gentlemen say they are practical. They are not as practical as Siberia, New Zealand or Denmark. We can apply the same argument largely to the greater proportion of the products which Canada is obliged to export. Turn up the records, and see the quantities that Holland. New Zealand, Australia and other countries ship to England, of meat and the other products in which Canada is supposed to be largely interested. The farmer of Canada is face to face with this serious fact, that he is confined to fewer articles to-day out of which he can make money than he was twenty years ago, and in the near future he will be confined to Still fewer. There is a problem which confronts hon. gentlemen opposite and every public man in this country. While wa ara shouting, prosperity, prosperity, prosperity, the Greeks are at the door. What have hon. gentlemen opposite done for the farmer, with their wonderful expenditure and their $57,000,000 of surpluses which they have had since they have been in power ? How much money "have they spent on the farmer's industry ? They have spent a great deal on post offices for villages containing 500 or 600 people, on wharfs in the county where the Finance Minister proposes to run. and where they are not needed in the public interest ; but what have they given the farmer ? I find that the provincial governments have expended in 1902 in the interest of the farmer the following
amounts :
Ontario	$234,340
Quebec	 217,359
Nova Scotia	 10,967
New Brunswick	 31,483
Manitoba.,	 130,852
Prince Edward Island	 6,251
British Columbia	  15,426
Total	 $646,678
Now, notwithstanding the millions of surplus which hon. gentlemen opposite had under their control, the Dominion spent in 1902, the following amounts in the interest of the poor farmer for whom they profess
such consideration :
Aid to agricultural societies	$ 7,000
Experimental fauns	 101,941
Printing and distributing	reports.. ..	4,000
Agricultural and dairying, including
cold storage	 187,688
Promoting dairying	interests	 21,731
All told	$322,360
or less than half a million dollars out of the
$57,000,000 of surpluses which the Finance Minister boasts of. What a miserable amount to dole out to that numerous body of people who are the source of our prosperity. What have the government done to improve their condition ? They give the farmer a miserable $300,000, and then leave hint to plough his furrow alone, no matter how long it may toe. In 1903 the aid to agricultural societies was $7,500, a very small amount each. To experimental farms, $89,974 ; printing and distributing reports, $7.000 ; fumigating stations-that should belong to the quarantine-$3,200 ; agriculture and dairying, $210,000 ; or a total of $317,192 to the large farming interest-this great interest which must succeed if the country is to succeed. Then what was given by the provinces V The amounts expended by the provincial governments are as follows :
Ontario, 1903	5. $378,846
British Columbia, 1903	 15,699
Manitoba, 1903	 144,570
Nova Scotia, 1903	 36,000
Quebec, 1903	 234,162
New Brunswick, 1902	 31,488
Prince Edward Island, 1902.. ..	6,251

Let us compare these grants with what the federal government of the United States pays. I shall not deal with the several states of the union, some of which spend very liberally on the farming interests and others less, but shall simply compare the expenditure by the federal government with ours since 1896. The federal government expended as follows :
1896		$2,905,569
1897		 3,025,480
1898		 3,193,308
1899		 3,493,375
1900		 [DOT][DOT]	3,625,851
1901		 3,963,897
1902			4,579,990
1903		 5,332,357
They go up into the millions to encourage the farmers of that country, and our country which boasts of millions and millions of surpluses doles out to its great farming interest the miserable pittance of $300,000 odd dollars. Then these gentlemen expect the farmer to press them to his bosom and weep over them.
There is a great deal said about the price of cheese, and listening to hon. gentlemen opposite one would think that cheese did not bring any price at all when they were out of office. But what were the prices then ? Let me take the seven years previous to their coming into power and the seven years since, and see how the prices compare. During the seven years previous to the advent of the present government, or previous^ to 1896, the average price of cheese was 9 5-10 per pound. Since these gentlemen have come i to power the average price is 9 8-10 cents in other words, with all their boasting, 3-10

of a cent is all the difference in price, and that is largely due to the high prices of last year alone. And should the present decline in the market continue, that 3-10 of a cent will disappear. These hon. gentlemen opposite do a great deal of boasting, but the Conservative party did good for their country and made no fuss about it. They did their duty as public men, but hon. gentlemen opposite, in everything they do, are actuated solely by party interests. You will find that spirit permeating the whole party, and you will find -that every one supporting it is actuated by the hope of some day getting into some government position. The government know how many are rapping at their door. Go up and down the canal banks around the St. Lawrence, and you will find men tumbling over each other-drawing good pay from the treasury, but doing very little work. They discharged one man, Dr. Hickey, on the plea of economy -a man who was one of the most efficient superintendents on our canals-and they have only put three men in his place. There was an old buoy boat, and if the late government took a man from that boat and employed him cutting weeds along the canal these hon. gentlemen raised a great outcry about economy. But since they have had charge of the canals they have got another boat and another lot of officials, which is the way they understand economy in the interests of party.
So far as butter is concerned, what do we find i Nobody in this country has a more vivid recollection than myself of the various changes in the butter business. When we had the old system in force, when the farmers did their dairying in their homes, we succeeded in getting good prices, and that business flourished until the Danish butter drove our farmers' , dairying butter out of the market, and those who were engaged in the business lost heavily. But butter has never been as cheap in this country as it was in 1S78, the last year of the Mackenzie administration. It' was then selling at from 8 to 10 cents all through August, September and October. That was the last year of the Grit regime, and what was the effect of that depression ? The effect of that was to largely drive our farmers into the production of cheese. The system of making butter at home became to a great extent replaced by the making of c-heese, because the prices for the latter were more remunerative. For some years, therefore, our people largely discontinued producing butter, and the Conservatives then became mainly instrumental in inducing our farmers to take up that business again. The plan laid down by the Conservative party, which these hon. gentlemen opposite have been obliged to follow, was to establish a system of instruction throughout the country, under which lectures on the art of butter making were given in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Bruns-Mr. BRODER.
wick and Prince Edward Island. Any man who can recall the circumstances in Prince Edward Island will admit at once that, the butter making interest, which is so prosperous down there to-day. was put on its feet by the Conservative party. In fact the foundation of the whole business was laid by the Conservative party in the island, just as it was in all these other provinces. To prove that statement I need only refer to the report of the Minister of Agriculture for the year 1896. Speaking of the encouragement given to the butter interest, he says in his report of 1896 that as the result of what the previous government had done there was exported from Montreal during the shipping season of 1894, 32,055 packages of butter, and during the season of 1895, 69,664 packages. And in 1896, the last year of Conservative rule, 157,321 packages were Shipped, which shows that the ratio of increase during the last three years of the Conservative regime was due to the efforts of the Conservative party to establish this industry on a sound footing, and it shows also the present condition is also the result of the Conservative policy being continued by hon. gentlemen opposite. There has been no change whatever made by these hon. gentlemen in that policy beyond some Improvements in the matters of cold storage. I am quoting from the report of the Department of Agriculture for 1896, which acknowledges this result from the policy of the previous government.
Now, let us look, at the item of cheese for the moment. And in this case also 1 turn to the official report for my facts. Yet it is a very peculiar thing that, while there is so much credit taken for the cold storage system, the number of packages of butter and cheese and so on going by cold storage is given in one year and is not given in the next. The fact is that some years it has not proven successful, and the minister did not want to give the facts then. But the people ought to know the facts. They pay the money and they have a right to be able to judge what advantage the expenditure or that money is bringing to them. But there is no continuity in the publication of the figures -so far as that is concerned, and it is not possible to understand just what the results with regard to this system have been. I have here the report of the Minister of Agriculture for the year 1903, and from this report it appears that 43,800 boxes of cheese were shipped by cold storage. Now, we are told that this cold storage system is what has caused the great increase in this industry. Let us see. I have here a little pamphlet, called ' The export trade of the port of Montreal,' Issued by the Montreal Board of Trade. This gives the number of boxes of cheese shipped from Montreal as a whole. Now, let It be remembered that this cold storage output Is shipped from Montreal, because it is shipped during the warm months while the port of

Montreal is open, say from the 15th of May to November. The railways carrying this product converge at Montreal, and practically all the cheese brought in during that time is sent to that port except some few boxes which may go to Portland. In the year 1903, the total number of boxes of cheese shipped from Montreal was 2,395,932. We have already seen that the number shipped in cold storage was 43,800. So, about one box in fifty of the whole export was shipped in cold storage. This one box, apparently, was so cold that it kept the other forty-nine frosty. So, because one package out of fifty went by cold storage, we are to give all the credit of the increase in the business to the Minister of Agriculture.
There is another little matter. I want to call attention to. The Minister of Agriculture-and I suppose he is in cold storage now ; I don't know how that is-says that we shipped butter for the years given according to this table :
1898		 209,172
1899		 429,734
1900		 227,863
1901		 410,893
1902		 525,735
1903		 335,395
Here is a marked falling off in 1903. And wh-at reason does the hon. minister give 7 He says :
There was ample space for all the cargo offered, either for cold storage or cooled air. It may he noted that there was a falling oft in the shipments of butter for the season of 1903. This was due to the relatively high prices for cheese, which induced the combined factories to make cheese instead of butter.
That is a most extraordinary statement and one that of itself needs explanation. But we are left all the more to wonder what the explanation can be when we turn back only two pages in the same report and find tfiere:
The quantity of butter exported that year was 34,128,944 pounds, an increase of over
7.000.	000 pounds.
It is no wonder that the rank and file of the hon. gentlemen opposite tell things that are wide of the mark when the Minister of Agriculture will tell us in so many words that the reason why we shipped so little butter is that cheese was high and yet in this same report show that we shipped 34,000,000 pounds of butter in 1903 as against
27.000.	000 in 1902.
Now, there is just one other matter I wish to speak of before I sit down-and it is high time that somebody talked about it. There is a great deal of boasting by hon. gentlemen opposite about what they have done for the farmer. Thank God, the farmer is able to take care of himself in Canada, and it is a good thing that he is, because if he were not, he would be .sure to come out behind in the race. These hon. gentlemen opposite boast about their Minister of Agriculture. What has he done to assist the progress of the farmer ? It is the energy and push of the people of this country that has pushed him along, just as you would push a wagon up hill. What has he done to put the people on the soil? How many people did he induce to go upon the soil in the last decade? If we are going to create a true Canadian sentiment in Canada and bring into harmony with Canadian feeling the great foreign element which is coming into our country we must put people on the soil. These hon. gentlemen ought to consider that question. Now, the increase in the population of Canada according to the last census was 538,076. The rural population in 1891 was 3,296,161, while, In 1901 the rural population was 3,349,516, or an increase in the rural population during the ten years, during five of which hon. gentlemen opposite were in power, of 53,375. This is against a total increase in the population of 538,076. In other words, we put into the cities, towns and villages through the policy of hon. gentlemen opposite, 485,701 souls and only put upon the boasted soil of Canada 53,375. And then they talk about what they are doing for the farmers of this country. They have succeeded in putting one man on the soil and nine men into the cities, towns and villages. That is the outcome of what hon. gentlemen 'opposite have been doing for Canada according to their own figures, is there any remedy for this condition of things 7 1 am ready to admit that every country has more or less trouble with this question, but I say that the conditions of this country are so different from thoSc of others that there is not justification for such a state of affairs here. Is there any remedy ? It is well understood that the cities, towns and villages are being made more attractive to the people of Canada, electric light and electric cars, and all these other things are attracting tne young and the ambitious, and, Sir, there ought to be some corresponding attraction to fasten the people to the soil. Are hon. gentlemen opposite dealing with that question ? Sir-, they have not touched it. is there no possibility of making the farmers' home more attractive ? Is there no possibility of making the boy realize that there is room for his ambitions on the farm ? Sir, hon. gentlemen opposite have taught the people of this country too constantly and too exclusively, with regard to the farmers' business, that it is to he looked at only from the standpoint of whether it will pay or not. Is there no other consideration that ought to weigh with people than the mere question of five or ten cents on one side of the account or the other ? Tet, that is the only cry throughout the country-will it pay ? I can tell hou. gentlemen opposite that the serious economic and social problem that stares Canada in the face is the fact that our people are leaving the soil. It is not in the power of their petty policy trom the tariff to- reverse the current. I do not,

for one, propose to circumscribe the ambitions of any boy in this country. But it should be pointed out to every boy on the farm that while he hears great things about the one man who goes to the city and succeeds. he does not hear anything of the nine out of ten who, going to the city, do not succeed.
A false idea of life in cities and towns was held out to the boy on the farm. Will bon, gentlemen (opposite endeavour to remedy that difficulty ? They have not turned a furrow, they have not raised a stone to effect that object. This is a serious economic question, it is a great problem which ought to be treated seriously. There is this to be said in reference to the farmer and his family. The necessity of finding employment for his boys and girls, that stares the city resident in the face, does not stare the farmer in the face. He is sure of raising a virtuous family, and he is sure of finding employment for them at home. That is a consideration that lion, gentlemen opposite have left out of sight. But these things ought ttf be considered. It must be possible to make the country more attractive to the people, and to remove as far as possible the false ideas of town life from the country boy who has had no experience of the world. Hon. gentlemen opposite ought to sit down and deal with that problem, because if it is not success* fully solved, this country will suffer seriously in the future. How are they going to assimilate the foreign elements now coming into this country, and imbue them with the true Canadian spirit ? It is impossible to do so under the policy they are pursuing. What will be the effect ? The effect will be that, unless we place people upon the soil, unless we heed that cry of back to the land, which is now being raised in some parts of Europe, and which ought to be a popular cry even in this young country of ours, this country will suffer seriously in the future. This I say is a problem to which every public man should give heed or he will fail in his duty if he does not.


Mr. JAS  J.@: HUGHES (King's, P.E.I.) Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, the opposition in deciding to shorten this budget debate, have exercised better judgment than they have shown on any other occasion during the last four years. To prolong this debate would only afford the friends and supporters of the government an opportunity to point out the marvellous, the phenomenal, results that have been achieved by the present administration. I do not envy the position occupied by our hon. friends opposite in being obliged by the exigencies of the ease to offer some criticism on the statements of affairs preseuted-to this House by the hon. the Minister of Finance and by the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce. I do not marvel that a considerable portion of that criti-Mr. BRODER.
eism partook of personal abuse of these gentlemen, particularly of the latter. It is a trite saying among lawyers, I believe, that if you have a bad ease you may abuse the opposing counsel, and our hon. friends of the opposition who have so far spoken have availed themselves of that privilege to the fullest extent. .
In this and in many other respects their speeches have been very much alike, all fashioned on the same model. I do not make any exception in regard to the speech of the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat (Mr. Broder). The only respect in which he differed from the others was in the remark he made in opening his speech when he said that a certain beast, the name of which I will not now repeat, but which is known by its loud braying, was about to instruct the government in regard to this tariff. Now, Sir, I was very much pleased to see my hon. friend from Dunclas taking part in this debate. I made the acquaintance of that hon. gentleman under very pleasant circumstances some time last winter. We happened to have an election in Prince Edward Island to fill the vacancy made by the death of the late lamented Mr. Farquliarson. and our opposition friends sent down a good deal of help to Prince Edward Island on that occasion. Among others they sent us a distinguished gentleman from Halifax, an Italian, I think, by the name of O'Mullin, who was to speak of course to his countrymen and enlighten them on the public questions of the day. He was a very fluent gentleman, and took a very active part in the election. Then there was another gentleman from Montreal sent down, I think, by the Montreal ' Star,' whose name was Prieur, I suppose he was an Irishman. He worked among his countrymen at Rustico and other |jlaces, and was supposed to have made many conversions. Then came my distinguished friend from Dundas (Mr. Broder) who had some 1,200 or 1,500 miles to travel in that inclement season of the year, in midwinter. The roads were covered with snow to the depth of seven or eight feet. But notwithstanding all these impediments, the hon. gentleman made his appearance. We could not imagine why he was sent that long distance. He is a well spoken gentleman, yet we could not think it was on account of his oratorical ability. Although he is a very good example of the sturdy Canadian, we could not think that he was sent there on account of his good looks. Then what brought him ? Report had it that he took with him a very good breed of the goat, which he wanted to present to our friends down there. He and William the goat, came together for quite a long distance. At that season of the year steamboats were not crossing the Straits, our friends had to cross in small ice boats. When they came to the Straits that separated New Brunswick from Prince Edward Island and looked at that mode of conveyance, this small and fragile

boat about 18 feet keel, built of light material, though strong, and when William and his master began making preparations to cross, it is reported that William looked at the storm tossed ocean in that tempes-tous winter season, looked at the icebergs, and at the frail bark in which he and his master must cross the Straits, and William shook his head and beard, and refused to go any further, and implored his master not to risk his life in that frail looking canoe. But the hon. member for Dundas having put his hands to the plough refusel to turn back, so he and William separated. When the canoe had carried his master over the waters as far as the eye could see, it is reported that William retraced his steps through New Brunswick and eventually found his way back to Ontario. It would appear that in the absence of William, his master lost all heart for the contest, at all events, those gentlemen who came to enlighten us on that occasion did not succeed in accomplishing the result they desired. My hon. friend and farmer from Dundas. who came down to instruct the farmers of Prince Edward Island, did not appear to have made much impression upon them.
Now, Sir, at one of the meetings at which I was present and which the hon. gentleman addressed, he referred to the iceboat in which he had crossed the Straits and said that the same means of crossing was still employed that were in vogue twenty or thirty years ago. He complained that he had to cross in boats that had been so long in use, when a wag in the audience said ' judging by your remarks you must have come over in an ark.' In fact the hon. member for Dundas and his leader seem to dwell in the past, they belong apparently to a past century. For them there is no ray of light, no star of hope in the future.
Now, Sir, my hon. friend from Dundas said something about the tendency at the present time of young men and women to leave the farm and go to the cities to live, and he seemed to intimate that the government should do something to prevent that state of things. Does my hon. friend not know that a high tariff policy is just the very thing that would bring about such a result ? The policy that he and his friends are advocating would be the very policy that would influence young men to leave the farms and dwell in cities because It would cause an artificial growth in the cities at the expense of country districts. The Conservatives in this House and the Conservative press in the country seem to take some credit to themselves for acknowledging that the country is prosperous and is developing and prospering beyond thy dreams of even the most sanguine a few years ago. They know that if they denied it or attempted to deny it they would cover themselves with ridicule. But they acknowledge it with a very bad grace, and they try to minimize and explain it. They say among other things that it is due to the
actiou of Providence and to prosperous times the world over. Far be it from me to deny the munificent influence of Providence upon the affairs of nations as well as upon those individuals. We know that all history, sacred and profane, is filled with examples of the fact that when the people have elected or selected wise, prudent, moral men for their rulers, Providence has blessed the land and that when the people unfortunately have acted otherwise Providence In a large measure has withheld this lilessing. Then again they say that during the 18 years that they were in power we had not only hard times in Canada but hard times throughout the civilized world. That is a hard saying. Surely they will not say that their malign influence extended throughout Christendom. If they had not made this statement themselves I would not have referred to it, but if that be true why fly in the face of Providence ? Why try to obtain power again and bring about this condition of things ? Why not be satisfied with the present results and accept the prosperity that is coming to them and to us and to all Canadians alike ? How can we account for their insane desire on this point ? Milton in Paradise Lost tells us that when the fallen angles were cast out of heaven they took counsel together. Their leader stood up in the midst of them and declared that even if offered pardon under certain conditions he would not accept it because he would prefer to reign where he was, rather than to serve in Paradise, and all his legions shouted their approval. So it is with our Conservative friends. With them it is either rule or ruin. What care they for the interests of the country ? Power in their estimation is the only thing under heaven worth striving for. But, while reluctantly admitting the prosperity of the country they tried to distract the attention of the people by saying : Look at the enormous taxation ; look at the enormous expenditure. Do they not know that a large revenue does not necessarily mean high taxation ? Do they not know that we may have very high taxation and a very small revenue just as we had under the administration of hon. gentlemen opposite ? Do they not know that when the government obtained power they reduced the taxation by 13 per cent which would be equal to several millions of our present importations and that the revenue immediately increased and has. kept on increasing ever since and do they not know that finder such circumstances an increasing revenue is one of the best and surest proofs of increasing population and of the augmented wealth and prosperity of the people ? But, if the revenue, or the taxation of the country, as hon. gentlemen opposite prefer to call it, is burdensome did they ever propose to reduce it ? No. Sir, nothing of the kind, but they say that if they had the power they would increase it. We must know that over three-quarters of the entire revenue is derived

from customs and excise duties. Do they propose to reduce any of these duties ? No, they do not. On the contrary they have opposed every reduction that the present government have made and they have moved resolution after resolution in this House declaring that the customs duties from which we get over half our revenue are too low and ought to be raised. In a word, in one breath they say that the taxation of the country is too high and that the government should be turned out of power for not reducing it, and in the next breath they say : Put us in power and we will make it still higher. Barnum the great showman is credited with having made the statement that about two-thirds of the people were standing around most of the time waiting for some one to fool them. Evidently the Conservative party and press of this country think that the Canadian people come within the category of the people referred to by the great showman. I am inclined to think that our Conservative friends have underrated the intelligence of our people and that they will have a rude awakening when these people get a chance of expressing their opinions at the polls.
Now, a word or two about the expenditure about which our friends opposite say so much. Every school boy knows that as a country increases and develops the expenditure must necessarily increase. Still, hon. gentlemen opposite are fond of referring to the United States as a country that we should imitate in many things, particularly in our fiscal policy. They declare the United States to be the greatest country on earth. I take exception to that. Measured by any - standard you wish the United States do not begin to compare with our own empire in point of population, wealth, power or constitutional liberty. I also take exception to that statement as regards their fiscal policy. If their policy is so much better than ours and if high taxation and high protection would produce beneficial results why are they not doing so in the United States where high protection might be employed perhaps more advantageously than in any other country in the world ? Why does it not bring about prosperity there ? Why are hon. gentlemen opposite declaring that they are afraid of the hard times that are sure to come in the United States ? If protection is beneficial to the farmer how is it that the farmers of the United States by thousands and tens of thousands are selling their property there and coming to Canada ? How is it that in the New England states, the very home of protection the farms are practically unsaleable ? They have been abandoned and they will not bring the price of the improvements that have been made upon them. If the fiscal policy of the United States is all that hon. gentlemen opposite claim for it surely it is up to them to explain these things. The United States is no doubt a great nation and great has been its material growth during Mr. J. J. PUGHES.
the past century, but, Sir, I believe that ours in Canada will be fully as great during the present, because we are better equipped for the race of life now than they were 100 years ago. I believe that we are better off in many respects and particularly better off in regard to our fiscal policy and in our trade ideals. But, Sir, if the United States is a country to be copied what are the revenue and expenditure there? -about 8600,000,000 per annum. As that country grew its expenditure increased and as this country will grow our revenue and expenditure must necessarily increase also.
Therefore, I say our revenue and expenditure must necessarily increase with our growth and development, and so far from it being something to complain about, something to worry over, it is, under proper conditions, something to be proud of, and is the best and surest evidence of -our material advancement. And another important fact that should not be lost sight of in connection with this matter is that our expenditure on consolidated account at the present time is but half our net revenue, whereas under the Conservatives it swallowed up, not only our entire net revenue at the time, but very often we had to borrow money for the ordinary expenses of housekeeping. Now we are paying our exependiture on consolidated account and on capital account out of the revenue of the country, and we have begun to reduce the national debt, which, under the Conservative administration, was mounting up at the rate of upwards of $6,500,000 a year. This surely is something of which we as Canadians and we as Liberals must feel proud.
But be the expenditure what it may, the Conservatives in this House are responsible for every dollar of it. They know that every dollar must be voted item by item in Committee of Supply ; and, Sir, I have been a pretty constant attendant in that committee for the last four years, and I have yet to learn that the Conservative party ever challenged by their vote a single item of the expenditure in those four years. It is true they have criticised freely. They have found fault generally, which is a very easy tiling to do ; but they had nor the courage to vote against a single item in the Supply Bill. 'If I am wrong in this statement, I am speaking in the presence of hon. gentlemen opposite, and I want them to correct me. Not only am I correct in what I have said, but in many instances hon. gentlemen opposite rose in their places and declared the expenses were not large enough. But, Mr. Speaker, is the expenditure honestly carried out ? Because, after all, that is The great question. I say, ' yes,' so far as human foresight can provide and government supervision extend, and if this statement be not true, then the Auditor General has failed in his duty, and the opposition have failed in their first and most important duty as well. To begin with, the

Auditor General lias the most ample powers to analyse, criticise, investigate, examine, inquire into and check every dollar of the expenditure, and, in the words of the exMinister of Railways (Mr. Haggart), the Lord knows, he exercises those powers to the fullest possible extent. Then the opposition have the right, nay, the duty, of still further investigating every item that in their opinion requires examination, and the constitution of the country places every facility at their disposal for so doing. They can summon the public officials and witnesses from every part of Canada and examine them under oath before the Public Accounts Committee, and every scrap of written information and evidence in every department of the government service is at their disposal. Either then there has been no malfeasance in the government service and in the public expenditure, or the opposition have failed in their first and most important duty as an opposition. They can choose -whichever horn of the dilemma they wish. But to do the apposition justice, they nave, I think, tried to do their duty in this respect. Time and again they have instituted inquiries before the Public Accounts Committee, but in no case has any wrong-doing or dishonesty been brought home to the government. Perhaps the most important question brought before the Public Accounts Committee since the advent of the Liberal party to power was the investigation into the purchase or leasing of the Drummond County Railway, at that time called ' the Drummond County steal ' ; but everybody knows that it ended in a fiasco. The exMinister of Railways (Mr. Haggart) himself rose in his place in the committee and declared that the opposition had never charged dishonesty. Other investigations have since been held, but all with similar results, and the microscopical examination of the Auditor General's Report by the hon. member for South Leeds (Mr. Taylor) only discovered two items this year which, in his opinion, required investigation. On these he eagerly pounced, and on the 18th of May last he' moved the following motion in the Public Accounts Committee :
For all accounts, vouchers, papers and other documents in connection with the account of R. Smith, amounting to $30, as shown on page L-20 of the report of the Auditor General.
Tbe hon. member for South Leeds (Mr. Taylor) was going to see that tbe expenditure of this country was honestly carried out; he was going to see what rake-off there was in that $30 ; he was going to see whether the government had any contribution to the campaign fund from that. His eagle eye scanned the accounts, and let it be small or great, he was prepared to pry into it, because on tbe same day in the Public Accounts Committee he moved for :
All accounts, vouchers, papers and other -documents in connection, with the account of
R. K. Smith, amounting to $400, as shown on page L-20 of the report of the Anditor General.
Well, Sir, what was the result? There was no result. The matter still rests there and at the last meeting of the Public Accounts Committee, there was not a quorum present to do business. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Taylor) and his friends were not ready to go on with the investigation. From this simple statement of facts, the public can see how absolutely unfounded are tbe disgraceful and discreditable statements contained in the Tory campaign literature, with which tbe country is now being flooded, and bow absolutely incorrect and untrue are many of tbe statements contained in the Tory press throughout the country.
But, Mr. Speaker, thei;e is still other and perhaps stronger proof of the accuracy of what I say. Previous to the election of 1900, no two men in Canada were so reviled and abused as the Hon. Mr. Blair, then Minister of Railways and Canals, and the hon. member for St. Mary's Division of Montreal (Mr. Tarte) then Minister of Public Works. These two men were^ represented as violating nearly every commandment of the decalogue, and it was broadly stated that but for them the government might, perhaps, be worthy of support. The hon. member for St. Mary's Division (Mr. Tarte) was particularly assailed. He was represented as the very incarnation of evil, as being dishonourable, dishonest, unpatriotic and guilty of every crime in the calendar. So far Was this campaign of abuse carried, that many persons in some of the rural districts, were astonished to think that such a man was allowed to live in the country at all ; and so far as I could discern, the Montreal ' Star ' was the greatest offender in this dishonourable and discreditable business. In fact, so great was the horror excited in the minds of some of the simple country people where that paper did most eircdlate, that mothers were accustomed to frighten their children to sleep by saying ' Hush, darling, or I will give you to Tarte.'
Well, a few years passed by and Messrs. Blair and Tarte were no longer members of a Liberal administration. Immediately, they became heroes and saints, and not only heroes and saints, but the only honest, cap-hble and patriotic men that the Liberal government or party had had. With unbecoming and indecent haste, that party and press which had so reviled these men, stood ready to receive them into its fold, as heroes and leaders, and to invite them to sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. What, Mr. Speaker, can the honest, intelligent electorate of Canada think of such conduct ? Will the Conservative party through their campaign literature and press, ever again be able to vilify and besmirch the character of our public men ? Surely not, Sir, at least within the lifetime of the present gen-

4 SO!
eration. Now, Sir, my point is this : either
the Conservative party and press were lying when they declared Messrs. Blair ajid Tarte to be guilty of all those crimes with which they charged them, or they were and are ready to associate with and make leaders of men who ought to be within the walls of a penitentiary. Again they can choose whichever horn of the dilemma they wish.
But, honourable gentlemen opposite have another grievance to air, another confplaint to make. They say that the balance of trade is against us ; that we are importing more tlian we export, and we must, therefore be going to the dogs, notwithstanding the evidence of all our senses to the contrary, it would, I think, do our Conservative friends no barm to take a short course in political economy at a kindergarten. Of all the fallacious theories that was ever advanced, perhaps the most fallacious is this balance of trade theory. The Prime Minister referred to it to-night and explained it excellently well. With the example of Great Britaift before their eyes, where the imports have exceeded the exports, by millions, and tens of millions, for the past half century, and where the wealth of the country has at the same time enormously increased, one would think that bon. gentlemen opposite would be less dogmatic in their declarations. Take again, the case of Ireland, where the exports have exceeded the imports not for half a century only but for centuries, where the very life-bloo,d of the nation and people were drawn upon to pay the rents to the absentee landlords, where everything was goint out, and nothing practically coming in, and you have, as you must have, because of this, one of the poorest, if not the poorest nation in Europe. But according to the theory of honourable gentlemen opposite, it ought to be the richest. They tell us that the United States' export have for years been greater than their imports, and in consequence of this they have grown wealthy. No, not in consequence of this, but because of the rapid development of their almost illimitable national resources, and because of the enormous inflow of population : with perhaps, some other contributing causes. So long- as their exports exceed their imports, their foreign trade is. not and cannot be in a healthy condition, as I think a few concrete examples will abundantly prove. Suppose I buy a cargo of wheat consisting of say 100,000 bushels for $1 per bushel, which I ship to Liverpool or London and sell at a profit of 50 cents per bushel. I then take my money, $150,000, and invest in merchandise, which I bring to this country. I have certainly made a profitable trade, and what is profitable for me is ijrofitable for my country. But the outward or export entry is 50 per cent less than the inward or import entry : and, of course, the reverse of this would alk>
be true : if I sold at a loss, the export entry Mr. J. j. HUGHES.
would be greater than the import entry, and what would be my loss would also be my country's loss. Now, Sir, it will make no difference if I do not reinvest my money, but bring it back in the form of gold or exchange. Some other man, who' is an importer, by reason of my profitable transaction, would be able to import a larger bill of goods than it would under other circumstances be possible for him to do, because the country would have the gold or exchange to pay for them. All trade is, in its last analysis, barter, and it changes not the essence of the transaction whether money is or is not used to facilitate the trade ; and any nation importing more than it is exporting, and not parting with its gold reserve, must be trading at a profit. All profit in trade is made by taking things from where they are relatively cheap to where they are relatively dear, and all nations of the world could therefore profitably made with one another and the imports of all be greater than the exports of all. Why, even a red Indian who traded furs for blankets, rifles, powder and other things be required, would know that the fewer furs he parted with and the more blankets, rifles, powder, Ac., be received, the richer he would be. In other words, the smaller his exports and the greater bis imports, the better for him ; and what is true of the individual is in all such cases true of the nation. When two nations make war on each other and blockade each others ports, it is not for the purpose of preventing exports but preventing imports. For they well know that they can inflict greater damage upon their enemy by preventing them from bringing things in rather than sending things out. If we fully realized this, if we fully realized what very dependent beings we are, all depending upon one another, and the greater that interdependence the greater our civilization, we would, I think, try to act differently. Only savage tribes and barbarous nations want to or can afford to live by themselves. Why do we dig canals, bridge rivers, construct railways and subsidize steamship lines, if not to trade -with our neighbours and other nations ? Would we go to all this expense and exertion if this trade were not good for us V If other nations will not give us their goods for nothing, and they are not likely to do that, our imports, under ordinary con-*ditions, can never injure our business, because we must make or produce things to give in exchange for the things we receive. There is no other way in the end to pay for them. So much, then, for this balance of trade business.
But our hon. friends opposite ask us- and they ask, too, in a tone that implies that in their opinion no satisfactory answer can be given-what has the Liberal government done for Canada ? Well, Sir, I will try and answer that question. Travellers who have visited Europe tell us that over the north transept in St. Paul's Cathedral, London,

there is a slab which bears this inscription :
Si monumentum quaeris, circumspice '-If you seek a monument, look around you. The great cathedral itself is the best monument to Sir Christopher Wren, the distinguished architect who planned it. To my hon. friends opposite I would therefore say : If you seek a monument, open your eyes and your ears, and look around you. Be not as those who have eyes and see not, ears and hear not. Open the Trade and Navigation Returns and the Trade and Commerce Returns, and read and understand them. To be more specific, the Liberal government have reduced the taxation by some thirteen per cent, thereby freeing the trade of the country to that extent, and leaving some miilliioDis in the pockets of the taxpayers of the country. They have completed the canal system, giving us fourteen feet of navigation from the head waters of the great lakes to tide water. They have made many valuable and substantial improvements in the harbours and channels of the great lakes themselves as hon. gentlemen opposite well know. They have deepened, lighted and buoyed the St. Lawrence river, the great artery of our commerce from the interior to the ocean. They have built w'harfs and piers and dredged the harbours and rivers of the maritime provinces, thereby enabling us to trade more easily with one another and with the outside world. They have also in many places constructed boat harbours, where the property of that hardy and most deserving class of our population the fishermen, who pursue their arduous calling on the Atlantic coast and in the gulf of St. Lawrence, can be protected from danger, and they are developing our fisheries. They have extended the Intercolonial from Point Levis to Montreal and to points in the maritime provinces, and made it a first-class up-to-date railway, and not the one-horse affair, that it was in the days of the Conservative administration. They have immensely aided and developed the great agricultural interests of the country. They have given us penny postage and a surplus, where formerly we had a deficit of three-quarters of a million dollars. They have given us peace, concord and national amity, or at least tried to do so, where formerly we had discord, strife and national enmity. They have brought about such a condition of things in Canada that the best blood of Europe and America is flocking to our shores; and, perhaps best of all, they have practically stopped the exodus. No longer are Canadians fleeing from their country as from a plague stricken land. Our own young men and women are now remaining at home to build up a strong Canadian nationality under the protection of the British flag. Canada is no longer typified by Rachel of old, who wept for her children, and would not be
tinction to-what shall I say ?-to the Conservative government that we had between 1878 and 1896, whose record, beginning with the Pacific scandal, ended with the shocking revelations of 1891 and 1892, and the unseemly and disgraceful scenes of 1895 and 1896, when Canada was pointed to with the finger of scorn by the independent press of the mother country ; when her name became a synonym for dishonesty, malfeasance and corruption in high places ; when Canadians had reason to hang their heads in shame, until finally the junta turned upon and rent each other, calling one another by the most opprobrious epithets the English language could supply. In contradistinction to all that, the Liberals have given us clean, honest and progressive government. They have given us peace, concord and plenty at home ; honour and respect abroad.
Si monumentum quaeris, circumspice.


Uriah Wilson: I have listened, Mr. Speaker, with some interest to the essay of my hon. friend who has just spoken (Mr. J. J. Hughes), and I am of opinion that if he chose he could give it to the ' Hansard ' reporters without any trouble. I think he read the whole of it, but whether he did or not is a matter of very little interest. His speech, instead of being in favour of the policy of the government, was the reverse, for if it meant anything, it was a plea for free trade pure and simple. He must have imagined himself back in the days of unrestricted reciprocity and pictured himself as one of those who had nailed their colours to the mast and was determined not to take them down under any provocation. He spoke of Messers, Blair and Tarte. Well, if the hon. member for St. Mary's (Mr. Tarte) is not a member of the government to-day, it is because he stood by his principles. That hon. gentleman was always an ardent protectionist, as his right hon. leader knew full well, because the right hon. gentleman told us, when the hon. member for St. Mary's entered his cabinet, that he was taken into the government to represent the Conservatives who had voted for him in 1896. Mr. Blair, who is now Chairman of the Railway Commission, was a man perhaps of as much ability as any one in the cabinet, and that would not be saying too much. He was a man who was lauded by the Liberal party so long as he was a member of the government, and so important and influential was he that they went back on what honourable men would call their principles and gave one of the best appointments at their command to one who had denounced them for taking up a wildcat scheme which had not been asked for by the peoople of his or any other province. He left the government, and so afraid was the government of his influence
nnforted because they were not. And last, ut not least, they have given us clean, onest, progressive government in contradis-153
in the province of New Brunswick that they were very anxious to have him shelved, .lust one more allusion to my hon. friend and that is regarding what he said about



the hon. member for Dundas (Mr. Broder). He said that my hon. friend went down into Prince Edward Island and did not amount to very much. They looked upon him as an old farmer and did not want to hear any discourse from him. I do not wonder at that when they had so distinguished a luminary as the hon. member for Kings, P.E.I. (Mr. J. J. Hughes) to represent them

and a gentleman who has given us to-night so convincing an illustration of his great ability as an orator. I want to say a few words in reply to the right hon. leader of the government. He said that his party were not imitators. In some respects that is true. They do not for instance imitate the Conservative party in keeping their pledges, but they do imitate the vices of that party, as we have abundant evidence to prove. They speak of preferential trade as if that were their own pet scheme, but I have a dim recollection of the leader of the government appearing in Toronto in 1895, just before the general election, and I remember his saying to the people of Toronto that he was just as able to formulate a policy of preferential trade as was Sir Charles Tupper. I think he went so far as to promise that if the Liberal party should succeed at the general elections, he would send a commission to England to arrange with the British government for preferential trade. Well, the Liberal party did succeed. Did the right hon. gentleman carry out his pledge ? Did he send a commission to England to arrange for preferential trade ? I think everybody knows he did nothing of the kind. Instead of doing that he went to England himself and said : I am giving you preference as a free gift for which we do not ask anything in return. Is that what this country expected when the right, hon. gentleman took office ? Did not the country expect, as they do of every public man, that the right hon. gentleman would carry out his promise ? I want to make a few references to some remarks made by another hon. member, who, I am sorry to see, is not in his place. 1 refer to the hon. member for West Huron (Mr. Holmes). He said that the leader of the Conservative party had predicted that this government would not retain office six months. That prediction was made by Sir Charles Tupper. Sir Charles Tupper had kept these people in opposition so long that he had forgotten their characteristics. He supposed that they would be as consistent as was the Liberal-Conservative party in 1878 when they went to the country. ' You remember, Sir, that Sir John Macdonald went to the country, on the pledge that he would give protection if returned. That was the policy of the Liberal-Conservative party in 1878. Sir Charles Tupper presumed that it would be impossible for the leader of a great party to go to the country on the principle Of free trade and then come back and copy a trade policy which he had been denouncing for eighteen years. The difference between Mr. WILSON.
the Liberal-Conservative party and the Grits
was this. When the Liberal-Conservative party came to power in 1878, they brought down their policy, and Mr. Mackenzie, the leader of the Liberal opposition said that they had brought out the whole white elephant. Well, when these gentlemen came to power, they had a session because they had refused to pass sufficient estimates in the previous session to carry on the business of the country, even for three or six months, and we had to have an extra session. After the session, what did they do ? They did what they had denounced the Conservative party for doing. They sent a committee of their party around from place to place to get the advice of people on the tariff question. This is what we had done previously, and that is what they purpose evidently to do in the near future, or else they are simply making that statement for the purpose of getting through the next general elections and have no serious intention of keeping it. I am not libelling them because they have so often failed to carry out their promises that the people are convinced that when they make a promise, they intend only keeping it in case it should suit them.
The Liberals have added nothing to the public debt, the hon. member for West Huron (Mr. Holmes) said. Is it nothing that they have taken in taxation $89,222,222 more than would have been taken had the rate of taxation under the Conservatives in 1896 been continued ? This is a strange state of things for the party which boasts that they are the party of low taxation. And you remember as well as I do, Mr. Speaker, the distinct pledges given by the leaders of the Liberal party when in opposition that, if they were allowed to come into power, they would reduce the expenditure by $3,000,000 or $4,000,000 a year. The right hon. Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) made these statements himself in' Toronto. And every Liberal of prominence all over the country reiterated the statement. The right hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir Richard Cartwright) said that we were bleeding the people white by taxation. Yet these gentlemen who denounced the policy and taxation of the Liberal-Conservative party now endorse the policy of this government, though they are taxing the people, not thirteen per cent less, as the hon. member for Kings, P.E.I. (Mr. J. J. Hughes) has said, but taxing them $2.37 per head more in customs and excise duties than they were being taxed in 1896. That is a fact that the public accounts issued by hon. gentlemen opposite will demonstrate, so there is no use in anybody trying to make out different figures. These hon. gentlemen boast that they have reduced the public debt a little over a million dollars. But what has been their income during the past seven years V Their income over and above the income that the Liberal-Conservative government were getting on the basis of their income ot

1896 was $130,000,000. That Is, they have taken from the pockets of the people $130,000,000 more than the Liberal-Conservative government would have taken. And this immense sum, I may say, they have squandered, because I think 1 shall be able to show before I sit down that it is not sufficient for the hon. member to say as the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. A. T. Thompson) said the other night, that more money had been spent in this way or that. For instance, that hon. gentleman said that this government had spent $18,000,000 on the canals, and he seemed to think that we ought to be perfectly satisfied with that information. But we want a more complete explanation than that. We want to know whether we got value for this money. Ana 1 think the experience of hon. gentlemen on this side is that we have been very poorly served considering the amount of money we have spent.
The hon. member for West Huron (Mr. Holmes) quoted a statement of Dr. Montague to show that that gentleman was in favour of free corn. He showed that Dr. Montague had actually offered to put corn on the free list if the United States would give us free entry for our barley into their country. Well, would anybody object to that V That would be a fair trade-at least, it would suit the people in my section better than anything else we could give. But was this anything like a fair statement to prove that Dr. Montague was in favour of putting corn on the free list ? Hon. gentlemen opposite have made a gift of free corn to the United States, as they made a gift of the preference to the mother country.
The hon. member for South Brant (Mr. Heyd) said that this government had spent $191,000 more on the administration of justice than was spent in 1896 and said tiiat surely we would be satisfied with that, seeing the increase was so small. Well, I would ask any hon. gentleman who was a member of this House during any poftion of the eighteen years when hon. gentlemen opposite were in opposition if, during every session of parliament, this expenditure upon the administration of justice was not criticised by the members of the Liberal party generally. They said :	What have we a
Minister of Justice and a Solicitor General for ? Why do we pay these gentlemen big salaries unless they are ready to do the business ? I am not going to say they were absolutely right. It may be possible, now and then that having a case in an outside town or city at a distance from Ottawa, you can hire a lawyer there cheaper than you can send a man from Ottawa ? But the principle is the same, and these people who were criticising these things year in and year out should try to do better now that they have obtained power.
The hon. member for South Brant (Mr. Heyd) referred to the census and said that
153i
surely no person would find fault with half
a million more spent on this census than was spent on the last. Well, I should like to have some better reason than a statement of that kind for this large increased expenditure. If I remember well, there were certain letters that passed between hon, gentlemen opposite and one William Kelly who had an interview or two with the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher). He wrote a letter saying that there was a man nominated for the local house for his riding who is an active man and a good organizer, and he intended to take an active part in the campaign if it could be arranged satisfactorily. And he evidently got a letter from Mr. Blue or some one else for he wrote to Mr. Blue th^t he would accept the $300 extra and be satisfied. Then, we have Mr. Hurley who was the representative for Bast Hastings in the last parliament. Mr. Hurley came to Ottawa and, so far as'^we could learn in the Public Accounts Committee, he evidently met somebody who told him that the account he put in was not big enough. So, he added $50 to the itemized account. And this is the way he did it : He charged $25 for room rent, $15 for horse-hire and $10 for stationery furnished to the man under him. When, he appeared before the Public Accounts Committee he was not able to show a single room that he had rented in any part of the district in which he had taken the census that had not been charged for in his itemized account. And, when asked closely about horse-hire, he said : I had to go out here and there driving in connection with the census work, and I thought $15 would not be out of the way. Then we asked him about the stationery. He said he had to buy a fountain pen-and he still had the pen, for he took it out of his pocket and showed it. Then he had to give some stationery to those under him, and, when he was in the county council he was allowed $10 a year for stationery and he thought that charge would be about right. If that kind of thing was done all over the country, I do not wonder that this census cost $V 190,268.99-and I believe it is not yet finished-as against $549,991.76 for the census of 1891. But that does not seem to be anything in the estimation of hon. gentlemen opposite.
The hon. gentteman for South Brant (Mr. Heyd) says that no free trade party has ever been in power in this country. I think that is true. But there is only one reason for it-the party that was a free trade party when in opposition on coming into power, forsook its principles and is no longer a free trade party. And Mr. Longley, with whom the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) is well acquainted, said, in a speech he made recently, that there-used to be a free trade party in this country, but there was no such party now, and that men would not be able to carry this country very far if they an-

nounce free trade as their principle. I quite agree with him and believe that what he said was perfectly true.
We have heard a good deal about the Liberal platform. It was a good deal like the platform on a railway car-for the purpose of getting in on. The member for South Brant (Mr. Heyd), whom I consider a level headed man, made a reference to immigration, in which he said :
I am exceedingly gratified to find that, by a careful examination of the census of the United States for the last ten years, our immigrants are away and beyond superior to theirs in character and quality. Their immigrants are almost exclusively composed of that class which we on this side do not consider a desirable addition to our people.
Now that is a most astonishing thing to me, and if the bon. gentleman had been at all familiar with the facts I do not think he would have made that statement. I find that in ten months of the year 1902 there were rejected in Montreal alone 1,439 immigrants that the American officials would not allow to enter into their country for various reasons. In the whole country, for the ten months of 1902, there were 2,129 rejected ; and for the year 1903, there were rejected 5,158. Now I would like to know where these rejected immigrants are. They were rejected on our shores, and in answer to a question I put the other day I was told that from the 1st of July, 1903, to the 15th of March, we had deported 405 immigrants. Now the balance, which is over 4,500, are still somewhere in Canada. And yet the hon. member for South Brant says that we are getting a better class of immigrants than the United States. I wonder if he knows that the United States has along our southern border 116 officials to prevent undesirable immigrants entering the United States from this country. If he will read the reports of the United States commissioners he will find that is the fact.
Now the hon. member for Brant says that the woollen men were never fairly dealt with. He was glad to see that the change had been made, but my impression, Mr. Speaker, is that if no change had been made he would have supported the government just as heartily as he does now. He says :
Protection is not of very great use to the working classes.	[DOT]
If that is so, why did the government increase the duty ? ft does seem to me that if it is of no use to the working classes, it is a piece of folly on the part of the government to increase the duty. I am surprised that hon. gentlemen who have been free traders all their lives shojild tell us that the United States are on the down grade because of high protection, and then should go to work and raise the duty in this country. But the Minister of Trade and Commerce did not take that view. The member for Haldimand (Mr. Thompson) Mr. WILSON.
found a good deal of fault with some of our campaign literature because we had the audacity to print in it the appropriation of last year. Now, Sir, I think that is-perfectly legitimate. I do not see why any person should find any fault with that, so long as we stick to the truth. There may be some difference of opinion as to what certain things will cost, but the principle is 'there. Now there are some parts of it that I am sure even the Finance Minister would not object to. There are the regular appropriations brought down in the estimates by the Minister of Finance himself on six different occasions, beginning on the 16th of March and ending on the 21st of October, which amounted altogether to $73,864,503. Now I do not think there is a man in this House who would object to the accuracy of these figures. If there is, let him come over and see me to-morrow, and I will take last years' estimates out of my desk and will show him the whole amounts. I think I am in a position to satisfy him on that point.
Then there were the bounties on iron and steel. The Auditor General's Report says that we paid last year $1,401,804 on that head. Now that is one of the things I am surprised at. The Liberal party used to oppose the bounty system when it was adopted by Conservatives, they were in favour of doing away with the whole thing. But when the Liberals came in they did not allow the existing bounty system to run out, as it would have done, but they renewed it and extended the time. They were not satisfied with bounties on iron and steel, but they gave a bounty on lead, and on manilla. Now we have got a bounty on coal oil. It does seem to me that if it is ever justifiable to give a bounty at all it should be on some new industry in order to give it a start. But bounties will not continue the business, because you cannot afford for ever to tax the whole people for the benefit of the few. It seems to me this is the worst kind of taxation, and I am surprised that so level headed a man as the Minister of Finance should ever have gone in to this bounty business.
Then I suppose there will be some dispute over the Grand Trunk Pacific item. I think we had a perfect right to put in the estimates of the cost of the Grand Trunk Pacific, because that Bill was passed by this House, and we had the strongest assurance of the leader of the government, and of the Minister of Finance and other lights of the Liberal party, that they had made a sure contract that would be carried out. I am sorry that they took that view of it. As I did not speak on the Grand Trunk Pacific Bill this year, I would like to say a few words about it on this occasion. I want to say to the Finance Minister and other members of the government that in my judgment they would do much better for this country if they built a few roads north and

south. Take the country I live in. There are people who, I suppose, have been living forty or fifty years one hundred and ten miles north of Napanee, and they are still thirty or forty miles from a railway. It seems to me when we have got such a large surplus and are so flush with our money, that instead of building a railway through the wilderness from Moncton to Winnipeg and then on to the Pacific, we would do much better if we tried to accommodate some of the people who have been living in our back country for so many years. I am not in favour of giving bonuses to companies to build railways. If you cannot get companies to build railways without bonuses, then I think the government should build them, where they are necessary, and I think the government should run them. X think the people should get the benefit of them. There is a railway running north of my town to which we gave a bonus of $30,000. This government gave, I think, $3,200 a mile, and I am not sure but that the Ontario government gave them $3,000 a mile, that is my recollection. But to-day, for twenty miles, you can haul freight by teams as cheaply as you can take it by that railway. That would not be the case if it was a government railway, because the government would carry the freight at a reasonable rate for the people. But here we are giving our good money to build railways all over this country, and what for ? To make millionaires out of contractors and out of the owners of these railways.
That is the way it looks to me and I do not think it is right. I want to say that I am in no way in favour of the tlrand Trunk Pacific because I think it is a useless expenditure of money that ought not to be made and I question very much if it ever will be built under the present circumstances, because it does seem to me that if the people are wise they will take very good care that it is not built. I need not go through this whole list. It does not matter much whether the hon. member objects to it or not. It amounts to $250,000,000 which is a small matter for a country like this-so the present government seem to think. I would like to take up a little time in saying something about the promises made by the government and the way they have been performed. I think if there is anything that an honourable man esteems it is to be considered a man of his word and I cannot see any reason why any public man should say : This is only politics ; it is part of the game. I would be just as much ashamed to make a promise in reference to a political matter that I did not intend to carry out as I would be to make a promise in reference to a business matter that I did not intend to carry out. I do not see the difference. If I am elected again-I may not be-but if I am it will be because I tell the people I shall do certain
things and do them. If I have any strength in my riding it is because the people know that when I tell them that I will do anything I will do it.
I say we can reduce the amount of Canada's expenditure by two, yes, three million dollars per year.
The right hon. leader of the government (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) in 1895 made that promise to the people himself. How has he carried it out ?
We demand strict economy in the administration of the government of the country.
This is from the resolutions contained in the Ottawa platform. In 1896 the expenditure on consolidated account was $36,949,000, leaving out the hundreds. What was it according to the budget speech of the hon. Minister of Finance the other day 7- $54,500,000. The whole expenditure in 1896 was $41,702,333. Now, the hon. gentleman, may take a little exception to that because this is not exactly what the public accounts say. but he will remember that they added in 1896 $2,349,000 which had been passed in 1882, because they thought that for purposes of comparison it would be better to swell the accounts for 1896 as much as possible. Therefore the expenditure in 1896 was $41,702,383 and the budget speech says that for the year 1904 it will be $66,000,000 or an increase of $24,297,000. Is that not a fine showing ? Hon. gentlemen opposite regard that as something to be pround of. As the Irishman says, they ought to be proud because they have made such a mess of it. '
We are asking for a reduction of taxation.
Hon. David Mills, formerly Minister of Justice in this government
These villainous customs taxes are impoverishing and ruining our people.
Who said that ?-Sir Richard Cartwright.
We are the party of low taxation.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier.-These are the gentlemen who have made these promises. These are the people who have totally ignored them. If there was anything they seemed to be sore about when they were in opposition was superannuation. I recollect how Senator McMullen-we called him the Hon. James in those days-talked about how the people were being bled to maintain the superannuation system, how they were being taxed and saying that the people who were being superannuated were walking around the country as gentlemen. I think he was right and I think so still. When Mr. Foster was Minister of Finance he had a Bill passed which he said, if honestly administered, it would not cost the people of this country one cent to pay for all the superannuations of men in the service made under it. That Bill became law. But what are the facts ? I do not know whether this gov-

ernment are a long way worse than we would be if we came back to power. We have learned a lot from them. If they want offices for some of their friends they superannuate civil servants and put others in their places. We had an example of this in the Kingston Post Office. They superannuated the postmaster, Mr. Shannon, and put Mr. Gunn in his place. Mr. Gunn was only three years the senior of the superannuated postmaster. They superannuated the deputy postmaster general and I will venture to say that any man who knew ColoneH White would say that there never was a man in the service who was better up in his business than he was when he was superannuated. We are paying him-I do not know whether it is $3,000 or $2,500 a year and" then we are paying the present deputy postmaster general, $4,000 a year. I have not the slightest fault to find with the present deputy postmaster general, I think he is a good man for the position, but I do not think a position of that kind should be made for any man at the expense of the people. I do not care who he is or where he belongs; I do not think that any man should be superannuated at the public expense. In addition to that we remember that last year the bon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Fitzpatrick) introduced a Bill to superannuate the judges at full pay. I made a few remarks on that occasion against that proposition and I am no more in favour of it now than I was then. I think it is a grievous outrage to say that you shall tax the poor man who earns from $300 to $500 a
year to enable a man to live in luxury who has a salary of $5,000 or $6,000 a year for fifteen or twenty years. I say it is an outrage and I do not believe if it were submitted to the people that they would endorse it. I quite understand the explanation made by the hon. Minister of Justice. He wanted to get rid of some gentlemen that were in the way. The law ought to be made such that we should not be obliged to hire men to leave their positions. A responsible government ought to be able to carry on the business of the country irrespective of the feelings of any one. I am speaking for the men who live in the rural districts. We have no millionaires in our section of the country. We are all workingmen. We know how hard it is to earn a dollar. There are only a few men who know how to spend a dollar and get value for it and there is no men less capable than some of the representatives in this House. I have a table here that I would like to put on ' Hansard.' It may be tedious to read it, but it may be useful. Without any reference as to whether it is tedious or not I will have to read it unless the hon. minister will consent to have it put on ' Hansard ' without being read.
The following statement will show the receipts from Customs and Excise from the year 1896 down to the year 1903, and a comparison is made in this statement of the taxation taken from the people under the Conservative rule and the increased taxation taken from them under Liberal rule. The following is the table :


RECEIPTS FROM TAXATION, PUBLIC ACCOUNTS, 1903.
[Stage Direction]
Year.
1890..
1897..
1898..
1899..
1900..
1901..
1902..
1903..
Customs.	Excise.	Total.	Increase over 1896.$ cts.	$ cts.	$ cts.	$ ct s19,833,279 48 19,478,247 19 21,704,892 75 25,316,841 68 28,374,147 64 28,425,284 25 32,191,978 47 37,001,726 90	7,920,005 94 9,170,378 92 7,871,562 89 9,641,227 53 9,868,075 35 10,318,266 03 11,197,133 40 12,013,779 00	27,759,285 42 28,648,626 11 29,576,455 64 34,958,069 21 3S,242,222 99 38,743,550 28 43,389,111 87 49,015,505 90	889,340 69 1,817,170 22 7,198,783 79 10,482,937 57 10,984,264 86 15,629,826 45 21,256,220 48
And according to the budget speech of the Minister of Finance, for the fiscal year ending the 30th June, 1904, the revenue from customs will be $36,807,063, and from excise $11,915,964, or a total of $48,723,027 ; or, a grand total of taxation taken from the people by this government over and above what the Conservative government was taking from them in 1896, of $89,222,285. Now, Sir, the ' Farmer's Sun ' which used to be very favourable to the Postmaster General, I Mr. WILSON.
don't know how is it now, inserted a very interesting item which I purpose giving to the House. The ' Farmer's Sun ' stated that the probabilities were that this year the farmers would have 200,000,000 pounds of milk which would be worth $12,000,000 ; they would have 2,000,000 hogs worth at $8, each would bring them $16,000,000 ; they would probably have 65,000 horses, which if sold for $120 each would bring $7,800,000, making a grand total of $35,800,000. And

the ' Farmer's Sun ' stated, that in addition to this $35,000,000 for butter and cheese and hogs and horses, the farmers would have to put their hands into their pockets for $14,000,000 more to pay the taxes that this government is taking out of the people of this country.
James Clancy: The Postmaster General did not write that.


Uriah Wilson: I do not think he did.


Sir WILLIAM MULOCK.: Would the hon. gentleman (Mr. Wilson) allow me to put a question to him ?


Uriah Wilson: Yes.


William Mulock: What would the hon. gentleman do if he had it in his power to give effect to his views ?


James Clancy: Put the Postmaster General out first and then we would tell him.


Uriah Wilson: I would not put the Postmaster General out on any personal grounds, but I would certainly put him out politically. My policy would be that we would not import so much ; we would manufacture the stuff in this country and we would have both the goods and the money. That is the policy we want in this country.


William Mulock: The hon. gentleman means that he would increase the duties ?


Uriah Wilson: Yes, Sir, that is what I mean.


William Mulock: And thus increase the taxation on the people ?


Uriah Wilson: No, Sir, that does not follow. If the Postmaster General will look at the public accounts he will see that under what he calls comparative free trade, he is taking $2.37 per head more out of the people than we took in 1896 when we had protection. That is what would happen again. We would make the goods in this country : we would give the people employment ; and we would have the. goods and the money, and the people would prosper.


William Mulock: The first step would be to increase the taxes.


Uriah Wilson: Not at all.


William Mulock: The first step would be to increase the duties.


Uriah Wilson: That would not necessarily increase the taxation. In no place in this country was that question discussed in 1878 more than in the riding I represent. It was then represented by the Minister of Finance in the Mackenzie administration. We had a gentleman in that riding named A. R. Roe, who I believe was as well up on the national policy as any man in Canada, and he showed up that question to such an extent that the Minister of Finance insisted that he should speak first so that he might have an opportunity of answering him. But when this occurred two or three times, Mr. Roe used tell the people what the Minister of Finance was going to say, and then answer it. In the end the Minister of Finance would not even speak at the same meeting with Mr. Roe he was so afraid of him : Mr. Roe has gone to his reward long ago.


Mr. INGRAM.: What became of the Finance Minister **


Uriah Wilson: The Finance Minister was left at home. I have here another table which shows the total receipts from all sources and if hon. gentlemen permit I will place on ' Hansard ' but if not I will read it to the House. Very well, I will read it, and it is as follows :
Year.	Receipts.	Increase.1896	$ cts. 30,618,590 72 37,829,778 10	$ cts.1897	1,211,187 681898	40,555,038 03	3,936,447 311899	46,741,249 54	10,122,658 821900	51,029,994 02	14,411,403 301901	52,514,701 13	15,896,110 411902	58,050,790 03	21,432,199 311903	66,037,068 93	29,418,478 21Total income from all sources...	96,428,485 04
According to the speech of the hon. Finance Minister the receipts for this year will be $71,000,000, an increase over 1896 of $34,-
381,000,	or a total increase over 1896 of receipts in the eight years of $130,809,895. Now, what have they done with this money ? They boast about the public works they have built; but if we were bleeding the country white in 1896 and before that, what are these people doing ? When you think of every man, woman and child in this country being taxed $2.37 per head more than they were in 1896, how can these people tell us that they have reduced the taxation, and that they are the party of low taxation ?
I want to say a few words about the Quebec bridge. I think it was simply outrageous to put that concern into the hands of a private company if it was to be aided as largely or nearly as largely as it has been aided by the public treasury of this country. When the Prime Minister informed this House that he was going to grant a bonus of $1,000,000 to that bridge, he brought down a report from an engineer that it could be built for $4,060,000. When I read that, with the knowledge of the aid that has been given since, I thought of what the hon. member for 8t. Mary's (Mr. Tarte) used to say when he was Minister of Public Works and was getting his estimates passed. When he was cornered a little, he would say : ' Well, I

don't know anything about these questions ; I depend on my engineer, and it he deceives me, it is bad for him.' I thought that if the Prime Minister would just say to the engineer who gave him that report : ' I want an explanation why you deceived me to the tune of three or four millions of dollars ; you only told me half the cost ; I want your explanation, and if it is not right, you will have to go.' But I am somewhat of the opinion that the instructions which the engineer got at first were of a very different character from what the engineers got later when they were expected to build the bridge and all the approaches. Why was not a fair estimate of all these things given in the first instance ? Was it because it was thought that if that were done this House would not pass the bonus of 81,000,000 ? 1 do not think that is the way to carry on the business of this country. It is stated that Mr. Parent, the premier of Quebec, who is president of the bridge company, has only put in 85,000 out of a total subscribed capital of $267,680. That was certainly not a company in a position without government aid to build a bridge of that kind, and it never ought to have been granted a charter or any assistance from any government to undertake a public work like that. It was a public work which, if necessary at all, ought to have been built by the government. If not, it should not have been built by being assisted so largely by the government. Now, the case just stands this way :
Federal aid	$ 374,353
Provincial aid	 250,000
Municipal aid	 300,000
Making a total of	$ 924,353
Federal guarantee	6,578,200
Paid-up capital	  267,680
Total funds provided	$7,870,233
Estimated cost	 4,060,000
Excess of cost over estimate. .$3,810,233
Now, I do not accuse the First Minister of deliberately and wilfully deceiving us, because I do not think he would do that; but I say he was not sufficiently informed, or that bridge would never have been built by a private company with a capital of less than
8300,000.
I want to refer to a little matter regarding the Montreal Rolling Mills. The steel corporation of the United States came over and took them by the throat and said to them straight, because the tariff of this country enabled them to do so :	' Unless you buy
your rods from us, we will enter your market and put you out of business.' What was the result ? They simply capitulated, bought their goods from the American company and took this market. That would not occur if we had a proper tariff.
I confess that I could not just follow the hon. Minister of Finance the other day sufficiently to satisfy myself that he was quite clear in regard to the dumping part of Mr. WILSON.
his tariff. I think it showed pretty clearly that he himself has come round to be a protectionist. The old free trader says : It is our business to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest; but he went on to say, as every protectionist would say, that it was not always in the interest of the trader to buy in the cheapest market, because it may not be the cheapest market very long ; and when those who control it get the upper hand of you, they might put you in the soup. I am sorry my hon. friend Mr. Ross, of Victoria, is not in, because he is a very nice old gentleman, and I would like him to hear what I say. He was very anxious, I am told, to be the candidate again, though a very old man, and he took occasion to write a letter to a newspaper, which I have no doubt the Minister of Finance has seen, in which he pointed out that although his constituency had a population of a little less than 11,000, he had succeeded in getting twenty-eight appropriations for it -for breakwaters, wharfs, refuges for boats, and one thing and another-amounting to
8110,000,	or 810.50 a head for every man, woman and child in it. If that is the way public moneys are frittered away, no wonder we are not reducing the debt very much. It is not very creditable to find that these people have had 8130,000,000 more than the late government were getting, when they said the late government were bleeding the country white, and they have not reduced the public debt more than $1,000,000.


William Mulock: To which of those appropriations does the hon. gentleman object ?


Uriah Wilson: I am not sufficiently familiar with the locality, but I would like to know to which ones the Postmaster General can point as necessary.


William Mulock: We say they are all necessary.


Uriah Wilson: I am afraid the hon. gentleman is speaking without knowledge or is carried away by his party views.


Mr. J. J. HUGHES.: Will the hon. gentleman say that any are unnecessary 7


Uriah Wilson: I think the hon, gentleman could do that himself.


James Joseph Hughes: I will indicate the necessary ones and that is the whole list.
*Mr. WiLSON. I recollect that when the Grand Trunk Pacific was being discussed, not one hon. gentleman opposite could tell within ten million dollars what it would cost. They made some statement about its costing only $13,000,000, but that was absurd. I shall take occasion, before the session closes, to call the attention of tne Prime Minister to a rubber combine. There are 74 wholesale rubber jobbers, and there is not one who does not belong to the association. They have the guarantee of the

manufacturers not to sell to any one who Is not a member of the association. If the Minister of Finance is prepared to take the matter up, I will furnish him with the bylaws and report of the last annual meeting and the sheets they give their travellers when they send them on the road. Each one has to make a declaration, and his travellers also, every two or three months- they used to have to make It once a month- that he will stand by the arrangement entered into or forfeit a check for $500, which he has to put up. They have raised their prices anywhere from ten to twenty per cent, and besides that they have lessened the discount from two to seven per cent.


Mr. FIELDING.: Are they manufacturers ?


Uriah Wilson: Jobbers. I cannot tell about the manufacturers.


William Stevens Fielding: The goods are made in Canada 7


Mr WILSON.: Yes, and the law provides that you can institute an investigation; and if these things turn out, as I say they will, vou will be able to reduce the duties. You are able to take the duties off altogether, and I am not sure that you can prosecute the people under the Criminal Code. I think that something should be done, and if the Finance Minister will appoint any time within a few days, I will give him the in-formaton.


William Stevens Fielding: There is a method provided under the combine clause of the tariff; and if my hon. friend pursues that method, we will deal with the matter.


Uriah Wilson: You will not take the responsibility V


William Stevens Fielding: We will prosecute the inquiry if- we have a foundation to go on.


Uriah Wilson: If I furnish you with tne by-laws of the association and the report of the annual meeting will that be sufficient Y


William Stevens Fielding: Let my hon. friend make his case and we will deal with it on its merits.


Uriah Wilson: I have stated my case.


William Stevens Fielding: Let the hon. gentleman look at the combine Act and say that if a commission should be appointed, he will be prepared to sustain the charges he makes, and if he does, he will find that the commission will be appointed.


Uriah Wilson: You want to put me to all the cost and trouble before you will proceed.


William Stevens Fielding: The commissioner will be paid by the government,' but the hon. gentleman will have to make out his own case.


Uriah Wilson: And that will have to be done for nothing.
I shall not pursue that any further, but shall take up another matter, and that is the purity of the Liberal party as exhibited in the courts. In my own riding we have had a good many contests, and the Liberal party have never been able to unseat a Conservative member in Lennox since 1882. We have unseated three or four Liberals it not more, but although the Liberal party put in their protests at our last local election, and although our member had only three of a majority, they were finable to unseat him. I have taken up a good deal of the time of the House and have not got through more than one-half what I intended to say, but I am certainly in favour of a change somewhat different from that proposed by my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, and I think he will find it in the resolution proposed by the leader of the opposition.


Mr.  A. B.@: INGRAM (East Elgin) moved the adjournment of the debate.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Fielding, House adjourned at 11.30 p.m.

Wednesday, June 15, 1904.