1904-05-04

QUESTIONS.


Mr. GILMOUR asked :: 1.	What are the names and residences of the applicants for leasing the grazing privileges of the Blood Indian reserve, in Alherta, and the date of said applications ?
2.	Has the said reserve been leased ? If so, to whom, and what Is the date of the lease ?
3.	How many acres are embraced in the said lease ?
4.	What is the rate per acre, and for how many years ?
5.	Has the lessee power to transfer such
lease ?	-


Hon. CLIFFORD SIFTON (Minister of (lie Interior).: I am afraid that I cannot, iu tlie form of an answer to the question, give the hon. gentleman the full information that he desires. I will give the substance, and if my hon. friend finds that it is not sufficient, I hope he will move for a return, and I will have it brought down in full. In 1895 an arrangement was come to through the Indian Commissioner by which grazing permits were issued on the Blood reserve. A number of permits were granted from time to time. The following persons have been applicants for grazing privileges upon the reserve
1.	J>. F. AWLaughlin, Temple Building,
Toronto, 11th December, 1902 ; W. M. Boultbee, 20 King St. east, Toronto, 13th December, 1902; C. Millar, 55 Yonge St., Toronto, 2nd April, 1903 ; C. A. Sheets, Cardston, Alta., 7th April, 1903 ; R. Patter son, Macleod, Alta., 11th April, 1903 ; Donald McEwan, Brandon, Man., 22nd April, 1903 ; H. M. Hatfield, Yarrow, Alta., 22nd April, 1903 ; J. W. Woolf, Regina, 25th April, 1903 ; A. J. McLean, Macleod, Alta., 30th April, 1903 ; T. II. Wallace, Lethbridge, Alta., 30th April, 1903.	[DOT]
2.	Grazing privileges on that portion of the Blood reserve situate on the east and south were granted Donald McEwan & Company, under agreement entered into with the Blood Indians on the 16th May, 1903, ratified by the department on the 6th June, 1903.
3.	The approximate area covered by the grazing privileges is 219,000 acres.
4.	A grazing permit is for a period of ten years at an annual rental of $5,000, payable half-yearly and subject to other conditions specified in agreement.
5.	Agreement provides that privileges granted cannot be sub-let without the authority of the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs.


GRIEVANCES OF LETTER CARRIERS.
Mr. PUTTEE asked :: 1.	Has the Postmaster General received any petitions from letter carriers respecting disabilities or grievances said to exist in the amending Post Office Act, chapter 28, of 1902 ?
2.	If so, from what cities have such petitions been received ?
3.	Are any steps to be taken, legislative or
otherwise, to remedy the matter complained of ?	'


Hon.   S@: Petitions were received from some letter carriers at the cities of Halifax, Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston, Toronto, Hamilton, Brantford, Winnipeg and Victoria, suggesting legislation bettering their position. The department is of the opinion that the pay of the .petitioners is sufficient; that the hours of service are reasonable; that the conditions accompanying the service are fair, and that the circumstances do not warrant the granting of the petition.


Mr. PUTTEE asked :: 1.	How many letters carriers did not elect to come under the provisions of the Post Office Amending Act, chapter 28, of 1902 ?
2.	Have they petitioned the Postmaster General that an increase be granted them, without obliging them to aecepL the legislation mentioned ?
8. From what cities have such petitions been received ?	.
4.	Will the request of the petitioners be granted ?


Hon.   S@: Two hundred and thirty-nine letter carriers elected to come in under the provisions of the Post Office Act, chapter 28, 1902, and amending Act, and two hundred and thirty-two have failed to avail themselves of its provisions. Petitions for an increase of salary have been received from some letter earners at Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Hamilton, Victoria, Ottawa and London, who did not accept the increases of salary authorized by the said Act and amendments. The Act of 1902 allowed all letter carriers three months' time within which to* avail themselves of the provisions of the amending Act. Some availed them-! selves of this privilege, others failed to do so. After the time for such election had expired application was made on behalf of some letter carriers, who had failed to come in under the new Act, for an oppor tunity of doing so, and accordingly last ses sion an Act was passed giving those, who had failed to accept the benefits of the new law' the privilege of doing so within six months, and a number of them accordingly took advantage of this privilege.
The department, however, is given to understand that certain of the letter carriers, who have not up to the present accepted the conditions of the new law, now desire the privilege of doing so. If parliament should Mr. SIFTON.
accede to this request, by passing an Ac-t extending the time, then the petitioners will have an opportunity, under the provisions of the Act in question, of obtaining substantial increases in their salaries, but it has not yet been decided to ask parliament to grant such extension of time.


TRENT VALLEY LAKES FISHERIES.
Mr. SAM. HUGHES asked :: 1.	Have the government fishery officers reported upon the effect of the thick ice and deep snow in the past winter upon the fish in the Trent valley lakes ?
2.	Have these officers advised the restocking of the lakes with spawn or fry of the classes of useful fish smothered during the winter ?
3.	Were the fishery officers directed to preserve openings here and there in the ice during the winter ?


Hon. RAYMOND PREFONTAINE (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) :: 1.	The Dominion Inspector of Fisheries has not reported on this, as matters affecting the proprietary interests in the fisherie.-, in Ontario come under the purview of the local government since the issue of licenses has been assumed by it.
2.	Answered by No. 1.
3.	Answered by No. 1.


QU'APPELLE-WISHART MAIL SERVICE.
Mr. TAYLOR asked :: 1.	Who has the contract for conveying {he mails between Qu'Appelle and Wishart ?
2.	What is the distance, and what is the amount of his contract ?
3.	Was the contract let by tender, and was the present contract let to the lowest tenderer ?
4.	When does the contract expire ?
5.	Has the contractor sub-let his contract ? And if so, to whom ?
6.	What is the amount of the sub-contract ?


Hon. Sir WILLIAM MULOCK (Postmaster General) :: 1.	Mr. W. A. Heubach has the contract.
2.	Distance, 71i miles ; amount, $560 per annum.
3.	The contract was let by tender to the lowest tenderer.
4.	September 30th, 1905.
5 and 6. The department has no knowledge that the contract has been sub-let. Mr. W. A. Heubach is being paid for the service.


MILITIA SERVICE AT ST. JOHN. N.B.
Mr. DANIEL asked :: 1.	On w-hat day in this year were plans for a drill hall forwarded from Ottawa to the district officer commanding at St. John, N.B. ?
2.	When were these plans prepared ?
3.	Is there at any place in Canada a drill hall built from these plans, or from plans similar thereto in dimensions and accommodation provided ? If so, w-here ?
4.	Is provision made in such plans for a field battery ?

5.	Is there a field battery at St. John, N.B. ?
6.	Is it the intention of the Department of Militia to establish a field battery at St. John ? If so, when, and what would be the establishment of such battery ?
7.	Of how many companies does the Third Regiment, C.A., having its headquarters at St. John, N.B., at present consist'? Is it the intention of the Militia Department to increase or decrease such number of companies ?
8.	Of how many companies does the 62nd Regiment, having its headquarters at St. John, N.B., at present consist ? Is it the intention of the Militia Department to increase or decrease such number of companies ?
9.	Is there not a bearer company, having its headquarters at St. John, N.B., at present authorized ?
10.	Is not the establishment of a company of the Army Service Corps at St. John, N.B., at present authorized ?
11.	Is it the intention of the Militia Department that the 3rd Regiment, C.A., the 62nd Regiment, a bearer company, and a company of the Army Service Corps should be accommodated with quarters in the proposed new drill hall at St. John, N.B. ? If so, why were not the plans for such drill shed prepared so as to afford such accommodation? If not, where is it intended that such regiments and companies should be provided with accommodation ?
12.	What instructions were given for the making of plans, so as to insure the provision of adequate accommodation for the units of active militia having headquarters at St. John, N.B. ?


Hon. Sir FREDERICK BORDEN (Minister of Militia and Defence) :: 1.	12th February, 1904.	,
2.	The compilation of the necessary data was commenced in November, 1903, and as soon as the plans were ready they were forwarded to the district officer commanding for his report.
3.	No.
4.	Yes.
5.	No.
6.	Yes, ordinary establishment.
7	(a). 4 companies, (b). No.
8	(a). 8 companies, (b). No.
9. Yes.
30. Yes.
11 (a). Yes. (b). The approved plan affords all necessary accommodation.
12. No special instructions were given.



WILTON POSTMASTER DISMISSAL.

Mr. URIAH WILSON (Lennox).: Before the Orders of the Day are called, I wish to call the attention of the Postmaster General to the fact that in the return brought down relating to the dismissal of the postmaster at Wilton, there is a large amount of correspondence left out. For instance. letters from the Rev. D. C. Day, who has been a minister there for four years, and a near neighbour of the ex-postmaster :	Mr. Robert Miller, a wealthy
Liberal and very respectable man, ex-reeve of the township of Ernesttown ; and Mr. Wellington Babcock, another ex-reeve of
the township ; Mi;. James Lewis, J.P., Mr. Ross Peters, Mr. Thomas Prest, and several others on both sides of politics who have written strong letters to the Postmaster General asking that this postmaster be not dismissed.


Hon.   S@: I am sorry to learn that there is any omission in the return and shall at once call the attention of the officers of the department to it. I am sure it was an accident. My hon. friend was given access to the files and knows what letters were written, and he will at once see that it was an error on the part of the clerk who made up the return.



LUMBER INDUSTRY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA.

Mr. AULAY MORRISON (New Westminster).: I wish to draw the attention, particularly of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, to a very grave state of affairs which exists in British Columbia in the lumber industry, and in order that I may be allowed to do this, I shall conclude with a motion. The facts to which I ask permission to refer concern what ought to be a central feature of the tariff, and that is the necessity for compromise when considering any dealings in the matter of customs duties. The prosperity of the Pacific const depends, if not entirely, at any rate very largely, upon the lumber industry. That is certainly the case in what is known as the Pacific northwest portion of the United States, and as we are, in so far as our resources in that respect are concerned, almost identically situated with that part of the United States, it must be evident that the prosperity of British Columbia depends very largely upon the lumber trade. Owing to the existence of item 611 of the tariff, the lumber trade in that province to-day is in a state of stagnation. It is in such a condition that, in my opinion, it may be very rightly and consistently protected, without any infringement on the policy of the administration. Item 611 of the tariff allows rough lumber free into this country from the United States. It encourages in the item rather a lengthy one, a kind of lumber admitted free of duty into Canada and brought into the Northwest and Manitoba. The kind of lumber which is admitted free under this item consists of 75 per cent log. The lumber manufactured out of 75 per cent of the log is the kind that is permitted to come into Canada free of duty, and one can readily see, therefore, the objection which presents itself to the manufacturers of lumber say in British Columbia, and for that matter to the manufacturers of lumber in all parts of Canada. I am, however, particularly referring to the province of British Columbia. The British Columbia

manufacturer, if he wishes to send this same kind of lumber into the United States, is met with a duty of $2 per thousand feet. Not only that, but when he starts his industry he is obliged to import machinery from the United States because lie cannot get it in Canada. The eastern manufacturers of lumber machinery do not manufacture that kind, owing to the fact that they cannot get sufficiently large logs except from the Pacific coast. The consequence is that the machinery must be imported from the United States, where alone it is manufactured. In importing that machinery. our manufacturers have to pay duty of from 20 to 30 per cent. That is not all. If they should seek a market in the United States or the Northwest Territories and Manitoba, they are met with a rate of from 50 to 55- cents over the Canadian Pacific Railway as against a rate of 40 cents charged the American manufacturers. The American manufacturer of this kind of lumber, if he wishes to send it to Manitoba or the Northwest Territories-which he does almost to the exclusion of the British Columbia manufacturer-is only charged a rate of 40 cents, because Manitoba and the Northwest Territories are within what is known as the 40 cent rate zone. Therefore on every hand, the manufacturer of lumber in British Columbia is tied hand and foot. The remedy is in the hands of the government, and I trust that the remarks which I am making and the facts I point out will not be in vain. Of course, we are met with the stock argument from our friends in Manitoba and the Territories, on both sides of politics-which they make every time this question is brought up-that this state of the affairs is justified because the farmers of the Northwest and Manitoba must get cheap lumber. They must get their lumber practically at the expense of their fellow-countrymen a little further west. The unreasonableness of that contention surely must be evident when I state that the province of British Columbia is not a manufacturing province, but has to import nearly everything, and to pay protective duties.
There is no reason why the people of British Columbia should not get something prac-lically for nothing as well as the people of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. We from British Columbia do not contend here, nor have I ever seen it contended, that there is untold wealth in our agricultural lands, and that all that people have to do is to come there and, in a few years, become practically millionaires. We have had no such facts placed before the country such as you have been hearing for the last few months or years, especially since the very acceptable administration of the Minister of the Interior-facts that I am glad to hear-that the people are flocking into the Territories and Manitoba, those from the Mr. MORRISON.
United States especially coming with lots of money, intelligent people, good farmers' who know what they are about; that they get hold of these fertile lands, which they purchase from the people already there at advanced prices, and yet, if they choose to do so can sell the lands they buy for very much higher prices than those they paid for them, and who, by the cultivation of these lands, in a few years put themselves beyond the pale of want. These are the people, the occupants of these lands in Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, who are clamouring for free lumber, clamouring to get it practically for nothing at the expense of their neighbours. If I were a resident of the Northwest Territories, instead of being a resident of British Columbia, I think I would have more independence than to clamour, as my friends from that part of the country have been doing, to live at the expense of other portions of the Dominion of Canada, particularly portions that are not as highly favoured as their own. Yet. that is what they are doing. It is not a sound economic principle to live at the expense of other men. We must all live, we must all give and take. Now the danger that is pressing upon us, the danger that the conditions as they are at the present time are very likely to become much worse, makes it necessary to call attention to this matter. I would like to bring before the House a petition which has been printed and circulated privately, I believe, in the trade and among American Transportation Companies. This petition has come into my hands legitimately enough and I make no apology for using it. It is addressed to Mr. Jas. J. Hill, president of the Great Northern Railroad, St. Paul ; Mr. Howard Elliott, president Northern Pacific Railway, St. Paul ; Mr. Darius Miller, first vicepresident Burlington system, Chicago ; Mr. .Tas. W. Blabon, fourth vice-president, Great Northern Railroad, St. Paul ; and Mr. J. M. Hannaford, second vice-president Northern Pacific Railway, St. Paul. That petition is signed by manufacturers of lumber in Washington, Oregon, Montana and other western states. In the course of the petition it is represented that these interests involve a financial interest of some $100,000,000. The petition enumerates the industries concerned and explains the position in which they stand. It shows that they have lumber to ship, but no market to which to send it. And the petitioners appeal to these transportation companies to give them facilities for what they call their ' surplus stock. ' The petition shows the tremendous output of lumber from that portion of the Pacific coast; and this can hardly be gainsaid for the statistics are given. To give a faint idea of the fierce competition which the British Columbia manufacturers have to face, I may say-and it may amaze the House to know it-that the annual output of the mills in Washington. Montana and

Oregon is more than 4.000 million feet. Tills is given as a conservative estimate. The precise figures are 4,963 million feet, but, to be safe, to make a conservative estimate, they call it 4,000 million feet. Of that they export by vessel and rail, 3,633 million feet. This leaves a surplus of 636 million feet of lumber for which they have no sale, but which they have lying in their yard's taking up valuable space, and for which they must look for a slaughter market. And they do not look in vain, because they found that market in Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, and have been disposing of a portion of that tremendous surplus of that kind of lumber which those parts of the Dominion require, the same lumber that we sell to these parts-or would sell, if we were not undersold in this outrageous manner by the American manufacturers. This 636 million feet of a surplus the American manufacturers are selling at a loss of from $2 to $3 a thousand feet. They show that in their petition, and that is one of the grounds that they put forward in favour of reduced rates from the transportation companies, so that the manufacturers may not make such a tremendous loss on the sale of this timber. And this is not merely beginning ; it has been going on for the last fifteen years, and getting worse and worse as population increases in Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. And, on the other hand, the conditions in British Columbia, where we have the same lumber and just as good as that they have in the United States, are gptting worse instead of better. So, this great influx of population into Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, so far as British Columbia is concerned is practically doing us no good, notwithstanding that we contribute more than our share towards helping the immigration scheme of the government, of which I approve-that is, X approve of the scheme, but not of other actions of the government which tend to lay such a heavy hand Upon us as I speak of. These petitioners go further. In addition to this 036 million feet they have what they call ' waste lumber. ' This is merchantable, being turned into laths and other forms of material for building. The petition says :
One very important factor of the lumber trade of the Pacific Northwest

And this applies to us also.-
-is the waste of material in the mills and in the timber. In the saw-mills there is a great amount of side lumber burned annually in the refuse burners, estimated conservatively at 10 per cent of the cut, on account of the fact that the lumbermen are unable to shop same owing to existing freight rates and lack of market. This ' refuse ' is worked up into lath, pickets, box shooks, fence and common boards, mouldings, battens and other low grade commodities in the white and yellow pine districts -and while not sold at profit, still have the merit of contributing to the cost charged up to operating expenses.
That is sold in Canada as they have been doing. They make no mention of Canada but that is what it means. Further on they say :
The contention of this committee is that if our market for common lumber be extended this vast amount of merchantable timber an-rually wasted should contribute something to the earning capacity of the transcontinental lines as well as stand a portion of the cost of operating saw-mills and logging camps. The annual output of lumber in Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, Idaho and Montana Is not far from 4,000,000,000 feet, and in the production of which there is an absolute waste of not less than 800,000,000 feet, which, if marketable, would furnish a haul of 53,000 carloads, or an annual revenue to the railroads of $8,500,000.	'
Now I quote these figures to emphasize the tremeudous value of this refuse trade and to show the danger that is menacing Canada owing to the existence of that state oi' affairs to the south of us and to having the government take no cognizance of it, and afford us no protection. Another argument that is advanced by our friend from the Northwest Territories and Manitoba is that if the duty were imposed, if any restriction were imposed on the importation of this lumber from the United States, the price of lumber would be increased in the territories and Manitoba. As a matter of fact since British Columbia has entered the market of the Northwest Territories and Manitoba the price of lumber has beert reduced $5 a thousand and that of shingles from $3 to $1.75 a thousand.
An lion. MEMBER. What is the date of that memorandum ?


Aulay MacAulay Morrison: The memorandum of the province of British Columbia is dated 1901. I have not the statistics to the present time, but inasmuch as I am advised and believe that the conditions to-day are worse than they were in 1901, these figures are as cogent now as they would he at that time. In addition to that the lumbermen of British Columbia in national convention assembled, with the lumbermen from ail other parts of the Dominion of Canada expressed their opinions. Every important lumbering concern in the Dominion; of Canada was represented at that meeting and they were prepared, particularly the British Columbia and western manufacturers, to enter into any binding agreement that could be suggested by the government or by the people of the Northwest Territories and Manitoba, not to increase the prices if the competition of the Americans should be withdrawn ; or, if they were giveu a fair chance, and placed on an even footing, they were quite prepared to fight the Americans on an even footing. If they cannot compete with the Americans on an even footing I do not think they deserve my sympathy or the sympathy of this House

or the country. At the present time they are tied hand and foot and it shows the great 'business acumen and ability of Canadian manufacturers and lumbermen that they live at all under those conditions.
Now that is not all. The Dingley tariff, as we all know, provides for a maximum duty on shingles going into the United States of 55 per cent. At the present time they have a tariff imposed upon our products of that kind of 30 per cent. To-day, there is before the government at Washington a strong representation from the Pacific coast states of America urging that the full maximum of 55 per cent be imposed agaiust Canadian lumber, that the additional 25 per cent of the maximum duty be imposed. There is no manner of doubt that the American government will do this, and here we are shutting our eyes to these conditions and doing nothing. I should think that fact alone would justify the government in taking such steps as would tend to mitigate the conditions under which we are labouring. Of course, over and above all these points to which I have referred, there is yet another grievance, and that is that these American lumbermen take advantage of our concessions and of our apathy and ingenuously try to evade, and in many cases do evade, even the tariffs that are in existence against them. As I said before, rough lumber is admitted free, but they try to get in free, and do succeed in getting in free, other kinds of lumber, some of it of a higher grade. A protest has been sent by the British Columbia lumber and shingle manufacturers association to the government, dated this spring, against this attempt to evade and the partial evasion of the custom, duties and regulations of Canada. As evidence of this I shall read the letter which has been sent as well as the letter of the secretary of the association. I shall read the letter of the secretary first. It is addressed to the Minister of Customs and is as follows :
Sir,-I am instructed to inform you that there has been a large quantity of lumber coming into Manitoba and the Northwest Territories from the United States, via Sumas and Huntingdon, on some of which duty has been paid, but the greater part has been imported free of duty. Our manufacturers here have examined some of these shipments and are under the impression that there is an evasion of the tariff in connection with same. For instance, we found two carloads of 2x6 surfaced on one side to 1-i-ineh and jointed on the edge with a fine saw to 5-J inches. This we consider is subject to a duty of 25 per cent, but if the department rules otherwise, we claim that it is dutiable on the ground that it is further manufactured than ' dressed on one side ' and therefore subject to a duty of 20 per cent.
I inclose copy of a letter which was sent to one of our customers by the Foster Lumber Co., of Tacoma, Wash., In which you will note that they say the dimension will be S.I.S (surfaced one side, i.e., with a planer) * and Mr. MORRISON.
edged with a saw to avoid duty,' which we think bears out our contention.
We should like to have the ruling of your department on this, and if you should rule that our contention is correct, would, also like to have privilege of examining invoices in case of uhder-valuation.
We would be willing to send and pay the salary of a competent lumberman for a time to watch all shipments and assist the collector in ai riving at what is and what is not dutiable, and also as to values.
I have the honour to be, sir,
Your obedient servant R. H. H. ALEXANDER, Secretary.
Here is the letter which caused that protest to be written. It is addressed to Mr. Henry Byrnes of Winnipeg and is dated November 24, 1903 :-
Dear Sir,-We inclose you herewith our stock sheet and beg to offer this material, in orders calling for an assortment of lengths and sizes, S.I.S. and edged with a saw, at the following prices, delivered at Winnipeg :-
2 x 4, 2 x 6 and 2x8.
2 x 10 and 2x2.
4 x 4, 4 x 6 and 6 x 6-rough.
1 x 4-No. 1 common S.I.S.
1 x 6, 1 x 8, 1 x 10 and 1 x 12-Com. S.I.S.
2 x 3, 2 x 4, 2 x 6, 2 x 8 and wider-Clr. S.I.S.
1 x 4 to 1 x 12-Clr. S.I.S.
1x4 and 11 x 5-Clr. V.G. S.I.S.
4 x 6-Clear rough.
1 x 14 and wider-Clear S.I.S.
4 x 4, 5 x 5 and 6 x 6-Clear rough.
A list of prices is given which I need not quote.. The letter goes on :-
This stock is on hand in our yard and to dispose of It quick, we are quoting as above.
The No. 1 common and clear would he S.I.S. only. The dimension we will S.I.S. and edge with a saw to avoid duty. This we are offering subject to prior sale and trust to hear from you promptly.
Yours truly.



FOSTER LUMBER CO.

[Stage Direction]
.	(Sgd.) F. E. EASTMAN.
That letter shows their intention and apparent success In evading the customs regulations of the country, assisted by our own people by the Winnipeg and Manitoba lumber dealers and for what purpose ? Apparently as they say, and this is their only excuse, to give cheap lumber to the settlers o; the Northwest Territories and Manitoba. That is a condition of affairs which I think ought not to exist, and, however. anxious we might he to populate the Northwest Territories and Manitoba, I think a flagrant injustice such as this apparently has been to an important section of the Dominion of Canada should not be tolerated for a moment.
The Canadian Pacific Railway, and I suppose all the other railway companies in the east, construct their roads, build their cars and employ lumber in other ways which they get from the United States. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company, this year, when an attempt was made to get them to
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patronize British Columbia lumber for building, cars, wrote regretting that they could not get satisfactory terms and they got from two to four million feet of lumber which came in free of duty from the United States ; in fact 75 per cent of the lumber coming to Winnipeg and used in the Territories comes from the United States, lumber which they could get just as good and perhaps better from British Columbia. As the facts which I have given tend to show the conditions which must be confronted in considering the readjustment of the tariff and as the main consideration in readjusting the tariff should be compromise I cannot conceive why such an imposition upon an important part of the community should be allowed to exist for one moment as that to which I have drawn attention. I therefore appeal most strongly to the government and particularly to the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding), that, even if he does not intend to adopt any general scheme of tariff readjustment, he will see that this state of affairs which has existed so long and which is now coming to the culminating point shall be remedied if possible this session. I beg to move that the House do now adjourn.
Mr. THOMAS MACKIE (North Renfrew).: Mr. Speaker, I have been very much amused by listening to the appeal of my hon. friend from New Westminister (Mr. Morrison) in behalf of the poor lumbermen as he calls them. As a rule lumbermen can protect themselves. They do not require the government to protect them. My hon. friend complains that American lumber is coming into Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. Well, there is no doubt that a small quantity of American lumber does come into Manitoba and the Northwest. I think the manufacturers of Manitoba and the Northwest, Territories are to blame a good deal if it does. The lumber manufacturers of British Columbia and the Northwest Territories entered into a combine a few years ago, one result of which was that a man who required to buy a carload of lumber could not buy it at the mill. I bought a few carloads myself and they were going to seize them on the road and no doubt they would have done so had it not been that they were a little afraid that they would get into trouble. They entered into a combine and raised the price of lumber $4 or $5 a thousand feet. I want to know who pays the duty-the lumberman or the farmer. If you want a thousand feet of lumber you have to pay from $20 to $24 a thousand feet and some of it is half rotten at that. The farmer cannot afford to buy lumber to put up his buildings. He cannot afford to erect sheds to cover his agricultural implements because it costs too much to do so. As I said before the lumbermen entered into this combine and raised the price of lumber to such a high figure as to induce the Americans to bring their lumber into Manitoba
and the Territories. They would not have brought it into the country if it had not been for the action of this combine, because they were responsible for inducing the Americans to come in. You can go about in the Northwest Territories and see farmers with their little piles of lumber which they have had to go twenty or thirty miles to buy from an agent because they cannot buy from a mill, and every agent must sell at a certain price and he will not sell at anything less. I do not think that it is fair to the farmers of the Northwest that this combine should have been allowed to exist. It should have been broken up. My hon. friend asks that a duty of $2 a thousand be imposed to prevent lumber from coming in from the United States. As far as the Territories are concerned, I have been through them a good deal and I have never seen a carload of lumber that came from the United States. There is a road which runs into the United States but very little if any lumber comes in over it. I think it would be a great imposition upon the farmer and a great hardship to him if the govenrment were to attempt to put any duty on lumber coming from the United States. It is only in consequence of having been able to get his lumber duty free that he has been able to contend against this combine. The manufacturers of lumber in the Territories and in British Columbia are in a good enough position. I think they can protect themselves. They pay very little for pine in the west. I think they get it almost for nothing. The dues they have to pay to the government are very little. I do not think that the government should entertain the request that a duty be imposed on lumber coming from the United States. I know that the farmers of the west have to work hard enough to obtain a livelihood without imposing any additional burdens upon them and the price they are paying for their lumber now is almost double what it was previously. I do not see why the lumbermen cannot protect themselves.


Mr. WALTER SCOTT (West Assiniboia).: Mr. Speaker, I had no expectation that this vexed question of the conditions surrounding the lumber trade in the west in relation to our fiscal policy would be the subject of discussion in the House this afternoon. But, my hon. friend from New Westminister (Mr. Morrison), in the course of his remarks, made one or two references to the people of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories which, I think, call for some answer from the representatives in this House of the Northwest Territories. Like my hon. friend from North Renfrew (Mr. Mackie) I was considerably amused at hearing my hon. friend from New Westminster refer to the people of the Northwest Territories as clamouring for free lumber and asking that they get their lumber for nothing in view of the fact that during the last two or three years especially the people of Manitoba and the

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Northwest Territories have been compelled to pay exorbitant prices for every foot of lumber which they have been compelled to purchase. I was not able to follow in detail ail the figures presented by my hon. friend from New Westminster, but I very seriously doubt whether the interest for which he was speaking this afternoon will be able to show that since they have entered into the lumber trade in Manitoba and the Northwest Territories the prices of lumber have been reduced. It is a matter withiu the knowledge of every person who knows anything about the conditions which have prevailed in the Northwest Territories, at all events during the last eight or nine years, that within that time the prices of lumber have very materially increased. I remember that in the years i895 and 1896 ordinary rough lumber could be purchased in the open market by farmers, by the ordinary consumers, at from $20 to $21 per thousand feet. It is within my knowledge that the price charged last year in the interior at points like Moose-jaw and Regina was from 40 to 50 per cent higher than the price which prevailed seven or eight years ago.
When my hon. friend (Mr. Morrison) reflects upon it, he will realize that lie has chosen, and that this interest for which he is speaking has chosen, a very unfortunate moment in which to bring forward a renewed request for the imposition of a duty upon lumber. It is true that recently there have been some importations of United States lumber to the Northwest ; but as has been very well pointed out by my hon. friend from North Renfrew (Mr. M'ackie) the conditions of which the lumbermen of British Columbia are at present complaining have been entirely brought about by themselves. Before the organization of the lumber combine in the Northwest, of which we were compelled to complain last year, there was practically no importation of American lumber into Manitoba and the Northwest. On behalf of the settlers of the Northwest Territories, I tender thanks to the hon. gentleman (Mr. Mackie) who is a practical lumberman, for the stand lie has taken on this question. Two or three years ago when this matter was under discussion in the House I made inquiry and found that for some years previously, fully 95 per cent of the total consumption of lumber in Canada, was the produce of our own mills, and only about 5 per cent Was imported.
Mr-. MACP HERSON. Does the hon. gentleman make any discrimination between eastern and western Canada, when he says that 95 per cent of the total consumption of lumber was of local manufacture.


Thomas Walter Scott: I did not make any distinction: I found that of the total amount of lumber used by the people of Canada not more than 5 per cent was brought in from other countries, and of that 5 per cent, I believe that a considerable proportion would be Mr. SCOTT.
found to be certain classes of lumber which are not advantageously produced or manufactured here. It can therefore be fairly contended, that the conditions of which the British Columbia lumbermen complain in this year 1904, have been brought about by the British Columbia lumbermen themselves. Within the past few years, an association or combine was perfected in the west, which for the past two seasons, I am led to believe dominated and controlled the lumber market in Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. Independent dealers and consumers who wished to buy lumber in quantities, could not go to tlie mill and buy a carload or five carloads, but were compelled to go to the retail dealer in the town in which they resided or wanted to use the lumber. The result was that the people of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, who have an independent spirit and who will not submit to dictation of that sort, were compelled to go to the United States to secure lumber. It is for this reason that within recent months there have been certain importations of lumber from the United States. We are led to believe that fortunately certain action has been taken of late, which ought to result in clipping the wings of the lumber association or combine, and an announcement w'as recently made in the public press and otherwise, by the second vice-president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, Mr. Wm. Whyte, of Winnipeg, that hereafter lumber would be sold at all stations on the Canadian Pacific Railway in Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, free as any other article of commerce. If the announcement made by Mr. Whyte be correct, and if lumber is hereafter a free article of commerce in Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, I venture to say that there will be no further importations of lumber from the United States, and that the lumbermen of British Columbia will no longer have reason to complain. So far as I know there has been no United States lumber from the state of Minnesota or other states to the east, brought into the Northwest Territories ; at all events not as far west as Regina. The United Slates lumber that has been brought to Regina came over the Canadian Pacific Railway from Washington state through the province of British Columbia, and so there was a longer haul on it than there would be in the case of the lumber produced by' the British Columbia millmen. I take it for granted that there was a higher rate of freight paid upon it, than w'ould be paid on the produce of the British Columbia mills.


Aulay MacAulay Morrison: Is the hon. gentleman aware, that lumber from the state of Washington is shipped from a competitive point, where there are three roads : the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Great Northern, and the Northern Pacific ; and that in consequence far better freight rates are given, than the
25C9

mill owners of British Columbia would get from the one road ; the Canadian Pacific Railway ?


Thomas Walter Scott: I do not think that would be so in the case of lumber brought to Moosejaw or Regina, or any point west of Brandon because to these points there is no competition. The Canadian Pacific Railway is the only company that can bring lumber to practically any point west of Brandon. There may be something in what the hon. gentleman says, but until proof is furnished that the United States lumber brought down to Regina from Washington state was carried at a lower freight rate than would be paid on British Columbia lumber to the same points, I will have to doubt that such is the case. 1 did not expect that this subject would be up for debate to-day, and so I am not prepared to, and do not propose to attempt to follow my hon, friend (Mr. Morrison) through the whole- course of his remarks. I merely call the attention of the Blouse to the fact that now especially at the end of a two year period during which a higher price has been charged to the lumber consumers of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories than at any time within the last ten years : it is a very unfortunate occasion for the lumber interests of British Columbia to come here and ask for a reimposition of the duty.


Mr. R. G. MACPHERSON (Burrard).: I was not aware that my hon. friend from New Westminister (Mr. Morrison) would bring up this discussion to-day, and I regret that it came so unexpectedly, principally for the reason that I would like to have heard those statistics which my hon. friend (Mr. Scott) says he can produce to refute the argument of the hon. member for New Westminister. The hon. gentleman from West Assiniboia says, that he does not believe that any great amount of lumber has come from the United States into the Northwest Territories east of Regina, except over the Canadian Pacific Railway. Let me tell him that during the month of March last, no fewer than 390 cars of lumber came in from the American side ; 267 of them came over the Canadian Northern and were entered for customs at Winnipeg ; 38 came over the Canadian Pacific Railway and were entered for customs at Winnipeg ; 66 came over the Canadian Northern and were entered for customs at Emerson, and 19 came over the Canadian Pacific Railway and were entered for customs at Gretna, making a total of 390 cars of lumber which were brought in east of Regina.
I may say that those 390 cars contained an average of from 8,000 to 10,000 feet to the car. At $16.50 per thousand, that amounts to $64,350 for one month on lumber carried from the American side. I have no objection to my hon. friend's making a fight for cheap lumber ; but at the same time I think the blame for their having
to pay a high price for lumber does not lie at the door of the British Columbia lumber men ; it rather lies at the door of the men in the Northwest Territories who have formed a combine. If it were a fact that the British Columbia people had a combine, they could say to the people of the Territories and Manitoba, you must buy from us and us only. But the evidence that the combine exists only among the lumber dealers of Manitoba and the Northwest, lies in the fact that they buy from the American side or the Canadian side as suits their wishes, and the British Columbia lumberman hasn't got a look-in. I do not believe in combines of any sort.
I am a free trader in one sense and a protectionist in another. I would not say that I am either a free trader or a protectionist ; but I believe in applying the knife when it is necessary, and the present instance is one in point. We in the province of British Columbia, are prepared to hold out the right hand of fellowship to our brothers in the Northwest. We are piepared to take of what they produce as much as our population will consume ; and there is no province of Canada where the consumption per head is so great as it is in the province of British Columbia. Until the Kootenay country and the different valleys throughout the province of Biitish Columbia began to fill up, the people niong the Calgary and Edmonton Railway were simply living from hand to mouth. Now they have our province for a market, and a good market it has proved to them. 1 believe that fair play is bonnie play : what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander ; and they should be obliged 1o do by us as we do by them. In the province of British Columbia we have on one side the long haul of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and we have on the other side a very high protective duty. We are obliged to pay an average of 25 per cent on every article that comes into the province of British Columbia. What the people of the Northwest Territories chiefly consume they go* in practically free. This Dominion is made up of provinces. One province has as much right to live as another province, and one province should not be sacrificed in the interest of another. If we protect them, as we do protect them, they at the same time should protect us. The hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat says that until 1894 they got lumber cheaper in the Northwest than they do tlo-day. That does not argue very well for cheap lumber : that does not prove his case, but rather the reverse. Under the old duty of $2 a thousand, which I believe my hon. friend from Macdonald (Mr. Boyd) was the means of having taken off when he sat on the government side of the House, the people of Manitoba and the Territories had cheaper lumber. I am prepared to say this-and I defy successful competition-

* *that, given a $2 per thousand duty on rough lumber, which the Americans have, the ptople of Manitoba and the Northwest Ter ritories will not pay any higher price.


Mr. DAVIS.: Who pays it ?


Robert George Macpherson: The people who are getting the benefit of the cheap lumber to day are the wholesale dealers in Manitoba. The letter which was read by my bon. friend from New Westminster (Mr. Morrison) a few moments ago shows that lumber surfaces on one side only is sold av $17.50. At the mills that costs $6.50 ; to land it f.o.b. at Winnipeg costs $10.00. making it $16.50 ; and you have to allow 50 cents a thousand for handling it. The man who gets the benefit of that is not the poor farmer ; it is the man who sells to the poor farmer, and soaks him for about double the amount. The hon. .member for North Renfrew (Mr. Mackie) says it is our people. I tell him that we do not get a look into this thing at all, and that is the reason we put up the fight we are doing, and I believe that we will eventually win. The lumber manufacturers of British Columbia do not fear competition.


Thomas Osborne Davis: Then what are you howling for ?


Robert George Macpherson: I am not a coyote from the hills, and I do not howl. I am trying to put up an argument for the benefit of our people who are suffering. I say we do not fear competition, but we would like to have fair competition. If lumber is allowed to come in free, then we ought to be allowed to have free butter, free eggs, free oats, free hay, free mill machinery and everything that we are obliged to import into British Columbia. My hon. friend says he will agree to that; but he is the first man who would ge up and howl, as he says, if he were touched. I have no quarrel with the Northwest members ; but if there is anything that has been paraded before the Dominion of Canada in the last few years, it is this fact, that the farmers of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories- and I am very glad to know it-are doing well, getting rich, piling up money. We in the province of British Columbia, are not making any loud complaint about the times there ; but our principal industry from which we expect to reap the greatest benefit, is suffering, while our friends in the Northwest Territories are getting rich. It puts me in mind of the saying, why starve when there is corn in Egypt? I say to our friends, why do they ask us to take the worst proposition, when they are doing so well? If their lumber were going to cost them any more money, they would be perfectly right to take the stand they are doing; but, as the hon. member for West Assiniboia (Mr. Scott) has said, with the old duty of $2 a thousand on rough lumber-it was 40 to 50 per cent cheaper.


Robert George Macpherson: 


Thomas Walter Scott: If my hon. friend will permit me, I may say that in 1894 the duty that did exist was taken off. and immediately the people of Manitoba and the Northwest felt the benefit. Prior to 1894 the consumers of lumber were paying an exorbitant price, and Mr. Foster, who was then Finance Minister, went into the country and made an investigation, the result of which was that in the session of 1894, the duty was taken off, and very material relief was felt for a number of years until the formation of the combine.


Robert George Macpherson: The hon. gentleman has had time to revise what he said. I took his words down, and he said : lumber has increased with the duty off from 40 to 50 per cent. That is what I took down. I do not wish to misquote my hon. friend. He knows that I am the last man in the House who would wish to do so.
Mi-. SCOTT. If I did use the words quoted by my hon. friend, I said what I had no intention of saying, and I think that ' Hansard ' will show that I did not use those words precisely,


Robert George Macpherson: I am bound to accept my hon. friend's statement, although I was very careful to take down his words.


Mr. TAYBOR.: Gentlemen on this side teok them down also.


Robert George Macpherson: The hon. member for East Assiniboia has said that the United States send us only five per cent of the lumber used in construction in Canada. If that be the case, I would ask the hon. gentleman, who is living in a country where the people are piling up wealth, why he should not give the people of British Columbia, who are not doing so well, the advantage of a small import duty, which could not amount to a great deal, if the importations are only five per cent of the whole consumption. But the hon. gentleman is mistaken. Though no lumber is brought into Ontario or Quebec or the maritime provinces, the amount brought in from the United States to the prairies is very great. I am not giving away any secret when I state that 390 carloads were brought into Winnipeg the month before last from the American side. I have nothing to add except this, that I trust the government and our friends from the Northwest Territories will see that the same measure is meted out to us in British Columbia that is meted out to the people in the Territories. We ask only for a fair field and no favour, and that should appeal to my hon. friend. I trust that the hon. the Minister of Finance will see that justice is done to the manufacturers of lumber in British Columbia.


Thomas Osborne Davis: As this question has been discussed before and the government are seized of ail the facts, I

shall not take up the time of the House at any length. I merely wish to reply to some arguments made by the two hon. gentlemen who have just spoken. It has been well established that a combine has existed in British Columbia and in the Territories among the owners of saw-mills, owing to which the people in the Territories had to pay high figures for their lumber-$2 to $3 a thousand feet more than they should. We are told now that no combine exists in British Columbia, but that there is one in the Territories, and that the reason why the farmers in the Territories have to pay higher prices is because of that combine among lumber dealers. I would ask any hon. gentleman whether such a statement is credible or plausible. In the Territories our people want to buy their lumber as cheaply as possible. If there were no combine in British Columbia, how could one exist in the Territories ? Why, the remedy would be at hand. All any one requiring lumber would have to do would be to send to British Columbia and get all he wanted. It would be impossible for a few dealers or lumbermen in the Territories to control prices by forming a combine, when you had an open market in British Columbia. But I know from personal experience right in my own1 town, that such a combine does exist in the Pacific province. I could give the names of gentlemen right at Saskatoon, who sent their money to mill owners in British Columbia for lumber, and whose money was returned to them with the information that only one man at Saskatoon could buy lumber from the British Columbia mills. The millers in our section of the country fell in with the idea of a combine and took advantage of it, and there is no use denying its existence. This is a question which affects not only the people of the Northwest Territories, but also the people of the older provinces. What is rough lumber ? It is the raw material of certain manufacturing industries in this country. If you are going to levy a duty on raw lumber, what is going to become of your furniture factories, your wagon factories, which get their lumber from the States in car-loads ? Are you going to close them up ? That would be the effect if you were to put a duty on raw lumber. The hon. gentleman who first spoke (Mr. Morrison) said that the people of the Territories were trying to live at somebody else's expense. Because we want to buy lumber where we can get it cheapest, we are told that we want to live at somebody else's expense. Well, I fancy the sense of the House will be this, that the gentlemen who operate lumbermills in British Columbia are trying to get rich at the expense of the people of the Northwest. We are not trying to live at anybody's expense, but we are asking for a fair field and no favour. In my own constituency, in the town where I live, there are four large lumber mills. The proprietors of these are
getting rich, and they never asked me to support the duty on lumber. They are quite satisfied and so are all the other industries all over the Territories. What do we find to-day ? We find that Americans are coming in and erecting saw-mills all over the Territories. A wealthy firm of Americans came to my town and bought up the saw-mills which formerly belonged to Mr. McDowell, and a large tract of limits, and are operating these mills. In the Red Deer River country, the Americans have established large mills, and are operating them, and the plant they set up there cost a million dollars. If they found that the industry was in the position which these hon. gentlemen from British Columbia point out, they would not come in and invest their money in our country. If there is anything the matter with the people of British Columbia, it must be the question of transportation. As the hon. member for Western Assiniboia (Mr. Scott) has shown, you can bring lumber from British Columbia all over the Territories at 50 cents, a distance of something like 1,000 miles.


Aulay MacAulay Morrison: What is the rate on American lumber ? It is 40 cents and a longer distance.


Thomas Osborne Davis: I shall deal with that later on. In the town where I live, we have four mills, and the rate from that town to Regina is 26 cents over a distance of 250 miles, as against 50 cents over a thousand miles on the Canadian Pacific Railway. So that the Brithish Columbia people have a very fair rate at present, and one which, I believe, will be lowered. My hon. friend says there is no combine. If so, why is it that Mr. Wm. White, second vice-president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, had to take such a threatening stand and declare that if the combine were not put an end to, he would take measures himself to give the country lumber at reasonable rates ?


Mr.   BELE@: Is the rate 50 cents a thousand ?


Thomas Osborne Davis: 50 cents a hundred and 40 cents on another class.


Aulay MacAulay Morrison: I beg to correct the hon. gentleman. When he says there is a 40 cent rate in British Columbia, he is mistaken. The rates are from 50 to 55 cents, but the Americans have a 40 cent rate.


Thomas Osborne Davis: My hon. friend said the rate was lower from the United States into different parts of the Territories, and gave as a reason the competition of railways. He said you have the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Great Northern, but he knows that the Great Northern has no connections throughout the Territories. If this lumber be brought in from the United States, it must be brought in over the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian Northern. The Canadian Pacific Railway haul that lumber

to different places all over the Territories, and have not to cut their rates, because the Great Northern could not deliver that lumber at the majority of places In the Territories. There is therefore no inducement to the Canadian Pacific Railway to cut rates. So, there would be no reason for the Canadian Pacific Railway cutting the rates. I know this, as a matter of fact-that rough lumber can be brought into the Northwest Territories, put through the planing mill in the town to which it is brought, and then the party who brought it in gets it at $3 a thousand less than he can get it from the men in the town who are selling that class of lumber. Why, then, should not the people have the benefit of competition? My hon. friend from Burrard (Mr. Macpherson) says that the people of British Columbia are not afraid of competition. If that is the case, what is all this ruction about? Surely, the fact that they ask for a duty is proof that they are afraid of competition. They are honest enough to admit that the effect of a duty would be to increase the price of lumber. And the only argument that they can give is that we are rich.


Robert George Macpherson: I am sure the hon. gentleman (Mr. Davis) does not wish to misrepresent me. I said we would not object to fair competition.


Thomas Osborne Davis: I do not know what the hon. gentleman would call fair competition. If conditions are equal, I should think any competition would be fair. If the Americans can bring in lumber thousands of miles and sell it in competition with those who are sawing it at home, it seems to me it would be wrong to put on a duty which would have the effect of raising prices. All over the Northwest Territories the lumber business is regarded as the best business a man can go into. That is why you find people all over that country hunting up timber limits and starting saw-mills. It seems to me it would be a most unwise move for the government to put a duty on lumber. We are getting a great many people into the Northwest Territories and their first need is houses and barns. Many of these settlers have not a great deal of money. Take, for instance, the people coming from the old country, as a rule, they are not wealthy. But they are willing to work, and they will make their way in the west. But we must not, by the laws that we make here, hamper the efforts of these people for the benefit of others. In that country we need lumber as cheap as we can get it. In fact instead of putting a duty on rough lumber, I think the government would be doing a wise thing to take the duty off dressed lumber, and allow the people to get cheaper lumber of that kind. I do not know why the people in British Columbia cannot compete with those of other parts of the country. Those in our part of the Northwest who are running mills are getting rich. I believe Mr. DAVIS.
there is not a mill-owner in the Northwest Territory who is asking for an increase of duty. Yet, manufacturers of British Columbia, who have a good freight rate from the Canadian Pacific Railway come forward and say : We want you people to be taxed for our benefit, and then they tell us that we want to live at their expense. We are not asking anything of that kind ; all we ask is that they should leave us alone and leave the duty as it is. This increase of duty would affect not only the Northwest, but the older provinces as well. As I have already said, this material must be used in car shops, furniture factories, wagon factories and other industries in the older provinces, and an increase of duty would mean that men now engaged in manufacturing would find the shops in which they are employed closed, and they compelled to go across the line to make goods to be sent into Canada. These industries have to be considered as well as the manufacturers of British Columbia. When they are getting in such a lot of settlers, largely of a class who are not able to pay high prices, I think it would be a most serious mistake to increase their burdens.


Mr. JAMES DOUGLAS (East Assiniboia).: I am sorry to take the time of the House, but, representing, as I do, a constituency that is very much interested in this question, I think it would not be right if I should allow this opportunity to pass without saying something in the interest of those who sent me here. I regret very much that this question has come up in this Unexpected way, so that I, with other members, have not papers at hand to substantiate many of the points made. It is contended by the members from British Columbia that the lumber combine is confined to the Northwest Territories. I am aware of the fact that there is, and has been for years past, a combine in the retail trade, and that combine has been of such a nature that it has interfered with the interests of manufacturers in that country east of Winnipeg. The Lake of the Woods lumber manufacturing companies have suffered in consequence of this combine. I know also that when men have been eight or ten years in the retail business they begin to talk about retiring, having made an ample sum to justify them in doing so. With a proportion of 331 per cent on then- business, they soon make a competency, and are able to retire. This question of the price of lumber is a very serious matter in connection with the settlement of a new country. As to the statement that there is no combine in British Columbia. I can make this statement on the other side :	I received a document-I
have not it in my possession here to read it to the House-sent from the Lumber Manufacturing Association at Vancouver and addressed to those engaged in the lumber 1 business in the little town close to our own

home, where there are four lumber yards. The secretary of this association gives lists of lumber and states that for the month there would be no change in the prices, but that in certain grades of shingles prices are to change. So, here you have the secretary of an association with headquarters in Vancouver dictating the prices that shall be paid to the men engaged in the retail business along the new line, at least to Tantallon and Pheasant Hill. People are coming into that country to make their homes. Their first efforts must be devoted to providing . shelter. These people find it exceedingly difficult to pay the advance in prices that were charged last year. It has been said that the advance was $4 or $5 a thousand. But I am prepared to say that this advance went as high as $9 per thousand-from $3 to $9-last year. And I am sure that the government and members of this House will agree with me that that is a very serious matter in the case of settlers who are taking up their new homesteads and who are seeking shelter before the coming winter. If the manufacturers in British Columbia are suffering, and the introduction of American lumber is causing them to suffer, then, I can only say that the high prices that the British Columbia people have been charging have induced the. Americans to send lumber into the market. I do not know that the Northwest Territories are exacting any high rates or exorbitant prices for anything we send from the Territories into British Columbia.
I want simply to substantiate what has been said by other members from the Northwest Territories, that it would be a very great wrong to the incoming settlers to that country if any duty was re-imposed upon lumber. When they pay $22 a thous-sand for common lumber such as is used in sheeting frame houses, they certainly are paying a big price, and when they are called upon, as I know they are, having built somewhat extensively within the past four or five years, to pay all the way up to $60 a thousand for lumber for finishing purposes, certainly they are paying well for all they receive at the hands of the manufacturers. The real difficulty with the manufacturers in the Lake of the Woods district or east of Winnipeg is due, I believe, largely to the combine among the retailers operating throughout Manitoba and the Territories-and the British Columbia people are not entirely free in this matter-when they combine to regulate the retail prices of their lumber throughout Manitoba and the Territories. I am sorry indeed that I have not my papers and figures here to submit to the House, but some opportunity may be given before the session closes to have this matter fully threshed out, and I hope the government will very carefully consider the matter before they venture to impose a duty on lumber, in view of the increasing settlement that is taking place every year.


Hon. W. S. FIELDING (Minister of Finance).: At an earlier stage of the session, when a question of a similar character was brought to the notice of the House by an bon. gentleman opposite, I remarked 'that from a government point of view, at all events, and I thought from the point of view of the House generally, it is hardly expedient that we should enter upon tariff discussions upon a motion to adjourn. Having taken that view at that time, I hope the bon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Morrison) will understand that we are merely applying the same rule to-day, if the government simply listen to the representations made and promise the various gentlemen who have addressed the House that their views will receive all consideration when the matter of the budget comes to be considered, and that we do not deem it advisable to take up the question to-day.


Mr. W. H. BENNETT (East Simeoe).: The question now before the House is of interest, not only to British Columbia, but also to Ontario, and more particularly to those ridings or counties where white pine lumber is manufactured to a considerable extent. I listened to the hon. member for North Renfrew .(Mr. Mackie) in his statement that no protection was required for the lumbermen of this country. His position i3 easily understood when one recalls to mind the fact that the hon. member for North Renfrew (Mr. Mackie) is one of those who always took a selfish view of the lumber question. I presume the hon. gentleman fears that if Canada were to impose a duty on American material, the Americans might retaliate by doubling their lumber duties. The hon. member for North Renfrew (Mr. Mackie) always advocated the export of logs from Canada to the United States, in order that the Ottawa lumbermen might get a free market for their sawn lumber in the United States, and that gentleman was always quite pleased to see millions and millions of dollars' worth of saw-logs go from the Georgian Bay and Lake Huron to the United States to be manufactured, provided the lumberman of the Ottawa district could get free entry into the United States for his lumber. The question is presented to the manufacturers of lumber in Ontario to-day in this shape : There is a duty imposed on Canadian lumber going into the United States ; American lumber is imported into this country free of duty. This is certainly an unfair proposition. One hon. gentleman from British Columbia made the statement that this does not affect Ontario, r can tell him that it affects Ontario very considerably. I can tell him that the sidewalk lumber for the city of Toronto for several years has come from American concerns on the shores of Lake Superior, and it is a question of this material coming from the United States and entering into competition -with the manufacturers of this country. I quote from the ' Canadian Lumberman,'

.2579

which, in its issue for April, points out that mo less than $448,012 worth of lumber was imported from the United States into Canada. I look at the Trade and Navigation Returns for last year and see that there was imported into Canada from the United
States :
Pitch pine	 344,535
Timber or lumber hewn or sawed.. ..	469,975
Sawed or split boards, planks, deals and other lumber, when not further manufactured than dressed on one side only, or creosoted, vulcanized or treated	by	any preserving process.. 674,959
Laths	  5,761
Shingles	 30,752
Staves not listed or jointed, of wood of all kinds	  82,360
Total.. .. "	$1,008,342
Now, the complaint, as I understand it, of the * Canadian Lumberman ' is that so long as the people of the United States wish to impose a duty of $2 against our lumber, we should not stand by and permit it without retaliating and hitting hack. The sight presented in the House to-day is, in the words of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir Richard Cartwright), one that would make angels weep and jack asses laugh. We have Jion. gentlemen standing up on the other side of the House, whenever their selfishness is brought into play, to advocate a particular line of policy for themselves. I see in one of the daily papers that the Hastings mill in Vancouver has closed. I expect that the hon. member for Westminster (Mr. Morrison) has had a speedy intimation of that fact, and has therefore brought the matter before the House. I do not blame the hon. gentleman for rising to the occasion and asking that a duty be imposed, but the hon. gentleman should be consistent all along the line of adequate protection of every industry in the country. What would have happened to-day if this had been a case, not of a duty on lumber, but of a duty on horses ? Every Northwest member would have jumped to his feet and would have begged and implored the government to place, not a retaliatory duty, but a prohibitive duty on horses coming into Canada from the United States. No doubt these hon. gentlemen think they are justified in taking this course when they consider the example of those on the treasury benches. The First Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) has squared himself with the west in one respect. If he has not given them free agricultural implements, he has at least made the lumber which entered into their composition free of duty, because it is said that the lumber that enters into their composition is entered free of duty. Whether any change is to be made remains to be seen, but I would ask the Minister of Finance, on behalf of the lumbermen on the shores of Georgian Bay and Lake Huron, to carefully consider this question. If the manufacturers on the American side wish to place a $2 duty against our white pine, Mr. BENNETT.
then let us retaliate or at least get even with them in that respect. I congratulate the hon. gentlemen on the fact that they are tariff reformers where it affects the pockets of their constituents, and where they think they can capture a few votes by making speeches in this House.


Mr. FRANK OLIVER (Alberta).: In reference to the allusion of the hon. gentleman who has just sat down that this debate was one to make angels weep and jack asses laugh, I may say that I did notice that the hon. gentleman laughed. In regard to the claims of the hon. member for New Westminster and the hon. member for Bur-rard (Mr. Macpherson) as to the riches that were being made by the Northwest settlers, and the necessity of the imposition of a duty on lumber, so that they may be compelled to divide up these riches with their dear friends the lumber manufacturers of British Columbia, let me point out that there is a duty on lumber in Canada to-day. I am not prepared to say at the moment whether it is 20 or 25 per cent; I think it is 25 per cent on dressed lumber. Rough lumber is free of duty. Let me point out to the hon. gentlemen who compose this House that it is the new settlers, the men who are going on their land, who are putting every dollar they have in the world on a chance of a crop and of success, who are the 'purchasers of this rough lumber, and for these men an increase in the price of $2 per thousand, or as much more as the combine would be thereby enabled to squeeze out -of them, is a very serious matter. Let me point, out to the hon. gentlemen from the province of British Columbia themselves that lumber is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of British Columbia's abundant natural resources, and that the Northwest Territories is the great if not the only market for that lumber, that the increase of the lumber industry in British Columbia and its prosperity depends directly and absolutely upon the increase and success of the settlers of the Northwest Territories? and that any policy that would place an undue tax upon these settlers, which will thereby hamper their exertions and retard their prosperity, is no benefit to the saw-mill industry of British Columbia or to British Columbia as a province. Before the Northwest Territories were settled the forests of British Columbia stood as they stand now, but they were of no value to any one. The growth of the lumber industry of British Columbia has been parallel with and according to the growth of settlement in the Northwest Territories.


Aulay MacAulay Morrison: No.


Frank Oliver: Absolutely and entirely. 'The hon. gentlemen themselves are the authority for the statement that the territories is the market and that they cannot export to the United States. They have never been, and are not able to do so

under present conditions. Therefore, I say they are more interested tlian any one else in the prosperity and progress of the people of the territories and in seeing that there shall be no undue burden placed upon that progress and prosperity. As to the comparison made by my hon. friend from Bur-re rd (Mr. Macpherson) in regard to the duties on agricultural products in favour of the people of the Northwest Territories as compared with free lumber against the people of British Columbia, let me say a word. If the duties on agricultural products be of any benefit to the people of the Northwest Territories, and it is a great ouestion if they are, they do not average more than 20 per cent, whereas the dutv on dressed lumber is, if I am not misinformed, 25 per cent. So, on the hon. gentleman's own showing there still is an advantage for British Columbia of five per cent duty. But, that makes no difference. The main thing is that British Columbia's most important industry exists because of the settlement of the territories. Without that settlement it would not and could not exist. Therefore, whatever will advance the settlement of the territories, is of direct advantage to the lumber mills of British Columbia. What advantage will it be to the people of British Columbia or the lumber mills there, supposing the duty were made 50 or 100 per cent, if they could not increase their sale of lumber to the people of the Territories.
Let me just say to the House that this is only one phase of a large question. ' The battle cry of the eastern protectionists seems to be :	the Northwest Territories
are rich and can stand it.' Let it be thoroughly understood, that, as in years gone by, so in years to come, there is a limit winch Ithe prosperity of (the Northwest Territories cannot stand, and that an unwise and unjust fiscal policy can produce stagnation again in the Northwest in years to come as it did in years gone by. Tf tl'is country is going ahead to-day, and it is going ahead as it never went ahead before, it is because of the settlement and progress of the Northwest Territories. There is the secret of our prosperity. There is the fact wherein the prosperity can be accounted for. It is not in the interest of the woollen manufacturers, the cotton manufacturers, the steel manufacturers, the lumber manufacturers, or any other class of manufacturers that that prosperity should be checked in any degree by unjust impositions on behalf of any section of these manufacturing industries.
However, enough upon that point. I would like to say that I very much regret that this discussion came up at this present time and all the more because it must have come up under a misapprehension. As we know, communication with British Columbia has been blockaded for some weeks in the mountains by snow slides and other-82*
wise, and we must take it for granted that as there has been an interruption of the mails, that my hon. friend from New Westminster has not the latest information upon this subject, and that, when he got up and made the statement to this House that the lumbermen of British Columbia were in very bad shape, that they were being shut out of their natural market by competition from the United States, he was under a misapprehension, not being possessed of the latest information on the subject, because I read in this evening's Ottawa 1 Journal ' a telegram from Vancouver, dated May 4. This information is up to date and I am sure that when my hen. friend hears it he will be only too pleased to forego the arguments that he placed before the House earlier in the afternoon. It is as follows :



LUMBER FOR PRAIRIE HOMES.

[Stage Direction]
Heavy Orders being Placed with British Columbia Mills this Season.
Vancouver, May 4.-The prairies of the Northwest have sent out their call for lumber and shingles, and the demand cannot be supplied at the present time on account of the shortage of freight ears.
The Canadian Pacific Railway have not enough freight cars.
This was brought about by the recent tie-up of Canadian Pacific Railway traffic due to slides in the mountains. The railroad company is now commencing to secure cars, and it is not expected that lumber shipments to the Northwest will be long delayed.
Whether the impulse imparted to trade between the coast saw-mills and the prairies is due to the arrangement regarding transportation rates recently arrived at between the mills and the railroad company
[Stage Direction]
Nothing there about a duty.
-or because the season of building operations in the territory east of the mountains is at hand, is not stated. The fact remains that heavy orders for lumber have been received by the local mills.
Undoubtedly the heaviest users of lumber on the prairies this season will be the incoming settlers
[Stage Direction]
Not the people who have made their money, but the people who are spending their money in the hope of making money in the years to come.
-who are reported to be swarming into the territory lying between the borders of Manitoba and Calgary at the rate of three thousand per week.
Aulay MacAulay Morrison: May I 'answer the hon. gentleman very shortly ? I ask him if he is unsophisticated enough to drink in an item of that kind in view of the fact that the Hastings mill which is the largest mill in British Columbia, is closed down to-day.


Frank Oliver: I must admit that I am. A statement of fact is a statement of

fact, whether it accords with the theories put forward by hon. gentlemen or not.
A certain amount of rough lumber manufactured in the State of Washington is finding its way into the Northwest market. Where it enters into active competition with British Columbia lumber, it has not replaced the latter.


Mr.  G. W.@: FOWLER (King's, N.B.) The hon. gentleman (Mr. Oliver) is somewhat illogical. From one who lives on the broad plains of the west we would expect a broader view of public questions. His people are protected in every line of their business ; protected on their pork, on their beef, on their potatoes, on their oats, on their hay ; everything they raise is protected ; and yet, when an industry in the neighbouring province asks for even a lesser measure of protection than the people of the Territories themselves enjoy, the hon. gentleman (Mr. Oliver) is one of the first to rise in his place in this House to protest against it. In common with the other representatives of that portion of Canada whence he comes ; does he think that his is the only part of Canada worth thinking about when tariff matters are under consideration 1 He warns us to be careful lest we do anything to cheek the prosperity of the Northwest. His warning is unnecessary. We who come from eastern Canada are just as careful not to detract from the prosperity of the Northwest Territories as is the hon. gentleman himself ; but at the same time we are not forgetful that this is a great country, that it stretches not only from the Atlantic ocean to Lake Superior, but away far beyond to the Pacific coast. There are many provinces of Canada to be considered, when tariffs are to be framed and when protection is to be afforded our industries. What sort of local market would the people of the Territories have if the province of British Columbia were not in existence ? The hon. gentleman (Mr. Oliver) tells us that the lumber interests of British Columbia must look to the Northwest Territories for their market; and I would remind him that the Northwest Territories must look to British Columbia for their local market for such of their products as they cannot export. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Oliver) and his colleagues must in their turn be careful, that they do nothing to check the prosperity of the great province of British Columbia. I agree with the hon. gentleman, that the lumber industry is one of the greatest industries of British Columbia, but if the forest wealth of that province cannot be marketed profitably, what is the use of it ? Natural wealth and natural resources, unless they can be utilized profitably by man, are worthless ; the vast and fertile prairies were useless to mankind before they were transformed by the hand of man into producing farms. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Oliver) says that the duty upon rough lumber would press very heavily upon the incoming settler, Mr. OLIVER.
and he gives the impression that the settler who has been in the Northwest for several years and who has become wealthy enough to pay for a more expensive class of lumber, uses the finished product. That is not a fact. The greater portion of the lumber used in the construction of a house is rough lumber. I am well within bounds when 1 say that from 75 to 80 per cent of the lumber consumed in the Northwest Territories is rough lumber upon which there is no protection whatever, and unless the lumbermen of British Columbia can market their rough lumber, they cannot possibly continue in their business. If they must allow 75 or 80 per cent of the total product of their mills to remain rotting in their yards, then lumbering in British Columbia must come to an end. The hon. member from Westminster (Mr. Morrison) in his very instructive speech, gave statistics to show that the United States Pacific coast mills produce nearly five billion feet of lumber each year, and out of that immense quantity there are 700,000,000 feet of rough lumber for which they have no market if the mills are to be operated at a profit. Therefore, these United States lumbermen make a slaughter market of Canada for that lumber, and to that extent the lumbermen of British Columbia are deprived of their home market. The lumbermen of the United States are prepared to sell this lumber at a mere nominal figure, and in that way they under-sell the product of the British Columbia mills, in Manitoba and the Northwest. It seems to me that the manufacture of lumber demands protection just as much as any other industry in Canada and in that light this question demands the earnest and immediate attention of the government. The hon. member for Assiniboia spoke of the effect of lumber combines, but I am speaking of a matter of which I have absolute knowledge, when I tell him, that the price of lumber at the mills in British Columbia-when you take into consideration the increased cost paid for labour there-is no higher than is the price of lumber at the mills in eastern Canada. If there has been any undue enhancing of the price of lumber in the Northwest Territories, that is because of a combine between the local dealers, and the lumber manufacturers of British Columbia are in no way responsible for it.


Thomas Walter Scott: The lumber manufacturers of British Columbia are responsible to the extent, that they approve of the association and refused to sell to independent dealers, so that the consumers could only buy through the dealers who were in the combine.


Mr. FOWLER.: ber of that association without their consent. For instance ; if there were three lumber dealers in the town of Wolsley and another applied to the association for admission, it would be necessary for him to have the approval of the committee of the existing lumber dealers in that town. This retail association guaranteed all the accounts of the lumber manufacturers of British Columbia so that if a lumber mill in British Columbia wished to sell to any dealer in the Territories there was no financial risk whatever, as the association guaranteed the ae

count. In consideration of that guarantee, the manufacturers of British Columbia agreed to sell to none others than those in the retail association. However, they made a condition which the retail dealers did not carry out; namely, that the prices charged were to be, I think, some 20 per cent above the wholesale price when you take into account the cost of handling, the price to the consumer would be reasonable.
When you consider the amount of money that would have to be invested in a lumber yard, the cost of handling the lumber and retailing it, and the insurance that would have to be carried, twenty per cent is certainly not too great a profit for the retail dealer to have. But the retail dealers did not live up to the spirit of that agreement. They have very largely increased the price, in some cases to more than double the cost, and the blame has very largely fallen upon the lumber manufacturers of British Columbia, who are not in any way responsible for these sharks, the friends of the hon. gentlemen from the Northwest Territories, who robbed their friends and neighbours in this way. That fault should not lie at the door of the lumber manufacturers of British Columbia. As soon as the matter was brought thoroughly to their attention, it was put an end to ; and to-day that close combine does not exist. If the hon. member for Saskatchewan wishes to buy one or two or any number of carloads of lumber in British Columbia, he can do so, although not a member of the retail association. The lumber manufacturers of British Columbia were willing, in case the government would consent to increase the duty, to agree that the price of lumber should not be enhanced. They cannot of course control the retail dealer ; but they said that if the retail dealers still took advantage of the people of the Northwest and charged excessive prices, they would be willing themselves to put in lumber yards throughout the Northwest Territories and sell lumber at no greater advance than the 20 per cent profit to which I have referred. They have tried in every way to meet the people of the Northwest fairly ; and I believe the people of the Northwest-because I do not judge their character or calibre by the class of men they send to this House-are not men of such narrow mould as willingly to do an injustice
to the people of any other province of Canada in order to get a small benefit for themselves. I believe they are willing to pay a fair and honest price for what they get; and if this matter were represented to them fairly, the hon. gentlemen who represent them would not be going from place to place denouncing the lumber manufacturers of British Columbia as robbers and thieves. These hon. gentlemen are supposed to be the instructors of the people, and if they would tell them the exact truth of this matter, there would be no adverse feeling in the province of British Columbia. These two provinces lie side by side and their interests are closely intertwined. The province of British Columbia is willing to take the agricultural products of the Northwest and pay fair prices for them, and the people of the Northwest Territories should prefer to take from the people of British Columbia the things they produce. If the lumber manufacturers of British Columbia could buy their hay, oats, beef and pork on the other side of the line, they would not I care for this duty, because the- prices would be so much less on account of the short haul that they could afford to compete with their rivals. But under present conditions they are handicapped, and they come to this court of last resort and ask for that justice which they in common with the people of every other province are entitled to receive at the hands of this parliament. I regret that the hon. Minister of Finance did not deem it his duty to say here and now, not waiting for the budget, that he would give them that justice. It would not have affected the price of lumber nor the conditions in any way injuriously for him to make that statement, so that we would not have great lumber mills like the Hastings mill closing down in British Columbia for the want of that measure of protection which the hon. member for New Westminister has asked for here to-day.


Mr. JAS. CLANCY (Bothwell).: I wish in the first place to heartily congratulate the hon. member for New Westminster on bringing up this matter for the third time. I hope the hon. gentleman has been converted to the views he has preached today. If we are to judge from the hon. gentleman's former utterances on this question, we may conclude that he held convictions in one direction and held a brief in the other direction. That was precisely the condition of the hon. gentleman, I think, two years ago, when he declared in most emphatic terms that anything he might have said in urging the importance of a question similar to that which he has brought up to-day, was not to be taken as indicating in the slightest degree that he was a protectionist. In order that I may not do the hon. gentleman any injustice, I quote what he said. This is from ' Hansard ' of 1902, at page

1509. The bon. gentleman, after discussing the question with great eloquence and at some length, had this to say :
I think the country must have a tariff under the present conditions. I am not a proctection-ist, I never have been a protectionist, and when I go as far as I do, I do not think it is any evidence that X am a protectionist.
Is not that a very extraordinary declaration from a gentleman seeking protection here ? How are hon. gentlemen going to have an industry preserved against the inroads of foreign products when they only seek protection for a single locality ? These gentlemen are sectional protectionists. How does the hon. gentleman hope to get anything from the government he is supporting ? The hon. gentleman comes here with a brief from his constituents, he talks against his own convictions, and he asks the Minister of Finance to take into consideration a matter of great importance. I think I can without great difficulty imagine what the views of the Minister of Finance are when that claim is so strongly urged. I can imagine that he meets the hon. gentleman in the corridor and says to him : You must make a show of protection for your province ; you must ask for so much on lumber; hut you quite understand that I am not going to give it to you ; and you must support the Liberal party. That is precisely what I think is in the mind of the Minister of Finance at this moment. But there is another singular feature, and it is this, that the hon. gentlemen who have been taking some part in this debate, the moment they have uttered their last sentence, have skuiked out of the chamber. They do not like to be confronted with their inconsistencies of the past. Let me take one or two of them. The hon. member for Alberta (Mr. Oliver), who is not in the chamber, and probably had some idea of what he had said in the past when the question of giving greater protection to horses in the Northwest Territories was brought up had this to say :
Now, as representing probably the largest and most populous agricultural constituency in this Dominion, I have no hesitation on this occasion in voting and taking sides with the rearers of horses as against the users of inferior horses.
That hon. gentleman was ready to support protection for horses. Then there is my hon. friend from Western Assiniboia (Mr. Scott). He disavowed every notion of protection but wanted horses protected on that occasion. This is what he said :
I may say it is not from the point of view of a protectionist, in the ordinary tariff sense,
that I support the plea of my hon. friend

-meaning the hon. member for Macdonald (Mr. Boyd). The hon. gentleman had an original way of obtaining protection for horses. He wanted them classed as pernicious literature. These are his own words : Mr. CLANCY.
The idea which I think should prevail in this matter is something similar to that which prevails in regard to the importation of pernicious literature.
That is what he had to say. There are occasions when the sincerity of hon. gentlemen are put to a test, and this is one of them, and the hon. member for Westminster will find that he cannot apply one rule in one case and another in another without having public attention drawn to it. On a former occasion there was a resolution introduced which gave these hon. gentlemen the hon. member for Westminster and his friends an opportunity of showing just where they stood. The resolution was as follows :
This House regarding the operation of the present tariff as unsatisfactory, is of opinion that this country requires a declared policy of such adequate protection to its labour, agricultural products

Including horses, of course.
-manufactures and industries as will at all times secure the Canadian market for Canadians.
How did the hon. member for Westminster vote on that occasion ? He voted agains.t that resolution. So did the hon. member for Western Assiniboia (Mr. Scott) and so did the hon. member for Burrard (Mr. Macpher-son), yet' all these hon. gentlemen are to-day asking protection for their different sections. Is it not time that an end should be put to this miserable farce ? I venture to say that after the hon. member for Westminister and the others have made vigorous speeches in favour of protection, they will be found turning their backs on that policy before the session is through. That is an assertion one can safely make. The Minister of Finance is not in his place, but the First Minister is, and we know that he has two policies, one for the east and one for the west. Where is the Minister of the Interior, who we have been told, put his back against the wall and would allow no protection for the west ? But so long as the right hon. gentleman has sufficient support in the east to maintain himself in office, he can allow his friends to quarrel and will be sure of their support, no matter what may happen. But the people have yet to speak, and the right hon. gentleman may find that he cannot afford to disregard the people.


Aulay MacAulay Morrison: If my hon. friend from Bothwell (Mr. Clancy) had followed my remarks, he would not have come to the conclusion that I made them with the sole purpose of getting a duty put on rough lumber. They were rather in support of the contention that the duty should be taken off mill machinery coming in from the United States, which we are obliged to import for our mills.


James Clancy: Does the hon. gentleman say that he did not advocate a duty on

rough lumber on that occasion and lead as well ?


Aulay MacAulay Morrison: The remarks to which my hou. friend refers that I made on the lead question, I adhere to just as strongly to-day. What I said then, I stand by now. We must have a measure of protection such as we advocate on this side, but I could not see the philosophy of having' an uneven tariff, for which there was no cogent reason.
I could not see why, if we have to pay duty on flour and other products of the Territories, the article of lumber should be allowed in free. Or if lumber be allowed in free, the duty should be taken off planing machines, saws, teeth and things of that kind which the lumbermen of British Columbia must buy in the United States and on which they have to pay duty of from 25 to 30 per cent. If you will not impose a duty of $2 a thousand feet on rough lumber, then take the duty off these articles.


Mr. CLARKE.: What is it the hon. gentleman is asking the House to do ? Does he want the duty put on rough lumber or taken off machinery ?


Aulay MacAulay Morrison: If you will not put a duty on rough lumber, take it off the articles which go into the manufacture of lumber.


Edward Frederick Clarke: Which does the hon. gentleman advocate ?


Aulay MacAulay Morrison: It is immaterial to us which is done. In either case we would be in a better condition than that in which we are now.


Mr. INGRAM.: What advantage would it be to the. Hastings Lumber Company to have the duty taken off machinery ?
ill'. MORRISON. It would enable them to manufacture lumber much cheaper and compete in the American market.


Andrew B. Ingram: If the Hastings Lumber Company have failed, it is because of the insufficient duty on coarse lumber. They have their plant. now, what good would it do them to reduce the duty on machinery ? I want to congratulate the hon. member for Burrard (Mr. Macpherson) who evidently has been reading the speech which the right hon. leader of the House made in Montreal. The right hon. gentleman there said that he was neither a free trader nor a protectionist but a practical man, and this gentleman from Burrard uses exactly the same language. We find that he is a protectionist in one place and a free trader in another. But the party to which I belong, I am glad to say, has a very pronounced policy. Its policy is adequate protection.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: Hear, hear.


Andrew B. Ingram: We believe in adequate protection, because it will benefit the whole country and are not in favour of imposing a duty to suit one particular constituency
and taking off a duty to suit some other constituency. I am not in favour of removing the duty from articles which are not manufactured in my constituency and imposing a duty on other articles which are manufactured there. We have had hon. members of this House from time to time declare themselves in favour of a united Canada. We are a nation formed out of several different provinces, by the amalgamation of which we become a united Dominion, and I ask how is it possible to have a united people if we find hon. gentlemen solely regarding our fiscal policy from the point oj view of divergent local interests. We have certain of these hon. gentlemen declaring against protection on certain articles while others favour such protection.


Aulay MacAulay Morrison: I would like to ask the hon. gentleman (Mr. Ingram) a question. How does he reconcile what he is now saying with the fact that his party took the duty off lumber in 1894 ?


Andrew B. Ingram: I suppose that, after fair investigation they found that it was in the interest of the people to remove it. I presume they had imposed the duty for the same reason. But it is suggested to me, and I think the suggestion is a good one. that I should refer the hon. member (Mr. Morrison) to the hon. member for West Assiniboia (Mr. Scott) who, I understand, proved that the lumber duty was in the interest of the people. With respect to the duty on lumber,
I take the stand that, if the United States put on a high duty, we, on this side, if it is to our interest, should put on such a duty as will secure our market to [DOT] our manufacturers. I go further and say that if the great lumbering interests of British Columbia are suffering through an insufficient duty, then the government should increase the* duty so as to give them a fair chance to hold the market. To-day, we are told, members from the Northwest Territories are opposed to protection in this matter of lumber. Is it not the fact that the great lumbering industry of British Columbia is one of the greatest, if not the greatest industry in that province ? By the encouragement of the manufacture of lumber in British Columbia and the encouragement of the great mining industry of that province, the number of labourers employed will be greatly increased, and so a market will be provided for the produce of the Northwest Territories which will greatly benefit the agriculturists of that portion of the Dominion, for it is well known that the nearer the market the better for the producers. I am not afraid to have .that principle applied to the section that I represent. I am prepared to say to the Minister of Finance :	You represent a
province which has a large coal industry. It is true that in our section we have people who are interested in cheap soft coal, and who are even now petitioning to have the duty taken off soft coal. The people of Nova

Scotia accept duties upon agricultural products which are produced in the section of country from which I come, and so they contribute to the prosperity of the people I represent. I am Canadian enough to be willing, in return, to have duties imposed which shall benefit the coal industry of the province of Nova Scotia. And it is only by that means that we in Canada can succeed. If we take narrow views on questions of this kind we shall never be a united people, and, unless united we can never be great. I have been in this House time and time again when the attention of the right lion. Prime Minister had been drawn to the fact that in his own cabinet he had men some of whom entertained diametrically opposite views on the trade question. For my part, I have always believed ' that, under our system of government a cabinet must be united on broad questions of policy, and, unless united, the cabinet was not constitutionally formed. But we have seen certain members of the right lion, gentleman's cabinet go to one district and declare certain views on the subject, while another would go to another district and declare directly opposite views. And. when his attention was drawn to this fact the right hon. gentleman rather delighted in saying that that was how his cabinet was constituted- that it contained men who entertained all kinds of views, and, for that very reason they were a cabinet to be approved rather than condemned. If I am wrong in this statement, I would be very glad to be corrected ; but that is the inference I drew from what the right hon. gentleman has told us.
We have frequently heard it said that there is no protection to agriculturists in this country. I believe I am right in saying that the Postmaster General (Sir Win. Mulock) the hon. member for North Norfolk (Mr. Charlton) and others on that side were prepared to say, as against those Conservatives who claimed credit for the protection afforded to our farmers bv the duties on agricultural products, that 'these duties really afford no protection. If that statement is correct, then if these gentlemen are to be consistent they should remove these duties. If these duties were removed, we would see what opinion the farmers would express as to the effect of these duties in protecting their industry. I am quite prepared to state here that, if I had my way, I would increase the duty on many of the products of our farms, instead of diminishing those duties. Take, for instance, the case of horses. In 1902-3, we exported 1,900 horses to the United States, and upon those horses there was charged a duty of 271 per cent. On the other hand we imported from the United States over 29,000 horses, the duty charged on our side being only 20 per cent. Now, the people of this country, especially those of the Northwest can produce any quantity of horses. Is there any good Mr. INGRAM.
reason why we should not raise our duty to the figure of that imposed by the United States, 271 per cent ? There was a question that came up in the last election in the county of Lambton. The greatest industry of that county is cattle raising, and. notwithstanding that the people of Canada can produce more cattle than they can consume, we still allow cattle from the United States to be imported at a lower duty than that which is imposed upon cattle sent from this country to the United States.
I should say that on cattle, horses-I will go so far as butter, eggs and all the articles produced by the farmers of this country- we should place duty for duty against the United States, and I am sure it will be encouraging the agriculturists of this country, we will be helping and retaining the market for the farmers. This we are not doing now, by reason of the unequal and unfair tariffs between the two countries:	So far as the
manufacturers are concerned, they are in a position to speak for themselves, but I can go this far, that the Conservative party, in the matter of their conduct towards the manufacturers of this country, have always, since 1878, been loyal to the national policy, loyal to the protective policy, loyal to what we believe to be adequate protection for the manufacturing and all other industries of this country. And yet, (Sir. when an election cotnes on hon. gentlemen who do not believe in protection, go to the trusting manufacturers-because some manufacturers are trusting to this government - to-day and have been trusting for some years past. They go to them and tell them that if they support the Liberal party they will increase the duty or give greater protection than they have had. I regret to say that some of our manufacturers are prepared to take a sprat from thfi hon. gentlemen instead of supporting the party which is genuinely protectionist in this country. They are willing to take a sop from the hon. gentlemen opposite instead of supporting their friends who have been true and loyal to them ever since 1878. There will be another opportunity to discuss this on the budget, and I am sure that hon. gentlemen on this side of the House will have no two policies on this question. They will be loyal and true to protection, the course they have pursued ever since 1878.
Motion (Mr. Morrison) to adjourn negatived.



GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC RAILWAY.

[Stage Direction]
House in committee on Bill (No. 72) to amend the National Transcontinental Railway Act.-Sir Wilfrid Baurier.
Mr. R. L. BORDEN.: I wish to ask the right hon. gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) whether or not he is able to give us the clause to which he referred last evening, when he said that the whole stock was a security for the operation of the eastern

section. My right lion, friend said that we would find that in the contract ; he had not ihe clause at the moment, but would give it to us later.


Wilfrid Laurier: If I said 'the whole stock,' I did not express my whole meaning. I meant the whole of the stock on the eastern division.


Robert Laird Borden: My hon. friend was referring to the rolling stock ?


Wilfrid Laurier: Oh, yes.


Robert Laird Borden: I thought he referred to the common stock.


Wilfrid Laurier: I wish to refer to section 35 (c) :
A mortgage which shall be a charge upon the rolling stock constituting the equipment of the eastern division next after the charge mentioned in paragraph thirty-five (a) to secure to the government the rental payable in respect of the eastern division, the efficient maintenance and continuous operation of the said eastern division, and the observance and performance by the company of the terms of this agreement.
And also to section 25 :
The said lease shall also contain such other covenants and provisions, including proper indemnity to the government in respect of the working of the railway, as may be deemed necessary by the government to secure the proper carrying out of this agreement.


Robert Laird Borden: I misunderstood mv right hon. friend : I thought when he used the word ' stock,' omitting the word ' rolling '


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


Mr.  R. L.@: BORDEN-he was under the impression that the stock itself was pledged to the government.


Wilfrid Laurier: The mistake was probably mine.


Robert Laird Borden: My right hon. friend also spoke in this way :
At all events the Grand Trunk have so much confidence in the enterprise that they are ready to lease the line and pay 3 per cent interest upon it. My hon. friend says that he will not discuss the financial aspect of the matter now, nor shall I. The Grand Trunk control this company. But my hon. friend says they put no money in it. They will have to put some money in it, otherwise they cannot fulfil the contract. At the present time if the enterprise is successful they have to pay 3 per cent for the lease. Why are the Grand Trunk willing to pay 3 per, cent on the lease ?
I would like to again call the attention of the right hon. gentleman to the fact that the Grand Trunk Railway Company has not to pay any rental ; that is merely a stipulation binding on the Grand Trunk Pacific.
1 understand my right hon. friend assents to that.
Sir WILFRID' LAURIER, Yes.


Robert Laird Borden: The Grand Trunk is not a party to the contract.


Wilfrid Laurier: The covenant is with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, but my reasoning was that, although the contract was with the Grand Trunk Pacific Company, the Grand Trunk Company are bound to control the Grand Trunk Pacific Company, and therefore, indirectly, they assume the obligation.


Robert Laird Borden: They would not assume any obligation, any legal obligation.


Wilfrid Laurier: No.


Robert Laird Borden: I think that is quite clear. Then my right hon. friend referred to another matter. He said :
Of course my hon. friend may say that the Giand Trunk Railway can go to Chicago. So it can, but if it goes to Chicago it forfeits its rights under the contract, and it takes all the consequences.
In what way does the Grand Trunk forfeit its right by going to Chicago ?


Wilfrid Laurier: Legally, that would not apply ; but, inferentially, if the Grand Trunk Company were to go to Chicago, I do not see how they could carry their trade to Chicago by the American side and at the same time be able to implement this contract and pay the 3 per cent on the road. If they are going to pay the 3 per cent on the lease, they must earn it in some way, and in order to earn that money they must supply the traffic.


Robert Laird Borden: My right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) was not using forfeiture in a legal sense, but in a business sense.


Wilfrid Laurier: Certainly not in a legal sense, but assuredly in a business sense.


Mr. FITZPATRICK.: Does not something depend in this connection on section 42 ?
It is hereby declared and agreed between the parties to this agreement that the aid herein provided for is granted by the government of Canada for the express purpose of encouraging the development of Canadian trade and the transportation of goods through Canadian channels.


Robert Laird Borden: This is an old standing difference between the Minister of Justice and myself. I have always said that this provision does not affect the Grand Trunk, because the Grand Trunk is not a party to that agreement.


Charles Fitzpatrick: Except in so far as they are guarantors of the second issue of bonds.


Robert Laird Borden: They are not a. party to this contract; they may guarantee bonds, but that does not render them liable to anv stipulations of the contract. I would not think the Grand Trunk Railway Company

could be made liable in any way under the stipulations of a contract to which it is not a party. It is quite true that therfe is a stipulation in the contract between the government and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company by which the Grand Trunk Pacific Company undertakes that it shall procure the Grand Trunk Railway Company to guarantee its bonds. That does not, it seems to me, render the Grand Trunk Company liable to the stipulations of a contract to which it is not a party.


Charles Fitzpatrick: Except in so far as the Grand Trunk Company may be affected as the result of two things, as the result of their being guarantors of the second issue of bonds with respect to the western division, and also as the owners of $23,000,000 of the stock in this company. Anything that affects the Grand Trunk Pacific Company must necessarily, to a very large extent, affect the guarantors and stockholders.
Mr. R, L. BORDEN. It comes back exactly to what was said by the right hon. the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), that he did not use the word * forfeit ' in a legal sense, but in a figurative or, to be more accurate, in a business sense, which is the sense now put forward by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fitzpatrick).


Charles Fitzpatrick: I think that was the meaning which was put on it when the matter was discussed last year.


George William Fowler: Section 42 has not quite as much weight as it might have if it were not for the fact that according to the statement of Mr. Hays himself, the shipper routes from 75 to 80 per cent of the traffic. Now by the conditions thus imposed in the contract, only such grain as is not specifically routed by the shipper they are bound to carry. If the resolution that I proposed had been carried that all freight originating along the line and its tributaries should be carried over Canadian territory and through Canadian ports when it was intended for export abroad, you would have had a condition that would have meant something, but, today, according to the statement of Mr. Hays in the railway committee, a statement which was supported by the hon. member for West York (Mr. Campbell) at least from 75 to 80 per cent of the freight is routed by the shipper. The shipper, as has been pointed out again and again during the course cf this debate, is going to send his freight by the quickest route if he can do so just as cheaply as by the other route. Section 42 does not apply notwithstanding the fact that the right hon. Prime Minister and the hen. Minister of Justice claim that it does. Now, the hon. Minister of Justice also contends that the Grand Trunk Railway Company are bound, being guarantors of 25 per cent of the bonds, but the government are three-fold more strongly bound because they are guarantors of three-quarters of the bonds.


Robert Laird Borden: By the amendment, as I understand it, if the company default, this 25 per cent for which the company are the guarantors has to be redeemed proportionately with the three-quarters for which the country is responsible. So, we say that the guarantee, as far as the Grand Trunk Railway Company is concerned, is not even a moral guarantee, or a moral obligation such as the right hon. Prime Minister claims.


Wilfrid Laurier: Business, not moral.


George William Fowler: It is not business in any way. If it were business the company would be bound by the contract. It would be business to bind them by the contract if you can bind these people. We had a contract signed by all these titled gentlemen who are supposed to compose the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, but it did not amount to much, because, after they had entered into a solemn bargain, they, for their own purposes^ broke it. What sort of a business or moral guarantee is it to say that these are the conditions on which hon. gentlemen opposite rely as being the conditions that are going to benefit the people, that are going to oblige the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company to carry this freight over Canadian soil and that are going to make these people pay three per cent interest on the money when they do not regard themselves bound by a contract in writing ? You have by your amended contract even less of a hold than you had previously in respect to this $25,000,000 of stock, because you allow them, under this amended contract, to dispose of the stock in the market. Every safeguard that was thrown around this transaction has been swept away. They were only poor safeguards, but even a poor safeguard is better than none at all. So completely do the government appear to be in the power of these Grand Trunk people, and that is the way that any common sense business man will look at it, that they have conceded everything to them. The hon. Minister of Finance during the by-election in the county of Hochelaga declared that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company must come to their terms or they would build the road themselves, but after all his violent abuse and defiance, when he and his friends had looked over the ground, when they had received the returns from the managers of that election, when they found that it was absolutely necessary to the success of the government candidate on that occasion to have the undivided Grand Trunk vote, that lion gentleman came down. Hon. gentlemen opposite were willing to modify their views because the right hon. leader of the government knew what a serious blow it would be to the prestige of his government to lose a by-election in Quebec. It was bad enough to lose an election in the maritime provinces, bad enough to have increased majorities recorded

against them in the province of Ontario but, in the right hon. gentleman's own province of Quebec, which in the general elections had given him such a large majority, to lose a by-election would be altogether too great a blow to his government and so he was willing to give way to the demands of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company. Now, Sir, it does seem to me that we have a very poor guarantee that these conditions will be fulfilled.
At six o'clock committee took recess.
After Eecess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS.


[Stage Direction]
House in Committee on Bill (No. 70) respecting the Canadian Pacific Railway Company-Mr. Douglas.
Mr. HYMAN.: The third section of the Bill now reads :
The company may issue bonds which shall be a first lien and charge and be security respectively on the said railway.
The Railway Act provides of course, that the first charge shall be the working expenses, and I propose the following amendment :
That after the words ' shall ' in the first line, the following words be added :-Subject in the first .instance to the payment of any penalty imposed upon the company for non-compliance with the requirements of the Railway Act, 1903 ; and next to the working expenses of the said railway.
This makes it clear that it does not override the general law.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time, and passed.	[DOT]

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 30) an Act respecting the Guelph Junction Railway Company-Mr. Guthrie.
Bill (No. 31) to incorporate the Guelph and Goderich Railway Company-Mr. Holmes.
Bill (No. 44) respecting the Berlin. Waterloo, Wellesley and Lake Huron Railway Company-Mr. Clare.
Bill (No. 66) respecting the Pacific Northern and Omineca Railway Company-Mr. Morrison.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 92) respecting certain Patents of William A. Damen-Mr. Campbell.
Bill (No. 93) respecting a certain Patent of E. A. Small-Mr. Logan.
Bill (No. 94) respecting the Timagami Railway Company-Mr. McCool.

[Stage Direction]
House in Committee on Bill (No. 72) to amend the National Transcontinental Railway Act-Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
Progress reported

Rt.   H@: It is my painful, Mr. Speaker, my very painful duty, to have to announce the death of one of our colleagues, in the person of William F. McCreary. The circumstances of the death of Mr. McCreary are all the more sad that they come so unexpectedly upon us. In many ways they recall those of the death of Mr. Cargill only last session. Like Mr. Cargill, Mr. McCreary was apparently in the best of health to the last moment, and indeed only yesterday was engaged with us in debate and defending bis opinions on a most important question. While thus addressing the House the hand of death was already upon him, which shows how true it is that we are only shadow's and in pursuit only of shadows. I am sure that Mr. McCreary had on both sides of the House only friends. He was of an ardent temperament, defended his opinions with vigour, and at all times enjoyed the keenness of debate, but there was no more kind hearted man in the House. Even those who did not share his opinions, respected his views and cherished his kindly disposition. We have had many evidences, since the news of his death spread through the House, that on the other side as well as this the feeling of mourning is very deep. It is not the custom of the House to adjourn for the death of a colleague. As a rule, the death of a colleague, even the most eminent, has not prevented the House going on with business ; but the circumstances in this case are so particularly painful, that no one in the chamber will feel disposed to proceed with the business now engaging our attention and in which our colleague took a prominent and active part. The disposition will be rather that we should adjourn our debate instead of proceeding any further with the discussion in which we are now engaged. I beg therefore to move, seconded by Mr. Sproule, that the House do now adjourn.
BiB (No. 90) to incorporate the Bessemer and Barry's Bay Railway Company-Mr. Northrup.
Bill (No. 91) respecting the Toronto and Hamilton Railway Company-Mr. Calvert.


Mr. THOS. E. SPROULE (East Grey).: In the absence of the hon. the leader of the opposition, and on behalf of this side of the House, I desire to express our sorrowful concurrence in what has been said by the

right hon, the leader of the government. The untimely death of a colleague is at all times mournful and overshadows not only this House but the part of the country which he represents ; but it is marked with additional sadness when, as in this instance, one who was in the prime of life only yesterday, taking part in the active duties of his position, is so suddenly called from among us and we shall know him no more for ever. On behalf of this side of the House, I can bear testimony that we always found the late Mr. McCreary a most sociable, genial and kind hearted man, attentive to his duties, assiduous at his work, and always endeavouring faithfully to represent his people and work in the best interests of his country. We oil this side had not the same opportunities of knowing him that the right hon. the leader of the government and his friends had, but in every capacity in which we were brought in contact with him, we always found him a man of most genial disposition, kindly at heart and always the gentleman. These unfortunate events in human life, especially in conriec-tion with parliamentary life, have been all too frequent of late years. The right hon. the leader of the government spok* of the circumstances of the untimely death of our late colleague Mr. Cargill, and in this morning's papers we have the announcement of the death of one of our colleagues in the upper House, Senator Reid, of British Columbia, a very respected gentleman. with whom I became acquainted years ago and whom I knew well up to the time of his sickness, and who was only known to be respected. I am sure that I express the sentiments of all on this side when I say that our tenderest sympathy and condolence go out to the bereaved family of Mr. McCreary and his friends in the constituency he represented. I may say that these sad occurrences sometimes tend to do away with the asperities of public life and ought to make us at least more kindly disposed to each other. It is in my judgment fitting that this House should adjourn out of respect for the memory of our departed colleague, and to express the sympathy we feel for the bereaved ones left behind. I beg to second the motion.


Clifford Sifton: I desire, Mr. Speaker, the privilege of adding a few words to what has been already said upon the painful occasion of the death of our fellow member. My acquaintanceship with Mr. McCreary extended perhaps over a period greater than that of any other member of the House. It js now some twenty-four years since be and I were law students together in the city of M innipeg. After he began the practice of his profession, lie attained a considerable degree of prominence in connection with municipal affairs and was ultimately elected mayor of the city of Winnipeg, which Mr. SPROULE.
may be taken as an illustration of the esteem in which he was regarded by his fellow-citizens among whom he had lived a considerable number of years. I was inexpressibly shocked an hour or so ago when I received a message that, owing to the fact that he had not appeared during the day, it was found necessary to force open the door of his room, when the sad truth was learned. He was with me yesterday in the afternoon an hour and a-hall' discussing various matters of interest to his constituency and later on in the evening, after he had addressed the House a few minutes upon the Railway Bill, he again asked me to go to my room and we there discussed matters connected with his constituency. I remember remarking that I never saw him look so well or enjoying such good spirits. Mr. McCreary sometimes expressed doubts about the advisability of continuing in his political career, but during the last, couple of days, on one or two occasions when I saw him, he expressed himself as having rather made up his mind, for the present at least, to continue in political life. Those who knew him will agree that few men were better adapted for a political career. He was a man of ability, strength of character and particularly well able to express his views in a vigorous and convincing manner.
I suppose that if I had been asked last evening to say who, of the members of the House of Commons, would be the least likely to be the subject of such a sad occurrence, the name of Mr. McCreary is the one that would probably have suggested itself to my mind. As one of his colleagues from the province of Manitoba, I feel that it is only proper for me to express the esteem in which he was held by the representatives from his own province and the Northwest Territories, and at the same time to express my sincere sympathy with his family in the very sad bereavement which they have sustained. I can hardly yet realize, Mr. Speaker, the fact that this friend and colleague was with me last evening, was in my room at eleven o'clock, left there to enter the House and an hour later retired to his hotel, and that only an hour ago I was called upon to witness the fact that he had passed away. When we think of the feelings which we experience under such circumstances, we can, perhaps, in a faint degree, realize the feelings of those who were bound to him by closer ties.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House adjourned at 8.45 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Thursday, May 5, 1904.