1904-06-15

FIRST READINGS.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 136) to incorporate the Similka-meen and Keremeos Railway Company. Mr. Morrison.
Bill (No. 137) respecting certain patents of the Canadian Office and School Furniture Company Limited.-Mr. Clare.

Mr. W. S. CALVERT moved :: That that portion of the 49th rule which limits the time for receiving petitions for Private Bills be suspended in reference to the petition of the Rio de Janeiro Light and Power Company, presented this day, praying for an Act to change the name of the company to the Rio de Janeiro Tramways, Light and Power Company, and granting powers to construct and operate tramways, railways, telegraph and telephone lines in Brazil, subject to the laws thereof, and that it be read and received forthwith.


Mr. R. L. BORDEN (Halifax).: I suppose there is some explanation ?


William Samuel Calvert: This company, I understand was incorporated under the Companies Act on the 9th' instant. They have powers given under the Companies Act, but these are not sufficient. I under-

stand that they wish to construct and operate railways, tramways, telephone and telegraph lines in Brazil, subject to the laws of that country. The reason given to me for the delay in seeking this legislation is that the negotiations between the people of Brazil and the company here were not concluded until a very recent date. Therefore, they took out letters of incorporation under the Companies Act and paid a fee of $2 900 to the government. All the corporators are Canadians. 1 do not think this legislation interferes in the slightest degree with any company or corporation in Canada. The contract entered into between the people in Brazil and this company provides that the company shall start operations this year. Therefore, if legislation should be left over until next year it would interfere very much with the" contract entered into. This is simply the case of a number of Canadians who seek to do business in a foreign country, and I hope the House will grant the necessary legislation.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER (Prime Minister).: Do I understand that the powers sought apply wholly to tramways, telegraphs and so on in Brazil, and not in Canada?


William Samuel Calvert: Only in Brazil.
.Motion agreed to.



DISMISSAL OF LORD DUNDONALD.

[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. Sir WILFRID LAURIER (Prime Minister;. By command of His Excellency I have to inform the House that it litis pleased His Excellency the Governor in Council to relieve the Right Hon. the Earl of Dundonald from the position of Oenoral Officer Commanding the militia of Canada. I am prepared to lay the Order in Council immediately upon the table of the House, but as there is other correspondence, and I expect to be able to produce the whole of it during the present sitting of the House, I will keep this order until I am able to lay the whole of it before the House.

[Stage Direction]
OPERATION OF GOVERNMENT RAILWAYS. Mr. POPE-by Air. Taylor-asked.
1.	What were the receipts on the government system of railways for the current year up to the 31st of May last ?
2.	What were the expenses of operation of the government system of railways for the current year up to the 31st of May last ?
£Ion. H. R. EMMERSON (Minister of Railways and Canals). This information has been prepared but it cannot be got ready until about the 20th of the month.

Air. RALPH SMITH asked :: 1.	What was the cost of the commission issued in 1886 to inquire into the relation of capital and labour in Canada ?


Mr. CALVERT.: 2.	How many commissioners were then appointed, and what were their names, and how much was each paid ?
3.	When did the commissioners make their report ?
4.	What was the nature of this report ?
5.	What action was taken on the report ?
Hon. Sir WILLIAAI A1ULOCK (Postmaster General) :
1.	$81,718.98.
2.	Fourteen (14) commissioners were appointed. Their names, and the amounts paid to each are as follows
Hon. James Armstrong, Ottawa.. $7,142.17
John Armstrong, Toronto	 2,400.00
G.	Boivin, Montreal	 1,737.90
U. Carson, Ottawa	 2,040.98
J. A. Clark, St. John, N.B	 3,440.40
A. T. Freed, Hamilton	 3,152.19
W. A. Gibson, Ottawa	 2,831.38
AVm. Haggarty, Sydney, N.S		1,862.17
S. B. Heaks, Toronto	 3,122.84
Jules Helbronner, Montreal.. ..	6,507.80
John Kelly, St. John, N.B	 U637.ll
Patrick Kerwin, Quebec, Que.. ..	3,072.98
H.	A. McLean, Halifax, N.S.. ..	3,119.65
Michael Welsh, Halifax	 3,586.91
3.	First report, February 23, 1889 ; second report, April, 1889.
4.	Each report is somewhat voluminous, and deals with a large number of subjects, which will appear on reference thereto.
5.	The only action which appears to have been taken was in the session of 1890, when parliament passed an Act to provide for the collection and publication of labour statistics through a bureau, and appropriated $10,000 for that purpose, but the Act remained a dead letter.


FISHERY WARDEN, ALBERTON, P.E.I.
[Stage Direction]
Air. HACIvETT asked :
1.	What is the name of the fishery warden at Alberton, Prince Edward Island ?
2.	When was he appointed and who recommended him ?
3.	What amount of salary does he receive ?
4.	How many licenses were issued to persons engaged in the fisheries at Alberton last year; and what are the names of the parties receiving such licenses ; and what fees were paid for the same 1 What description of fish was to be taken ?
5.	Have any complaints been received by the department with regard to the conduct of the officer now in charge ?
Hon. RAYAIOND PREFONTAINE (Minister of Alarine and Fisheries).: It has been necessary to write to the inspector of fisheries for some details involved in this question before a reply can be given. The information will be obtained forthwith.


POSTMASTER AT CHESLEY, ONT.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. DONNEfLLY aslced :
,1. When did the office of postmaster of the village of Chesley, Ontario, become vacant ?
2. Has a successor to the late postmaster been appointed ?

3.	If not, when will the government make the appointment ?
Hon.   S@: The postmastership of Chesley became vacant on the 5th May last. No appointment has yet been made to the office, the matter being under consideration.


RECEIPTS FOR CARRIAGE OF CANADIAN NEWSPAPERS.
Mr. CLARKE asked :: 1.	What sum has been collected in each year since the 30th June, 1897, for the carriage of Canadian newspapers through the mails ?
2.	What sum was collected for the period 30th June, 1903, to the 30th April, 1904 ?.


Hon.   S@: As the Act came into force only on the 1st January, 1899, no postage was collected on Canadian newspapers between the 30th June, 1897 and the 1st January, 1899.
The amounts collected since the Act came
into force, are as follows :
1898-	1899 (6 months)	$ 21,703.201899-	1900 (12	months). 104,859.051900-	1901 (12	months)..	..	..	107,344.141901-	1902 (12	months). 116,576.131902-	1903 (12	months)..129,417.641903-	1904 (to	30th April)....	100,071.08


CARRIAGE OF MAILS AT CAPE TRAVERSE, P.E.I.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. LEFURGEY-by Mr. Hackett-asked :
1.	Who had the contract for carrying the mails between the shore and the ice-boats at Cape Traverse, Prince Edward Island, during the years' 1902, 1903 and 1904 ?
2.	Was the contractor paid by the day, or a certain amount per trip ?
3.	What are the names of the party or parties employed in carrying mails between the ice-boats and the shore at Cape Traverse for said years ?
4.	What was the total amount paid for this service for the years 1902, 1903 and 1904 respectively, and to whom was it paid In each year ?
5.	What is the name of the person carrying mails between Cape Traverse and Summerside during the above-named years, and the amount paid in each year ?
6.	Were tenders invited by public notice for this service ?
Hon. RAYMOND PREFONTAINE (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) :: 1.	1902, no service performed ; 1903, John P. Irving ; 1904, John P. Irving.
2.	The contractor was paid by the day.
3.	Mr. Bell and Mr. Irving employed the men required for the performance of their contract.
4.	1901-2. Cape service not operated ;
1902-3, J. P. Irving contractor at $8 per day with men and horses, $384 ;	1903-4, J. P.
Irving contractor at $7 per day with men and horses, $217.
5.	1902, No service; 1903, J. P. Irving, $132 ; 1904, J. P. Irving, $147.
6.	It was deemed impracticable to invite tenders owing to the uncertainty of service and its short duration. The assistant post office inspector was instructed to make the best arrangements possible.


MURRAY HARBOUR BRANCH, P.E.I. RAILWAY.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. LEFURGEY-by Mr. Hackett-asked :
1.	What was the actual cost of earth excavation on the Belfast and Murray Harbour Branch of the Prince Edward Island Railway, between Southport and Murray river, and the cubic yards of earth excavation ?
2.	What was the rate per yard, and the cost per mile ?
Hon. H. R. EMMERSON (Minister of Railways and Canals) :: 1.	The actual cost of earth excavation on the Belfast and Murray Harbour branch between Southport and Murray River was $57,361.08.
The total earth excavation was 294,15R cubic yards.
2.	The rate per cubic yard was 19J cents. The cost of earth excavation per mile of line $1,333.98.


EQUIPMENT AT EASTERN GAP, TORONTO ISLAND.
Mr. CLARKE asked :: 1.	Have any complaints been received by the government respecting the insufficiency or equipment of the bells or bell-buoys at the eastern gap, and at or near the southern shore of Toronto island ?
2.	If so, when and from whom were such complaints received ?
3.	What steps, if any, have been taken by the government to remedy the defect complained of, and to improve the aids or appliances to navigation, the insufficiency of which is said to have been complained of ?


Hon. RAYMOND PREFONTAINE (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) :: 1.	Yes.
2.	On 11th June, 1904 from Thos. L. Church, solicitor for the Lake Ontario Navigation Company, Limited, and steamer
On the same date and on 10th June, 1904, from the general manager Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Company.
On 10th June, 1904, from the agent of the Niagara. St. Catharines and Toronto Navigation Company, Limited.
On 10th June, 1904 from manager Niagara Navigation Company.	.
3.	Before the receipt of these complaints the department, had already taken steps to establish a powerful fog alarm operated by compressed air, at this place ; and it is expected that the same will be in operation this summer.


INQUIRY FOR RETURN.
Mr. URIAH WILSON.: Before the Orders of the Day are called I would like to inquire from the Postmaster General (Sir Wm. Mulock) if he has three letters from Hiram Walker with reference to the dismissal of the postmaster at Wilton, riding of Lennox ? I would like to ask him also if he got a note inclosed by me with a letter from Thomas Prest, authorizing him to take the word ' private ' off the letter which he had written to the hon. the Postmaster General with reference to the dismissal of the postmaster at Wilton.


Sir WILLIAM MULOCK.: I will make inquiry in regard to the hon. gentleman's question and give him an answer to-morrow.


GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC RAILWAY-EMPLOYMENT OF ALIENS ON SURVEYS.
Mr. E. F. CLARKE.: May I ask the right hon. the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) if all the correspondence received up to date from the Associated Society of Engineers in the west with respect to the employment of alien engineers on the Grand Trunk Pacific has been laid on the' table? There was a supplementary return moved for on the 30th May, and I would like to know whether the correspondence called for by the second order has been brought down.


Wilfrid Laurier: As far as 1 know, but my hon. friend the Postmaster General can answer the question.


William Mulock: I have no recollection of the order. Probably I was not in the House at the time but I will make inquiry and give the answer to-morrow.


Robert Laird Borden: I understand the return which was brought down comprised all the correspondence up to that date and I think the hon. the Postmaster General, if he looks in to it, will find that I am correct in making that suggestion. It would be well that the return should comprise all correspondence up tq the date at which the return was complied with, and I think it would be desirable, if there has been any correspondence since that date on which the return has been laid on the table, that it should be placed before the House in order that it may be advisable in any discussion that takes place on the subject. I presume that the Postmaster General would not have any objection and would not require us to move for another return.


William Mulock: I am not aware of any omissions from the return that was brought down. The hon. gentleman perhaps has some cases in his mind and if he can give me a memorandum of them I will call attention to the matter.


Mr.  R. L.@: BORDEN, I would be very glad to do so. I think I had information of Mr. PREFONT A.INE.
subsequent corespondence which was not included in the return that I examined. That went down to a certain date and I had information that there was further correspondence a few days after that date. What there is subsequent to that I do not know. I have not been in correspondence with the parties and I do not know. All I am suggesting is that if there is any beyond that it would be just as well to have it before the House so that it will be available for any discussion which might take place.


William Mulock: Inasmuch as there may be further correspondence, for instance to-day I received a couple of letters -instead of bringing down the return piecemeal,_ if it meets with the approval of the hon. gentlemen, we might let the matter remain until the report of the commissioners is presented which will be in the course of a short time. Then you will have the complete correspondence to date.


Robert Laird Borden: Of course we will be glad to meet the hon. gentleman as far as possible in that regard.


William Mulock: I am indifferent to it.


Robert Laird Borden: Does anybody know precisely when the report will be received? time there might be no objection to complying with my hon. friend's suggestion, but if on the other hand there is a prospect that it will be considerably delayed perhaps it would be well to bring down such correspondence as is available.


William Mulock: Then perhaps my hon. friend would make a motion to cover everything up to a certain date and that will be complied with. If there is anything subsequent to that we will bring it down whenever ordered.


Robert Laird Borden: With the consent of the House I would move now :
That an order of the House do issue for the additional correspondence ordered since the last return in the matter of applications for employment of aliens on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway surveys.
Motion (Mr. R. L. Borden) agreed to.


GOVERNMENT BUSINESS.
Robert Laird Borden: Mr. Speaker, before the Orders of the Day are called I would like to say to the government in regard to what was mentioned yesterday by the right hon. Prime Minister after I had left the House for a moment, that I gathered from him that some further legislation which had not been mentioned during my presence was within the intentions of the government. What I would like to say to my right hon. friend is that the session is now so far advanced that I think he should have all the legislation before the House at a very early

date. There is not very much business before tbe House at the present time beyond the estimates and it is usual, I think, to have all government legislation of any importance brought down before a great deal of progress is made with the estimates. I trust that the government will find it convenient to inform the House of the proposed legislation either by the introduction of a Bill or otherwise at the earliest possible moment.


Wilfrid Laurier: I may say to my hon. friend that I have just sent to the clerk a notice that the government will ask for leave to take Mondays for government business and when making that motion on Friday perhaps I will be able to give the information my hon. friend desires.



WAYS AND MEANS-THE BUDGET.

[Stage Direction]
House resumed adjourned debate on the proposed motion of Mr. Fielding :
That the Speaker do now leave the chair, for the House to go into committee to consider of the ways and means for raising the supply to be granted to His Majesty, and the proposed motion of Mr. Borden (Halifax) in amendment thereto.
['I understand that my hon. friend the Minister of Justice would like to look into this Bill before it passes, so I think we had better rise and report progress and ask leave to sit again.\nProgress reported.']
Mr. J. E. ARMSTRONG (East Lambton).: Mr. Speaker, representing as I do, one of the ridings in which crude petroleum is produced and in which an independent Canadian refinery is situated, and believing as I do, that the production of crude oil and the refining of same, forms one of the most important industries in our Dominion. X am anxious to give to the House all the information I can, hoping that this government may see the justice of my plea, and that they will abandon the resolution with reference to oil, which is now before the House.
I realize my utter inability to do justice to this industry in attempting to defend it. I also feel that an irreparable wrong will be done this industry if this resolution is adopted. At the outset, let me state that with reference to this industry I am purely and simply a producer. X have not a dollar in a refinery, or a by-product manufacture. I cannot believe, that the hon. Finance Minister (Mr. Fielding) was conversant with the facts, needs, and requirements of this industry, when, on the 7th of this month, he placed on the table of this House, a resolution, which, if allowed to carry, will blast and blight our business for all time to come.
The hon. the Finance Minister was right when he stated, that no item in the tariff had received more attention in past years, than had the duty on oil since 1868. The Act which refers to crude oil, and its byproducts, has been amended eleven times. Several of which amendments were not very important, while others were of vital importance to our industry. In 1868 there
was an excise tax of five cents per gallon being paid to the revenue of this country. In 1877 that tax was taken off. Some years later a tax was placed on oil, and since that time it has been howled at, the tariff tinkered and tampered with, and now, before the present government leave office they give it a parting kick. If this were all, the industry might not have so much to complain of, but when you find members of parliament, backed, I am sorry to say, by many of the newspapers of our country, making a football of this industry, not only on the floor of this House, but on the platforms through our country, making the most reckless, unfair, and untrue statements. With reference to our business the wonder to me is that the industry is alive to-day.
And, Mr. Speaker, were it not for the unfailing, dogged, determined pluck of our people and the confidence they have that there is plenty of oil to be found in Canada, if only capital could be induced to take hold of the business ; were it not also that ten million dollars have been invested in this industry by men, most of whom know no other business, the Canadian oil industry would not now be in existence. No other business could be kicked from pillar to post, discouraged at every turn, cut and slashed at from one end of this Dominion to the other by men who have not the first conception of the necessities of that industry, and still live. The cry of the oil people is : Will the time ever come when a definite policy with regard to the oil tariff can be assured Lo them for any number of years ? Our industry is largely a speculative industry, and we all know that it takes little to discourage capital and divert it from an enterprise of such a nature. Were it not for the constant agitation carried on in this country and the frequent tinkering with the oil tariff, there is not a doubt in my mind that to-day we would not only be supplying the home market, but we would be exporting large quantities of oil. In order to show how, with reference to our industry, great quantities of oil can be produced out of a very small area of land, I wish to call the attention of the House to a few statements in the * Oil Investors' Journal,' with reference to the Texas field, and what result the Texas field will have on our market I will not venture to assert. For instance, in the year 1902 the Beaumont field in Texas produced from about 200 acres of land, some 17,000,000 barrels of oil ; in 1903, the Sour Lake field, from about 200 acres of land, produced 7,000,000 barrels of oil ; the Batson field, from a little over 200 acres, has within three mouths produced over 4,000,000 barrels of oil. And when I tell you, Mr. Speaker, that oil in Beaumont was selling in the year 1902 for two and three cents a barrel, you can readily see that there is a possibility of Texas oil being a factor in our market.

Mr. 1IEYD. Did you say it was sold for three cents a barrel ?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Yes, Sir ; and I will read from the ' Oil Investors' Journal ' to satisfy you as to that:
Mr. Oliphant's figures at best are approximate, and he is correct in valuing the oil at what it brought the producers. Spindletop oil sold as low at 2 and 3 cents early in 1902, such prices being the inevitable outcome of the subdivision of the hill into very small tracts of land, which were sold at enormous prices -$3,500 for a thirty-second of an acre being the average figure, although instances are on record where a twenty-fourth of an acre brought $12,000.


Mr. COWAN.: What is the nature of the Texas oil as compared with our oil ?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: The gravity of the oil in the Batson field is stated here.


Mahlon K. Cowan: I understood it was the Beaumont field oil that was selling at two or three cents a barrel.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: The Batson field is within twenty or thirty miles of the Beaumont.


Mahlon K. Cowan: Is it the same quality of oil ?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: No; the Batson field is of lighter gravity than the Beaumont. I will read what this paper has to say :
Value of Batson Oil for Refining.
The best oil so far found in southeast Texas is undoubtedly the Batson crude. A sample of this crude oil which was submitted to the Smith-Thiele laboratory for analysis showed the following results -
Specific Degrees gravity. Beaume.
Crude oil	 880	29 1


Mahlon K. Cowan: That is not the oil that was selling at two and three cents a barrel.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: No.


Mahlon K. Cowan: I would like for my own information, to know what the gravity of the oil was that was selling at two or three cents per barrel, and which the hon. gentleman thought might come into competition with our oil.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I have not the information with me, but I may say with reference to the Beaumont and Sour Lake fields that the gravity is not as high as it is in the Batson field, which has lately come into existence. Now, Sir, let me point out what they have accomplished in that field within three years. Six refineries have been built in Beaumont and Port Arthur, and they are shipping their product to the nortli. Between the 1st of January and the 28th of April they shipped out of Port Arthur 3,116,242 barrels, which will give you some idea of the extent to which the oil is expbrted from that field. Dozens of Standard Oil Mr. ARMSTRONG.
tank steamers are bringing that oil to Philadelphia, New York and the northern states. Now, Sir, previous to the present agitation in this country, which was brought about by the standard Oil Company to serve their own selfish ends, every one of the seventy drilling rigs owned by the people of Petrolea, and in connection with which over 200 men are employed, were distributed throughout the length and breadth of our Dominion searching night and day for crude oil and gas. But, Sir, for several weeks pash if you were to go to Petrolea you would find numbers of drillers walking our streets, the rigs shut down, the development at a standstill, and confidence in the future of our industry shaken as it never was before. And, why, Mr. Speaker ? It is because the government of this country have been dickering with the Standard Oil Company and with the tariff, and they have placed the producer, the independent refiner and the consumer entirely in the hands of the Standard Oil Company.
About six years ago the Standard Oil Company purchased a small refinery in the town of Petrolia, and before one year had elapsed four other refineries in our town had been purchased by them, thus giving them the control of the refining industry in Canada at that time. The Standard Oil Company then purchased a large block of land in the town of Sarnia, they tore down the Petrolea refineries, making use of such of the materials as they could in building their plant at Sarnia ; they then built a plant larger than was necessary for the refining of our product and commenced to take control of our market. About four years ago the Standard Oil Company refused to supply the gas companies of Canada with the product used to assist in the manufacture of gas. In consequence of that the gas men came to the government asking for free oil. This request was refused by the government. Representatives of the gas companies came to Petrolea and contracted with the independent producers, many of whom have been supplying gas companies up to the present time. When the Standard Oil Company found the gas men were obtaining the crude oil for manufacturing, word came from New York-from which centre we must expect to receive all future orders-to supply the gas companies with oil, and consequently the Standard Oil Company commenced at once to squeeze the Canadian producers out of competition, and they have been successful.


Mr. HEYD.: In what way did they squeeze out the producers ?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: By the action of this government, Sir.


Charles Bernhard Heyd: But you have not told us how.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: They have absolute control of the market; not a doubt about it.


Charles Bernhard Heyd: That does not answer my question. How could they squeeze out the producer, except by lowering the price ?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Have not the trusts and monopolies squeezed out the binder twine and barbed wire factories ?


Charles Bernhard Heyd: You have not explained that yet.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


Charles Bernhard Heyd: Mr. Speaker, this is a matter of importance, and I do not want to ask the hon. gentleman a question unless he is willing.


Mr. BENNETT.: Tell us about cutlery.


Charles Bernhard Heyd: Never mind the cutlery ; we are not discussing that now. The hon. gentleman says the Standard Oil Company squeezed out the producers and I want to know how they could do it except by reducing the price of crude oil ?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: If you listen to what I have to say, you will find out before I get througn how they do it. The petroleum Act was amended on the 29th of June, 1897, by this government, granting to the Standard Oil Trust the importation of oil in tank ships. I want you to notice the step by step taken by the Standard Oil Company, leading up to the 7th inst. See how well laid their plans were, and how successfully they have been carried out. By tank ships, many of which they own, the crude oil can be brought from Toledo, Ohio, to Sarnia, where the Standard Oil Company's refinery is situated, at a very small cost.
About two years ago, a number of producers, being dissatisfied with the treatment they were receiving at the hands of the Standard Oil Company, purchased land and built a refinery in Petrolea. which has been extended, and employs 65 men and cost $250,000. This company has been most successful in competing with the Standard, and within the past few months, have secured independent distributing stations, situated In the principal cities and towns, in the Dominion. It has over 300 stockholders, many of whom are among our brightest and best business men, and all but one or two I understand are Canadians. But then. Mr. Speaker, this government does not believe in uanada for the Canadians. It is Canada for the binder twine trust, the Standard Oil Trust, and any other trust that will pay the price.
Well, about one year ago, the Standard Oil Company stated to some of our prominent producers, that unless the tariff on crude oil was reduced to such an extent that they could import, manufacture, and distribute its products throughout our country at a profit, they, the Standard Oil Trust, would be compelled to agitate among the members of parliament, and the Ministers of the Crown, and on the platforms and in the press throughout our country, until they received what they wanted. Naturally our people felt that they should at least investigate the matter. A meeting of the producers was called ; explanations were made to our people, that unless the duty on crude oil was reduced to where the Standard Oil Company wanted it, they would at once, apply to parliament. A committee of 25 producers was appointed, to meet with the representatives of the two refineries, to hear their grievances. The committee was called; the Standard representatives refused to treat with so large a committee, whereupon the committee was reduced to nine. The nine men met the representatives of both refineries, and, after discussing the question for several days, refused to accept the Standard's proposition. The Standard men then came to Ottawa, and were refused their request, which was, to leave the duty on refined, at 5 cents per gallon, but reduce the duty on crude to 2 cents per gallon.
Why the government of this country would refuse any concessions last year, and this year grant more than any desire the Standard Oil Company ever made public, is one of the Chinese puzzles of the present session. The Standard Oil Company were prepared, up to two months ago, to pay for all crude oil coming into this country, a tariff of 2 cents per gallon. If the refined oil will be all made in Canada, as we are assured it will, now that the crude can come in free, what matter if the tariff be 2J cents or 5 cents if the Standard have control of our market ? It is estimated that it will take
1.000.	000 barrels of crude, to refine sufficient oil to supply this country for one year.
1.000.	000 barrels of crude oil at 2 cents duty per gallon, would amount to $700,000. This is a dead loss to the country, and a clear gain to the Standard Oil Company, because they would have paid that and had control of the market. Now they have the same control of the market, and don't have to pay a cent for it. However the government refused the Standard Oil Company control of our markets last year. The Standard men went home, and in a few months they started the agitation again among the producers. After months of manipulating with the producers and the government of this country, they finally obtained signatures from about 100 producers, many of whom -were in their employ and others situated near Standard pipe lines, through which their oil had to be shipped, while a large number signed it through fear. This petition was brought to the government a few months ago. I have a copy of it here, and I will recite a few clauses, so as to give you the nature of the petition :
Therefore while we strongly assert that any reduction in the present tariff upon the refined products of petroleum would be disastrous to our mining industry, and injurious in many ways. And we inseparably connect this assertion with our further statement, when we say that for the purpose of increasing

the manufacture of refined oils in Canada, we assent to the reduction of the present tariff upon crude oil of 5 cents, and 2j cents per gallon for all purposes.
The Governor in Council retaining or acquiring the power to make all regulations regarding the importation of such oil.
There was another petition presented at the meeting held in the town hall, Sarnia, at which the Standard representatives were present. That petition was largely signed by the citizens of Sarnia, from a purely selfish motive. Though not owning an oil well, they, from purely selfish motives, thought that a few more men would be employed in Sarnia if the crude oil was brought in ; and they were assisted in the matter by the hon. member for West Lamb-ton (Mr. Johnston), who, I believe, has received several telegrams of congratulations from the Standard Oil Company, New York, and their supporters. I cannot help thinking that the hundreds of farmers in his back townships will have a different story to tell. I will read a paragraph or two from that petition, which will show the generosity of the people of that town, towards our industry :
That the reduction of the duty on crude to 2 cents, while maintaining the duty of 5 cents on refined, would not in the opinion of your petitioners result in the loss of any revenue of this Dominion.
That in view of these facts, your petitioners would humbly request that the duty on crude oil be reduced to 2 cents per gallon and that the duty on refined oil be maintained at 5 cents per gallon as at present.
Brave patriotic people of Sarnia 1 Do they not realize that by their action and this government's action, the Canadian oil industry is vitally injured, and drillers and workmen are left to eke out an existence as best they can ?
The independent producers, circulated a petition, and it is to-day in the hands of the government, with some 400 names on it, asking that no action be taken. Many towns and townships in Western Ontario, presented petitions, asking that no action be taken. I believe the hon. member for South Brant (Mr. Heyd) received a petition from his own town demanding that no reduction be made on the duty on oil.


Charles Bernhard Heyd: What do you mean by a petition from my town ?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: A resolution passed by your board of trade.


Charles Bernhard Heyd: Yes.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: The representatives of the Standard Oil Company have been here and in Montreal, the latter place being very easy to reach for a quiet talk. The representatives of the producers, and the independent refiners have been here, but the Standard Oil Company won. and the people all over this country are asking to-day
3 Mr. ARMSTRONG.
what was the price they paid. Perhaps hon. gentlemen opposite could tell us ?


William Samuel Calvert: Does the hon. gentleman say that the Standard Oil Company asked to have the duties changed as they are today ?	.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I cannot tell you anything about it, but if you ask the ministers, they will tell you.


William Samuel Calvert: I can tell the hon. gentleman that the Standard Oil Company did not ask anything of the kind. They did not want the duties taken off coal oil, and what has been done has been done for the people of Canada generally, and the producers, so far as I know, are perfectly satisfied with the position taken by the government.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: You would be expected to make just such an answer.


William Samuel Calvert: Certainly.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I was referring to the fact that the government of this country are against us and also the Standard Oil Company, and I am sorry to say that in many eases the press to some extent is against us. X am glad to say that previous to the government taking action, many of the prominent newspapers were strongly opposed to any reduction in the duty on oil. I have here a book of clippings from many newspapers with reference to the oil industry and many of these are of a most condemnatory character of the policy of the government.
What guarantee has the producer that this is the last slash he is going to have ? How do we know that before the year is out something else may drop. I would like to ask the Finance Minister why has this industry been singled out for special attack, at this time ? Why did 'the government not wait until their commission was appointed before dealing with the matter.
The oil men court investigation, they invite inspection of their industry, but they condemn any action being taken without a fair trial.
The oil industry of the Dominion has been neglected and ignored by the government. Previous to their coming to power, a few thousands of dollars were spent each year in development for gas and oil, which was of great use to men looking for a new oil and gas field.
Since 1898 not one dollar has been spent in development, and the mining reports show that thousands of dollars worth of tools and drilling material is stored at Edmonton, rusting and rotting, while the industry is being sold to the Standard Oil Company.
The government of this country, both in the reports of the provincial House and the Geological reports of this House, seem to try and take as little notice of our industry as they can possibly do.

Take the report of the Bureau of Mines of Ontario ; it takes up 43 pages of that report talking about the peat industry. While the oil industry, in which more money for development is spent in one day by private individuals than is spent in a whole year in developing the peat industry, less than three pages is given, and the log of one well; yet there has not been less than 500 wells drilled in all parts of Ontario during that time. Never in our history have drills been so successfully worked or at least, so continually at work throughout the length and breadth of our Dominion as within the past two years. In the Geological Department here even a worse state of things exists. The last report devoted to the gas and petroleum industry of our country is dated 1891. The report of the Bureau of Mines devotes a few pages to statistics, and gives the log of a few wells, but not a general summary of the work.
1 have had occasion to spend a great deal of time in the Geological Department, and I find a most deplorable state of affairs. Here is Dr. Bell, a man who has done more for the development of the mines and resources of this country than any man living. A man who has devoted a life-time to his country, being 48 years in the civil service, appointed as acting director, which office he has held for going on four years, am I not justified in asking why this man is not gazetted ? He is a man, who has been responsible, more than any other man, for the development of our resources, a man eminently qualified to fill the position. A man to whom the people of this country are indebted for the greater part of the topography of this Dominion. A man whose ability cannot be questioned, whose writings and works are of the greatest interest to our people and to the civilized world.
Dr. Bell is one of the best scientific men of this age, his explorations and writings are invaluable to our country. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Geographical Societies of London and America, the Chemical Society of London, and of the Royal Society of London. The last mentioned distinction is considered the culmination of the ambition of British scientists and last year King Edward conferred on him the Companionship of the Imperial Service Order ' for faithful service.' He is a perfect storehouse of information about Canada, and I hope the Minister of the Interior will not let another week go by without gazetting him. Dr. Bell is merely holding his office from day to day, and cannot be expected to initiate new regulations, hence he cannot do justice to his department or to the country.
It is not the fault of the civil servants of the Geological Department that more information is not furnished with reference to the oil industry, it is the fault of the Minister of the Interior. Tens of thousands 154
of dollars are spent each year in prospecting and developing the mines of this country, and the oil business is taken little notice of. $123,930 was spent in the Geological Department in 1903 and only a little mite of this has been spent in furnishing information about gas or oil. $152,666.25 is to be voted this year being an increase of $28,736.25. I wonder how much the Minister of the Interior can spare for oil and gas development.
While I am at the question, I would like to call the Minister of the Interior's attention to what I believe a most serious blunder in his management of the Geological Department.
"When I first came here I had occasion to obtain a number of reports of the Geological Department and was compelled to pay for same. On inquiry I found that the department had a man whose sole duty was to collect the money for these reports,, and that his salary amounted to more than the money collected. Another instance of this business''government. Tons of these reports are in the cellar moulding and rotting. Surely if this government can spend from $123,000 to $153,000 each year in obtaining information, a few hundred dollars would be well spent in distributing it. What is the sense of sending men through this land gathering informaltiorp and then bottling it up and keeping a man to collect 10, 15, 20, or 25 cents on these volumes, when he does not collect enough to cover the salary he is paid. Surely the Minister of the Interior will remedy this state of things, and first of all place Dr. Bell where he ought to be.
Part of this matter may appear a little off my subject, but it all has a distinct bearing on the oil question because we have been neglected at every turn.
Remember this, that every barrel of crude that comes into our country, brings with it all the by-products, all the benzine, gasolene, naphtha, tar, coke, fuel oil, lubricating oils of all kinds from that used on the bycicle and sewing machine to the grade used on the railroad engines, besides paraffine wax, paraffine candles, vaseline, and most of the ' ines ' in the drug store, chewing gum, hair oil, all of which are taken from the crude oil. Who do you suppose will control the market for all these by-products ? Is it the man who will manufacture them ? No. You will find the Standard Oil making the first price. Why? Simply because the crude comes in free, and brings in all these by-products with it, and the Standard is, and will be, the only refinery that will handle the American crude. How much will the farmer and the workingman get out of these things ? When the farmer goes to buy lubricating oil for his machinery, will he be able to get it for less ? Will he be able to buy his machinery for less because the manufacturers get the fuel oil in free ?



Will the workman buy his tools at any lower price ? Will his benzine to mix paints be cheaper ? Will the man with his gasolene and naphtha launch or his automobile obtain any benefit through these [DOT]articles being on the free list ? I fear not. It may be like the Grand Trunk Pacific-[DOT] start off with a great blowing of trumpets, -offering great things to this Dominion, and then, within one short year, fall with a thud, leaving hon. gentlemen opposite sorry for ever having launched shell a wildcat scheme. So, to-day, the Standard reduce the price of refined and raise the price of crude as a sop to the people for what they have accomplished. It is strange how soon the managers of the Standard in the distributing stations jump into print to assure the people that no one is hurt. They have given a regular pyrotechnic display-the Minister of Finance objected to my using the expression ' fireworks,' so I had to hunt up another word. They have been making that display, and, no doubt the government of this country have made arrangements with them practically for that display. Certainly, this is small politics. But rumour has it that the Finance Minister did not prepare this resolution, that it is the production of the hon. member foi London (Mr. Hyman), who has, without previous knowledge, given out the word that he was thoroughly acquainted with the oil business and knew the condition exactly. Mr. Speaker, I stake my reputation on the assertion that neither of these men prepared the resolution, and that they do not know the meaning of several of the expressions used in it. Who, then, prepared the resolution, if it was not the Finance Minister or the minister-to-be from London ? I believe that what I am about to state is a fact, and that is that the resolution was prepared in its entirety by the Standard Oil Trust, and that the principles contained therein were dictated to the government by a representative of that trust. And I defy hon. gentlemen opposite to disprove that charge. The Standard have been operating in this country for about seven years. During that time the price of refined oil has gradually increased. Who can say that the price will not be increased when this storm blows over ? Who knows that the price is going to be continued as low as it is to-day. It was not the consumer in this case that agitated the question at this time. No ; it was the Standard Oil Trust, and the government could not stand the pressure. I do not find fault with American capital coming into our country and developing our industries. Far from it. But what I do find fault with is an American monopoly, whose policy is dictated from New York controlling the Canadian producers, the Canadian refiner and the *Canadian consumer, bleeding the people of this country for all they are worth and Mr. ARMSTRONG.
taking the profits to New York to pay out fat dividends to American holders of Standard stock. Why do not the Standard Trust, with their millions of capital develop onr industry ? They have spent some money in wiid-catting ; why do not they go at the development of this country's oil resources ? Oil has been found in many places throughout this country, and it would be most beneficial to the country if the Standard would spend money in developing some outside fields. The Leamington field has given us a new proposition. Formerly we thought the oil was only obtained at about 500 feet below the surface..


Mahlon K. Cowan: Will the hon. gentleman tell us where there was ever a well in the Leamington district at which oil was struck at 500 feet ?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I am sure the hon. gentleman (Mr. Cowan) misunderstood what I said. Let me repeat : I said that the Leamington field has given us a new proposition. Formerly, we thought the oil was only obtained 500 feet below the surface. But this field has several large producers at 1,100 feet, being a continuance of the Ohio strata. And these have been found w-ithin a few months. Why has not the Standard put money into the development of that field, I would ask the hon. member for South Essex (Mr. Cowan) ?


Mahlon K. Cowan: I can tell my hon. friend that the development of that field has been by American money principally.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: That is true ; but what encouragement will American capital have to continue in that business under present conditions ?


Mahlon K. Cowan: Because


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


Mahlon K. Cowan: I will not answer the question if the hon. gentleman (Mr. Armstrong) who has the floor does not wish me to. He asked a question.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


Mahlon K. Cowan: Well, if the hon. gentlemen object, I have nothing further to say.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Is there a man in this House who believes that this change in the tariff will lead the Standard Oil Company to take an interest in the development of the oil industry in this country ? I do not believe that even the hon. member for South Essex (Mr. Cowan) has sufficient faith in the Standard for that.


Mahlon K. Cowan: But I believe that this will raise the price of crude oil.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: No, they will let the poor Canadian hunt around, and if he strikes anything real good and sure he will find the man from New York right alongside to divide up with him. We sit here and are asked to vote money for the de-

l
velopment of our mining industries, and, at the same time, we strike a blow at one of the greatest mining industries that we hare.
Let us look at the producing end of the business. Previous to the 7th instant, the producer and the independent refiner were masters of the situation. To-day the Standard has absolute control. The Ohio field is the nearest oil field to the Standard oil refinery. Consequently they will use no other oil. Tile price of crude oil in South Lima on the 6th instant was $1.08 ; loading on tank cars, 8 cents ; transportation to water-front, 5 cents ; cost of hauling to Sarnia, 10 cents-making a total cost at the Standard refinery at Sarnia of $1.31. Add to that the bounty of 11 cents per gallon or 524 per barrel, and you have a total cost of $1,831.


Mahlon K. Cowan: Those are not the market quotations at the water-front-$1.31 is not the price of North Lima oil at any waterfront point in Ontario.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I can tell the hon. gentleman (Mr. Cowan) that these quotations have been investigated, and these statements have been made on the platform and in front of the Standard Oil Company's representatives, and they did not dare to deny them.


Mahlon K. Cowan: What are the prices today ? [DOT]


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: 
Charles Bernhard Heyd: Does the hon. member mean to say that the- Ohio crude is better than the Canadian ?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Yes. The Canadian crude is 31 gravity on the average ? But North and South Lima oil average 38 to 40 gravity. And I will show the hon. gentleman iii a few minutes the difference between oil at 31 and oil at 38 to 40 gravity. It will surely be good news to the producer when he sits down to figure it out. Hon. gentlemen opposite will say that the price of crude is raised. Yes, but the Standard is paying on the price of Pennsylvania crude to-day, not on the price of Ohio crude. Will the Standard pay 29 cents per barrel more for a worse article, of a less gravity? Now Ohio crude is of a lighter gravity, as 1 told hon. gentlemen ; hence more refined oil can be taken out of it, which will give it a preference over Canadian crude. Even at the same price, the Standard could afford to pay more for Ohio, and I will prove that. I have taken here, Sir, 100 gallons of crude oil, 100 gallons of Canadian crude and 100 gallons of Ohio crude, and I have divided them up into their different parts.



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Products.	Gallons.	Duty.	Amount of Duty.	Selling Prices.Per Cent.	Cents.	$ cts.	8 cts."Gasoline and benzine	4	5	0 20	0 56Refined oil	45	5	2 25	5 40Fuel and gas oils	25	21	0 72J	1 56Lubricating oils 	12	5	0 60	1 44Per cent.	Wax	2	30	0 24	0 80Coke 	5	None.	None.	0 14
100		4 014	9 90
Average duty $4,014 per gallon. Selling price of all, $9.90.

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Gasoline and benzine	12	5	0 60	1 68Refined oil	50	5	2 50	6 00Fuel and Gas oils.	Kit	24	0 40	1 02Lubricating oils... 	12	5	0 60	1 44Per cent.	Ij	30	0 21	0 70Coke	3	None.	None.	0 09
100		4 31	10 93
4843
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Now, Mr. Speaker, the selling price of all these articles in 100 gallons of Canadian oil, amounts to $9.90. The selling price of all these articles I have referred to in the American oil amounts to $10.93, leaving a difference against the producers of oil in this country of about one cent a gallon. 100 gallons of Ohio crude is worth $1.03 more than is a like amount of Canadian crude. If you add the 25 cents per barrel less than the Standard may pay for Canadian crude oil to the 35 cents per barrel which is the extra value of Ohio crude over the Canadian crude, this gives the Standard trust 60 cents of a lever to hold over the head of the producers and independent refiners in this country, and encourages the Standard to the extent of 60 cents per barrel to use American crude, which in turn wipes out the bounty of 52 cents per barrel, and leaves the producer at a disadvantage of 8 cents per barrel with bounty added. Now, I wonder where you think the producers are with reference to that question. Tou will be told by hon. gentlemen opposite, who, no doubt obtain any information they require from the Standard] Oil Company, that the price paid the producers in Canada has been raised and lowered with the oil market of the United States for years. I wish to state,' Mr. Speaker, that that is not the fact. Pennsylvania crude regulates the 'price paid in the United States. A little over three years ago Canadian crude oil was selling at $1.75 per barrel, and Pennsylvania at $1.68, a difference of 7 cents in favour of Canadian crude. On the 6th of June, 1904, Canadian oil sold at $2.09 per barrel. On the same date Pennsylvania sold at $1.62 per barrel, a difference in favour of Canadian crude of 47 cents per barrel. Why this difference ? What brought it about ? Simply the fact that about two years ago an independent refinery was started, and producers had two buyers in the market ever since. This independent refinery has always paid from 2 cents to 3 cents per barrel more for crude than the Standard, hence we do not want to see it wiped out. What else do you do for the producer ? You restrict his market A number of producers, as I have mentioned, have been supplying gas companies, railroads and manufacturing companies with crude oil. That market is taken away. What else has been done to the producer ? He is held up to the gaze of everybody as a bounty-fed industry ? Can you conceive of anything that would damn an industry ^ in the eyes of our people more quickly than to call it a bounty-fed industry ? I imagine that 1 hear hon. gentlemen opposite, in about a year from now shouting on the hustings. Away with this bounty-fed industry ; it has no right to live, blot it out. The price of crude is controlled by the Standard, the value of crude is jeopardized, the market restricted, the bounty cry will help to kill us, and worst Mr. ARMSTRONG.
of all, and more humiliating than anything else, we are entirely given over to the Standard Oil Company, body, brains, boots and everything else. They place whatever restrictions they see fit on our oil. New York dictates, and we must obey. Talk about Canada for Canadians. The government of this country believes in giving up Canada for the Americans, Canada for the monopolists, Canada for the trusts and combines, Canada for the foreigners.
I have been asked the question several times. What is the price paid 1 Perhaps hon. gentlemen opposite can tell something about that. Current gossip in the corridors says it is not less than $500,000, some say $1,000,000. You can depend upon it that when the Standard raises the price of oil one or two cents that amount will be collected from the people in a little over a year. Perhaps the Minister of Finance will explain why he made such a sweeping change when apparently no one outside the Standard Oil Company were asking for it. Not a deputation, so far as I can learn, has been to Ottawa asking for a change. It is only the Standard Oil Company that are asking for the tariff to be reduced. In face of the rising demand to assist other industries, and when the feeling of our people all over Canada is in favour of higher protection,'you single out one industry and deal it a blow that will cripple it for many years to come, if not retard its growth for all time. I believe I am justified in demanding of the Minister of Finance on behalf of my people, an explanation why this action is taken. Would it not have been better for the Finance Minister to wipe out this industry instead of encouraging capital to invest in it and then kill it by inches ? If you do blot out our business you drive thousands of the best of our people to foreign lands to assist in the development of their oil fields. Thousands of our people know no other business, and they will be obliged to seek other fields where they can find a like business. Mr. Speaker, our people are spending for the development of this industry hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, while, with a stroke of the pen, their lives, financially speaking, may be blotted out. What assurance have our people to-day that their industries will live and be protected for the next thirty days ?
If there ever was an industry, that needed a definite tariff policy, it is the oil industry. Let us look for a few moments at the independent refiner.
About two years ago a number of producers and retail men, being dissatisfied with the treatment they were receiving at the hands of the Standard Oil Company, built a refinery, in Petrolea. They have added to it. until they have a plant that cost them $250,000. Within the past few months they have enlarged the company, until they have among its stockholders, some 300 of the brightest and best men in Canada. They have purchased distributing stations in the

principal cities and towns in our Dominion, and are fighting the Standard all along the line. They had a deputation here a few days before the 7th, to wait on the Finance Minister begging of him to leave the duty alone. What did the Finance Minister mean when he said on page 4508 of ' Hansard
But there are two interests to be considered in the oil industry-the interests of the oil producer and the interest of the oil refiner.
I wonder if the hon. Minister of Finance had more than one refinery in his mind at that time. He must have known that there are only two refineries in this country and that one of these, the Standard Oil Company have been here begging and pleading to him to reduce the duty while the other company have been here begging and pleading to him to keep the duty on. He seems to have acceded to the wishes of the Standard Oil Company in that respect.
The Canadian capitalists can go. They can look for places to invest their money elsewhere. Did he think of Ithe Independent refiner then ? No, the Standard was on top and the poor Canadian refiner must suffer. There is only one independent refinery in Canada, and they came begging to the government, not to allow crude oil into our country at a reduction.
I wonder what these men think to-day. I wonder how they will like to take their orders from New York.
Up to the 7th of this month they were a free and independent company, bought crude oil in the open market, and owing to good business management were able to compete with the Standard Trust.
What is their position to day ? Do you expect them to build pipe lines to Toledo, build boats to bring the oil to Sarnia, build a pipe line from Sarnia to Petrolea, a distance of 17 miles, when they find that they have the Standard to fight in the American market for crude, and the Canadian market for refined, and by-products ?
No, there is not a man in this House would put a dollar into a venture of that kind.
Since coming into business, they have paid the producer from 2 to 3 cents per barrel more for their crude oil, than did the Standard.
Will the producer want to see them wiped out ? No, most emphatically, no.
You cannot expect any company with a working capital of a few hundred thousand dollars, to compete with another company with a few hundred millions, and especially when the larger company has thfe advantage, at every turn, and more especially with the Standard Oil Company with a reputation that is among the blackest on the pages of history.
The most profitable end of the refining is the by-products, and as every barrel of crude brought into our country, brings with it, all the by-products, the Standard will naturally have absolute control of that end
to the detriment of the independent refiner. Consequently the independent refiner, wherever he may be situated, in our country, is without a shadow of a doubt under the control of the Standard Oil Trust.
The Standard control the price of crude, and the price of refined in the United States. On the 7th of this month they were given absolute control of the crude and refined market in Canada, and having that, they control the price of all the by-products, and last but not the least they control the price the consumer will pay.
I have tried to prove to you that the producer and the independent refiner are in the hands of the Standard Trust. Now a few words with reference to the position of the consumer.
With the Standard Oil Company having fuli control over the price of crude, and the price of refined, and the by-products, where else can the consumer be but receive his price dictated from New York ? Does the farmer and workingman expect to get his oil cheaper? Time alone will tell that. It may be said cheaper to-day. He will eventually land where he has before when alleged attempts were made to help him by this government.
The history of the Standard Oil has been written several times, and any of you who wish to read, will learn, that the Standard have bought railroads, pipe lines, refineries, men councils, representatives in parliament, and dare I say governments ?
We will admit that the crude oil will come into this country, be manufactured and the by-products sold here. Let us see what that will do.
Take the Finance Minister's figures ; he says the consumption of refined oil in Canada is 25,755,450 gallons.
He says the saving to the people of 2\ cents per gallon on that quantity will amount to $643,886.
If the refined oil is all manufactured in Canada, as the Finance Minister states will be done, then there will not be any duty to collect, and instead of a saving it will be a loss.
Let us look at the true state of affairs. The government collected in duties on oil and its by-products in 1903, $885,945.44.
Now the crude coming in free brings with it the by-products, and the qualities that make refined oil. No refined is imported. Consequently the loss to the country in revenue is $885,945.44.
Add to that the bounty as estimated by the Finance Minister, $225,7S9, and we find a total loss of $1,111,734.44 to the revenue of this country and nothing gained.
This amount will be taken from the people in some other way by the government, but then the Standard Oil Company require it to help pay the 700 per cent dividend, to the New York stockholder s.
Tne petroleum industry has doue a great
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deal towards increasing the revenue of this country.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of pump tubing, gas pipe, lead pipe, casing-boiler plate, wire rope, iron and steel, and well supplies of different kinds, are imported each year on which duty is collected and these goods are used in the oil development, or if they were made in Canada would afford employment to Canadian workmen.
It is estimated that 1,000 cars of soft coal come into Petrolea alone, each year, practically all of which are used in the producing and manufacture of oil.
The Standard brings soft coal in at Sarnia by the boat load.
Why did not the Finance Minister take the duty off soft coal 7 I am sure that he could do nothing that could please the people of Ontario better. Why not take it off for mining purposes, if nothing else.
Tens of thousands of dollars are collected from the oil men each year as duty on the articles mentioned.
Would it not be following out the policy of hon. gentlemen opposite, to have the coal and the articles we cannot purchase in Canada, such as casing, tubing of different kinds, wire rope, and many other articles, that we are compelled to buy and pay duty on, placed on the free list.
I want it to be distinctly understood that I am not in favour of a free trade policy. I am not a free trader. I do not believe in free trade as it is in England like hon. gentlemen opposite, or in reciprocity, or in annexation with the United States.
One of the Standard Oil Company arguments and one which will be used no doubt by hon. gentlemen opposite, is that the oil fields of Canada, are exhausted, and they have tested them and no new fields can be found. That statement was made by them months ago. Since that time the Leamington field has made great developments, and an entirely new field within ten miles of their refinery is being developed.
The fields being developed to-day, are as follows : The Petrolea field, Oil Springs, Bothwell, Dutton, Leamington, Pelee Island, Euphemia, Thamesville and Chatham. These are all producing fields.
Then there is large development work going on in New Brunswick, and the Northwest Territories, besides drilling rigs scattered throughout different parts of our country.
Remember that 12,000 people at least are directly interested in our industry, and every farmer in Essex, Kent, Lambton, Elgin and Middlesex would like to have his farm tested for oil.
Remember the oil business is a matter of labour, from beginning to end. Pumping rigs, drilling tools, boiler works, machine shops, refineries, well supplies of all kinds ; the handling of the oil, every move you make requires the labouring man, who with Mr. ARMSTRONG.
the farmer is the bone and sinue of this country.
No credit has apparently been given the oil business, for developing the gas fields of this country, and furnishing towns and villages with fuel and light. At Leamington the other day a well was struck that poured out as reported, gas at the rate of six million cubic feet per day. I wonder that more companies are not formed in different parts of our country to develop for oil or gas. The natural gas and petroleum report for 1S91 gives a number of places outside of the developed fields where oil has been found. It tells of oil being found near Collingwood, also in Wentworth county, in Barton township, in Oxford county, at Norwich, Ontario in Bruce and in the city of Ottawa. Who can tell but that gentlemen opposite while legislating here to injure the oil producers of this country are not sitting on top of rivers of oil. These are all outside of the tested oil fields, and if logs could be obtained of the dozens of wells drilled, much more interesting reports could be obtained. This report is thirteen years old. It looks like as if it had been kept in the cellar. Look at the oil development in the United States exporting $70,000,000 worth representing 1,070,000,000 gallons more than the home consumption. The total amount exported from Russia in American gallons, more than she consumed in 1902, was 422,488,925 gallons. I might tell you of Galicia, Austria-Hungary, Roumania, Germany, Itlay, Great Britain, New South Wales, New Zealand, Algeria, Persia, Dutch East Indies, Sumatia, Borneo, Java, Phillipine Islands, Hawaii, Korea, all of these countries produce petroleum many of them in very large quantities and here we are with a country big enough to bury half of them, and we are told by the Standard Oil Company that our oil fields are exhausted. \
War if constantly pursued by a nation is sure to destroy its trade and commerce, and very soon will bring it to bankruptcy, so with the oil industry. Constant tinkering with the tariff ; members of parliament for ever howling on the platform condemning it ; the press in many instances only too glad to get a slap at it ; a government with an unsetttled policy ; all this is enough to drive any industry to the wall, and discourage capital. Give the oil business a settled tariff ; give us a full report of our labours ; give us the encouragement of the press ; give us the support of the members of parliament for ten years, and I feel confident that we will not only supply our home market, but that Uncle Sam will have to raise his duty higher to keep us out. Not only that but we wTill bring millions of dollars into this country from foreign lands. On the other hand let the government, the press, and the people of this country keep on discouraging our industry, and it is bound to diminish our chances of success. I have great faith in the industry, but I have no faith in the hon. gentlemen opposite.

I imagine I see them on the hustings holding forth to their electors, with arms outstretched, and their voices at the highest pitch, telling the electors the wonders they have accomplished, in reducing the duty on refined oil, and placing crude oil on the free list. But then, Mr. Speaker, all the gentlemen opposite will not take that course, it would be quite out of keeping with the policy of the government of this country, if they were to follow one set of rules for the whole of Canada. They are a kind of go as you please party, with a policy for every riding. I can imagine I see the member for Brantford (Mr. Heyd) telling his constituents that they are all right, but what does his constituents say-I quote from the Toronto 'World ' of April 13, 1904 :

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Brantford Board of Trade suspicious of Standard Oil.
Brantford, April 12.-(Special.)'-A strong resolution protesting against the reduction of the duty on crude oil from the United States was carried by the Board of Trade here tonight. A. K. Bunnell, city treasurer, in introducing the motion, stated that the movement for the duty reduction was being insti-uted by the Standard Oil Company under the pretext of making oil cheaper for Canadian consumers and incidentally giving employment to more men in their factory at Sarnia.
Mr. Bunnell further pointed out that the history of the company did not indicate that it would be advisable for them to enter the Canadian field more than at present. They would, he said, retard the future development of the Canadian oil fields and eventually increase the price of oil for the consumer.
A copy of the resolution will be forwarded to C. B. Heyd, M.P.
Then the member for West Lambton (Mr. T. G. Johnston) who assures you, that he has smooth sailing, and is perfectly satisfied with the result, had better listen to this little matter that happened in his own town. I quote from the Toronto ' Telegram ' the following :

[Stage Direction]
Sarnia Trades Council will not declare itself on the question.
Sarnia, March 15-With Mayor Cook , and President Gedes, of the Board of Trade, and eight other representative citizens, President George Lambert, of the Sarnia Trades and Labour Council, was recently numbered on a committee to petition for reduction of the import duty on crude oil, as desired by the Standard refining interests here. Lambert was not present at the public meeting which appointed the committee and has been /unwilling to take an active part in the appointed work until he received the advice of his trade body, at the same time declining to sign the petition on behalf of the 800 men who constitute the council. It is now given out authoritatively that the Trades Council withhold any say in the matter of the duty reduction- neither supporting nor opposing it, and leaving their president to act as he sees fit individually. The labour men do not go into particulars in reporting their action to the public, but explain that inasmuch as the settlement of the question will affect every union organization in Canada as well as the Standard Oil Company, the wishes of the Trades Council at Sarnia-the Standard's Canadian headquarters-are better left unexpressed, however honest they might be.
The deputation will proceed to Ottawa as soon as Dr. Johnston, M.P., for West Lambton, intimates the time that the ministry is willing to go over the oil question.
I might also call the attention of the hon. gentleman from Brant to the 1 Courier ' of the 4th of March.
Mahlon K. Cowan: A very strong Conservative paper.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: What about the Galt ' Reporter ' ?


Mahlon K. Cowan: I don't know.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Suffice it to say that all these newspapers condemn in the strongest terms any action being taken by the government in the direction indicated. The poor man's vote counts for as much as the vote of the manager of the Standard Oil Company, and these 800 men will see through the deal, aimed at ruining their Canadian co-workers in Petrolea, and elsewhere, and will resent the action of the member for West Lambton. But what about the hundreds of farmers in his townships, with oil wells on their farms ? I feel confident that when the farmers of those townships realize the position they have been placed in by this government, they will resent it, and resent it most emphatically. It will take more than standard talk and standard money to obtain their votes. How will they like to be bounty fed, when their market is practically wiped out by the Standard Oil Company ? How about the hon. member for South Essex (Mr. Cowan) ? In what way will he vote ?


Mahlon K. Cowan: I have no complaint.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: What will he say to the farmers in the new oil field which is to be of great value to our industry ? The Finance Minister could have read him petitions from that direction that would be instructive, asking the business to be left alone. Here is what the 'Wheatley Journal,' has to say :


Mr.   J.@: Woodward, the well known oil expert and drilling contractor of Oil Springs, Ont., has been visiting the Wheatley and Leamington oil fields during the past few days and has pronounced the outlook one of the best for the largest producing oil fields in the Dominion. Mr. Woodward states that the depth of the wells, being four times that of wells in other Canadian fields, indicates long life to wells. The rock is all limestone, except the surface, with a light gravity'of oil and plenty of gas, which is a feature of the
[DOT]1851

best producing American fields. Mr. Woodward is a man of twenty-six years experience in the oil business in all its branches, and in hir judgment thinks that we have the largest oil fields in western Ontario, and from what he can learn, is of the opinion that if the tariff on crude oil is not removed during the present session of parliament it will not he asked for again for many a long year.


Mahlon K. Cowan: That is Mr. Woodward's opinion. That is not the 'Wheatley's Journal's' opinion.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Well, we will have to try and get something else to satisfy the hon. gentleman. Here is something :
Leamington, Ont., March 30.-Another oil gusher was struck here on Saturday when the Leamington Oil Company shot its No. 3 well. Thirty quarts of nitro glycerine were used for the shooting, starting 600,000 cubic feet of natural gas.


Mahlon K. Cowan: They say the gas is all played out up there.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Perhaps you brought some of it down to Ottawa.
On the same evening oil started to flow and on the following afternoon 80 barrels had flown into the company's tanks. The natural gas escaping from the well at present is estimated to be about 600,000 cubic feet a day, and the company is negotiating to supply the town of Leamington with gas.
I can imagine, Mr. Speaker, that these gentlemen are not anxious to have the duty on crude oil reduced. What about the hon. member for Alberta (Mr. Oliver)? I believe he is out of the House at present. I might refer to what the Montreal ' Herald ' of April 4, 1904, says :
Important oil strike.

Advices have been received in the Canadian Pacific Railway offices of an important oil strike in the Swift Current district, near Cranston, Alberta. It has been known for some time that oil existed there, but the first big strike was reported on March 22. The latest report is that a well has been sunk and an output of fifteen barrels a day is being secured.
I might also refer you to the Winnipeg ' Telegram ' with reference to that field. It stai'ts off thus in big letters :
Largest oil fields in America. Such will prove the Alberta petroleum districts. Former Winnipegger tells of richness of western fields.
I will not take time to read this, Mr. Speaker, but will hurry on. How will the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. A. T. Thompson) vote ? Let us see what comes from Dunnville :
There is cons4derable excitement here over the discovery of oil while a local company was drilling for natural gas, which abounds in this district. They struck a vein of crude oil at a depth of 800 feet on the farm of Joseph Boose, six miles from here. In six hours the flow produced a barrel of a fine grade of amber Mr. ARMSTRONG.
crude oil, which would be equivalent to four barrels a day.
I can imagine that the hon. member for Haldimand will be voting with the government on this occasion. I might also refer to the New Brunswick field, in which the hon. Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Emmerson) who is also absent from the House, is directly interested. I cannot believe that he will approve of this great injury being done to the oil industry of this country. I might continue, Mr. Speaker, but will only refer to one or two other members. One, the hon. member for London (Mr. Hyman) the only man in this country who claims to know the needs of the oil industry. I wonder if he is interested in this company. You would naturally expect a man that knows all about an industry to have some practical interest in that industry. I wonder if these men will approve of his action. The London ' Free Press ' says :
A London syndicate with a capital of $5,000 have leased for gas or oil purposes several farms south of St. Mary's, and will begin operations of boring for gas or oil at once.
I might also refer to the hon. member for West Huron (Mr. Holmes), who quotes from papers, and tries to get satisfaction out of them. He referred to Mr. Fairbanks, whom hon. gentlemen opposite will probably refer to frequently. All I. can say is that Mr. Fairbanks is a perfect gentleman in every way, an ex-Reform member of this House and is a crude oil producer. He sold to the Standard Oil Company the first refinery that they purchased in this country. He was one of the strongest advocates of the reduction of the duty to two cents per gallon, and has assisted the Standard Oil Company in every possible way. The hon. gentleman also refers to telegrams of congratulations which have been received, from Standard supporters no doubt. The hon. member would like to see a greater spirit of national independence-these are the words he used. Is he likely to obtain this through driving our industries out of existence ? Not one member opposite has given more than a passing remark with reference to the oil question. Most of them frankly admit that they do not know much about it; but when it comes to voting on the tariff, you will find them coming into their place, and when the First Minister cracks the whip they will all bob up serenely.
But then the ordinary Reformer looks upon the tariff as a measure to be treated in any way that may be to the advantage of the person discussing it.
I must mention an argument that I have heard advanced by an hon. member opposite. He came rushing to me as though he had found something, and said: Armstrong, I have a solution of the whole problem. Your people are all right. I said : How is

that ? The reply was :	Why, formerly
relined fixed the price of crude. Now crude fixes the price of refined. That was some days ago, and I haven't found the point yet. I imagine that remark must have had its origin with the man that knows all about the business.
Hon. gentlemen opposite don't seem to have the same fear of the Standard Oil Company as had Judge Lister, the late M.P. for West Lambton, who on June 20th, 1887, made these statements on the floor of the House :
I deny the statement of the hon. member for Northumberland (Mr. Mitchell) that the foreign oil is better than the oil manufactured here. I say that the oil manufactured her'- is equal to any petroleum oil manufactured in the world. I frankly admit that in the past the oil was inferior, but the difficulties which the refiners encountered have been overcome, a.nd iwe are manufacturing to-day as fine a burning oil as can he produced in the world. In regard to the question of protection, every one understands the ground which I take upon that, and the ground which the party with which I am associated takes ; but I say that, if the protection to native industries is the policy of the government, it would be unfair to this immense and growing interest to do anything to cripple it at the present moment. We know perfectly well, as far as the United States are concerned, that the whole oil interest of the United States is practically controlled by the Standard Oil Company, and we know that they have been bringing oil into this country to sell at a less price than the cost of producing it, in order to get the control of this market. It would he against the interest of this large industry to do what my hon. friend suggests.


Mr. MITCHELL.: Is not 100 per cent enough?


Mr. LISTER.: 100 per cent ? The moment you strangle that industry you will get the price put up at once. The people of Canada are today getting their oil much cheaper than they ever did before. If my hon. friend from the sea thinks he will he able to get it cheaper, perhaps he would for a time, hut the moment the Standard Oil Company came here, he would have to pay a higher price ; and to put the trade restrictions which my hon. friend proposes here would be to give them an advantage of al least 15 or 20 per cent more. So long as this is the policy of the government, that interest- the oil industry-ought to be protected and preserved against the United States as any other in the country. If free trade is to be the order of the day, that interest must go tfrith the rest, unable to exist without a high rate of duty ; but, if protection is to rule, that industry, which is a Canadian industry, a purely native one, an industry belonging peculiarly to Canada, should he -looked after as well as any others.
Also at 1148 of ' Hansard ' of the same year, he said :
So far as the manufacturers to-day are concerned, they are manufacturing an oil better than ever manufactured in Canada, and an oil equal in every respect in its burning qualities to that manufactured in the United States, and safer, so far as inflammable qualities are concerned, than any made in the States. The hon.
gentleman has told us that there is a duty of 100 or 120 per cent. I say there is no such duty at ail. The hon. gentleman will readily understand that the amount of the duty depends on the cost of the refined article. Sometimes it is 60 per cent, sometimes 50, sometimes 70 ; but, be that as it may, as far as this industry is concerned, under the previous administration this protection or duty, or whatever you may he pleased to call it, was put upon coal oil, and under that duty the industry has gone on and assumed the proportions it has attained to-day. And I may say to hon. gentleman that, in spite of the high protection which the hon. member for Northumberland (Mr. Mitchell) speaks about, the oil industry of Canada to-day is in a most depressed condition. Crude oil is worth less than 70 cents per barrel, and this is a lower price than has been reached, except on one occasion, in the whole history of the oil trade in this country, and refined oil is cheaper than it ever was before. I will not pretend to say that it is as cheap as it would be If there was no duty upon it at all. I do say, however, that, if you take off the duty, the Standard Refining Company have hut one object and that is to secure the Canadian market, one way or the other, and destroy the oil interests of Canada, and, if they succeed in doing that, the people of Canada would have to pay a much greater price for their oil than they are paying to-day. This is a large industry in this country ; it is an industry belonging exclusively to Canada, and if there is any industry which requires to be fostered in this country it is the oil industry.
Perhaps the Finance Minister thinks by bringing about this state of affairs he will raise a popular cry for hi's followers. They can say with extended chests : Look at what we have done-cut the tariff in two on coal oil, crude oil free, by-products reduced. Is there an election near ? And the Grand Trunk Pacific not quite ripe enough to pick.
Or is the government in a tight corner on the Grand Trunk Pacific scheme and wish to attract attention in a different direction ?	'
Canadians look at the refined oil selling for a lower price in the United States^, but do not take into consideration that the Americans sell by wine measure, while we have to sell by imperial measure, which is i more, for instance oil quoted on the other side at 12 cents per wine gallon, would c,ost at the same price 14h cents per imperial gallon. Instead of the American paying part of the tariff to get their crude oii, and the by-products into Canada as they did before, the Canadians pay the bounty now and louse the revenue. The manufacturer in this country will naturally ask, whose head will next come under the Reform free trade axe.
The government claim that by reducing the duty on oil, it will reduce the price to the consumer. Let us see how this policy has worked out in the past seven years, under hon. gentlemen opposite. I find the following figures in the Trade and Navigation Returns :

In the year 1897, the amount of binder twine imported into this country for home consumption, amounted to 3,364,840 pounds, valued at $180,190, plus duty of 10 per cent, $22,198, making a total of $202,388, which makes the price to the importer, with customs duty added, six cents per pound. The government made a promise to the farmers that by abolishing the duty, it would reduce the price to the consumer. Let us see how that was carried out.
In 1903 there was entered for home consumption :	Imported, 14,204,515 pounds,
valued at $1,810,238, which makes the price to the importer at the port of entry 12i cents per pound. You will observe that as the result of taking off the duty, the farmer has had to pay 64 cents a pound for his binder twine, an increase of one hundred per cent and a loss to the farmers of this country of $823,273.47. Then what about the hundreds of workmen who might be employed in manufacturing that binder twine in this country ? They are not taken into consideration by this government. And here our factories are shut down and our farmers are to-day in the hands of the binder twine trust of the United States, and paying twice as much for twine.
Let us look at barbed wire fencing imported for home consumption. In 1897 we imported 5,034,499 pounds, valued at $80,407, plus duty at 15 per cent, $12,506. Total, $92,973. This gives cost per pound of 1 8-10 cents to the importer. When barbed wire was duty free to the farmer, the government said : Surely you will get it at a great deal less price than before. Let us see how that works out. In 1903 we imported for home consumption 30,503,400 pounds. Just think of the number of men that would employ if manufactured in our own country. This amount was valued at $702,809, which, without duty, gives a valuation of 2 3-10 cents per pound, and proves to-day, that barbed wire fencing costs the farmers i a cent per pound more in 1903, without the duty, than it did in 1897, with a 15 per cent duty.
The loss to the farmers of our country is $152,517, and the increase in the cost of wire 28 per cent. We imported in 1897, 5,034,499 pounds, and in 1903 30,503,400 pounds. I wonder how many American workmen are engaged in the manufacture of these articles for us. It would be very interesting to have statistics to show the amount of money that has been paid out to workmen in the United States for the manufacture of these articles. This government reduced the duty on coal oil in 1897 and gave the Standard Oil Company the privilege of bringing in oil in tank ships :	Result, an
increased cost to the consumer of about 75 per cent. With the same flourish of trumpets, to catch the votes of consumers, they are making use of the same arguments with reference to the coal oil industry that they did with reference to the binder twine and Mr. ARMSTRONG.
barbed wire industry. Let us read, as a fitting climax of these arguments, what the hon. Minister of Finance has to say against trusts.


Mr. PATERSON  .@: Will the hon. gentleman (Mr. Armstrong) allow me to ask him a question ? If I understand him, he is arguing that by taking off the duty, the price of the article in our market was enhanced. Would the same effect be produced with regard to crude oil by putting it on the free list ? Like causes, we are told, produce like effects.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Restricting the manufacturer and the producer in this country and turning over these industries to the trusts, what can you expect but to have these articles increased in price? I was about to quote the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) on the subject of trusts.
It seems to be the inevitable result of high tariff policy that monopolies, trusts and combines will flourish. They may exist even in low tariff countries, but they could not possibly flourish under other conditions.
They have been able to flourish apparently under the low tariff policy of hon. gentlemen opposite. Think of the trusts and monopolies this government have created in the eight years they have been in power. The Standard Oil Company came into this country about the time this government assumed office. Perhaps the campaign fund was assisted then. Another election being not far off, further assistance is required and the people will continue to pay, pay, pay. Every man who votes for this resolution is a Standard man and will be so branded through out the Dominion. As representatives of this great Canada, we are sent here to do justice to all without fear or favour. Then, do not give away our industry to a foreign trust, and compel the producer, the consumer, and the independent refiner to receive their instructions from New York. The jubilee was a grand thing for us Canadians. It brought us nearer to Great Britain and made us better subjects. The Boer war, though it is to be deplored, yet brought us closer to the mother country. Our brothers and sons shed their blood that we might receive the protection of this mighty empire. The British preference will cement us still closer. We are all glad that we are British subjects, glad that we are living under the British flag. The greatest pride we have is that we are Canadian British subjects. Then, let us protect our country, protect our people, protect our industries so as to let foreigners know that they are welcome to come in and assist in developing our resources and to help to build up our industries; but, if their object is to tear down and destroy for the sake of filling their ccffers in foreign lands, then, we want none of them.


Hon. L. P. BRODEUR (Minister of Inland Revenue).: I suppose the hon. member (Mr. Armstrong) who has just taken his seat does not expect me to go as fully as he has done into discussion of the oil question. Unfortunately, I am not as familiar as he is with that industry, and, if I undertake to discuss the question of the effect of the duties now, such action on my part might seem premature. In opening my remarks Mr. Speaker, I may say that it is with certain hesitation that I undertake to speak before this House in a language with which I am not very familiar. I know that when one speaks in a language that is not his mother tongue, he exposes himself to the danger of making very grave mistakes. And we find, Sir, in the political discussion of these latter days, that certain men and certain newspapers are not above taking advantage of mistakes of expression by those who are speaking in another language than their mother tongue, to cast upon them very serious reflection. Therefore, I say, I hesitate all the more in undertaking to speak in a language with which I am not very familiar. At the same time if, in the discussion of the questions which I shall touch upon to-day, I use some expressions improperly, I expect that there is fairness enough and sense of justice enough in this House to cause my mistakes to be overlooked.
My hon. friend (Mr. Armstrong) who has just taken his seat, tried to convince this House that the government was pledged to support the Standard Oil trust in the change of duties that have been submitted by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). I may tell the hon. gentleman at once that the government in undertaking to reduce the duties on refined and crude oil, has not acted at the instance of the Standard Oil Trust, but, on the contrary, had in view in the revision of the tariff the sole benefit of the people of this country. I am sorry that the hon. member has thought fit to cast a slur upon the government in this connection. Had he known what this government has done against the Standard Oil Trust on past occasions, even within late years, I am sure he would not have said what he did on that point. Does the hon. gentleman forget that, some years ago, w-hen the Standard Oil Company came to this country they made a combine agreement with the Grand Trunk and the Canadian Pacific railway, by which their oil should be transported from Sarnia to Montreal at a less price than the oil imported from the United States by way of Niagara Falls to Montreal. That question was brought before the government. Complaint was formally made of discrimination on the part of these two railway companies ; and the government, after having investigated the question and given it full consideration decided to break down that combine agreement between the Standard Oil
Company's side and the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific Company's. In that instance, the government certainly showed that they were faithful servants of the people. Other instances could be given of the same kind. Let one suffice. Some years ago there was in Montreal an independent company engaged in the oil trade-the Gall-Schneider Oil Company. When this government introduced its measure under which oil might be imported into this country in tank vessels, this Independent Company petitioned the government for the right to use a piece of land in Montreal fronting on the Lachine canal. And the government, seeing that the granting of this privilege would contribute to make this company absolutely independent of the Standard Oil Trust, came once more to the rescue of the peopled, once more decided the question against the Standard Oil Trust and leased the piece of land required, thus making it possible for the Independent Company to bring in oil in tank vessels as the Standard Oil Company were doing.
Here is another instance, and now, because this government thinks fit to reduce the duty on coal oil, not for the benefit of the Standard Oil Company but in order that we may be delivered from the shackles of the Standard Oil Trust, this government is charged with being the friends of that trust. I am sorry, Sir, that the hon. member who has just taken his seat (Mr. Armstrong) has chosen to discuss this question in that light. In reference to the coal oil duty he seems to be able to see only two companies, the Canadian or Independent Refining Company, and the Standard Oil Company. The government is not acting in favour of either one of these companies, the government is acting solely with the interest of the people of this country in view. My hon. friend speaks of the Independent Refinery as not receiving from this government sufficient protection. The majority of the shares of this company are not owned by Canadians, they are mostly in the hands of Americans, and will my hon. friend tell me how much watered stock that independent company, which has in the last few years raised the price of oil in combination with the Standard, after having increased the price as they have done-will he tell me how much watered stock they have issued during these three years ? If I am correctly informed, and I know something about it, this company was formed three years ago. The next year after it was formed it paid a large dividend, in the second year it issued 40 per cent of watered stock ; and I am informed that not long ago it issued more stock, or those who had stock in that company took some stock in another company, at 100 per cent of what the stock cost those people. Now we see how independent these people are, and how they are working for the interests of our own citizens. We were

in the hands of these two companies and the government thought to reduce the duty-on coal oil in order to give our own people more protection and cheaper oil. The hon. gentleman says there was an understanding between the Standard Oil Company and this government because the very next day after the Minister of Finance delivered his budget speech, there was a reduction on coal oil. I see by the papers that not only did the Standard Oil Company reduce their price, but the Gall-Schneider Company which is affiliated with that Independent Company has also reduced its price by the same amount ag the one by which the duty was reduced. Mr. Speaker, I assert that this step of the government has been taken exclusively for the benefit of our own people, and has already .inured to their benefit. I do not wish to discuss at greater length the coal oil question which has been discussed by my hon. friend from Lambton.
If you will permit me I will refer briefly to some of the subjects discussed last night by the hon. member for Lennox (Mr. Wilson). In that speech the hon. gentleman spoke of the preference, and condemned in strong terms this government for having given a preference to Great Britain. I was much surprised to hear the hon. member for Lennox make that statement. Sir, in 1S97 this government thought it would be in the interest of this country to give a preference to Great Britain, and we alreadv witness the good effects of that policy in the fact that our trade with Great Britain has increased enormously. The policy of giving a preference to the English manufacturer in our market has induced the British consumer to buy more largely of our products.
Now, Sir, we are charged by some hon. members opposite with having reduced the British preference. The statement is absolutely incorrect, and I will prove it. If the hon. gentleman will look at all the facts he will see that so far from having reduced the preference, on the whole we have increased it. Take the woollen industry. On woollens there was a preference of 33J, but by the change in our tariff that preference is reduced to 14 28. On cordage the preference is reduced to 20 per cent. In these two instances only have we reduced the preference to a certain extent. But at the same time we have increased the preference on certain other classes of goods which are sent to this country, a reduction which will operate both for the benefit of Great Britain and for the benefit of Canada. Take china-ware, in which we have increased the preference to 50 per cent. On window glass we have increased it to 62-50 per cent; so that if we have reduced the preference on the two items I have mentioned, we have increased it on two other items. Taking the four items together, we find that the average preference amounts to 46 T9 per cent, or 13-46 per cent more than we had before.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: In face of this fact how can hon. gentlemen assert that the government has reduced the preference?
Now, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Lennox went on to say that we had increased taxation, because, as he says, the revenues have been larger. Well, Sir, it is possible to have a larger revenue without at the same time increasing the taxes levied upon the people. How is that to be done ? Under a very high tariff with absolutely no' imports, the revenues will be much less, because, instead of the articles being imported they are manufactured here ; and though the people pay more taxes, the money goes into the pockets of the manufacturers instead of into the public chest. But it is also possible to have larger revenues at the same time that you reduce the taxes levied upon the people. Let me prove that by this statement. In 1890 the average rate of duty levied upon imports our total imports was 21-21 per cent. The average rate of duty from 1896 to 1903, both inclusive, was as follows :
Per cent.
In 1896	 18-28
In 1897	 17-S7
In 1898	'. .. 16-95
In 1899	 16-70
In 1900	 15-98
In 1901	 16 06
In 1902	 15.99
In 1903	 15-87
So, Mr. Speaker, instead of having increased the taxes of the people we have virtually decreased them as I have just proven. We have been charged also by the hon. member for Lennox (Mr. Wilson) with having largely increased our expenditure. It has been shown by my right hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir Bichard Cartwright) how this increase of expenditure has been brought about. But,
I may say that we have virtually not increased the expenditure in some respects because we are now charging less to the country for the collection of the revenues that go into the public chest than was charged under the administration of hon. gentlemen opposite. I think this is a fair criterion as to whether the government has been economical or lavish in its expenditure. I find by the reports, that in the Department of Customs in 1895-6, the last year of the Conservative regime, for every $100 that the Minister of Customs was receiving the country was expending $4.43 to collect that money. Now, as a result of the devotion to the public interest of a man like my hon. friend the minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) we find, that, instead of expending $4.43 to collect $100, we are simply spending $3.31 to collect $100 or a reduction of $1.12 per $100. I will not claim the same credit for myself but I will claim the same credit for the department which I have the honour to administer. In 1895-6, the last year of the Conservative

regime, for every $100 collected it cost tlie Inland Revenue Department $5. Now, we see that in tlie year 1902-3, instead of it costing $5 for each $100 collected, it only cost $3.50 and I expect that this year we will have a better showing still than that.


Mr. CLANCY.: Has the hon. gentleman a less number now engaged and paid than in 1896 in connection with the Inland Revenue Department ?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I do not know whether my hon. friend has understood exactly the point that I have made.


James Clancy: Quite.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: All that I wanted to prove was that when the hon. gentleman's friends were in power-I know he is not responsible for it because he was not then in this House-it took $5 to collect $100 while during the year 1903 it only took $3.50 to collect the same $100.


James Clancy: That is not the question I asked.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Whether we have a larger number of employees or whether we are spending a larger sum that shows all the same that we are very much more economical than his friends were.


James Clancy: Not a bit of it.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I think that cannot be disputed. I am sorry that a man of the intelligence and brilliancy of my hon. friend from Bothwell should dispute such a fact as that. If to collect $100 it costs to-day $3.50 and if some years ago it cost $5 to collect the same amount of money it seems to me a very simple proposition that this government is more economical than the other government was.
Now, the hon. member for Lennox stated that we had increased the debt considerably. It has been shown several times already that on account of the large sur<-pluses we have had in the last few years instead of increasing the debt it has virtually been decreased. But, the best way to ascertain whether the debt has increased or decreased is to take the debt per head. I suppose my hon. friend from Bothwell will not deny that the debt per head is very much less to-day than it was in 1895 and 1896.


James Clancy: The debt per head is, as the hon. minister has stated, less for two reasons. One is that the population has increased and the other is that we have been able to renew our loans at a lower rate than formerly.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: Yes, but at the same time my hon. friend does not deny the fact that the debt has decreased. I am very glad to have that admission and it shows once more that I was perfectly right a few minutes ago in appealing to his intelligence
and briliancy to endorse what I was saying.
Now, coming to the question of the tariff,
I may say, that it has been charged against the administration of this government that we have an enormous balance of trade against us in our relations with the United States. It is true that apparently there is a balance of trade against us in our relations with the United States, but if we take the trouble to compare and examine the figures, we find that instead of having a balance of trade against us we have virtually a balance of trade in our favour. We imported last year for home consumption from the United States goods to the value of $128,790,237. We exported goods to the value of $71,209,969, leaving a balance apparently against us of $57,580,268. But we must admit that out of this $128,790,237, $60,000,000 worth represented goods which came into this country free and I suppo'se nobody would dispute the fact that these goods which come from the United States free are not imported for the benefit of the United States but are imported for the benefit of Canada* I will try to show by some figures how these importations were for the benefit of Canada. Take coal ; we imported more than $7,000,000 worth of coal. I suppose nobody will deny that it was for the benefit of this country. It is a well known fact that we have no hard coal in this country. We have to go to the United States and will anybody deny that it was for the benefit of this country that we imported that $7,000,000 worth of coal ? The following table will show the goods we imported free of duty.


GOODS IMPORTED FREE OF DUTY.
[Stage Direction]
Goods.	Value.
Corn	$ 3,250,329
Coal	 7,835,936
Cordage	 2,054,494
Cotton	 6,532,939
Drugs	 2,397,801
Furs	 1,207,123
India rubber	 1,816,682
Metals and minerals	 10,526,740
Seeds and roots	 1,345,629
Settlers' effects	 5,289,883
Tobacco	 2,241,297
Wood	 5,023,038
Wool	 351,509
Sundries	  10,380,514
Total value	$60,251,914
1 suppose that my hon. friend from Toronto (Mr. Brock) will not deny that the importation of wool free of duty is to the benefit of the country. We have, therefore, imported free of duty goods to the value of $60,251,914, and deducting this from the total imports of $128,790,237, instead of having a balance of trade against us we have virtually a balance in our favour of $2,671,646. Let me put that in this way: The balance
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of trade is apparently against us. We imported for home consumption last year $128,790,287. We exported $71,209,969, leaving a balance of $57,580,268. Of this $128,790,237 on exports $60,251,914 are on goods which came in here free. In deducting this iast sum from the above sum we reach a balance of $68,538,323, imports upon which duties are levied. Our exports being as above quoted, $71,209,969, our dutiable exports being $6S,-538,323, we have virtually a balance in our favour of $2,671,646.
It would certainly not be fair in establishing the balance of trade between Canada and the United States to ' mettre en ligne de compte ' raw material required for our markets or imports for the benefit of our farmers and producers.
Day after day the Conservative newspapers are calling upon us to adopt the same tariff against American goods as the Americans have against our goods. It has ben; stated time and again, both in this House and outside, and especially In the province of Quebec during these last two years, that It would be a great benefit to the farmers of Canada if we put the same duty on agricultural products coming from the United States as the United States duty on our products. I am here to assert, Mr. Speaker, that if we increase our customs duties on United States agricultural products, instead of it benefiting our farmers, it would expose them to retaliation which might prevent them from exporting any of their products to the United iStates. Take, for example, the commodity of hay. We imported from the United States last year hay to the value of $126,645. That seems to be quite a large amount, and the Conservative newspapers of Montreal frequently quote it, and say to the farmers : ' Look how you are treated, you produce large quantities of hay in your own fields, but at the same time the government allows this enormous quantity to come in from the United States.' Well, Mr. Speaker, when you look at the other side of the question it is not so alarming. The Conservative newspapers, while they give the figures for our imports of hay from the United States, always neglect to state that we exported last year to the United States hay to the value of $3,596,557. That is' not such a bad showing after all, then we can set off this $12§,000 worth of hay imported against the $3,500,000 worth that we exported. But there is also another side to the story which must not be lost sight of. 1 find that out of this $126,645 worth of hay imported to Canada not less than $121,000 was imported into the Yukon and British Columbia, while a very trifling quantity indeed was imported into the eastern provinces. In view of this, the charge so frequently made by the member for .faeques Cartier (Mr. Monk), that we are not sufficiently protecting our poor farmers on their production of hay, falls to the ground. I Mr. BRODEUR.
presume that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Monk) does not contend that we can compete in the Yukon or in British Columbia with the Americans in the hay trade.
Mr. MONK.: Since my hon. friend appeals to me, I would like him to explain what protection he is giving to the farmer.


Mr. FITZPATRICK.: We are giving him a good market.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I don't know about that.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: We are opening up new markets to our farmers for their agricultural products. That is what they require, and not high duties ; and there is no reason to grieve over this paltry importation of hay from the United States.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: What new markets has my hon. friend given to the farmers ?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: We have opened up in England a very extensive market for hay. Some years ago Canada was not exporting any hay to the English market, but now, owing to the policy of this government and the friendly trade relations we have established with the mother country, we are sending large quantities of hay to England. 1 desire to put on record a few figures in order to show how fallacious is the charge made every day against the government, that they are neglectful of the interests of the farmers in not putting a higher duty on agricultural products. In the item of live animals we imported last year from the United States $1,507,196 worth, and our total exports of live animals amounted to $14,455,576 worth.


Mr. INGRAM.: To the United States ?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: No ; the total export of live animals. Let me add that out of that $1,507,196 worth of live animals imported from the United States, there was imported into the Yukon, and British Columbia, and the Northwest Territories, and Manitoba, no less than $1,420,000 worth, there being imported into the eastern provinces only $87,000 worth. Now, in the item of barley we imported from the United States only $1,038, and we exported $457,333 worth. I presume that the one thousand dollars' worth of barley which we imported cannot affect in any way the trade of the farmers of this country in barley. Of oats, we imported last year $70,651 worth, and we exported $2,632,886 worth. Of pease, we imported last year $17,617 worth, and we exported $1,056,266 worth.


Mr. TAYLOR.: I would like to ask my hon. friend if that was exported to the United States for home consumption ? Have these been exported to the United States for home consumption, or did they merely go through the United States in bond ?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I am speaking not simply of the exports to the United States, but of the total exports, in order to show that our exports are so large that the paltry quantities of goods imported into this country cannot affect our farmers in any way. Of wheat we have imported $57,794 from the United States, and we have exported $29,088,781 ;[DOT] and yet my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier says the pool; farmers are very badly treated. Of beans we have imported from the United States $26,332, and we have exported $79,801. Our total imports of these grains have been '$173,432. Out of this we have imported into tne Northwest, Manitoba, British Columbia and the Yukon, $125,000 ; consequently we have imported into the eastern provinces only $48,000, while we have exported $33,315,067. Now, I will give the figures with regard to hay. We have imported $126,646. Of this, we have imported into the Northwest, British Columbia and the Yukon $121,665 ; so that our imports into the eastern provinces have been $4,981; and I may say for the benefit of my hon. friend from Jacques Carties that we have imported into the province of Quebec, to the great injury of our farmers, the large sum of $104.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: As my hon. friend is referring to me, I would like to ask him if lie is in favour of greater protection for the market-gardeners ?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I think the market-gardeners are having as much protection as they want. They are pretty well satisfied with the tariff as it is to-day. If at certain seasons of the year, let us say from January to May, we import strawberries, I do not know how they can affect very much those who raise strawberries in the county of my hon. friend, because, if I am correctly informed, in that part of tlie season, they are not producing strawberries.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: What about lettuce ?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I suppose my hon. friend will not seriously contend that the lettuce produced by the farmers of this country is subjected to very serious competition from outside. I am sure he will not say that, and I see, from the way he made the interruption, that he did not speak very seriously.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I do, very seriously.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I find that of apples we imported last year from the United States $79,830, and we exported $2,759,047. Of butter we imported $131,745, of which there was imported into the Northwest, British Columbia and the Yukon $116,000, and into the eastern provinces only $15,000, while against that we exported $6,958,906. Of cheese we imported from the
United States $30,401, of which there was used in the west $17,400 and in the eastern provinces $13,000, while we exported $24,776,406. Of eggs our imports from the United States were $121,563, of which there was imported into the Northwest, British Columbia and the Yukon $120,000, leaving only $1,000 for the eastern provinces, while we exported $1,441,254. Now, the total provisions, including meats, which we imported from the United States were $1,774,896. of which there has been imported into the Northwest, British Columbia and the Yukon about $750,000, and into the eastern provinces about $1,230,000 while we have exported $50,569,442. These figures prove conclusively that the charge which has been made for some time in the press of the province of Quebec, that this government was not protecting the farmers of this country, but was permitting imports from the United States, is fallacious and cannot be sustained for one moment. And 1 may add that if to-day we see some of these agricultural products imported into the Yukon, whose fault is it ? It is the fault of hon. gentlemen opposite, who, when they uad the opportunity of having railway connection with that country and giving the farmers of the east a chance to send their products there, objected to the construction of that railway. Consequently they are guilty of everything that has happened as a result of their action.
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.


PRIVATE BILL.
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House again in Committee on Bill (No. 80) respecting the West Canadian Collieries, Limited.-Mr. Oliver.
Mr. HENDERSON.: When this Bill was before the committee an evening or two ago, I understand a decided objection was taken to the last provision. Has that been removed, or is the Bill in the same position as that in which we left it ?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I understand that my hon. friend the Minister of Justice would like to look into this Bill before it passes, so I think we had better rise and report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Progress reported.



[Stage Direction]
House resumed adjourned debate on the proposed motion of Mr. Fielding :
That the Speaker do now leave the chair, for the House to go into committee to consider of the ways and means for raising the supply to
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4S68
be granted to His Majesty, and tbe proposed motion of Mr. Borden (Halifax) in amendment thereto.
['He understands that the letters to which I refer are not on file in the Department of Militia, but their existence has been public property in certain communities in this country for many days past. The Minister of Agriculture knows of them and has copies of them I have no doubt. They are not documents which are on file, but they constitute an interference by him, and I would think it only fair, if the government propose to make a complete, fair and truthful record of this matter, that these documents should be produced as well as those which are on file. That is all I venture to suggest, and I trust that my right hon. friend will not regard me as unreasonable in making that moderate request respectfully and sincerely so that the House and the country may have an opportunity of judging fairly in this matter.']
Louis-Philippe Brodeur: When you left tlie Chair, Mr. Speaker, at six o'clock, X was trying to establish-and I think I succeeded in doing so-that the raising of the tariff on agricultural products coming from the States would not in any way benefit our farmers. I showed that our imports of agricultural products were much lower than our exports, and that therefore the prices of our agricultural products could not be in any way affected by the imports from the United States. I think I have shown also that the imports from the United States cannot in any way affect the agricultural products of the eastern provinces, because these imports are sent into the Yukon or British Columbia, and consequently the imposition of higher duties on them would not put our eastern farmers in any better position, because it would not enable them to export their products with any profit to those distant countries. I think I have clearly established that our country is to-day more prosperous than the great republic to the south of us. We have an abundance of wealth, our farmers, our labourers, our industrial men are in a prosperous condition. Is that the case to the south ? No, on the contrary, all the industrial classes there, are in a very depressed condition. I have in my hand a statement showing that for some months, instead of giving employment to the same number of labourers as formerly, a number of companies have been obliged to dismiss thousands of their employees and reduce the salaries of many others. Here, on the contrary, every one who wants to work can get something ; every one can earn money and live in comfort. But in the American republic the conditions are different. I see by the Montreal ' Gazette '-and I suppose no hon. gentleman opposite will question the authority of that newspaper- that according to the annual report published in April last of. the New York State Board of Mediation and Arbitration, there were more strikes in the United States last year than ever before. The strikes in the building trade alone during the summer in New York State caused a loss in wages of $6,754,751. I And also in the Montreal ' Gazette ' the following statement:
Susquehanna, Pa., June 12.-The Brie Railway Company has discharged 10 per cent of its working force, or 108 men, from its shops in this place. Like discharges were made in all shops on the system. This is the second discharge of 10 per cent within 30 days. The company is reducing expenses in all directions.
There is another example of the crisis which exists in the United States. And I may ask my hon. friends opposite whether they can point to any similar example in this country to that which I quote from the Montreal ' Gazette.' On the contrary I find Mr. BRODEUR.
evidence in the newspapers of the same date that there is a growing demand for workmen in this country. For example ' I/In-dustriel,' of Shawinigan, publishes an advertisement asking for a hundred men at from $1.50 to $1.25 per day. So we find, on the same day a statement in a prominent Conservative newspaper in Quebec that, in the United States, the railways are discharging their employees, and advertisements in the trade papers of this country asking for employees. So, the demand, from our friends on the other side for a tariff similar to that of the United States is not a reasonable one. I have much faith in their good sense and in their devotion to the best interests of the country, but I suppose they must be convinced, as I am, that it would be useless for us to try to copy the Americans in our tariff policy. It is better for us to maintain a system in accordance with our own conditions, not with a view to copying the United States, but with a view to promoting the growth and development of Canada. I read, only the other day, that in Fall River, in one day in April last, 10,000 people were discharged from the factories in that city because there was no more work to give them. I find also a statement with regard to the condition of employment under the steel trust. The number of workmen employed under the trust last year was 350,000, whose salaries amounted to $225,000,000. Through discharge of men and reduction of wages, the payments of accounts of salaries have been reduced by $60,000,000 since last year. We find also that, on the Southern Railway they have reduced the number of men employed by 3,000 ; on the Gould system by 7,500 ; on the Harriman lines, 8,000 ; on the Western lines, 10,000 ; on the Vanderbilt lines, 12,000; on the Pennsylvania system, 13,000 ; on lines running into Chicago, 20,000 ; and on lines of minor importance, 2,000. These figures indicate that Canada to-day is in a very much more prosperous condition than the United States. So, I am sorry that our friends on the other side are trying to induce this country to accept a fiscal system that has been so detrimental to the interests of the country to the south of us.
Now I see that my hon. friend from Pic-tou (Mr. Bell) declared the other day that the policy of the government should be to reduce the duties on sugar and tobacco. These are his words which I quote from page 4527 of ' Hansard :'
Why is it necessary that they should have surpluses to hoast of-surpluses of from $14,000,000 to $16,000,000 ? They could get clear of a large portion by extending the reduction of duties from molasses to sugar. They could also make a reduction in the duty on tobacco, which would prove an immense boon to almost every man who contributes to taxation.
I have every reason to believe that the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Bell) has the sympathy of those on his side in this and

so we must take this utterance of the hon. gentleman as a declaration of policy from the other side in favour of removing the duties on sugar and tobacco. I am sure hon. gentlemen have not given to this question the consideration that it deserves when they ask that duties which have done so much to build up the tobacco industry should be removed or decreased. When this government came into power in 1896, it is true, a movement had been begun among the tobacco growers in Quebec and Ontario in favour of an increase in the duty on tobacco. Several delegations came here and asked for this increase of duty as a protection to the tobacco growers. But the government of that day seemed to be much more inclined to protect other industries, and refused absolutely to protect the important industry of tobacco growing. I confess that when this government increased the duty on tobacco, we did not expect such favourable results as those we see to-day in the increase of the industry. And I am here to assert that, in spite of the increase of 10 cents on raw leaf, tobacco is selling to the consumers to-day at a lower price than before. I find by the reports of the department that in 1895-96 the number of tobacco factories of foreign leaf was 27, while only 10 were engaged in the manufacture of domestic leaf. At the end of last year the number of factories engaged on foreign leaf had fallen from 27 to 23, but on the other hand, the number of domestic and mixed tobacco had increased from 10 to 30. And that is the result in the number of pounds manufactured ?
In 1895-6, under the Conservative regime, we manufactured 9,609,184 pounds of foreign leaf tobacco, that is to say almost all the whole consumption was of foreign leaf tobacco. In fact we only manufactured and consumed in that year 474,205 pounds of Canadian tobacco. Now I am glad to inform our friends opposite that this policy has been so fruitful and has produced such good results that to-day, instead of consuming 9,000,000 pounds of foreign leaf tobacco, we manufactured last year 7,726,316 pounds ; and instead of consuming only 500,000 ponds of Canadian leaf, I am glad to announce to the House that last year we consumed nearly 5,000,000 pounds of Canadian leaf tobacco, or to be more exact, 4,921,181 pounds. So Canadian leaf has practically displaced foreign leaf, and that result, I claim, is entirely due to the progressive policy of this government.
Mr. MONK, I would like to ask the minister at this point if it is the intention of the government this year to reintroduce the law against contracts made by the American tobacco trust, which law was introduced last year and then dropped ?


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: That has nothing to do with the subject under discussion, but I may tell my hon. friend that the question 155
he has raised is now engaging my attention, and I expect that before long these exclusive contracts will entirely disappear. Well, at all events we claim that the policy of this government has displaced in this country the use of foreign leaf to the benefit of our farmers and Canadian manufacturers. While our hon. friends opposite were in power they were asked year after year to come to the rescue of the Canadian farmer; year after year they were petitioned to give the farmers a little of that protection which they were willing to give, so lavishly to other industries. They were willing to give protection to industries relying for their raw material on imports from the United States and other countries. Why did they not give some protection to those Canadian industries which relied on Canadian raw material ? Why did they compel those industries to rely on foreign raw material when we could have built up; industries relying on Canadian raw material ?


David Henderson: I would like to ask the minister a question. I notice among the tariff changes that the duty is increased on woollen goods that are made from imported materials and not increased on woollen goods that are made from Canadian wool. I would like to know how the minister can justify that distinction? He is arguing in one way and acting in another.


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: I am dealing with the question of tobacco just now ; I will be glad later on to take up the question to which my hon. friend has drawn my attention. But I may say that the point he tries to make in ho way invalidates my argument. I have proved that the policy of his friends when they were in power tended to refuse protection to Canadian farmers ; whereas we have to-day given protection to our Canadian farmers and have produced the results I have just pointed out. But that is not all. Not only have we come to the rescue of the Canadian farmer in that respect, but we have also done much for the Canadian consumer, as I will prove. I find by the figures which have been handed to me; that the consumer pays to-day less for his tobacco than he was paying in former years, that the fishermen of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are paying today less for their tobacco than they were paying before the change in the tariff. In 1895-6, the Canadian consumer was paying for the foreign plug chewing tobacco eighty-one cents a pound ; to-day he is paying for the same tobacco, a Canadian tobacco, just as good as that made from foreign leaf, if not better-he is paying to-day fifty-three cents a pound instead of eighty-one cents. For plug smoking tobacco he pays to-day fifty cents a pound whereas he was paying eighty cents under the regime of hon. gentlemen opposite. For cut smoking tobacco the Canadian consumer is paying to-day forty-six cents a pound, while under the



beneficial regime of hon. gentlemen opposite be was paying ninety-six cents or $1 for foreign leaf tobacco. So we find that in these three kinds of tobacco the consumer is paying to-day fifty, sixty and' sometimes seventy per cent less than he was paying under the Conservative regime. Not only have we succeeded in replacing foreign to-tacco by Canadian tobacco, but we are giving the consumer to-day a better tobacco and at a lesser price.


David Henderson: May I ask the hon. minister if he smokes ?


Mr.   BRODETJR@: I do not smoke, but I do not think my hon. friend will dispute these figures. Will he undertake to dispute these figures ?


David Henderson: Most assuredly.


Mr.   BRODETJR@: He cannot do it, because they are absolutely correct. Now, Mr. Speaker, I think I have shown that the policy of this government has been beneficial to the farmers, particularly during these latter years.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Before the hon. gentleman leaves that subject, I would like to ask him about the petition presented by the tobacco growers of the province of Quebec that the excise stamps should all be of the same colour, inasmuch as the green stamp does harm to the sale of the Canadian grown tobacco. What is going to be done about that petition ? Are we going to have stamps of a uniform colour ?


Mr.   BRODETJR@: My hon. friend's question would draw me far away from the subject I am now discussing, nevertheless X may tell him that this complaint about stamps existed when his own friends were in power, and they were never able to mature any plan to remedy the evil. But I rriay say that I am now considering seriously this question and am having reports made by my officers, and I hope that before long I will be able to do something which will satisfy the tobacco growers of Canada.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I do not wish toi discuss much further the questions at issue in this debate. The issue between both parties is now well established. We have on one side persons asking for what I may call a trust tariff, and on the other side we have a government who desire to maintain a people's tariff. A trust tariff is against a people's tariff. Hon. gentlemen opposite want to establish trusts and combines in this country. We want, on the contrary, to have a tariff framed in the interest of the country, in the interest of the people, for the people alone and not for the trusts and combines. A tariff should be based not on theories but it should be framed with regard to practical exigencies and circumstances. That is the policy of this government in every instance, where we find that some legitimate indus-Mr. BRODETJR.
tries are suffering, these industries will be sure to get relief from this government. We are not going to create combines or trusts but what we want is to give fair aid and protection to legitimate industries. That is the policy of the Canadian government and we are willing to stand by that policy. I may say the tariff changes which were brought down some days ago have given entire satisfaction to the people of this country. Our hon. friends opposite are a little bit disheartened as a result of these changes in the tariff. We are glad to see that these changes ai'e meeting with the general approbation of the people. We are glad to see that men who at one time were not very friendly to this government are now willing to trust this government because of what we have done. We are satisfied with what we have done but our work is not finished and we will be glad to work to the end for the advantage of the people of this country.


Mr. A. E. KEMP (East Toronto).: 'Mr. Speaker, the hon. Minister of Inland Revenue (Mr. Brodeur), it seems to me in the latter part of his speech took a different ground in regard to the tariff from that which he took in the earlier part of his remarks. If I understood him correctly he explained to the House how that paying an extra duty on tobacco had not been the means of raising the price of tobacco to the consumers but that on the other hand the price of tobacco had been reduced. If I understood his remarks in the earlier part of his speech correctly I understood him to say that if the government put on extra duty on articles generally according to what we propose on this side of the House, the money would go in the hands of the manufacturers and the prices of these articles would be enhanced. It may suit the hon. gentleman to make that argument in regard to tobacco but surely the rule in regard to other things must work the same as it does in regard to tobacco. The present government, as I understood, had not increased the duties on farm products to any greater extent than those duties were when they came into power but they have, I think, reduced the duties somewhat on wheat and flour. The hon. gentleman referred in his opening remarks to the observations made by my hon. friend from Lambton (Mr. Armstrong) in regard to the oil duties. I shall not detain the House by engaging in any lengthy discussion on that point because the ground has been so fully covered by my hon. friend from Lambton. However, there is one thing I would like to add and it is that it seems to me that the government have tremendous confidence in this great corporation known as the Standard Oil Company. If they realize their most sanguine expectations all right, but we know what the history of the Standard Oil Company is and while I do not want to have anything to say prejudical to any great corporation from my position in this House,

I wish to say that the Standard Oil Company's reputation for keeping agreements which they do not make in black and white is not the best in the United States and I would warn the government to be on their guard in regard to the promises which the Standard Oil Company have made them in connection with the reduction of the oil duty. The hon. Minister of Inland Revenue used what I might term an elementary argument in regard to the cost of collecting the revenue of this country. I noticed that he brought a blush to the face of the hon. the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) when he referred to the tremendous economy which that hon. minister's department is displaying in collecting the revenues of this country. It seemed to me, I repeat, that this was a very elementary argument. It is the same argument that applies to most businesses where the output is increased and the running expenses on the percentage basis are less. If the revenue of this country jumped up a few millions of dollars it would take that much less on the percentage basis to collect it, the same as when a man's turnover in business runs up to a million dollars when it was only half a million before, his running expenses are so much less.
I was a little surprised that the hon. gentleman would use such an argument in this House. He also referred to the decrease in the debt and I propose a little later on to take up that question. I will not deal with that just now. He also referred to the question of our balance of trade with the United States and he demonstrated by the figures which he produced to the House that in reality there was no balance of trade in favour of the United States. I could not follow his argument very closely but I think that the figures which I shall produce later on will show that he was in error in respect to that question also. Then he referred to the question of hay. He mentioned the fact that we are now exporting to Great .Britain a considerable amount of hay and I understood him to say that it was because of our commercial policy with Great Britain which had been brought about by the present government and which was not in effect heretofore that this unexampled exportation of hay to Great Britain had been brought about. I fail to see how he works this out. I cannot see what these hon. gentlemen have done to make a commercial treaty with Great Britain, or to alter the conditions as they existed under the previous administration. If in return for the preference which they gave to Great Britain they had obtained a preference for our agricultural products I think his argument would have been well founded but as they did not succeed in getting any preference I cannot understand on what he bases that argument. It seems to me that the market gardeners' question was a rather delicate one for him and I take it for granted that 1554
in the magnificent and beautiful county of Kouville there are no market gardeners.
I think if there had been the hon. gentleman would not have dealt with that question which my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk) raised in reference to the tariff. But Sir, the hon. gentleman spent a good deal of time in discussing the question of hay. We all know that in that part of the province of Quebec which the hon. gentleman has the honour of representing in this House there has been in the past and there is to-day produced from the farms a tremendous amount of hay and that several years ago and further hack than that even the people in that part of the country sent their hay to the United States. The hon. gentleman, in discussing this matter, dealt with other agricultural products and he was trying to show that in regard to special articles of agriculture in regard to which we had a surplus production the balance of trade was not against this country and that hay was one of these articles. I am informed, and the hon. gentleman will correct me if the statements which I make are not absolutely right, that he, in years gone by, talked a good deal throughout the province of Quebec previous to and during election campaigns about what the members of the present administration, if they came into power, would do in regard to these agricultural products, not only in regard to hay, but in regard to eggs, grain, animals, and all those things which are the product of the farm and which were being exported to the United States.
When the Liberals were in opposition, they pledged themselves to make a treaty with the United States under which these articles would be admitted free of duty into that country and they held that by a mere stroke of the pen they could have accomplished this object. Well, the United States duty on hay was $2 a ton in these days, and when the Liberals came to power the Americans, to show there was no ill-feeling, raised that duty to $4 a ton. Notwithstanding all the coquetting of the Liberals with the authorities at Washington, the United States has raised up higher trade barriers against us, than ever before. The Minister of Inland Revenue told us that were it not for the Conservatives in the House of Commons and the Senate, the Yukon Railway would have been built, and we could now send Canadian products into the Yukon. I would like to have the minister elaborate this argument somewhat. I would like to have him explain in what way the conditions would be different and how we would be enabled through this railway had it been built to send Canadian hay to the Yukon. He would have to demonstrate that if we had a railway the freight rates would be less than they are at present, and

I think he would fail in that. We have bonding privileges over the narrow strip at Skagway, and the freight rates are to-day less than they could possibly have been over this railway, for while we had the treaty right to navigate up the Skeena river, we had no right to stop along the shore to get fuel for our steamers, and in this we would be handicapped, but more than that by the existing route we have the advantage of the long water haul to Skagway whilst by the route the hon. gentleman speaks of we would have had a more difficult route composed of part river, lake, rail, &c. We now have access to the Yukon over foreign territory, and the only way we could be interfered with would be by the United States abrogating the bonding privileges which exist there ; in their own interests I do not think they are likely to do that. The hon. gentleman seems to forget, that if there was a higher duty on some agricultural products, then the Yukon and contiguous territory might be supplied from the fertile region of Alberta and the agricultural districts of British Columbia. If that were so, we could com-f pete with the American products which now find their way into that territory. Yesterday in discussing the question of protection, the Prime Minister was rather severe on the opposition, and he made statements which to my mind were not warranted by the facts, the policy of protection was adopted by this country in 1878. It was fathered by the Conservative party and so far as I know, the Conservative party has never changed its mind on that policy. It is no easy thing to administer a protective tariff in a country which previous to its adoption, had a policy of free trade, or a revenue tariff policy. The conditions in this country were peculiar at that time. We had only recently completed confederation ; the country was not so strong or so prosperous as it is to-day ; some of the provinces had come into confederation unwillingly it is said, and taking it all in all, the Conservative party had great difficulty in putting into force and carrying out the National Policy. Yesterday, the Prime Minister referred to the strikes and industrial commotion which have existed in the United States, and he said :
In Canada you have hope abundant and contentment ; in the United States you have dejection and almost despair.
Well, I think the right hon. gentleman has exaggerated the conditions in the United States. I visit the United States quite frequently, and I have not noticed any such conditions as the Prime Minister has spoken of, nor has my reading led me to think that such is the case. The right hon. gentleman seems to be under the impression that the Conservative party of Canada seek to adopt the United States tariff. I may Mr. KEMP.
tell the right hon. gentleman, that I have never heard such a thing argued from this side of the House.


David Henderson: Never.	'


Albert Edward Kemp: treating us by shutting out our products. And in the session of 1901 the leader of the opposition introduced a resolution, a part of which had reference to the German surtax. In the speeches delivered on this resolution Germany was directly referred to, and there can be no doubt that the leader of the opposition was the originator of the policy of the German surtax. Let me read a part of the resolution dealing with this matter which was moved by the leader of the opposition in the session of 1901 :
This House is further of opinion that equivalent or adequate duties should be imposed by Canada upon the products and manufactures of countries not within the empire in all cases where such countries fail to admit Canadian products and manufactures upon fair terms, and that the government should take for this purpose all such available measures as may be found necessary.
Hon. gentlemen opposite, however, voted that down, and in voting it down they voted down the German surtax. And all through 1901 and 1902 appeals were continually being made to the government to do something in order to get even with Germany. I think, consequently, it is only due to the House that this information regarding the German surtax should be placed before it.
In budget debates there are two questions which seem always to come to the front. These are the question of expenditure and the question of the tariff. I should like for a moment or two to deal with the question of expenditure, and I would like to discuss the statement which the Finance Minister made to this House regarding surpluses. In this connection I would put my hon. friend in the position of a president of a financial corporation. He is a man whose word in regard to the finances of the Dominion is taken all over this country. When he makes a statement people believe it to be true, and why should they doubt it ? When he tells us that he has so much revenue, that his expenditure is so much, and his surplus is so much, they take such statements as what the same terms would mean when used by the manager of a business corporation. My hon. friend said :
Our last session of parliament was so protracted that before the close we were able to have presented to the House the outlines of the condition of the finances of the Dominion for the year which had then recently closed, and since then the public accounts have been laid on the table, so that only a passing allusion is needed to the finances of the year which ended on the 30th June, 1903. My estimate for the revenue of that year was $65,000,000. The actual revenue was $66,037,068.93, an increase of revenue beyond my estimate of $1,037,068.93. The estimate of the expenditure proved to be a very close one. The estimate was $51,650,000. The actual expenditure of the year was $51,691,902.76, being an increase of expenditure over the amount which I ventured to speak of in my anticipa-Mr. KEMP.
tions in the last budget to the extent of $41,902.76. I estimated that we would probably have on the operations of the year a surplus of $13,350,000. The out-turn of the year gave us a surplus of $14,345,166.17.
There can be no doubt in the mind of any one who is familiar with figures as to what that means. It means that the Finance Minister had a surplus of $14,345,176 in 1903, and that he expected a surplus of $16,500,000 in 1904. What I would like to know from this government is why they are taking $16,500,000 out of the pockets of the people which they do not require ? Why have they this surplus ? Why is it necessary for them to take this money from the people? When we look back and realize that the revenue in 1870 was but $15,520,225, we can have some idea of the tremendous amount of money which is being taken from the people without necessity. But my hon. friend the Finance Minister went on to boast of his surpluses, and it seems to me very strange that he should do so. He went on to show that in the eight years, since 1896, the present government have had a total net surplus of $57,880,091.92. That, it seems to me, is not a matter of which this government ougnt to be proud.
When he got to the question of the coal oil duties, he told the people he was going to save them a net amount-deducting the amount he was going to pay as a bounty on oil-of $390,097, providing, of course, the Standard Oil Company will do exactly as he supposes it will, which may be open to some doubt, and provided further that the same number of gallons which was consumed last year will likewise be consumed this year, namely, 25,755,450. Should this large quantity be consumed, he will save this infinitesimal amount, considering the tremendous figures we have before us, of $390,097. But what is the situation ? What would the people say if the Minister of Finance introduced a Bill for the purpose of raising revenue and put a direct tax of 64 cents on every gallon of oil people consumed ? And if he were enabled to carry out a policy of that kind, he would tax the people $16,483,588, or about the amount of the surplus he has to the end of 30th of June, 1904. That is his exact position. Take his own words. He, of course would not juggle with figures, and the people believe that any statement he makes is correct.' Well, he has $16,500,000 more than he needs, which he is taking out of the people, and therefore it is about time that instead of boasting of these things the government should endeavour to relieve the people of that burthen. It seems to me that the Finance Minister, with all his ability, should ever keep in view' the idea of every Finance Minister, namely, making the revenue and expenditure as nearly as possible balance. But that never seems to have entered the hon. gentleman's mind. It seems to me that it would be better to have occasionally a sligh deficit in our finances

than to go on taking such an enormous sum out of the pockets of the people.
Then, Sir, we were told, in regard to the debt of this country, that, at the end of the fiscal year, if the estimate of the Minister of Finance turned out to be absolutely correct our national debt would be $1,084,993.66 less than it was when the Liberals came into power in 1896. Now, that is a most remarkable statement also. I would like to read to the House a short table that I have prepared contrasting the revenue received during the last eight years of the Conservative government with that of the eight years of Liberal government:



[Stage Direction]
8 years of Conservative rule.
1889		$38,782,870
1890		 39,879,925
1891		 38,579,311
1892		 36,921,872
1893		 38,208,609
1894		 36,374,883
1895		 33,978,129
1896		 36,618,591
[Stage Direction]
8 years of Liberal rule.
1897		$37,829,778
1898			40,556,510
1899		 46,743,103
1900		 51,031,467
1901		 52,516,333	-
1902		 58,042,333
1903		 66,037,068
1904		 71,000,000
[Stage Direction]
Revenue for 8 years of Liberal government	$423,756,592
Revenue for 8 years of Conservative	v
government	 299,344,190
t	$124,412,402
During the 8 years of Liberal rule, $124,412,402 has been taken from the people, in excess of what the Conservative government took during the last eight years of then-government.
Revenue for 1895	$33,978,129
Revenue for 1896	 36,618,590
Average for two years	$35,298,359
The revenue which the Liberal government have taken from the people, for the year ending June 30th, 1904, therefore, is more than double the average revenue taken from the people for the last two years of the Conservative regime.
In connection with this question of the debt, this extra amount of $124,412,404 which the Liberal administration have taken from the people is to be considered. The minister has said that, if his estimate is realized the debt will be $1,084,993.66 less than it was when the Liberals came into power. This is but a poor showing considering the immense amount of money that they have taken from the people in excess of what the Conservatives took during the last eight years of their regime.
But is this a complete statement of our debt that the Minister of Finance has given us ? Have we all the figures so that we may fairly estimate what our liabilities are ? It seems to me that this government has done what occasionally men in business and sometimes men out of business do ; they have become endorsers ; they have followed very largely a method, which they may be credited with having inaugurated, of pledging the public credit in connection with various enterprises instead of paying out money from the treasury of becoming endorsers. In his financial statement the Minister of Finance has done a thing which some foolish business men do, who, when they endorse a note for a friend, take no account of it, but forget all about it. He has not brought down and placed before us any record of the guarantees which this government has given with respect to various enterprises. If the hon. gentleman were in his place I would like to ask him what kind of book-keeping that is. Should we not have in the annual financial statement, a full account of the guarantees for which this government are liable. Are they not in the books of the department ? They must be, and we ought to have a record of them. Our financial statement ought to cover all our indirect as well as our direct liabilities.	The railway subsidies
voted last year amounted to $13,500,000 as a minimum and $18,000,000 as a maximum. This is a liability which should appear in our statement somewhere or other. We have guaranteed the bonds of the Canadian Northern Railway Company to the amount of $10,010,000.' Then, there was the obligation we entered into in connection with the Quebec bridge, $6,678,200. We guaranteed the Montreal Harbour bonds to the amount of $3,000,000 and now there is talk, from time to time, of the government assuming this whole Montreal Harbour debt. Then, there is the tremendous obligation that this government have made the country liable for in the Grand Trunk Pacific scheme, which may be $150,000,000 or may be $170,000,000. We do not know yet what the amount of the obligation to which the country will be made liable this session will be ; but I think we are safe in saying that the country will consider itself lucky if, at the end of this session its real indebtedness, instead of showing a reduction of $1,000,000 or so, as the Minister of Finance has estimated, is not actually double what is shown in our statements of the net debt.
In connection with the boasts of hon. gentlemen opposite that they have a buoyant revenue there are a few remarks to be made. We have a revenue tariff, and hon. gentlemen opposite take pride in saying that it is a good revenue producer. It is. But, in practice, it is found to be too high for a revenue tariff and too low for a protective tariff. It
[Stage Direction]
produces too much revenue and it does not sufficiently protect Canadian industries. Now, we are sometimes charged in this House with not criticising the estimates sufficiently. I think we on this side criticise the estimates, and take a good deal of interest in evel'y item. It is very seldom that the government will consent to reduce any vote. They are responsible to the people and to this House for their action. I feel satisfied that we spend a great deal more money than there is any necessity for. In this connection I would draw attention to a letter from the hon. member from Victoria, N.S. (Hon. Wm. Ross) in regard to what he has done for his constituents :
Editor ' Herald '.-I think it but fair that the people of Victoria should have some idea of the amount of money spent, and to be spent, in Victoria :
Black Rock, boat harbour	$	500
Boularderie Centre wharf	 5,600
Englishtown wharf	 5,400
Green Cove boat harbour	 6,600
Iona wharf	 6,000
Neil's harbour breakwater	16,600
Nyanza wharf	 1,500
St. Ann South Gut wharf	 1,300
Protection to St. Ann's beach	  1,750
Little Narrows Big Pond wharf	 2,000
Kempt Head wharf	 5,950
Little Narrows boat harbour at Big
Pond	 1,000
North River, St. Ann's, Seymour Point
wharf	 2,000
Telegraph line, Meat Cove to	Ingonish. 2,500
Telegraph line, Dingwell to Meat Cove. 600
North Ingonish breakwater	 27,250
Big Harbour, Port Bevis wharf	 3,700
Boularderie Centre wharf, to complete
approach	 670
Breton Cove boat landing	 4,600
Iona extension of wharf	 5,000
McKay's Point wharf	 6,000
Middle River, protection to river channel	   2,400
North Gut, St. Ann's wharf, at Morrison's Point	 2,000
North River, St. Ann's, repairs to wharf. 900 South Gut, St. Ann's, repairs to top of
wharf	 500
Protection to Ingonish breakwater.. .. 1,750 Lower Washabuck beach protection ..	400
Telegraph line from Big Bras d'Or to Upper Kempt Head, Boularderie island, with telegraph station at Boularderie Centre, Ross' Ferry and Upper
Kempt Head	 2,000
A daily mail from Baddeck to Englishtown ; a tri-weekly mail from Baddeck to Baddeck Forks ; also a tri-weekly mail for the districts of Oona and Washabuck.
You will see, Mr. Editor, that the above figures will prove that I have not been asleep in the interests of my constituents in Victoria.
Now this is a letter which the hon. member for Victoria, N.S. (Hon. Mr. Ross) sent to his constituents, giving details of an expenditure of no less a sum than §113,000 spent for various purposes in his constituency; and when I remind the House that the
Albert Edward Kemp: population of Victoria is only 10,571 souls, and that the total vote cast in the last election were only 1,857, I think the hon. member will come to the conclusion that this reckless way of spending money in that constituency cannot be justified. To use a well-known expression, that is what the government is ' up against ' in consequence of their tremendous revenue and surpluses. They, invite demands from all quarters.


Mr. ALEX. JOHNSTON.: The very question the hon. gentleman is now discussing was introduced by a speaker last evening, and he was asked whether he was opposed to any of the items in that list. I repeat that question to-night, and I ask the hon. member for Toronto (Mr. Kemp) whether he is preparel to indicate any particular item there which he regards as unnecessary.
iMr. KEMP. In this list to which I refer ?


Alexander Johnston: Yes.


Albert Edward Kemp: I cannot say, Mr. Speaker, whether I am opposed to these items or not, because I have not sufficiently studied them. I presume if I went over them carefully I would find a good many that I would be opposed to. I do not believe that the Postmaster General can justify that sort of expenditure.


Hon.   S@: The hon. gentleman was a member of this House last session when parliament voted these various moneys. Did he on that occasion object to any or all of them ?


Albert Edward Kemp: Well, I will take occasion to look up the ' Hansard ' and see exactly what observations I did make in regard to these various items. The Postmaster General says that this money was voted last session. I did not say that, but I presume it must have been voted last session if he says so.


William Mulock: Or during the preceding session.


Albert Edward Kemp: I say the amount of money thus expended is altogether absurd and ridiculous. The tendency is for members to get these amounts voted, and what is the object ? Surely it must be to influence elections in their favour. But I say that this sort of thing invites unnecessary demands from various quarters, it invites wire pullers to come to this government for all sorts of concessions. In the old days the hon. member for Victoria (Mr. Ross) was a member of the administration of the late Alexander Mackenzie, who was represented as sitting on the government trea-: sury box with a gun in his hand to keep off all kinds of adventurers who wanted to rob it; therefore I am surprised that the hon. member for Victoria should himself

support a policy of this kind. It seems to me it would have been better for him not to have written that letter and refer to these matters in the way he did. Now, Sir, these gentlemen in years gone by talked a good deal about reducing the expenditure. The Prime Minister was going to reduce it by two or three million dollars a year. It would be unreasonable for me to pretend that any such reduction could be made, that the yearly expenditure of this country could be reduced by two or three million dollars less than it was in the Conservative regime. But I do say this, I say it to the Postmaster General, to the Minister of Customs, and others who used to preach economy so loudly, that these tremendous amounts of money, these surpluses they boast of, they have no right to take out of the pockets of, the people, and the people will hold them to account for it.


William Mulock: Does the hou. gentleman favour lowering the tariff 1


Albert Edward Kemp: I am in favour of adjusting the tariff in such a way that it will not produce such an enormous revenue. If you shut out foreign goods whenever you raise the tariff, you do not get so much revenue, and at the same time you preserve the market for goods manufactured in Canada. That is my position.


William Mulock: And you put money in the pocket of the manufacturers instead.


Albert Edward Kemp: Well, that is the old argument of the Postmaster General, but it is not supported by the theory of the Minister of Inland Revenue, who told us that since the duty was raised on tobacco it had been cheaper.


Sif WILLIAM MULOCK.: There is competition in that case.


Albert Edward Kemp: It seems to me that there are enough wise ways of expending public money in this country. There are some things that we require to spend money upon, for instance the St. Lawrence route. Can we not do something to stop these frightful wrecks that are taking place in the gulf and the lower St. Lawrence ? And if we go a little beyond our jurisdiction, can we not spend some money on the coast of Newfoundland when we have this buoyant revenue ? Then there are the Canadian lakes which they say are not as safe for navigators as they are on the American side. Then there is the question of coast defence. These are matters which might well receive the attention of the government. I think we might expend more money on these things and less upon little bits of harbours and breakwaters in some small constituency of 10,000 people such as the government are doing.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to review the attitude of some hon. gentlemen on the
other side of the House at the present time in regard to this question of protection. I have in my mind the attitude of the hon. member for South Brant (Mr. Heyd) and the attitude of the hon. member for South Ontario (Mr. Ross) at the present moment ; and it seemed to me when the Minister of Inland Revenue was talking that he was very much in the same category as these hon. gentlemen. He was willing to put more duty on an article that he was familiar with and which might be grown in the part of the country where he lived, but he was not in favour of a general revision, for a general revision, I presume, effects members of this House in most all the constituencies. From time to time we have had theories put forward in this House as to what a tariff should be and what it should not be. I hold in my hand five pamphlets, campaign documents that hon. gentlemen opposite are sending out by the carload, I presume, because I suppose they want to cover the whole country. Here are two of them with photographs of the Prime Minister. One is entitled * * Seven years of Liberal administration '; another, Record of the Liberal government '; another, ' Wise expenditure and unprecedented progress ; another, ' Can the farmer be protected ? ' another, ' The tariff issue in Canada.' Now these are campaign documents that are going out, and they represent the policy, of hon. gentlemen opposite. In looking over one of these pamphlets I see this at the very outset :
It is important that the people of Canada should know exactly how the political parties stand with respect to the tariff.
Turning over to the last page I see this :
The Liberal policy is directly opposed to the policy of protection. The Conservative papers and politicians recognize this and vilify Messrs. Sifton and Fielding and Fisher and other ministers who have prominently championed the consumers	No matter what
individuals may say, the two parties stand distinctly divided on the tariff, the Liberals for low tariff, the Conservatives for high tariff, and any voter who is interested in tariff matters can therefore have no difficulty in expressing his opinion at the poll.
These are recent productions of hon. gentlemen opposite. No two meanings can be taken from statements of that kind. Now the hon. member for South Brant told us in this House what his views on protection are. I want to read just a few lines from a statement he made in discussing the budget on March 10, 1902, page 1457 of 'Hansard.' Referring to the cutlery industry he said :
It is an industry that is made up entirely of Canadian labour, because 14 cents worth of raw material, after Canadian labour and Canadian intelligence is expended upon it, is converted into $8.50 worth of finished razors. That is the kind of industry we ought to en-

courage in this country. A dozen shears worth $6.12 in the open market are made out of raw material that only costs 78 cents. It is too late to talk to these men after their industry is stifled. It is no use to tell them then that stability of the tariff is a desirable thing. I recognize that stability of the tariff is a good thing ; but there is no use offering a stone to a man who is hungry or a straw to a man who is drowning. These men want to be protected now, not after their industry is stifled ; and in these particular lines, I think the government might well listen to the plea that has been made.
The claim made by the carriage men

Take particular note of this :
The claim made by the carriage men is also one entitled to consideration. They do not ask for more protection ; they simply ask for the Canadian market. They want the valuation of a slop-made buggy increased to $50, so as to prevent the country being overrun with a quality of buggy that is of no use to the purchaser and is likely to injure an industry capable of conferring great benefit on the people of this country.
That is the statement made in 1902 by the hon. member for South Brant.


James Clancy: Surely not the present hon. member for South B rant.


Albert Edward Kemp: Yes, he said that. That hon. gentleman in discussing the budget this year, after quoting the Liberal platform of 1893, went on to say :
lhat is the policy of the Liberal party, and for the past seven years that policy has been amply justified by its results. All we need do is to compare the conditions of the country today with wbat they were in 1896. Every statement we made on the public platform as to the evil effects of the policy of our friends opposite we have demonstrated.
He referred to the Liberal platform of 1893 and I will not read it, because I am sure the hon. Postmaster General (Sir William Mulock) or the hon. Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) could recite it by heart, they are so familiar with it. Every one knows what the Liberal platform was in regard to the question of protection. The hon. Minister of Finance in 1897, I think it was, said that that was the policy of the Liberal party. We have the campaign literature of the Liberal party. I have referred to my hon. friend from South Ontario (Mr. Boss). I am sorry that neither the hon. member for South Ontario nor the hon. member for South Brant is in his place because I am sure they would be interested in seeing what their position is in regard to protection. The hon. member for South Ontario, speaking in the budget debate in 1901, said :
I have not departed from the principles of free trade, but, as I engage in the business of the country, I try to find out the necessities of the country and see what is best for the country, and, under the circumstances, I have Mr. KEMP.
come to the conclusion, that, if this tariff should be changed at all, it should be changed in the direction of lowering the duties.
Then he went on to say :
I do not mean by that altogether, a changing policy. That seems to be a contradiction, but, it seems to me, that, in looking at the tariff and in studying it, the English tariff is the ideal one. It is a certain tariff continuing for several years, and it is only for revenue.
The hon. member for South Ontario used to sit on this side of the House and we' were all glad to have him near us. He has a very genial disposition and we all thought a great deal of him, as we still think a great deal of him. He moved his seat over near the hon. Minister of Finance and I have wondered when I have seen him engaged in conversation with the hon. Minister of Finance so much recently, what it was all about. When the tariff changes were brought down it could be easily understood. The hon. member for South Brant had two industries in his constituency that took up a great deal of his attention, the cutlery industry and the carriage industry, and the hon. member for South Ontario had a carriage industry in his consituency. This carriage industry has been very much exercised in regard to these slop buggies that were being brought in, and I am sure that great pressure must have been brought to bear to induce the hon. Minister of Finance to go back to the awful condition of affairs that prevailed under the old administration or to recognize specific duties. But the hon. member for South Ontario has the credit no doubt of having to some extent influenced the present government to go back to those conditions and to introj-duce again specific duties. They have done it in regard to buggies because we have it that the hon. Minister of Finance is going to make the duty on an open buggy $14 and on a covered buggy $17.50. It does not make any difference what it costs, the value is put at $40 for an open buggy, and $50 for a covered buggy. I can very well understand the difficulty that the hon. Minister of Finance was in when he was urged to take this action and I am sure that the hon. Minister of Customs must have been very much worried in reference to this application to have the duty on buggies increased. When these gentlemen came to them and said that they must have increased duties because these carriages were produced so cheaply in the United States, the hon. Minister of Customs no doubt said : There is a 35 per cent duty on buggies and there never was an ad valorem duty under the old administration of more than 35 per cent. Therefore, we could not make the duty any more than 35 per cent. But, they urged their case strongly and then no doubt a duty was named of 35 per cent with a specific duty of $4 or $5 on each buggy brought in. But, that would look
.4889

like what the Conservatives used to do and they would not be able to do it in that way. Then, these hon. gentlemen no doubt said :	We will inaugurate something new :
we will raise the price of buggies to $40 and $50 for the purpose of customs. Let us analyse this thing a little farther and see where we land in regard to the question of protection. Thirty-five per cent on an open buggy amounts to $14 and 35 per cent on a covered buggy amounts to $17.50. I do not know what these buggies coming in from the United States cost. These are cheap buggies which are used by the farmers. The hon. member for South Ontario had gone up and down the country and decided that the English tariff was the thing for his constituents. He wanted lower duties. They will, in the United States get $25 for an open buggy, or $35 for a covered buggy. If the price is any more than that the hon. Minister of Customs will be able to tell me ; but if, at any rate, they sell at that price that would mean a duty of 55 per cent on the open buggy and 50 per cent on the covered buggy. I will raise that valuation by $5. Suppose these buggies are worth $30 and $40 in the United States then the protection would be 46 per cent on the open buggy 44 per cent on the covered buggy. I would like to ask hon. gentlemen opposite if that is not the whole policy of the government on this question of protection. Here they come and tell us that they believe in the tariff platform of the Liberal party as laid down in 1893, that they do not believe in the American tariff, that they do not believe in having such a tariff as will produce trusts and yet here is a. tariff that is higher than the American tariff. These hon. gentlemen say one thing one day and another thing another day. They are looking north by south all the time. When the budget was delivered the hon. member for South Brant was just as anxious as he could be to get on his feet. He was the first hon. gentleman on the government side of the House to get up and defend the government in regard to this matter. He had got what he wanted for carriages. He knew the trouble he had had in Brantford in regard to the cutlery industry which is closed up. He knew that the best people in Brantford had invested a lot of money in the cutlery industry. That hon. gentleman during the course of his speech was questioned by my hon. friend from Wentworth (Mr. Smith), who asked him :
How many are employed in the Bailey Cutlery Works ?


Charles Bernhard Heyd: I am very sorry to say there are not many. But when Canada gets big enough to sustain an industry of that kind, such an industry will survive and not till then.
Put that alongside of what he said in 1902. It may be unparliamentary to say that any
hon. member of this House is insincere, but it is not unparliamentary to say that the whole Liberal party is insincere, and I am fairly entitled to take advantage of the privilege to describe them as such in respect to the tariff question. The fact is, that when a government supporter wants to get anything for his constituency, he cares nothing about what the farmer has to pay for his buggy or for anything else, even if it comes to putting on a duty of 50 per cent. I am not exactly sure what is meant by what is called the ' dumping ' clause in the budget speech. Our present law is rather elaborate; the Customs Act is composed of 254 sections ; forty-nine sections were amended m 1888, and year after year every clause almost has been dealt with in some way. We know that the laws of the United States are much more strict than our laws are ry ith regard to under valuation. After giving the matter some thought I take it, that the government intends to amend section 4 of the Customs Act as amended in 1888 by substituting the 'dumping' clause in the resolution, for it. But what evidence of dumping will the government be able to obtain. The ' Globe, ' referring to an editorial in the New York ' Post,' stated that dumped goods did not have the mark of Cain upon them, and I thought that was a very apt allusion. Generally the conditions under which goods are dumped in another country, are, when there is an over production, or -when prices are demoralized, and if such conditions exist in the United States as have been stated by the Prime Minister, then this dumping clause will have no effect. If the manufacturer in the United States sells an article in his own country at a cut price, and if he sells it at the same cut price in Canada, then it cannot be said that he is dumping his goods here. It is my opinion that we should adopt the same system of valuation for duty as is in force in the United States, and then there will be no necessity for this dumping clause. The United States have few ports of entry, whereas we have ports of entry at various points throughout the different provinces, and we will need an expert at each port to tell whether goods are dumped or not. In Montreal and Toronto we require to have experts in prices of all kinds and these men have to be paid large salaries. How are the customs officers throughout the country going to tell the real price of the thousand and one kinds of merchandise that are brought in ? I believe it will be impossible to enforce this law, and I fear that the benefit will not result from it which the government seem to hope. We on this side of the House are in favour of putting an adequate duty on ail kinds of goods so as to protect our home industries, and if the government now in power would adopt that policy, they need not have to resort to all these complicated methods which they constantly seek to devise. The Minister of Finance raised the duties on wool-

lens and I congratulate him on that, but I fear that even now the protection is not sufficient to resuscitate the woollen industry in this country. However, half a loaf is better than no bread. I am glad that the government is returning to the principle of imposing specific duties, because I believe that without specific duties it will be impossible to develop and protect certain industries in this country. I am also glad that the Minister of Inland Revenue has helped the native tobacco industry by the duty which this government has imposed, if the result is as he claims. I am not objecting to these increases of duty ; I am merely pointing out what to my mind are the defects in the fiscal policy of the government. The Minister of Finance told us, that we were likely to have an inquiry into the whole tariff question, but it seems to me that if he were able to arrange the duties on coal oil and buggies and woollens without any investigation, there must be certain other industries which the government know require protection and as to which they did not require an investigation because the needs of these industries have been placed before them again and again by deputations which have come here to wait on the ministers. But some excuse had to be found for postponing the revision of the tariff this session. One year the excuse was given that the revision of the tariff was postponed because of the joint high commission ; another year the excuse was given that it was because the colonial conference was meeting ; another year, it was because of the agitation concerning our trade relations with Great Britain and the colonies, and so this year another excuse had to be found and we are promised an inquiry. I think, however, that I will be able to show from the remarks of the Finance Minister, that he is even yet a little hazy about this matter. This delay is working injury to a lot of our manufacturers. I am hot going to talk blue ruin ; but there are a considerable number of other industries which need assistance just as much as the woollen industry and the carriage industry ; and the problem* could be solved just as easily in those cases as in the others.
The Finance Minister said we might have to change the tariff because of changed conditions in other countries. I do not think that is the way to look at this question. We want a tariff that will be stable, one that will be suitable to this country in all conditions. The conditions in another country may be good or bad, but we do not want to raise or lower our tariff in order to meet ' those conditions we want a tariff that will meet all conditions. If it is all right when trade is poor, it will be all right when trade is better.
The Finance Minister said that the tariff was sufficiently good to induce manufacturers from the United States to settle in this country. I suppose he had in mind the Mr. KEMP.
American Locomotive Company, which has built a factory at Longue Point. I was talking to an officer of high standing in that company a few days ago, and I asked him what induced the company to come to Canada. He said :	' There is a good demand
for locomotives, and the duty on them is 35 per cent; and one reason which influenced them was that they claim they can do more business if located in a British colony with other British colonies than from the United States.' This man had travelled in Russia and in many other parts of the world, and he said that there was something in favour of an article that was made in a British colony. This is an argument in favour of mutual preferential trade between Great Britain and her colonies. In this connection I might point out that the great Westinghouse Electric Company settled in free trade England, and put up buildings on 160 acres of land a short time ago ; and we may well ask why it did that ?
We have been promised a tariff commission. What the Finance Minister said on that subject was this :
We desire to deal with certain things as they present themselves to us to-day we desire to deal with matters of urgency, reserving the question of a more general and more detailed tariff revision until an early date-
I would say hopefully next session, but at all events as soon as a proper inquiry can be made.
The Prime Minister said in regard to that :
Now, Sir, I have exposed the policy of the government upon this occasion. This is not, as has been stated, a regular revision of the tariff. That may come or it may not come, it will depend upon circumstances.
So that those are the remarks of the Finance Minister and of the Prime Minister, there is nothing very definite about the revision of the tariff. It may come or it may not come next session. Therefore, we are in the same position in regard to that as we were before. With us on this side of the House, protection is a constructive principle of politics, and the sooner hon. gentlemen opposite say what they mean by their tariff policy, as they did in regard to their policy of unrestricted reciprocity, the better for this country. We want to give a fair chance to Canadian workmen, Canadian brains and Canadian capital against foreign workmen and foreign capital. We want to say to foreign labour :	You are
protected at home in your own country ; hands off Canadian labour and Canadian capital. I believe it is the duty of this government to see in what way the industries of this country are being injured from time to time by the foreigner, and to say to him. hands off Canada. I do not think we ought to wait to revise the tariff until the chimneys are smokeless or until the win-downs are broken. The government pur-

sued that policy in regard to the cutlery industry in the constituency of my hon. friend from South Brant (Mr. Heyd), also in regard to the woollen industry. I do not think we want a repetition of that sort of thing. The Finance Minister is not what may be called an enthusiastic protectionist; and it seems to me that in order to administer a protective tariff properly, we need a Finance Minister who is an enthusiast on the question of protection. The stock-in-trade of hon. gentlemen opposite is the prosperity of Canada-the tremendous revenues they are rolling up, and the big surpluses they are enabled to show as the result of this buoyant revenue. I think we might well ask the government, what acts are to their credit with which the pleasant occupation of spending money is not connected ? The spending of money is connected with a revision of the tariff. It might cause the government a lot of worry, but nothing to what the old administration had, when it put the protective tariff on the statute-book.
Before taking my seat, I would like to point out the amount of manufacturing done in this country. The Minister of Agriculture, for some reason, changed the mode of taking the census the last time from the mode followed previously, so that shows the condition of the industries somewhat differently. The industrial part of the census taken under this administration in 1901, I regret to say, is not published yet. I have been informed, in answer to a question on the order paper, that the figures are in the Printing Bureau, but we have not them at our disposal. I have the figures, however, and they show that according to the last census the output of the industrial establishments of this country was more than our total imports and exports. Our total exports and imports in 1903 were $467,664,685, and the output of our industries in one year, according to the census, was $481,053,385. I believe, however, that if the output of our industries were taken correctly, including all the products into which motive power enters, it would show that we are producing in our industrial establishments something nearer $750,000,000 annually. According to the census, the amount of capital invested in our industrial establishments was $446,916,487. And yet I heard one gentleman, who knew what he was talking about, say that he believed that three-fourths of the capital employed in our industries in this country was borrowed capital ; so that you would have to add to the sum I have named a tremendous amount. So that we have at stake in this country a tremendous amount of money, takingtogether the capital paid up and the capital borrowed, and it should be the duty of the government to watch carefully these industries. The wages paid amount to $102,984,668 annually. Then we have this tremendous growth of imports from the United States. It has often been pointed out by hon. gentlemen opposite that many of these imports consists of raw materials, but it is not of the imports of raw material that we complain. In 1896 we imported from the United States $29,101,646 worth of dutiable goods and in 1903 dutiable goods to the amount of $68,538,323. Our whole imports from that country are going up by leaps and bounds. I shall not refer to the question of the balance of trade against us in the United States, because that has been threshed out time and again, but I may mention that the balance of trade against this country from ail sources amounts to $10,410,000. This should not be. In the United States the condition is exactly the opposite. There the exports in 1903 amounted to $1,420,141,679 and the imports to $1,025,719,237, leaving a balance of trade in favour of the United States of $394,442,442. The excess of exports went in 1898 as high as $615,432,676.
Here is another illustration of our position. The imports of the United States in 1902 were $11.87 per head, while the imports for the same year in Canada amounted to $38.90 per head. Surely that is evidence of some weight regarding the amount of goods we are importing and the amount we are manufacturing. What we require is a protective policy suitable to the conditions of the country, and we do not want to be hewers of wood or drawers of water either for the United Sates or any other nation in the world.


Mr. HENRI BOURASSA (Labelle).: I do not propose to follow the hon. gentleman through all his criticism of the budget nor is it my intention to call in question the receipts and expenditures or the methods used by the government in spending money. Ever since I have been able to follow the discussion of public affairs, I have found that the usual custom with all governments is to spend as much money as they can and that it is equally the custom of all the oppositions to find fault with such expenditure. The question I propose to consider to-night is simply that of the tariff ; and to my mind the budget brought down by the government this year is the most promising, intelligent and businesslike we have had since the late Sir John Macdonald introduced his protective policy in 1879. Like the budget of that year, the one brought down this year is inspired with the idea of helping Canadian trade and industry without any regard to outside circumstances, except in so far as they can affect Canadian business. That the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat (Mr. Kemp) and his colleagues on his side should criticise the budget is only natural ; and I shall only refer to their criticisms to show the weakness of the ground on which they stand. For instance my hon. friend from Toronto (Mr. Kemp) has just told us emphatically that the policy of the Conservative party is not to copy that of the United States on the tariff question. But the chief organ of that

party in the province of Quebec has been giving as the Tory platform-


Albert Edward Kemp: What I did say was that we do not propose to copy the American tariff.


Joseph Henri Napoléon Bourassa: Exactly.


Albert Edward Kemp: I think the hon. gentleman said the American policy.


Joseph Henri Napoléon Bourassa: X am glad my hon. friend has repeated what he has said, because what the Montreal ' Star ' has been urging the Conservative party to force this government to do is to adopt the American tariff in our statutes. Not only that ; but a former member of this government, the exMinister of Public Works (Mr. Tarte) left the cabinet and joined to all practical purposes the Conservative party in order to force the Canadian government to adopt the American tariff. These hon. gentlemen have endorsed the attitude of the hon. member for St. Mary's (Mr. Tarte). They have endorsed his speeches and his articles In his newspaper ' La Patrie,' in which every day during the past fifteen months we have had an appeal to the government to adopt the American tariff in order to produce the same results in this country as that tariff has produced in the United States. Well, I repeat that we are ready to take issue with the opposition on this point.
My position on the tariff question is well known. Even before some members of this government and before many members of the Liberal party had come to the conclusion that we needed protection, I declared most clearly and emphatically that I believed a system of moderate protection was required for this country. In the elections of 1890 and again in 1900, and every year since, in parliament, I have advocated a policy of moderate protection suited to the requirements of the trade and industry in Canada. On that ground I am still standing, as far apart from the present position of the Conservative party which is asking us to copy the policy of the United States as I was apart from the policy of the Liberal party when many of them wanted the government to copy the policy of England. What I desire is that we should not go outside our own borders to borrow a policy. What I desire is that we should not go to England or the United States for lessons in political economy ; or rather, there is one lesson we should learn from them, and it is that we should have a policy of our own, suited to our own needs. The budget of this year is the most comprehensive and sincere realization of that wish.
The hon. member (Mr. I4emp) disputes the fact that there has been depression in the United States under a high protective tariff ; but what have we heard for the two last years from Conservative speakers ? They have been preaching to us that we should raise our tariff in Canada because before long the depression in the United States will Mr. BOURASSA.
be such that a higher tariff will be the only way in which we can save our own industry. Only last year the hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Osier) urged the government to increase the duties on steel and iron because the condition of the steel and iron trade in the United States was coming to such a point of depression that it would be impossible for the steel industry in Canada to stand the competition. Sir, I think that the government have taken the only proper way to meet the danger of dumping from the United States and Germany. Certainly so far as the tariff of this year is concerned,
I hail it with the greatest satisfaction and congratulate the hon. the Minister of Finance on the means he has taken to prevent Canadian trade and industry from being interfered with by unfair competition from foreign countries on that ground.
1 cannot refrain from recalling my first address to this House on tariff questions-I think it was in 1898. On that occasion 1 caused a good deal of scandal amongst my hon. friends on this side by making exactly the same arguments that have been used this year by the Finance Minister as to the disadvantage to the Canadian consumer, resulting from dumping by foreign countries. I am glad that at last the government have opened their eyes to the danger and have adopted a policy which, on the one hand, does not commit us to the heresies of the Conservative party7 and cause us to fall into the excesses of high tariff, and thereby into the state of depression that exists in the United States-and yet, on the other hand, will protect Canadian industry against exceptional cheap prices, the only object of which is to destroy Canadian industry and leave us entirely at the mercy of the combines in the United States. Now, the hon. member says that there will be difficulty in exercising the power that we are asked to put into the hands of the hon. Minister of Customs. Un doubtedly there will be difficulty. There are difficulties in applying the present tariff. Every day attempts are made by the importers of this country to deceive the officials of the minister as to the value of the articles imported under the scale of duties now in force. But, Sir, merely because there are difficulties in the way, merely because there will be attempts to defraud the treasury of this country and to evade the obligations of the law, is that any reason why we should not adopt a suitable law and take the proper means to protect Canadian trade and Canadian industry against unfair competition V Should hon. gentlemen opposite come into power and adopt a high tariff, such as they say is required by Canadian trade, does the hon. member for East Toronto (Mr. I-Cemp) believe for a moment that there will be no attempt on the part of importers to evade the duties Y The higher the tariff the greater the efforts that are made to evade the duties. Highly protected countries are always more subject than low tariff countries to attempts

to defraud the treasury and evade the customs duties. In adopting this proposed amendment, the government have taken a course which will make us an example to many other countries that are suffering from the same evil that we complain of. And, at the same time, it will be a warning to the manufacturers and traders of foreign countries and to their agents in Canada that we do not want to stand any more unfair competition.
As to the amendments that are made in the tariff this year, I do not intend to discuss them at great length. So far as the amendments proposed toy the Minister of Finance to the preferential trade system, I may say, without entering into details, that I am amply satisfied with them, not so much Decause of the particular effects of these amendments upon special industries, but because this is the first step taken by this government within the last five years to destroy the legend that has grown up in this country that the preferential tariff is something sacred, something that belongs to the shrine of imperialism, which cannot be touched, and which the government must not attempt to amend. The government have come back to the spirit in which that legislation was introduced in 1897, that is, that the preferential tariff was adopted for the benefit of the people of Canada, especially for the benefit of the consumers of Canada, and that it is to be dealt with by this parliament in the interests of the people of this country, as circumstances may require from year to year.
I admit that, from the declarations made by the Minister of Finance last year, we might have expected more changes in the preferential tariff than those which have been proposed by the government. In fact, Mr. Chamberlain himself told the people of England last fall that the Minister of Finance of Canada had virtually announced that he was going to repeal the preferential clause in case the British government and the British people were not prepared to meet us with equally favourable treatment. However, I entirely approve of the government for not having made more changes at the present time in the preferential tariff since they have made the announcement that a general revision of the tariff is to take place before long.
So far as the general revision is concerned, I may say that I am also fully satisfied with the broad lines that have been given by the Minister of Finance as to the principle upon which that revision is to take place. Hon. gentlemen on the other side have criticised the idea of appointing a commission to look into the details of that revision. I entirely differ from the opposition on that point -although I am sure I am far from believing, on general principles, in government by commission. Where questions of policy, of law or of constitutional principle, are concerned, I believe it is the duty of this parliament
to deal with them without invoking outside interference or help to prepare the work. But here is a question of business, which, with a lapse of time and the changes of industry and trade, is becoming more and more complicated every year. Here is the question of a tariff, any single item of which may cause disturbance in trade. For the moment you touch the tariff upon one item there is a reaction upon many other items which do not appear, at first sight, to be connected with it. Then there are the questions that arise between the different kinds of industry. For instance, steel, cotton and wool are the big industries that import most of their raw materials and turn out large quantities of products, and these become, in their turn, the raw material of some secondary industries, which, therefore, are directly affected the moment a change of tariff upon some products of the primary industries is proposed. /The question has become more and more complicated for us. i am sure that one of the difficulties the government had to contend with in receiving all those delegations from manufacturers was that one day they must have been asked to raise the duty on an article, and the next day some other manufacturer would urge a reduction of the same duty, because to increase the duty would be to raise the price of the raw material of some secondary industry and so, in effect, neutralize the protection given to it.
But there is one feature of the tariff question that is still more important to my mind and requires the preliminary work of a commission of experts before we deal with it, that is the question of our foreign relations as affected by the tariff. The influence of tariffs on trade relations between different countries has been increasing daily all over the world. Originally, all protective nations adopted tariffs for their own use and without regard to anything except their own industries and their own consumers ; right or wrong, it was a mere question of internal policy. But, by and by, as the interchanges of commodities between nations grew, and especially when large protective and manufacturing countries began to compete with Great Britain and to take away from Great Britain the supremacy which she held at one time in the matter of exchange between nations, the tariffs of the different countries have become more and more every day instruments of international relations.
The Prime Minister announced last year that he wanted to press upon the British government the necessity of granting to Canada the right to negotiate her own treaties. The government this year announces that when they next revise the tariff they are prepared to adojt the principle which has been adopted by Germany, by France and by several other protective countries, namely, the principle of a double-edged tariff, or a maximum and a minimum tariff. What does that mean ? It means

that we intend to begin a national life of our own so far as trade matters are concerned, and we wish to prepare for that by taking into our own hands the instruments wherewith we may meet foreign countries and deal with them as they deal with us, to apply to them a high tariff when they apply to us a high tariff, and apply to them a low tariff when they apply to us a low tariff. In other words, we want to deal with foreign countries on an equal footing. I cannot but applaud that idea. However, I must say that I take some exception to the definition which has been given by the Minister of Finance to that policy. He told us, if I remember aright, that the maximum tariff would apply to all countries that had a high tariff, although not discriminating against us ; that the minimum tariff would apply to the countries having a low tariff, although they gave us no special favour ; and that alongside of these tariffs, the preferential tariff would still apply to Great Britain and some of her colonies.
Well, Sir, I cannot see, if this is really the ground upon which the double, or I would say, the triple scale of tariff is going to be based, I cannot see how it is going to be worked out in accordance with what I understand to be the intention of the government. I do not see how their minimum tariff will stand as an offer for reciprocity to foreign countries so long as we retain the preferential tariff with Great Britain. Great Britain offers us no favour, she treats us just as she treats hostile countries, she offers us the same tariff that she offers the United States and Germany. At the same time I do not see how we are going to apply the maximum tariff to countries with a high tariff when we would have a minimum tariff to apply to foreign countries who have a low tariff, but who offer us no favours. The way the minimum and maximum tariff should apply is this :	The maximum tariff is to apply to
countries who refuse to make trade arrangements with us ; the minimum tariff wm be offered as an inducement to foreign countries who, having a high or a low tariff, would yet be willing to make a special arrangement with us and give us better treatment in compensation for the lower tariff we offered them. It seems to me, Sir, that we have altogether a false conception as to what is favourable treatment or harsh treatment in trade matters. The country that treats us harshly is not the country that has a high tariff and applies it to us in the same way' that it applies it to all countries ; the country that treats us favourably is not the country that offers us a low tariff, or even that offers us a free entry into its markets when it gives the . same privilege to all countries. Take for example the United States, with an average tariff of about 45 per cent. Supposing the United States were to offer us a pre-Mr. bourassa.
ference of 25 per cent off, while retaining a duty of 20 per cent against our goods ; would not the United States thereby offer us much better treatment than the treatment we at present receive from the British government who, while giving us free entry to her markets, also gives free entry to her competitors and our competitors ? who gives, for instance, no better treatment to us than she gives to Germany ?
The mistake we make is to introduce sentiment into the consideration of these trade questions. I well remember, even before I was a member of this House, when the Conservatives adopted the French treaty. The Conservative press and some members of the Conservative party, who at that time were not afraid of French domination, who at that time could derive no benefit from stirring up popular feeling in the province of Ontario against the province of Quebec-the Conservative press, I say, complained in the province of Quebec that some of the Liberals voted against the French treaty although that was the first treaty ever concluded by a Canadian government with the land of our origin. The position I took at that time was that in matters of trade I was first and foremost a Canadian, that if I were a member of the Canadian parliament I would grant no favours to France unless reciprocal favours were granted by France to Canada ; that my duty would be first of all to protect the interest of the Canadian people and to allow the people of France to look after their own interest. The position I took upon that question was exactly the same as the position I now take upon our trade relations with Great Britain. I say we shall not obtain any better treatment from the people of Great Britain, who are shrewd business men, so long as we show ourselves unable to deal with trade questions on them merits, so long as we say that because we are a British colony, because we are proud, and justly proud, of being a British colony, in matters of trade we are going to introduce an element of sentiment, we are going to make the people of Canada believe that while Great Britain treats us as she treats all the other countries in the world, we are bound to give her an advantage in our markets. I say the best way to obtain preferential trade with Great Britain is to show her that our people are as intelligent as they are. The best way to make trade arrangements with Great Britain, or with the United States, or any other country, is to show that we are prepared to stand upon our own bottom, ready to defend the interests of Canada first and foremost, without regard to the interests of any other country.
Now, Sir, my hon. friend the leader of the opposition thought fit yesterday to make a slight allusion to my opinions and some of my utterances upon that subject. He

said, in substance : How is it that gentlemen who were connected with the Anglo-American Commission, with a body endeavouring to get a treaty of reciprocity with the United States, and who were not afraid of the dangers which might arise from such a treaty with the United States, are now so much afraid of a treaty of reciprocity with England, and deprecate the idea of imperial preferential trade because they fear that it will endanger Canadian autonomy ? Sir, I am accustomed to being misquoted by Conservatives. I have been misquoted and misrepresented by many Conservative newspapers, and I am sorry to say that now, for the first time, I must put the leader of the opposition in the same Category. Sir, in all the speeches I have made in the province of Quebec against the adoption of Mr. Chamberlain's policy, I have stated most emphatically that I was desirous, and most desirous, of concluding a treaty of reciprocity with England. There is more : one of the articles of the programme of that very organization, La Ligue Natio-naliste, which caused so much scandal at the beginning of this session is that Canada should negotiate a treaty of reciprocity with England. But, what I have stated, what I state to-day and what I shall go on stating as! long as it is not acknowledged by this parliament and the people of Canada, is that in our trade relations with Great Britain we should stand on the same ground as we stand in regard to our trade relations with all other countries; that Canada is a self-governing country in trade matters, and that we should show the same spirit in dealing with Great Britain as we should show in dealing with other countries. AVhat I am most surprised at is that this should cause so much scandal in this country. Have hon. gentlemen opposite forgotten the events of twenty-five years ago when their leaders and their party, being taunted with disloyalty because by adopting the policy of protection they were discriminating against the mother country, they declared to the four corners of this land that if protection for Canadian industries was detrimental to British interests, so much the worse for British interests ? As to my hon. friends on this side of the House who have also, though to a less extent, become so tender on the question of the loyalty of Canada, even in trade matters, have they forgotten the day when they were advocating through the length and breadth of this land the policy of commercial union with the United States which certainly would have brought us very near the point of political union ? I was not at that time old enough to take part in the fights of the Liberal party and I do not know what stand I would have taken ; but I will reply here and now to my hon. friend the leader of the opposition that I am in favour of concluding the best reciprocity treaty wih the United States the moment we can do so 156
without any sacrifice to our interests and dignity, and likewise X am ready at any time to negotiate the best reciprocity treaty with Great Britain and with any of the British colonies the moment that Great Britain is ready to treat us on equal terms, and to give us advantages similar to those which we give to her. Where is the disloyalty in that ? How can it cause a scandal ?
The policy that I have opposed for the last four years and that I am going to deal with now is not the proposition for a treaty of reciprocity between Great Britain and Canada, but it is the policy of Mr. Chamberlain. The policy of Mr. Chamberlain is as entirely different from the policy advocated either by the hon. Minister of Finance or by the hon. leader of the opposition as the American tariff is different from the Cobdenite free trade policy of England. The Minister of Finance told us that both parties in Canada were united in approval of Mr. Chamberlain's policy. He told us the same thing last year, though, I must say, I was glad to find that the tone was not exactly as tender and warm this year as it was last year. Last year the hon. Minister of Finance told us this :
It is recognized in England to-day that the line that Mr. Chamberlain is taking is the outcome of the policy of Canada, and therefore what Mr. Chamberlain is doing is precisely what we have been doing for seven years in the Dominion. . . . My sympathies are with the right hon. gentleman. . . . Our hearts go out to him.
It was a fervid declaration of love. This year naturally, after one year of honeymoon without much intimacy, the sentiment has grown a little cooler.
I think

Says the hon. gentleman :
I think I am justified in saying, and I think hon. gentlemen opposite will not find fault with me in saying, that practically the two great political parties in Canada are a unit to-day in favour of the principle of preferential trade. . . . Although there may be details in Mr. Chamberlain's plan which we are not called upon to deal with, and which we do not know to-day how we can deal with, inasmuch as he has practically taken up the Canadian policy, adopted it and recommended it to the British empire, to that extent we are heartily in accord with Mr. Chamberlain.
The bon. leader of the opposition has echoed these words. But it is rather interesting-and to my mind nothing is more illustrative of the fallacy of all this imperialism-to compare these expressions of Canadian sentiment with the declarations of Mr. Chamberlain. Speaking at Birmingham in November last, that distinguished statesman said :
We know as regards Canada that the Prime Minister of Canada, that the leader of the opposition, that Mr. Tarte, one of the most


Joseph Henri Napoléon Bourassa: toes such as those which in days gone by were prepared and signed by men who afterwards became their leaders and the highest representatives of Canadian loyalty.
What is Mr. Chamberlain's policy ? We have been told many a time, and even yesterday the hon. leader of the opposition told us, that Mr. Chamberlain's policy was but a reciprocity treaty between England and Canada. My hon. friend from St. Mary's division of Montreal (Mr. Tarte), whom I regret not to see in his seat, has told us in the province of Quebec many a time and his words have been echoed by several members of the Conservative party in that province-that the only issue that Mr. Chamberlain was proposing was to give us big favours for a very small return, that he was proposing to advance the price of our farm products, butter, cheese, hay, wheat, grain, cattle, meat, in fact all thei products of the farm, by granting a liberal preference, and that all he was asking in return was so small that it was not worth mentioning. On the other hand, Mr. Chamberlain declared at Glasgow, on the 6th day of October, that what the colonies were prepared to do was to give to England ' a substantial advantage ' in return for ' a very moderate preference.' What is that substantial advantage that Great Britain is going to obtain ? First of all-and that is the way Mr. Chamberlain, in his eloquent and forceful speeches, has always put the question before the working men of England-first of all, the working men of England will secure in the colonies a permanent market for their manufactured goods ; because, he says, the colonies are prepared to renounce the development of their industries so as to secure for British workmen and British trade a large and increasing market. What Mr. Chamberlain wants is, that the colonies should become a dumping ground for British products. There is not the slighest doubt about that, as I shall show. What Mr. Chamberlain wants further is to prevent the colonies from making trade arrangements with foreign countries. In order to do that he does not want to make a separate reciprocity treaty with any single colony. To that extent I would be entirely in favour of his policy: and as I have time and again said in the province of Quebee, I am ready to discuss on the part of Canada, as distinct from the other colonies, our trade relations and reciprocity with England. But Mr. Chamberlain does not want that. What he wants is to create an imperial tariff that will apply at the same time to Great Britain and to all the colonies, and which tariff will be prepared by an imperial council sitting in London, so that none of the colonies will be in a position to make trade arrangements with any foreign country. Is that the policy to	which both parties in Canada
are united ? Is the Minister of Finance ready to stand up here and say that

the Liberal party will renounce the right of taxation in this country ; and the right to make our trade arrangements with foreign countries ? Are the leader of the opposition and the member for Toronto (Mr. Kemp), ready to stand up here and say that they will stop the development of industries in Canada, so as to give employment to British labour ? If so, let them speak no longer of adequate protection for the Canadian manufacturer, the Canadian workman, the Canadian farmer.
But, further, Mr. Chamberlain wants to secure for Great Britain an abundant supply of cheap food-and, as he said himself at Glasgow-' another product of the empire, that is, men, '-men for the army and men for the navy ; because the workmen of England will not hear of conscription, and the British government being afraid of adopting conscription, they want to come to the colonies to take advantage of ' that splendid wave of imperial sentiment, ' and get from the colonies that which the people of Great Britain will not themselves give for their own defence. Is the Canadian government and is the Canadian opposition ready to stand up for that policy ? Why, Sir, we are advertising this country throughout Europe as a country in which the working man and the farmer may live in peace. The Minister of the Interior, in pursuance of his intelligent and progressive policy, has been for the last five years advertising Canada as a country of wealth and a country of peace. Are we going to invite the foreigner to come and live with us, and then are both parties in Canada going to join hands and say to Mr. Chamberlain :	' All
right, come and get the young men of Canada for the army and navy of the empire- take that splendid product of the empire, men,-and we will fill up their places with Doukhobors and Galicians.'
But, what is most amusing is, that that splendid advantage which is offered to us in the British market, reduces itself simply to a small preference on wheat. And even on this ground, Mr. Chamberlain takes good care to tell the people of Great Britain, that the moment the preferential tariff would have been adopted, the price of wheat would go up a little, but that soon after the price would go down, so that after a few years the price of wheat in England would be lower than before the adoption of a preferential tariff. I am told that the legislature of Manitoba has adopted a resolution in favour of the preference, because it thinks it is going to stimulate the cultivation of wheat in the west. Is it of good omen for the farmers of Manitoba, that three or four years after we have closed our bargain with Mr. Chamberlain, the price of wheat is going to be lower than it is to-day 1 That is the ground upon which Mr. Chamberlain has been standing for months back. He has proved to the people of England that so long as the registration duty on imported 156}
wheat was in force during the war, it was the foreigner who paid the tax. He has proved that the American transportation lines found a way to carry wheat cheaper, so that the price of wheat in England was not raised. He proved to the people of Great Britain, that when the wheat duty was increased in Germany in 1885, the price of wheat did not increase as fast in Germany as in Great Britain. He has proved, that when the wheat duty was increased in France, the price of wheat did not advance as fast as it advanced in England. He says that for the first years the foreigner will pay the duty, and that the imposition of the duty will have so stimulated the production of wheat, not only in Canada, but in Egypt and India, that the price of wheat will soon be lower in England. That is the very argument used by the Minister of Inland Revenue to-night with regard to the production of tobacco in Canada. Is it of good omen to the farmers of Manitoba and the great west, to know that after that bargain is concluded with Mr. Chamberlain, lands that are not now cultivated in India and in Egypt will produce wheat to such an extent, that the price of their wheat product will be lowered ?
Now, Sir, I promised the House that I would give a short quotation from Mr. Chamberlain, as to the effect of his policy upon Canadian industries. I cannot take it from this book which contains Mr. Chamberlain's orations for the past year, because Mr. Chamberlain was careful to strike out a few sentences from the revised edition, and so I must quote from the speech as reported in the London ' Times' the day after it was delivered. What did Mr. Chamberlain say as to the ' substantial advantage ' we are going to give to England for ' a small preference ? ' In the pamphlet which has been sent broadcast to the colonies, Mr. Chamberlain is made to say-and he is speaking from the bottom of his heart to the colonies :
After all, there are many things which you do not now make ; many things for which we have great capacity of production-leave them to us as you have left them hitherto Do not increase your tariff walls against us. Pull them down where they are unnecessary to the success of this policy to which you are committed.
I call the attention of my hon. friend from Toronto (Mr. Kemp) and of my hon. friend the leader of the opposition to this, in connection with their proposal for adequate protection. When they criticise this government because the tariff' is too low, let them remember that Mr. Chamberlain is asking them to pull down the tariff walls further.
Do that because we are kinsmen-without injury to any important interest.
Mind the last words : ' without injury to any important interest' That is from the

colonial edition, but the English edition which appeared in the London ' Times ' read in this way :
Do that without regard to your important interest.
So long as Mr. Chamberlain was speaking to Canadians, through the ears of the good Scotchmen of Glasgow, he could say : never mind the imjjortant interests of Can-, ada ; but when the colonial edition was issued the words ' without regard ' were replaced by the words ' without injury.' Fortunately, I had more time than the leader of the opposition and the hon. member for Toronto (Mr. Kemp) to make these comparisons. Let us read further. Here again is the text in the book :
The colonies are prepared to meet us. In return for a very moderate preference they will give us a substantial advantage. They will give us, in the first place, I believe they will reserve to us much at any rate of the trade which we already enjoy.
In the genuine edition for Glasgow, London and a few other small places in England where people have a right to vote for the British parliament-that is, in the ' Times,'-the report reads :
I believe they will reserve to us the trade which we already enjoy.
Then he goes on, according to the book :
They will not-and I would not urge them for a moment to do so-they will not injure those of their industries which have already been created.
This is of course also in the report of the London ' Times ' ; but here is a short sentence! which I commend to the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Bell) who said the other day that we should develop and start as many new industries in Canada as possible. I also commend it to the hon. member for East Toronto (Mr. Kemp), who says that the policy of the Conservative party is to start as many industries as we can- to arrange the tariff so that it will bring less money into the public chest and will result in the erection of new' industries! What is the word of Mr. Chamberlain to these hon. gentlemen ? According to the report of the London 1 Times,' it is :
They will arrange for tariffs in future, _ In order not to start Industries in competition with those which are already in existence In the mother country.
That sentence disappeared from the pamphlet edition of the speech.
' Is that the policy of adequate protection to which the Conservative party is committed ? Is that the policy on which both parties in this country are united ? Is that the reciprocity treaty which the hon. leader of the opposition would like me to uphold ? Sir, I will apply to that policy a very able definition which has been given Mr. BOURASSA.
by Prof. Shortt, of Kingston, in w'hat, to my mind, is the most comprehensive discussion of that problem, both from an imperial and a purely Canadian point of view. Here is what he says :
What the imperial preferential advocates, on the two sides of the Atlantic, are trying to do is to divide an expected mutual benefit in such a fashion that each party shall receive about three-fourths of it, on the ground that the other must concede something extra ror the sake of sentiment.
I think this is the best definition that has been given of the imperialist policy. Butthnt is not the only advantage Mr. Chamberlain wants. He not only wants us to stop developing this country, to renounce our right, of which the Conservative party are so proud, of starting new industries in this country. Not only is Mr. Chamberlain asking us to renounce our right of becoming a self-sustaining nation in order to have the honour of supplying the empire with cheap food, and of becoming the dumping ground of the English manufacturer ; hut he has made up his mind that we are also to renounce some of our political liberties. I have been attacked for saying that if Canada adopted Mr. Chamberlain's policy Canada would lose a good deal of her autonomy. In the debate on the address, I quoted Mr. Chamberlain's speech at Glasgow, in which he said, in reply to Sir Edw'ard Grey, that the only means by which an imperial council could be created w'as by the adoption of that fiscal policy on which, according to the Minister of Finance and the leader of the opposition, both parties in Canada are united. He said that he started with the fiscal side of the question because the moment it was accepted by the colonies an imperial council would be forced upon them ; and at Birmingham he gave a definition of what that imperial council would be :
That imperial council, whenever it is established, will have to do with such delicate matters as Imperial defence, as imperial legislation, as imperial taxation.
Now, Sir, I will repeat what I have said in the province of Quebec and in the province of Ontario. If the people of Canada have made up their minds that they are prepared to sacrifice a part of their legislative power to a small body of gentlemen sitting in London under the hand of the colonial secretary, they are free to do it. If the Canadian people have made up their minds to endow that small council sitting in London with the power of taxation over the people of Canada, let them have their will. If they have made up their minds to give to that small council the right to draw men from this country to supply an imperial army and navy, let them do it. But again I say, as long as the people of Canada are not acquainted with the consej-quences of that policy nobody in this House,

neither the Minister of Finance nor the leader of the opposition, is to say that both parties in this country are united on that policy, and no Canadian newspaper is to denounce as disloyal those who raise their voices against it. The first duty of Canadian statesmen, whether they approve of Mr. Chamberlain's policy or not, is to state frankly what Mr. Chamberlain's policy is- not what they want it to be, but what it will be if the people of Great Britain ratify it. I may be told that if Mr. Chamberlain's policy is what I have pointed it out to be, we are not obliged to accept it. Why then raise in this country hopes and expectations that cannot be fulfilled ? Why, then, keep the people on the other side of the ocean under a misapprehension as to the sentiment of this country ? We have had in the budget of this year, the most Canadian budget we have ever had, a declaration of fiscal independence on the part of this country. It declares that we are prepared to trade with foreign nations. It declares that we have adopted the preferential policy for the benefit of the people of Canada ; and so far as that is concerned, I greet it. But I say, do not tack on to it declarations of adherence to a policy the very opposite of the policy we are propounding. Bet not the opposition speak of adequate protection, of Canada for the Canadians, of the defence of Canadian industries, and at the same time profess attachment to a policy which would mean the destruction of Canadian industries, which would not mean Canada for the Canadians, but Canada as the dumping ground for the manufacturers of Manchester and Birmingham.
But, Sir, I may be asked, if the proposed policy of Mr. Chamberlain will be so unfavourable to the colonies, how is it that the people of Great Britain refuse to adopt it ? Well, one of the reasons may be that ' lack of imagination ' on the part of the people of the motherland of which Mr. Chamberlain complained so bitterly. I will not style it in that way. I will say that the common sense, the shrewdness, and the safeness of the people of Great Britain are what is saving her and us from the imperialistic mania-from that distasteful policy propounded by Mr. Chamberlain during the last few years, and unfortunately endorsed by some of the public men of Canada.
Then we should not forget, when considering these big advantages which Mr. Chamberlain is offering to the people of Great Britain in exchange for a small tax on food, that the people of Great Britain cannot afford to increase the price of their food today for any future advantage -which Mr. Chamberlain can offer. I have the authority of Mr. Chamberlain, as well as that of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, that one-third of the people of Great Britain are at present underfed-that 13,000,000 men, women and children in the British island have
not sufficient to eat every day. I have here the statement of Mr. Chamberlain endorsing that of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, to the effect that out of every seven workingmen in Great Britain now at the age of 25 who reach the age of 65, three will have to go to the workhouse. Is it surprising, therefore, that the people of Great Britain should refuse, even were they to derive great advantages within a few years, to have the price of their food increased to-day, when on that price depends the life or death of one-third of the population V But there is more than that. The people of Great Britain have not lost the sentiment of the balance of government. Happily for us, they know that the British empire^ has been built, both in commercial and military matters, upon the sound principle of decentralization, of the self-government and the Independence of tlie different parts of the empire. They know that the only way by which the empire can stand together is to have the legislative tie as slender as possible for the slenderer that tie will be the stronger will be the sentimental tie. It has been rightly stated in England that Mr. Chamberlain wanted to bribe the colonies. Bet me say here to the leader of the opposition and the hon. member for Toronto (Mr. Kemp), and to all those hon. gentlemen who have sc often taxed me with disloyalty, that if their loyalty requires to be -bribed by the British government at the expense of the food of tlie British people, my loyalty and that of my compatriots, the French Canadians, is made of different stuff. We are loyal to the British flag and the British crown and British institutions, without being paid for our loyalty at the expense of the -lives of 13,000,000 of the British people. We do not want to be bribed, but at the same time we do not want to be deprived of any of our liberties , and I believe that I am expressing here, not only the sentiments of French Canadians, but the sentiment of the large majority of the population of Canada, if the policy of Mr. Chamberlain were exposed to them as it is in reality, and not as they suppose it to be. it mav be asked : But how is it, if Mr Chamberlain's scheme is so disadvantageous to the colonies, that the colonies appear to be so much in favour of it ? Well, that is easy to explain. Consider first the conspiracy of the press. Where is the llews-paper in Canada which has shown up to our people the policy of Mr. Chamberlain as it is shown up in England ? We hate a few weekly papers which have done so, hut not one of the large party papers has exposed this policy in its true aspect. WUat we have had is nothing but the sentimental and noisy arguments of the case-the sentiment of imperialism-and there is no worse bottom for making a good bargain than that of sentiment. My hon. friend from Toronto should not forget the rebuke that lie and some of bis colleagues were given at the last congress

of the Chambers of Commerce in England during the South African war, when an attempt to induce the Scotch and English members of that body to pass a resolution in favour of preferential trade was met with the protest of a good Scotchman, who stood up and said: Our colonial friends should understand that sentiment is one thing and business another. We have also the strange attitude of leaders of both parties, who are afraid to show up the policy of Mr. Chamberlain in its true light. I am happy to say in the presence of my hon. friend the Minister of the'Interior .(Mr. Sifton), that the first comprehensive declaration on the subject made by a leading statesman of this country was made by him when he showed the people of Canada, by his speed* at the Canadian Club last fall, what the consequences would be if Mr. Chamberlain's policy were adopted.
If hon. gentlemen want to know what mischief bogus sentiment can accomplish, let them go back to the time of the South African war. At one time if any one were to stand up in this country-not in England, because in England there is free speech-and say that the South African war was unjust, he wras exposed to be denounced for disloyalty. I have bad some experience in that line. The South African war was supposed to he a crusade for justice and equal rights, and it was most disloyal heresy to take the opposite view. But to-day, when the war is over, people are beginning to see through its hypocrisy, and we find now that the last word of that war is the introduction, under the British flag, of yellow slavery into that country ; and those who stood against that war have no reason to be ashamed of the stand they took, either as Canadians or British subjects. It is as a British subject, proud of my British citizenship, and as a Canadian devoted to Canada first and to Great Britain afterwards-devoted first to the country of my birth and the people whose interests I have been sent here to represent -it is as a Canadian and a British subject, desirous of remaining at peace with Great Britain and of seeing this country of ours develop and prosper rapidly, and become more and more every day the brightest jewel in the British crown-it is because I desire to see this country fulfil all the promises of its past and grow and prosper in that spirit of liberty w-itli which the very air we breathe is impregnated-that I have stood and will continue to stand as a determined opponent of Mr. Chamberlain's policy. What I have to say to the leader of the opposition on that question and, in a milder way, to the Minister of Finance

Mr. iSPROUEE. Hear, hear.


Joseph Henri Napoléon Bourassa: Yes ; because as far as that question is concerned, his deeds are better than his words. What I have to say is this. I think we should make it clear, both in England and here, that the Canadian Mr. BOURASSA.
people are ready to go a long way in order to have the best trade relations with Great Britain and make the best trade arrangement with the motherland and our sister colonies-and in doing that the government will find no more hearty supporter than myself- hut I think it is about time, to paraphrase the eloquent language of the First Minister, that upon this.as upon any other issue, we should look to the interests of Canada first and last.
1 hope this will be the last time I shall hear it said in this House that I am-an opponent of British connection or of good relations between Great Britain and Canada. I hope that it will be the last time at least when I .shall hear suc-h a charge from a gentleman of the standing of the hon. the leader of the opposition. The others I do not mind any more than I mind those newspapers which have taken up the habit of garbling words and of painting men under false colours, so as to gain a party success which they could not gain by discussing public affairs in a fair spirit and by describing men and their opinions as they are, and not as they would have them. As far as the people I represent are concerned, we are ready to make the best of arrangements with Great Britain, but at the same time we want it known that neither in political or military matters are we to consider any interests as superior to our own ; that the best service we can render to Great Britain, in our opinion, is to develop our country, to keep its population here, to bring in population from outside, especially from the United Kingdom. If Great Britain wants to have a strong foothold in America, she cannot gain it by closing our manufactures in order to give employment to the workmen of England ; but she can gain it by sending here the best of her sons to till our soil, and by sending capital to make use of our water-powers, instead of leaving it for Americans to come over here and Yankeefy this country. If Great Britain wants to keep the empire safe, she cannot do it by urging us to give our money towards the support of the British army and the British navy, nor by asking the people of the colonies to enroll themselves in the army and the navy. No ! On the contrary, she will keep the empire safe by maintaining a policy of peace and harmony with other nations and by allowing the colonies to develop themselves under the inspiration of the splendid principle of liberty which was introduced here with the British flag, and of which we French Canadians are as proud as any English speaking member of this House, or as the people of any constituency in Canada. Let the principle recognized be the principle of decentralization; let population grow ; let industries develop ; let Canada look to herself, New Zealand look to herself. Australia look to herself. Cape Colony look to herself. So will the empire be safer than by breaking up the old fabric that has stood so long the battle

and the storm, and won the admiration of the world, rather than by following the footsteps of the German empire or the Homan empire, which sacrificed the provinces, the weaker parts, for the benefit of the centre. The principle of decentralization is the bottom principle of the British empire, and Mr. Chamberlain should be plainly warned that the colonies will resist to the last his efforts to change the empire. While I am happy to support the budget of the government 1 hope that the time will come when the government will make the opinion of Canada known to Great Britain, and, as was said by the Prime Minister, let the Canadian policy be one to express the views of the Canadian people and for the maintenance and protection of Canadian interests.


Mr. JAMES J. DONNELLY (East Bruce).: I have listened attentively to the speech of the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) and was glad to learn from his opening remarks that there is at least one gentleman on that side who appreciates the benefit this country had derived from the tariff policy introduced by the late Sir John A. Macdonald and the Conservative party in 1878. The hon. member appears to be very favourably impressed with the proposition of the government to appoint a commission to consider the tariff. I am inclined to think that many other hon. members on that side are also favourably impressed with the proposition, and especially so in view of the general election, because they will now be able to go into high tariff districts and preach high tariff, and into low tariff districts and preach low tariff. The greater part of the hon. member's speech was what might be called a personal explanation of his views in reference to the tariff policy of Mr. Chamberlain. I shall not deal with that. I think that at this late hour, hon. members are not in the humour to listen to long speeches. I shall endeavour to condense my remarks as much as possible.
During the course of this debate much has been said in reference to the present prosperous condition of, the country. We on this side of the House are as proud of the present prosperity of the country as hon. gentlemen on the other side can be ; but it still remains for supporters of the government to show that the present prosperity is, to an important extent, due to any efforts of the present government, unless we give them credit for adopting the tariff policy which they strongly opposed when in opposition. We have had placed before us the diagram showing the increase in the exports of the country. I have looked up the items in the report of the Department of Trade and Commerce, and I find that one of the principle items is wheat. In 1896 we exported 9,919,542 bushels of wheat. Last year 1903 we ex-poted 32,985,749 bushels. Here is an increase of no less than 23,000,000 bushels. What has the present government done to bring about the .present increase in wheat ?
Yery little that I am aware of. The Conservative party, under the leadership of the l(ite Sir John" Macdonald, secured the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway into our western country. The early settlers who went into that country were men of small means, and, for a time, there was no marked increase in the export of wheat But, in course of time, they went into wheat growing on a larger scale and their success encouraged men of capital to go into the business upon a scale larger still. The result was there has been a marked increase in recent years in the export of wheat. The following figures show the increase of our exports in the three important staples :
Exports Cheese.. Bacon.. Cattle..
1896.	1903.
13,956,571	24,712,946
$ 4,381,968 $15,906,334 7,082,542	11,342,632
So that, in the three items that I have mentioned, we find a total increase of about $24,000,000. The increase in the lines that t have mentioned are largely due to the improved conditions of farming and also the bountiful harvest with which Providence has blessed us.
It seems to me that the government have taken a step in the right direction by increasing the minimum valuation upon horses imported. Put. to my mind they have not gone far enough to prevent altogetliei the importation of American scrub horses. Under the change they have made, the minimum duty on horses will be $10 per head, while the minimum duty on Canadian horses going into the American market is $30 per head. In 1903 there were several carloads of low grade horses brought from the western states into the county of Bruce. This would be of comparatively little disadvantage if they were used for work only, but the danger is they may be used for stock raising, and in that case there is danger from the inferior breed of horses. The horse breeders of Ontario have expended large amounts of money introducing from Great Britain the best breed of horses to be had, and it is very important that the strain of our horses should be kept up.
The government by their increase in the duty on woollens have shown that they have at last come to the conclusion that a little protection may be a good thing for a languishing industry.
I wish to say a word or two with reference to the furniture industry. During the present session I met a deputation of prominent furniture men who came here to interview the government. They told me that what they wanted was to have the same duty placed on American furniture coming into Canada as is now placed on Canadian furniture going into the United States. In western Ontario at the present time, there is a large amount of capital invested in establishments for the manufacture of furniture, which manufacture

appears to be a natural industry in this country. We have the raw material in the shape of timber, and the industry gives employment to a large number of persons and thus creates a home market for the products of the surrounding farm.
Where we find prosperous manufacturing industries we ought to find prosperous towns and villages. Where we find manufacturers prospering we find land values increasing. From the report of trade and commerce I find that we exported to the United States furniture in 1903 to the value of $14,754, while we imported furniture from the United States to the value of $518,217. Xu other words, we paid to the Americans $35 for furniture for every $1 that were received from them. And yet, Sir, this government refuses to grant to our furniture manufacturers the same degree of protection that the American people give to their furniture manufacturers. Speaking as a farmer, I wish to see not only our farmers protected but our manufacturing industries protected also. We are often told that the price of farm products is governed entirely by the British markets, I cannot agree with that statement. If that is so, how is it that land lying within twenty miles of the city of Toronto sells for $100 an acre, while an acre of land equally productive in the outlying districts only brings $45 per acre ? The British market is open to the products of both districts. To my mind the reason is because the land surrounding the city of Toronto finds a market for its products in that city, and the same principle applies throughout Canada.


Mr. HORACE HASZARD (West Queens, P.E.I.).: I do not intend at this late hour to repeat to any extent the figures which were so ably presented by the hon. the Minister of Finance in his budget speech, and also by the Minister of Trade and Commerce. To my mind the budget speech should satisfy every man in Canada regardless of his politics if he has the interest of his country at heart. I agree with the Minister of Finance in his reference to one or two unfavourable conditions which existed during the past winter, owing to the severe weather, the heavy snowfalls and the late opening of navigation. But I think experience has shown that long winters with heavy snowfalls, although they delay the opening of navigation, have resulted in rich harvests for the farms, the fisheries and the forests.
I think it is admitted on all sides that Canada is prosperous to-day as it never was before. The Conservatives admit that fact, the only question is as to who is responsible for the wonderful increase in our prosperity. In the first place we are all willing to grant that Providence has had a great deal to do with the remarkable progress of Can- | ada, but we also claim that it is under the wise and judicious management of the I


James J. Donnelly: Liberal party that these results have been attained. Time and again hon. gentlemen in the Conservative party have asked us to point out what the Liberals have done to bring about this wonderful progress. Well, Sir, if time permitted I could easily point out many things they have done. We know that the Minister of Agriculture, for instance, has done a great deal to increase the volume of our exports of cheese, butter and other' articles that come under his purview. Those of us who are engaged in business cannot fail to witness the great increase of our trade with Great Britain in those lines.
Now I wish to deal with some remarks of the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Bell) who undertook to reply to the Minister of Finance. He spoke in regard to the duty of kerosene oil, and stated that the Liberals ought to have taken that duty off years ago. I would like to know how that tallies with the remark of the hon. member for Lambton (Mr. Armstrong) who, in this House to-night, gave lengthy reasons why the duty should have been retained on kerosene oil. There are two distinct statements from the Conservative side that cannot be made to tally at all. So far as I am concerned, I shall be glad to go back to the people of my province and tell them that this government has reduced the duty on kerosene oil, because I know it will result in benefit to our people. The people in my riding were told in the last election campaign that when the Liberals came into power they promised to reduce the duty on kerosene oil, but instead of cutting it down by one-half they only reduced it by one cent a gallon. Now, I am glad to find that the government have seen tit, in the interest of the farmers and the labouring classes generally, as against a few rich manufacturers, to make a further reduction in the duty of kerosene oil. In other ways also I think this government have dealt, with questions affecting the public people in a way that is commendable. Although I do not think it is necessary to protect the woollen industries to any great extent, still I am glad that the government have granted some relief to some of those industries which, I am told since I came here, are suffering. At the same time I wish to say that I believe that if those depressed woollen industries had adopted modern methods and modern machinery they would have been able to hold their own as well as some other woollen manufacturers in Canada are doing to-day. I could name woollen mills that are prospering to-day and were quite satisfied with the tariff as it'stood before this last change. I have noticed that the Conservatives are greatly given to finding fault. If the duties are lowered they find fault. We are told to-day that taking the duty off binder twine had a bad effect. That question has been so fully dealt with thata- I am not going to enter

into it. X have also noticed that when the duty was slightly increased the Conservatives found fault also on that score. Tobacco has been mentioned time andj again, but I think the Minister of Inland Revenue has made a very satisfactory explanation in that regard this afternoon.
I need not take up the time of the House in talking about that at any further length. I notice that the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Bell) produced a table showing the increase in the exports of home products from 1896 to 1903. The increase in seven years was 3108,251,674 or $15,464,525 per year, and he claimed that that was not a satisfactory showing. But, let us look on the other side of the question. In 1878 the total value of domestic articles exported was $67,989,800. It increased in 1888 to $81,382,072 or an increase in ten years of $13,392,272, being $2,072,253 less than one year under the Liberals. In 1896 it had increased to $109,915,337, showing a total increase in 18 years under Conservative rule of $41,925,537, or an average increase per year of $2,329,193. The hon. member for Pictou also claimed that the Liberals are adopting the Conservative policy excepting the cautious financing of the Conservatives. I do not think it necessary to dwell at any length upon that point for the reason that that is also a question that has been fully dealt with. If the hon. member for Montreal, St. Mary's (Mr. Tarte), had been in his seat when that hon. gentleman made his statement, I think he would have smiled as he had some experience as to bow the Conservatives managed the finances of the country in years gone by. The Liberals have so managed the affairs of this country that notwithstanding the fact that the expenditures have been increased in nearly all of the departments, we have yet to hear from the Conservatives in this House or in the country any great attack on the Liberals on account of then- expenditures. They know full well that any extra expenditure will be accounted for by the fact of there being greatly increased revenue. What are the conditions prevailing in Canada to-day ? There is full employment for willing hands at high wages. Our manufacturers are prospering as they never prospered before. Mortgages are being paid off as they never have been before and savings bank deposits have increased very largely. Has this prosperity which Canada is enjoying been worldwide ? The Conservatives have claimed that it has been world-wide, but my right hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir Richard Cartwright) has very clearly pointed out that such is not the case. We have only to go to Germany, Russia, Australia and even the Lnited States to find that the measure of prosperity which Canada is enjoying has not been world-wide. I was very pleased indeed to hear the statement of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance that a commission would be appointed to
revise the tariff at an early day. I think this is a very practical way of dealing with the affairs of this country. I do not know that anything better could be done. As has been pointed out, the Conservatives some years ago, appointed a commission to deal with this matter which was not satisfactory, but I think we have already learned that the commissions appointed by the Liberals since they came into power, have produced good results, and I think we ought to feel quite satisfied that in the different provinces we can make some suggestions to the hon. Minister of Finance when the time comes, that will be valuable to him and beneficial to the country. Hon. gentlemen opposite would, no doubt, like us to adopt a policy of high protection, but they are not willing to grant that any changes should be made from time to time, claiming that the policy of high protection should be, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, unchangeable. I think that changed conditions require that the tariff should be modified or changed from time to time. Sir, a policy of moderate taxation and general good government such as the Liberals have adopted and which has increased the total volume of the trade of Canada from $230,000,000 in 1896 to $459,000,000 in 1903, should satisfy all true Canadians who place country before party. As has been pointed out by my right hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce, the Canada of to-day is as far apart from the Canada of 1896 as the Canada of 1866 was from the Canada of 1896. I think that very aptly illustrates what has been done since the Liberals obtained power in 1896. Fault has also been found with the preferential tariff as arranged by the Liberal party. It has been claimed that it was not made absolutely perfect and that it did not anticipate every possible contingency from the outset, but hon. gentlemen opposite do not dare to question the advantage it has been to us in setting an example to the world. Several hon. gentlemen have already dealt somewhat fully with that question. I am only going to say that if nothing else ever came from that preferential tariff than the advantages we are experiencing to-day, I would consider that it had achieved very great results. Its advantages are well known to those who have had any experience in exporting to the markets of Great Britain. During the last three or four years, or since this preference has come into force, the products of this country have received a much greater share of attention in Great Britain than they ever did before. I have had a good deal of experience in shipping to the markets of Great Britain the products of this country, and I am proud to say that we have been able to reach a higher point for our cheese and butter than has been reached in almost any part of the world or by countries, at any rate, which have been shipping to the markets of Great Britain. I also know that no person need

Bureau,	Maepherson,
Calvert,	McCarthy,
Campbell,	McCool,
Carbonneau,	McGugan,
Champagne,	Mclsaac,
Christie,	Maiouin,
Copp,	Marcil (Bagot),
Costigan,	Marcil (Bonaventure),
Cowan,	Matheson,
Davis,	Mayrand,
Delisle,	Meigs,
Demers (Ldvis),	Mignault,
Demers (St. John),	Monet,
Desjardins,	Morrison,
Erb,	Mulock (Sir William),
Ethier,	Murray,
Fielding,	Oliver,
Fisher,	Parmelee,
Fitzpatrick,	Paterson,
Fortier,	Prefontaine,
Gallery,	Proulx,
Galliher,	Puttee,
Gauvreau,	Reid (Restigouehe),
Geoffrion,	Riley,
German,	Rivet,
Gervals,	Ross (Ontario),
Gibson,	Ross (Rimouski),
Girard,	Ross (Victoria, N.S.),
Gould,	Ross (Yukon),
Grant,'	Rousseau,
Guthrie,	Russell,
Harty,	Schell,
Harwood,	Scott,
Haszard,	Sifton,
Heyd, ,	Sinclair,
Holmes,	Smith (Vancouver),
Hughes (Kings, P.E.I.),	Stephens,
Hyman,	Stewart,
Johnston (Cape Breton), Talbot,	
Ker.dall,	Tobin,
Lang,	Tucker,
Laurier (Sir Wilfrid),	Turcot,
Laurier	Turgeon, and
(L'Assomption),	Wright-110.
PAIRS :	
Ministerial.	Opposition.
McEwen,	Sherritt,
Emmerson,	Fowler,
McColl,	Ward,
Wallace,	Tisdale,
Dyment,	McCormick,
Sutherland (Oxford),	Haggart,
Cartwright (Sir R.),	Tuppper (Sir C. H.),
Lovell,	Kendrey,
Roche (Halifax),	Lennox,
Douglas,	Brock,
Wade,	Gourley,
Sutherland (Essex),	MacLaren (Perth),
Beland,	Ball,
Lcmieux,	Roddick,
Power,	Johnson (Cardwell),
Lapointe,	Porter,
Charlton,	Maclean.
Dugas,	Ganong,
Johnston (Lambton),	Lancaster,
McLennan,	Sovth (Wentworth),
Thompson (Haldimand), Boyd,	
Tolmie,	M< Inicsh.
Amendment negatived. Mr. HASZARD.
Motion agreed to on division, and House went into Committee on Ways and Means.
Progress reported.


LORD DUNDONALD'S SPEECH.
Wilfrid Laurier: Mr. Speaker, before tlie House adjourns I beg, by com- ' mand of His Excellency, to lay on tbe table of tbe House certain papers respecting tbe removal from office of tbe Earl of Dun-donald, and I beg at tbe same time to move that the papers, be printed and that rule 94 be suspended. '


Robert Laird Borden: Before tbe motion is put, I would like to inquire whether or not the papers include all letters written by the Minister of Agriculture to the Department of Militia, as well as to the proposed officers in the regiment-with respect to their political opinions, for example ; because if we are to have a record of the correspondence, the result of the interference of the Minister of Agriculture in this matter, we ought to have a complete record, and not any partial statement, such as that which was presented to the House the other day, and which was contradicted by the Minister of Agriculture himself when he came to speak on the subject. Therefore, I would ask my right lion, friend whether we are to have- everything, or only such documents as it suits the purpose of the government to produce V


Wilfrid Laurier: I may say to my hon. friend that it suits the purpose of the government to produce everything. My hon. friend has no right to assume anything else. I may say that the papers which I produce to-day are not complete, but we propose to bring some others to-morrow.


Robert Laird Borden: Am I to understand
then, that it is the intention of the government to produce, without evasion and without equivocation, all letters which have been written by the Minister of Agriculture with respect to this matter, whether to persons connected with the Department of Militia or to persons proposed as officers in this regiment, in order that the House may judge of the character of the interference which undoubtedly he did make in the affairs of this regiment. That is what I would like to know, and I think I have a right to ask my right hon. friend, because without that the record will not be complete.


Wilfrid Laurier: I havg to say to my hon. friend that it is the purpose of the government in this instance, as in all instances, to bring down, without evasion or equivocation, all papers which are on record and on file connected with this matter.


Robert Laird Borden: But, I want my right hon. friend to understand that I am not satisfied with all papers that are on file in the Department of Militia. The letters of the Minister of Agriculture to which I refer,

and of which evidence can be produced if necessary, are not on file in the Department of Militia ; but, nevertheless, they have been written and do constitute an interference by the Minister of Agriculture in the affairs of this regiment. All* I am asking and want to know is whether it is the intention of the government tP produce these as well as the documents on file in the Department of Militia V Because I venture respectfully to submit to my right hon. friend that without those documents the record which the country will desire to receive will not be complete.
iSir WILFRID LAURIER. I can add nothing to what I have said already, and I am sure the Minister of Agriculture is as anxious to produce everything as I am, because he has nothing to hide in reference to this matter.


Mr. K. L. BORDEN.: All I have to say is that if the government will not produce all of those letters, I will endeavour to supplement the return myself.


Wilfrid Laurier: Then I understand there has been some interference with the Department of Militia on the part of my hon. friend.


Mr.   I@: My right hon. friend has no reason to suggest anything of the kind, because I have told him-and he understands it, if he understands the English
language at all-


Mr. SAM. HUGHES.: He does not.


An hon. MEMBER.: Foreigner.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


Robert Laird Borden: He understands that the letters to which I refer are not on file in the Department of Militia, but their existence has been public property in certain communities in this country for many days past. The Minister of Agriculture knows of them and has copies of them I have no doubt. They are not documents which are on file, but they constitute an interference by him, and I would think it only fair, if the government propose to make a complete, fair and truthful record of this matter, that these documents should be produced as well as those which are on file. That is all I venture to suggest, and I trust that my right hon. friend will not regard me as unreasonable in making that moderate request respectfully and sincerely so that the House and the country may have an opportunity of judging fairly in this matter.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Sir WILFRID LAURIER moved the adjournment of the House.
Robert Laird Borden: What business will be taken up to-morrow V


Wilfrid Laurier: Bills first of all and then if possible supply.


Robert Laird Borden: What particular Bill will be taken up ? I am only desirous of knowing whether one of importance, the Militia Bill, will be considered.


Wilfrid Laurier: Not quite sure, but perhaps so.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House adjourned at 12.35 a.m., Thursday.
[Stage Direction]
Thursday, June 16, 1904.