1909-04-13

CANADA SHIPPING ACT.

Hon.  L. P.@: BRODEUR (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 131) to amend the Canada Shipping Act.


Mr. FOSTER.: Explain.


Mr. BRODEUR.: The purpose of the Bill is to add some words to the French version which were accidentally omitted in the translation from the English version of the Act.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

Mr. SAMUEL SHARPE (Ontario).: I direct the attention of the Minister of Finance to the return brought down with reference to the expenses in connection with certain loans. It does not state the names of those to whom moneys were paid.


Hon. W. S. FIELDING.: All these payments are made to the financial agents of the government, the Bank of Montreal. I do not think we have the names of the persons to whom the amounts are paid individually, The commissions are paid entirely to the Bank of Montreal and they arrange for the underwriting when underwriting is necessary. The advertising has been done through an advertising agency in London, and I suppose the details could be obtained.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: 
William Stevens Fielding: Is that in addition to the underwriting?


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: Yes.


William Stevens Fielding: I will have attention called to the observations of my hon. friend and see whether any further information can be obtained.



LOANS ISSUED SINCE 1907.

George Eulas Foster: The Minister of Finance has not yet brought down the return with reference to the loans issued since 1907.


William Stevens Fielding: I will make inquiry.
I was under the impression I had brought down all except one asked for by my hon. friend (Mr. Ames).



CENTRAL RAILWAY OF NEW BRUNSWICK.

George Eulas Foster: Before the orders of the day are called I would like to ask the First Minister if in view of the report of the Royal Commission which has been issued in the city of St. John, N.B., and which to a certain extent affects two of the officers of the government, he has yet decided upon any course of action, or if he has anything to communicate to the House with reference to it.


Right Hon.   S@: Mr. Speaker, I may say I have not seen that report. I have only seen extracts from it in the public press. At this moment I have no communication at all to make to the House.



NEGOTIATIONS WITH GERMANY.

Mt. MONK.: I call the attention of the government to a telegraphic despatch in this morning's paper in reference to an article in the London 'Standard' which states that negotiations towards a treaty are going on between the Canadian government and Germany. I ask the Prime Minister if there have been at any time such negotiations, and if they are proceeding at present.


William Stevens Fielding: There are not nor have there been any such negotiations as those referred to. From time to time we have had opportunities of meeting gentlemen interested in German trade who have discussed with us the advisability of certain changes, but there are no negotiations; nothing which would correspond to the statement made in the press.



BUDGET SPEECH.

George Eulas Foster: Is it the intention of the Minister of Finance to go on with his budget speech next Thursday ?


William Stevens Fielding: My present expectation is to bring the budget on Thursday. If anything intervenes to change that intention it will be announced to-morrow.



TARIFF CHANGES.

Frederick Debartzch Monk: Is it possible for the Minister of Finance to give any information as to whether the government contemplates any changes in the customs duties? I specially refer to the duties on tin. This is a time of activity in that particular business; the farmers and the canning establishments are providing themselves with supplies, and as I have received many inquiries I bring the matter to the attention of the Minister of Finance.


William Stevens Fielding: If my hon. friend reflects for a moment, he will see from his own experience that it is never possible for a Finance Minister to make any statement as to the intention of the government in tariff matters except in the budget speech, and I shall have to ask my hon. friend to be patient until that is delivered.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I merely wished to ask the Minister of Finance if he could state that there would be no change in the tariff.


Mr. HUGHES.: The Finance Minister, having become a protectionist, will surely see that the tin plate industry is protected.



THE WOOLLEN INDUSTRY.

Mr. HAUGHTON LENNOX.: Mr. Speaker, I quite appreciate what the Minister of Finance has said, that he has locked up securely in his own mind the knowledge of the great benefits he is about to confer on Canada by the budget which he will bring down on Thursday next, and it is in order that we may improve, if possible, the text of the deliverance which he shall then make, and if possible bring about an improvement of conditions, that I propose to invite the attention of the Finance Minister for a few moments to the condition of the woollen industry of Canada at the present time. The importance of that industry very few, I think, will be disposed to question. There may or may not be some who feel some doubt as to the extent to which we can develop that industry. Speaking for myself, I am convinced that with proper governmental regulations there is in Canada a field for an enormous development of the woollen industry both as regards production and manufacture. As a farmer, of course my attention will be directed more particularly to the matter from the point of view of the farming industry; but I shall not forget that for an all-round industry we require not only the production but also the manufacture of wool. A business government, I presume, will keep in mind especially the main industry of the country. A wise business man, while giving regard to all details, will endeavour especially to conserve that which is his main source of income. Therefore I

think I am right in saying that above all other interests the interest of farming in Canada should be the main concern of a wise and prudent adminstration.
In the early days of the session, in answer to questions I asked, the government informed me that in 1908 we had
575.000	farmers; that there were maintained and supported directly by farming
3.788.000	people, considerably more than one-half of our entire population; that there was invested in farming in Canada $1,761,486,180; that the field crops of last year were of the value of $432,000,000; and that our export of grains, animals, and other farm products, amounted to $129,000,000, after supplying all our own home wants. Now, the greatest industry of the greatest nations of the world is that of textiles, among them being France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Great Britain, and the United States, and it ought to be of concern to us to consider very carefully whether we can develope in Canada a great textile industry, and particularily that branch of it known as the woollen industry.
Great Britain, with a population of 44,000,000, has 5,000,000, or more than one-ninth of its entire population, engaged in the textile industry; and it is surely a moderate computation to say that in addition to supporting themselves, each of these will on the average support two others. If so, we have the result that in Great Britain the textile industry gives employment to more than one-ninth and gives support directly to more than one-third of the entire population of the country. In acreage, Great Britain is of course a comparatively small country; yet it has developed an enormous woollen industry, both as regards the production of wool and the manufacture of woollens. In 1907 the woollen manufactures of Great Britain amounted to $464,000,000, of which $185,000,000 worth was for export and $278,000,000 worth for home consumption. Let me interject here that important as is the export, it is even more vitally important that every country should be in a position to clothe itself, so far as the staples of clothing for its people are concerned. Britain, within its narrow boundaries, produces 131,000,000 pounds of wool annually, while we, with our almost illimitable territory, produce 12,000,000 pounds annually. Britain within its narrow confines,is able to support 30,000,000 sheep, while we in Canada, with our vast extent of country, can only support about 2,000,000 sheep, although in 1905, showing to what extent this industry has declined, Ontario alone had more than 2,000,000 sheep. Canada is at present importing upwards of $22,000,000 worth of woollen fabrics to clothe
Mi-. LENNOX.
its _ people, almost every dollar's worth of which should be produced and manufactured in our own country, if we had a tariff suitable to the conditions of Canada.
France has directly engaged in the textile industry 2,008;000 people, supporting a population of 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 people, equal or more than equal to the entire population of the Dominion of Canada. Germany, as we know, protects everything, and it has engaged in the textile industry almost two to every one engaged in any other industry.
Coming to the United States, we come to a country similar in almost all respects to our own. The history of the United States should be our history practically, as regards the woollen industry. I know that there are some divergencies, but they are of such minor character that what the United States has done in the century that was hers, Canada in this century, which the Prime Minister says is our century, ought to do in the woollen industry for the people of Canada. The conditions in our maritime provinces and in our western provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan are just as favourable to the production of wool as are those in the United States. In fact, a large and important element in the manufacture of woollens in the United States is derived from Canada. Among the best worsteds produced in the United States are those manufactured from Canadian wool. In fact the conditions in the United States are identical with those in Canada plus the protection they give their farmers on their native wool. That is about the difference reduced to actual analysis. It takes time for nations to realize what is in their interest. This government has had twelve years' time in which to realize it, and so far have failed to do so. It took time in the United States. There was a period when the United States was sacrificing its interests in favour of British wool manufacturing. As late as 1799 the United States was taking 40 per cent of the entire woollen export of Britain. As late as 1816-although the war of 1812 had checked the inroads and had made the United States, for the time being, realize the importance of being commercially independent of any other nation for its clothing- the United States were importing as much as an average of $70,000,000 a year from Britain. But the war of 1812 drew attention to the fact that it was necessary for the United States to do something. In the years preceding the war, in 1808, for instance, the United States was only producing a matter of 14,000,000 pounds of wool, but by the time the war was closing, it was producing 22,000,000 pounds. Now that country is producing 330,000,000 pounds and is manufacturing into woollens 500,000,000 pounds, so that the United States to-day, with conditions similar to our own,is actually producing upon its own farms two-thirds of

the entire wool which it manufactures into clothing. What are we going to do? The question is an important one, and the history of the United States is pregnant with information to show us what we ought to be able to do. I might say that in 1812, before the United States had taken reasonable measures to protect its trade in that respect, prices had, by reason of the war increased to an enormous extent. As a matter of fact broad cloth sold in that country at from $8 to $12 a yard, and merino rams sold as high as $1,000 each. After the war scare was over, the United States became careless again, and Britain again obtained a foothold there, with the effect that sheep sold as low as $1 a head, and they were importing from Britain to the enormous extent of $70,000,000 of woollen manufactures.
From the history of the United States, I shall proceed to refer, in a moment or two to the history of Britain in this matter; but I deduce this proposition, which I submit for the consideration of the government, that a really successful national woollen industry in Canada involves a profitable production of wool as well as profitable manufacture of woollens, and it should be the aim of the government to harmonize, unite and merge these two great interests. Speaking from a farmer's standpoint more particularly, I am convinced that the first essential is the production of wool. The production of wool is a native industry of Canada. It prospered in the early settlement of Canada before tariffs began to interfere with it: and Tory as I am-if you call me such-I am yet prepared to say that as yet, neither Conservatives nor Liberals- the latter used to call themselves reformers when I was young, but reformers have gone out of business-have done all they could for the basis of the woollen industry in Canada, which is of course the production of our native wool.
We have been protecting the manufacturers, and it is important that we should do so. They are the great source of profit from the raw material, the production of which cannot reach its climax of profit until it is manufactured into woollens in this country. Therefore I do not ignore the great importance of protecting the woollen industry, but I would point out that both parties have been beginning at the wrong end. They should begin at the foundation and not at the upper story. They should begin by encouraging the growth of wool, which is the basis of a healthy, substantial, progressive woollen industry in Canada. We have no end of millions for industrial enterprises in this country. We have millions for iron and steel bounties, but we have not yet had a square deal for the farmers with regard to their woollen industry.
What did Britain do in this matter- free trade Britain, "whose example our hon.
friends opposite are so prone to praise but not to follow? Free trade Britain was the victim of other countries for a time. She took a long time to wake up. Six or seven hundred years ago she was paying tribute to the continent in the woollen industry. At that time Britain, which now stands supreme in the woollen trade, was hardly in the running at all, and Belgium and Holland were then leading the trade of the world in that respect. They were spoken of as clothing the world and they were making clothing to a large extent out of woollens manufactured from the fleeces produced in Britain; so that those countries were reaping a rich reward while the British were practically the hewers of wood and drawers of water or rather the clippers of wool for the continent. To such an extent was this the case that the expression 'rich as a Count of Flanders,' was generally used to describe the flourishing condition of those who were deriving large profits from raw material exported from Britain to be manufactured into woollen goods on the continent. Well, I have no objection that my right hon. friend the Prime Minister, who is practically the King of Canada at present, should follow the example set him by some of the Kings of Britain and do something in this matter.


King Henry II.: and King Edward I. tried to do something in this matter. But it was to King Edward III. that we owe the establishment of that great industry in Britain, the textile industry. He saw that Great Britain could never be supreme-and it never would have been supreme, either commercially, navally or nationally-if it continued under the system that prevailed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the system of exporting its fleeces for manufacture abroad, and buying back the goods at enhanced prices to clothe its people later on. So, King Edward III. took measures, and most effective measures. He first encouraged Flemish wool growers to come in considerable numbers and establish themselves in Great Britain. He then 'sent emissaries to the continent and placed such inducements before the people there as led large numbers of Flemish artisans and wool-workers to come and settle in Great Britain. All this was not accomplished without much negotiation and deplomacy or without marked hostility on the part of some sections of the people of Great Britain; as members of the House will recollect, thousands of these Flemish artisans were driven out by the hostile artisans and labourers of Great Britain. But the King persisted, and the government persisted too. And they went farther; they enacted a law which stands, perhaps at the very base of all the prosperity of Great Britain in connection with textiles, and which is probably the

most drastic piece of protective legislation that has ever been enacted in any country. This was enacted in free-trade Britain in the reign of King Edward III. It provided that no Welshman, Irishman or Englishman-I do not know why it specifies the classes, but I give it as it is in the statute-should export wool or fleeces from Great Britain under penalty of death. And so the textile industry of Great Britain had its foundation and its growth. Statute succeeded statute, down through the various reigns, prohibiting the export of textile machinery, protecting and guarding the secrets in connection with the woollen industry and otherwise giving to the industry the assistance of the law. This continued down through the centuries until the reign of Queen Victoria and to the year 1854. And so it was only by centuries of protection of the most drastic. character that Great Britain was able to build up its textile industry until it felt that for a time- and that time is now nearly exhausted- it could defy all trade competitors wherever they .might be. And thus we see that the textile industry of Great Britain, like that of the United States, was fostered and built up by means of trade and tariff laws. It is clear that the conditions of Canada and the United States at least are so similar that what was done in the United States we can do in Canada by proper adjustment of our statutes. If that be so, then it becomes merely a question of what aTe the government going to do in this matter for the interests of Canada? There are a number of practical men here in the House, and these men know that one of the great ultimate profits in manufacturing to-day is through the utilization of the by-products. This may not be the largest profit in a manufacturing business, but it is in a sense the unexpected one, almost the unearned one, and it is one of the most important in connection with any manufacture. It is important that we should grow wool in Canada even if we do not manufacture it. It is important that we should grow wheat in Canada, although a large portion of it is exported in the form of wheat instead of being first converted into flora. It is important that we should bring the logs from the forest, even if we export them in that form. But it is far better, as everybody knows, if we can carry the process further and export the finished product in every case. The great national by-product of the raw materials of Canada is secured by the manufacture in Canada, as far as possible, of the raw materials into the finished article. In this way we shall increase the population and multiply demand. There will be more to be housed, more to be fed, more to be clothed, more to be carried, more to be lighted, more to be provided for in every way. In this way, you will secure that result which Conservatives have been trying to point out to Liberals for so Mr. LENNOX.
long, which we tried to impress upon them for eighteen years while they were in opposition - that by this means we can enormously benefit the country nationally through extending and increasing the home market and benefiting our entire population. It would be as wise for us to export our wheat and import it back in the form of flour, paying for the carriage and paying for the foreign manufacture, as to export our wool and buy it back in the form of clothing, whether made up or otherwise. We cannot build up a great woollen industry so long as we export our fleeces and buy them back as manufactured goods. We must form a full partnership union-to borrow a phrase from an hon. member of this House-between these two great interests; we must not only raise wool, but we must spin it and weave it and wear it, if we are to develop a great and prosperous, all-round woollen industry in Canada.
If we survey our situation in Canada we have every reason to believe that we can develop a great woollen industry in this country. I would call the attention of the Minister of Finance to the fact that we have in Canada immense areas which are especially adapted to the growth and production of wool, but which are, perhaps, not adapted for any other profitable use. I have endeavoured to ascertain the extent of land of that character in Canada, but I have not been able to secure any very definite information upon that point. However, every one who takes any note of the conditions in the country is aware that we have immense areas of the kind I have described. Another important feature in favour of wool-growing in Canada is the peculiar immunity from disease of Canadian sheep. It is an absolute, well-established fact that perhaps in no other country in the world are sheep as free from disease as they are in Canada. As a matter of fact, it has been ascertained, and this information will be found in a publication ol the Department of Agriculture, that herds imported into Canada and which had suffered from disease in other countries for generations have, after two or three generations in Canada, become entirely free of disease. Then, too, the exceedingly high quality of the mutton produced in Canada is an important factor. I admit that it is not equal in texture or in flavour to the English mutton, but it is equal to any other mutton in the world. To-day it is greatly sought after by people in the United States, hotel-keepers and others who -want a high class article. That is notably the case in the maritime provinces where every fall purchasers for American hotels buy large quantities of mutton. Although there has been some doubt as to the quality of our wool, it is well established that we can grow not only

the coarser, but also the finer grades, particularly since the west is opening up and we are now producing an excellent quality of wool which is being used in the United States. I do not know whether the Canadian woollen manufacturers are doing all in their power to assist the Canadian producer by using his wool. Then we have the important factor to which I have already referred, that our conditions are similar to those in the United States where they have developed an enormous woollen industry.
The last, and perhaps the most important fact, is that Canada contains, in a sense, the last great fields, the last sheep walks of the world. We know that as agriculture becomes more settled, the sheep walks are more circumscribed. That is the case in Australia and in the United States, and notably in England and on the continent of Europe; but for years, and I venture to say for scores and for hundreds of years, as we spread out and carry our railways further into the interior and the remote regions of Canada, more and more, we will open up valuable fields where we can produce wool with great profit to the people. I venture to predict that a business government,^ whenever it comes into power in Ottawa, if this government will not rise to the occasion, will so encourage and develop the woollen industry that it will become a great factor in planting on this northern half of the continent one of the greatest nations in the world.
Woollen manufacturing has succeeded in the United States and it succeeded here as long as the wool farmer and the manufacturer worked in harmony. It was a native industry with the French colonists in Quebec and Nova Scotia years ago, and with the English colonists in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Ontario; they were successfully producing their own wool and manufacturing it into clothing. The industry prospered until thirty years ago, when the laws of Canada virtually divorced the interests of the farmers and the manuacturers. Now we are losing ground; I do not think there can be much doubt about that. It could hardly be otherwise. No attention is paid to this industry, the government knows it, they know ^ they have been jollying the farmer and jollying the manufacturer. There is perhaps no greater instance of that than the speech of the right hon. gentleman at the manufacturers' convention at Montreal. But they have been doing absolutely nothing, and year after year these great industries of wool growing and wool manufacturing have been losing ground. The farmer has been keeping fewer sheep, producing less wool and receiving less money for it; he has been going out of the business because there has been no profit in it. The
manufacturers, year after year, have been going behind; factory after factory has been closing up and selling its machinery, as this Montreal factory is now .selling its machinery and returning it to Great Britain. It could hardly be otherwise, because when I asked the Minister of Customs the other day for statistics in reference to the woollen industry the minister, always accommodating, always kind, had to confess to me that he had no information; that there were no statistics and nothing available.
I find in a copy of the Yorkshire 'Post' of February 24 last, which was sent to me, a dispatch from Ottawa of the 11th of February, reporting a meeting of the Dominion Sheep Breeders' Association. These gentlemen have been gauging the situation and have come to the conclusion that this government are doing nothing and do not appear to be awake to the situation at all. The report reads:
The Dominion Sheep Breeders' Association, acting on this advice, appointed a committee in January to wait upon the Minister of Customs to present the case for the protection of raw wool. At the annual meeting of the association, held in Toronto last Friday, this committee, whose chairman was Mr. John Campbell, president of the association, presented its report, which was read by its secretary, Col. D. A. McCrae. The committee, said Colonel McCrae, had been sympathetically received by Mr. Paterson, Minister of Customs, but found that both Mr. Paterson and his staff were lamentably unfamiliar with the actual situation of the wool trade
In Mr. Paterson's opinion, little could be done to remedy the situation

Very much like the fly on the wheel policy of some years ago.
-In: informed the committee, unless special legislation were enacted by the Dominion parliament

Why don't you get a hustle on and enact the legislation if it is necessary? Why don't you do something for the sheep breeders of -Canada? That is what I am after. We have not yet had the budget speech, and I have a kind of faith that even at the last hour the Minister of Finance may repent and see the wisdom of doing something for the wool grower and the woollen manufacturer of Canada.


William Stevens Fielding: What is it that my hon. friend asks to be done?


Haughton Lennox: Oh well now, that is all right.


William Stevens Fielding: I knew that was al1 right.


Haughton Lennox: That is all right. I did not want to move a vote of want of confidence in this government to day, but I may say that as far as my heart goes I could do it all right.


William Stevens Fielding: Hear, hear; nobody doubts that.


Haughton Lennox: It would be perfectly right, but in the end I am going to summarize what I think the government ought to do. If this government do not know what ought to be done after all the interviews they have had with woollen manufacturers and sheep breeders' associations and representatives of the woollen industries generally in Canada it is time that they would leave and I think it is time now. I think there is good ground for believing that as these gentlemen, whilst they were out of power, failed to appreciate the conditions which would bring prosperity to Canada, so now they are not able, as regards the woollen industry, to appreciate the situation. Let me illustrate the matter, By quoting the following figures with reference to the sheep industry in Ontario, which is the only province for which we have statistics;
Number of Sheep in Ontario.
1884	 1,890,733
1895	 2,022,735
1907	 1,106,083
In all Canada to-day we have about two million sheep less than we had in Ontario in 1895. We have had a shrinkage, since 1895, of 45 per cent in the number of sheep kept in Ontario, while in other lines agriculture is profitable. It is prospering in spite of the action of my hon. friends opposite, as the following figures will show:
Horses.
1884	 535,953
1895	 647,696
1907	 725,666
Milch cows.
,1884	 710,519
1895	 888,228
1907	 1,152,071
or an increase of 30 per cent in Ontario. Pigs.
1884	 916,158
1895	 1,299,072
1907	 2,049,666
Increase 58 per cent. We are losing ground in the sheep raising industry and we are losing ground notably and dreadfully m the matter of our manufacturing facilities. In 1899 we had in Canada 270 woollen mills in pretty steady operation, I believe. Now he have 190. We have lost 80 or 30 per cent of the lot. There has been a shrinkage of 30 per cent in the number of woollen mills in Canada, and a shrinkage in output of, I venture to say, at least 50 per cent.
My hon. friend the Finance Minister asked me what we would propose. Well, we are prepared to take upon ourselves the burden of doing what is in the best interests of Canada at any time, but Mr. LENNOX.
I would propose that the government should do something that would prevent this industry, as far as the farm is concerned, from languishing from year to year. It is a necessary adjunct to the farm, and I would commend to the hon. gentleman a sentence from a pamphlet on wool and woollens which I dare say the Minister of Finance has read, and which I regard as a very careful and clever statement upon the subject. It is by Mr. E. B. Biggar. I quote as follows:
The foundation of the woollen industry is wool, and the protection that Canada needs to re-establish this industry is a system that will begin with the sheep-raiser and continue by progressive stages to the spinner, the weaver and the knitter, and on to the clothing manufacturer.
I will read another sentence from the ' Yorkshire Post ', and this is in connection with the position that the Dominion Sheep Breeder's Association take upon the question. The paper says:
The argument of the advocates of duties on wool was, that if, along with duties on raw wool, the manufacturers were protected by compensatory duties, then there would spring up all over Canada a great many factories for the manufacture of worsteds, for which purpose the wools grown in Canada were especially valuable. They were at present being shipped into the United States, and were used there for the manufacture of what were described as ' the best clothes in the world.' There was no reason why the wool growers and the wool manufacturers should not be able to work in harmony to bring about a revival of what ought to be one of the greatest industries of the country. It was therefore resolved that the committee which had been appointed to interview the authorities at Ottawa should appoint a sub-oommittee to meet the representatives of the wool manufacturers and discuss the situation together.
As to what would happen as the result of our protecting ourselves, protecting the farmers and the industries of Canada, I want to read a line or two quoted from an interview in the ' Dewsbury District News ' of September 26, 1908, with a Batleyite manufacturere, a very prominent manufacturer in England. He says:
The near approach of the general election in Canada gives rise to a good deal of anxiety in their country. It is well known here that Canadian manufacturers are suffering most acutely from British competition.
That is the position as they view it in England. Then, after some other questions he is asked:
' Would it not be worth your while to establish mills in Canada? ' ' Most decidedly ' was the ready answer. ' We have spent a lot of money in recent years on new machinery. If we had put that plant down in Canada we could have made big profits, assisted by the present tariff, and if the tariff wall is raised so high that our goods are shut out, you will

see new mills opened in Canada by English firms, who will beat the Canadians on their own grounds/


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: Hear, hear.


Haughton Lennox: I say ' hear, hear ' with all gusto in response to my hon. friend. In other words if you protect our people, instead of protecting the people of Britain and other countries-and charity in this respect begins at home-you will have with respect to this industry what happened with reference to kindred industries in the United States, when 130 branch industries of the United States-such as the Deering Harvester concern-established their works in Canada. This Batleyite manufacturer says that if we had been ready to protect ourselves, or if in the workings of Providence the Conservatives had come into power and had asserted what is in the interest of the people of Canada, the English manufacturers would have established their mills in Canada. He says:
The Canadian manufacturers must not think that protection will save them. If they cannot make cloth at the price at which it ought to be made they will be driven out of the business by stress of competition, even if we are compelled to build factories in Canada to enable us to do it.
My own firm is prepared to open a mill there next year if such step is necessary to protect our interests in that country and to offer inducements to our employees to go there.
The right hon. gentleman must realize, the Minister of Finance must realize that you have only to adopt the square deal towards the people of Canada, and instead of having foreign goods, or even goods from Britain coming in and closing up our factories, you will have healthy competition in Canada, no increase in price, and you will have a large number of factories from England and elsewhere establishing branches and building up an immense woollen trade here. Then he touches a crucial point, and I commend this to my right hon. friend; he says:
The worst of it is that high protection tariffs drive industry out of our own country and that means loss to each of our local authorities through reduced revenues for gas, electricity, and in rates, and loss to the shopkeepers.
High protective tariffs in Canada entail loss on the foreign country, and on Britain, and the result is, as he says, that they have to transfer their industries into the protected country, and so the municipal revenues are transferred to the protected country. That is an item worth considering. So it is that if you will give reasonable and adequate protection to the industries of Canada you will be securing for Canada that great national by-product that results from the manufacture of the raw material 131
into the completed article within our own country. I am not an expert in the woollen industry, but I pose as being a reasonably fair farmer. I believe that we farmers have to some extent been blameful ourselves, that we have not been doing everything we cculd in the way of bringing wool to the market in good shape, and I believe also that the manufacturers could have done more than they have done.
But there are incidental gains in sheep raising that should not be lost sight of. For instance, there is the extermination of weeds. The Minister of Agriculture, a farmer like myself though probably not such a tiller of the soil, will appreciate that sheep will do more than all the men you can employ to exterminate weeds. Then, there is the renewal of the fertility of the soil by raising large flocks of sheep. There is also to be considered the very important question of the health of the people. You remember the learned discussion we had here a few weeks ago about preserving the health of the people; the way to do that is for the people to eat more mutton. What makes Britain what she is; it is largely the eating of mutton.


Wilfrid Laurier: I thought it was roast beef.


Haughton Lennox: - With a little roast beef added occasionally. Somehow or other we don't eat mutton in Canada to the extent they do in other countries. But, I am told by doctors-and I do not care to depend on the doctors, more than I can help, but I have to take their word in this case-I am told by doctors that there is no animal food so good as mutton. There was an inspection of animals in the United States in 1905 and of 8,000,000 sheep examined only 27 were affected with tuberculosis, whereas, of 6,000,000 cattle inspected 11,000 were affected, and of 25,000,000 hogs 207,000 had tuberculosis. For one sheep affected there were 555 cattle and 2,390 hogs, and yet the people will eat pork. I believe that the history of countries similar to Canada, particularly the history of the United States, shows that we can build up a great and profitable woollen industry here. I had intended to read from 'Sheep Husbandry in Canada,' issued by the Department of Agriculture but it wdll take less time if hon. members read it themselves. I believe it is prepared by Dr. Rutherford, anyway it is issued by the department and presumably reliable, and it shows that there are great areas of land in the various provinces fit for raising sheep, and that the conditions in Canada are such as to enable us to establish a large wool producing industry. We have a duty on wool but it seems to be a farce. In 1907 there were 8,000,000 pounds of wool imported, and I am told by those who profess to under-



stand that 6,500,000 pounds of that should have been dutiable, and yet the return brought down by the Minister of Customs shows that we only derived a duty of $6 from all the wool imported into Canada in that year. I want to say as emphatically as I can that even at this late hour the government should do something to prevent the wool growing and the wool manufacturing industries from being wiped out. There is no doubt in my mind, there is no doubt in the mind of any thoughtful person, there is no doubt in the mind of any one who studies the conditions, that we can build up in Canada an enormous industry in the production of wool and in the conversion of that wool into clothing. And, although the quantity we are exporting at present is not very large because our total clip of wool is only 12,000,000 pounds, yet we can increase it so enormously that we can practically clothe our own people with wool grown in our own country. I do think it is high time for the government to cease jollying these two great industries. The government is trying to satisfy them with empty statements every time these people come to Ottawa, and yet the government does nothing. I want to read a line or two from an eloquent speech delivered by the right hon. the Prime Minister-the right hon. gentleman's speeches are always eloquent and graceful-at the Manufacturers' banquet in Montreal last year when the elections were coming on. He said:
Their argument is that if the quality of British goods were equal to the quality of Canadian goods they could compete, but they say, that under the tariff the British manufacturer is able to send to Canada a certain class of article which is inferior in quality, though shining in appearance, and seductive to the customer, but worth less than the money he pays for it; in other words, that the goods which are sent over from Great Britain to Canada are shoddy goods, made up of a little wool and a good deal of tops and oil and waste, cobwebs and refuse, and similar things, which are given to the innocent Canadian consumer.
I want the House to note particularly how they are made up-of cobwebs and refuse and similar things-because of the advice my right hon. friend afterwards gives. Summing up, he said:
If, after all, the man or woman, deluded or not deluded, chooses to buy the cheap shining goods, why, in the name of everything that is proper, do you not give him or her the cheap shining goods? Why is it that you cannot produce what is produced by the British manufacturer? Well, sir, if it be that the conscience of the Canadian manufacturer is too severe, that they will give only pure wool and nothing else, I say that is not business.
That is the advice my right hon. friend gives to the manufacturers and the people Mr. LENNOX.
of Canada; and he opens that speech by saying that he is going to have a heart-to-heart talk with them. The heart-to-heart talk, all boiled down, is this: The British manufacturers unload these goods, made partly of wool, but considerably of cobwebs and refuse; you the Canadian manufacturers should adapt yourselves to the conditions, go into the same line of business, and when the innocent Canadian consumer, deluded or not deluded, comes to buy, give him the cheap shining stuff, and if your conscience is too severe for that, all I have to say is, ' that is not business.'


Mr. WM. THOBURN (North Lanark).: Mr. Speaker, as a new member of this ' House, I crave the indulgence of the members for a short time while 1 discuss this question in which I am so very much interested. The remarks which I have to make may not be clothed in that grammatical form which is familiar to hon. members on both sides, owing to the fact that I have not been blessed with a college education nor with a grammar school education, nor even with an ordinary common 'school education. I have had to earn my living since before I was ten years of age; so that if the hon. member for South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) is a fair specimen of the farming community of this c untry, I claim to be a fair specimen of the working men of this country. Now, Mr. Speaker, the remarks which I have to make refer to a very large number of the worKmg men, the working women, the working boys and the working girls of Canada who are engaged in the woollen industry. My remarks are not made from a theoretical standpoint or from what I have heard or read, but they are made from 28 years of hard practical experience. I have been here on several deputations to this government asking for a revision of the woollen tariff. I do not know whether the hon. Finance Minister is going to ask me before I am through what it is we want: if he is, I will answer him to the best of my ability. Although several deputations on behalf of the woollen industry have waited on the government during recent years, nothing has been done by the government other than to send to Great Britain a commissioner to investigate the causes of the difference in cost of manufacture in Great Britain and in Canada. I have the report of that commissioner, and I will say on behalf of the woollen manufacturers of Canada that we are thankful that the government have done even that much, because if they take the trouble to examine this report, they will realize the great disadvantage under which the Canadian woollen manufacturers labour as compared with the woollen manufacturers of Great Britain. The report is addressed to Mr. John Me-

Dougald, Commissioner of Customs, Ottawa, Canada, and it says:
Inclosed herewith is a complete list of wages that are now being paid in the districts of Bradford, Leeds and Huddersfield to operatives in the manufacture of woollens and worsteds, when paid by the days or by the week.
After going very fully into the cost of the various branches of manufacture, the report says:
In order to make a comparison between the cost of manufacturing in Canada and in Great Britain, it would, in my opinion, be necessary to take into account the following items: 1, wages; 2 more expensive factory buildings; 3, extra cost of heating; 4, additional buildings; 5, extra capital employed in carrying larger stocks; 6, higher rate of interest on money; 7, increased cost of machinery; 8, more expensive motive power; 9, owing to Canadian mills having a limited market, they are compelled to show a large number of designs each season, and manufacture from comparatively short warps, which interferes with production and increases cost; 10, the specialization which is so general in Yorkshire has many advantages in lowering the cost of production.
In order to ascertain the actual difference in the cost of producing goods in Great Britain and in Canada, I have gone to the trouble of getting comparisons of five of the principal items enumerated in this list: 1, wages; 2, higher rate of interest charged in Canada as compared with Great Britain; 3, extra cost of fuel; 4, more expensive factory buildings; 5, increased cost of machinery. I took that report to a woollen manufacturer, who has a factory similar in size to the one on which the commissioner apparently based this report, that is, a ten-set mill, or one with ten sets of cards. I took it to the Rosamond woollen company mill of Almonte, which is conducted on the best principles, a mill whose exhibit of tweeds at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia captured the gold medal against all American competition.
A woollen mill is divided into some eight or ten different parts. I have taken the five principal parts and made a comparison in respect of these between the factories in Great Britain and those in Canada. There are what we call the dye-house, the scouring plant, the carding room, the spinning room, the weaving and finishing room. These are the five principal rooms. While there are several others, these are the most important and are the ones with respect to the operation of which I have compared the prices. Here are the wages given by the commissioner, whom we sent to England, as paid in Great Britain and those paid for similar help in Canada. First, take the dye house. In Britain the overseers receive $12.16 per week. In Canada 1314
we pay them $20 per week. In England, the labourers who work under .the overseers, receive from $5.16 to $7 per week. In this country we pay them $8 per week. In the carding room, the overseers in Britain are paid from $14.60 to $17.04 a week and in this country they get $24 per week. Their under help receive in Britain $6 per week and in this country $8. The women and girls employed in those rooms receive in Britain $3.65 per week and we pay them $6.16. In the spinning department, the overseers receive on the otheT side $9.73 a week and in. this country $18 per week. The men working under them receive $3.40 per w'eek in Britain as compared with $7.40 per week in this country. In the weaving department, the overseers receive in Britain from $12.16 to $13.38 per wTeek and we pay them $18. Their assistants get on the other side $4.87 to $6.33 per week as compared with $11.20 on this side. In the finishing denartment, the overseers in Britain receive $8.52 to $9.73 per week and we pay them $18. The boys and girls in the different departments in the finishing room, receive in Britain from $2.43 to $2.92 per week, whereas we pay them from $5.40 to $6.16. Then the mechanics are paid in Britain $8.36 per week whereas here they get $10.12.
Those are the differences in wages paid in the five principal branches in a woollen mill, comparing the two countries. A very important question, to my mind, was to find out what difference that would make, comparing a mill of this country with one of similar size in the old land. I asked the Rosamond Woollen Mill Company if they would kindly let me know what their annual pay-roll amounted to. They replied that it amounted to $82,000 per annum, exclusive of office help. The difference in the rates of wages between the two countries, taking it at a very low average, would amount to 50 per cent in favour of the mother country, and in that average I think I am rather under the estimate according to the commissioner's report. How does that work out in a mill, the size of the one I have referred to? The Rosamond Woollen Company pay $82,000 in wages per annum. A mill of similar size in the old country would pay only $55,000 per annum. In other words if you add 50 per cent to the $55,000 you have $82,000. So that a mill of the size of the Rosamond Woollen Mill in Canada is paying $27,000 a year more in wages than a mill of similar size in Great Britain.
The next item that struck me is the difference in the cost of money in Canada as compared with Great Britain. Nobody knows that difference better than the hon. the Minister of Finance. When I say that it takes a pretty solid industry in Canada to get money at 6 per cent, 1 am putting the rate as low as possible. How does that compare with the rate in Great Britain? I

have had money myself in an indirect way on goods shipped to this country, sold strictly on a cash basis, from the time the goods were shipped until the money was paid, and I was charged a rate of 2i per cent per annum. But I am basing my calculations on a rate of 4 per cent in the old country, which I think is reasonable compared with 6 per cent in Canada. How does that work out in a plant the size of the one I have referred to? They have in use in that concern no less than half a million dollars, which, at 6 per cent, gives $30,000 interest per annum. A concern requiring the same amount of money in the old country can get it at 4 per cent or $20,000 interest, would have to pay $20,000 in interest, showing a difference against the Canadian manufacturer, in the case of a mill of similar size, of $10,000 per annum. The next item is the cost of fuel. In the old country, fuel costs exactly one-half, perhaps a little less, what it does in this country. A mill, such as the one I have referred to, uses $6,000 worth of fuel in a year. A mill of similar size in the old country will consume $3,000 worth of fuel. In other words it costs the Canadian manufacturer $3,000 more for fuel than it does the British manufacturer and he has to use more. The next item is the cost of buildings and machinery. Let me cite an actual occurrence. A couple of years ago the Rosamond Woollen Company advertised for tenders for the erection of a large weaving shed. The building was to be a large one of either brick or stone covered with iron. The lowest tender was $28,000, and the parties thought the price so enormous that they gave up the idea of erecting the building. Shortly afterwards^ one of the members of the firm had occasion to visit the old country for the purpose of purchasing some woollen machinery. While there in" conversation with some manufacturers, he happened to refer to the building of this weaving shed. They asked him to submit plans and they would get an estimate. He gave them the dimensions, and to his utter astonishment, the estimated cost was $18,000 for a building for the construction of which $28,000 was the lowest bid on this side. That makes a difference between the two of 55 per cent. How does that apply to a plant similar to the one I have referred to? *The cost of the building in that town was $130,000-a magnificent stone building, no better in the Dominion for its size." But in the old country a building of the same proportions would cost 55 per .cent cheaper.
In other words, a building that, in this country, would cost $130,000 could be built m the old country for $84,000. There is the difference in that item alone, of $46,000. The interest on_ this^ amount is $2,760 a year. The next item is the machinery. In that plant, the machinery cost $150,000. I' Mr. THOBURN.
think there is about 37i or 38 per cent dif-fernce in the cost of machinery in Canada as compared with the old country. It may not be quite that now, but at the time these mills were supplied with machinery the difference was actually greater, the Canadian manufacturer has to pay for cases and freight delivered to Liverpool from the place of manufacture 121 per cent, and when you add whatever duty there is and freight, it makes it, I think, not far from the figure I have given. Take this plant of $150,000 and deduct 371 per cent, and you get $106,000. In other words, it costs $44,000 more to supply a mill of this size with machinery in Canada than it does in Great Britain. The interest on $44,000 is $2,640. So, with $46,000 extra for the building, and $44,000 extra for machinery, you have $90,000 as the added cost of such an establishment in Canada over the cost of a similar establishment in Great Britain. In summing up the annual expenditure, the difference in wages, the difference in the rate of interest, the difference in cost of fuel, the difference in interest charge because of extra cost of building and machinery, we find a total of $45,400. That is the amount, in round figures, which it costs the manufacturer in this country to run a mill like that in Almonte more than it would cost to operate a similar mill in Great Britain.
Now, there has been a good deal said in this country about inferior machinery. We are told that it is because the Canadian manufacturer has inferior machinery that he cannot produce cloth as cheap or as good as the manufacturer in the old country produces. I deny that charge, and I speak from experience. I venture to say that, in proportion to the machinery we have in operation in Canada to-day, we have just as good machinery if not better, than they have in Great Britain. And I would like nothing better than to have the right hon. Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson), and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) visit the manufacturing town of Almonte and see if what I say with reference to machinery is not correct. These gentlemen may say:	There is no
use in our going there, because we are not judges of woollen machinery. I meet that argument by asking them to bring with them the best expert woollen manufacturer they can find in the Dominion of Canada, and see if he does not bear out my statement with reference to the character of woollen machinery used in this country.
Now, Mr. Speaker, you can understand, from the figures I have given, how difficult it is for the manufacturers in Canada to compete with the manufacturers in Great Britain. I do not know whether

any of the hon. members opposite have ever visited the manufacturing districts of Great Britain; but I have done so, and I know that it is a sorry sight to see the operatives coming out of these woollen mills, wearing wooden shoes and with shawls over their heads, not as well clad as the squaws of our country are. Compare this with the manner in which our operatives are clothed; compare the homes of these people in Bradford and other manufacturing districts in Great Britain with the homes of the workers in woollen mills in Canada, and I do not think any member of this House would wish to see our operatives compelled to live in such homes as those occupied by the operatives of these great manufacturing districts in Great Britain. But I can say this also, give the Canadian working man the same chances as those enjoyed by the working man in the old country and he will produce goods faster and I think better. For some reason or other, we have to work faster in this country than they work in the old country. What the reasons may be, it is a little difficult to say, but I know, from what I have seen, that the fact is as I state. Possibly, some of the hon. members opposite, or some on this side of the House have travelled in Great Britain. If so, they can hardly help having noticed that the manner of working there is much slower than it is in this country. I went through Great Britain once in the harvest time, and I saw more help in one harvest field there than you would find in five harvest fields in this country. Help is so cheap that there is no difficulty in getting abundance of it. _ One of the most amazing things- speaking from a Canadian standpoint-I saw in travelling through the British agricultural districts was a man ploughing in the field driving three horses, tandem. I suppose every Canadian will know what I mean when I say ' tandem,' with two boys leading the horses. To the Canadian eye, nothing could be much more ridiculous. I will guarantee to take a Canadian boy of seventeen years old, put him behind the plough with a span of horses, and he will do more work in a day than that man was doing with his three horses and two boys. There is the difference between the workman in Canada and the workman in Great Britain.


Hon. WM. PATERSON (Minister of Customs).: I should be sorry to interfere with the course of the hon. gentleman's (Mr. Thoburn) argument, for, I know this is his maiden speech, and he is speaking well. But, if he will permit me a question at this point, I would ask whether he has taken into calculation the very element of which he speaks ? The figures he gave were based on the weekly wages here and
in England. Does the Canadian manufacturer, with double the wages, get double the product out of his operatives? Does the hon. gentleman see what I mean ?


William Thoburn: No, I do not quite catch it.


William Paterson: I understand the hon. gentleman's argument to be that a Canadian workman will produce far more work in a certain number of hours than an English workman will produce. The hon. gentleman's comparison, I think, was with reference to the weekly wages of the operative in Canada and the operative in England. That has a bearing on the case because if the Englishman who gets 36 a week turns out, we will say, 10 yards while the Canadian who receives $12 a week turns out 20 yards, the product is the same as far as labour is concerned.


William Thoburn: Such a difference is an utter impossibility because the product of an employee in a woollen factory is principally turned out by machinery; it is not the same as two labourers working in competition; it would be impossible to get the machine to turn out double the quantity in this country that it would in England.


Mr. SPROULE.: The machine runs at the same rate in England as it does here.


William Paterson: Then the difference in wages is nothing.


William Thoburn: There is little hand work in a woollen mill, it is practically all machine work. I was struck by an item which I read in the 'Glasgow News' in reference to our Canadian athletes. In discussing the Canadian curlers, it said:
One cannot attempt to explain away the Canadian superiority. These are the real wizards of the game. The Canadian curler is the product of the Canadian climate and he cannot be produced north of the Tweed.
Whatever applies to the Canadian athe-lete as the result of our climate, applies in every sense of the word to the Canadian workman. Give the Canadian workman the same chance as the workman of Great Britain and I think he will defy the world as to the quality and the quantity of the work he will turn out.


William Stevens Fielding: What does the hon. gentleman mean when he says to give the Canadian workman the same chance? I do not want to interrupt my hon. friend who is speaking with great interest and with a knowledge of the subject, but what does the Canadian workman lack?


William Thoburn: He lacks labour. All I ask the Finance Minister is to give labour and that is all the Canadian workman is asking for. It is on their behalf that I plead this afternoon, on behalf of
*4147

the thousands of workmen in the woollen industry who are idle.


William Stevens Fielding: I do not see the point of my hon. friend's argument, I confess.


William Thoburn: Another mistaken idea is prevalent in this country, that if you increase the duty you will increase the cost of the article to the consumer. That does not always follow. I am not speaking on behalf of woollen manufacturers generally in making this statement but I speak on my own behalf. I am not so very anxious whether I get an increased price for the article I am producing; all I am begging for is a market for the article I am producing. Let me illustrate. Supposing that one of the ministers was engaged in manufacturing, that he had a firm producing $1,000,000 worth of goods and that he was making a fair living and a reasonable profit. Then suppose that, say, through the introduction of a preferential clause, $500,000 worth of such goods as; he was producing were allowed to enter this country and to get into the hands of his customers Not because they got any more for the goods than he did, but from the very fact of their coming into this country, they would deprive him of one half of his customers, they would deprive one half of his workmen of their employment and what benefit is derived? That is the point I want to make so far as the increased duty is concerned. The hon. gentleman asks, what are you asking? I have not yet asked an increased duty but that is what I am aiming at, not so much that it will increase the cost of the article but that it will give a market for the goods I am producing. Let us go a little further. Supposing the re-arrangement of the woollen tariff did mean an addition of 5 cents a yard in the cost of the cloth for a suit of clothes-and even one half of five cents a yard would be a handsome profit for a woollen manufacturer who had a large factory. But suppose it did make a difference of five cents a yard, what difference would that make to the man buying a suit of clothes? Just 35 cents. How many men in Canada would object to paying 35 cents extra for a suit of clothes provided you give all the men in this country plenty of work? Not one in the whole Dominion. It would be almost a calamity to the people of Canada if they had to depend entirely upon foreign woollen manufacturers. We know from experience that when all Canadian factories of any kind are closed the cost of the article is bound to advance. Let me give you an illustration from practical experience. From 1870 to 1880 I was engaged in mercantile business and hon. members will remember that at that time the burning question was the tariff on sugar. There were only one or two sugar refineries in Canada but thev were producing a first Mr. THOBUEN.
class article. The wily government of the United States, in an effort to close out that industry in Canada, paid the American sugar refineries an export bounty on sugar. What was the result? In 1877 we had to sell what we called a good article of brown sugar at 10 cents a pound and we thought we were selling it cheap. We sold it at 10 cents so long as there was competition between tha Canadian manufacturer and the American manufacturer. The Canadian manufacturers waited on the government again and again in an effort to have that tariff so arranged that they could compete with the American manufacturer who was receiving an export bounty, but they could get no redress from the government of that day, and not a single Canadian refinery continued running, they had to close their doors. What was the result? It was utterly impossible for us' to sell a pound of brown sugar at that time for less than 12i cents. It may be a matter of surprise to hon. members of this House perhaps to know that only so recently as 1877 they paid 121 cents a pound for brown sugar. But, such is the fact.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: And after the duty was put on it was sold at from four to five cents a pound?


William Thoburn: Yes. You know what the prices have been since you have had good healthy competition. So much with reference to competition in the manufacture of woollen goods. My contention has always been that the Canadian manufacturer is as great a benefit to the Canadian farmer as it is possible for one interest to be a benefit to another. I do not know that I was ever more interested in listening to a speech than I was the other night when the hon. member for Cape Breton (Mr. McKenzie) was advocating so zealously and so well the protection of the Nova Scotia coal mines. I thought, Sir, that that was one of the most patriotic speeches, one of the best speeches from a protectionist standpoint that I have heard for a long time, and I can only say that if it were to come to a vote in this House, although I am a consumer of coal in my business, I would not stand up in my place only once, but I would stand up twice, and, if the Speaker would allow me, I would stand up three times to vote with the hon. member for Cape Breton. Let me quote a few of his words:
While it is the interest of this country that capital should be safeguarded and capitalists the world over be given the assurance that in Canada we have a parliament and parliamentarians who always keep their eye upon the best interests of those who are willing to invest their capital in this country it is equally in our interest that we should likewise keep in mind the men, women and children who are dependent upon this particular industry in

every part of Canada, and in doing this we are likewise improving the position of those who invest capital in Canadian industries.
I would like to ask, Mr. Speaker, if there is anything more applicable to the Canadian woollen industry than these words as applied to the Nova Scotia miners? Then he goes on:
I would submit, Sir, that while it may he a hardship in some eases to buy coal, as we sometimes consider it dearer than we would like to pay, we should not forget that the people of the great country to the south of us have pursued the policy which I am advocating. The people in the New England states have no coal, they have to receive their coal from the west and they pay a higher price than they would have to pay for Nova Scotia coal. Still, there is enough national spirit-
That is what I like to hear.
-to induce them to bear with any little extras they would have to pay in order to develop in the west great coal centres and keep the trade within their own bounds.
I could not use language as eloquent as that in behalf of the Canadian woollen manufacturers. I only wish I could, but I am quoting the hon. gentleman's words to help me in my argument. Then:
I regret that this winter they have not been kept in continuous employment

Referring to the employees engaged in the Nova Scotia coal mines.
-because of this displacement of Canadian coal in the home market by American coal.
I regret exceedingly that the woollen operatives in the manufacturing centres of the Dominion of Canada are not employed continuously and that a great number of them were not employed at all during the winter months through which we have just passed. But, Sir, further on he says in closing his address:
I have presented my views and these statistics to the House in the hope that the government will take into serious consideration the circumstances of those who are dependent on this trade for a means of livelihood as well as those who have had the courage and the enterprise to invest millions of dollars in the development of our coal areas in Nova Scotia and elsewhere in Canada.
That is what I am asking the government to do. I am asking, the government to take into consideration the men who have invested their millions of dollars in the woollen industries of this country. I was pleased with the reply the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) made. He said:
I do not imagine that my hon. friend (Mr. McKenzie) desires to divide the House on this question to-night, especially as there is a very slim attendance of members present. 1 take it for granted that the purpose of his motion was to have an opportunity of presenting these very interesting statistics to us
and to urge, if it be necessary to urge, the importance of this great mining^ industry. There will be no difference of opinion in that respect.
I hope and trust that there will be no difference of opinion between the hon. Minister of Finance, the Minister of Customs and myself with reference to this great woollen industry. It seems to me that every man in this House, irrespective of politics, is a national policy man, is a protectionist, when it is touching anything in which he is personally interested. Not only did I read with pleasure the speech of the hon. member for Cape Breton, but I have noticed the following proposed resolution by the hon. member for Wentworth (Mr. Sealy) on the Order Paper:
That in the opinion of this House, so long as the Canadian tariff affords, incidentally or otherwise, a considerable degree of protection to manufacturers, some protection may fairly and properly be afforded by our tariff to Canadian agriculturists and stock raisers upon hogs, hog products, garden vegetables and such other items as it may appear possible to so protect with advantage to the agriculturist, and without undue injury to the Canadian consumer.
With reference to the very items that the hon. gentleman proposes to have protected, to my certain knowledge, no greater protection could be given to the Canadian farmer than that which he would secure by establishing and maintaining the woollen industries of this country. I know for a fact that in the town in which I live, the town of Almonte, the woollen manufacturers have paid out millions and millions of dollars for farm products, a laTge portion of which would not otherwise have been sold at all, it would have gone to waste. They have paid for wood alone, which in the early days would have been burnt in log piles, millions and millions of dollars. They have paid millions and milions of dollars to the farmers for the product of their orchard and gardens which could not be exported from this country. I claim that the manufacturers are as great a benefit to the farmer as it is possible for them to be from the fact that they buy such a large quantity of the products of the farm that cannot possibly be exported.
There aTe thousands and thousands of farmers in this country who cannot raise grain for export and who make out of the manufacturing industries of this country a living which in their absence they could not make. Speaking from the standpoint of a woollen manufacturer, and I know whereof I speak, I would ask the Minister of Agriculture if there is any branch of agriculture more profitable to the farmer than sheep raising? Let me give an illustration of that. Take a farmer having 100 sheep and at the very lowest estimate there would be 100 lambs. . In our neighbourhood last year the lambs

sold for $5 each, giving the farmer $500, and the lowest calculation would be one dollar's worth of wool for each sheep, giving another $100 or $600 in all, from the 100 sheep. Does the Minister of Agriculture think there is any other branch of farming which will give the farmer the same return for such a small capital invested and such small labour as would be bestowed on these 100 sheep? The hon. member for Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) dealt with the question as to the price of wool very lucidly and very ably, and I quote from the Montreal Trade Bulletin of a few days ago the following:
Canadian Wool and the Tariff.
The present tariff is about as discouraging recently at 12c. to 13c. About fifteen or he can get for his washed fleece in the west, is about 14c. to 15c., whilst we hear of sales recently at 12c. to 13c. About fifteen or eighteen months ago the farmer was getting from 27c. to 28c. for his washed fleece, whilst to-day he has to be content with the unprofitable returns of those figures cut in two; and the grim irony of the whole thing at present is, that our farmers are mainly dependent upon the highly protected American market as an outlet for his product. The tariff is not affording the farmers a chance to raise wool profitably, nor have the manufacturers a fair show to compete with foreign goods.
Let me give to the House an illustration of the fluctuations in the price of wool in say a period of 12 months. It may be a surprise to a goodly number of you to know that from our own Northwest Territories there come annually about 1,300,000 pounds of wool. The sheep industry is only in its infancy in that country. I am engaged in a woollen business in which I use exclusively almost Northwest wool, and I am proud to say, whatever the cause of it may be, they produce in the Northwest Territories a quality of wool such as cannot be produced in any other part of the Dominion. Until I commenced to use the Canadian Northwest wool I was using wool imported from the Cape of Good Hope, and to the credit, of our own northwestern farmers be it said that they are now raising a wool nearer the texture of -what we call fine Cape wool than we have been able to get from any other part of Canada. A shoTt time ago the price of that wool was 20 cents a pound, and the 1,300,000 pounds brought to the farmers $260,000, but this year the price of wool is 14 cents per pound, or less, and on the same basis of production it would only bring $182,000 or a loss in one year to the farmers of Saskatchewan and Alberta of $78,000. Why does this state of things exist? I -will tell you, and in doing so I will have to treat of a personal matter. The principal mills using that class of wool in Canada were the flannel mills, one of which I own and operate. The personal aspect of the case is this, and it is something that Mr. THOBURN.
affects me and you cannot blame me for referring to it-when the government saw fit some years ago to insert that preferential clause in the woollen tariff T had no doubt that their idea was a good one and possibly the government expected that by giving that preference Great Britain would give us something in return. But, Sir, so far as I know Great Britain has never given us one dollar in return. On the other hand I will tell you what that preference has done for us. It has allowed millions and million dollars worth of manufactured' goods to ccme into the country that were not coming in before. It has taken millions of dollars of wages out of the pockets of the working man, and the working woman, and the working boy, and the working girl of Canada and placed it in the pockets of the working classes of Great Britain. Let me bring the question still nearer home to myself. When, some years ago, for reasons best known to themselves the government changed that tariff, and restored part of the preference to tweed manufacturies, but they discriminated against the manufacturers of flannels and blankets. I now appeal personally to the Prime Minister, because I think from the very bottom of my heart that if he takes this matter in hand he will have it rectified. Nor am I speaking now so much for myself as for the Canadian woollen industry generally. The point I want to make is this: the flannel manufacturers of this country have been fighting with the whole force of that preferential clause against them, and I have come down here more than once with other flannel manufacturers and waited upon the government, and we thought we were not asking any favour, for all we asked was to be put on the same footings as other woollen manufacturers, we being woollen manufacturers in every sensg of the word. But, for some reason or other our request was never granted. And what has been the result? Two flannel mills in my own town have closed down, and the demand for that Northwestern wool has fallen off, and the loss has amounted to a sum of $78,000. I cannot make my statement any plainer. I can only say in conclusion that I have seen the day, before I was a manufacturer of woollen goods, when we paid in Ontario as high as 52 cents a pound for Canadian wool. It may be a surprise to many members of this House to hear that, but it is a fact. In those days all the small mills in Canada were in operation and they were using Canadian wool. But, unfortunately, goods not anything like equal in quality, came into this country and from time to time these smaller mills which use the Canadian wool were forced out of existence so that to-day there is hardly a small mill in the Dominion. From 52 cents per pound the price of Canadian wool has gradually decreased, and I say right here, and I am glad I did not

forget it, that no fine wool imported into the Dominion of Canada has decreased in price in the same ratio as has Canadian wool. I can come to no other conclusion than that the reason for that is that we have closed up the mills in this country that were using Canadian wool :	It is worth to-day only
from 12 to 16 cents as compared with 52 cents a few years ago.
Now, I am thankful to the members of this House for the very kind attention they have paid to my remarks. I do earnestly beseech of the government to rearrange the woollen tariff, by increasing the ad valorem duty a little, and by putting a specific duty on the shoddy goods coining to this country, so as to give some relief to the working class for whom I am pleading this afternoon.


Mr. CHARLES L. OWEN (East Northumberland).: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to know that we are all learning. I was not aware until this afternoon that the hon.
member for South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) was a farmer, or that the hon. member for North Lanark (Mr. Thoburn) was a labouring man. The woollen question is a very important question. I have been engaged in the woollen industry all my life. I do not claim to be a manufacturer; I have simply been a labourer in the woollen industry from the bottom to the top. We cannot at the present time manufacture in Canada all the classes of woollen goods that we import; but there are certain classes of those goods that we can manufacture. Last year we .imported $20,962,753 worth of woollen goods. I claim that we could have manufactured about half of that in Canada. The question always comes up, does the consumer pay the duty? I claim that he does not always. Previous to 1878, during the time of the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie's government, we had a duty of only 174 per cent, on woollen cloth, and in those days we received for staple goods, six-quarter, fifty-four inches wide, from $1.45 to $1.50 a yard. In 1885, after the National Policy had been in effect for some years, we sold the same class of goods, made from the same class of material, at from 90 to 95 cents a yard.


Mr. A. W. SMITH (North Middlesex).: Can the hon. gentleman tell us what the farmers got for their wool in 1878?


Charles Lewis Owen: For the class of goods I speak of we were not using wool grown in this country.


Alexander Wilson Smith: The farmers were raising it.


Charles Lewis Owen: The goods I am talking about were made from imported wool. All-wool gray flannels, 28 inches wide, sold previous to 1878 at from 37i to 40 cents a
yard; in 1885 the same goods sold at from 28 to 30 cents. Navy blue flannel, 28 inches wide, which sold previous to 1878 at from 42i to 45 cents a yard, sold in the years from 1885 to 1889 at from 30 to 32i cents a yard. You may wonder why we were able to sell these goods at these prices. It was because we '^virtually had the Canadian market to ourselves, under the duty of 30 per cent ad valorem on cloth, and the specific duty of 10 cents a pound. Every machine in the mill was run to its utmost capacity, the demand was so good. From 1885 to 1889 I was managing a ten-set mill, the output of which amounted to from $260,000 to $275,000 annually. In 1901 and 1902 the annual output of the same plant dropped down to $160,000-why? Because foreign goods were allowed to come in more fully and there was a diminished demand, and every machine was not run to its utmost capacity. Now, there has been a great deal said about shoddy goods. I think it would be better for the people at large if shoddy goods were barred altogether from coming to this country. Shoddy is made from mungo, and in many cases from the filthiest rags that can be picked up. Disease has been brought to this country in shoddy. In the districts in England where shoddy goods are made, you will find the people who labour .in the shoddy mills diseased from head to foot, because they are always working among mungo and filthy rags. If a man who wears shoddy goods visits his neighbour on a cold winter night and sits near the stove, his clothes will smell like a filthy oil barrel. I hope the manufacturers of this country will never be compelled to manufacture this class of goods. With regard to Northwest wool, I had the honour of being the first manufacturer in the province of Ontario to use it, and I wish to say that that country is adapted to the raising of fine wool, as good wool as can be raised in the Cape of Good Hope or in Australia or in Montevideo, and it would be of great benefit to the farmers of the Northwest if there were a market for it. I remember when we paid from 15 to 16 cents a pound for what we called half-breed wool, and from it made beautiful tweeds, of about twenty-ounce weight, which we sold foT 80 cents a yard, and1 there was a good demand for it. We have at the present time a duty of 30 per cent on cloth. I would not advocate increasing that duty, but I would put on a specific duty to keep out shoddy goods. There are mills in England which manufacture these shoddy goods from January to January, and there are other mills which run on doeskins or broadcloth all the year around, without a change. They do that because they have an immense market. We could not do it here, because our market is small at present. But if we encourage manufacturing in our

own country, our home market will become larger. To show the value of a manufacturing plant, I may say that when the Trent Valley Mill was established 28 years ago in the town of Campbellford, where I live, the town had a population of 1,100; now it has a population of 3,000. During that time the mill has paid out in wages $1,000,000, and although the town gave it a bonus of $10,000 and exemption from taxes for ten years, ithas during that~time paid $30,000 of taxes, not to speak of the taxes paid by the employees.
You can see the benefit which that plant has been to the town of Campbellford. It has increased the population of that little village from 1,100 to 3,000 souls. Campbellford is the market town of East Northumberland. The farmers drive there with their vegetables, and no man ever came to the town of Campbellford and went away with his load unsold. That is because the people there are employed in its manufacturing establishments, and it is they who buy the products of the farm to a very great extent. In every town where there is a large manufacturing establishment you have a great market for the country miles around. Campbellford is the market town for East Northumberland. I shall not take up more time, as my hon. friend from Simcoe Mr. Lennox) and my hon. friend from North Lanark (Mr. Tho-burn), have very well covered the ground, but I wish merely to raise my voice on behalf of a little more protection for our woollen industries, that is if you wish to keep them in the country. Many woollen mills have gone to the wall and millions of dollars have been wasted, and it has been proven that during the years when the national policy was in existence, woollen clothes were cheaper to the consumer than they are to-day or than they were previous to 1878. So that I think that in protecting our manufacturers, we are protecting our farmers. The farmer is the bone and sinew of the country, he is the great producer, but the farmer and the manufacturer must go hand in hand. The one cannot get along very well without the other. Let me point out that we are building through my riding the Trent Valley canal, which is bound to develop thousands of electric horse-power in the near future, and we want manufacturers to come and locate their establishments along the canal banks. Our people are looking forward to seeing city after city on the banks of the Trent Valley canal, but we need a little more protection before we can hope for any increase in the number of our manufacturing establishments. I hope the government will give this matter their earnest consideration; and if they do, they cannot but come to the conclusion that the woollen industry should have a little more protection than is now given it.


Charles Lewis Owen: 


Mr. WILBEKT McINTYRE (Strathcona).: I propose, Mr. Speaker, to take up but briefly the time of the House in discussing this very important subject. Having listened with great interest to the speakers in favour of the resolution, it seems to me that the question before us is that of revivifying the old national policy. It is again the question of higher protection and bolstering up manufacturing industries. I ask if that is really the principle on which our national prosperity depends. My hon. friend from South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) and from North Lanark (Mr. Thoburn) tried somewhat to disguise the situation. They came before the House, the one as a ' farmer and the other as a labourer, and each wanted something done for the particular class of which he posed as a champion. But I am in the judgment of the House if the whole burden of their song was not a plea for special legislation on behalf of a special class, and of a class which seems to be doing, to say the least, as well as the average farmer. We were, wont to think of my hon. friend from South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) as a lawyer, and consequently might feel justified in regarding any argument from him as not altogether disinterested and consequently open to suspicion, but when we now find him posing on the floor of this House as a farmer,
I presume we must necessarily take him at his word. But at the same time I cannot see that his argument for the farmer was as strong or convincing as he would like to have it. The fact of my hon. friend declaring that the proposition before the chair would be beneficial to the farmer is not proof. His whole argument must be based on the sunnosition that an increase in the protection to this particular manufacturing industry would mean the payment to the farmer of higher prices for his wool. But how would our farmers be paid higher prices for their wool unless you shut out foreign competition? So that we have my hon. friend practically pleading for a duty on wool. On the other hand the hon. member for North Lanark (Mr. Thoburn) speaks more particularly as a manufacturer, and as such a condition of things beneficial to him must be a cheap raw product and a dear manufactured product.


Mr. J. A. CURRIE.: Not necessarily.


Wilbert McIntyre: That must be the condition if he is going to increase his production. The manufacturer wants protection. For what purpose? My hon. friend says to preserve the home market. But that must necessarily be, to a large extent at least, a subterfuge, because the thing he really wants is to shut out the finished foreign product from coming into competition with his own. There we have the old anomaly of protection. When you increase

protection on the raw material, you must end by increasing it on the manufactured product, and thereby necessarily leave the farmer in the same position as before. If the argument of my hon. friend from Sim-coe as a farmer, and that of my hon. friend from North Lanark as a manufacturer, obtain, I cannot see how the farmer is going to be benefited. The benefit to the farmer, as outlined by the hon. member for Simcoe (Mr. Lennox), resolves itself into this, namely, that the increased demand for the raw material by the manufacturer, would necessarily benefit the farmer. But it must not be forgotten that in this country we have a rather rigorous climate which necessitates our purchasing large quantities of prepared woollen goods. Now the mere pittance which an increase in the tariff would give the producer of the raw material would be more than swamped by the extra amount he would have to pay for the prepared article. On behalf of the people in my county, I say that it is not the duty of the government to make it hard for the people who are struggling for an existence to buy the necessaries of life. It is not on these articles of woollen clothing that our present tariff should be made higher. At present we have a duty of 30 to 35 per cent on these prepared articles, and it seems to me that in exacting that duty we are bolstering up pretty well and taking pretty good care of our manufacturers. Since these hon. gentlemen appear so anxious on behalf of the labourer and the farmer, I would ask them if the living conditions of the average farmer on a homestead compare in any way, as regards luxuries and advantages of life, with those of the manufacturer in the city?
But we are told that our manufactories are the means of supporting a large working population. But the hon. member for North Lanark (Mr. Thoburn) himself pointed out that the conditions of labour in this country are vastly in advance of those in the old country, and he proposes to bring our labouring classes into somewhat the same condition. He wants cheaper labour. The fact is that every man who wants protection for his particular industry and who has some personal and peculiar advantage to gain by taxing other people, is in favour of the national policy. I do not believe it is a ' national ' policy to support any particular class to the disadvantage of the great classes. I do not believe in raising the tariff for the sake of protecting an industry whose decadence-assuming that it is going backward-is due to the natural conditions that exist. The maintenance of an industry in this country must depend on whether the national resources are sufficient to support that or not?


Mr. EDWARDS.: Will the hon. gentleman permit a question?


Wilbert McIntyre: Certainly.


William Cameron Edwards: What does he think about the bounties on iron and steel?


Wilbert McIntyre: I am not discussing the bounties on iron and steel.
I am quite willing to give my opinions on that subject at the proper time. There is a rule in this House to the effect that speakers should confine .themselves to the matter under discussion.


John Allister Currie: What about the duties on agricultural implements?


Wilbert McIntyre: There is a rule in this House that speakers should confine themselves to the matters under discussion, and we are not discussing the duties on agricultural implements just now. But if he wants my opinion on that subject, I may inform him that I am not in favour of duties on agricultural implements and never have been.


William Thoburn: For the information of the hon. membeT for Strathcona (Mr. Wilbert McIntyre) I may say that his Temarks indicate one of the difficulties that have always existed in this discussion-there is such a wide misapprehension of the facts. The hon. gentleman says that he believes the woollen manufacturers have a protection to the extent of 30 or 35 per cent. I want him to understand that I have been struggling under a duty of only 22J per cent.


Wilbert McIntyre: I understand that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Thoburn) is a manufacturer of blankets.


William Thoburn: No.


Wilbert McIntyre: However
that may be, I believe I am correct in saying that the main articles of woollen manufacture are dutiable to the extent of 30' or 35 per cent.


Samuel Hughes: No.


John Allister Currie: Will the hon. gentleman allow me to ask him a question? Can he tell us the price of blankets per pound, retail, in Winnipeg?


Wilbert McIntyre: If the hon. gentleman will ask a question pertaining to what I am discussing I will answer him. I am not a merchant in Winnipeg, as it happens, and I am unable to give him the information he asks for. The point is this: The principle of high protection is one, it seems to me, which we must shun if the development of this country is to be what we desire it to be. We tried high protection for eighteen years, and a pretty bitter trial it was. The hon. member for South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) says that for eighteen years they have been trying to educate this House how to legislate for prosperity.


Haughton Lennox: Excuse me; I referred to the eighteen years when the party now in power were in opposition and were denouncing the national policy.


Wilbert McIntyre: I understood the hon .gentleman to say that they were trying to educate this government with regard to the tariff. I can only say that we have had greater prosperity since we changed the tariff than before.


Samuel Hughes: What do you call 'high protection?'


Wilbert McIntyre: I know that the hon. member (Mr. Hughes) entertains the idea that we still have high protection. So long as he and his friends are happy in that delusion, and we get the benefit of ti e other, I do not see why either of us should complain. The prosperity of this country, in my estimation, depends to a very great extent on the development of western Canada; and I state again, as I have stated before, that when you initiate a policy in this country which increases the cost of the necessaries of life and entails hardship on the people who are developing this country and producing wealth as no other class are, you are stepping aside from the true function of national government. Hon. gentlemen opposite ask us: ' Why not look at this from a national standpoint? ' And yet we find them speaking of this or that particular town or village, or the number of employees engaged in a single manufactory. I am not against manufactures. It is to the interest of the country that manufactures should develop, and .'they will develop naturally as the country develops, and without entailing hardship on the people as a whole. Surely when the farmers of this country have no protection, and when protection means that you put upon the farmers, who are the basis of the wealth of this country, burdens and restrictions, it is time for us to make known our opposition to legislative enactments of that kind. I trust that when the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) comes to discuss this matter in his budget speech, we shall find that there is no change, or, if there be a change, that it is one toward a lower rather than toward a higher tariff. I think I speak for the majority of the people west of the Great Lakes; I am confident that the people in that part of the Dominion do not want a higher tariff. We have heard it said many times by hon. members on the other side of the House that the future prosperity of this country depends on the prosperity of the country west of the Great Lakes. That being so, it would be clearly unwise for this government, to impose duties which, while possibly benefiting a certain manufacturing town or certain manufacturers, would injure Mr. W. McINTYRE.
the very people to whom we look for the substantial future progress of the country.


Samuel Hughes: May I ask the hon. gentleman (Mr. Wilbert McIntyre) is he in favour of protecting the pork industry?


Wilbert McIntyre: I may remark to the hon. gentlmean (Mr. Hughes) that the pork industry is not under discussion.


Mr. RICHARD BLAIN (Peel).: I listened with a great deal of interest to the presentation of the case by my hon. friend from South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) and from my hon. friend Mr. Thoburn from North Lanark. The hon. member for Strathcona (Mr. Wilbert McIntyre) has endeavoured to leave the impression with the House that -the members on this side who have spoken on this question are in favour of a very high tariff for Canada. For my part, I am in favour of a tariff high enough to keep out of Canada every dollar's worth of goods that we can successfully grow or manufacture in Canada; and I think that it is in the interest of the people that the government of the day, finding that, last year, according to the figures given by my hon. friend from South Simcoe, there was $21,000,000 of woollen goods imported into Canada, the raw material for which could have been grown and the goods themselves manufactured in Canada, should see to it that Canadian interests are taken care of. This should be done by the Minister _ of Finance in the budget which he is to bring down in a few days. I am one of those who believe that it is possible to have a protective tariff that will assure the Canadian manufacturer our own Canadian market, under which consumers will be able to purchase their goods at low prices. If I were to take up the time of the House reviewing the national policy from its introduction in 1879, down to the time when hon. gentlemen opposite came into power in 1896, I am sure I should have no difficulty whatever in proving to the satisfaction of the majority of people of this country that when the national policy was introduced we were importing large quantities of goods from the United States and other countries, and that within a few years factories were established in Canada to manufacture these goods, and yet the goods thus manufactured in Canada were cheaper to the consumer than were those which had been imported before the national policy was introduced.
Mv hon. friend from Strathcona (Mr. W. McIntyre) in his remarks revived an old question. My hon. friend, of course, is not very sincere in his low tariff principles. I am quite sure of that because last year my hon. friend from Souris (Mr. Schaffner) introduced a resolution to re-

duce the tariff on agricultural implements from 17i per cent to 10 per cent. Where were my hon. friend's principles then?


Wilbert McIntyre: Does the hon. gentleman intimate that I voted against that resolution?


Richard Blain: My hon. friend thought he would get me into the box of saying that he had voted against that resolution. My hon. friend declares in this House from year to year for a lower tariff to meet, I suppose, the wishes of the farmers of western Canada, and yet when an opportunity presented itself to vote for such a resolution my hon. friend was not in his place and he cannot say that he voted for this resolution. Of course my hon. friend's electors will have their own opinion of that kind of a representative.


Wilbert McIntyre: Hear, hear.


William Stevens Fielding: How did my hon. friend from Peel (Mr. Blain) vote?


Richard Blain: The Finance Minister is not questioning me now, I will have to answer that later. For myself I am not on one side to-day and on another side to morrow. From the moment I took my seat in this House and before that I was a strong advocate of protection for the manu-fecturing and for the farming interests of Canada and I am m the same position to-day. I may say to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) that I have had the honour of moving several resolutions calling for an increase in tariff in the interests of the farmers of Canada.


William Stevens Fielding: I had forgotten about the agricultural implements, I was asking for information.


Richard Blain: My hon. friend does not require any information from me upon the question of tariff. He understands it very well. The only complaint we have against my hon. friend on that question is not that he does not understand it, but that he fails to act in the interests of the people of Canada. The question before the House is an increase in the tariff that will incidentally help the manufacturer and give him a larger market in this country instead of allowing the market to be supplied by manufactured goads from the United States, Great Britain and other foreign countries. On the other hand my hon. friend from South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) has a declaration in the interests of the farmer. Personally I am in favour of both these propositions; I will vote for any resolution that will increase the duty upon the products of the farm and for any reasonable increase of duty upon goods which we can manufacture in Canada that will keep out foreign goods. That is my position, I have always occupied that position and I have no change to make this afternoon.
My hon. friend from Victoria has mentioned the question of pork. I would say to the Finance Minister that during this session he and the first minister have had a large deputation of the swine breeders of Canada asking them to remove the inequality between the Canadian and American tariffs on this question. Whether the hon. Minister of Finance will do that I suppose we will not know for a few days, but while he is considering it may I remind him of the condition of the pork industry in Canada during the past twelve months. The imports of pork from the United States alone in the year ending March 31, 1908, were as follows:
Pounds. Value.
Bacon and hams, shoulders	and sides... 7,276,730	$ 847,215Pork	barrelled	in	brine..	8,849,779	693,071Total	
16,126,509	$1,540,286Now look on	the	other side of	the picture. How much pork did the Canadian farmer send to the United States? I answer from the trade returns for the same fiscal year ending March 31, 1908. We exported to the United States the following quantities of pork:Pounds.	Value.Bacon	
4,381	$ 834Hams	
6,425	870Pork	
130,774	16,242Total	
141,580	$17,946
Subtracting the total exports from Canada to the United States from the total exports from the United States into Canada for that fiscal year we find a total balance of trade in pork against the Canadian farmer of 15,984,929 pounds, value $1,522,340.
The complaint of the swine breeders and farmers-and I think they have a just ground of complaint-is that when the American farmer comes to this country with his pork he is confronted with a duty of two cents a pound; but when the Canadian farmer approaches the border line of the United States he is confronted with a tariff of five .cents a pound, more than double' the Canadian tariff. The Swine Breeders' Association are not complaining particularly about the condition of things in Canada but they feel that they are not being fairly treated. They do not ask for a duty of 5 cents a pound, equal to the American duty, but they do ask that the government should impose a duty of four cents a pound as against five cents in the United States and then the farmers would be quite satisfied with the condition of trade. Surely that is a reasonable request.


William Stevens Fielding: My hon. friend's argument is that we should adopt the American rate of duty, or something near it, because it is the American duty. If that is a good argument in relation to pork, is it not equally good for every other item in the American tariff? What is the difference?


Richard Blain: The farmers of this country and the gentlemen in this House who agree with me upon this question will expect the Finance Minister to meet the wishes of the farmers. If he does not then he must give up making special appeals for the farmers' votes.


William Stevens Fielding: The party which appeals to the farmers of this country for the adoption of the American tariff will not receive their approval.


Richard Blain: A deputation of my hon. friend's' own political supporters was here the other day asking for this change. A gentleman who was a candidate in my own county a few years ago and who had the honour of a seat in this House for many years, was an ardent free trader in those days, but I noticed that my friend was one of a deputation who asked the government to put a higher protection on pork. What about my hon. friend from Wentworth (Mr. Sea-ley)? I had the honour of hearing my hon. friend up in his county supporting the free trade government, so-called, and when my hon. friend came to this House, a few weeks ago, he placed on the Order Paper a notice, as read by my hon. friend from North Lanark (Mr. Tho-burn) this afternoon, calling for higher protection on pork. My hon. friend is a convert as well. So, on the other side of the House, we have converts to the National Policy. That is the policy I am in favour of myself, the policy that I think is in the best interest of the people of this country. Some of our hon. friends from the west say that they do not want a higher protective tariff. May I suggest that the people of Ontario and eastern Canada are consumers of what they grow in western Canada? In almost every farm house in Ontario there is to be found flour manufactured from wheat grown in western Canada. That is a change that has been brought at out in the last few years. We are not complaining about that. The wheat of western Canada has taken the place of our own wheat. We are quite willing to continue to consume the wheat and flour of western Canada provided it is grown and manufactured in Canada. But, at the same time we think that the people of western Canada should be willing to accept a reasonable protective tariff, so that, instead of the $21,000,000 worth of woollen goods that -jvere imported last year from Great Britain, the United States and other countries, instead of the wages being paid to people in Eng-Mr. BLAIN.
land and foreign countries, the wool might be grown on our own farms, in western Canada if you will, and the wages paid to our own people; so that the operatives, instead of being employed in Great Britain and the United States, might be employed in our own Canadian manufacturing establishments, and so that the farmers of Canada might grow wheat and other cereals to feed the large number of people who would be employed in connection with the woollen industry but who are at the present time out of employment.
At six o'clock House took recess.
After Recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS.


[Stage Direction]
On the order being called for further consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bill (No. 56) respecting the Canada Life Assurance Company.-Mr. Clarke (Essex).
Samuel Simpson Sharpe: I would move that this Bill be referred to the Banking and Commerce Committee, for the reason, first, that the opinion of the Minister of Justice may be considered, and for the reason in the second place that as the promoters of the Bill are advertising it, the policy-holders will wish to be heard before the committee. I do not think the Bill should be left on the Order Paper.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I understand they have given notice to reintroduce the Bill. The Bill cannot be dropped from the Order Paper, but why should it be referred back to the committee as it is practically dead?


Mr. SPEAKER.: It has been the custom lately not to proceed in the absence of the hen. member in charge of the Bill.


Mr. HENDERSON.: You cannot proceed with it at all.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: It will stand in the meantime.



CANADIAN NORTHERN QUEBEC RAILWAY COMPANY.

[Stage Direction]
Consideration of amendments made by the Senate to Bill (No. 38) respecting the Canadian Northern Quebec Railway Company.- Mr. Dubeau.
Thomas Simpson Sproule: Explain what the amendments are.


Mr. J. A. DUBEAU (Joliette).: (Translation.) Mr. Speaker, the only information I have regarding the section which has been added by the Senate, as section 3 of this Bill, is the following:	The company
is anxious to build a line of railway from

Hedleyville to Montmorency river, near the mouth of Laval river; that is to say, over a distance exceeding six miles. That section has been added because, under the Railway Act, the company has no right to build a branch line more than six "miles long. I understand that the distance between these two points is a good deal more than six miles. As regards the second amendment, I would prefer that its consideration be postponed in order that I may obtain the requisite information.
3.	The Canadian Northern Quebec Railway Company may construct a line of railway from a point on its line at or near Hedley ville, thence in a generally easterly direction to a point on the Montmorency river near the mouth of the River Laval. '
4.	The limit to the amount of the securities which the Canadian Northern Quebec Railway Company may issue and secure under* sections 136 to 146 of the Railway Act, both inclusive, shall be a total of thirty thousand dollars per mile of the line hereby authorized and of all lines heretofore authorized to be constructed or constructed by the company or its predecessors by amalgamation, including the amount of the securities heretofore authorized; and such securities may be issued only in proportion to the length of such lines of railway constructed or under contract to be constructed.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Evidently the following new clause has been inserted by the Senate".


Louis-Philippe Brodeur: As to the first amendment, under the terms of the Railway Act the railway company can construct a branch not longer than six miles, but this branch being more than six miles, power had to be given in the Bill. The hon. gentleman in charge of the Bill has not been informed as to the reason for the other amendments; but he will make inquiry and in the meantime I move the adjournment of the debate.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.



SECOND READINGS.

[Stage Direction]
. Bill (No. 123)-from the Senate-respecting certain letters patent of the American Bar Lock Company.-Mr. Macdonell.
Bill (No. 124)-from the Senate-respecting the Ontario Hudson Bay and Western Railway Company.-Mr. Schell.
Bill (No. 125)-from the Senate-respecting the Algoma Central and Hudson Bay Railway Company.-Mr. Schell.
Bill (No. 126)-from the Senate-respecting the Jolliette and Lake Majiuan Colonization Railway Company.-Mr. Dubeau.

['We will take up first the motion that stands in the name of the hon. the Postmaster General, and after\n\nthat Supply, beginning with the Minister of the Interior.']
Richard Blain: Mr. Speaker, at six o'clock I was urging that the government should increase the tariff on pork coming into this country, in the interest of the Canadian farmer. I notice that when this question
of tariff is up for discussion in the House, hon. members from the west sitting on the government side are continually attempting to set the farmer against the manufacturer; but I believe that when we are protecting the manufacturer we are at the same time protecting the farmer. In my opinion it is impossible to enhance the in-teiest of the one without assisting the interest of the other. In former times during the discussion of the national policy, when our hon. friends opposite were or were supposed to be free traders, attempts were made to array the farmers against the manufacturer and mechanics; but now that cur hon. friends have reluctantly adopted seme measure of protection as their policy, surely it can be said that the whole Canadian people are in favour of the tariff to protect Canadian interests. I am in favour of protection for the farmers of Canada, and I believe that if the Finance Minister were to increase the duty on pork, the $1,000,000 that went out of Canadian pockets last year to United States producers, would be used in purchasing Canadian pork, in the interest of the farmers and all the people of this country. There was a time when the far west and the far east of Canada were separated to a greater extent than they are at present. We have spent large sums of money and given largely of our lands to aid in the construction of railroads between the east and the west. Before these rail-reads were constructed, I could readily understand people in British Columbia favouring a tariff that would allow them to import such products or manufactured goods as they required from the United States; but since we have constructed these lines of railway, I believe that when there is scarcity in any article in one part of Canada, we should supply that article from some other part of Canada rather than import it from the United States. A deputation of market gardeners waited on my hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture a short time ago pointing out that there had been sent last year from the centre of the province of Ontario large quantities of vegetables to Sydney in the province of Nova Scotia. If there is a scarcity in any product, hay for example, in one part of Canada, it is not likely that the same scarcity will be found in every other part of Canada. My hon. friend the Minister of Customs stated this session in answer to a question that there were imported into Canada last year 1,696,115 pounds of blackberries, strawberries, raspberries and gooseberries. Is there a man in this House who would suggest that every dollar's worth of these could not be grown on Canadian farms? Surely there is not. We allow bananas and oranges, which because

oi our climatic conditions cannot be grown in Canada, to come in free of duty, and there will always be sufficient of these to keep the prices of other fruits down to a moderate point in the interest of the consumer. The farmers of Canada realize that wherever there are prosperous towns with manufacturing concerns employing a large number of hands there are good markets for their products, and therefore they have learned that you cannot separate the interest of the farmer from that of the workingman and the manufacturer, that when you are protecting the one you are protecting the other.
The figures given by my hon. friend from South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) this afternoon show clearly that the sheep raising industry in this country is diminishing, though we have millions of acres of land well suited for grazing and caring for sheep. Yet, that important industry is diminishing because of the condition of the tariff. I think that is a matter that should engage the very serious attention of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding), who is always a very good listener to statements that are made, but is rather slow to move, even in the interests of the farmers. I think that, *within the last five or six weeks, a golden opportunity has presented itself which, however, this government has allowed to pass. A presidential election was held in the United States a few months ago, the tariff being an important subject of discussion in that election- it is always an important question there as it is here. It was declared by the candidate who was afterwards elected president that a special session of Congress would be called to discuss and revise the tariff. That special session has since been called. That was a golden opportunity for this government to make an effort to have removed some of the inequalities of tariff as between Canada and the United States. I remember the statement made by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher)-that, when his party came into power, they would seek and would easily find a greater market for the products of Canadian farmers. One would think that, with such an opportunity as this, the minister would have acted, especially when he finds such inequalities of tariff as these-duty on hay coming into Canada $2 a ton; duty on hay going into the United States $4 a ton; duty on barley coming into Canada, 12 cents per bushel; duty on barley going into the United States, 30 cents per bushel. These inequalities should engage the attention of parliament, and especially of the Minister of Agriculture, whose duty it is to take care of the interests of the farming community. And might I suggest that this would be an important study for the Minister of Customs (Mr. Pater-Mr. BLAIN.
son), for he is a foremost politician in Ontario, and whenever there is a cry for the farmers at election times, he is always ready to appeal for the farmers' vote. In days gone by-days that he has forgotten, no doubt he used to say ;	' What is the use
of duties on farm products ? ' Farmers cannot be protected. When we get into power we will remove the duties.'


William Paterson: I do not remember saying that.


Richard Blain: Why, a member of this government, Sir Richard Cartwright, made the statement-


William Paterson: But that is not I.
Mr. BLAIN-that protection is almost equal to highway robbery, and that when his party came into power they would abolish it.


Mr. LANCASTER.: And he is still in the Cabinet.


William Stevens Fielding: And my hon. friend's (Mr. Blain) complaint is that we have removed too much of it.


Richard Blain: My hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) must not misunderstand me. I am pointing out the attitude of my hon. friend the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) when he was in opposition and now when he is in the government.


William Paterson: I do not remember saying that.


Richard Blain: Of course not. The hon. gentleman does not remember making a charge against the late government, when he was on this side, that it was useless to send a tariff commission throughout the country to find out the condition of trade.


William Paterson: No; I do not remember that.


Richard Blain: I quoted the hon. minister's words in this House not_ more than a session or two ago, and I will take the opportunity, before the session closes, if he wishes it, to read to him his very words. He condemns the Liberal-Conservative government for appointing a commission to go up and down the country and find out the condition of trade, but a few years passed and he himself was a prominent member of exactly that kind of a tariff commission.


Haughton Lennox: But they forgot the evidence when they came to report.


Richard Blain: Yes, they are always ready to collect evidence, always kept an open dcor to receive deputations, and especially ready to appeal to the farmers in this House and out of it. But when a deputation of farmers calls upon this government, ' as they did the other day, to urge

upon them changes in the pork duties, pointing out that millions of pounds of pork come into Canada from the United States, interfering with the development of the pork trade of Canada, and asking, not that a tariff be a adopted equal to that of the United States, but only a duty of four cents per pound as aginst five cents per pound, the American tariff, we being six and a half million people against eighty-five million there, the hon. gentleman turns a deaf ear to them, unwilling to change our present duty of two cents per pound to four cents per pound, though the farmers of this country are so deeply interested in the question. I have no disposition to array the farmers against the manufacturers, for you cannot protect one without protecting the other. It is to the interest of the farmers of Canada, especially of those who are engaged in the production of small articles such as strawberries, potatoes, celery and many others that I could mention, to have a tariff equally as high as that of the United States in order to protect the farmers of this country against the surplus products that are sent in from time to time from the south.
It has often been said that under a tariff for the protection of manufactures, there would be combines to keep up prices and compel the consumer in Canada to pay these prices. I have no sympathy with combines; I believe that when manufacturers combine to raise prices the government should step in and, if necessary, take away their protection for the time being until they are ready to give proper prices to consumers But it is absolutely impossible to have a combine amongst the farmers-I think that statement will go without contradiction. If you have twenty manufacturing establishments turning out a given kind of goods, it is possible for them to get together and agree upon prices; but with millions of farmers producing the various kinds of farm products the government need not fear any combine in these articles. Therefore they can very safely give them a fair measure of protection so that the farmers, who are the taxpayers in the main, and at least as much interested in the development of Canada as any other class, should be treated on a par with other classes while there is protection in the country. I appeal particularly to my hon. friend the Finance Minister to revise his tariff. We pointed out to my hon. friend the necessity of doing this when we were enjoying buoyant revenue. I myself moved a resolution or two in the interests of our market gardens. I pointed out that it was in prosperous times that the government should alter the tariff in the best interests of our farming community. But my hon. friend was then too busy counting his dollars and to-day finds himself confronted with deficits. He has allowed the day of grace to go by. He has had $75,000,000 of 132
surpluses since his party came into power. That was the time to alter the tariff. That was the time when the farming interests could be better taken care of than now. We urged the Finance Minister from this side to take that course, but he turned a deaf ear to all our arguments, and we again find it our duty to point out to him that several industries, in which our farmers are particularly interested, such as wool; pork market gardening, require better protection; and I am one of those who believe that if better protection be given, the people will not be the losers. I do not think there is a farmer in all Canada who will say that the tariff in the United States should be double what it is in this country. Our people believe in British fair play and that is what we are asking for. There was a time when certain agricultural products, for instance barley, had a market in the United States, and our farmers benefited by that market. But when the McKinley tariff put the duty at 30 cents a bushel, some of our farmers thought they were ruined. However, our farmers continued to grow barley and also paid attention to other agricultural pursuits, and instead of sending our barley to the United States we consumed it on our own Canadian farms in the production of beef and in other industries in which our farmers are engaged.
The former member for Toronto (Mr. Brock) pointed out some years ago to the Finance Minister that if something were not done for the woollen industry, millions of capital would be lost. The reply from the other side and in the public press was that the reason why the woollen industry in Canada did not prosper was because its machinery was not up to date but antiquated and not to be compared with the machinery in the American and British establishments. Well, my hon. friend from Lanark (Mr. Thoburn) who is a practical man, engaged in the business, pointed out this afternoon that the machinery in our Canadian establishments is equal to that in the factories of Great Britain and the United States. That such is the case must be evident because the machinery to be found in the woollen industries of Canada is chiefly manufactured in England and the United States and not in Canada; and no one who is investing his capital in the woollen industry would use it to purchase antiquated machinery. Therefore we no longer hear that argument advanced. My hon. friend (Mr. Thoburn) also pointed out that the wages paid in our Canadian woollen industry were much larger than those paid in the British factories. Surely it is in the interests of our people that we should pay a liberal wage to those engaged in our manufacturing industries. That is in the interest of everybody. This allows our mechanics to pay better prices and consume larger quantities of farm products



and every other class of goods manufactured and grown in Canada. Therefore my hon. friend the Finance Minister, even at this late day, should see that some relief is given the woollen industry so that its raw products will be more profitable to our farmers and that the wages will be paid our own Canadian people, and we shall not import any class of goods which we can manufacture ourselves.
I do not want to repeat what has been so well said by my hon. friends who preceded me or to burden ' Hansard ' with figures, but I want to emphasize the fact that the government will not find it to their advantage to neglect the farmers any longer. Our farmers are now manufacturers themselves; and when the government try to draw a distinction between the interests of the farmers and those of the manufacturers, they will find that our farmers realize that in protecting the manufacturers we are protecting the agriculturists, that there must be no western or eastern Canada, that we must manufacture in Canada all we require, grow on Canadian farms what we consume, build up Canada by tariffs in a way that will enable our farmers to raise on their farms what we consume in Canada and furnish our manufacturers the opportunity of manufacturing everything we are capable of manufacturing within the limits of our own country, and thus pay wages to our own people and keep the money in our own country.


Mr. W. O. SEALEY.: I desire to draw the attention of the House to a notice of motion which has been on the Order Paper for some time back, but which, owing to various circumstances, could not come up for consideration according to the rules of the House. This resolution, proposed by myself, to be seconded by Mr. Turcotte, the hon. member for Quebec county, is as follows:
That in the opinion of this House, so long as the Canadian tariff affords, incidentally or otherwise, a considerable degree of protection to manufacturers, some protection may fairly and properly be afforded by our tariff to Canadian agriculturists and stock raisers upon hogs, hog products, garden vegetables and such other items as it may appear possible to so protect with advantage to the agriculturist, and without undue injury to the Canadian consumer.
Whether we are free traders, revenue tariff men, or national policy protectionists would seem to matter little because the policy of Canada has been settled for the next four or five years upon a revenue tariff basis and it would appear to be our duty whether we entirely approve of this policy or not, one and all to join in and produce the best possible results for Canada and her people from that revenue tariff. And as our agricultural Mr. BLAIN.
interests are by far the greatest individual interests in Canada, it would only seem fair that the revenue tariff should be applied to preserve the home market for the home produce along agricultural lines, to equally as great an etxent as along manufacturing or any other lines, without asking for any special favours, but just equal consideration. Then if we are agreed upon that, the only reason I can see why we have not got it, is because as agriculturists we have not unitedly and forcefully asked for it, and without complaining or interfering with any other branch of industry, I may be permitted to illustrate the situation as it seems to me, along agricultural lines, as applied to the hog industry. During the years just previous to 1907, when times were good in the United States and still better in Canada, the United States surplus product interfered but slightly with us; as they had a fairly good homie market they were not so anxious to look around for places in which to realize on their surplus products. During that time the hog product on foot brought an average in Canada of about seven cents, which made hog raising a profitable branch of agriculture. The supply then was sufficient for Canada's requirements and we also had a very large surplus for export to Great Britain. When the financial panic occurred over the world generally and less seriously in Canada than in any other country, the United States holders^ packers and speculators generally looked about for a place in which to unload, with the result that with the very low tariff against their products entering Canada they were able to unload in this country at a considerably reduced or slaughtered price, but a price at which it paid the Canadian packer and speculator to buy from them. About that same time the filth scandals were exposed in Chicago and this created a distaste for United States products in Great Britain. The result was a further surplus of hog products in the United States. A rigid inspection was imposed upon all hog products being exported to Great Britain and millions of pounds were rejected, not altogether on account of disease but owing to the inferior quality, and this meat was slaughtered in both the United States and Canadian markets. This had the effect of bearing down the price in Canada to five cents or less on foot. It might reasonably be supposed that that condition would help the consumer to some extent, but we find tjiat since the price of hogs declined from seven cents to five cents on foot the price to the consumer went up at least two cents. Thus the tariff conditions seem to give the packer and speculator generally an opportunity to arrange his combine or agreement so that his knife could cut both ways; he was able

to reduce the price to the producer and increase the price to the consumer. That condition of affairs we do not think should exist and I do not think it would if we had a slightly higher tariff, say four cents a pound. The two cent tariff serves very well while times are good in the United States, when they are not seeking for a market, especially a dumping market, for their surplus products. But we know that in the United States they have a Wall Street in New York and a wheat pit in Chicago. We know that the Bulls, as they are called, control these markets largely for 25 days in the month on the average, but for the one remaining day in the month we find that the Bears get on top and they invariably force the price of pork down by two, three or four cents per pound with the result that Canadian packers, who have their agents there, buy sufficient supplies on these bear days to tide them over until the next bear day, so that it pays them to import and pay the two cent duty. If we had a tariff of four cents that would not be practicable or possible, and the benefit to Canada would be enormous.
It may be said, it will probably be said to-night, that the Canadian farmers and producers of hogs cannot furnish enough for the home requirements and the export trade, but as against that during the years 1904 and 1905, when we were exporting pork products to the extent of $12,000,000 to $15,000,000 annually to Great Britain, we were importing only about $500,000 worth of hog products. Since that time our imports have increased from half a million dollars, until in the last fiscal year ending March 31, 1908, we imported two million eight hundred and -some odd 'thousand, .almost Ithree million dollars' worth of hog products, and yet the Trade and Commerce returns show that our exports had decreased from nearly $15,000,000 down to almost $10,000,000. The Customs returns show that the imports are constantly increasing and that for the six months from June to December of last year we imported one million seven hundred and seventy thousand odd dollars' worth; if the same rate of increase continues to the end of the year, we will have imported this year about $3,500,000 worth. I estimate that to supply the Canadian market with the quantity of pork products of the various classes which we now im-[DOT] port, the product of about one million more hogs would be required. If we had one million more hogs supplied in Canada even at an increased cost it would not increase the price to the consumer a particle. To illustrate, three months ago the price of pork in Canada was five cents on foot. Today it is eight cents on foot, but I venture to say that the price has not increased a particle in any retail store, in fact I see by the price in the windows that it has 132i
rather decreased. If one million more hogs were slaughtered in Canada they would provide for the higher class cuts that are imported at the present time and in addition would provide a very large quantity of the cheaper cuts, not suitable for curing and exporting, which would require to be sold at home.
At the present time the packers have scarcely enough of these cheaper cuts from the animals that they have to slaughter to supply the home market, with the result that they are able to charge about what they like, or from two to three cents more than is charged in the United States. If a million more hogs were produced and slaughtered here they would have the cheaper cuts, not of inferior quality but the cheaper cuts not suitable for curing for export but to sell at home. That would create rather a surplus instead of a shortage in our home supply. We would find our packers, instead of having a combine to increase the price, rivalling each other to get rid of that class of product and they would thereby reduce the price to the consumer in* Canada. In fact the price to the consumer in Canada does not bear a fair proportion to the price the farmers are paid for his raw product. For the past couple of years, as far as my observation goes, considering the markets in Buffalo and Hamilton with reference to the freight rate to be about equi-distant, the price paid lias been half a cent on an average higher in Buffalo than in Hamilton. According to the price reports that the Department of Agriculture here have turned out we find that to have been the case to quite an extent. I hp-ve these figures here if my word is doubted.


John Allister Currie: Would the hon. gentleman say what his authority is for these figures?


William Oscar Sealey: My authority is the price section of the Department of Agriculture.


John Allister Currie: Of this government?


William Oscar Sealey: Of this government. That same price department shows that notwithstanding that a higher price is paid for the raw material there than here, the wholesale price to the dealer in the United States, is, on the average, about two cents less than in Canada and the price to the consumer about three cents less. That all goes to show that the Canadian packer, whether he cannot handle) the business as cheaply or not, requires for his purposes about two or three cents more than the United States packer. To my mind the Canadian packer is just as good a man as the United States packer and I believe he can do business just as satisfactorily, just

as well and just as profitably on the same margin between the cost and sale prices. I have no disposition to interfere seriously with or injure the packer in any way, but I do think he is taking out of the customer too large a share altogether in proportion to what he is giving to the producer, and I believe that the producer should have a more equitable share.


Haughton Lennox: The higher the tariff the smaller the price.


William Oscar Sealey: It may be said and argued that the United States price and the Canadian tariff as between Canada and the United States would have no bearing upon the price of the hogs, or of the pork, because, as we export considerably more than we import, our export price, or the Liverpool, or British price generally would rule. But the same price reports that I referred to a moment ago will go to show that while the price to the wholesaler in Canada is two cents higher than it is to the United States wholesaler, the price in Liverpool is from two to three cents less. The conditions are to-day that if pork is packed in this vicinity, if the freight is paid from here to Montreal or Quebec, if the ocean freight is paid and it is put on the market at Liverpool, I can go to Liverpool, buy that same pork at the market price there, pay the freight back to Ottawa, open a store next door to that of the packer and if the present prices are maintained I can undersell that store and make a good business profit out of the transaction. That condition of things should not exist and if it continues to exist it is a pity that the farmer, the actual producer, should not get his fair share of that difference.
Our western friends will feel that an increase in the tariff might seriously interfere with them and affect the cost of their supplies. To my mind I do not think it would. Our western friends are to-day producing quite large quantities of pork, and I think it will only be a short time before they will be producing all they require in the west. In fact, I think they are doing so to-day, and that they will have pork to export before very long. Another reason why I think we are able to produce more than we require and have a considerable amount for export is this: During the years 1904 and 1905 and for some time previously we were struggling in the British market to make a reputation, and, by that reputation, get a more profitable price. The Danish pork in the British market is regarded as the best pork and it commands a higher price. It brings about four cents more than United States pork, and Irish pork ranges about the same. Previous to 1897 our Canadian poTk had improved in quality and in taste to the extent that we were Mr. SEALEY.
getting about three cents more than the United States product would bring. Since that time large quantities of United States pork have been imported into Canada, and as far as it can be traced considerable quantities of it passed on through and were exported in the hope and with the actual result at times of realizing the better price that Canadian pork demands of three cents per pound. They pay two cents duty on coming into Canada, pay the freight over, realize three cents and make an extra profit of one cent. That has continued for some time. The American corn-fed pork of an inferior quality has been going to the British market to such an extent that it has dulled the taste of the Britishers for the Canadian pork, so much so that we find to-day that Canadian pork has backed down to about the level of United States pork, and in some cases less. By the introduction of American pork here we have lost the splendid reputation we had built up and enjoyed for a number of years, and I think our western friends could afford to join in this movement to protect the enviable reputation which they enjoy at the present time. They are producing in the west large quantities of wheat-fed pork. That wheat-fed pork makes the sweetest hams and bacon, being equal to the pea-fed product with which we built up such a reputation, and perhaps surpassing it to some extent. Unless that reputation that they are building up in the west is safeguarded they will perhaps meet the same fate that we have met here in Ontario. Within the last year, as far as I can gather from the trade and commerce returns, while we imported of pork products nearly $3,000,000 worth we only exported about $5,000 worth. The average invoice price of imports of hams and bacons was about ten cents, while mess pork averaged seven and three-quarter cents, whereas the average market quotation is about two cents higher than that or a little more. The $5,000 worth shipped from Canada to the United States was entered at about seventeen cents a pound. As far as I have been able to trace these exports they are the exports of hams produced at Edmonton, recently of this wheat-fed brand, and I gather they have been sold at seventeen cents a pound; five cents duty has been paid upon them when shipped to Chicago, making the cost twenty-two cents a pound. One cent per pound for freight is twenty-three cents, and two cents for the merchant's profit is twenty-five cents. These hams aTe sold to people who can afford to pay twenty-five cents a pound in preference 'to American products, which they can buy at fifteen cents a pound. I take that as' evidence that the reputation of our western pork is well worth preserving, and when in a short time our friends from the west, produce all they require for

their own consumption then it may be safely said that they will not suffer by an increase of duty. If they can assist their Ontario friends without any detriment to themselves 1 am sure they will be only too glad to do so.


Charles Lewis Owen: Do you say that your experience is that where the duty was increased the price of the commodity was increased.


William Oscar Sealey: We have had no experience of the increase of duty on pork, but I can say that the decrease in the price -n foot from 7 cents to 5 cents did not decrease the price to the consumer, but on the contrary the market returns show that price was increased during that period. Then, during the last three months when the price rose from 5 cents to 8 cents the cost of the article to the consumer has no been raised. Judging from this it would seem to be apparent that if we had a duty of 4 cents instead of 2 cents the price to the consumer would not be affected. I do not say it would apply to all articles in that way, but I do say that with the cheaper cuts that would be provided for our home market, if our packers slaughtered an extra million hogs a year, then, that class of meat being more than our home market would demand, a competition would be created that would decrease the price to the consumer. I may be wrong, but still I am firmly convinced that would be the result. The figures I have before me show that last year there were slaughtered 1,100,000 hogs (not including the returns from Montreal and some other places), and if an extra million were slaughtered it would about double the business of our packers. That being so, I am sure the consumer would probably get a cheaper article than he is getting to-day. There is no reason why the packers and producers should have any quarrel; indeed thev have not except that the producers feel that under present conditions the packer is able to so manipulate that he gets all the profit, and that when it is possible for him to do so he puts the price down to less than a fair living price for the producer. It may be argued by some that if this condition were brought about, agriculturists who buy lard, a by-product of the hog, might have to pay a couple of cents more per pound for it. I do not believe that would be so, but even if it were the average 200 pound hog produces about 15 pounds of lard, and if the farmer paid two cents more for his lard and bought all the lard in the hog it would cost him 30 cents additional, whereas, if he were selling the hog to the packer, as most farmers do. and got 2 cents a pound more for it he would be $4 ahead, and it would be a very
profitable transaction for him. I make a definite suggestion for the benefit of the powers that be in connection with the pork industry, and I ask for an increase of 2 cents a pound in the duty. I trust that in their wisdom they may see their way clear to make that increase. I have been much interested in the discussion on wool, and I notice that the hon. member for Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) who spoke as a farmer seemed to be more particularly anxious about getting the manufacturer an increase of duty of so much per yard on cloth and so much per pound on yarn. I failed to hear him make any direct statement as to what he would do about the duty on wool. Then, the hon. member (Mr. Thoburn) while he boasted as wishing to benefit the farmer, he thought the best way to benefit him was through the manufacturers getting considerably more protection on their products. He was looking after the manufacturers while he professed to be championing the interests of the farmers. The other gentlemen who spoke reasoned about the same way, but if they were interested in the farmers' side of the question one would expect them to be more definite. Our present tariff on wool is 2 cents for the preference, 2i cents for the intermediate, and 3 cents for the maximum, and I think the way to benefit the farmer would be to double that duty from 2 cents to 4, from 2i to 5, and from 3 to 6 cents. That is getting it right down to where it will benefit the farmer, and I have no fear that the manufacturer will look after himself. There is a definite proposition that will benefit the farmer.


Haughton Lennox: Why don't you go higher?


William Oscar Sealey: If necessary for the welfare of the farmer do go higher.


Mr. HERRON.: We will take you into our party.


William Oscar Sealey: My friend here remarks that I will soon be fit for his party, but so far as I remember the national policy days, while the Conservatives talked about the farmer it was the manufacturer who got all the tariff favours.


Richard Blain: The present tariff on pork was put on by the Liberal-Conservative party.


William Stevens Fielding: Then why are you blaming us for it?


William Oscar Sealey: The Liberal party re-arranged the tariffs and reduced the customs duty on many of the necessaries used by the farmers, but all the same I do say that probably the Liberal government have not protected the farmers quite enough. I do not think that either of the political parties have given the farmers as much as they

should have had, and although our Liberal friends have done the better of the two I am anxious to see them go further still. The growing of vegetables is an industry which is of increasing importance, and I believe that without serious inconvenience to the consumer an increase of the tariff along some lines would benefit the producer. Take, for instance, strawberries, on which there is a specific duty of two cents a box. It is said that that is equivalent to 40 per cent when strawberries are five cents a box. Well, that would be a first-rate tariff at that price. But at that time there axe no strawberries coming in from outside, and it is the competition in our local production which brings the price down to that figure. When the tariff prevails, it is at a time when strawberries come in at anywhere from 25 cents to $1.00 a box. Two cents on strawberries at $1.00 a box is two per cent, at 50 cents a box it is four per cent, and at 25 cents a box it is eight per cent. If we can justify a tariff of 40 per cent when the consuming masses are buying berries, I do not see how we can justify two per cent, four per cent or eight per cent when imported strawberries are a luxury rather than a necessity; and if it is proper that our tariff should be imposed on luxuries, it does not seem to me that a better article could be found for the purpose than that particular article. It may be said that a 40 per cent or 25 per cent tariff on strawberries at the higher prices would prevent them coming in, and that we would get no revenue under it. With the small tax of two cents a box, there is not very much revenue; but a higher tariff would have one of two effects; it would either bring a greatly increased revenue, or it would reserve the appetites of the people who care for this luxury for the time when our Canadian berries come in, and when a duty of 40 per cent would afford a good profit for our growers, whereas they get no profit on berries at five cents a box. The same argument applies to cabbages, melons and other things. The duty on cabbages is thirty per cent, and at certain seasons of the year, when the early-ripening cabbages of the states to the south are produced in large quantities, they are brought into Canada. But we suffer seriously from imported cabbages when their crop is nearly finished and they ship them in by the carload at as low as $6 a ton, which, with the duty of thirty per cent, amounting to $1.80 added, makes a total cost of $7.80 a ton. The average cabbage weighs about five pounds, or 400 to the ton. That would be 400 for $8, or two cents each. The cabbages that are brought in at that season are generally of very inferior quality, but their importation has the effect of enabling the merchants to say: ' I can buy cabbages for that, and if the local Mr. SEALEY.
producers do not furnish a first-class article at as low a price, we will import cabbages from the States.' With a tariff of three cents per head on cabbages, I do not think the average consumer would pay any higher price, while the duty would ensure to the local producer his own market when the later cabbage comes in. I believe a rearrangement of the tariff in that respect would benefit the producer without injuring the consumer a particle. Another reason why I think the farmers should have some further consideration in the re-arrangement of the tariff is in connection with the recent French treaty. While I look for immense benefits to Canada as a whole from that treaty, one of the concessions made by Canada was in favour of French wines, which our grape producers, whether rightly or wrongly, feel has injured them seriously. They feel that in that respect their best interests have been sacrificed. Whether it will work out in that way or not, I am not quite clear, but that is the impression on their minds. These are some of the reasons why the agricultural interest should have more consideration in the arrangement of the tariff. I believe it would be thoroughly satisfactory to our manufacturers and our workingmen if they were occasionally perhaps compelled to pay slightly higher prices for agricultural products. To-day the average mechanic working in a city, without anything invested, if he has steady employment at the average wage going, which is pretty fair, is able to bring up and educate his family with greater ease than his country cousin is able to do. The special advantage of the agriculturalist is that he is independent and at all times is proof against starvation, which is not always the case in the city. But in a general way I am satisfied that our manufacturers and city consumers would welcome a better condition of things among our farmers. I believe I am voicing the views of the great majority of the agriculturalists of Canada and of a large number of the representatives of Canada in this House. As evidence of that I take the liberty of reading a resolution passed a year ago by the Swine Breeders' Association:
Whereas the pork producing industry is a very large and important one along agricultural lines in Canada at the present time, and we appreciate the efforts of the govern -ment in re-arranging the tariff so as to encourage its growth and improvement during the past, the results of which have been most satisfactory until recently, when we find that in the face of the present tariff large quantities of United States pork are coming into Canada, thereby reducing the Canadian price to producers of live hogs to such an extent, that under present conditions the industry does not offer a livelihood and in order that effort be made to remedy this condition of

things, it is hereby unanimously resolved that ne, the undersigned, members of the Swine Breeders' Association of Canada, request the Hon. Mr. Fisher, Minister of Agriculture, to cause immediate inquiry to be made as to the qualities of pork of various forms coming into Canada at present from the United States; also inquiry as to the tariff head under which it comes, as well as investigating the correctness of the price, weights, &c., as represented for tariff purposes and also that inquiry be made from those importing same as to the profitable business results of such transactions, and if after so doing all these matters prove correct and regular, then we can only conclude that at the present time Canada is being made the slaughter market for over production of the United States, and therefore the Anti-Dumping clause Tariff should apply or otherwise the tariff should be raised, for while we are all moderate tariff men, yet we believe that on any line the tariff should be fixed as to regulate the trade of so important an industry most favourable to encouraging home production, for with the present prices the packer receives in Britain as well as the present prices to the consumer in Canada the home producer should be receiving more than present prices per pound on foot.
While we hesitate to trouble your department in the matter we are prompted to do so by the alarming circumstances that there is 50 per cent less hogs produced to-day than there was -six months ago, entirely a-s a result of low prices and the unfair competition, whereas if properly encouraged the resources are quite capable of producing double the quantity of -six months ago instead of half.
In the above matter we feel conscious that being agriculturists ourselves and in close touch with the agriculturists generally that we are voicing the sentiment of every farmer in the whole Dominion or at least 95 per cent thereof, and if you deem it advisable definite assurance as to this would be forthcoming by petitions, signed by almost every farmer in the Dominion.
The packers can buy a stock of United States goods on a low market and tide themselves over until conditions are favourable to stocking up again. The fact of the United States being able to produce corn much cheaper than we can in Canada puts them in a position to trade on a par with us after paying the two cent duty.
While the matter is up, we deem it advisable to draw your attention to the splendid reputation Canadian pork has in Britain and to the importance of guarding this reputation and providing for the profits accruing therefrom coming directly to the Canadian producers and in that way avoiding the possibility of packers who own packing houses in both the United States and Canada as well, drifting a part of this profit to the United States by way of substituting the United States product for Canadian, made possible by the lack of thorough branding of the Canadian product, so the British consumer who is so anxious to support the made-in-Canada sentimental preference, as well as the actually better quality from being deceived by the substitution of the United States product.
In that connection the Minister of Agriculture did take considerable trouble and did cause a more rigid inspection to be made at the border and did improve the situation to quite an extent. The Minister of Customs also looked into his department and caused a more careful watch to be put on the entry price. When an article pays a specific duty, the average customs officer thinks it does not matter at what price it is entered; but if the dumping clause be applied, it is important that the entry price -should be closely scrutinized. That pork is bought and entered under value can be established by the fact that at certain ports, where the people are not on to the racket of the bear market in Chicago and Wall street, we find small quantities of mess pork, for instance, entered and invoiced at 10 cents or a little more, whereas we find that the average of the year at other ports is -down to seven and three-quarter cents per pound. The reason is that the price of some bear day is taken, and as any one can buy at that price on a bear day, the application of the dumping clause is not so easy to enforce. If it be difficult to enforce on that account, that is another reason for a little increase in the tariff which would counteract the practise of constantly buying on that bear day only and entering the pork at that low price. The Minister of Finance promised to take the matter into his serious consideration, but if the other two departments fail to bring about satisfactory results I hardly t-rmw whether we can expect -something from the hon. gentleman or not. However, representations have been made and the circumstances and conditions are known, and I do hope that the Minister of Finance will see that there is something in the budget speech for the agricultural interests, especially along the line of pork, vegetables and fruit, and others that could be improved and remedied without unduly injuring the consumer.
True, with rural delivery, 2 cent postage, &c., the government are doing well for the farm life comfort, but another step could be taken, by extending the same protection to farmers as to manufacturers, and in this way take one large step farther forward.
As to the packers, from the drift of my remarks it might be said that I am hostile to them, but I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that I have nothing but the kindliest and best feelings for them, and if my views should prevail, I believe their business would double. And if they made a little more than half their present profit on double the business, they would still be ahead at the end of the year.


John Allister Currie: Is it not a fact that half the packing houses in the country are running at half time now?


William Oscar Sealey: 

[Stage Direction]
Weston, Ont.

Now, it may be said that the vegetable growing industry in Canada is small. Perhaps it is, when compared with our great agricultural interest, but it is a development of agriculture, and the more encouragement it receives the better field is left for general agriculture. But it is by no means so small as a hasty glance would lead one to believe. I am sorry I cannot, at the moment, quote the amount invested in vegetable growing, but it is equal to about half the investment in manufactures in Canada; it is something enormous, (Something wonderful; and in view of its great importance and of the number of people to be benefited without injury to the consumer, I trust the Minister of Finance will take it into his serious consideration, and that when the budget comes down we shall be able to welcome the benefit. While it is true that considerable increases of duties, as a general thing, may encourage combines, I am confident that, in this ease, the increases asked for would have exactly the opposite effect. While there has been some slight inquiry into the pork packer's combine, success has not been attained in actually securing a conviction, though success has gone to the extent of disorganizing their methods somewhat when the Crown Attorneys and other officers whose duty it is to follow this line have got after them. But it requires constant pursuit and constant vigilance to prevent their methods from playing greater havoc with the pork-producing industry than they do. I think we have clearly proven that this case of pork industry is one in which the theory of the export price governing the situation does not apply, for the facts show that, while, three months ago. the prices in Liverpool was slightly higher than here, when the price here went down the price went up in Liverpool.. In view of what I have said-that the agricultural interest must to some extent, bear the advantage given to the manufacturing interest and to the iron and steel industries, both by way of tariff and by way of bounty, and that the agricultural interest itself represents such a very large portion of our population-it does seem to me that it should receive thorough and careful consideration. In fact, I am satisfied that it is receiving that consideration. But it is results that we would like to have, and we would like them quick. I hope we shall get them the day after to-morrow when the hon. Minister of Finance brings down the Budget.
Thomas Simpson Sproule: My only object for detaining the*House for a short time on this question is the important interest involved in it, and the important class primarily affected. I do not propose to touch on the pork ouestion. except incidentally, or to attemnt to follow the hon. member for Wentworth (Mr. Sealey) in his
argument, for he has covered ground which was not contemplated when this subject was introduced, the matter brought forward for discussion being the case of the woollen industry. But I cannot refrain from congratulating my hon. friend (Mr. Sealey) that, after the missionary work of twenty-eight years , in him we have succeeded in converting an extreme free trader into a thoroughly up-to-date, approved protectionist.


William Oscar Sealey: Only so far as agriculture is concerned.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The hon. gentleman (Mr. Sealey) is an example of the kind of protectionist we find on the other side of the House; they are invariably protectionists in matters affecting their own interest, but free traders in matters affecting the interests of others. But that is not consistent, it is not proper; it is not fair. The principle of protection must be right, or it must be wrong; if it is right it must apply all round, if it is wrong it must be discarded all round. If it is right it must be applied all around and if it is wrong it must be discarded all round-protection cannot be right as applied to the farmer and wrong as applied to the manufacturer. The principle is either right or wrong. We hold that it is a correct principle for the conditions in Canada and therefore we have agitated it and supported it.
I was glad to hear the hon. member (Mr. Sealey) discard a theory that we heard advanced many times in this House by the Hon. John Charlton. Mr. Charlton was the father of that argument which was presented to this House time after time as absolute evidence that protection on agricultural products could not raise the price that the farmer would receive for those products because we raised more than we consumed, and therefore had to export and that the price received for what was exported always regulated the price of the_ whole product. The hon. member says to-night that that is not so. I agree with him, and members on this side have said that over and over again. His friends have advanced that argument hundreds of times in and out of this House. The argument was fallacious, unsound, illogical, and I am glad to know that the hon. member at last realizes this. _	_
My sole reason for touching this question to-night is its great importance to the agricultural class. We are told that the agriculturists represent about 750,000 farmers in this country. If they represent that number directly they represent about five times that number indirectly; consequently they must represent over two millions and any question that affects 2,000,000 people must be important to Canada. It is an opportune time to deal with the wool and sheep question, which is of deep interest to the agriculturists. The Finance Minister (Mr. Fielding) will make his budget speech

in a few days and what we are afraid of is that the many representations and appeals that have been made to him by protectionists as well as by free traders may not have convinced him that it is his duty to give better protection to the sheep raisers _ and manufacturers of woollen goods in Canada.
Last year wo Taised in Canada about 16,700,000 pounds of wool. That represents a very substantial return to the farmers of Canada. Washed wool last year averaged about 16 cents a pound, so it represented at least $1,000,000 to the farmers of Canada. We do not know the amount realized from sheep in addition to that but we do know that there are to-day over two and three-quarter million sheep in Canada, and if you value them at $5 a head they represent between $12,000,000 and $15,000,000. The farmer derived from this source last year $1,000,000 in wool and probably $2,000,000 in mutton.
The hon. member for South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) presented clearly to the House the value of sheep raising to the farmer. First, sheep raising does not require a high degree of intelligence; second, sheep require little care; third, they are great foragers, and for nine months out of twelve provide their own food; fourth, they are valuable weed destroyers and every good farmer likes to have a number of them on his farm to destroy the noxious weed seeds; fifth,, they require but little care and will thrive where cattle cannot live; sixth, they are the best fertilizers of any animal, they fertilize the land thoroughly and evenly. For all these reasons, sheep raising is a highly valuable adjunct to farming.
We are asking that the government raise the duty upon woollen goods and do something for the manufacturers of wool. Why do we ask that? Because every year since this government came into power men engaged in that line of business have been failing. I wonder if the Minister of Finance has examined the list of woollen factories that have gone down in the last 12 years during which he has been in power and has been every year plied with arguments to induce him to assist these manufacturers. I have here a list prepared by the Hamilton ' Spectator ' some time ago from which I find that no less than 61 factories have gone down in 12 years. Over 3,500 operatives have thus been thrown out of employment. If every operative is the head of a family, and most of them are, this would represent at least 15,000 people who were dependent upon work in these establishments and who are in' a state of starvation to-day if they have not been able to turn their hands to some other line of money-making. The breadwinners on whom these people were dependent have been deprived of their means of livelihood and have been obliged to go into some other line of business. Let me read to the minister a list Mr. SPROULE.
of the factories that have been broken down by the policy of this government in reducing the duty on woollen goods coming in from England. The factories are as follows:
Place.	No. of No. of sets of	Em-Mills.	cards.	ployees.Hamilton	2	50Merritton	2	50 to 60Brantford	2	50Tilsonburg	2	25Caledonia	4	100Simcoe	.. .. 1	2	30Vienna	.. .. 1	2	25Aylmer	2	25Union	.. .. 1	2	25Ridgebown	.. .. 1	2	30Ruthven	.... 1	2	30Chatham	.... 1	2	30Dresden	.. .. 1	2	30Glencoe	.. .. 1	2	20St. Mary's	.. .. 1	2	35Clinton	.. .. 2	4	100W ingham	.. .. 2	4	100Blyth	.. .. 1	2	30Strathroy	.. .. 1	7	250Sarnia	.. .. 1	2	30Woodstock	.. .. 1	2	35Ancaster	.. .. 2	6	200Hespeler	.. .. 1	20	GOOWest Flamboro..	.. .. 1	2	600Waterloo	.. .. 1	8	250 to 300Elmira	.. .. 1	2	30St. Jacob's	.. .. 1	2	30Hawkesville	.. .. 1	15Orangeville	.. .. ;1	2	30Fergus	.. .. il	2	30Elora	.. .. 2	6	150Canning	.. .. 2	2	30Mildmay	.. .. 1	2	30W alkerton	.. .. 2	4	100Paisley	2	4	40Port Elgin	.... i	1	15Harriston	.. .. i	1	15Clifford	.. ,. i	1	30Palmerston	. .. i	1	25Streetsville	.. .. 2	9	250Markham	.. .. a	4	100Columbus	i	4	100Peterborough.. ..	.. .. 2	6	150Campbellford.. ..	.. .. a	4	75Belleville	.. .. i	2	30Napanee	... 2	4	75Gananoque	.... i	2	30Cornwall	.. .. i	2	200Port Elmsley.. ..	.... l	2	30Almonte	.. .. i	10	300 to 350
There are 61 villages and towns in Ontario that have suffered and suffered severely by virtue of the policy introduced and carried out by the present government. Although they have been appealed to year after year.


William Oscar Sealey: Would it be in order for me to make a little correction?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: After I get through.


William Oscar Sealey: I would like to, draw attention to the fact-


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER.: The hon. gentleman (Mr. Sealey) can only ask a ques-

tion with the leave of the hon. gentleman who has the floor.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: He does not want to ask a question but to make a speech and 1 think it is rather out of time to break in now. I listened to the hon. gentleman saying a good deal that I did not agree with but I did not interrupt him. I am taking the list as it appears here and I assume it to be correct. As far as I know it is correct. I am taking it as it has been published to the world by the Manufacturers Association. What has thrown these three thousand operatives out of employment, what has injured these 61 towns and villages in Ontario, what has deprived the farmers of the country of the additional market for their produce to the extent of millions of pounds of what it would have been if these factories were in operation today? What has done all this? It is the special preference given to England on woollen goods by the present government. It is the refusal of the Finance Minister to come to the assistance of the farmers and woollen manufacturers of the country and put up the duty to such an extent as would save these industries that have gone down. They have gone down. Who is suffering? First the man who has his money in the machinery is suffering. The machinery is either sold for scrap iron or is rusting out. These spindles and these looms are not in operation. Then the operatives who were supporting their families have been thrown out of employment. The farmers have been deprived of the opportunity of feeding these people and of obtaining a better market price for everything that they produce on the farm and which was consumed by these industries or by those employed in them. It injures directly and indirectly, first the men who are supporting their families, second, those who have money invested in the machinery and, third, the farmers who are deprived of that additional market. Yet the government are absolutely indifferent to the wants of the people. Is it not about time that we should try, by some means or other, to make a stronger impression upon the Minister of Finance than has been made heretofore? He has been obdurate up to the present time. He is about to make his budget speech. He has told us over and over again that he cannot announce in advance what he is going to do with the tariff, whether he is going to raise it or lower it. We are trying to urge him to raise it and we are plying him with arguments why he should do so because we believe it important in the interest of the people that he should raise the tariff. Take the town of Hespeler alone; two mills have gone down there. They have been obliged to shut down. What was invested in these two mills. The people that were running these mills had invested $750,000 in them
and they were employing over 600 hands. Take 600 operatives out of any small town and see how it paralyses the place, see how it reduces the consumption. These families must move away Decause they are educated in that line, they will follow it and if they are denied the opportunity to labour at home many of them will go to the United States to secure work. It they are deprived of employment in Hespeler they will go somewhere else and if they go to Almonte and find the factories are closed there they will ultimately be driven to the country that gives them employment in this line. See what it means to that small town. This is one of the live towns of this country inhabited largely by Germans. What does it mean to have $750,000 worth of machinery thrown out of operation? There you have 600 hands out of employment and a consequent loss to the farmers who supply the wool to keep the factories going, and who supply the other products of their farm to feed the working people. In that one small town the farmers' market has been -reduced to the extent of at least what is necessary to supply 1,800 people. Take these 61 towns and look what it means in the aggregate to the province of Ontario. And yet, although the woollen mill owners and the farmers have appealed to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Customs over and over again and told them that the industry was going to the wall, they remain obdurate. We make a last appeal to them to-night. I can tell the Minister of Finance that there was no more potent argument than this in favour of the Conservative policy in my last campaign, and night after night many reformers told me that they were surprised their friends were so indifferent to the interests of the farmers. We appeal to the government on this question for the last time to-night. We tell the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Customs that if they do not take action that industry will go to the wall as sure as the sun rises and sets, and the time will come when many of the friends of the minister, protectionists as they are to-day, will be so disgusted with the policy of the government that they will vote against them in hundreds, and sooner or later the government will reap the reward of its ill-designed policy. Most of the farmers in my constituency raise sheep and I myself have experience in that branch of agriculture. A few years ago I sold out a flock of 150 sheep because they did not pay. Unwashed wool was running from seven to eight cents, and washed wool from 14 to 16 cents per lb. Last year washed wool was 26 cents or 27 cents but we may take it at an average of 15 cents for many years, and while lambs are worth $5 each when they

weigh over 40 pounds in the spring of the year, in the fall they are only worth $3, and sheep raising does not pay at these prices. Why is wool so cheap? It is because we are importing 6,000,000 pounds annually and killing off the factories that use the long Canadian wool. There	are	not	nearly, as many sheep in Canada now as there were years	ago,	and	the	numberwill be getting	fewer	in	the	future.The shoddy imported goods are taking the place of the solid woollen goods which were formerly made out of Canadian wool. You	can	buy	cheap horse
blankets all over the country, and although they appear all right they are simply made out of shoddy, and in a few months they fall to pieces. So long as they are cheap they will be bought.


William Stevens Fielding: Once only; my hon. friend will not do it again.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I bought them once and only once, but I have seen them all over the country. It seems to be human nature, especially when money is not plentiful, to buy a cheap article although in the end it may not be as good value as the more expensive kind. As long as you give that British preference as it is to-day, and allow these shoddy goods to come in, so long will the woollen manufacturers of this country suffer and the farmers suffer with them. Last year we imported $22,894,000 worth of wool and woollen goods, and there is not the slightest doubt whatever that under paternal protection three-fourths or four-fifths of the woollen goods would be made at home, giving employment to labour and giving better markets and better returns to the farmer. Sound economic principles require that each should work for the other; we are not living for ourselves; the artisan in the woollen factory works for me as I work for him, and the wise policy is that the people of a country should work within themselves to produce everything within the country that it is possible to produce. It is because we are not doing that in Canada that I appeal to the government to-night. If we pursue that policy we will be doing what is best for the farmers, and for the settlers who will get into our illimitable western regions to raise sheep by the millions; we will be doing good to the manufacturer and to the artisan who must support his family from the product of his labour. If we pursue that policy we will be helping along the progress of our country. I trust the scales have at last fallen from the eyes of the Minister of Finance and that he has come to the conclusion at last that he should be a protectionist.


William Paterson: My colleague the Minister of Finance has never shown indiffer-Mr. SPROULE.
ence to any of the deputations that waited upon him, nor has he been indifferent to the remarks of the hon. gentleman (Mr. Sproule) and others who have spoken tonight. But if they are really desirous of haying a duty on wool would he have any objection to state what that duty should be?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Personally I cannot say because it is a question that would require to be figured out very accurately by experts. We do not know that all who are regarded as experts say that this duty is necessary. It is not for us to say how much or how little the duty shall be raised.


William Paterson: The hon. gentleman says that wool is selling at 16 cents when it should sell at 25 cents or 26 cents, but the figures presented to us show that it is selling at a much lower figure.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Unwashed wool is selling at seven cents or eight cents.


William Paterson: Yes. Now, is it the idea of the hon. gentleman that in order to increase the price to the former figure there should be a duty of 10 cents a pound?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I do not know how much it would take.


William Paterson: The hon. gentleman is finding fault with us, and he should have thought that out.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I know that all this wool is supplied by some other country. If we were making all these woollen goods at home, our factories, instead of using about 12,000,000 pounds of wool, as they are doing to-day, would be using between 30,000,000 and 40,000,000 pounds, and the result would be that our farmers would get a little better price for their wool and what is coming in would be kept out.


William Paterson: The American tariff imposes a duty of 10 or 12 cents a pound on wool. I would like to ask the hon. member for North Lanark: supposing 10 cents a pound were put upon wool by our tariff, what would have to be the tariff on manufactured woollen cloths which now bear 30 per cent?


William Thoburn: It would require some little figuring to say exactly what the corresponding duty should be; but if the duty on wool going into the United States is ten cents a pound, then, as far as I can see, we would want the same duty on the manufactured article that is imposed on the manufactured article going into the United States, whatever that duty is.


William Stevens Fielding: That is 100 per cent in some instances.


William Thoburn: If you put the same duty on wool that the United States puts

on, why should we not have the same duty on the manufactured article? I am not advocating that, but I am asking that question.


William Paterson: I only want it to be known to the people of the country what duty must be put on wool to protect the farmers, according to the ideas of hon. gentlemen opposite, and what duty must be put upon woollen cloths. If the people of the country will have to pay 70 or 80 per cent on their woollen cloths, they ought to know it. Does the hon. gentleman think that the people of the country, the farmers and the workingmen, would ask for that?


John Allister Currie: The hon. gentleman forgets that it would be very easy to carry the ten cents a pound on the finished goods coming into the country. That has been done before, and that is the plan adopted in the United States in a number of cases.


William Paterson: But you want to reduce it to an ad valorem basis to see where you are.


John Allister Currie: The hon. gentleman is all ad valorem. He never thinks of putting on a specific duty. It is not necessary to reduce a specific duty to an ad valorem basis. If it is a specific in the one case, why should it not be in the other?


Mr. TALBOT.: If you put a duty of ten cents a pound on wool, would not the cheaper quality of woollen goods be taxed higher than the other?


John Allister Currie: The hon. gentleman's question answers itself.


Haughton Lennox: Has the Minister of Customs forgotten all the statements put before him and the other members of the government by the various parties interested, dealing with the very questions which he is now discussing ? For instance, the Sheep Breeders' Association came here and represented what duty they wanted on wool ; and the manufacturers have been here time and again representing what they thought ought to be done. Has the Minister of Customs forgotten completely what these gentlemen have been representing to him ?


William Paterson: No, I have not forgotten.


Haughton Lennox: Then I do not think the hon. minister needs information.


William Paterson: The manufacturers did not propose any duty on wool.


Haughton Lennox: They proposed a duty on what they were interested in, and the sheep breeders proposed a duty on wool when they waited on the minister.


William Paterson: I had an interview with the sheep breeders within a week, I think.


John Allister Currie: I must call the attention of the Speaker to the fact that all this is irregular. There is a debate going on, and a number of members wish to speak.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: The point of order is well taken, but it was the evident desire of the House to have these questions discussed, and I have not interfered.


William Paterson: As a matter of courtesy I may be allowed to reply to the hon. gentleman's question. I had an interview with the sheep breeders within a week, and their representation was that if there was a higher duty placed on woollen goods, there must be a duty placed on wool. I therefore ask the hon. member for North Lanark if the woollen manufacturers would not be in a worse position under such circumstances than they are now, with free wool and a reasonable duty on woollen goods?


William Thoburn: If I may be perinitted to answer the hon. gentleman, I may say that I pointed out clearly that when the woollen industry of this country was in a flourishing condition, there was a much higher price paid for wool, with the duty as it is at the present time. If the hon. gentleman will take my advice and rearrange the tariff on woollen goods, I cannot see why that state of affairs should not come around again, from the natural demand that will be created by the increased manufacture of woollen goods in Canada, and the increased price of wool to the Canadian farmer. I pointed out that there was a time when we paid as much as 52 cents a pound for Canadian wool, with the duty just the same as it is now. Why were we able to do that? Simply because the mills were all in operation, using Canadian wool. But owing to the change in the tariff on the manufactured article, there has been such an importation of English woollen goods into this country that they have displaced the demand for Canadian wool, and consequently the price of Canadian wool decreased until it has reached the price at which it stands to-day. Just what corresponding duty would be required on the manufactured article if you put ten cents a pound on wool I am not prepared to say. I am not engaged in the manufacture of tweeds; I am engaged in the manufacture of flannels, and speak from that standpoint; but I would not like to speak for the general manufacturers of tweeds in the Dominion of Canada.


Alexander Wilson Smith: Mr. Speaker, as a farmer and a producer

of wool I would like to say a few words on this question. I notice that there is a tendency on the part of hon. gentlemen opposite to extol the position of the farmer as compared with that of other classes, and to call upon the government on every possible occasion to do something for him. That is all very fine if it were only genuine and honest, but the trouble is that whenever they call on the government to do something for the farmer we find a rider attached to their proposition, the effect of which is that for every $5 bill the farmer will get, which in the end is likely to prove worthless, he is asked to contribute $10 or $20 out of his own hard earned money.
In this proposition regarding the great woollen industry, there have been some statements made by hon. gentlemen opposite which I should like to correct. For instance, they have made several references to what the sheep breeders have asked from the government. Well, I am myself interested in the sheep industry, probably as much as any otheT man in the Dominion, and I am in a position to speak with a knowledge of the business at first hand. When a deputation of the sheep breeders waited on the government they submitted the proposition, as the Minister of Customs has. stated, that if any bounty or increase in the tariff were to be given the manufacturers, a corresponding bounty or increase should be given the producers of wool. But at the same time they pointed out that, in their opinion, it was a matter of very grave doubt whether any imposition of duty on wool would be of any benefit to the farmers of this country. In that connection I wish to express my most emphatic approval of the opinion that we cannot put a tariff on wool which is going to be of any benefit to our producers. If we follow up the argument of the hon. member for Simcoe (Mr. Lennox), who has said that a duty on foreign woollens would increase the manufacture of Canadian woollens and thereby benefit our farmers, we will find that that theory was exploded long ago. As the hon. member for Peel (Mr: Blain) has said, the Conservative government, during the eighteen years it was in power, took upon itself to teach the Canadian people what tariff protection was going to do, particularly for our farmers and incidentally for the people at large. But what was the result of their teaching? I sincerely trust we shall never have a repetition of that eighteen years rule which ended so disastrously to our farmers. It was the hon member for North Lanark (Mr. Tho-burn), I think, who said that the duty simply meant a trifling matter of 35 cents to 40 cents per suit of clothes which a farmer would have to pay extra to our Canadian manufacturers. Let me tell that hon. gentleman that at the end of that Mr. A. W. SMITH.
eighteen years it was a veTy small revenue which the manufacturers of woollen goods of any description got from the agricultural community, because it would take the accumulated savings of years to enable the farmer to be in a position to purchase that suit of clothes. When he only got 15 or 16 cents a bushel for his oats; when he had to draw his wheat to market and sell it at 45 to 50 cents; when a buyer could take the pick of his horses at any price he was willing to pay, and when he got correspondingly low prices for his cattle, and had to sell his lambs at $2 to $2.50 a piece, then was the time when he felt that the eighteen years of teaching along the line of protection had brought him nothing but disaster.


Richard Blain: What has this government done to increase the prosperity of the farmer by the way of changing the tariff?


Alexander Wilson Smith: I shall endeavour to answer that question. When the present government appealed to the people to give them control and the opportunity to improve our condition, they promised to reduce the tariff where possible and in that way make it easier for our farmers to succeed in their business.


Haughton Lennox: We never heard any of those statements.


Alexander Wilson Smith: My hon. friend must have been living very far back in the back woods if he did not hear them. I recollect quite well hearing them. In fact, I made the statement myself that such and such things would follow if the Liberals were allowed to take the reins of power. Well, some hon. gentlemen have spoken about a commission going to the people and asking what should be done. As soon as the present government came into office they took just such a course. I myself had the pri vilege of appearing before that commission on more than one occasion to represent the interests of the farmers, and the result was the tariff was removed entirely from quite a large number of products which the farmer required and lowered in the case of a great many others. A corresponding decrease in the duties on the raw products of the manufacture was made, the wheels of commerce were set in motion again, and prosperity came back to the farm. As an actual result we have had for several years great prosperity among our farming community. They do not expect to become millionaires, but they do claim the privilege of enjoying a good fair living and making probably a little more than they need for the actual wants of themselves and their families.	.
The hon. member for Peel (Mr. Blain) has suggested that after a very high tariff was put on woollens in the United States,

prosperity followed and that on the other hand, under the 25 or 30 per cent tariff in favour of woollens manufactured in Canada, our sheep industry has become practically paralysed. I wish to point out to the hon. gentleman that in the United States, with their very high tariff, there has been a corresponding decrease in the number of sheep. These things do not hang together very well. I desire to point out, further, that our sheep industry does not depend upon the price of wool. We produce sheep not for wool but for mutton products. These are more profitable than any other class of sheep we can raise on the farm; we can raise them more cheaply and they command a higher price. The hon. member for South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) at great length dealt with the advisability of sheep raising and how profitable it was, and then he wound up by saying that we had discarded sheep because they were not profitable. That has not been the experience of the sheep raisers of this country. The sheep raisers have found, as I have said, that if they raise the proper class of sheep, the class demanded by the market, they can make the industry more profitable, and make larger gains out of it, and do it with less work.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: If that be the fact, how does the hon. gentleman (Mr. A. W. Smith) account for the reduction in the number of sheep as compared with a few years ago?


Alexander Wilson Smith: I will try to answer that question also. One of the principal reasons for the reduction in the number of sheep in this country is the lack of protection from dogs.


David Henderson: Dogs with two legs?


Alexander Wilson Smith: No, dogs with four legs. Efforts have been made by the farmers for many years, through their associations, to induce the provincial government to put a law upon the statute-book of Ontario-and I believe the same has been sought in other provinces-that will protect the sheep from the ravages of dogs. When dogs get into a flock of sheep, though they may kill only four or five out of the whole flock of perhaps a hundred, the loss is not so much in those that are killed as in the loss of flesh and loss of constitution caused by sheep being overheated and over excited by the worrying of the dogs. There is another reason for the reduction of the number of sheep in the older provinces, and that is that it is found that better fencing is necessary in order to keep sheep. When the farmers were allowed to pasture their sheep on the roads there was less necessity for fencing their farms. In the old days, when there were plenty of rails, the farmer could keep his sheep wherever he liked, because a rail fence is sheep proof, but the ordinary wire fence is not sufficient to keep sheep, and consequently it is necessary to put up
more expensive fencing or go out of the sheep business, and many farmers prefer to go out of the business. These are two of the principal reasons why the number of sheep has decreased in this country.
Now, I do not wish to speak at length, but simply to say, from the farmer's standpoint, that we do not want more protection given to the woollen industry. With duties of practically 30 per cent-for, I understand that the preferential tariff does not apply to all the goods imported-and with practically free wool (only $6 was collected in duties last year)-if the manufacturers are not in a position to stand with this rate of protection, the only conclusion we can come to, I think, is that our country is not suitable for this business. But we know that the manufacturers that make the best class of goods from wool the produce of this country are doing well. A great proportion of the wool produced in this country gqes to the United States, and is used in the mills there for the production of this class of goods, worsteds. If the woollen mills of this country would use the wool that we produce, they would be in the same position as the woollen mills in the United States.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: How is it then so many of them break down?


Alexander Wilson Smith: Because they are trying to make goods that they cannot make at a profit. If they would manufacture the worsted goods for which they could find a market, and in which they could compete with other countries, they could keep their mills running. The hon. member for North Lanark (Mr. Thoburn) spoke of the difference in the value of labour in Canada and in Great Britain. I think he represented the matteT very fairly when he said that one good Canadian was capable of producing more valuable results of labour than the three he saw engaged in certain work in Great Britain. The hon. gentleman told us of seeing in Great Britain a man and two boys running a plough, doing work which one good Canadian boy of seventeen years old would do. I am happy to say that a Canadian boy, in the country at least, is a man for ali practical purposes. While wages here may be higher, the Canadian labourer, whether he be engaged in running machinery or in other labour is capable of producing a greater result than the labourer in the old country, about in the proportion that the hon. gentleman stated. In the illustration the hon. gentleman used, the work done was ploughing. I would like the hon. gentleman to understand that this is the machinery on the farm; he is working machinery, and is able to handle these three horses-or four, or even a larger number if necessary as is frequently done in the west-one boy would use that machinery quite as well as three or four in England.

The same thing, I believe, will apply in the woollen manufacture as on the farm. One good Canadian will be as good as the three who are employed over there. Therefore we do not stand in as bad a position proportionately as the hon. gentleman would represent.
I would like further to correct the statement of the hon. member for South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) that the committee appointed by the Dominion Sheepbreeders' Association to meet with a committee appointed by the Manufacturers' Association to endeavour to come to some amicable arrangement by which they could meet the government on common ground, had reported and that their report was as he read. That committee have not reported at all. They were appointed to report to the Executive Committee of the Sheepbreeders' Association. I chance to be one of the Executive Committee-


Haughton Lennox: I read from a report that was communicated to an English papeT on February 11 of a meeting that had taken place two days before in Toronto, at which a committee was appointed to confer with the Manufacturers' Association, but I did not carry it further as I had no information on that point.


Alexander Wilson Smith: That committee have not reported. They have endeavoured to meet the manufacturers on a common ground, but have absolutely failed to get anywhere near them. ^ The resolution mentioned by my hon. friend as having been passed by the Sheepbreeders' Association was offered to the association by Mr. Big-gar, the editor of 'Textile Fabrics,' but it was not passed or endorsed by the meeting except that because of that resolution as representing the views of the manufacturers the Sheepbreeders' Association appointed a committee to meet a committee from the woollen manufacturers to see if they could not come to some arrangement: the resolution was not adopted by the Sheepbreeders' Association.
The hon. gentleman from South Simcoe gave the number of farmers in porportion to other occupations in Canada and then proceeded to speak of the great benefit that was to come to these farmers through the imposition of a higher duty on wool. It would be very difficult indeed to persuade the farmers of Canada that it was to be such a benefit to them and I would suggest to the members of the opposition that if they wish to become popular with or to be endorsed by the farmers when they appeal to them for election, they must drop very largely the idea that they can make the farmers believe that by giving them one dollar and taking five from them they will make the farmers wealthy.


David Henderson: We do not need to drop that idea, we never had it.


Alexander Wilson Smith: 


William Stevens Fielding: You do not put it in that plain form.


Alexander Wilson Smith: That proposition is involved in the speeches made to-night by the hon. gentlemen. You cannot possibly benefit the manufacturer if you keep the duty on the raw material the same as that on the manufactured goods; you must give him a sufficient additional duty to make up the disadvantage under which he says he is working and give him a profit or the change will be of no benefit to him. I believe that the woollen products manufactured in Canada last year were worth some $6,000,000 and there was collected in duty on woollen goods coming into this country about $7,000,000. It would surely not be fair for the sake of that $6,000,000 of manufactured goods to ask that the $7,000,000, already $1,000,000 greater than the annual product of our woollen mills, should be increased and that we should be asked to pay $8,000,000 or $9,000,000 or possibly $10,000,000 in duty. That would be absolutely unfair to the farmers of this country and they would not accept such a proposition. The farmers of Canada are thoroughly conversant with the affairs of this country, and when any one endeavours to make them believe that black is white that person is going to be very much left; they will not accept that statement from the opposition in any case.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Did I understand the hon. gentleman to say that you could not convince the farmer that the duty was going to help him?


Alexander Wilson Smith: Yes.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Then how does the hon. member account for the fact that when the duty on pork was raised, within two years the importations were reduced from $21,000,000 to between $7,000,000 and $8,000,000? Did that convince the fanner that it did him any good or not?? If it did the farmers no good, does the hon. gentleman .think the present government were right in continuing that same rate of duty up to the present time?


Alexander Wilson Smith: The only benefit that it could have conferred upon the farmer was to increase the selling value of what he produced. As a matter of fact six months after that duty was put on the price of live pork actually dropped to a lower figure than it was before that duty was put cn.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Was it not rather due to the fact that it increased the market at home to the extent of about 15,000,000 pounds for his product?


Alexander Wilson Smith: No, it could not have done that at all. The export price in the old country is the one that governs the price of our pork here.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: If he sold a million pounds of pork and had two cents a pound on that and if after the imposition of the duty he sold 10,000,000 pounds he would not have ten times as much?


Alexander Wilson Smith: As a matter of fact the production of pork did not increase by 10,000,000 pounds.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Yes it did.


Alexander Wilson Smith: No, we just exported that much less.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: There is where it actually came in. It did increase.


David Henderson: Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention at this late hour to make any lengthened remarks on what seems to me to be a very intricate question. We have listened this afternoon to what was, to my mind, one of the most valuable speeches that I ever heard delivered in this House on a practical question. I refer to the speech delivered by the hon. member for North Lanark (Mr. Thoburn). I have listened to a great many speeches in this House, but I have never listened to one, from a practical standpoint, that conveyed the idea better than the speech of the hon. gentleman and I want to congratulate him upon his deliverance. There are other hon. gentlemen here whom I would like to congratulate, my hon. friend and neighbour from Wentworth (Mr. Sealey) has certainly made a most astounding turn. I remember, a few years ago, going over to the county of Wentworth when that hon. gentleman was a candidate for parliamentary honours in opposition to Mr. E. D. Smith. I remember well spending some days in the endeavour to educate his constituents along the lines of protection to the hog, fruit and vegetable industries. I am glad to think that some of my remarks have come to have weight with the hon. gentleman. He comes out to-night practically as a full grown protectionist with reference to agricultural products, fruits and vegetables. He has only to go one step farther until he will be duly qualified to vote with us on this side of the House. I am sure we congratulate him for the progress he has made. I am sorry I cannot say so much about my hon. friend from Strathcona (Mr. McIntyre). He seems to be groping in the dark yet; in fact, he is very far in the dark. He had the impression that practically nothing but free trade would suit the country. He does not see any use in tariffs. He does not know any reason why there should be such a thing. He has a great deal to learn yet along the line of legislation. But I hope if he only pursues the study he will become a follower of my hon. friend from Wentworth. The hon. gentleman who sat 133
down a few moments ago (Mr. A. W. Smith) certainly made some astounding statements. My memory may be short. I may have forgotten a great deal that occurred during the long eighteen years when that hon. gentleman and hjs friends were wandering about in opposition wondering when they were going to reach the goal of power. I may have forgotten a great deal but I confess that I was not aware that 16 cents per bushel for oats represented the value of that commodity during that time or during any particular period of that time. Would it be fair of me, in answer to the hon. gentleman, to say that on the 20th June, 1895, whilst the Liberal-Conservative party was in power, wheat, in the city of Toronto, sold at 20 cents a bushel higher than it did in the city of Liverpool? I might make that statement and make it truthfully. The market reports will verify what I have said, but for me to say that during the entire regime of the Conservative party that was the fact, would be an entirely different thing. I would not desire for one moment to convey any such idea. My recollection is that during these years we had fairly good prices for the products of the farm and I am sorry to hear the blue ruin speech that the hon. gentleman has delivered or to see the terrible picture he has painted. It makes me feel sorry to think that we were so poor during all those eighteen years. Yet I never realized it. I was in business during those eighteen years and business was always very fair I thought. We had nothing special to complain of.


Alexander Wilson Smith: Will the hon. gentleman allow me to ask him a question?


David Henderson: I have no objection but I do not wish to continue the debate for any length of time.


Alexander Wilson Smith: Will the hon. gentleman give an approximate idea of the value of farm lands in 1878 and in 1896?


David Henderson: I did not come prepared to give the approximate value of farm lands either in 1878 or in 1896, but I can tell the hon. gentleman that this country was mighty flat and the people were pretty much dissatisfied away back in 1878. They embraced the opportunity of making a change whenever the opportunity occurred and when they did make a change they held on to it. They never seemed to regret for eighteen years and they never did regret it along the line of the fiscal policy. We all know that the Conservative party were not driven out of power on account of their fiscal policy. It was something else that caused them to loose their hold on the government of the country. The hon. member for Middlesex made a very strange statement here to-



night. I understood him to tell the House how much the Liberal party had done in the way of placing raw material on the free list to assist the industries of the country. I confess I do not know what raw material they have placed on the free list.


Wilbert McIntyre: Corn, binder twine and fence wire.


David Henderson: The most iniquitous kind of protection is, so the Liberals told us, a bounty. And to-day the government is compelling the farmers to put their hands into their pockets and hand over their money to the manufacturers of binder twine. Is the hon. gentleman who interrupted me proud of that? let him go and tell the farmer if he is. Short wool, raw cotton, and almost all raw materials that enter into manufactures have since 1878 been practically on the free list, and I do not know of any special article that the Liberal government has placed on the free list that would materially assist the industries of this country. The hon. gentleman from Middlesex (Mr. Smith) told us what the Liberal party had done to improve the condition of the people, but I wonder if he knows how much change in the tariff they did make. Let me tell the hon. gentleman just how much the tariff has been changed, in the words of the Finance Minister, who, speaking in the House, said:
It was of the utmost importance that we should maintain a strong financial position, and in view of the uncertainties as to the amount of revenue that might he produced by this lower rate of taxation it became necessary that we should take some steps to make good any possible loss that might result. It was thought that it might fairly be met by providing for the raising of some additional taxation in order to balance or make' good, the loss occasioned by the reduction of duties
it was^ necessary to have an increased revenue in certain directions when we were to lose revenue in other directions.
According to the Finance Minister the government were taking a little off here and putting on a little there, and I am not sure that they did not put on more than they took off. In the last revision the government was very particular to put a little more on than they did take off. The Conservatives left a duty on grey cottons of 22i and the Liberals increased it to 25, and white cottons which were at 25 were left at 25. But two years ago in regulating the preferential tariff they increased the preferential duty on the white cotton and reduced it on the gray, they being shrewd enough to know that there was more white than gray cotton imported into Canada, and so they increased the duty on the article of which there was a larger importation. so as to get a larger revenue. I want to say a word about the British preference, and I am glad to hear it spoken


David Henderson: of as a British preference, because I don't suppose it ever was intended to be a Canadian preference. I have always understood it was given exclusively for the benefit of the people of Great Britain. Some people think we get goods into Canada at a lower rate of duty, and we do, but the main question is do we get goods at a lower price. Do you think the manufacturer in Great Britain does business for the fun of it ?. If he knows he can send his goods into this country at a better price he is certainly going to exact it, and if you put coloured cotton at 35 per cent when it was formerly 30 per cent, and leave the British preference at 23 per cent, do you think the British manufacturer, knowing that we cannot import this cotton from any other country less than 35 per cent, is going to be foolish enough to send his goods into this country at a low price ? Not by any means. I visited the old country some years ago and I was astonished to see how they understood our tariff system. They appear to watch it morq closely than we ourselves do. They know exactly when to put on the price and when to take it oft. and for my part I can never conceive of a British manufacturer, knowing that we cannot import goods of the same class from any other country at a lower duty than 35 per cent, shipping his goods to this country at 23 per cent unless he exacted from the purchaser a very much higher price than he otherwise would.


William Paterson: How does that work with reference to woollens?


David Henderson: Do you mean woollen
goods?


William Paterson: Yes.	_


David Henderson: I intend to make special reference to woollen goods in the budget debate, and I think myself the time has come when a readjustment of the tariff on the woollen goods is required.


William Paterson: My question was: if the English manufacturer takes advantage of the preference to sell his cotton goods at a higher rate, will he not do the same thing with woollen goods?


David Henderson: I trust the hon. gentleman will not consider me discourteous if I do not answer to-night, because a reply might involve longer time than I have to speak. But I will deal with the question at no distant date, and I think myself there is a good answer to it. I cannot attempt to discuss the woollen industry side by side with the hon. member for Simcoe (Mr. Lennox), who has made a special study of it. and the hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Thoburn), who has rare technical knowledge on the subject. He made a speech this afternoon which I think was a splendid speech. I heartily endorse what

he said. I have enough knowledge of mercantile business to appreciate fully the advantages which he contends would come from a change in the tariff on woollen goods. I have always regretted very much the change that was made at the time the British preference was introduced, because I felt that it was not in the interest of the people of Canada, though it may have been very materially in the interest of the old land. With regard to the reduction of duty on hog products, I can well remember the time when there was a duty of only one cent a pound on hogs coming from the United States. It was afterwards raised to two cents, but later that was reduced to one and a half cents. I was glad when the duty on hog products, such as lard, bacon and hams, was raised to two cents a pound. It has been a great boon to this country. Whatever has been the cause of the present depression, or whether an increase of duty would help it, I am not prepared to say, but I think we are importing too much of American hog products. Why should we import into Canada in one year 11,000,000 pounds of lard? Does not this country possess productive powers enough to produce that? We imported also 7,335,000 pounds of other hog products, such as bacon, hams, shoulders and sides. I think we should arrange our fiscal affairs so as to prevent the invasion of our market by that large quantity of hog products. Of pork in barrels we imported last year 9,204,247 pounds. Altogether our market was invaded last year by hog products to the extent of 23,325,695 pounds, according to the Trade and Navigation returns. Every pound of that ought to have been produced in this country. I do not mean to say that I would favour a tariff that would keep everything out. I am not one of those extreme protectionists by any means. I claim to be a moderate protectionist.


William Paterson: Not like the member for Peel (Mr. Blain).


David Henderson: I do not know that the member for Peel is so very extreme. I am sorry the Minister of Agriculture is not in his place. He went into my county during the recent election to speak at a great mass meeting. Four lines of railway coming into the county town, from the east, the west, the north and the south, were induced to give special rates in order to gather a large crowd to hear the Minister of Agriculture, and one of his grievous complaints against me was that I was a high protectionist. He told the farmers that I was willing to put a Chinese wall around the country. The Minister of Customs nods, but he would not say it just as the Minister of Agriculture said it. The Minister of Agriculture referred to a remark which I made here some years ago, 1334
but he was not fair enough to me to say that the remark was applied only to agricultural protection. My hon. friend from North Middlesex (Mr. A. W. Smith) warns me and others to be careful not to ask the farmers to support anything like even moderate protection; but I may tell him that this terrible assault upon me by the Minister of Agriculture, which you might have considered sufficient to have driven me from the House of Commons forever, only resulted in my majority being increased fifty per cent. I am not afraid in my county to talk about increased protection on hogs, on apples, on vegetables, on a variety of things. Our people appreciate that sort of thing. So strongly has that feeling got abroad in the county of Halton that it is actually overflowing into the county of Wentworth, and if my hon. friend the Minister of Customs is not careful we may soon capture that riding with our protectionist ideas, because the farmers there want to have the privilege of raising more hogs, more fruits more vegetables. I heartily endorse what the hon. member for Wentworth (Mr. Sealey) has said; I think he is wise in taking the line he has done, because it is the line along which I believe his constituents would want him to go. I hope and trust the minister will not turn a deaf ear to the appeal that hon. gentleman has made. There must be justification for it when a gentleman of the standing of my hon. friend feels it to be his duty to stand before this House, and, in the face of gentlemen with whom he has voted and associated, declare that he has broken away from their erroneous ideas and is now going to stand by the farmers of the country and demand increased protection for their hogs, fruit and vegetables. I have said before, and I repeat, that we are just as much justified in using the tariff of this country to prevent an invasion of our markets as we are in calling out the militia to defend the soil of the country. The greatest asset we have in this country is our home market, and we have a right to defend it by the tariff or in any other way. We find that out market was invaded last year by an importation of $20,962,753 worth of woollen goods. When our Canadian market was overloaded with that amount of woollen goods how can we expect our woollen industry to live? It seems to me that with such an invasion of manufactured goods, there is not much left for the man who is carrying on the industry in this country. Some of those goods paid a very high rate of duty; under the surtax over $1,000,000 paid 46 per cent. What do some of our low tariff friends on the other side of the House think of a 46 per cent duty on woollen goods? Why, that beats the Conservative party altogether. We never dreamt of such a thing.


William Stevens Fielding: Then my hon. friend thinks the duty is too high?


David Henderson: Most assuredly, I do.


William Stevens Fielding: I commend that to my hon. friend's colleagues.


David Henderson: I decidedly say so. I do not think 46 per cent is needed. Not at all. We paid dearly for that 46 per cent. It is put there, for what purpose? It was brought about by the preference. It is a part of the preference; it grew out of it. If we had never given the British preference we would never have had the surtax. I regret that surtax; I regret even to-day that there was occasion for it. Under the general tariff we imported $3,717,569 worth of woollen goods at an average duty of 34.41 per cent, very nearly 35 per cent, on these imports, and the average of woollen duties last year was 29-.10 per cent, 30 per cent, we all understand was the minimum preference; but under the preferential tariff, the duties imposed on all classes of woollen goods averaged 26-81 per cent. I make special reference to that because I think it was misstated by some hon. members who assumed that all kinds of woollen goods were paying a minimum of 30 per cent.
Having said so much and having congratulated my hon. friend from Wentworth (Mr. Sealey) on his change of heart, and having extended imy congratulations to my hon. friend from North Lanark (Mr. Thoburn)) on the admirable speech he delivered to-day, and the very valuable information he gave us concerning this woollen industry-having done that, I feel I should not prolong the debate further. If there are others desirous of saying something, I shall reserve any further remarks on the question until the budget comes down, when the hon. the Minister of Finance will probably give me the opportunity of saying a few worlds.


Mr. G. E. McCRANEY.: At this hour of the night I have no desire to take up the time of the House except to express briefly the public sentiment of that portion of the west I have the honour to represent. The question before the House is the one which has been raised ever since this parliament began, which will be raised from year to year until it closes, and no doubt will continue to be raised throughout every successive parliament. It is the old struggle of the privileged manufacturer against the consumer. My hon. friend from North Grey (Mr. Sproule) said that in his own election contest this very question of an increase of duty on woollens was a prominent issue, discussed at every public meeting. Well, in the course of an election campaign there are many questions discussed and very few members who come Mr. HENDERSON.	'
to parliament can say that it was because of one particular issue they were sent here. But I can say that in the contest in which I took part this question of woollens was also discussed; and if there is any mandate given me by my constituents, it is to oppose any increase in the duties on woollen goods. We have had the standpoint of the manufacturer of these goods discussed, and also that of the wool grower. The people whom I represent use, perhaps to a greater extent than any other portion of Canada-because our people in that western country have no very great means and must use the coarser kinds of clothing-woollen goods on account of the rigour of our climate. I was specially interested in this matter because in my own constituency the statement was made by my Conservative opponent that it was the Conservative party which represented the low tariff idea in this country and that to return me as a supporter of this government was to return a supporter of a protective policy. I was therefore very glad to hear the statement of my hon. friend from Peel (Mr. Blain), who took the position that we should have a tariff high enough to keep out every dollar's worth of foreign goods which can be grown or manufactured in Canada. That is a good enough statement to convince my people that the policy of the Conservative party, of which he is a prominent member, is not a policy of low tariff but of very high protection. My hon. friend referred to the question of agricultural implements. That also was one very much discussed in my riding. In one of the first discussions that took place in my own town of Rosthern, at which the hon. the leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden) was present, with the member for Grenville (Mr. Reid) and the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Lake), and where I was among the audience, I was rather amused to hear the hon. member for Qu'Appelle give credit to the Conservative party of having advocated a reduction in the duties on agricultural implements, and I was also amused at the attitude of the hon. the leader of the opposition who sat there and took the applause, which the speaker's words brought forth, as a tribute to himself and his party. I have never taken any other position before my people than I did, when the question came up, as it did in this House in committee, that I was not favourable to the resolution then submitted by the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Schaff-ner). The House will recollect that the only discussion which took place at the time was in committee, so that there is no record of the vote on the division. But the opinions expressed at that time by the leader of the opposition and the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) were

certainly not favourable to the attitude of the hon. member for Souris. In my opinion, had the people of our western country been satisfied that the attitude taken on the question of duty on agricultural implements by the hon. member for Souris was that of any great political party in this country, which would become efiective law in the event of that party coming into power, the political results throughout the whole west would have been entirely different; and if it had been the Conservatives who, as a party, had taken that position, the province of Saskatchewan would not have sent only one member to support that party.


Richard Blain: Did my hon. friend say he was opposed to the resolution of the hon. member for Souris?


George Ewan McCraney: Yes.


Richard Blain: Then we do not differ on that subject?


George Ewan McCraney: I however would remark that our point of view and our reasons differ very much indeed. From my experience of the western people, I am satisfied that, as time goes on and our representation increases and as the policy of the Conservative party in the west becomes more advanced than at present along the lines of a revenue tariff-which was their position in the last election-never again will we have in this country an election fought by the Conservative party on an out and out protection programme.
It is almost amusing to me, having heard the statement of Conservative leaders in the west a3 to their attitude on the question of low tariff, to come here and find in this discussion a reversion to old positions, to find that the Conservatives in this House are asking that the duties, having special reference to woollen duties, should be increased, and declaring that the duties that we already pay are not sufficient, but that the manufacturers must be allowed to take more money from our people. In all these discussions, representations concerning prices are always rather discursive. If it were possible to bring about the results which hon. gentlemen opposite wish to bring about, to increase rates of duty without increasing the prices of the manufactured goods, I do not think that anybody would stand in their way. But I think it is a bad principle. There has been some discussion to-night with regard to the protection of the farmer. I must say that, if you have a bad principle in the way of a tariff for the protection of your manufacturers, it is just as well to carry out that principle and give protection to the farmers. But I always feel, as has already been expressed in this
debate that, though, as in the case of the wheat duty, you may tell the farmer that he is getting a similar benefit to the other fellow, and so prepare his mind for burdens which are very much greater than any burdens which he may think he is putting on anybody else to support him in his business, that I should certainly want to go very cautiously even in giving so-called protection to the farmer. In the portion of the country from which I come, there is a great deal of grain which does not grade very high, perhaps as a result of frost or some of these causes which arise in the fall of the year. One would think that there should be there a great production of pork. As a matter of fact, there is not. It is a commodity which is used very much in that part of the country, but I certainly would not propose in this House a duty on pork to get out farmers to go into that business. I think that what our people have to do is to get out of straight wheat farming. They have got to understand that they can make use of their grain by feeding it. But I would rather give them that kind of information than tell them that if they will only put a duty on some product coming from another country, they will be able to raise pork. I was told by a man in Winnipeg two or three years ago that the Christmas turkeys sold in Winnipeg nad been shipped in from Ontario. That seemed to me a very singular thing, a thing which should not be in a - grain-growing province like Manitoba, where fowl could be grown, perhaps, cheaper than anywhere else in Canada. But, if our western people want to go into fowl-raising, I think it would be a good thing if they did it to a certain extent, but I would not suggest a duty on chickens and turkeys that might come in from St. Paul. I do not think these things are brought about by tarifi duties so much as by farmers' institutes, experimental farms and that sort of thing. We on the prairies use a great deal of fruit. The argument is put forth here that farmers in one part of the country should be taxed to help farmers in another part of the country who are growing fruit. By doing that, you only increase the cost of living, and in our western country what we want to do ii to make the cost of living as light as I ossible, so that the standard of living may be as high as can be with the income which the farmer receives.
And I do not feel that this is a farmers' question alone. It is a question which affects our cities, towns and villages as much as it does the residents on the prairie. This matter was discussed in my own campaign, and in the city of Saskatoon and in all the towns and villages of the constitu-



eney, with one exception, the Liberal party got large majorities. I am satisfied that any proposition of higher duties on woollen goods would certainly not meet with any favour.


Richard Blain: What about the province of Manitoba?


George Ewan McCraney: There is no accounting for the province of Manitoba at the present time. But I think that they will come to the view I have stated. Now, our people in !the west are Canadian people; they want to pay their share of taxes and they are doing it. What we want as far as possible is to avoid the protective features of the tariff. We want to eliminate as far as it can practically be done these features of the tariff which do not put anything into the public treasury, but which do put something into somebody's else's pocket. There is nobody putting anything into the pockets of our western farmers, and I am not advocating that anything should be done by which that result should be brought about. My hon. friend from Peel (Mr. Blain) suggested that because the east had put a lot into the railways of the west and had given a lot of land to the railways-I presume that was with special reference to the Canadian Pacific Railway-that that was a reason why we should put up with a protective tariff in favour of the eastern people.


Richard Blain: No.


George Ewan McCraney: I do not wish to misquote my hon. friend.


Richard Blain: What I said was that as the Canadian people had expended large amounts of money on transcontinental railways, therefore it was quite possible for one portion of the country to supply the other portion with any article of which they might be short at any special season.


George Ewan McCraney: That is hardly the point I had in view.


Mr. M. S. SCHELL (South Oxford).: I do not propose at this late hour to make a speech, but owing to the great interest I have taken in this subject, especially the hog industry, the production of bacon and hams, I feel constrained to make a few remarks. Before the McKinley tariff was brought into operation we exported largely to the United States market, we produced a heavy class of hog, heavy bacon, hams, &e. When the McKinley tariff came into operation we were practically shut out of the United States market and consequently we were compelled to look to the English market for our output with the result that by careful attention to the requirements of that market, we were soon able to increase our exports from some $8,000,000 in 1897 to


George Ewan McCraney: some $15,000,000 in 1904. It was at once recognized by the farmers of Ontario, and I think of Quebec, that this was one of the best paying industries that the farmers had ever taken up. Until 1904 our exports continued to increase and everybody seemed to regard this as an industry that might be developed to an almost unlimited extent. You could hardly find a farmer who would not claim that the growth and production of pork was giving him perhaps a larger profit than any other branch of his farming operations. Since 1904 there has been a decline in our exports and during the last year or two the situation has become so serious that our Swinebreeders' Association have approached the government with a view to seeing if something could not be done to relieve the situation. Particularly during this year, we find that something must be done or else the pork packing industry in which we have so much capital invested, will be in a very critical position. We know that to-day they have not more than one-half enough hogs to keep them running full time. Several factories have closed down and a great deal of money has been lost, especially during the last year. The packers have paid fair prices to the farmers, more, I think, than the English market would warrant. During October, November and December I know that the price, while not as high as it is to-day, was still higher than the pork packers of this country could afford to pay and export their product to the English market. They were losing heavily on the product they sent to the English market during those months. The price of bacon in England was 42s. and 42s 6d, and at that price our packers could not afford to pay 6i or 6 cents a pound live weight. We know that as a consequence the packers have lost very heavily. We know that our own Canadian market has been fairly satisfactory for what we were able to sell here. I am not in favour of a high tariff for any of our commodities. I do not think that any industry should be bolstered up if it is not able to stand on a basis of a moderate tariff. Some would say, I suppose, that two cents per pound on pork is a good protection. I think it is on barrelled pork, a very fair protection and I am not in favour of an increased duty, so far as I understand the situation, on barrelled pork. Two cents a pound duty on pork that is worth 10 cents a pound is fairly good protection-and what is more we are not producing that kind of pork in Canada. Our trade has been cultivated and developed with a view to producing a lean, light type of hog, suitable especially for the highest class of bacon, and we have developed that trade to such an extent that I believe our packers are curing their bacon infinitely better than it is cured in the United States, equal to the Danish bacon, and I believe equal to the Irish bacon. I

do not believe that there is any better bacon produced in the world than is produced in Canada to-day. A duty of two cents a pound on bacon that is worth 15 cents a pound is not, I think, high protection; I do not think it is protection at all, it is only an incidental protection if it is any, it is only a revenue tax and a very low rate of duty. I do not think that four cents would be too high a duty on bacon. Some might say that it is protection. Possibly it is, but it is not a high protection, it is a very moderate protection.


Haughton Lennox: Would the hon. member say that five cents was a high protection?


Malcolm Smith Schell: It is getting higher.


Haughton Lennox: Four is getting higher than two.


Malcolm Smith Schell: I do not consider two cents a protection at all in the sense in which the word is usually used. Three cents might help to relieve the situation. But the point I want to impress on the House is that our farmers are producing a special high class bacon and yet our dealers are importing from the United States not nearly as good bacon and selling it in competition with our high class bacon to the extent of over $800,000 worth of bacon and hams and possibly a few shoulders in this past year. There is no reason in the world why we should not have our own Canadian market for this high class of bacon, and I believe that our own people will not object to this moderate increase, when they know they are getting Canadian bacon, the best bacon, better than they can get in the United States-and I do not believe it will cost them a cent more per pound if a duty is put on to protect this portion of our industry. If we could produce more hogs incidentally we would have more lard. I am not advocating an increase of duty on lard. If we could induce our farmers to raise more hogs and develop this high class trade and hold it for our own farmers and packers I think we would be doing a good service to this country. I do not think we could be considered as advocating high protection. When you take into consideration the quality and value of the article it is only a revenue tariff. I believe it would help very materially to solve the difficulty. The farmers would be induced to go more fully into the production of the hog that is specially required for the production of bacon. I believe the farmers of the western provinces could be induced to go more fully into this industry. We find that the government of Alberta have had a commission investigating this question and that they have reported to the government of that province advising them to build a plant to help to develop the industry. As soon as there is an assurance
that Alberta will produce a thousand hogs a week, say, they advise the government of Alberta to help promote this industry by building a plant and carrying it on in the interests of the farmers generally. Alberta should be one of the greatest hog producing provinces of the Dominion along with Saskatchewan and Manitoba. I believe they would be induced to give greater attention to this industry and I believe the farmers of Ontario, instead of raising less than they were five or six years ago, as they are to-day, would be induced to give more attention to it. I know this is one of the best paying industries in Ontario. Farmers are making money to-day out of this industry. We know that feed is high and that is one of the reasons why they have dropped out of it to some extent. We know that Danish pork is coming into competition with our pork in England and we know that in October, November and December, the price dronped to an abnormally low figure. Packers were losing money and they were not paying the farmers quite as much as the farmers thought they were entitled to receive considering the high price of feed. I believe it would help materially to solve the situation if a slight duty could be put on bacon and hams. I am not going to dwell at any further length on this question. I had thought of entering into some statistics but the ground has been pretty thoroughly covered. The present conditions of the trade and the quantities that are imported have been referred to and I am not going to weary the House by the quotation of figures along this line, but I would like to impress upon the House and the government that the industry to-day is not in a condition that is at all satisfactory to the packers or to the growers of pork. I believe that this incidental or very slight increase would help to a considerable extent to relieve the situation and I believe it might have the effect of stimulating the trade. It would give an impetus to the trade and it would not be amiss to make the experiment. We would not suffer from it. The advantages might not be commensurate with what we may expect to receive but nobody would suffer. We are producing plenty to supply our own home market. Our home consumers would not be compelled to pay a cent a pound more and they would at least have the advantage of having the best bacon on their breakfast table that it is possible to obtain either in Europe or in the United States.


Mr. TURCOTTE (Quebec County).: (Translation.) Mr. Speaker, at this late hour of the night I do not wish to detain the House very long, but I have promised to my hon. friend from Wentworth (Mr. Sealey) that I would say a few words in support of his remarks. I think that the

time is well chosen, principally fox a member who represents an agricultural county, when a question like this pertaining to agricuture is being considered by this House, and the least he can say is to vindicate the rights of the farmers. It is important that the country should know how the people's representatives look after their interests in the House and after all that pertains to the farm.
We are confronted with the question of principles. We have been discussing tonight theoretically free trade and protection, and naturally both parties took up arms. I don't want to enter on this ground, but if I was obliged to do so I would take side with the Liberal party in favour of free trade, whose battles we have fought for so long a time. We all know the struggles of the Liberal party for the triumph of the free trade principles. These principles have been discussed before the people, and the people had approved them. I think that the constant development of the public wealth in Canada proves that it is in the true interest of the people not to resist to the utmost against the foreign industry because, in the long run, it is the poor people, the large class of consumers who pay the protective duty. These are the people who are paying the toll-gate of the customs. Being so, we believe that it is in the interest of the people that these duties should be the lowest possible. The true theory, the theory adopted by our party, is a revenue tariff, giving the means to administer decently public affairs, and I think we should not go beyond that.
I will, therefore, avoid using the words free trade and protection. I will confine myself to figures that will show a lamentable state of things. The * Yearly Book ' of last year shows us the difference there is between the exportations of Canadian pork to the United States and the importations of American pork into Canada. This is what I have noticed, and which seems to be very extraordinary. During the years 1904-5-6-7, that is five years, we have exported to the United States only 489,757 pounds of pork, which represents a sum of $64,912 during these five years, and we have imported during the same period 34,192,107 pounds, or for the sum of $2,521,436. In the last year, 1907, we have imported from the United States 7,500,848 pounds of pork, representing $615,000. We must remark that these figures cover only the nine months of the fiscal year 1906-7; when we have exported during the same period only 84,518 pounds of pork, representing $13,493. This is an enormous difference. These are facts which indicate that, for one reason or another, the pork which is eaten in Canada or put in tins or transformed into bacon and ham comes for the greatest part from the United States.


Joseph Pierre Turcotte: This is a subject of humiliation for our national pride, because we have in our country all what is necessary for the raising and fattening of these animals. How is it that the production of pork is so small in our country? This is a state of things which deserves the attention of the government. The proposed remedy might not be adequate. It is possible that if we raise the duties on pork from 2 to 4 cents a pound we would not protect the farmer sufficiently to increase his power of raising pork, but, nevertheless, it is a question worthy of consideration.
It might be the same for meat pork as it is for some manufactured products. We all know that when there is over-production in some line of goods, the manufacturers of the country combined themselves to dump in Canada a large part of this overproduction at low prices in order to create a disastrous competition to Canadian industries. We know also that measures have been taken by the government to' protect us against this way of killing our industries.
I have reason to believe with the hon. member for Wentworth that the same means have been adopted in this case, and that at certain times the over-pToduction in meat pork in the United States is sent to Can ada in the same condition; that is to say, in a way to make disastrous competition in our own industry. I think that the time has come to put a stop to this illegitimate and disastrous competition to our farmers. But most of the members of this House who are sent here to study the economical conditions of the country are not able, in a case like this, to discuss this question with the same knowledge of professional men. We have to guide us the resolution adopted by the Pork Raisers' Association of Canada and other associations of the same kind. These resolutions have been adopted after a thorough investigation of the grievances and a complete study of the remedies that could be applied. We have thus a congregation, a collectivity of farmers, of men of experience, who come and say to us: It is necessary to bring afloat this industry which is essential to the progress and to the wealth of Canada. We ask our legislators to give us the means to fight this disastrous competition from the States. It is proposed to Taise the duty from 2 to 4 cents per pound. It might be a good way; it might not. I know that the hon. members opposite will not say that it is bad, because it is in accord with their protectionist principles.
As for the Liberal party, I fully agree for my part with the hon. member who has spoken before me, that this is not really a question of protection. Protection, as we generally understand it, has for its object | to prevent competition in manufactured I goods and in arts. I do not think that we

can assimilate the pork industry to manufacture. There is no similitude, and consequently we cannot apply, when speaking of the products of the farm, the same reasoning as we do to the industry.
I think that the government, who has its eyes open upon all which might contribute to the development of the resources of the country, will note the remarks which have been offered to-day upon this question, principally upon the figures which have been brought to the attention of the House, and which show an abnormal state of things. If we import in one year from the states more meat pork and for a larger sum than we have exported during a period of five years, and we have there an economical phenomenon absolutely disastrous and humiliating for us. It is for the government to study this question, and I know that the ministers are able to take the necessary measures to have a stop put to this state of things.
I have received from the farmexs of the county of Quebec verbal representations and letters in which they point out to me the absolutely disastrous competition suffered by those who take up the hog industry. Those farmers supply some of the pork-packing establishments of the citly where laree quantities of pork are used for the production of hams and bacon. Now the manufacturers, the dealers of that city cannot successfully compete with the products from the other parts of the country, and even from abroad, because they cannot obtain the necessary Taw material under such conditions as to permit of their carrying on their industry on a paying basis. But I may be told, and this is the capital argument advanced by our opponents : ' Why, if your Quebec friends cannot produce raw material as cheaply as the similar product coming from abroad, and you have no right to complain, the less so as the consumer will no doubt ultimately pay less for his food.' Quite true, but matters have to be considered from a different standpoint. As I just stated, that meat being imported from abroad does not enter here in the most normal conditions; it is the surplus which is fraudulently -dumped into the country. It is not the regular trade, as those who aTe conversant with the matter know perfectly well.
At any rate, as matters stand nowadays, seeing that tariffs are being readjusted all the world over, the United States protecting itself against Canada, and as commercial treaties are negotiated between two or three countries in order to protect themselves against foreign competition, I say that in commercial matters, as on every other question of vital importance for a nation, there is no cast-iron rule or theory that can be applied. Principles have to be more or less mitigated.
Now, I say that if ever there was an occasion upon which the rulers of a country or those who are at the helm were bound to mitigate those principles it is at a time when we are called upon to deal with the interests of the farming community in this country, which will be one of the great factors in making of this Canada of ours one of the leading nations of the twentieth century. Such are some of the grounds upon which I hope the government will take such steps as they may think proper for coming to the assistance of the farming community, for which service the country will owe the government a well-deserved debt of gratitude.


Mr. T. A. LOW (Renfrew South).: Mr. Speaker, at so late an hour my remarks will necessarily be brief. We have had this subject discussed to-day by the member for South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox), who posed as a farmer, and by the member for North Lanark (Mr. Thoburn), who said he spoke on behalf of the workingmen, and now I purpose saying a few words from the standpoint of one who is interested in a woollen mill. Judging from the pleasant frame of mind in which the hon. member (Mr. Lennox) spoke, I cannot imagine that he intended the House to take his remarks seriously, nor do I think the hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Thoburn) was serious in oil that he said. Up to a certain stage of his speech the hon. gentleman appeared to be solemn enough, but when he told us he was speaking on behalf of the workingman I could not help doubting. Then the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule) could not have been serious because he held the government of the day responsible for certain woollen mills which were burnt twenty and thirty years ago.


Haughton Lennox: Will the hon. gentleman mention any mill that was burnt 20 or 30 years ago?


Thomas Andrew Low: I am told that the Ancaster mill was burnt 30 years ago and that the Flamboro mill was burnt 20 years ago. Now, before I proceed further, I do not wish the House to misunderstand my position on this question. I do not wish it to be supposed that I am a free trader, because I believe that we should keep the trade of this Canada of outs for the benefit of the Canadian people. But, Sir, I do not believe in building up a high protection wall for the benefit of any one class. While I cannot boast of the long experience my hon. friend (Mr. Thoburn) has had in the woollen mill business, yet I can say that I have had moTe experience in it than the hon. gentleman from Simcoe (Mr. Lennox). In the town of Renfrew for 40 years there was a woollen mill, and three years ago that mill came to grief. If I listened to the speeches of the Conservatives in the recent

campaign I would be led to believe that that mill came to grief through the tariff policy of the present government. But that is not so. Three years ago the people who were running that mill failed by reason of bad management, and we reorganized the company, and I want to tell the House that never in the history of that business has it been so prosperous as during the last three years. I want to tell the hon. member (Mr. Lennox) that last year the net profit on that business was 29 per cent; the preceding year it was 26 per cent, and the first year we ran the business the net profit was 21 per cent. I wish to say one word in reply to a statement made by the hon. member for Lanark. He told us that the charge had been made that because of inferior machinery the woollen millmen of this country are unable to compete with the foreign market. Let me tell my hon. friend that to a large extent that statement is true. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting a large Montreal woollen mill with a view of buying some of the idle machinery, and I remarked to the former manager that it was a very sad thing to see the machinery standing idle, and he replied: That is due to the Right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his government. He did not know then that I was a supporter of that government.


Haughton Lennox: Has the hon. gentleman seen the published statemeent of that same gentleman in the public press, saying that it is by reason of the reduction of the preference that they were compelled to close their mill?


Thomas Andrew Low: I care not a whit for the statement of that gentleman and before I am through I will convince my hon. friend (Mr. Lennox) that it was the inability of these people to manufacture goods at a minimum cost that led to their misfortune.
I will show him where their equipment was absolutely unfit to enable them to manufacture goods at the lowest cost. Now, Sir,
I was in that mill a few weeks ago, as I have said, and I had with me a practical man, and when we left he said to me: 'How did these people ever expect to turn out goods at a low cost; see their dilapidated building and see their machinery in such a shape and so close together, that they could not produce cheaply.' I could not judge of that personally but that was the opinion the expert expressed to me. So I say, that is the best answer to the people who are making the charge that the tariff policy of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his government is injuriously affecting the woollen industry of Canada. I speak from the few short years' experience I have had in the trade, I speak from the experience of that woollen mill that is closed down in Montreal to-day, and as one who is interested in Mr. LOW.
a woollen mill I say that the present tariff suits me.


Richard Blain: Are we to understand from the hon. gentleman that the machinery in the woollen industrial establishments of Canada, speaking generally, is not up to date?


Thomas Andrew Low: I am speaking of what I saw; I am not in a position to judge of the rest. I only speak whereof I know.


Right Hon.   S@: FIELDING (Minister of Finance) I hope the hon. gentlemen who have addressed the House this afternoon will not think it discourteous if I make no extended remarks in reply. They will of course quite understand that this is a subject in which the members of the government are all deeply interested, but still we are not free to express conclusions in advance of the budget speech. I do not think it would be desirable if I were to make comments on the remarks that have been made by some of the hon. gentlemen, even though I might think their arguments were not so strongly put as they themselves imagine. I can only say that the whole question has been considered in the past, is being considered, and will be considered by the government. That is all I feel at liberty to say at the present time.
Motion agreed to and the House went into Committee of Supply.
Some resolutions reported.


BUDGET SPEECH.
William Stevens Fielding: Before moving the adjournment permit me to say that two or three hon. gentlemen to-day requested information by way of return or otherwise before the budget speech would be taken up, and as I find I probably will not be able to bring down the information to-day or to-morrow I desire to say now that we will fix the delivery of the budget speech for Tuesday next and in the meantime the various returns will be completed.


David Henderson: I presume 'Hansard' will report what the minister has said so that hon. gentlemen who want the returns will be aware of the fact.


William Stevens Fielding: The object is that they may get the information before proceeding with the debate.
Mr. FIELDING moved the adjournment of the House.


David Henderson: May I ask what business will be taken up to-morrow?


William Stevens Fielding: We will take up first the motion that stands in the name of the hon. the Postmaster General, and after

that Supply, beginning with the Minister of the Interior.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House adjourned at 12.30 a.m. Wednesday.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, April 14, 1909.