1909-12-17

Hon. L. P. BRODEUR (Minister of Marine and Fisheries).: 

MOTIONS AGREED TO WITHOUT DISCUSSION.

Mr GEORGE TAYLOR (Leeds).: Yesterday the leader of the opposition asked the Prime Minister with reference to five or six motions on the Order Paper, that they be passed unopposed, and the Prime Minister stated if the matter were mentioned to-day he would say if they could be moved.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: There is no objection to any of the motions except No. 33
The following motions were then severally agreed to;
For a return showing;-1. A description by sections, townships and ranges with areas of all lands included in the area controlled by the Southern Alberta Land Company under agreements with the government, and the date of expiry of such agreements?
2.	A description by sections, townships and ranges with areas of all lands held under grazing lease or leases or assignment of leases and now controlled by Messrs. Cowdry and Maunsall, or either of them, of lands which lie between the Bow and Belly rivers, bounded on the east by range 12 and on the west by range 19, west of the fourth meridian.-Mr. McCai-thy.
For a copy of all certificates recommendations, letters, memoranda and documents in connection with the promotion of Mr. McIntosh, on the 16th of November, 1908, from the position of division engineer, division No. 6, district F, to the position of assistant district engineer, district F, and the increase of his salary from $200 to $275 per month; also of all complaints against the professional conduct or efficiency of Mr. McIntosh made to the Trans?ontinental railway or the Railway Department before the date of promotion. -Mr. Lennox.
For a copy of all papers, reports, correspondence, etc., between the Department of the

Interior, and its officers and agencies, and any other persons, relative to the s.w. I sec tion 16-30-9 w. 3rd M., and the respective claims thereto of Thos. Paterson and J. F. Sibbard.-Mr. Lake.
1.	For a return showing the names and addresses of the engineers who surveyed and located the line of the eastern division of the Transcontinental railway, and the part of the railway covered by the work of each engineer. [DOT]
2.	The name and address of the engineer who prepared the estimate of quantities and prices of the section or portion of the line covered by each contract.
3.	The names of the engineers acting upon behalf of the Railway Department or Railway Commission, and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, in determining upon the form and wording of the specifications, as provided for by the seventh section of the agreement between the government and the company.
4.	The names of such of the engineers acting in any of the capacities aforesaid, as subsequently acted in connection with construction, when and for how long in what capacity, where their services have been dispensed with, and for what cause.
5.	The names and addresses of all the engineers in the service of the Railway Commission, or Railway Department, on districts B and F of the said eastern division, since the commencement of the construction of the railway, the capacity in which each was employed, the salary in each case, the promotions, increases of salary, retirements and dismissals which have taken place, the cause for promotion, dismissal or retirement in each case, and a copy of all complaints lodged with the commissioners or their chief engineer or the department, against any of these engineers.
6.	The names of the engineers now in charge of or engaged upon districts B and F, and the official position and salary of each.-Mr. Lennox.
For a copy of all documents and papers relating to the western shipment of grain.- Mr. McCarthy.



FIRST READING.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 86) respecting the Western Canada Power Company, Limited.-Mr. J. D. Taylor.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. TURRIFF moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 87) to amend an Act to authorize a bounty to volunteers who served the Crown in South Africa. He said:	My
object in introducing this Bill is to enable either a South African veteran who has located his half section of land, or his substitute who may have located it, and who afterwards finds that the land is practically worthless, to substitute another hali section within a certain time for the one originally located. At the present time, if one is unfortunate enough to have made that mistake-and a few have done so-he suf-Sir WILFRID LAURIER.
fers a total loss of the value of the warrant.
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. TURRIFF moved for leave to introduce a Bill to amend the Dominion Lands Act. He said: The object of this Bill is to amend that part of the Dominion Lands Act affecting purchased homesteads. At present a man who is' not entitled to take up a second free homestead, may secure a purchased homestead by residing six months in each year for three years on the homestead and doing the necessaray improvements, and in addition paying the sum of $3 per acre. When he makes his entry he is required to pay $1 per acre in addition to the $10 entry fee. The same thing has happened in a few of these cases as has happened in the location of South African warrants, that a purchased homestead for which a man has made an entry afterwards turns out to be worthless; and this amendment is to enable the minister to give him credit for the $160 he has paid on account of the purchase, and allow him to make entry for another quarter section.
Mr. BLAIN.: Are there many such cases?


Mr. TURRIFF.: No, but there are a few, and they occur in this way. A man goes out and spends a month or six weeks and $100 or $150 in locating a quarter section. He selects half a dozen, but there is such a rush now for land that five or six townships may be put on the market on a certain day, and when he goes to the land office he finds perhaps a hundred men lined up at the door. He may be the 40th or 50th in the line, and by the time he reaches the counter every one of the five or six quarter sections he has selected may have been taken up. A man beside him suggests another quarter section to him as a good one, and he, to avoide the trouble and expense of hunting up another, with possibly the same process to be gone through again, makes entry for the quarter section suggested to him, pays the $10 entry fee and the $160 on account. He them goes out and looks at the land and finds it worthless. The law at present allows him to take up another purchased homestead, but does not allow him to get credit for the $160 he has paid. The object I have in view is to enable him to get credit for the money he has already paid on the land.


Mr. J. A. CURRIE.: Mr. Speaker, is the hon. gentleman in order in introducing a Bill dealing with the revenues? Does that not pertain to a member of the government?


Mr. SPEAKER.: If the Bill affects the revenue of the land in any way, it is subject to the rule.


John Gillanders Turriff: I think I can satisfy the hon. gentleman that it does not affect the revenue. I am not asking that the money should be refunded. I am only asking that another quarter section should be substituted for the first one selected.


John Allister Currie: I think that is a matter that affects the revenue. There is no provision made by any of our laws that money can be refunded by any officer unless it comes out of the consolidated fund. I ask for your ruling, Mr. Speaker.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: Before ruling, I should like to look into the matter. If the Bill has to be preceded by a resolution, it will have to stand. In the meantime, will it be read a first time?


Mr. FOSTER.: It does not seem to me that it ought to be read a first time. If a question is raised and you are not prepared to rule, but wish to take it into consideration, I think the Bill should stand.


John Gillanders Turriff: I have no objection to allowing it to stand.
Bill allowed to stand.



MANITOBA GRAIN ACT AMENDMENT.

Mr.  J. A.@: CURRIE moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 88) to amend the Manitoba Grain Act. He said: This Bill is an exact copy of the Bill of last year, *which provided for the weighing of grain at all terminal elevators, as well as at the terminal elevators at Fort William and Pert Arthur. The grain is weighed there by government officials, and the vessels when they unload at the lower end of the lake find a very large shortage. This ishortage amounted last year to thousands of dollars, I then gave the figures. It has been a great loss to vessel owners who carry the grain. The Bill provides that the Act should apply in the same way to terminal elevators at the lower end of the lake as well as those at the northern end of the lake. It simply provides that in all cases where the grain is deposited in a terminal elevator it should be weighed in and weighed out.


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

Right Hon.   S@: I beg to inform the House that having been elected at the last election for the electoral' division of Quebec East, and also the electoral division of the city of Ottawa, I now elect to sit for Quebec East, and hereby vacate my seat for the city of Ottawa.



THE FRANCO-CANADIAN TREATY.

George Eulas Foster: Before the orders of the day are called, I want to read a short
paragraph in a newspaper, and ask the Finance Minister a question with reference to it. I find a despatch from Paris which says:
During the consideration of the Tariff Bill in the Chamber of Deputies to-day a blackeye was. given to the importation of agricultural machines by the adoption of an amendment fixing the maximum rate on machines of over 100 kilograms (881-6 lhs.) weight at 15 francs (approximately $2.85) per hundred weight and the minimum weight at 12 francs. On machines under 100 kilograms weight the maximum is 23 and the minimum 15 francs. The present rates are:	Maximum 15 and
minimum 9 francs, irrespective of weight.
I would like to ask the Finance Minister if he has any knowledge that this has taken place other than what appears in the newspapers; and if he has not, and cannot therefore give an answer, will he be kind enough to keep it in mind and give the House an answer after recess?


Hon. W. S. FIELDING (Minister of Finance).: I have no information except that contained in the public press. I judge from the reports that the matter is under consideration in the French Chambers, and that nothing definite has been determined. Of course, it is unquestionably the right of the French Chambers to change the figures of their maximum and minimum tariff. We could hot! deny them the right to do that under the terms of our treaty. In like manner we can change the rates on importations under our intermediate tariff on most of the French products mentioned in the treaty. However, during the recess I will endeavour to obtain more accurate information about it.



WAYS AND MEANS-THE BUDGET.

[Stage Direction]
House resumed adjourned debate on the proposed motion of Mr. Fielding that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair for the House to go into Committee of the Whole to consider the ways and means for raising the supply to be granted to His Majesty.
['It takes the right hon. gentleman a long time to make up his mind.']
Mr. J. H. SINCLAIR (Guysboro).: Mr. Speaker, another year has added to the history of Canada, and I feel sure we are all grateful to the Giver of all good that Canada has been so prosperous. My hon. friends opposite will be ready to join me in that sentiment, for I am told that since they have been in opposition they are more inclined to acknowledge our dependence on Providence than they were when they occupied seats on this side of the House. I wish to congratulate my hon. friend the Minister of Finance on the fact that it has been his pleasant task to make known all this prosperity to the House and to the country. Was ever a Finance Minister in Canada as fortunate as the present Finance Minister ? He has had

the same cheerful story to tell us for the past 13 years.. Last year it was feared by some of his friends, and perhaps it is not too much to say that it was hoped by those who are not his friends, that his good fortune had deserted him. But he is here again this year to tell us of the bountiful harvest, of increasing population, of expanding trade, and of a revenue that has reached a point that was never before touched in the history of this country.
Now, Sir, in listening to the debate since its commencement I could not help contrasting the hopeful tone of the Minister of Finance with the doleful forebodings of some of our friends on the front benches of the opposition. For my part 1 was sincerely thankful as I listened to this debate, that I belonged to a party in Canada who believe that Canada has a future, a party whose leaders are not driven on occasions of this kind to talk about such post mortem questions as the adverse balance of trade and reciprocity with the United States. The expenditure has been made the chief ground of attack upon the government. We are condemned for what our friends opposite choose to call the alarming increase in the expenditure of this country. Now, Sir, it is quite true that there has been an increase in the expenditure since 1896, but instead of being alarmed about il, we ought to congratulate ourselves that we have been able ta make jthis increased expenditure. It has been said in this debate, and it will be found, that this expenditure can largely be accounted for by reason of the expansion and prosperity of the country. Take for example the expansion of our postal service. The expenditure on the postal service in 1896 was $3,650,000, and the revenue was $2,961,000. In 1908 the expenditure was $3,592,386.40; on the other hand the revenue was $7,401,623.93. Now, Sir, is any sane man in Canada losing sleep over the fact that we doubled our postal expenditure since 1896, especially when he looks at the other side and finds that we have collected nearly three times as much revenue, on a lower rate of postage, as we did in 1896. But that is what my hon. friend from East Grey (Mr. Sproule) would call taking money out of the pockets of the people. We can get a similar illustration in the case of the Intercolonial. The expenditure on the Intercolonial in 1896 was $3,029,304.08, and the revenue was $2,994,201.93.
In 1909, the expenditure was $9,364,256.10. But in the same year the revenue was $8,583,100.79. And is there any man in Canada alarmed at the fact that we have more than doubled our expenditures on the Intercolonial railway when, on turning the page, and looking at the other side of the account, he sees that we have more than doubled the revenue during the same per-Mr. SINCLAIR
iod. I submit that the Canadian people are not opposed to a generous expenditure of money, especially if that money is used in the construction of railways or other works that will develop the resources of the country. The question of expenditure has been submitted to the people of Canada three times during the last ten years. Our friends opposite will remember that they raised that question in the elections of 1900; they stumped this country and condemned the government in every school-house and hall throughout Canada for having raised the expenditure during the time they had held office. But when the returns came in it was found that the country had sustained the government notwithstanding all that had been said on this question of expenditure. In the following election, in 1904, these hon. gentlemen were even more emphatic on this question than they had been in 1900, and they got a more emphatic answer from the people. You will remember, Sir, that in the election of 1908, this question was again brought to the attention of the people. We all recollect how this little book, 'Facts for the people '-they were not all facts, but that was the name on the title-page-was sent out from this building in cartloads day after day prior to the election. And in that book was page after page condemning the government for the increase of expenditure. But when the election came, when the boxes were opened and the ballots counted, it was found that the government was again sustained; these hon. gentlemen got their answer. And, Sir, if this question were submitted to the people of Canada to-morrow, I have not the slightest doubt that they would get the same answer as they got before. Their leaders, I have noticed, sometimes try to formulate some policy on which expenditures should be made. Only a few days ago, the hon. member for North Toronto endeavoured to lay down a policy in regard to the expenditure on public buildings. He said that, in the smaller towns of Canada, where buildings could be rented at a cheap rate, we should not go to the great expense of erecting expensive public buildings, and he condemned the government for its expenditure in such cases. The present policy, he said, was wrong. I notice that he did not get the same cheers from the gentlemen sitting behind him that he usually evokes when he makes a speech.
I wratched the proceedings for a few minutes, and what happened? Why, man after man of his own supporters 'rose in his place and demanded a public building for his own constituency. That is the way his principle was received by his supporters. My hon. friend from Norfolk (Mr. McCall), last night, said it was very important indeed that some principle of that kind should be laid down. And I should not be disposed to disagree with him very much,.

but I would ask him, in the first place, to do some missionary work among the men who sit around him and see if he can get two of them to unite in the laying down of a principle or policy for regulating this matter of the erection of public buildings. My hon. friend from North Toronto (Mr. Foster) was not satisfied to leave the question there. He brought it up again in the debate on the address last night and condemned the government again in very severe language, indeed for constructing so many of these buildings in small towns. He charactorized this way of doing business as not a policy at all, but a mere piece of ' paltry, petty patronage,' if I recollect his language. But let me ask, who began this practice and continued it for so many years of our history? I recollect very well that in the old days, when my hon. friend from North Toronto was Finance Minister of this country, two of these buildings were erected in towns in the county in which I live, neither of these towns being very large. Take, for example, the town of Pictou. The population of Pictou at that time was about 3,000-I think it was a little less. Rent was very low in Pictou at that time; a building could be secured at a very low rate; I question if the government would pay more than $200 or $300 for the post office that was serving the people in that town in those davs. And what did my hon. friend do, when he was Finance Minister and held the purse strings? He advised the House to vote the large sum of some $40,000 to erect a post office in the town of Pictou, and the post office was accordingly erected.


Mr. GEO. TAYLOR.: Post office and customs house was it not?


John Howard Sinclair: No, a building for a customs house had been erected in the town of Pictou prior to that date, and this was a new building devoted altogether to the post office service. Now, suppose that I should use the language of my hon. friend in describing on characterizing that transaction and apply it to himself. His language thus adapted would read something like this:
What does it mean? It means that the trustee sitting yonder

In that case, of course, the trustee was my hon. friend from North Toronto.
-allows to be taken out from under his key where he has it in charge $40,000 of the people's money for a mere matter of paltry petty patronage; that is what it means, nothing more and nothing less.
Now, I do not want to be understood as objecting to a post office being built in the town of Pictou. I would have voted for the post office in the town of Pictou at that time if I had the honour then of a seat in the House. Pictou is the shire town of the county, an old historical .town-no greater in that way in Canada. In its
crooked and narrow streets, when this country was a forest, walked the men who struck the first blow for responsible government in this country. The town of Pictou is worthy of anything of that kind which this government can do for it. But I would ask the question, is it a seemly thing for an hon. gentleman, as long as he occupies office, to carry on the distribution of money in this way and as soon as he is voted out of office by the people to turn around and say that hi3 successor in doing the very thing he did himself is committing a breach of trust and is actuated by motives of petty patronage? I say it is npt seemly to do that.


George Taylor: It is not very fair to compare Pictou, with a population of 3,000, with Richibucto, with a population of 600.


John Howard Sinclair: I am discussing the principle laid down by my hon. friend who said that if a building could be rented at small rent it was a breach of trust to expend all that money in erecting a post office. He says that in a place where a building could be rented for $300, you spend $40,000 in the erection of a post office, you spend $1,500 or $2,000 a year to keep it heated and attended to after you have built it. That is the kind of doctrine my hon. friend has been placing before the House day after day and year after year, and if his principles were applied to the town of Pictou, the town of Pictou would not have received a post office. If it was wrong prior to 1896 then my hon. friend was the chief sinner because he was the trustee, as he says; he held the purse strings, and so far as I know he has never shown any signs of repentance and he does not seem to have shown any yet. I have not the slightest doubt if he was in office to-morrow he would do the very same thing again. People who are apt to be disturbed about the conduct of other people ought to set a good example. It is a bad sign when a man is more solicitous about the conduct of his neighbour than he is about his own.
Since 1896 this country has enjoyed a period of enormous expansion. You may refer to any department of the government you please or to any blue-book you please, and you will find the same splendid story, a story which is perhaps unequalled in the history of the world. Take, for example, the traffic in the Canadian canals. In the year 1885 the number of tons of freight that passed through the Canadian canals was 2,673,641 tons. Ten years afterwards, in 1895, the number of tons was 3,336,068. In ten years tne increase had been only about 663,000 tons But take the period after 1895, and you find that in the year 1908 the figure is not 3,000,000 but 17,502,820 tons, an increase of 14,166,752 tons in the freight passing through the Canadian canals, dur-

ing the period of this administration as compared with 663,000 tons in the ten years of the prior administration.
Then look at the traffic on the Canadian steam railways. In 1885 the number of passengers carried on the Canadian steam railways was 9,672,599. In 1895 it was 13,987,580. In 1908 it was 34,044,992.


Mr. LABOR.: Is the Minister of Finance responsible for the increase of travel on the railways?


John Howard Sinclair: I am not referring to the Minister of Finance at all in this matter especially. I am referring to the splendid progress the country has made during the present administration and there would be no difficulty at all in connecting it with the government of the country if I chose to take the time to do it.
Every one remembers the condition of the west prior to 1896. The west had made very slow progress. We had spent a great deal of money, we had poured out our millions to assist in the construction of the Canadian Pacific railway but we seemed to get very small returns. We had millions of acres of the richest land in the world but we had no men to till the soil. These rich prairies were the home of the coyote and the gopher. Then came a change of government, then came a Minister of the Interior who knew the west, who knew how to make the west known to the world.	He bent his
great energies to the task that was given him and he succeeded. You know how he made the west known; he performed his task with great success and we see the splendid results of his work to-day.
While the country has enjoyed a period of enormous expansion, as I have said, the trouble with my friends opposite is that their minds and ideas do not seem to have expanded in the same proportion as the country. Many of them are still living in the old days before the fall. Some of them actually appear to consider that it is a calamity that with a lower rate of taxation we have a revenue of about $100,000,000 instead of $38,000,000 or $40,000,000. They think that is a very serious thing indeed and they are fretting over it. Let me tell hon. gentlemen who look at it in that way that their troubles are only commencing, that if they are going to keep mourning over this thing they will have much more mourning to do, that if they live ten years longer we will have a revenue in this country of $200,000,000 instead of $100,000,000 as at present.
I would like to point out some of the benefits that have accompanied and flowed from these expenditures which these hon. gentlemen have been condemning, and I shall confine myself in what I say on this point to that part of Canada with which I am best acquainted. Prior to 1896, the fishing population on the Atlantic coast Mr. SINCLAIR.
were not making much progress; the fresh fishbusiness was almost unknown, bait was scarce and sometimes impossible to get at the seasons of the year when it was most wanted, There were few coasting steamers to carry the products of the coast to market. In many ports there were no wharfs where a passing steamer could call. Now, Sir, all this is changed. Bait freezers dot the coast from one end to the other, enabling the fishermen to carry on their work at all seasons of the; year Whistling buoys, bell buoys and gas buoys are found along the shores marking the rocks and dangerous shoals and enabling the coaster and the fishermen to get into harbour in darkness and fog. Breakwaters have been built in many places along the coast to afford protection to shipping. Public wharfs have been built in many harbours, harbours that were inaccessible before have been dredged, and subsidized steamers are calling at these harbours, collecting the products of the people and taking them to market.
All these improvements have cost a great deal of money, but they have had splendid results in the country, and while hon. gentlemen opposite have been complaining about these expenditures, while they have been obstructing the passage of the estimates, by which these things were done in many cases, there have been growing up on the coast of Nova Scotia, thriving villages, where these expenditures were made and our young men are remaining at home and establishing themselves there in place of going to Gloucester or Boston, or some other point in the United States. These are the things that are resulting from the expenditures that these hon. gentlemen have complained about so much. There is one phase of the policy of the present government for which I wish to give them a good deal of credit, and that is that they have given a great deal of consideration always to the little places notwithstanding the opposition of my hon. friend from North Toronto (Mr. Foster) and some other gentlemen on the other side of the House. We cannot all live in the big cities, and it would be a bad thing for Canada if we could. The best blood of the country, or of the nation comes from the country districts, 'and what we should aim at, what we are endeavouring to do in this country, is to make the life of the common man who lives in a country district as prosperous, contented and happy as we can.
Something has been clone in this direction, but I do not mean to say that the government have done everything or done as much as they might or ought to have done. We must give the people of the country a better postal service, and we must also give them better railway facilities if we expect the young men to remain

at home in the country districts, or if we expect the people on the coast to remain on those hamlets and harbours which are so isolated. A few days ago, in reply to a question I asked the hon. the acting Postmaster General, I was informed that there are 101 post offices in the province of Nova Scotia alone that receive only weekly mails. I was also informed that there are 292 post offices in that province that have only two mails a week, and that there are 586 that have only three mails a week. This does not reflect too much credit on the Post Office Department, and I trust that something will be done to improve that condition.
The hon. the Finance Minister pointed out the other day in his address the gratifying success that had followed the policy of granting bounties on steel and iron. He suggested that the country had received their money back through the customs offices in those places where thriving towns had been built up as a result of this expenditure. I think that it was my hon. friend from North Grey (Mr. Middlebro) who felt inclined to dispute that fact. I can not concerned very much whether it can be proven or not. We have established the steel and iron industry of Canada and that is the main thing; that is what we tried to do when we agreed to give this bounty and we have succeeded in doing it. We had the raw material, we had the iron ore, we had the limestone, we had the coal, we had everything that was necessary, but we did not have any steel industry. Now, we have the steel industry established in two Canadian provinces and a commencement has been made in a third. If we had never got a dollar out of the customs house I would say that we had made a good bargain if^ we had spent these millions in establishing the steel industry in Canada, and if there is any gentleman here who would like to have the money back again and turn back the clock to where it was thirteen or fourteen years ago without any steel industry in Canada, I would like to see him stand up so that we can get his, photograph. I do not believe there is a man in Canada who would wish to go back to those old days.
I was very much interested in the proposal of the hon. the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) to acquire the right to take over branch lines along the route of the Intercolonial railway. I cordially support that policy. _ I would go farther, Sir, and I would build branch railways in places along the Intercolonial railway where they are not now in existence and where the traffic would warrant the expenditure that would necessarily have to be made. We have eight or nine railway companies in the province of Nova Scotia alone and each of these companies has a board of 54
directors. Each company has a head office staff, repair shops and all the expensive paraphernalia of a railway company. Most of them are at present unprofitable. If they were merged into one great company with one central office and were used as feeders for the main line, a great deal of money that is now wasted in keeping up these establishments might be devoted to extensions and improvements. I am told that there is an idea, or rather let me call it a delusion, in some parts of Canada, that the Intercolonial railway in some way is a great advantage to the people of the maritime provinces at the expense of the rest of the people of Canada. It is not the case. The people of the maritime provinces pay well for what they receive from the Intercolonial railway. The rates on passenger traffic are the same there as they are on the other great railways of Canada. The through rates on freight are the same. If there are slight differences along the line they are accounted for largely by the competition of water carriage or some other reason. As a matter of fact the Intercolonial railway has in some ways been rather a handicap on the progress of the maritime provinces, and the reason why it has been is that it has not been progressive. I have some doubts whether it ever will be progressive under government management. The machinery we have here is too cumbersome to run a business enterprise. We have to wait sometimes eight or nine months to get a little money voted to build an ice house on the road to keep business going and to keep the refrigerator cars supplied with ice. For any special expenditure we must come here. The directors of a great company could arrange that at once with a stroke of the pen. There are difficulties under government ownership that have been a handicap on the maritime provinces for many yeaTs in connection with the Intercolonial railway. I will tell you some of the things that they feel to-day to prove the point I am now making. For example, instead of establishing an express business of their own at the time the road was built, they handed the express business over to an incorporated company, which has bled the people of the maritime provinces for a generation and is still bleeding them. The fact they had to wait for thirty years before they wakened up to get leave from parliament to acquire the branch lines shows you how slow they have been as a business proposition. They never made any genuine attempt to acquire or increase traffic along the line. The Intercolonial railway only touches a few points on the sea coast-such places as St. John. Halifax, Mulgrave and the Sydneys. At these places the population occupies chiefly a narrow fringe along the coast. Any



up-to-date railway company operating there would have provided boats to collect traffic from the towns and villages along the shore and deliver it to the railway.
The Intercolonial railway never did anything of the kind; it was left altogether to private enterprise. If the traffic came the Intercolonial railway carried it, and if the traffic did not come the Intercolonial railway did not care. That is the way that railway has been managed all through its history. This last proposal of the government to take over the branch lines and operate them as part of the system has been satisfactory to the people of the maritime provinces, and it gives us a little ray of hope. I am quite sure that the present Minister of Railways is anxious not only to make this road satisfactory to the people living along the line, but also to make it a good business proposition. Let these branches be taken over under the legislation we have passed this season; let new branches be built where the traffic probably warrants the expenditure. Let the Intercolonial railway take over the business of the Express Company and develop that business. Instead of controlling every little detail of management from Ottawa or from Moncton let the superintendent of each division be given full charge and make him responsible for the results. Let more energy be expended in the task of developing traffic along that railroad; cultivate what is known in the United States as business snap, and I venture to say that in five years the Intercolonial railway will not only pay working expenses but will have a good balance to its credit for extensions and improvements.
Just one word more. My hon. friend from South York (Mr. Maclean) in his speech last night, took occasion to criticise the naval policy of the government, and he suggested the presentation of a Dreadnought oi' two at enormous cost. The speech of the hon. gentleman (M. Maclean) wrns interesting because it was the first note we had from the opposition benches during the session on this very important question. They have sat tighter on this than on any other question since I have had the honour of a seat in this House. But, as the hon. gentleman from South York sometimes appears to try to head off his leader and sometimes kicks over the traces, it is difficult to say how much importance we should attach to his speech as foreshadowing the position that the opposition are going to take. In the resolution passed "by this House on the 29th of March last we voted ter the establishment of a Canadian naval service to act in co-operation with the imperial navy, and the resolution to that effect was very plain and very clear cut. There was no suggestion in that resolution of presenting any Dreadnoughts to Mr. SINCLAIR.
anybody, and there was a direct negative given to the other proposition for a cash contribution. Now, when we on this side voted for that resolution, we did so in good faith. We intend to live up to the resolution; we stand for a Canadian navy manned by Canadian seamen, officered as far as possible by Canadians, and absolutely controlled by the government of Canada. We stand as one man behind our chief on that question; there is no dissection in our ranks. I wonder if my hon. friend from South York can' say as much for the men who are sitting behind the leader of the opposition. If we are to judge by the Conservative press, our friends opposite are not a happy family on that question. In Nova Scotia, the Halifax ' Herald ' is regarded as the organ <>f the leader of the opposition, but occasionally it gives currency to a blunt statement, and in a recent issue I find the following pronouncement :
If the Conservative party ever expect to gain power they must do something more than follow in the footsteps of the government on national questions.	.
I would call that a pretty plain hint to my hon. friend the leader of the opposition. It will be recollected that .when the Liberal party came into power in 1896, Sir Charles Tupper, who was then the leader of the Conservatives, gave the new government only six months to live. He said that the Liberals did not have the genius to govern Canada, that he could not see any statesmen in the Liberal party that were equal to the task of government, and with the eye of an experienced leader he swept the horizon of Canada to the sky line, and he declared: there \vas no Napoleon of finance in the Liberal ranks to take the place of the hon. gentleman from North Toronto (Mr. Foster), and there was no captain of transportation to stand in the shoes of the hon. gentleman from North Lanark (Mr. Haggart). And, Sir Charles Tupper prophesied the complete and utter downfall of the Liberal government within the short period of six months. But, Sir Charles is an older man to-day, and I suppose a little wiser, and after thirteen years and six months of additional experience he is now imploring his dear fiiend the leader of the opposition to stand by this policy of the Liberal government. 1 have shown you that the leader <>f the opposition's own organ in Halifax is asking him to get on deck and take the tiller and steer a course for himself; I have shown you that Sir Charles Tupper asks him to support the government; which will he do, I wonder? Under the circumstances is it strange that the leader of the opposition is perplexed and embarrassed? But, Mr. Speaker, the very fact that he finds

himself in this dilemma is the highest compliment that can be paid to the policy of the government.


John Allister Currie: Mr. Speaker, I crave the indulgence of the House as one of its youngest members while I offer a few remarks on the financial questions discussed by the Finance Minister in his budget speech. I have listened to two of the hon. gentleman's annual financial statements with a good deal of interest. On the first occasion he was evidently labouring greatly to turn what was palpably a deficit into a surplus, and on the second occasion, while he still laboured to make the best of a bad bargain, there was a cheerful note in his speech. The Minister of Finance is a student of affairs who recognizes that the historian of the future stands at his elbow, and when he comes before this House and claims a surplus when as a matter of fact he has no surplus, what can he expect the future historian will say of him? There is no question at all but that the Minister of Finance has burdened posterity with a huge debt for which they will have the privilege of paying, and as to the incurring of which posterity, of course, has had nothing whatever to say. The hon. gentleman is a student of history, and doubtless hopes to attain t' a niche in the Temple of Fame. No wonder he hesitates and imvardly groans at the story he has to tell The ghost of the future historian confronts him. The name of the Minister of Fiannce will be associated with this carnival of extravagance as that of the great Colbert was associated with the ruin of old France. For the hon. Finance Minister is playing the same part to a master as absolute politically and as reckless financially as any Louis of France. Sir, the^ people of this country still have recollections of the system of the Intendant Bigot, but they are prone to forget that they have instituted in the affairs of government to-day a system more odious and more exacting than any established under the old regime.
Let me point out that in discussing the finances of this country it is extremely difficult for a young, or even for an old member to secure what may be called definite information. We have various sources of information, most of it published by various departments of the government. We have the Trade and Navigation returns which are the product of the Department of Customs. We have the report of the Department of Trade and Commerce; we have the Yearbook, which is published by the Census Department; we have the Canada Gazette; we have the speeches of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance; and we have what we call the Grit campaign literature. Leaving out of the question the last named publication and also the speeches of my 54!
hon. friend and the Canada Gazette, we have three sources of information left in the publications of the country, and when we compare the figures of these three publications we find that they do not agree, but show vast discrepancies in the figures for the same items. What are we to understand from this? Each of these departments have the same source of information, and yet there is a vast difference in their figures. Let me quote, for the benefit of the Minister of Finance and the House, some of these figures. Take the simplest table contained in the three volumes, that is the comparative statistics of the exports and the imports of the country from year to year:
Year.	.	Exports.	Imports.1890	Statistical Year Book	$ 117,684,799	8 110,587,480(( 1900	Trade and Navigation Report	
Year Book	121,013,852 186,433,212	118,011,508 180,804,3161901	Trade and Navigation Report	
Year Book	191,894,723 196,487,632	189,622,513 181,237,9881906	Trade and Navigation Report	
Year Book	196,487,632 256,586,630	190,415,525 290,360,807Trade and Commerce Report	256,586,630	294,286,015
The members of this House naturally suppose that these figures are given by disinterested parties and must be accurate. If they are, they must necessarily agree in all these books. But when we find a discrepancy of millions ot dollars in the corresponding statements given in these blue-books, what must we expect to find in the other accounts? Is it a fact that we are standing on a volcano, and that the statement as given every year by the Finance Minister is a cooked statement? I do not want to accuse him of that; but the fact is that when a banker is wrong in his accounts the first thing done is to examine his trial balances to see if they are correct.


William Stevens Fielding: The figures first quoted are not mine, but are those of the hon. member for North Toronto in 1896.


John Allister Currie: The books are those published by my hon. friend.


William Stevens Fielding: They are all right when you get the explanation.


John Allister Currie: Another point which I wish to discuss in this connection is the question of the surplus. My hon. friend has assured the House time and time again that we have a surplus. He has made this out by charging up a number of items to special accounts. I would like to ask

him what authority he has for charging up anything to special accounts. I have read the Consolidated Revenue Fund Act and I cannot find any authority there which permits the government of the day to charge anything to a special account. The custom in England, previous to the days of Pitt, was to keep the accounts separate, so that it was impossible for any one to tell from month to month how the country stood financially. Pitt had an Act passed providing that the moneys paid to the government should be paid into one fund and that all the payments made should come out of one fund. That Act was passed in 1786, and, to quote the language of the Act, its purpose was 'to provide a fund into which shall flow every stream of nublic revenue, and from which shall issue the supply for every public service.' By this system treasury management was unified and strengthened, and the people of the country were able to ascertain the exact state of affairs at the end of the year -whether the country had a surplus or a deficit. I do not wish to be partisan in this matter, but it is a fact, according to the statistics published by the government, that if you balance the statements from year to year, you will find that since confederation we have only had surpluses in 1871, 1882, 1900, 1903, 1904 and 1907.
Now, the hon. Minister of Finance will say that his predecessors adopted the plan of charging up bonus accounts and other accounts of that kind, as outside charges, not against the Consolidated Revenue Fund in order to hocus pocus the public into the belief that there was a surplus. Now, whether that is the case or not, and possibly it may be the case, the fact remains that it is not correct. It is not right, and I do not see that the law gives him any justification for doing so. For that reason, I think that in considering the exact state of the finances of the country, we should consider this fund from the standpoint of whether there is a surplus of revenue as a whole against expenditures as a whole. Let us now see what the hon. gentlemen, in the past twelve years, have got in the way of surpluses. I propose to take the figures and examine them as they are taken and treated by the British Treasury.
Surpluses and Deficits-Deficits on Consolidated Revenue Account, June. 1895.
Yqar.	Deficits.	Surpluses.
1896.. ..	.. .. $ 5,422,506	
1S97.. ..	.. .. 3,041,163	
1898.. ..	.. .. 2,417,802	
1899.. ..	.. .. 2,317,047	
1900.. ..		$ 779,639
1901.. ..	" !! 2,986,197	
1902.. ..	.. .. 3,349,086	
1903.. ..		10,222,101
1904.. ..		739,270
1905.. ..	!! 5,356,448


Mr.  J. A.@: CURRIE.	
Year.	Deficits.	Surpluses.
1906		 818,811
1907		 3,371,118
1908		 14,289,000
1909		 45,969,419
$85,967,479	$15,112,128
Total deficits		$85,967,479
Total surpluses.. .. 15,112,128
Net deficits ..	. .$70,855,351
Roughly speaking the total deficits during the regime of the hon. gentleman was $85,967,479, and his total surpluses amounted to $15,112,128, or a net amount of deficit of $70,855,351.


William Stevens Fielding: Has my hon. friend a statement for the preceding regime?


John Allister Currie: 
South Australia ....: 118,151	400	107,637	362West Australia	08,239	3-77	03,277	3-21Tasmania	26,803	3-52	26,384	323
The hon. Finance Minister is paying, since redemption, 4 -9 per cent, 3 -7 per cent, 4-3 per cent, 3-8 per cent, 4-5 per cent and 4-4 per cent. That does not speak well for the financing of the hon. Minister of Finance, and it shows that the financial affairs of this country are not looked upon with such a tremendous amount of favour as hon. gentlemen opposite look upon them. Now, I have explained the deficits as they should be taken in accordance with the English practice of finance, and it is -the only correct practice that we should take.
Now, let us consider the question of expenditures. Hon. gentlemen opposite take great credit to themselves that they are expending large sums of money. It is one of the principles they lay down to everybody who wants to go on the stump for them; you must talk big expenditures to the people; they like it. We have heard it proclaimed here: Wait for eight or ten years more and we shall have $200,000,000
revenue to expend. Who provides this money? Does it not come out of the pockets of the people? I do not think that anybody,	even on	the	other
side, denies that the people pay for these large	expenditures. These revenues do not come down like manna from the heavens. The people have to pay in 'hand-made dollars', as my hon. friend from Norfolk (Mr. McCall) says. We are told that the foreign trade of this country is growing by leaps and bounds. So it is. But when we consider the ratio of our expenditure to the foreign trade, we find that we are expending virtually fifty per cent of our total exports which are really the surplus of the earnings of our people. In 1906, our exports of home products amounted to $235,483,956, and our expenditures for that year were $67,204,641, or 27 per cent of the exports. In 1909, our exports amounted to $245,603,584 and our expenditures to $112,578,680, or 49 per cent. Where is the county council or municipal council that would dare to expend nearly half of the surplus products of the municipality in public works? The ordinary municipality will produce about $250,000 of surplus to be sold in the town. Would the township council dare to expend $125,000 a year on roads and in other public services? The government stands in the same capacity as trustees of the whole people of the Dominion, and it is from our exports, our surplus products, that they must derive their revenue. It is indeed a startling fact that the expenditures have reached such enormous figures, and that they are increasing so rapidly that if we continue, we shall soon see the time when we shall expend more than the total of our exports.
Now, compare Canada in these relationships with other countries, and we shall better understand our position. Canada, with a population of seven and a half millions, according to hon. members opposite has a revenue of $85,093,404, and a total trade of $571,268,707. Switzerland, with a population of eight millions, has a revenue of $25,000,000 and a total trade of about $500,000,000-practically the same as our own. So we are virtually spending the money of the people of'this country nearly $60,000,000 more than is spent bv the government of Switzerland for a similar population. That is one fact that goes to explain why our finances are not so rosy as those of Australia, as shown by the table I have already given.
Another question that is discussed in this debate is the question of capital account. The question is a very difficult one. What is capital account? It seems to be something like the question Pilate asked: What is truth? In an ordinary business, a man considers his capital to be what he pays for land, buildings and plant

and what he keeps for working cash in his business. If he puts money into a machine and that machine breaks down and proves a failure the expenditure is written off to profit and loss. But this government has been adding to its capital account without taking into consideration whether there was an asset to represent each expenditure. There is no loss account. The increases in our capital account since this government came into of. fice have been as follows:
1896		 1897		 1898		 1899	.		 $3,781,311 00 	 3,523,160 00 	 4,143,503 00 	 5,936,343 00
1900			 7,468,843 00
1901			 7,695,488 00
1902			 10,698,638 00
1903			 7,052,725 00
1901			 7,881,719 00
1905			 11,933,492 00
1900			 11,913,874 00
1907			 11,329,144 00
1908			 30,429,907 00
1909			 49,224,000 00
	$172,392,154 00
This is the total of additions to capital account made by the hon. gentlemen opposite since they came into power. As the total addition to capital acount since confederation has been $372,535,315, this means that the additions made by previous administrations amount to about $200,000,000. For its share of these expenditures, the Conservative governments could show the Canadian Pacific railway, the northwest lands, the Welland canal, the Sault canal, the St. Lawrence canal and the Intercolonial railway. These are all substantial assets. Many of them are yielding an actual return. The canals would pay to-day if the government chose to charge for ships going through them. No doubt, the policy of not making a charge is a wise one. The Intercolonial makes no money return to the government. But private management would change it from an expensive luxury, as it is now, to a valuable and profitable asset. I believe there are railway men jn America who would pay the government dollar for dollar what the Intercolonial cost if that road were handed over to them, showing that it is a substantial asset notwithstanding that under this government it is losing money every year. The northwest lands are returning about $2,500,000 a year of revenue. Thus, on the capital account expenditures made by Conservatives we are having satisfactory returns. In the majority of cases, these were capital expenditures in the true sense. But the capital expenditures of the hon. gentlemen opposite, in such things as post offices and so on, are of an entirely different character. I do not see how these can be counted capital expenditures, for I do not see that there Mr. J. A. CURRIE.
is any substantial asset to represent them.
The question of trade balances has been touched on several times. There is a good deal of difference of opinion amongst financial men and political economists as to the value of trade balances. Some claim that what is known as an adverse trade balance is an advantage to a country like Great Britain. We must leave Great Britain out of the calculation altogether because we must remember that the vast amount of revenue of England and the English people is derived from one source, and that is that they have placed a tax for the carriage of goods, for transportation, upon all the commerce of the world. Their chief revenue is from that source, not so much from the actual trade done in Great Britain itself. I will leave that altogether out of the calculation and come down to our trade balances. If we have an adverse trade balance it must be paid for in some way. Hon. gentlemen may raise the point that then commodity must pay for commodity and that gold is only a commodity. We will satisfy them and say, for the time being, that gold is a commodity, include coin and bullion in the trade returns and find out where this country stands and whether we are going back or forward in relation to trade. That is the only true test. If you add in the gold and the goods you export and import; the question whether or not gold is a commodity does not arise at all. I have here a table giving the balances of trade for and against us during the present administration. The
figures are: Year	For	Amount.1896	it	$ 749,3191897	yy	22,709,1021898	yy	28,826,9471899	yy	285,7821900	yy	5,628,8961901	yy	15,249,6441902	. . 	7,848,671
Thus there was a total balance of trade in our favour from the beginning of the administration of the hon. gentleman up to 1902 of $87,646,381. The world began to realize that Canada was becoming a great country the moment the trade balances changed in that way in our favour, and times became good, as every hon. member
knows.	.	,
From 1903, there has been a series of adverse balances as follows:
Year	Against	Amount.1903.. ..	yy	.. $ 7,840,7911904.. ..	yy	. .. 37,443,0971905.. ..	yy	. .. 58,608,6821906.. ..	yy	.. .. 33,774,1771907.. ..	yy	.. .. 51,977,6851908.. ..	yy	.. .. 52,422,0101909.. ..	yy	.. .. 48,244,449
Thus there has been a total adverse balance since 1903 of the enormous sum of

$290,310,892. If we subtract the favourable balances from the adverse balances during the administration of the hon. gentlemen opposite we find a total adverse balance of $202,664,511.
The hon. gentleman from Red Deer (Mr. M. Clark) is a great believer in the doctrines of Adam Smith and also of Jean Baptiste Say, his great disciple in France, Adam Smith says that a balance of trade being against a country is not good for it, because ieommodity must pay for commodity.


Mr. M. CLARK.: Will the hon. gentleman tell me in what part of Adam Smith's work that occurs?


John Allister Currie: I am sorry I cannot find the book in the library, they have only a precis on it (The Wealth of Nations).


Michael Clark: I carefully reread and marked Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations this summer and did not come across any such statement.


John Allister Currie: Does he not say that commodity must pay for commodity?


Michael Clark: But he does not say that an adverse balance of trade is bad.


John Allister Currie: That is all I say, that commodity pays for commodity. The most advanced economists, such as Ricardo and Thorold Rogers, accept gold as a commodity, and I have added it here, by including the coin and bullion, and I find an adverse balance now of $200,000,000 against us. There is no denying that you have $200,000,000 to pay back in some form more than you had before, and I believe it is being paid back by extensive borrowings on the part of the people of this country. Hon. gentlemen opposite will not deny that almost every railway and even the government has gone into the markets for large sums of money. My claim is that the evil day is coming, there is no question about it. The hon. gentleman made an unfortunate remark last session in comparing the growth of this country with that of Egypt. If the hon. member examines the figures for Egypt prior to the time when bankruptcy overtook her and she refused to pay her bonds, he will find that the figures for trade and borrowings and expenditures corresponded almost to a dollar with what we are doing. Two very bad crops would put our customs houses in charge of the foreign, creditor The difficulty which the Finance Minister has experienced in floating his bonds shows that the world has not the same confidence in this country's finances as hon. gentlemen opposite.
The question of trade balances has to be considered in this way. It is really a question of whether domestic trade is better
for a country than foreign trade. I do not think that any one will for one moment question the statement that a dollar put into trade at home is better than two dollars put into trade abroad. The number of times that dollar will turn over will increase its value or the earnings from it at a ratio three or four times greater than that of the dollar invested in foreign trade. Hon. gentlemen opposite point out that the export trade of the country has shown a great expansion and claim that as a point in favour of Canada. Let me point out that when there are hard times in any country, its total foreign trade is larger than when there are good times in the country. The question is simply this, if you are going to turn all the people [DOT] in this country into producers of raw materials, and if they have to send these materials abroad, they must necessarily buy finished goods abroad and bring them into Canada. That will give you a large foreign trade. You are putting our people then in the position of those of whom the English traders said that they were forced to sell the hide for sixpence and buy the tail back for a shilling. Foreign trade in the first place is not so remunerative for the simple reason that a dollar expended in domestic trade gives a gain to two men who are in the country, the one who buys and the one who sells, whereas if that money is expended in foreign trade, it benefits only one person living in the country, the other beneficiary residing in a foreign country.
I do not wish to go into any long dissertation on the political economy of this question or the question of trade, but I want to point out that the tariff policy of the Finance Minister is not one that should commend itself to the country. There does not seem to be any effort on the part of hon. gentlemen opposite to find out exactly what policy they have. The Minister of Finance is a tariff-for-revenue-only-man. The right hon. the leader of the government (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) is a free-trader, I understand, that is his ultimate goal, he is a Cobden man. Others who have spoken in this debate are of another school altogether. The young men in this country and in the United States who are studying political economy are not overshadowed with that dead hand of Adam Smith and those old economists who taught only one thing ' and would not see outside their own narrow views These modernists have catalogued the various schools of economists, just as doctors are catalogued. If a doctor is a homeopathist, there is no other opathy for him. If another doctor is an osteopa-thist, there is in his eyes no cure for the human mind or body except osteopathy. It is the same way with most of these economists. Political economists of one kind think there is nothing good in political

economists of any other kind. They will argue blindly for their principles and in opposition to those of any otheT school. But the only true test of any form of economy, as it is with any of our modern sciences, is the actual test of experience. I said that I would, for the benefit of the hon. member for Bed Deer, give him a list of a few of the schools of economy as they are catalogued. I do not wish to delay the House, but, while it is not of very much importacne to some hon. members, perhaps there may be people outside of this House who do not look upon it in that way.
We find first of all, in the history of economy, what is known as the Mercantile school. The Mercantile school claimed that the principal end of government was to have plenty of money in the treasury. I think that stamp of economy would fit the Minister of Finance to a nicety. The only thing that this government thinks essential to-day is to have plenty of money in the treasury. Amongst the men who advocated that theory of government was Turgot. The right hon. Prime Minister has quoted very otten that famous old saying of Turgot that colonies are like ripe fruit; when they attain a certain ripeness they fall to the ground. Turgot was the first man to enunciate that doubtful principle and he was one of the leaders of that school. Colbert, the great French Finance Minister was a believer in the system of the Mercantile school advocated by Turgot. The result was that under this system of economy the country was exploited for the benefit of the treasury. I do not think any body can justly say but what this government are trying to get every dollar they possibly can out of the people in the form of the duties which are at present in force because they say that we must have more revenue in order that we may have more expenditure. This, I believe, places the Minister of Finance amongst the followers of the mercantile school. We come now to another school, that known as the Agricultural school. That school is represented by Quesnay, a French economist, who laid down the principle that there was no wealth in anything except agriculture. That agriculture alone produced wealth and that all other industries were sterile. That school flourished for a number of years led by Quesnay and his associates. Its teachings prevail to-day to some extent amongst hon. gentlemen opposite. They would like to drive manufacturing and other industries out of the country and have nothing except the agricultural interests. But that school, was not of very great importance. The next school that succeeded it was the cosmopolitan school. The cosmopolitan school claims Adam Smith as one of its leaders but Smith was too clear-headed a man to be a leader of the cosmopolitan Mr. J. A. CURRIE.
school, and we find, in reading the books of Adam Smith, that his arguments are sometimes very strongly protectionist. Adam Smith was a clear-minded man and he had clear views on economic questions. Other economists of this school whom I might mention are Ricardo, Oobden, Thorold Rogers and writers of that description, coming down to Lloyd George who is the latest advocate in the field of this system of political economy. The principles of the school are that material interests as well as national interests are best advanced by being unobstructed by the intervention of government and that there should be free trade between the various countries. That is the school which prevails in England to-day. There is another school of which we have not heard very much, perhaps not enough, and that is the Indstrial or national school founded by Alexander Hamilton, the great financier and economist of the United States and a friend of General Washington. The principal laid down by Hamilton was that it was in the highest interests of the country that diversified industries should be fostered and that the United States government should be called upon to act in such a way that these industries would be protected from time to time especially in their infancy. I have stood in the churchyard of Trinity, at the corner of Wall street and Broadway, New York, and I have looked on the plain marble shaft that marks the spot where that man now rests and where he was laid after being slain by the bullet of an assassin.


Wilfrid Laurier: No.


William Stevens Fielding: It was a duel.


John Allister Currie: In a duel with Aaron Burr.


William Stevens Fielding: Not an assassin.


John Allister Currie: Well, his own friends claimed that he was assassinated. You look around for several miles on each side of his grave and see signs of prosperity based upon the doctrine which he laid down. You can go for miles and see large buildings and factories costing millions in that city to-day and there is no question that the policy of Alexander Hamilton is at the base of the system of finance in the United States which made possible this prosperity and wealth. Any one who reads the state paper that he wrote to General Washington on the industries of the United States will find that it contains the germ of the principle of industrial protection which has brought the United States to be such a great country as it is to-day. But we find that the United States did not follow the system of Hamilton always. This country adopted that system. We adopted the protective system in 1878, but the pro-

tective system that we adopted in 1878 has not been adopted in its entirety or in line with the system which was adopted in the United States. This school of protection is not called the protective school. It is called the industrial school of economy. There is another school which followed, and which is not thought very much of by the people of this country, but which has attained to some eminence in the United States and that is the high protective school whch lays down the doctrine that it would be to the interest of the country to foster nothing else but the manufacturing industry. I do not think there is any hon. gentleman in this House who believes in that doctrine, although the Finance Minister is always very fond of calling some hon. members on this side of the House high protectionists. I do not wish to be considered a high protectionist. I believe the proper policy for this and every other great country should be the policy of industrial protection. I could, if time permitted, outline the struggle that took place between the school of Hamilton and the free trade school in the United States. The history of that struggle shows that on nine separate occasions the free traders scored a majority at the polls, and that on every occasion on which they succeeded in gaining their point one thing occurred-and we have it in this country-and that is that there was an excessive land speculation followed by panics, because the currents of trade ran too strong in the direction of agricultural pursuits. I could show that in one year, away back in 1846, $24,877,179 worth of public lands were sold in the United States. Those who have written on that period will tell you that town lots in places of two or three hundred population were selling for as much as some lots are selling for to-day in some villages in our Northwest. The natural tendency of any disposition to adopt free trade has been to accentuate land speculation in the country at the expense of legitimate trade. I do not think the House will object to my embalming in ' Hansard ' the words of one of the most noted writers on this question in the United States. I shall do this for the benefit of the Finance Minister, who, I hope, will read them over carefully and will study the experience of the United States. The people of the United States are an extremely practical people. They will not accept the theory of any school or any principle, either in their science or arts or politics, without having satisfied themselves by the test of actual experience, because they have found that all their advancement has been made by following inductive principles rather than the deductive methods of the old school men. Professor Thomson, of the University of Pennsylvania, who is one of their leading economists, says:
Nine times in one hundred years the American people have changed this fiscal policy. Sometimes carried from protection towards free trade by the influence of specious theories but as often driven back to protection by hard experience. The twTo periods of highest continuity under any policy is the protective period which follow the establishment of government, 1789-1801, and the protective period in which we are now living. Four times the scaffolding of the tariff has been thrown down from the uncompleted edifice of our industrial development, and as often the work has been begun again, if not from the foundation yet from a point much less advanced than has been reached under the previous protective tariff. This time it seems to be the nation's purpose that the scaffold shall be kept up till the roof is on.
Now, Sir, some of us have memories dating back to 1893, and we remember the troublous times they had in the United States, and that these troublous times were due to a strong agitation that had arisen for free trade. That free trade agitation was succeeded by a financial panic and the panic of two years ago was accentuated largely in the United States by the fact that no great enterprises were undertaken because they did not know whether the country was going to go back on the tariff or not. Some people in the United States threatened they would reduce the tariff, but as a matter of fact they did not do it. True, they revised the tariff in the United States last year, and, although there may be one or two small items of local significance on which the duty was reduced, yet, taking it on the whole, what they have done is to increase their tariff. I do not deny the United States the right to increase their tariff, hut I do say that we should meet the United States with tariff for tariff. Let us see how the trade between Canada and the United States works out. In the fiscal year 1909, we purchased from the United States goods to the value of $170,056,179, and we sold to the United States only $91,022,389. Every year the balance of trade with the United States is against us to the extent of close on $100,000,000. But look at our trade with England: Our total imports from the United Kingdom were $70,682,101, and we exported to the United Kingdom $133,745,123, showing a large balance of trade in our favour. It is the same story every year, and the reason is that in spite of the so-called preferential tariff the average rate of duty upon British goods is higher than on goods purchased from the United States. Last year the average rate ad valorem on British goods subject to duty was 25-775, whilst the average Tate on goods on which duty was paid coming from the United States was 24-868. This shows that in spite of all this flub-dub about loyalty and flag waving, and all this cry of Dear old England and the preference which we hear from the Lib-

erals nowadays, the actual fact is that the average duty on British goods is fully one per cent greater than the average duty on American goods. Now, I say that is not fair. Look at how the farmers who live along the boundary line between Canada and the United States are hit. In New Brunswick they have been shipping potatoes into the United States, but the American government has raised the duty on potatoes to 40 cents per bushel and our duty on potatoes coming into Canada from the United States remains at 20 cents per bushel. The Americans send thousands of bushels of potatoes into Canada because their potato crop ripens earlier than ours and yet the Canadian farmers in New Brunswick are practically prohibited from sending potatoes into the United States. In view of such things as this, I ask the House, and I ask the government, is it not fair that we should adopt the principle of putting tariff as against tariff. I think I have demonstrated conclusively that so far as this boasted preference is concerned, so far as this three or four, column tariff is concerned, it works adversely to British interests and in favour of United States interests.
Now, the Macdonald National tariff was revised in 1894, and to my mind that revision was very unsatisfactory From the time the tariff of 1878 was adopted by the Conservative government there was a constant agitation by hon gentlemen opposite against it. They ask us to-day to forget the tariff and to take the tariff out of politics, but when they were in opposition, did they take the tariff out of politics? Not for one moment. They created an agitatiop in this country which in 1892, 1893 and 1894, led the people to think that they might wake up some fine morning and find Canada a part and parcel of the United States. The Liberals of those days spread a cry through the country which was closely akin to treason, and they railed as loud as they could against what they called the terrible tariff then in existence. The Conservative party wavered in the face of that struggle and they changed the tariff and to my mind they changed it in the wrong direction. I am a young member of this House, but in the honesty of my conviction I must say that the change which was made from a specific to an ad valorem tariff basis was not in the interest of Canada. That ad valorem basis is still present in the tariff t-c-day and how does it work out? When the Liberal party came into power they said they wanted an ad valorem tariff and they decided to keep the ad valorem tariff that was then in existence, and by it they declared that whilst the manufacturer might manufacture a few goods in this country they would see that half the stuff that goes into consumption is brought in Mr. J. A. CURRIE.
from the outside and the government would collect a profit on it. What the government did was to divide with the manufacturer of this country half of his profit and put it in their pockets. What is worse, they divide a large proportion of the profit that the farmers are making, and they put that in their pocket also. Every one who reads the trade figures knows that the farming industry has suffered enormously from an ad valorem tariff. Let me say that if this country had during the last four or five years a tariff based on specific duties, we would not have been affected by the financial panics in other countries, because the producers of other countries could not have thrown into the Canadian market their surplus products. With an ad valorem duty in force, they are enabled to do that. Do we not know that the government had to establish a dumping duty so that officials could be sent abroad to make sure that foreign goods were not dumped into this country at too low a valuation? Is it not plain to any man that if the duties were specific it would be much simpler and much better and that as a result we would not have had the panic accentuated as it was last year and the year before? I do not think there is any one who believes more in his heart than does the Minister of Customs that this is the absolute truth. We on this side of the House have been asked by the government what fiscal policy we would propose These gentlemen opposite are always very anxious to know from us what should be done, and of that we have had examples since this debate commenced. We have seen them trying to read the riddle of the sphinx. We have heard them asking what is the Conservative party going to do on the navy question. Well, Mr. Speaker, the answer ic simple enough. The Conservative party will give that answer when the First Minister lays his policy on the table and not before, and that anavrer will be in the interest of Canada. In the language of Mrs. Pankhurst: We will be there, and the Conservative party will offer the country at least as good a policy as gentlemen opposite have to offer and we will be united on that policy.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: If you tell them now they will steal it.


John Allister Currie: Certainly, they would adopt it at once as they have in the case of other policies of the Conservative party. Let me point out how the present ad valorem tariff works disadvantageously to the farmers generally. I suppose everybody believes that the farmer is the happiest man in the world, and the hon. gentlemen opposite are very fond of boast ing that the Canadian farmers were never as prosperous as they have been under this

government. They try to show that they are the people who make the sun shine and bring prosperity. These hon. gentlemen forget that if governments bring prospsrity there are certain sections of this country that are exceedingly prosperous at the present time. Let us see where they are. British Columbia is prosperous beyond a shadow of a doubt, with a local Conservative governments. Oppressed for many years by the shadow oi the Liberal government, with the withering hand on them, the people of that province never succeeded until there was a change, and thev got a good Conservative government. Go to Manitoba, and what do you find? Since the Conservatives came into power there, every local interest has received a fresh stimulus. Come to the province of Ontario and you find that the prosperity there is due to the fact that the local interests of the province are looked after by the Conservative government of Mr. Whitney. Is the same measure of prosperity to be found in the province down by the sea? Ask any member from Nova Scotia. I would tell the gentleman from the maritime provinces that if they hope for prosperity in those provinces, they can bring it about, in both Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, only by turning out Liberal administrations and putting in Conservative administrations. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance takes all the credit to himself for the existing prosperity oi the country; but the contrary is the fact. Wherever any of these provinces have tried to do something for their local interests, this government has been against it. 1 could enumerate a great many instances. They dis-allowed the anti-Japanese law in British Columbia, which was intended tc preserve the labour of the province for the white people. The province of Ontario has tried to improve the facilities of manufacturers by providing cheaper electric power. Hon. gentlemen opposite have not dared too utter too strong a voice against that, but they have always made a silent attempt to put it down. Now, let us see whether the farmer has been benefited by this tariff or not. Let me remind the Minister of Finance that his government has never dared to go to the country on the question of a tariff for revenue only. Only once in the history of this country was that issue fought out at the polls: that was in 1878; and the hon. gentlemen opposite know the result. The hon. Minister of Finance and his leader know that if they dared to disclose their true form on that question, they would not come back with a majority. I have said that the present system of a low tariff that shifts both ways and takes a chunk out of the manufacturers and the producers and puts a lot of revenue into the public treasury, works adversely to the farmer. I will quote some
figures of imports of foreign farm products to show how it works:
Year.	Amount.
Provisions-	
1905		$1,694,623
1908		4,155,908
Lard-	
1904		$ 67,914
1908		1,074,466
Eggs-	
1905		$ 74,107
1908		222,207
Butter-	
1906		$ 64,519
1908		192,663
Green fruit-	
1904		$2,676,648
1908		5,312,798
Canned fruit-	
1904		$4,925,499
1908		8,310,615
Vegetables-	
1895 		$ 219,985
.1908			1,117,253
Hits and gloves-	
1904		$ 945,495
1908 		2,002,823
Woollen socks and stockings-	
19(U 		$ 420,588
		1,379,317
1908 Total imports of agricul-	
tural products:	
Grand total, 1908		31,585,114
These figures show that the farmers of this country are suffering from the effects of foreign imports just as much as the manufacturers.. Something like 30 or 40 millions of dollars worth of products that the farmers of this country could produce have been rushed into the country from the United States-why? The reason is that across the line there is also a farming community, who can ship goods into this country at a good profit. This government has done nothing to protect Canadian farmers from the depreciations of the American farmers. Until it does that I do not think it can claim any credit for having established a fiscal policy that benefits Canadian farmers. Hon. members from the west are fond of pointing out that the production of wheat in the west now amounts to over 100,000,000 bushels per annum. If they look into the trade returns, they will find that 44,000,000 bushels of wheat is the largest amount exported from this country in any one year.
Exports of Wheat.
Bushels.
1904		 18,225,525
1905		 12,512,641
1906		 34,159,082
1907		 21,584,176
1908		 44,504,327
Thus the other provinces of the Dominion are the best consumers of the wheat, oats and other crops of western Canada.
This shows that the bulk of the wheat produced in the west is con-

sumed by the diversified industries of Ontario and the east. You will find that we have been paying $2,000,000 a year in subsidies for foreign ships trading with this country, and to ships to trade with this country in return. Our total foreign tonnage is something like 7,000,000 tons. Now coming to look at the railway tonnage of the interior, you will find that the figures are something like 67,000,000 per annum. Therefore the local tonnage between the local consumers and the local producers is seven or eight times greater than the foreign trade. Now, if the northwest continues to grow wheat while constantly extending her area as she is doing now, it is only a matter of eight or nine years until the northwest is going to be capable of producing all the wheat we eat in this country, and also all that Great Britain will need. When that time comes, when their surplus grain is greater than the surplus requirements of the British empire, the price of wheat will not be $1 a bushel. The foreign trade will always endeavour to beat down the price as against the exporter, and the exporter always has to pay the burden of transportation, and he has got to pay the transportation of goods back from the other country here. He has got to pay interest on the money, and the result is that after all, the policy adopted by the United States whereby their enormous production of wheat is consumed in the country, is the only proper system to be adopted by this country.
Now, we have a country of great resources. We have had a committee appointed by this House to consider the conservation of our natural resources. I think one thing that must have struck every member in that connection is that if we have those great natural resources we should do our best to utilize them so that our own young men, our own people with money, and our own people without money, may be able to reap all the benefit possible from these great resources. Everybody knows that cheaper methods of transportation are every day placing the various countries more and more on a level, as far as raw products are concerned, and the country that will succeed in the future is that country which applies the modern system of industrialism and the modern system of tariffs in the fight against the combined nations of the world. Now, Sir, I think that the province of Nova Scotia, in view of its great natural wealth, should be the greatest manufacturing community on this continent. It has greater and better harbours than the United States; it has coal on the sea-board, which the United States has not; it has an intelligent population, possibly the most intelligent of any portion of this country; and yet we find that the industries oi that province Mr. J. A. CURRIE.
are not keeping pace with the development of trade and manufactures in other parts of the country. The same is true of New Brunswick. What is New Brunswick going to do when all its forests are cut away, and when its streams fail? What is it going to do with its population? I contend that it should be the policy of this government, and of every other government, to endeavour to maintain the population of these provinces at home and to keep their natural growth within their own borders, by the encouragement of natural provincial industries that will keep their population busy. Now, take the province of Quebec. The province ot Quebec has the finest industrial population of any part of Canada. No other men on the continent are such industrial workers as the men in the province of Quebec. They are the leaders in the arts and manufactures. Everybody who has seen one of them working an intricate machine knows that. The province of Quebec is largely interested in the rough lumber trade. What is it going to do when that lumber is gone? And we can already see the day when it will be gone. The forests of this country are destined to come to an end unless we take steps at once to stop the depredation by exporters, and turn the products into some profitable form of industry. It is the duty of this government to do something to arrest the process. It is their duty to propagate the industries which are best suited for the province of Quebec, and especially the industry of manufacturing paper and pulp in the province itself, and other articles along that line. The province of Quebec is destined to be, and should be, necessarily one of the greatest, if not the greatest, manufacturing provinces in Canada. The right hon. gentleman who leads this House is a representative of that province, and he should see to it that nothing is done that would adversely injure the condition of the people of Quebec, or that will stop the future progress of that province. The province of Ontario has an agricultural and industrial population who have grappled successfully with diversified industries. They have a diversity of agriculture, they have a diversity of manufacturers, and by those means they have brought prosperity to the province. But the production of wheat in that province is not sufficient to maintain its industrial workers, the other products of the province are not sufficient for the demand of the local factories and the diversified industries you find in almost every small village and town in the province. It is only a matter of a few years when they will have to settle that great question of how its industrial progress may keep pace with the growth of the country. Go to the United States, go to Pittsburg,

go to Cleveland, and what do you find? You find there enormous factories producing millions of dollars worth of products. You ask: Where does the money come from to build these factories? The answer will be that these factories were all without exception built out of profits. Have there been any factories built or enlarged out of profits in Canada? In the last five or ten years the Manufacturers Association has given the leader of the government an answer to that question on more than one occasion, but I do not believe they have spoken with a loud enough voice. In the United States the policy that was laid down is this, that the money invested in a factory should not only return a fair dividend, such as bank stock will do, but that that factory should duplicate itself in seven or eight years out of profits. Where would these great factories have come from if that had not been the case? Can you point out a single industry in the United States that has had to go abroad to get money to build it? The men who are running the factory built it themselves, we have not that condition now in this country. Now, take the province of Manitoba and the Northwest provinces. Anybody acquainted with those provinces knows well that it is the hope and aspiration of their people some day to be also rich in diversified industries. Take the city of Winnipeg with its cheap power, which in a few years will rival that of Niagara Falls as necessarily as daylight follows the sun. Manufactures will follow the advent of that cheap power in the city of Winnipeg. Take the other provinces. Where can you find in the whole United States greater natural riches than are contained in those provinces? Go to Medicine Hat and vou will find greater gas wells than at Pittsburg. Go into the Rockies and you will find greater coal areas than in Pennsylvania, than in any other state of the union. Do you not think it should be the duty of any government to utilize those great resources? Those provinces will not always be wheat growing provinces alone. Shall this government say to the people of those provinces: You must not be manufacturing provinces, you must be wheat growers, we are going to make a tariff that will keep you wheat growers. I do not believe that is a poliev which will appeal to the people bf the northwest. Look across the borders, and find how that question has been answered by the people of the United States. Look at the manufacturers of St. Louis? Do they believe in that policy that the people of the west country should be wheat growers and nothing else?	Look at Kansas city
and other great western cities in the United States, and you will get the same answer. The province of British Columbia is also rich in mineral wealth and coal,
and that province is also destined to be one of the great manufacturing provinces of this country, as great as the province of Ontario. I say it should be the duty of this government, and of any other government that hopes to see this country prosper, to carry out an industrial policy along those lines.
Now, I wish to point out another matter in this connection, which, I think, will interest the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson). This government has not been content merely to narrow down the tariff in the lines I have indicated, but, with the strong desire to secure personal power in one or two individuals, they have come to this House and had passed by this House a law which virtually abrogates our charter. They have this Customs Act so amended that' they can reduce duties, not by Act of parliament, but by the will of council. Mr. Speaker, that was the question of ship money in England. This government is endeavouring to make out of council a star chamber ruling over the Acts of this House in the matter of the tariff. That is a serious charge to make, but it is a fact nevertheless. The hon. gentleman knows very well the clause to which I refer; he knows that it gives them power to make almost any differences they please in the duties without coming to this House. It has always been the privilege of the House of Commons, both in England and here, to say what the taxes shall be and to grant supplies. But the hon. gentlemen opposite have secured legislation which gives them power to reduce taxation to suit themselves. Clause 286 of the Customs law says:
The Governor General in Council may from time to time, and in the manner hereinafter provided, in addition to the other purposes and matters in this Act mentioned, make regulations for or relating to the following purposes and matters:-[DOT]
(k) Transferring to the list of goods which may be imported in Canada free of duty, any or all articles, whether natural products or products of manufactures, used as materials in Canadian manufactures;-
It does not matter how they are used, i! or how slight the manufacturing process which they go through.
-any such materials transferred to the free list by such order in council, to be free of duty of customs for the time therein appointed for that purpose.
I claim that that is a direct challenge to the right of parliament to legislate on matters of taxation, and I think it is a-t-


Mr. PATERSON.: Is there any power conferred in that under which the Governor in Council can impose taxes?


John Allister Currie: There is the power there to reduce taxation, and, having taken

that power, it is the most natural thing that' the government will soon seek the power to impose taxation.


William Stevens Fielding: Don't you give it to them.


William Paterson: That is not ship money, is it?


John Allister Currie: It is pretty near it.


Mr. HUGHES.: They could wreck a business.	[DOT]


John Allister Currie: Of course they could *wreck a business. One man carries on business; he is a good Reformer and he wants his raw material free; that material is admitted free. Another fellow across the road, and also happens to be manufacturing something of raw material which he would Jike to have admitted free. But he is a Tory and he does not get any reduction. The Iron, gentleman knows that that was one of the strongest levers used against the manufacturers of this country in the last election. "They were told: You keep quiet; you follow in line with this party, and if you are good we will see if the raw material used in your factory cannot be introduced free. I think this parliament should consider in this budget debate whether it should approve a system of that kind.


Mr. NESBITT.: May I ask the hon. member (Mr. J. A. Currie) a question?


John Allister Currie: Certainly, two or three of them. Is it an insurance question?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Does the hon. member know of any case in which the government lias made exception in favour of a party follower?


John Allister Currie: Why, we have shown examples again and again. The leader of the government


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I mean with regard to manufacturing.


John Allister Currie: Let the hon. member (Mr. Nesbitt) wait. He will get his answer. He knows, as everybody in this House knows, that his leader and others on that side have said, again and again, virtually, that to the victors belong the spoils. They won't deny it


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Name the place; you needn't make a speech about it.


John Allister Currie: Let me point out another instance of giving an advantage to a party friend, one sitting opposite me now. We saw last session a Bill introduced in this House under which this gentleman was to be allowed to import raw cane sugar and beet-root sugar into this country to help out his beet-root sugar Mr. J. A. CURRIE.
factory. Is not that helping a political friend? What is the use


William Stevens Fielding: Did my hon. friend (Mr. J. A. Currie) vote for that?


John Allister Currie: I do not think I had that pleasure.


William Stevens Fielding: Then, I suppose, that if it was wrong we shall find his name recorded against it.


John Allister Currie: If the hon. minister (Mr. Fielding) continues to take that position, he will compel hon. members on this side to meet him. If on a measure before the House, or on a vote on concurrence in Supply a member on this side, though he may not agree refrains from calling for a vote in order to save the time of the House, but finds that he is told afterwards that, not having voted against it he is to be held as supporting it, that can have only one result; it will mean that we must vote against every thing, every vote in concurrence, with which we do not agree.


An hon. MEMBER.: They will be the first to squeal.


John Allister Currie: Yes, they will squeal. They squealed last year when they were asked to vote on concurrence in certain items. I have a clear recollection of some of these hon. gentlemen bolting through the door rather than vote for the item of the Newmarket canal. They might find themselves at a great disadvantage if that policy were generally adopted.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I would again ask leave to ask the hon. gentleman a question Was the measure on the subject of sugar which he mentioned a measure in favour of Mr. Gordon and not in favour of any other beet-root sugar manufacturer?


John Allister Currie: There was only one manufacturer of beet-root sugar.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: That does not matter. Any how, there are others.


John Allister Currie: No, there are no other manufacturers.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: There are.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: Order.	-


John Allister Currie: Mr. Speaker, I wish to correct the hon. member (Mr. Nesbitt). I understand that, at the time referred to, there was no other manufacturer of beetroot sugar in this country. There were other factories, but the hon. gentleman's (Mr. D. A. Gordon's) was the only one running.


Mr. D. A. GORDON.: The hon. gentleman (Mr. J. A. Currie) has made a statement that is incorrect. I would ask him to withdraw it or prove it.


John Allister Currie: I have nothing to withdraw.


William Stevens Fielding: The question is, was it right or was it wrong?


John Allister Currie: I have answered the question with which my address was interrupted. I have stated here that as I understand the matter, the hon. gentleman's (Mr. D. A. Gordon's) factory, at the time referred to was the only beet-root sugar factory running. It is a well known fact


David Alexander Gordon: Mr. Speaker


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The hon. member (Mr. J. A. Currie) cannot be interrupted except on a point of order or with his consent.


John Allister Currie: The hon. member (Mr. D. A. Gordon) knows that the government brought down a Bill specifically to help him out in his beet-root sugar factory. As his factory was the only one running at that time.


An hon. MEMBER.: There were others.


John Allister Currie: There had been others. But his was the only one that could keep going, and if he had had a Bill introduced for his own purposes it could not have applied more directly.


David Alexander Gordon: The hon. member is in error.


John Allister Currie: The hon. gentleman will have a chance to take the floor when I am through.


William Stevens Fielding: I do not wish


John Allister Currie: And so will the Finance Minister.


William Stevens Fielding: I was not seeking to interrupt the hon. member. I did not dispute whether this hon. gentleman or any other member was concerned. What I wished to ask is this: Was the thing right or was it wrong?


John Allister Currie: Why, it is right to protect any manufacturer. I say that plainly. But the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) will not acknowledge that principle. He will not rise in his place now and repeat what I have said, that it is right to protect any manufacturer.


William Stevens Fielding: I say that it was right to pass the Bill referred to, and, having voted for it, I am ready to defend it. The hon. gentleman (Mr. J. A. Currie) voted for it and now finds fault with it.


John Allister Currie: He would not dare to get up in this House and say that he believed in the principle of protecting any natural industry of this country-he wiii not dare now to get up and announce that proposition. I await his reply.


William Stevens Fielding: I believe in protecting all the interests of this country, including the interests of the consumers.


John Allister Currie: Will the hon. gentleman then say it is not in the interests of this country that the woollen industry should be protected.


William Stevens Fielding: It is protected.


John Allister Currie: What part of it?


William Stevens Fielding: He knows very well it is protected.


John Allister Currie: If the hon. minister wants it I shall take up the woollen industry and explain distinctly where you are giving protection and where you are not. I have the goods right here and if I wanted to spend half an hour I could show the hon. gentleman how he has protected the industry as far as manufacturing foreign wools is concerned, but has taken good care not to protect it as far as the manufacturing of Canadian wools is concerned. There is a great difference.


William Paterson: Might I ask the hon. gentleman a question?


John Allister Currie: I will not answer these double-barrelled questions of the Minister of Customs. The minister will have to split his question in two so that the answer to one part may be ' yes ' and to the other 'no.'


William Paterson: The hon. gentleman has insinuated, or more than insinuated, that in the administration of the customs law favour has been shown to a Liberal because he was a Liberal and justice withheld from a Conservative because he was a Conservative. I want to ask him if he can point to any single instance where that ever happened. I have a right to ask, and I have a right to an answer.


John Allister Currie: The hon. gentleman wishes me to throw him some bouquets. He has heard the Minister of Finance get a little bit the worst of it and he is afraid the people will think he got the worst of it too. I am very glad the minister has brought this matter up. I will say for his especial benefit that as far as his department is concerned, as near as I can know and ascertain, having had dealings with that department, that that department is straight and honest in that respect. I do not wish to be partisan in any respect in anything I say in this House, and I am satisfied his department is correct and is absolutely straight in its dealings with the public. But just while I am on his department, I may speak of the cost of collection of revenue. We find from the statement of the Minister of Finance that the chief charges against the consolidated revenue fund of

this country in 1896 and 1908 were as follows:
1896.	1908.
Charges on the public
debt	$10,715,215	$11,321,287Provincial subsidies.. .-.	1,250,671	9,032,775Collection of revenue ..	9,129,116	20,727,329
This last item is the property of my hon. friend the Minister of Customs, he will see how it has gone up. In order to collect something like $90,000,000, we have to pay to the collectors of revenue $20,000,000 a year, to those who have to collect these revenues. In other words-


William Paterson: What is that?


John Allister Currie: That is what I say. I will give the figures again.


William Paterson: Say it again.


John Allister Currie: The Minister of Customs in his department, the collection of the customs, because all collection of customs, collection of revenue of all kinds is included, has increased from $9,000,000 to $20,000,000.


William Paterson: Of the customs?


John Allister Currie: No, not of the customs altogether. I will give the hon. gentleman the customs figures. Of course the hon. gentleman likes to put himself up on a pedestal and have me throw bouquets at him.


William Paterson: Oh, no.


John Allister Currie: I will give the advance in the cost of collection of customs. In the Department of Customs the increase has been over $1,000,000 a year.


William Paterson: That is right.


John Allister Currie: I am just going to puncture a little bubble right there. The total cost of the collection of revenue has increased from $9,000,000 to $20,000,000 and our total revenue is something like $90,000,000. That means, in plain words, that for every dollar this government collects in revenue it pays to the army of collectors and people who sit in these beautiful customs houses and post offices, 25 cents commission.
Mr. GEORGE TAYLOR- There are too many feeding at the crib.


John Allister Currie: Yes, too many feeding at the crib. The Minister of Customs also knows that his army has increased and that his expenditure peT annum on the collection of revenue has increased to double what it was in 1896. He cannot deny that.


William Paterson: I cannot, I do not want to; but it is different from an increase of $10,000,000.


John Allister Currie: 


John Allister Currie: Does he want to tell the House that he is the great practiser of economy in his department?


William Paterson: Not at all.


John Allister Currie: If so, we will have a little investigation into the expenditures of his money and ascertain how many hundreds of preventive officers who do not prevent anything but Conservatives voting on election day, are on the pay-roll. I think I have satisfied the Minister of Customs. I believe that the time has come when the government of the day should seriously consider the fiscal policy of the country. I think the time has come when the people of this country have satisfied themselves that they do not desire the tariff that is in existence at present. I think that the people of this country are dissatisfied with the checkerboard tariff which contains parallel columns for every country and takes every other country into consideration but our own. I think the day has come when we should have a tariff that deals directly with us as far as we are concerned-and that brings me to the question of preference. I have pointed out that this country does not give a preference to England when you figure it out on the cold basis of dollars and cents. That being the case, what is the use of putting up a pretense? Why not adopt a single column tariff and be straight? Why not deal with every nation on one and the same ground? In that way we will be on the safe, sound ground that brought this country into the prosperity which it has, and we will be kept from foreign entanglements. We will not need to have secret trade agents in foreign countries to keep those customs questions straight. We will not have entanglements that will bring us into trouble with Great Britain and our interests will be much more advanced than by having such a complicated tariff as we have to-day. Let the government adopt consistent policies of its own, not sticking close to the tailboard of the old Conservative party and taking no step in advance. I think the time has arrived when this country should consider the question of the tariff and it should be made an issue. The hon. gentlemen opposite have made it an issue before, and they cannot quell the voice of conscience. _ I am also opposed to delegating the tariff to a commission. What right has this parliament to vote money and to delegate its collection to a commission? It is the same way in regard to the tariff, we have a right here to discuss it, and to adjust it ourselves. Our tariff should be open to the world and we should have one tariff for all people.
On motion of Mr. Schell, the debate was adjourned.



[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 67) respecting the Improved Paper Machinery Company.-Mr. Worthington.
Bill (No. 68) respecting the Kettle River Valley Railway Company.-Mr. Burrell.
Bill (No. 69) respecting the Prince Albert and Hudson Bay Railway Company.-Mr. Neely.
Bill (No. 70) to incorporate the Toronto Central Terminal Company.-Mr. Harris.
Bill (No. 78) respecting the Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia Railway Company.-Mr. Douglas.
Bill (No. 79) respecting the Hamilton, Waterloo and Guelph Railway Company.- Mr. Harris.

James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I have the honour to inform the House that Sir Wilfrid Laurier, G.C.M.G., P.C., member for electoral districts of Quebec East and Ottawa, respectively, having declared in his place in the House that he elected to sit for the electoral district of Quebec East, thereby causing a vacancy in the electoral district of Ottawa, I have in accordance with chapter 11, section 5, of the Revised Statutes of Canada, issued my warrant to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery to make out a new writ of election for the electoral district of Ottawa.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER moved the adjournment of the House.


George Eulas Foster: Before the House adjourns may I ask the right hon. Prime Minister if he is able to tell us when the election will take place in Ottawa?


Wilfrid Laurier: I am afraid I am not able t-o tell him just now.


George Eulas Foster: It takes the right hon. gentleman a long time to make up his mind.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House adjourned at six o'clock.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, January 12, 1910.