1910-12-13

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Sir WILFRID LAHRIER moved that the House go into Committee of Supply.
['I do not intend, at this late hour, to take up muich of the time of the House. I am in perfect sympathy with the resolution of the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule); I had a resolution much along the same lines myself. I should have been glad to support this resolution had it been placed on the Order Paper in the ordinary way, and members given an opportunity to know when it might be brought oh and to make preparation to discuss it. I might go on to explain that there is a grievance in the western country so far as the cattle business is concerned, and to give some', "information concerning it, and shoul.d have been glad to do so, had the resolution come on in the regular way. But, as the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher), has pointed out, this is a want -of confidence motion, and therefore, I am sorry to say, I will have to vote against it.\nHouse divided on amendment (Mr. Sproule).\nYEAS:\nMessieurs\nArmstrong,\nArthurs,\nBarker,\nBarnard,\nBeattie,\nBest,\nBlain,\nBorden (Halifax), Boyce,\nBradbury,\nBroder,\nBurrell,\nCampbell,\nChisholm (Huron), Cowan,\nCrosby,\nCrocket,\nCurrie (Simcoe), Daniel,\nDoherty,\nDonnelly,\nEdwards,\nElson,\nFraser, .\nGoodeve,\nHaggart (Winnipeg), Henderson,\nHerron,\nJ amoson,\nKidd,\nLalor,\nLor tie,\nMacdonald,\nMcCall,\nMcCarthy,\nMaddin,\nMagrath,\nMeighen,\nMiddlebro,\nMonk,\nNantcl,\nNorthrup\nOsier,\nOwen,\nPerley,\nReid (Grenville), 'Rhodes,\nRoche,\nRussell,\nSchaffner,\nSexsmith.\nSharpe (Lisgar), Sharpe (Ontario), Smyth,\nSproule,\nStanfield,\nStaples,\nStewart,\nTaylor (New Westminster),\nThoburn,\nThornton.\nWallace,\nWhite (Renfrew), Wilcox,\nWilson (Lennox and Addington) and Wright.-66.\nNAYS:\nMessieurs\nAllard,\nAllen,\nAylesworth,\nBeland,\nBickerdike,\nBlack,\nBorden\n(Sir Frederick), Brown,\nBureau,\nCarrier,\nCar veil,\nCash,\nChampagne,\nChew,\nChisholm (Antigonish) Chisholm (Inverness), Clark (Red Deer), Congdon,\nCurrie\n(Prince Edward),\nMcGiverin,\nMcIntyre,\nMcKenzie,\nMcLean '(Huron), McMillan,\nMajor,\nMarcile (Bagot), Martin (Wellington), Mayrand,\nMeigs,\nMichaud,\nMiller,\nMolloy,\nMurphy,\nNesbitt,\nNeely,\nOliver,\nPapineau,\nPardee,\nParent,\nPaterson,\nMr. WHITE (Victoria, Alta.)\nDelisle,\nDemers,\nDevlin,\nDubeau,\nFisher,\nFortier,\nFowke,\nGauvreau,\nGeoff rion,\nGervais,\nGilbert,\nGirard,\nGraham,\nHarris,\nHartj%\nHodgins,\nHunt,\nKing,\nKnowles,\nKyte,\nLachance,\nLafortune,\nLanetot (Laprairie-Napierville), Lanetot (Richelieu), Laurier (Sir Wilfrid), Law,\nLeBlanc,\nLoggie,\nLovell,\nLow,\nMacdonald,\nMacNutt,\nMcAllister,\nMcCoig,\nMcColl,\nMcCraney,\nTickup,\nProulx,\nProwse,\nPugsley,\nRankin,\nReid (Restigouche), Richards,\nRivet,\nRobb,\nRose (Middlesex), 1 Ross (Rimouski),,\nRoy (Dorchester),\nRoy (Montmagny), Rutan,\nSavoie,\nSchell,\nSealey,\nSeguin,\nSinclair,\nSmith (Middlesex), Smith (Nanaimo), Smith (Stormont), Talbot,\nTempleman,\nTobin,\nTodd,\nTolmie,\nTurcotte (Nicolet), Turcotte (Quebec county), Turgeon,\nTurriff.\nVerville,\nWarburton,\nWhite\n(Victoria, Alta.) and. Wilson (Laval).-111.\nPAIRS:\nMinisterial.\tOpposition.\nMessieurs\nFielding,\nLemieux,\nBrodeur,\nEmmerson,\nGordon (Kent), Guthrie,\nClarke (Essex), Sperry,\nLapointe,\nGladu,\nMcLean (Sunbury), Martin (Regina), German,\nEcrement,\nDouglas,\nBeauparlant,\nStratton,\nMartin (St. Mary's), Conmee,\nEthier,\nFoster,\nPorter,\nHaggart (Lanark), Lake,\nTaylor (Leeds), Clare,\nAmes,\nCrothers,\nLancaster,\nLennox,\nMarshall,\nHughes,\nBristol,\nBlondin,\nLewis,\nPaquet,\nGordon (Nipissing), Worthington,\nPrice,\nForget,\nAmendment negatived. Motion agreed to and House went into Committee of Supply-\nProgress reported.\nOn motion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, House adjourned at 12:30 a.m., Wednesday.", '\nWednesday, December 14, 1910.']
Mr. T. S. SPROULE (East Grey).: 

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Year.	No.	Value.1899	
211,847	$ 8,522,5361900	
205,524	9,080,7761901	
169,279	9,064,5621902	
184,473	10,663,819- 1903	
176,780	11,342,6321904	
157,414	10,424,6711905	
167,102	11,360,9691906	
176,930	11,656,8291907	
162,141	*10,932,5391908	
150,963	9,301,1841909	
162,945	10,761,3531910	
157,396	10,792,160
*9 months.
Hon. members will notice that we commenced the twelve year period with an exportation of 211,800 head of cattle. Gradually that number lessened, until last year we only exported 157,300. That does not show an expansion and development equal to the general development of the country. Therefore I am justified in my statement that instead of this line having developed as it might and should have been developed, the output is growing smaller and smaller from year to year.
I may be told that this is so in regard to cattle, but that there are other exports in the line of animals and the products of animals that would raise the average and would make a much better showing than these figures seem to indicate. In order to satisfy those who hold this view, I shall now give the exportation of animals and their products, which represents all the production of the country in these lines beyond what was consumed in the country. Taking the figures from 1900 down, I submit the following table:-

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Year.	Value.
1900		$56,148,807
1901		 55,495,311
1902		 59,161,209
1903		 69,817,542
1904		 63,812,117
1905		 63,337,458
1906		 66,455,900
1907	 , .. 55,422,499
1908		 51,101,260
1909	 51,349,646
1910		 53,926,515
Mr. MILLER.: How is it that in each of these cases the hon. gentleman gets the figures for the year 1910, which has not yet quite expired?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I got them from the Agricultural Department. It will be noticed from that table that 11 years ago we exported, of animals and their products, $56,000,000 worth, and that last year we exported only $53,000,000 worth, the year before that $51,000,000, and the present year $53,000,000. Thus, instead of there being any development, there has been in reality a contraction of that trade. When we remember that in the present year the prices of animal products were much higher than in other years, it will be seen that these values do not represent as large an actual exportation as the figures would indicate. These figures, to my mind, speak volumes. It is said that, figures will not lie, and I do not think they will in this respect, but I am sometimes told, when discussing these questions with the farmers, that there has been a great development in the factory, or packing house trade, that the volume of packing house products has greatly expanded. But these products are all included in the figures I have already given. The products of the packing houses exported have been as follows:


TOTAL VALUE OF PACKING HOUSE PRODUCTS EXPORTED.
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Year.	Value.
1899		$10,716,143
1900		 13,415,655
1901		 13,547,824
1902		 13,904,261
1903		 17,196,102
1904		 16,250,531
1905		 16,577,346
1906		 13,911,281
1907		 9,945,859
Eleven years ago we exported $10,000,000, nearly $11,000,000, and in 1907, the last year for which I could get complete figures, we exported only $9,000,000, so that we are making no increased export^ in that line any more than in the other line.
i now come to a line where people have had a fair field and no favours asked in its development, the exports of grain, and I submit the following table:-

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Year.	Value.
1898		$17,313,916
1899		 7,784,487
1900		 11,995,488
1901		 6,871,939
1902		 18,688,092
1903		 24,566,703
1904		 13,465,351
1905		  12,386,743
1906		 33,658,391
1907		 20,397,629
1908		 40,004,723
This shows that where the farmers of the west have the same market as other portions of the country had and fair means of transportation for their products to the markets of the world, there is good development, whereas in the otheT lines the development has not been in anything like the same proportion.
Coming to agricultural products outside of animals, it is found that trade has expanded, production has been greater. To contrast it with animals and their products, I submit this table:-

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Year.	Value.
1900		$27,516,600
1901		 24,781,486
1902		 37,152,688
1903		 44,624,321
1904		 37,138,875
1905		 29,994,150
1906		 54,062,337
1907		 35,856,616
1908		 66,069,939
1909		 71,997,207
1910		'	 90,433,747
Thus, it is seen that in this line our people have equalled, in their enterprise and knowledge, any other people in the world, and during these ten years the exports from Canada in these lines have increased, owing to the energy and enterprise and intelligence of the people of Canada, from $27,000,000 up to $90,000,000, while in the animal industry our exports have been practically going down all the time. This will enable us to understand that there is something radically wrong with regard to the animal industry of the country.
In the Northwest Territories I believe the farmers are suffering even more from the drawbacks with which they have to contend than in other parts of Canada, although what .1 say with regard to them applies to a large extent to the farmers all over the country. Statistics as to the number of sheep in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta will show how the sheep raising industry stands in these nrovinces.
Year.
1871	
1881	
1891	
1901
Thomas Simpson Sproule: No. of Sheep. 344,693 330,126 307,672 304,531
Compare these figures with those of other countries which are no better adapted to the sheep-raising industry and we will see how far our iprairie provinces are behind. Vyhen we look at the figures giving the number of sheep in the entire Dominion they demonstrate that the other provinces are doing no better in this respect than are the provinces in the west.
Total No. of Sheep in
Year.	Canada.
1881
1901
1908
1910
3,155,509
3,048,678
2,563,781
2,510,239
2,783,219
2,831,404
2,705,390
2,598,470
It will be seen from these figures that in 1871 we had 3,155,000 sheep in all Canada and last year we had only 2,598,000. Canada is as suitable for sheep-raising as Australia, New Zealand, Argentine, or Montana or any of the other states of the union, and in my judgment there can be no reason for this falling off other than the policy of the present government in not giving that industry the support it ought. They first struck at it by the British preference which enabled the Canadian people last year to bring in over $22,000,000 worth of woollen goods which ought to have been made out of Canadian-grown wool, and the result of the government policy has been that 66 woollen mills in Canada are shut down (20 during the last year) the hands thrown out of employment and the machinery idle. The total number of cattle, sheep and swine in Canada will give an idea of how backward we are in the production of these animals compared with other countries which have not any greater capabilities than ours.


CATTLE, SHEEP AND SWINE.
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Total No. in Canada.
Cattle	 5,187,218
Sheep	 2,478,688
Swine	 3,016,234
Contrast these figures with the number of cattle, sheep and swine in the United States :
United
States.
Cattle	 72,533,000
Sheep	 53,240,000
Here are the figures for the Argentine Republic, which is not capable of feeding more stock than is Canada :
Argentine.
Cattle	 21,701,000
Sheep	 74,379,000
Then take the United Kingdom, an old country where one would think the land

would not sustain so many animals, and yet here are the figures :
United
Kingdom.
Cattle	 11,628,000
Sheep	 30,011,000
Then, there is Australasia, a small country compared with Canada and these are the figures :
Australasia.
Cattle	 10,180,000
Sheep	 87,650,000
And, in the face of these figures we are told that in this favourable country of ours we are doing as well as we ought to in the cattle and sheep-raising industry. The figures for New Zealand are as follow :
New Zealand.
Cattle	 1,851,000
Sheep	 20,000,000
Let us take the state of Montana and compare it with Alberta and I think those who know both territories would agree with me that the province of Alberta is capable of sustaining as many sheep and producing as much mutton and wool as the state of Montana, and yet, the wool clip of Montana last year was 45,000,000 pounds while the wool clip of Alberta which is larger than Montana was only 400,000 pounds. How can it be said in view of this that we have been progressive and enterprising in Canada along these lines?^ These figures show that there is something radically wrong in this country and that these industries have not been developing in comparison with the development of our other industries. I have before me a report, which no doubt the Minister of Agriculture has a copy of, on the desirability of establishing throughout the Dominion a complete system of meat chilling, packing and exporting. The report is the result of the labours of a commission appointed by the provinces of Alberta and Manitoba to inquire as to the difficulties against which farmers of the west had to contend, and to advise the government as to improving their position. I shall not take up much time in reading from this report, as there are others to speak after me, but I shall cite some extracts which will be interesting to the House and which will indicate what the troubles are against which the farmers of these provinces have to contend. There was a Beef Commission appointed and there was a Pork Commission as well, and I shall quote from the evidence of the Beef. Commission of Manitoba the following :	.
' Many producers are reducing their herds while others are going out of stock raising altogether.'
In the report of the Beef Commission of Alberta in June and July, 1907, are to be found the following remarks which are in point :
We have made an exhaustive investigation of the meat industries of Alberta and we find that there is a universal complaint that it is not on a paying basis. We have heard the evidence of most of the large cattle raisers of the province, many of whom have come to be very familiar with exporting conditions and with the exception of one or two who are favourably situated, their evidence goes to show there is something seriously wrong. Almost without exception the small shipper has exported at a loss.
Mr.   J@: Parker, who lived at La Salle for 25 years, in speaking of the prices obtained for cattle, said:
They are offering 2} cents and 3 cents per pound for beef cattle, and there is no man that will raise animals for that. To raise beef at that price is suicidal. To-day there are large farmers who used to keep a large stock in that country, now they have not even a cow. There is ten times the population and not one-tenth the stuff here that there was twenty-five years ago.
Q. You state that as a fact that the farmers are going out of the business?-A. Yes.
Q. Give the names of some of these farmers in your municipality of Macdonald.-A. I do not think that there is a single stock farmer in the whole of that district now. I am in it still, unfortunately.
The evidence of Kenneth Mclvor, taken at Brandon on the 1st and 2nd of August, 1907, is as follows:
Q. Commissioners will want to report as far as they can on the propriety of the government considering certain proposals they may make; can you be of any assistance to them?-A. The question is a very wide one. If we got fair values for fat stock, we would be able to put the stock question on a different footing. We would be almost able to export as much beef as we export wheat; because a farmer in this country is not farming unless a man keeps enough stock on his farm to consume coarse grains and straw. If every half-section was fattening ten or fifteen steers each year, see the enormous amount we would have for export. So that if we had a rate to the old country cheap enough, we should get a fair value for our stock in a very short time.
That is all I propose to quote with regard to the cattle question. I take up now that portion of the report which deals with the hog industry, and I find the following:
In dealing with the unsatisfactory state of the pork industry, and the unwillingness of the farmers to go in for hog raising owing to the lack of confidence in a market, the commissioners say:-'We believe that this is a matter which should engage the immediate attention of the government.'
At sitting of the Pork Commission held at Edmonton in July, 1908, the following appeared:
W. J. Jackman, secretary of the East Clover Bar of the Alberta Farmer's Association, was the first witness. His evidence was

to the effect that the farmers of Alberta would hare to go out of the hog business if the present conditions were not remedied. Chairman Wallace asked:
Q. Do you think the government should undertake a pork packing plant?-A. Yes. Farmers are without capital as a rule, and -could not be expected to enter on an expensive co-operative scheme.
Q. Do you think such a plant would increase the number of hogs?-A. Certainly; 3,000 hogs would be raised in Clover Bar where there are only 300 now.
Q. What effect would the raising of more liogs have on the general farming conditions? -A. More grain would be raised, especially barley, and this would be conducive to cleaner farms.	j
Then Thomas Daly's evidence:
Q. What do you think to be the cost price of producing pork?-A. From 4| cents to 5 cents per pound.
Q. Is this enough to warrant you staying in the business?-A. No.
Q. Is there any method whereby conditions could be remedied ?-A. Erect an establishment to produce bacon for foreign markets. Farmers will not stay in the business unless a steady market is guaranteed.
Q. Is the hog business profitable with fair prices?-A. Yes, the business can be undertaken with very small capital. It _ would be conducive to cleaner farms, by causing larger crops of barley and roots.


Mr.  R. G.@: Ottwell, of Clover Bar, showed up the cost of raising hogs in proportion to the market price obtainable, and gave this as his reason for dropping out of the business. In past years he has raised 300 hogs in a year, now he has 20.


Mr.  W. F.@: Stevens, live stock commissioner for Alberta said in evidence before the Pork Commission:
Q. Would the yield of hogs increase if a fair price were forthcoming?-A. Yes, the quantity of hogs would be quadrupled.
It is unnecessary to dwell on the immense importance of mixed farming to a country such as this, the benefits being well known. It would enable coarse grains which can be produced cheaply and to be utilized to the fullest extent for the fattening of stock.
That is the evidence given, I take it, by men who were intimately acquainted with the conditions in the country, and men ot practical experience in these lines. The live stock commissioner, Mr. Rutherford, in his report, deals with the same subject. He draws the minister's attention to it in the following language:
You will recollect that in 1902, at your special request, I prepared a brief statement regarding this trade, dealing specially with transportation, which was published in your annual report for that year. Since that "time conditions have been somewhat bettered, but there is yet much room for improvement, particularly in the matters of transportation and marketing.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: ,
Then he goes on to say:
The conditions of the range industry was described in striking terms by a representative western cattleman, at the National Live Stock Convention in February, 1908, who said: -' No one at all familiar with the ranching industry will hesitate to state that it is in a condition of rapid decline, dying as decently and as quickly as it is financially able to do/
Dr. Rutherford further says:
The export trade in western range cattle, as hitherto carried on, has been sinfully wasteful, unbusinesslike and unprofitable to the producer. Cattle wild, excitable and soft off grass, are driven to the railway, held sometimes for days on poor pasture waiting for cars, and finally, after more or less unavoidably rough handling, are forced on board. Once in the cars, they are, not unfrequently, run through to Winnipeg without being unloaded for feed or water. It is 840 miles from Calgary to Winnipeg, and as many_ shipments originate beyond the first-named point, it may be readily seen what this means, even when the run is a good one.
He goes on to show what their condition is when they get there. Then he draws attention to the fact that when the same cattle are taken several hundred miles further to tide-water, and then put on board ship and taken across the Atlantic and landed in England, they are more like stoekers than beef cattle, and command a much smaller figure in the market. I give this to show that the attention of the government was drawn to this matter in 1902, again by the live stock commissioner, again by this commission, and that an endeavour has been made to get them to take up the subject, but up to the present they have been unable to do so. Now, what is needed to make this industry profitable, and to ensure its rapid development? This commission says a modern up-to-date system of abattoirs and cold storage in warehouses, trains and vessels, so as to ensure the successful carrying on of the industry both in chilled and frozen meats, as well as the products of these industries, from the places where they are killed untii the products are landed in the best possible condition, to the markets of the world, where they are to be sold. That is what is needed, according to their judgment. Is that scheme suitable for Canada? This commission say that undoubtedly, in their judgment, it is. Then they cite as an evidence the experience of other countries which have to suffer the same drawbacks, and they point to what these countries have succeeded in accomplishing in these same lines. What has been the experience of these other countries? I take this report again and shall only give a few quotations from it. It says:
' Undoubtedly there is considerable in .favour of the chilled meat system. In the

first place there would be the advantage of shipping the carcass to England in a dressed form, "which would cost considerably less than ' shipping on foot, and would do awav almost entirely with risk. Our meat would not be in a bruised condition as a result of the abuse the animals are subjected to incident to the long train haul. If the system were brought into operation it would do away entirely with the present grievances of the shipper. We are told by some that the chilled meat sells for as high a price as that which is offered in the fresh form. Others tell us that it will sell from 1 to 2 cents per lb. less. Dr. McEachern states that the English people would prefer it infinitely if all the beef we supply from this country would come in that chilled form.
We have the example of four countries, all competing for the British market _ in which we sell, and all at one time doing the trade in the same way, as we are doing it now, viz.: bv exporting the live animals. What has been the result? Four countries out of the five have learned by sad experience .that it did not pay, and these four have changed their system and thereby greatly developed the trade and made it profitable. The other one, Canada, continues on in the same old way. What are these countries and what has been their experience. Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, the United States and Canada. Finding that the export of live animals did not pay, they began to kill and ship the dead meat. The export of live cattle rapidly decreased, and the export of the dead product as rapidly increased. In New Zealand and Australia, owing to their great distance from the English market-^ome 7,000 miles-the live animal export trade never attained any large proportion, but the advance in science, the recent improvements in cold storage, refrigeration, and modern packing house methods and improved ways have enabled these countries tp ship "dead meat most profitably.
Let me now give a few figures to show how the trade developed under the new methods and the new and improved system of cold storage. As a result of refrigeration, the trade in frozen meats alone from Australia and New Zealand, has grown in the last twenty years from nothing to about $25,000,000 per annum, and the Australian Commonwealth sends over 200,000,000 lbs. of frozen beef and mutton to England every year. But all meat has to be sent hard frozen on account of the great distance. They cannot carry on the chilled meat trade at all, on account of the great distance; and as that trade is more valuable than the other, it shows the superior advantages which Canada has in that connection, if she chose to avail herself of them. The chilled meat always brings <a higher price in the English market than the frozen.
Next we come to Argentina, a country
which has no more agricultural lands under cultivation than Canada, which is no better country, and whose development only began practically within the last fifteen years. What have the people of Argentina done compared with Canada?
Her experience affords a good example of the two methods of exporting the live cattle trade and the dead meat trade having been carried on in that country together for a number of years, so that the figures showing the growth or decline of the two systems are particularly interesting. Take a period of ten years, from 1895 to 1904, both inclusive. The export tiade in chilled and frozen meats increased from $1,700,000 to $17,000,000, or just ten fold, while the export trade in live cattle decreased in the same period from $7,000,000 to $3,000,000. It may he^ urged that this was partly due to the British market having been closed against them in 1900, owing to disease in their, herds, but the same thing might happen to us. What then would become of our export trade in cattle? We would be shut out of that market, and would have nothing to depend on here at home, except a few packing houses and the local consumption. But the people of Argentina, by their foresight and enterprise, were prepared for the change; so that when their live cattle were shut out of the British market, they did not suffer so much, but their trade went on expanding all .the same.
Next we come to the experience of the United States, another competitor of ours in the British market, and whose geographical position and distance from that market is about the same as ours. They carried on both lines of trade, namely, the export of live stock and the export of chilled meats and packing house products. Both have assumed large proportions, but even there, the chilled meat trade has shown a steadier and relatively greater growth than the live cattle business. From this fact we may fairly assume the advantage of the one system over the other.
Take a period of 18 years, from 1890 to 1907. The live cattle trade increased from $31,200,000 to $34,570,000, while during the same period the dressed meat export trade increased from $12,860,000 to $26,360,000. In connection with these figures, the dressed meat export trade refers to chilled meat only, and no account is taken of the various packing-house products. And, while this development has been going on, we have been, comparatively, at a standstill. The immense importance of this animal products trade will be realized when it is mentioned that the total packing-house products exported in 1907 from the United Stated amounted to $203,500,000. Our exports in the same line amounted to about $10,000,000, or about one-twentieth that of our competitors to the south.

And this, although it has been shown over and over again that in enterprise and energy we are more than their equal in every line in which there is a fair field and no favour.
But this matter is important not only to farmers and those engaged in animal industries, but also to those engaged in horticulture as well. I have here the report of Mr. Buddick, the dairy and cold storage commissioner, published this year. Mr. Buddick says:
Any one who has followed the matter closely must be convinced that there is a fine opportunity to improve the fruit trade of Ontario by the intelligent employment of cold storage and refrigeration in transit. I could quote many instances where the value of apples stored or shipped in cold storage has been greatly enhanced. As an instance, a sales catalogue from Glasgow, of recent date, shows that cold storage Kings [apples] ex SS. ' Pre-torian * fetched 31 shillings, while the highest price paid that day for the same variety shipped as ordinary cargo in the same steamer was 24 shillings and sixpence. Other varieties show similar differences. Wealthies in cold storage sold for 24 shillings as compared with 14 shillings and sixpence for those carried as ordinary cargo, and so on.
I could give many other instances in relation to horticulture, but I understand that others will deal with that branch of the case.
Now, I have drawn attention to the condition that exists in this Dominion as a whole. What applies to the western provinces applies as well to the eastern provinces. This matter has been brought to the attention of the government over and over again. Why have they not moved? What is the explanation of their lethargy? Are they indifferent to the needs of the country? Or are they afraid to act? We are sometimes told: It would cost a great deal to carry out these plans. I have here the report of the commission to which I have referred, laying out a plan which, in my judgment, is a most intelligent plan, and showing approximately what it would I cost. This plan was approved by practical men in cold storage business. One of these is Mr. E. J. Greenstreet, now of Toronto, I believe, and another gentleman engaged in the chilled meat trade for 25 years. These commissioners map out a system of abattoirs and cold storage for trains, vessels and warehouses. And the whole thing, according to their estimate, could be carried out by the government giving assistance which would mean only about $8,000,000. Eight millions of dollars to benefit between four and five millions of people in our country and do something to relieve them from the drawbacks they* now contend with. Why, we sunk seven or eight millions in the St. Lawrence, in the Quebec bridge, and we do not hear a Mr. SPROULE.
word of it. Did I say, bad management and indifference? At any rate, there ia not a word about that money. But we>
cannot spare eight millions to help the farmers of this_ country. Why, it is but a flea-bite considering the expenditure we are making. It is proposed that we shall vote this session $136,000,000 to be spent next year, and of that only about $1,000,000 for the farmers. Six or seven millions will be spent for naval and military purposes, and that expenditure is going up all the time. What do the farmers think of it? In my judgment, if the cost were ten, or fifteen, or twenty millions, we might devote it to this purpose and feel that we had never spent money better in our lives. This system could be introduced by the government if they took it up in earnest.
It may be said that it is not wise to interfere with private enterprise. The history of the packing-house industry in the United States should have taught us a salutary lesson. That lesson is that these establishments must be kept under government control. Otherwise, they get into the hands of monopolists, mergers result, and prices are put up or down, not according to the demands of the market, but according to the interests of the monopolists. What do we find in Canada? We find the. same thing with regard to those engaged! in the same line here. I have looked at the market figures again and again. Hogs will drop 25 cents a hundred in Toronto, but when you look at Chicago or Buffalo, or New York prices, you find that they are up 15 cents or 25 cents. And when you look at the markets in England, where the products are to be sold, you find that there has been no change. Does not this indicate that prices are controlled by something else than the condition of the market? In my judgment it does. There are only a few men in the business. This indicates to us the desirability, yes, the absolute necessity, of keeping these industries under government control in some way or other and so preventing mergers that would act to the detriment of the people. I think the government ought to take this matter up and that at a very early day. I move in amendment:-
That the agricultural, horticultural and animal industries of Canada would be greatly benefited by the establishment of abattoirs and a more efficient system of cold storage under government supervision, so as to secure the fullest development of those industries, a more perfect preparation and preservation of the products, and the transportation of those products to the markets in the best possible condition.
That, in the opinion of this House, the government ought to give immediate and effective consideration and attention to this very important subject.	!


Hon. SYDNEY FISHER (Minister of Agriculture).: When I received notice that a motion of this kind was going to be made I deemed it to be my duty to be here and listen with respect to the remarks of my hon. friend from East Grey (Mr. Sproule).
I may say, in the first place, that with most of what is contained in this resolution I can heartily agree. I think everybody in the House would agree with it were it not for the tone of criticism, of complaint, and of assumption that the government has been derelict in its duty on these subjects. Permit me, for a moment, to analyse the motion:-
The agricultural, horticultural and animal industries of Canada would be greatly benefited by the establishment of abattoirs, and a more efficient system of cold storage under government supervision.
I may say that I quite agree with my hon. friend that a system of abattoirs in this country, which would lead to an expansion of the dead meat trade of Canada, would be very satisfactory if they could be properly run and managed in a paying manner. A system of cold storage under government supervision is now in existence. Personally, I cannot see that it could be very much more efficient than it is, so far as it goes, and better attain the objects we have in view. When I say ' so far as it goes/ I think it meets fully and entirely the demands of the trade in Canada to-day.
So as to secure the fullest development of those industries and a more perfect preparation and preservation of their products, and the transportation of those products to market in the best possible condition.
To carry our products to market in the best possible condition has been the object of the Department of Agriculture for the last ten or fifteen years. We understand thoroughly that if our products are not placed upon the market where they are consumed in good condition they cannot bring credit to our country, or profit to our producers. For this reason we have given our particular attention to the question of the transportation of those products to the markets where they are consumed. ' A more perfect preparation of their products,' taken in conjunction with the suggestion of abattoirs a little higher in the motion, means, I suppose, that this preparation is to be in the nature of abattoirs, and therefore relates chiefly, as I would gather from the hon. gentleman's remarks, to the meat production of this country. He has said but little of the other products of Canada, which depend upon cold storage facilities. As I think other hon. gentlemen will deal with the horticultural side of the question, I will confine myself chiefly to the question of meats and cold storage.
I would like to say to my hon. friend that when he discusses the conditions of this
business in Canada to-day he seems to forget one important fact. It has been our habit in Canada to deal with our export trade and take it as a measure of the productions of Canada in respect to agricultural products. For a long time that was considered the proper measure of our production. The country was moving ahead gradually, and the home market was not increasing rapidly, certainly not increasing proportionately more than our export trade was increasing. But in the years to which my hon. friend has referred that is not the case. On the contrary, for several years back, certainly for seven or eight years back, the market of Canada for food products has been increasing much more rapidly than the producing capacity of the agricultural classes. The result is that with the exception of one or two great staples, the consumption in Canada, especially of those finished or partly finished agricultural products, which have been chiefly alluded to by the hon. gentleman, has been increasing so enormously that it has actually reduced the export of those articles. It is a well known fact that for many years our dairy products increased very rapidly. I have the report of the dairy commissioner, which shows, without going into details, that our dairy products increased rapidly until about four years ago. Since then, while our cheese has been keeping up fairly well, our export of butter has been decreasing so rapidly as nearly to have reached the vanishing point.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The number of cattle is growing less.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I venture to differ with my hon. friend. I have not the absolute data, but I venture to say without hesitation that there are many more cows being milked in Canada to-day, in this year of 1910, than there were in the greatest years of our butter exports, 1905, 1906 and 1907. I believe that, as a matter of fact, the dairy products of Canada in this present year are by many million dollars' worth' greater than ever they have been before in the history of the country; and this is true, although our butter export has nearly disappeared. My hon. friend alluded especially to the years 1899 and 1900. In 1901 we had a census, which showed a population in Canada of something less than five and a half millions of people.	.
I venture to say that to-day in Canada we have at least seven and three quarter millions of people. In addition to that increase, an increase of about 50 per cent, we have the fact that to-day the people of Canada are immensely more prosperous than they were in 1900 or 1901 and that they are eating far more of these dainty articles, the products of the Canadian dairies. The increase in the consumption of cream, butter, milk and cheese per head

of the population is enormous, to sav nothing of that increase of 50 per cent in the number of mouths to feed.


Mr. FOSTER.: How does the minister get at that? Are there any statistics on which to base it?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Yes, we have some statistics. In the first place, I think myself it is no stretch of the imagination to believe it without any statistics at all.


George Eulas Foster: That is one thing.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Quite so, and I confess that I have faith enough to believe it. I know well enough that milk especially wheat is rather an expensive article of food, that when people are poor and hard up they buy just as little milk as they possibly can, even for their young children; but I know also that one of the first things of which people increase the amount of their purchases is milk for their children. When we find, as we know to-day, that the urban population of Canada has been increasing enormously, we have the evidence of this around us every day, we do not need to go to statistics to find out exactly how much, we know perfectly well, those of us who know anything of agricultural production, that practically the whole product of the cows of a large area of dairy farms around the great cities of eastern Canada, is sent to the great cities to be consumed as milk, while ten years ago the area thus contributing to the city population in the way of milk was very small in comparison, per head of the population. But we have a fair estimate to go upon. I have here a memorandum which was made by the dairy commissioner for publication a little while ago.


Mr. BORDEN (Halifax!).: The minister's argument, as I understand it, is that the development in one important branch of agricultural industry, the making of butter, has not kept pace with the increase of population.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I said that the increase in the consumption of butter is greater than the increase in its production.


Robert Laird Borden: The development of this great branch of agricultural industry has not kept pace with the increase in our population; that is what the minister means, is it?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Yes.


Robert Laird Borden: Does the minister regard that as a satisfactory condition?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Oh, dear no, I am not suggesting for a moment it is satisfactory,
I am only pointing to the fact; but I am not prepared to say that the production of


Sydney Arthur Fisher: the cows of Canada is less to-day than it was 10 years ago. We cannot tell absolutely without an actual count, which the census next year will give us, but I have an estimate which I think is very clear and very accurately prepared. This is what the dairy commissioner says
After careful calculation I estimate that the value of our home consumption of milk and its products was $30,000,000 greater in 1910 that it was in 1900, and that the total annual production (this year) reached the enormous value of something like $100,000,000, or $20,000,000 more than in 1903, when the exports of dairy products from Canada reached their very highest figure.


Mr. ARMSTRONG.: I noticed these figures in the report of the dfiiry commissioner. Would the minister give us some knowledge of where the dairy commissioner obtained them?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: The figures have been made by first of all taking the well understood average of consumption by people of milk and butter and cheese and then taking the estimated population of the country to-day. That is the basis on which this figure of $100,000,000 was reached. The figures of some years ago wrere available for the actual production as given in the census of 1901. We take, then, the population ; we know what the whole production of the country was, we know what the export was, and therefore we have a fair basis to go upon in estimating just what at that time was the consumption per head of the population. Since that time various statements and figures have been given of the consumption per head of the population in the United States, which, in the northern states at all events, is just about the same kind of population, living under the same conditions as we have in Canada. On these figures and on this basis the estimate of the value of the production of $100,000,000 in 1910 has been made. The estimate of the production in 1903 was based on the same line of calculation. We have had no census since 1901, and consequently cannot get absolutely accurate figures of either population or production, but we have the various data to go on throughout the country and make a fair estimate, which I think.will be found to be sufficiently accurate for such a comparison.


George Eulas Foster: Has any Investigation been made of any district to get the actual consumption, or is this simply a guess-it may be a very well founded guess; I am not out of sympathy with the idea that we are consuming and able to consume more.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: There has been no work of that kind by us. There has been in the United States, especially in Massachusetts, where a good deal of that work has been done under a commission appointed to in-

vestigate the cost of food. We have utilized these figures as a basis on which to go in making estimates. We have no such estimates in Canada on which to base our figures. I consider myself that although the exports of dairy products have decreased there is no reason to suppose for a moment that that is a proof that the production has decreased. But we have other data to go upon which enable us to*say with a firm conviction of the truth of the statement that the production has increased and that to-day in Canada the production of dairy products, that is, milk and its products, is at the least $100,000,000 a year and that that is at least $20,000,0000 greater than was the product of the cows in 1903. The dairy commissioner goes on to say:-
Our home market is growing at the rate of $2,000,000 a year, and it is already by far the most important one that we have, in point of volume, as it takes fully four times as much as there is surplus for export.
You will see, therefore, how very important it is in these calculations and discussions not to discard the home market and not for a moment to base our estimates or our contentions upon the export trade.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: If the increased population accounts for the consumption of so much of our animal products in Canada, how is it that the same result is not produced with regard to grain, the report of which has increased from 27,000,000 to 90,000,000 bushels? Would not the rule hold good both ways?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: No. Surely the hon. gentleman is not serious in propounding such a theory. Most of our immigration goes to the Northwest and is bringing thousands of additional acres under the cultivation of wheat each year and, my hon. friend knows that the great majority of our immigrants are not experts in stockkeeping or dairying and are not devoting their energies to the production of animal products. The immigration which has been increasing enormously is adding to the consuming power of the country in the matter of butter and cheese while it is adding to the export power of the country in grain products. My hon. friend (Mr. Sproule) smiles as if he had superior knowledge but if he thinks a little he will appreciate that his comparison is all wrong.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I merely read the statement of a witness who said there were ten times the population in the country to-day and only one-tenth the number of cattle.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: No person could properly say that there is ten times the population in the country to-day.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I quoted that statement from the report.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I do not know how my hon. friend (Mr. Sproule) could give endor-sation to such a statement as that, because every one knows that instead of ten times as many people, which would be 1,000 per cent, there are only 50 per cent more people.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I made the citation from the report and did not give it as my own statement.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I am sorry that my hon. friend (Mf. Sproule) should in iwhat appeared to be a serious speech cite any such statement as that because it merely shows that the man who made such a statement was talking wildly.


Robert Laird Borden: The hon. minister misunderstands. The witness whose evidence was cited said that in this country (speaking of a particular locality in the vicinity in which he lived) there were ten times as many people as 25 years ago and only one-tenth as much of this particular product.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: That being so it does not invalidate my argument because I was speaking of the .consuming and producing power of the whole of Canada.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: And it also shows that the statement made by the member for East Grey was not incorrect.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Then I misunderstood my hon. friend and I apologize to him.


Robert Laird Borden: Would the minister explain why there is such a difference between the conditions attending the production of butter and of cheese. If the minister is correct in his conclusion as to the cause of the decrease in the export of butter one would expect the same result would follow with regard to cheese, unless you are to assume that our new population do not care so much for cheese as they do for butter.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: And that idea is not so very far wrong. Canada is not a cheese-eating country in the same sense as England is. We eat in Canada about one-eighth of the cheese we produce and we send forward seven-eighths.


George Eulas Foster: How does the minister get at those figures.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: We have more data to go on with regard to the production of cheese than with regard to butter and milk, because nearly all the Canadian cheese is factory made and we know the production of our .factories and how much is exported and consequently we can tell the amount of cheese eaten in Canada. My hon. friend (Mr. Borden) has asked a very natural question and I think I can answer it. We-manufacture an enormously greater quan-

tity of cheese than we eat, and even if the new-comers eat the same proportion of cheese that Canadians did ibefore, it would not affect the export of cheese as it would the export of butter. We have always consumed a very much larger proportion of the butter we have produced in Canada than iwe have exported. The greater prosperity of our people and the consequent greater quantity consumed has affected very seriously the export of butter and caused it to almost disappear, whereas the same conditions have not affected very materially the export of cheese.


Mr. BRODER.: The high price of cheese has also had an effect on the export.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: No doubt the high price has tempted the export of cheese more than it has that of butter. True, our population is increasing very largely, but I think all will agree with me that in the last few years our urban population has been increasing at least in proportion to the rural population. For one reason or other our great cities have been building up rapidly. Even in the west where the great mass of immigrants are going we are all struck by the enormous increase in the population of the towns. It is true the country population is increasing there too, but the population of the towns is increasing, I think, even more rapidly than the rural population. A larger proportion of the immigration into the Northwest than I think is healthy, is going into the towns rather than out to the land. In eastern Canada it is a great deal worse in that respect ; I say worse advisedly, because every one will agree with me that the drift from the country to the city is reaching proportions in Canada as elsewhere which are unfortunate and much to be regretted. In eastern Canada, in Ontario, and Quebec, and the maritime provinces the population in the rural districts is almost stationary and possibly in some places it may have decreased while the fact is that the total population of these provinces has increased largely and rapidly. Large cities like Montreal and Toronto in these two provinces, and like -Sydney and St. John in the lower provinces, are building up at an immense rate, and the inhabitants of those cities are consumers, and not producers of food products.
My hon. friend spoke of the increase in the production of grain. This is quite natural because of the bringing under cultivation of vast new fields in our western country, and many of the people engaged in producing grain are not producers of milk, beef, pork or any other form of animal products, even for their own consumption. In the older portions of Manitoba there is a good beef and dairy trade going *on: but I venture to say that in the prov-Mr. FISHER.
ince of Saskatchewan a very large proportion of the farmers actually buy some animal products for their own consumption, meat, butter or cheese, and in some cases even condensed milk. Under these circumstances, the difference in the growth of grain-production and grain export and the production and export of animals and their products is easily explicable. The hon. gentleman points out that the total export of agricultural products has increased from $24,000,000 in 1901 to $90,000,000 this year. I venture to say that if he -analyses the figures, he will find that almost the whole of this increase is due to the increased production of grain in the northwest.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: That could not be, because our export of grain was less than 50,000,000 bushels and it could not run the total export up to $90,000,000.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: There is some grain from Ontario, of course, and the increase is only $64,000,000.
I want to say a word or two with regard to the sheep industry to which my hon. friend has referred. It is very unfortunately true that the sheep industry in Canada is declining. That is a matter which has been worrying me for some years past, and I have devoted a good deal of the attention of the officers of my department to the subject. My hon. friend speaks of the decrease of the sheep industry in the west. It is true, there are fewer sheep in the western provinces than there were. My hon. friend knows that in the great province of Alberta the whole system of animal husbandry has been changed. He knows that about five or six years ago the whole southern part of that province and a part of southern Saskatchewan were devoted to ranching. He knows that the keeping of cattle in the ordinary sense, as understood in eastern Canada, was comparatively unknown in that western country; but there were great plains ranged over by herds of cattle, horses and sheep, and during that period a great stimulus was given to the animal industry of that country. Settlers, however, began to come in and take up locations, here, there and everywhere throughout that country, until to-day the point has been reached at which ranching, as understood in the old days, has ceased to exist. I do not mean to say that there is not still something of it. There are men who have large areas of grazing property on which they ranch. But the free grazing over the whole country, which enabled large herds of cattle, horses and sheep to be kept in the southern parts of those provinces, is practically at an end, and therefore the number of sheep is decreasing. This is due to two reasons-part-lv because the farmers have found that it is very difficult to keep sheep from the coyote, and partly because the sheep have

to have a large area to range over; and the farmers find that when they have to fence their animals in, they can do better work and make more money ont of other animals. The result is that the sheep industry is declining, so much so that to-day frozen mutton is brought from Australia and New Zealand to British Columbia, and I have been told also to Alberta.


Robert Laird Borden: I was told in 1907 that Australian mutton was sold in Winnipeg.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: That is quite possible occasionally. Of course, the market varies a little, and occasionally shipments would be made for various reasons; but the general trend of the trade has not, I think, quite reached Winnipeg. In his speech, my hon. friend from East Grey (Mr. Sproule) could not resist the temptation of having a little fling at the British preference, saying that we were negligent of the sheep industry of the country, because we allowed to be brought in under the British preference a very large amount of woollen goods which ought to be manufactured in Canada from Canadian wool. Now, has my hon. friend any idea that there is a very large amount of wool produced in Canada which is not made into goods in Canada, but is exported from Canada, and in its place wool is imported into Canada from Australia, South Africa and other countries? Why is this? If our woollen mills in Canada could use the Canadian wool, why do they allow half-a-million dollars worth or more to be exported from Canada, and why do they want to import into Canada $1,500,000 worth of foreign wool, or three times as much as is exported from Canada? I do not exactly understand it myself, not being an expert in wool and woollen manufacturing. Men have tried to explain to me the mysteries of the different qualities of wool; but I have understood this-and it is a reply to another item of my hon. friend's address- that in warmer countries like Australia, South Africa and the Argentine Republic, wool can be grown of a different quality from what is grown in Canada, and our people are unpatriotic enough to wear the clothes and the manufacturers to make them out of this wool instead of insisting that we should use nothing but clothes made from Canadian wool. I know that the conditions for raising sheep of certain classes and qualities are more favourable in those countries than they are in Canada. From the investigations which I have made or have caused to be made in the department, we find that there are very considerable difficulties in the keeping of large flocks of sheep in Canada. I think the climate is the chief difficulty. To keep a flock of 100,000 sheep in Canada seems to be practically impossible.
Nobody has succeeded in making it profitable, although we have in Canada, some pretty good, hard headed farmers, who would be as well able to meet the conditions and overcome them here, as ..could farmers anywhere' else. In Canada,*" even in the west, it has been found that large flocks cannot be made profitable, and in eastern Canada the farmers insist on keeping small flocks of sheep. They do not keep even as large flocks as are kept in England, which is a smaller country, with smaller fields and more inclosures. Even in Ontario, in which you will find to-day some of the best shepherds, men who best understand the sheep industry, that can be found anywhere, quite equal to the English and Scotch shepherds-yet those men in Ontario, favoured with circumstances and conditions better than anywhere else in Canada, do not keep large flocks of sheep, such as are kept in the old country. They do not keep these flocks, notwithstanding we have in Canada a market for our wool, notwithstanding we import about $2,000,000 worth and export half a million dollars worth to the United States.


Mr. THOBURN.: Is the hon. minister not aware that the reason why Canadian manufacturers are not able to consume the wool produced by the farmers of Ontario, is because, owing to the tariff, large importations are allowed into this country of woollens which take the place of goods we could manufacture out of Canadian wool, especially since the preferential clause went into effect? As I tried to explain two years ago, the effect has been to close up all the smaller mills in the Dominion that v. ere using Canadian wool. I can well remember the time when all these mills used Canadian wool, and when the price of Canadian wool was 50c to 52c per lb. But as the result of that preferential clause, the price has come down to its present figure.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I am not going into an argument on that question, because it is not quite applicable to the matter under discussion and because I am not now in a position to reply to my hon. friend regarding details of his own particular business. But I fail to understand how it is, that he and his brother manufacturers allow half a million dollars worth of Canadian wool to be exported to the United States, if they want to make use of it in their own goods. Instead of doing that, they import other wool, which, I suppose, is of a different quality. They import $1,500,000 worth of wool from abroad and allow us to export half a million dollars worth of Canadian wool.


Mr. LALOR.: Does the hon. minister mean wool alone, or wool and woollen yarn?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Wool alone. They import a much larger quantity of yarn.


An hon. MEMBER.: A cheaper kind of wool.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: All kinds. I would say to my hon. friend that the little slap he made at the preferential clause, is hardly justified, but I shall not go into that question now, because it is one which comes up more properly on the budget.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: One way to increase the profits on wool grown in Canada, would be to give the Canadian woollen manufacturers free yarn. Our -wool would go to England and be manufactured into yarn, a line of manufacture which has not reached any perf&ction in this country. The Canadian -wool, largely exported to England, would come back to Canada in the shape of yarn.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: As I am not acquainted with the details of the business, I would not undertake to say whether my hon. friend is right or wrong. My hon. friend is quite right in saying that the number of sheep has decreased in Canada, but when he compares that with the increase in Australia, Argentina, South Africa and enter countries, he is drawing a comparison with countries in which the climate and other conditions are entirely different. Australia, both as regards sheep and cat-tie, is a ranching country. The cattle there, run wild over enormous areas and are not taken care of at all. Sheep are in the same position. They have illimitable expanses for pasturing, which we have not, rna they have a climate more suitable for tha! kind of wild life than ours. Therefore, a comparison between Canada and Australia in this regard, is not a fair one.


Mr SPROULE.: What I was talking of,
was toe comparison made by the commissioners as between Montana and Alberta, which aie similar to each other in many respects.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I was not speaking about that comparison, but about Australia and South Africa and New Zealand. As regards Montana, I admit that the United States government has a tariff on wool and woollen goods, which no doubt, does stimulate the production of wool in that state. If my hon. friend is prepared to say that we should put a duty on woollens such as the United States has done, for the purpose of increasing the sheep industry, we shall discuss that when the tariff comes down.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: Would not that be a great benefit to the farmers?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I am not so sure about that. We would have to figure out the cost of this duty to the farmers as well as what Mr. LALOR.	,
they get from it, and that is a question which does not come properly within the limits of this motion. My hon. friend is pointing to a forced industry in Montana and comnaring it with a natural industry in Canada. Personally I am not in favour of forcing an industry, I prefer natural development, and I think that our agricultural industry can be developed on natural lines in a much healthier and more profitable way than on artificial lines.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I thought the hon. gentleman was in favour of intensive cultivation.	.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: That term is being used a good deal by people who perhaps hardly understand what intensive farming really is. If we want to find intensive farming in the proper sense'of the word, we have to look for it. in China, Japan, Italy or Belgium. There is nothing of the kind in this country or in the United States, or in any place on this continent, and it exists in very few places in Europe.
I want now to discuss another matter and that is the question of abattoirs. My hon. friend has quoted from a pamphlet which was prepared at the instance of Mr. Palmer, from Edmonton or Alberta, and which dealt with a very large scheme for the establishment of a dead meat industry in Canada. That is a scheme which, on the surface, looked very productive, which was going to accomplish a great deal, but which required enormous machinery. If my memory serves me right, it is a scheme which would cost about $8,000,000, and of course the government were to be asked to guarantee the bonds so as to make sure that the people concerned in it would not lose anything. That is not unnatural, and might be right enough, but the point at issue was this: The success of the scheme depended wholly on the production of the country, on the possibility of getting products to keep it going. If it is a dead meat scheme, it requires large herds of cattle and sheep. If it is an abattoir scheme, it requires a large supply of animals to be slaughtered. If it is a cold storage scheme it requires carcases to be put in cold storage and transported. But when I looked into the matter, I found that there were not sufficient animals in the whole country for the home consumption, and to keep that scheme going for one-quarter of its time. That scheme, or something similar to it, was discussed here about three years ago, at the time of the international conference on live stock. I asked, point blank, the representatives of the west whether there was any possibility of a continuous supply of animals being produced so as to enable a scheme of that kind to be made profitable. The consensus of opinion was that there was not. Since

that time, I have been watching pretty closely the course of things. Now, how can we judge best of the scarcity of animals in the country. We can judge it best, I think, by the market prices which the animals bring. If there is an overplus, if there is a glut in the market, prices will certainly go down very low. If, however, we find that prices are reasonable, or good, or high, I think we mav fairly conclude that there is not an overplus or glut of production, that there is not a large number of animals available for the export trade.
I have not quoted figures in detail, and do not intend to weary the House with them. But let me point out the facts as to the prices of live stock in Edmonton, which is the centre at which this scheme was to be established. We find that a choice quality of hogs have varied in price from $9.25 per hundredweight, down to $7,50, taking the prices from month to month, from May to September of this year. This was the price on the hoof. I do not know whether hon. members realize what that means.


Mr. HENDERSON.: Oh, yes.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: The hon. member for Halton (Mr. Henderson) does, but he is one of the old stagers who knows all things, especially about country affairs. But let me point out one thing in particular that it means. At none of these prices could hogs have been slaughtered, packed and put upon the English market without a loss any day this year-$7.50 was too high a price for the packers at Edmonton to pay for hogs and put the product on the English market. Had they gone on with this production under a scheme of government assistance they would have been unable to pay interest on the bonds they wanted the government to guarantee, and the government would have had to take it over as a bankrupt concern.


Mr. SHARPE (Lisgar).: What is the reason for that condition in the west?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: It is just what I have said-the consuming capacity of the country has been increasing more rapidly than the producing capacity.


William Henry Sharpe: It is because-


Sydney Arthur Fisher: If not that, what is the cause?


William Henry Sharpe: The cause simply is that the beef combine and the hog combine in western Canada have driven the producers out of the business.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: If they have done it by
offering prices of $7.50 to $9.25 per hundred weight for hogs, I can only say that I wish some combine would proceed to drive the farmers of the east out of the business in that way.


William Henry Sharpe: In years past the combine has been so severe on the producer that the farmers are not producing pork at the present time.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Yes, but the price has been up-


William Henry Sharpe: For the last two years.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: And we know perfectly well that hogs can be produced in less than a year. Having had these prices this year and last year, there is no reason why they should not produce thousands of these animals. They would have done it had they been interested in the business, the demand on the market being so great.


William Henry Sharpe: But the moment the farmers went to producing pork, the price would go down, two, three, four cents a pound.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: It is a question for the farmers to decide whether they wish to produce poTk at these prices or not. I am not going to tell them what they ought to do. But farmers receiving these prices are doing well and are in a position to make a great deal of money.


Mr. CAMPBELL.: Yes, when they have anything to sell.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Yes. And, of course, if they do not produce they have nothing to sell. On the other hand, they have not the expense of production. But producing for a market with such prices they would make a profit of a hundred per cent, and I think the farmers there are ready to produce for a less percentage of profit than that. Now, take other prices. Steers sold in May for $5 to $5.25 per hundredweight. The price did not go below $5 until August, and from August on to November the prices ran from $3.50 to $4. These are very fair prices^ for the time of the year, one which. I think, would be quite profitable to the farmers of Alberta. Sheep fit to kill ran from $6 to $6.50 per hundred pounds in May. The price remained above $5 until July, and in August, and up to the end of September, the price was from $5 to $5.50. Lambs fit to kill ran from $6.50 to $7 per hundred pounds. The price did not go down as low as $6 until September. Are these prices profitable to the farmers? I do not profess to give an opinion as to what the farmers ought to make on these prices in the west, though I know something about the conditions in the east. With such knowledge as I have, I should think that, at these prices, the farmers of the west should be able to make a profit of a hundred per cent on the cost of what they sell. Now, these figures show that the export trade concerning which my hon. friend (Mr. Sproule) talks so much cannot possibly increase under the

conditions. The markets in England will not justify such nrices. You cannot expect an export trade to increase when the prices at home are so large, and the home consumption is so large. I repeat that the producing power of this country in the last eight or ten years has not been increasing with the same rapidity as the consuming population, and the result is that a very much larger proportion of our agricultural products are consumed at home, and there is a less proportion available for export.
I want to mention another thing which perhaps, may not affect the west so much, but it certainly affects the east. By reason of various economic facts, it has been well understood for the last few years that the reward of a man's toil and investment in other industries, has been much greater than it has been in agriculture, notwithstanding the high prices which farmers have received for a great deal of their products. The consequence is, that a great number of men and women who used to be engaged in agriculture, and who were glad to live on the farm, have drifted into he cities, and have taken up other occupations, dealing with the country's commerce, railroads, mining, transportation, and so forth. The consequence is, that there is to-day, on the farms of eastern Canada, at any rate, less labour and less efficient labour available for agricultural products than there used to be six or eight years ago. This is a fact, which we cannot but recognize, and which we must all deplore. I know that personally, being engaged in farming myself, I deplore it very much, and I find it detrimental to the progress and prosperity of the country. The result is, combined with other things, that our exports of agricultural products, with the exception of raw grades produced in the northwest, have been decreasing, and perhaps in some particular instances, there may be some slight failure in the progress of production.
What I said with regard to dairy products, I believe is true, with regard to meat products. I believe that more meat is produced in Canada to-day ithan there was ten years ago. But Canadians also eat a great deal more meat. I am not sure that there are more sheep, but there is all the sheep that the home market needs, because we export a large quantity of sheep. But in dairy and meat products, I am satisfied that to-day there is a much larger production than there was ten years ago. One thing my hon. friend did not allude to, was the poultry production. There is no question whatever that today there is a far greater production of eggs and poultry meat than there was ten years ago, and yet the prices of those things are much higher. Why ? Because home consumption has increased more rapidly than home production, and the Mr. FISHER.
result is, that the home market for eggs and poultry meat is better than the export market; consequently, we have practically no export of eggs or poultry to Great Britain, and very little to the United States.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: Is the minister arguing that these advantages of the home market w?re built up by the National Policy ?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Mr. Speaker, my dear friend cannot imagine for a moment that the National Policy has created a home market. The National Policy tried to create a home market for nearly twenty years, and utterly failed. The Liberal policy has created a home market, which has been abundantly successful.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: What is the name of the Liberal policy ?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: It is a policy to remove restrictions on trade, and to promote native industries.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: That is a very big system.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Now I wish to say a word or two more in regard to abattoirs. I have here the annual report of the Department of Agriculture for the province of Alberta, and it contains a report of the commissioners on beef, mutton, &c. I have said that this proposal was an enormous one, it was a proposal to expend about eight million dollars. When that proposal was laid before me, I told the promoters frankly that I considered it far too big, that there was no prospect of its being successful. It was a very elaborate scheme, with two or three central plants, and a lot of outside plants. It was going to absorb the whole trade of the counrty. Now while I believe that it is important to promote the development of these different businesses, they ought to have some natural basis for success. They ought to begin in a small way, and grow up, instead of starting out at once as huge enterprises, with an enormous capital invested, which would never have a prospect of paying. The only way in which capital could be tempted into this investment was by the government backing it up, and agreeing to pay all the losses. In short language, that is what the proposal meant. Now, I believe, to a certain extent, in giving public assistance, but I believe that the government should only assist those who are ready to assist themselves. I believe in the government aiding enterprises, but at the same time, private individuals ought to be willing to show their good faith in the enterprise, by putting some of their own money into it, because it would then be more likely to succeed. I say it was too large a scheme for the government to undertake. I have here a report of the commissioners to the

provincial government of Alberta, from which I will read an extract:-
The best thinking farmer and the most substantial feel that there is a course that might be taken to remedy matters, and that an ordinary sized plant might be erected for the purpose of killing and curing hogs only on a basis that will be satisfactory to the farmer and not involve the government in too heavy an expense.
This was a report to- the provincial government and a recommendation to the provincial government of Alberta.
-and will in no way conflict with private enterprise, but would have a tendency to benefit the same, for the reason that the average farmer would go into hog raising, and increase the number and quality of the hogs raised.
In another report on the beef industry, this is the gist ' of the recommendation of that report:-
That the local government established three cattle feeding experiment stations, distributing them properly throughout the province and conduct such experiments as will demonstrate the feasibility of the cattle-feeding business.
For the last few years we have been feeding cattle on the home experimental farm with that exact object in view.
That we do not deem it wise that the government take any active steps in the matter of a canning plant until the two plants now in the course of erection are in operation and results therefrom determined. That we do not find any combine in restraint of trade in the retail butchers' trade.
That is in Alberta. It goes on to say that the Railway Commission be asked to work on the railways, and that it be made compulsory on them to unload cattle at least once every 42 hours, &e.
That the government appoint a Live Stock Commissioner, whose chief business it would be to attend to the marketing of Alberta export cattle, and that he be paid a regular salary by the government, and that the government impose a uniform tax on all shippers according to the number of animals shipped by the said commissioner.
That our investigation into the chilled meat trade has not been sufficient to warrant us making any recommendations and that we respectfully ask your consideration upon the advisability of further investigation into this matter.
Then there is a lot about the brand of the product. That shows that that commission was not prepared to recommend such a proposal as my hon. friend from East Grey (Mr. Sproule) has alluded to.
In the last part of my hon. friend's motion he says:-
In the opinion of this House the government ought to give immediate and effective consideration and attention to this very important subject.
I think we have been giving attention, most immediate and effective consideration, not only lately, but for the last 10 years, to- this very important subject. One would imagine, from what my hon. friend says, that we had no cold storage in the country, that nothing has been done to stimulate cold storage enterprise in Canada. My hon. friend knows that we passed an Act only a few years ago by which we agreed to give a bonus to any one who would establish cold storage warehouses in the country, a bonus of 30 per cent spread over a few years of payments. That has been availed of by a considerable number of people. It has been availed of effectively, because the cold storage plants established in accordance with it and now in operation are doing good service, not only to the meat industry, but to the trade in fruit, eggs and other products of the country. I have here a list of the cold storage plants established under that Act: New Brunswick Cold Storage Co., St. John; Scott & Hogg, Peterborough, Ont.; the Halifax Cold Storage Co., Port Hawkesbury, N.S.; Cold Storage, Ltd., Woodstock, N.B.; the J. D. Moore Co., St. Mary's, Ont.; Lemon Bros., Owen Sound, Ont.; the Chatham Fruit Growers' Association, Chatham, Ont.; the Palmerston Cold Storage Co., Palmerston, Ont.; Davis & Fraser, Charlottetown, P.E.I.; the B. Wilson Co., Victoria, B.C. These are all in operation.
These contracts have already been entered into: The Canadian Fish & Cold Storage Co-., Prince Rupert, B.C.; the Trenton Cooperage Mills, Trenton, Ont.; the Maritime Cold Storage Co., Loekport, N.S.; the Hamilton Cold Storage Co., Hamilton, Ont.; the Dominion Fish and Fruit Co., Quebec, Que.; the St. Lawrence Produce Co., Brockville, Ont. This shows that the Act has been availed of largely all over the country.


Mr. BRODEUR.: Is it working out quite satisfactorily?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Apparently, so far as I can see.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: It would be interesting to know how many barrels of apples, how many boxes of cheese, &c., went over in cold storage last year.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I shall get that. All I know is that it is being availed of very largely and that the people who have put their money into this business under the government contracts appear to be satisfied so far with the outcome.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: Has the government in all cases control of the rates?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Oh, yes. The charges have to be submitted to us and approved and we inspect the warehouses from time to time and see that they are properly con-

ducted. None of these storehouses have yet been paid their full subsidy. We make a careful inspection every time we make a payment and see that everything is in proper order. But this Act was passed only a few years ago. Long before that we undertook to arrange cold storage for transportation in Canada. Very soon after this government came into office we established cold storage on the steamships and a system of cold storage on the trains in Canada, first of all for butter, and afterwards for fruit and meats and, under the Department of Marine and Fisheries, for fish. We also established a system of inspection of the whole handling of our products so that to-day when a shipper in Canada sends forward his goods, we know in what condition they are when they are put on the railroad, when they are put into the ship at Montreal, or St. John or Halifax, and when they arrive on the old country markets. Records are kept of these conditions at each point and thermograph records are kept of the temperatures on all the ships. I shall be glad to have my hon. friend go into the details of these records, because they have to-day reached the point where I consider them to be practically perfect and, without boasting in any way, I can say that Canada is the only country on the face of the earth that does this kind of thing. My hon. friend has talked about New Zealand and Australia. It is true they have cold storage equipment from their ports to Great Britain and that they send large quantities of frozen mutton, beef and butter, but I would point out that where you keep an article frozen at a low temperature and without very much regard to variations in the degrees of frost it is comparatively easy to provide cold storage to carry goods all round the world if you like. But when you take delicate products like our fruit, eggs and meats which we do not wish to have frozen, but only chilled, and when thermograph records have to be kept to record variations of three or four degrees in the cold storage chambers of the ships, it is a very much more difficult thing to have success. If you can force the temperature down to eight or ten degrees above zero or even to zero and let it stay there the whole voyage, no check is required.


William Henry Sharpe: Has not the United States cold storage tor chilled meats?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: The United States has cold storaee for chilled meats without any government supervision, without any thermo-granhs, without any one knowing anything about it and entirely by private enterprise, entirely by the meat companies.


Glenlyon Campbell: Is it a success?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Yes. I believe it is and the Argentine Republic also sends chilled Mr. FISHER.
meats to England under very satisfactory conditions.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Is it the fact that the United States exported last year $203,000,000 worth of chilled meat? And if the United States can do that surely we can.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: We can do it, if we will nroduce it and if our people are willing to take the price at which it would pay to send it. As a matter of fact, for the last two years, the cold storage accommodation provided by the intervention of this government has not had sufficient Canadian products for its capacity and American produce has come to Canada to fill up that cold storage.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: If the cold storage provided by the minister is all right, how is it that only 20 per cent of the 1,000,000 barrels of apples exported went in cold storage?	.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: It is very simple to explain that. In the first place they practically sent no apples under the old refrigerator cold storage,, although they sent a good many apples in the ventilated and cooled air chambers. But, the large export of apples from Canada to England commences only after the month of October when the weather is cool and when the ventilation of the ships is sufficient, and when cold storage is not necessary. As I have said, we have records of large quantities of American products coming to Canadian ports and using our cold storage, and we have not enough Canadian produce today to fill the cold storage chambers on ships from Canadian ports to England. This proves that the facilities provided by this government are amply sufficient to cover the whole needs of the Canadian trade.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: Does it not prove, when Canadian farmers and shippers do not take advantage of your cold storage, that there must be something wrong with it?


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I grant you that our Canadian farmers are not producing enough in this country ; I wish there were another 5,000,000 more of them producing, and I wish those we already have were producing more, and we are doing our very best to stimulate them to produce more. But what I say is that the facilities we have provided are adequate to the trade, and that the reproach which the hon. gentleman from East Grey (Mr. Sproule) -seeks to cast on us in this motion is not justifiable, for the reason that we have brought about the provision of facilities more than adequate for our present trade. But we have done more. We have a complete system of inspection over our products. We try our best to get our orchardists to pack their fruit properly and it is an uphill fight

in many cases. It would be a physical impossibility to inspect the whole of the fruit, but we occasionally drop on a man who does not comply with the law and. we make him pay for it so far as we can. We see to it that Canadian products are properly handled on the docks at Montreal, St. John, and Halifax ; we see to it that the shipping companies do their duty to the shippers. We have men in England who inspect everything that arrives from Canada, with the result that the Canadian shipper knows exactly what has been done with his products and if there he any inquiry he can trace it. Not only have we reports of our own agents in England but we have, the testimony of independent people who receive our goods, that the condition- of Canadian goods arriving in England has been vastly improved, and that to-day Canadian products arrive in better condition than the goods of any other country. We have abundance of testimony that the work of the Department of Agriculture in supervising the shipment of Canadian products is of incalculable value to the producer, and we have been given the credit of having accomplished what no other country has accomplished in its shipment of this class of goods into the English market. There is no country which I know of in the whole world in which the shipping and the handling of agricultural food products is so supervised by the government as in Canada.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: If the hon. gentleman looked into the Australian method of supervision he certainly would not make that statement.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Yes, I would.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The Australian government supervises not only the killing and the freezing, tout the exportation, right to the place at which the product is marketed.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: That is only on the item of meat.


Glenlyon Campbell: Turkeys and eggs too.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I do not think they send any turkeys and eggs from Australia to England ; I am sure my hon. friend (Mr. Campbell) is astray.


Glenlyon Campbell: The hon. minister does not know.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: That may be, but I will have to be corrected by some one else before I believe it.


Mr. AMES.: I saw them do it.


Glenlyon Campbell: I want to be absolved in the eyes of the House from the charge of making a statement which is not cor-39
rect ; my hon friend (Mr. Ames) has seen it done in Australia.


Herbert Brown Ames: I am responsible for the statement made by the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Campbell). I saw them in Australia preparing turkeys and eggs for shipment under government supervision.


Glenlyon Campbell: Now take it back.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I bow to the statement of my hon. friend from St. Antoine (Mr. Ames) who has been in Australia lately, and let me take this opportunity of saying how glad I am to see him back in the House again ; a sentiment which I am sure everybody in the House will agree with, but I believe what he saw was a rare occurrence.


Glenlyon Campbell: But that does not salve my wounded feelings.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I did not wish to wound the feelings of my hon. friend (Mr. Campbell) and I bow to the information which he received, as I did, from the hon. member (Mr. Ames) I will look into that, tout I think that any shipments of turkeys and eggs from Australia are very partial indeed. Now, my hon. friend from Grey (Mr. Sproule) spoke at considerable length in criticism and in blame of us, but I do not find that he proposed anything definite. Would he suggest that we should guarantee bonds of a cold storage and abattoir and refrigerator plant to the extent of $8,000,000?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: When we get in power we will tell you what we will do.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Oh, I don't want to wait so long, and if the hon. gentleman were a true patriot and really wished to help the farmers of Canada he would give us the benefit of his advice now. I can assure him that I am not above taking advice, I would be very glad to get it.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I gave the minister the advice of eminent and practical men in the business and he contradicts the whole thing.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Oh, no. I have had to differ with some of the things the hon. gentleman said, but I started out by saying that I agreed with most of his statements. However, I find the suggestions of the hon. gentleman are very indefinite. I had rather supposed, from what my hon. friend said, that he was going Jfco suggest some particular thing that we ^should do to bring about the establishment of abattoirs and a more efficient system of cold storage under government supervision. He has not, however, made any suggestion, and I am afraid that his critical spirit has got the better of his friendly spirit, and that instead of helping, he only wants to knock down. I am quite sure that my hon.



friend's interest in the agriculture of the country is benevolent; but he does not carry his benevolence far enough to tell us what we should do. I confess, I think we have done a great deal. I do not think we have done all we can do. We hope to do more. I want to learn more; I shall be glad to learn from my hon. friend, and I would be glad if he could suggest anything to aid us. But I must lay down this principle, that what we undertake to do and what money we undertake to spend must have a practical and beneficial result equal to if not greater than the expenditure. I am not prepared to jump hastily, without full consideration and full justification, into any scheme that may be put forward. I am not prepared to spend lavishly the country's money without seeing a good fair chance of getting an adequate return for it. While this government has increased the expenditure on agriculture very largely, somewhat about double, I believe that we have got a great deal more return for the people than the money we have spent. We have had results which benefit the producers themselves, the handlers of their goods, and the transportation companies engaged in forwarding their goods, and we have been able to raise the credit of the agricultural products of Canada in England, our great market for them, every year and very largely; and the only complaint we have from the people of England is that we do not send forward enough of our products. If I knew of any way in which I could stimulate production in Canada to a greater degree, I would be glad to do it. I have to-day in my department a staff of able men who I think thoroughly understand the needs of agriculture in Canada-Professor Saunders at the head of the experimental farms, Dr. Butlierford at the head of the live stock and dairy division, Mr. Ruddiek at the head of the cold storage division, Mr. Clark at the head of the seed division, and so on-men who have been placed in the positions they occupy simply because they are experts in their particular lines; and I have yet to find among the farmers of Canada one man who has been dissatisfied with the personnel of the department or who has said that these men are not first-class men for their work.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Might I remind the hon. minister that Mr. Ruddiek, for cold storage, and Dr. Rutherford, for the cattle industry, both say that there is great need for improvement.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Can my hon. friend lay his hand on a recommendation of either of these gentlemen which has not been carried out? What they say, and justly and right say, is that the conditions to-day are not what they might be or ought to be, but they have not made recommendations to Mr. FISHER.	i ,
me which I have not been willing to carry out, and which the government has not asked parliament to grant the money for, and. which parliament has not voted the money for. But my hon. friend will not deny that these men are experts well competent to give advice, and I can tell him that their advice has always been followed and will be followed in the future; and when they tell me that a particular thing may help this or that agricultural industry, I shall not hesitate a moment to present its claims to my colleagues, and, judging by past experience, my colleagues will enable me to present its claims to parliament; and I must say for both sides of the House that they have been ready and willing to give me the opportunity to carry out these recommendations. But my hon. friend comes here, and, without making a_suggestion, simply asks us to accept a resolution which, by its very form, moved as an amendment to the House going into Committee of Supply, is a definite resolution of want of confidence in the government and its policy.
Some lion. MEMBERS. Hear, hear.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Evidently that is the object and intention of our hon. friends opposite.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: If the hon. minister is under the belief that he is doing all that can be done and is directing Jus best attention to these matters, then that is all that the resolution asks for, and he ought to accept it.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: My hon. friend goes further, and says that we are not doing all that should be done, but he does not suggest anything more that we could do, or ought to do, but moves his resolution in such a wav that he knows that it must be taken as a vote of want of confidence.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Not necessarily.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Yes, my hon. friend's opening remarks suggest that. He points out that there is going to be a big delegation of farmers here this week, and I do not think I am uncharitable in suggesting that he has brought up this discussion at this time so that he may bring his proposition specially to* the attention of that delegation.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Not at all.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: I say that the government is prepared to believe that the country would be greatly benefited by the establishment of abattoirs and by an efficient system of cold storage under government supervision. But I also say that the preservation of the products is being looked after, that the transportation of these products is being properly carried on, that these products are being landed in the

British market in the best possible condition, and that the government is giving immediate and effective consideration and attention to this- very important subject. I am sorry, therefore, that I cannot accept the resolution of the hon. gentleman, but shall have to vote against it, and ask the House to go into Committee of Supply.


Andrew Broder: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with a good deal of interest to the speech of the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat. In the main he agrees with the proposition of the hon. gentleman who has moved the motion. If I were to be reminiscent, I would refer to the fact that some four years ago the hon. minister took exactlv the same attitude towards a speech on the address made by the hon. member for Huron East (Mr. Chisholm) in the session of 1906, on the question of cold storage which showed a great deal of attention to the subject and gave many valuable suggestions. The minister on that occasion said he agreed largely with the object of the hon. member's speech. He also agrees with the hon. member who has moved the present resolution. He is what we might call a stand-patter; he Is just standing where he was four years ago. I have heard a story about a stand-patter which I think I ought to tell the House. At the time of the flood, after it had rained twenty days and twenty nights, Noah saw a man outside. He opened the door and said: 'Will you come in?' The man said: 'Oh, no, I do not. think there is going to be much of a shower.' That man was the grandfather of the stand-patters; he must have been some relation of the Minister of Agriculture. Now, this country wants something better than stand-patters. The idea of talking of this country consuming the products of this country. No country would be doing its duty in an agricultural sense if it consumed its own products. As an agricultural country we must be a large exporter of the products of the farm. It is all very well to say the population of this country is 8,000,000 and they will eat so much and therefore we will produce so much. I am surprised that the hon. gentleman has so enlarged the stomachs of the people of this country that they are eating two pounds of butter where they used to eat one.
If you take the trouble to go into this question, and look up the facts, you will find that at a certain time in this country and the United States, the people ate more pork, bacon and mutton than they do today. But the hon. minister tells us that they are now much better off, because they are eating more sugar, and all those other articles, which of necessity, cost them less. Milk, he said, is a very expensive diet, hut if he knew anything about poor people as I do, he would know that if you use milk, 394	'
you can feed more people cheaper than in any other way. Of course I quite understand that the hon. gentleman can afford an expensive housekeeper, but I want a woman who will get a good meal at the least expense, and every good housekeeper knows that you can make a family more comfortable with less expense if you use milk freely, so that there is not much in the argument that milk is an expensive luxury.
In order to ascertain how much butter, cheese and milk is produced, the hon. gentleman takes our population at seven millions and a half and estimates that each member of a family consumes per year $10 worth of these products, which would make $75,000,000, and adding to that the-$25,000,000 which we export, you have $100,000,000. But he could make our production still larger, if he would .say that each family consumed at the rate of $15 per annum, per person. There is no real basis; to his calculation; it is founded on the imaginary supposition that the people will eat so much. But when he says that a family of five or eight people will eat $10 per head of these products, he is altogether astray, because they will not get that much. In fact the minister is at his wits end to find some excuse for the falling off in the export of these articles. But all through the country, wherever you find people gathered together, discussing these matters, invariably you will find a friend of the hon. gentleman giving as the reason for the falling off of our exports that we are consuming more at home. In the province of Quebec we have these hon. gentlemen saying that there are 800,000 milch cows, but that is purely imaginary, and is not based on anything real. They say that the average product would be $30 per head, which would give $24,000,000 worth. But how many cattle have you in Canada, and how many milch cows? It is rather strange that in this country we have the number of cattle pretty nearly up to the number of our population. In the United States, with their eighty-five to ninety million people, they hgve only 71,000,000 cattle. What does that mean? It means, if we draw a comparison, that there is a falling off in the products of the country which are most required in the interests of the people generally. Let me give the hon. gentleman some figures which are reliable. The Ontario provincial government has for years, had a system of collecting statistics, which can be depended on. And according to these statistics, we have less cattle in Ontario, by 100,000, than we had three years ago, and we have 65,000 less milch cows than three years ago. I venture to say, that the same thing would be found in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. If you say that we are producing less because we have now fewer milch cows than we

had three years ago, you will be accounting for a good deal of the deficits in our exports, and that will be more reliable than to say it is due to the increased consumption among our people. In bulletin No. 106, issued by the Ontario Department of Agriculture, I find these figures.


Henry Horton Miller: How does the Ontario government obtain these figures?


Andrew Broder: Through, the municipal machinery in that province, from 'their assessors and from inquiries they send out. This has been going on several years. Here is another very strange thing to which I will call attention. There are 51 counties in Ontario, and out -of those there are only 14 that have more milch cows than other cattle. In other words, there are 37 counties in Ontario, which have less milch cows than other cattle, which shows a falling off. Dundas oounty is one, and I may say that Dundas is the largest producer per acre of any county in the Dominion- $4.26 per acre in cheese and butter, nearly double any other county in the Dominion. The next county is Erontena'c, which has more milch cows than other cattle. Glengarry, Grenville, Hastings, Lanark, Lennox and Addington,i Oxford, Prescott, Prince Edward, Russell, Stormont and the county of York. What surprises me, is that when I go to the very home of this industry in western Ontario, I find it shows a falling off. You come down to the Belleville district, which was the centre of this industry, and you find there, also a falling off and the eastern district of Brockville is now where the largest part of that industry is settled. There is one thing to be said, and that is, that the reason why this industry is weakening is because the people have difficulty in getting help. You can get help such as the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver), is bringing, but they cannot milk the cows, when you do get them. You want people who can milk cows without injuring them. That is a serious problem and one which the Minister of Agriculture ought to deal with. The farmer, however, is largely to blame himself in the matter. The domestic help question can be solved and the Department of Agriculture can assist in the solution of it, if it would urge the people to make homes for the men. Let the hired man raise a family on his employer's farm and the domestic question is solved. Conditions are changed. I can tell the hon. minister and the House that one reason why the people are gathering into the cities and towns is that the farmer gives a man his home for six months during the hurried time of summer and harvest and turns him adrift in the fall, and he has to go to the city or town to find maintenance and a place to live. The work in the woods is gone Mr. BRODER.
in the older parts of the country, work that gave the people employment and income in winter. Conditions having so greatly changed, the whole system must be changed if we are to keep this bodyf politic in a healthy condition.
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.


Andrew Broder: Mr. Speaker, when the House rose at six o'clock, I was giving reasons why -we had reduced exportation of some of our important products. I was showing by data that I consider well authenticated that in the province of Ontario, for instance, we were exporting a good many less cattle than in previous years. Two years ago, most of us will remember, we had a severe drought through a large portion of Ontario, and that led to a considerable reduction in the number of cattle wintered over. I do not say that that was an unmixed evil, because it resulted in weeding out from the herds many that might not be considered paying animals. I venture to say that, judging even from the minister's own report, that same condition prevailed to a considerable extent in other parts of the country as wrell. I am sorry to say that some of the figures issued by the Department of Agriculture are scarcely borne out by the facts. I will now read you some figures from the 10th Annual Report of the Minister of Agriculture, page 51:-


HORSES.
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1909	 2,132,189
1903	 2,118,165
+ 11,324

[Stage Direction]
1908	 2,917,716
1909	 2,849,306
- 68,440

[Stage Direction]
1908	 4,629,806
1909	 4,384,779
- 245,027
[Stage Direction]
1908	 2,801,404
1909	 2,705,390
- 96,014
[Stage Direction]
iqns		 3,369,958
1909:: :: "	2,922,509
- 447,449
Now, these figures are rather serious, and I think the minister will acknowledge

that we are justified in coming to a conclusion that they show a situation that the Department of Agriculture ought to deal with. Now there is one thing to be said. I believe it is possible, with the number of milch cows we have in the province of Ontario to confine the remark to that province-to increase the output 50 per cent without increasing the number of cattle; in other words, we have been keeping cattle that have not been paying their way, so to speak. I am glad to say to the credit of the minister that the cow testing business that has been put on foot has been valuable in the inter-; est of that business. It is a thing that will-result in good. Many farmers were not aware that they were keeping non-paying animals in their herds. If I may be allowed, I would like to quote the example of Denmark on this point. In 1864, Denmark was producing only 80 pounds of butter per cow; to-day they are producing 220 pounds per cow,, which shows the possibilities of improvement under intelligent farming. Now, suppose it were possible for this country to increase the product of our cows 50 per cent, we would have a large quantity to export that we have not got to-day. As a country, we must come to the conclusion that if we are going to take our place as feeders of the world, we must become large exporters of all kinds of agricultural produce.
Now, I want to go a little further, and speak of the situation as regards wheat. The minister in his report makes an estimate of the product of wheat in the three western provinces for 1909, which he puts down at 147,482,000 bushels; Ontario, spring and fall together, 16,262,000; Quebec, 1,679,000; the three eastern provinces, 1,320,-
000.	Total, 166,744,000 bushels. I want to say that I think these figures are a little exaggerated. In 1909 we exported 49,267,734 bushels. Now it is the opinion of experts that the people of this country consume for food and seed on an average seven bushels of wheat per capita; that would give us for the 8,000,000 people in this country, 56,000,000 bushels required for home consumption. Taking this quantity and the 49,000,000 exported from the 166,000,000 in round numbers as the total production in 1909, that would leave 61,000,000 bushels of wheat in the hands of the people. I think that is hardly to be expected. It seems to me that the figures are scarcely borne out when we come to apply these rules to them. We have increased our export in some of our products very materially; in others our export has lessened very materially. In 1910 the total export of agricultural products amounted to $94,331,147, in 1906 they were $54,062,327. That is to sav, in the five years we
increased our export of agricultural products by $36,000,000 in round numbers. Now the total increase in wheat exports during the same time was $18,9501)00;-the total increase in the products of wheat, that is, wheat flour, was $8,608,000. Exports of wheat and products of wheat increased $27,500,000. Now the totM exports were $279,000,000, in round numbers, in 1910, and $235,000,000 in 1906, showing an increase in five years of $43,000,000, of which $27,000,000 was for wheat and wheat products alone.
In our exports of provisions, butter, cheese, eggs, ham, bacon, all these important products of this country, have fallen off in five years by $15,000,000. I am sure that not only the minister, but every man in this House must realize that this is a serious matter, for if we lose the place we now hold in the English markets and the markets of the world for these products it will be no easy thing to regain that position in the future. That is one reason why this country should wake up to the position we are in in reference to these products. Another serious feature of the situation is that while the total exports of agricultural products in 1909-10 was $90,000,000, the revenue of this country, the amount taken from the people in customs, excise and other forms of taxation. was $101,000,000, $11,000,000 more than all the exports of -agricultural products. We cannot continue at that rate and fill the position we should as a producing country. We cannot take from the people in revenue more than the exports of the agricultural products of the farm and continue in a healthy financial condition. The United States have paid not only the interest on the enormous debt entailed t>y their war, but have paid their bonds by the excess of their exports of farm products oyer their taxation, and we must come to that position if Canada is to assume -and hold the position that we ought to fill in Canada if Canada is to fill its proper place in the world.
The minister does not seem to encourage very much the proposition of our friend (Mr. Sproule). He says our friend should have suggested something; he has suggested something. He has suggested the necessity of doing something, and now it devolves on the minister and his colleagues to decide what should be done. He suggests that evil exists. The minister admits it, but he says: You have not suggested any remedy. It is not our business to suggest a remedy, but I shall take the liberty of suggesting some remedies. If the installing of cold storage -and abattoirs, as suggested by the resolution, will stimulate the production of these articles, the country runs no risk in doing it. If, by encouraging these things, we can stimulate production, we are justified in making a moderate outlay in attempting t" do it There is no
[Stage Direction]
avocation in this oountry that receives as little financial help as the great agricultural industry. I do not believe the people in this country can be driven or coerced into doing anything, but they will welcome suggestions from the department and will -carry out. as far as possible, what is in the interest of agriculture. We have an object lesson of this in my own district. I was very much pleased in reading the report of the Minister of Agriculture in Quebec to see what they are doing to encourage the raising of good stock and to do those things that go to make agriculture more attractive, more productive and more profitable. I am also glad to see that Ontario, for a good many years, has given a good deal of attention to this question. Lately the present government of Ontario have taken on themselves to send out to the people -experts in the different kinds of farming. I think there are now 14 in the different counties; there are three in Stormont, Dun-das and Glengarry. These men come directly in contact with the people, and that is what must be done if results are to be achieved. Our friend cannot sit here and say: You must worship in Jerusalem or go to hell. You cannot do that.
An hon. MEMBEE. Order.
Andrew Broder: Order? I supposed that moderate logic was permissible in this House, you must not say:	In this mountain thou shalt worship and no where else. You have got to come down in contact with the people. What are these young men, these young experts accomplishing this year alone in these counties? They go into a neighbourhood and instruct a farmer and heln him to spray an orchard, perhaps spraying it three or four times. They go four or five miles away and spray another orchard as an object lesson in that community. What has been the result? The result in this year alone has been that one man with one and a third acres of orchard, sold his fruit on the trees for $400. From another of these sprayed orchards the department of my hon. friend selected the fruit to be sent away for exhibition. The orchards adjacent to these which had not been sprayed were scarcely salable this year. That shows what can be done by coming in contact with the people. I do not say that the Dominion Department of Agriculture can come so directly in contact with the people as can be done through the provincial avenues, because the municipal machinery assists in the case of the province. These instructors are attached to the Collegiate Institutes and High Schools as a branch of agriculture, and they go out and instruct the people in tile draining, taking the levels of fields, spraying orchards, killing certain weeds, coming in direct contact daily with the men in" the Mr. BRODER.
business. The result is that people appreciate what is being done and act on the suggestions given by these instructors.
My hon. friend might do something that would help the farmers in this Dominion very materially. For instance they h-ave in the United States and also in different countries in Europe what they call soil surveys. In the United States they commenced, I think in 1899, what they call these soil surveys. They have sixty-two experts whom they send out among the people to examine the soil on the farms as to its nature, physical conditions, &c.. and then thev decide within wThat area such and such crops can be most successfully raised. They have surveyed millions of acres in different states, and the people are asking for these surveys in almost every state in the union, particularly in the south. These are things that could be done in this country. Is it not possible for instance to increase the area for apple raising? Why should not eastern Ontario and Quebec increase their apple area? The Macintosh Red and the Fameuse apple can be raised all through the Ottawa valley, while in Quebec there are millions of acres upon which these fruits can be grown. Would it not be wise for the Minister of Agriculture to send out some one to instruct the people and to suggest that this should be done? This would supply a great need. I think my hon. friend will not say that we have not made any suggestions now.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: My hon. friend does not know that wre are already doing much of what he suggests.


Andrew Broder: You are. I never heard of it, your light is under a bushel, because no one has seen it. I know that Mr. McNeill has lectured in reference to fruit-raisin" in Ontario.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: He has assistants.


Andrew Broder: You have not given us what is called the soil survey.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: No.


Andrew Broder: That is an important thing.


Sydney Arthur Fisher: Perhaps so, there are many important things.


Andrew Broder: Now, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are provinces in which fruit can be raised successfully, but unfortunately these two provinces are not keeping pace with their possibilities. Agriculture in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia is not in what you might call a healthy condition, and I find from a report published by an agricultural commission appointed by the New Brunswick government in 1909 that this commission did not find things very satisfactory in that pro-

vince. For instance, they found 3,428 vacant farms; they named the counties in which these farms are vacant, and they even go so far as to say that the statistics published by the federal Department of Agriculture are not reliable. I quote from that report:
' According to the Dominion census of 1901, and this we regret to say is the latest statement that we can accept as at all accurate in regard to the statistics of agriculture here-New Brunswick had 37,583 persons occupying farms and lots, a farm being five acres and over, a lot anything under five acres; the total area occupied was 4,438,937 acres or an average approximately of 118 acres to a person. Of this there were 1,405,616 acres cleared, or about 37 acres per farm, and 894,795 acres in crops, about 24 acres per farm.
Later figures given out by the census department but not taken from actual inquiry do not at all coincide with actual conditions as found by us from inquiry at our various meetings, and so far as crop yields are concerned these figures do not correspond with the returns compiled by the New Brunswick Department of Agriculture, therefore we regret that we are unable to agree with the bulletins recently issued from the census department.
Our information would lead us to believe that the large increases in crop production and in live stock stated by these latest census bulletins are not true.
Instead of an increase in the province of 9,907 horses, of 38,713 cattle, of 69,920 sheep and of 46,848 swine kept upon New Brunswick farms in 1907 as against those kept in 1901, your commissioners found evidence of a decline in cattle and sheep, no evidence of any increase in horses, and swine may be a little more than holding their own.
I do not know how that commission obtained its data, but at all events they seem to be sure that the statistics of the Dominion government are not reliable. Now, the Department of Agriculture should do something to improve these conditions. It is not a pleasant thing to have to deal with figures that show that we are not making progress, but at the same time we must look our difficulties squarely in the face if we are going to deal with them honestly. There has been a little too much eulogy of the Minister of Agriculture, so that he has got into what you might call a fool's paradise. He thinks everything is all right because his friends are eulogizing him all over the country, but it would be well for them to remind him of his faults once in a while. We farmers have very serious problems before us. A great many people say that Canada will repeat the history of the United States; that our great western country will open up, that we will produce enormous quantities of wheat, and that we will become as wealthy and as great as the United States. But let us remember that corn and cotton are the
two greatest wealth producers in the United States, and that cotton will never be grown in Canada while the growing of corn is restricted to a very limited area with us, and so, we must have something else to depend on. We are told that the United States will soon become buyers of our wheat, but let me tell you that the United States are awakening to the condition of things in their country; and if within the next ten years they should, as it is possible for them, double the production of their wheat that will mean 600,000,000 bushels for export. The acreage of the United States is 1,900,947,200 acres and of this there are 838,591,774 acres in the farms and 414,498,477 acres of improved land on the farms. In other words, 50 per cent of the farms of the United States to-day are unimproved. That means that when 50 acres out of every 100 are improved they will double their product, and we need not think that we will sit down here and sell them wheat and other farm products.
The average production of wheat per acre in the United States is to-day from 12i to 13 bushels, and they will have no trouble in increasing it to 25 bushels to the acre. In the last 10 years they have put forth efforts that are telling marvellously in that country. Last year the federal government of the United States spent $14,000,000 in encouraging agriculture, to say nothing of what the individual states have done. The United States are awakening to the position they are in, and they will doubtlessly double their products and become still greater exporters than they are.
I see that the Minister of Agriculture has left the House, and I was going to make some suggestions to him, but he probably has enough now for him to carry out during the course of his natural life. I want to say, Sir, that the federal authority in this country should assist the province in the development of agriculture. They have the best machinery through which to get to the people, and so they can assist the provinces very easily in carrying out this work. The United States federal authorities have assisted the authorities of the different states in the promotion of agriculture, and there are no greater sticklers for state rights than they are. In 1862 an Act of Congress was passed establishing their agricultural bureau, and in 1887 they passed an Act to further carry out the intention of that Act, and in section 2 they say:
Nothing in this Act shall be construed to impair or modify the legal relation existing between any of the state colleges and the governments of the states or territories in which they are resj>ectively located.
The federal government had given larger grants of land and money to the state colleges for the purpose of encouraging agriculture, and hence it is that they

declare that nothin? in their legislation shall interfere with state's rights to control the colleges. Then in section 9 of this Act they say:
These grants are made subject to the legislative assent of said states and territories.
I say, therefore, that it is quite possible for the federal authorities of this Dominion to help the several provinces in carrying out objects which every honest Canadian should have in view, namely, the encouragement of agriculture, and the increasing of our output of agricultural products. I believe, Sir, the country demands this at the hands of those who may control its destinies for the time being.
There is one trouble in this country, and I do not know but the influence of hon. gentlemen opposite has had some-tning to do with it : There are too many men in this country trying to make a living with their coats on. Hon. gentlemen opposite have taught people to live on the state, and a good many of them are doing so. I want to say that the farmers have worked for less wages than any other class, and they have worked early and late to furnish cheap products to feed a hungry world. A prominent man said to me in Montreal: What is happening? I pay more for my butter, eggs, beef, pork and so on '. I said to him : Do you understand that the old farmer has gone out of the hog-pen and has gone into the automobile? He has as good a right to it as you, and he is going to let you pay for your pork and your eggs and your butter, and you should not grumble because the prices of his products have advanced. Why should he not get better prices for his products? He has fed the world cheaply, he has worked for very little wages, and now people grumble because he is getting something for his work. I say Amen to it. Let more fellows get their coats off and go to work, and then we will hear no more of this grumbling The agricultural interests of this country ought to be dealt with in a serious manner. If the minister thinks his department is not able to grapple with the problems before it-and I say advisedly that- it has not done so-and if he or his colleagues cannot suggest anything to improve matters, then get a commission to look into them seriously. The patriotism of hon. gentlemen opposite has gone around the circle of their party's interests rather than the circle of the country's interests ; and until we get big enough to get outside of that party circle and deal patriotically with the interests of this country as an agricultural country, we will not do our duty as Canadian citizens. The older provinces have suffered, and suffered materially, from the outgoing of thousands and hundreds of thousands of their


Andrew Broder: 
Mr. E. W. NESBITT (North Oxford).: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that hon. members on this side of the House have no quarrel with the statement of the hon. gentleman who has just sat down to the effect that the Dominion government should do all it can to encourage agriculture. The question is what they should do. At the same time, I think it is more directly the function of the provincial governments to give illustrations of what can be done on the farm than that of the Dominion government, as they are more in touch with local conditions. I quite agree with the hon. gentleman that the government of Ontario has done a great deal to illustrate what can be done by better methods of farming. They have been doing that for a great many years, not only directly, but also through the Guelph Agricultural college. The reputation of that institution is worldwide. It is educating young men not only from Ontario and the rest of the Dominion, but from South America, Japan, the United States and other parts of the world. But coming to the amendment which has been moved by the hon. member for East Grey, if it means anything, it means that this government shall establish not only cold storage for chilled meat, &c., but also going into the slaughter house business as a government undertaking. Surely, the hon. gentleman does not mean that seriously- that the Minister of Agriculture of the Dominion government shall go into the slaughter-house business in competition with the present slaughter-house or packing people. In the first session that I came to this House a deputation from the west waited on the government to ask it to establish cold storage for the purpose of shipping chilled meat to England and other countries. That is done very largely by Australia and New Zealand, and generally I believe successfully, especially with mutton. But, as the Minister of Agriculture has pointed out, we are in a very different position from those countries to raise sheep. They have very large ranges, and although their sheep sell at what we would consider a very low price, still they make money, because they have large flocks of them and feed them very cheaply. We have a very different system of farming in this country, and we have to accommodate

ourselves to our conditions. I believe that the Minister of Agriculture and his department have done a great deal to assist the shipping not only of animal products but of fruit to the old country in cold storage. This. season they have carried out a number of experiments with fruit, and I believe successfully. What I believe the Minister of Agriculture should do is to distribute the knowledge of these experiments as widely as possible among the farmers and fruit-growers of the Dominion. I quite agree with the minister that it is absolutely impossible to start a chilled meat proposition until there are enough animals slaughtered to have the slaughtering continue daily and constantly. There must be a sufficient supply to keep the men in these institutions constantly employed. You cannot employ them one day and turn them off two or three days ; you cannot employ them one month and let them go another month. There is an expert knowledge required which you cannot get if you only give it intermittent employment, and such knowledge is specially required in these abattoirs as well as in private slaughter houses. If these abattoirs cannot retain those experts, they will lose money. A few years ago there was in Ontario a great commotion among the farmers and a great movement for the establishment of co-operative slaughter houses. I have in my mind three which were started in Ontario, all of which absolutely failed. These three were cooperative or farmers slaughter houses. The farmers thought that a large amount of money was being made by the meat packers and they undertook to go into the business themselves and get the middlemens' profit. Inside of three years, however, nearly all those co-operative concerns absolutely failed in so far as the first capital invested in them was concerned. The first investment of capital disappeared, and any of those establishments which continued to slaughter were those that were taken over by private corporations.
Some one said this afternoon that as soon as the farmers started to grow hogs in quantity, the prices would come down. I have thought a good deal on that subject, as I am interested, as a farmer, in that very question, and I have sometimes wondered if iit were not the case that just as quick as the packers got the farmers to grow a sufficient amount of pork, they combined purposely to put down the prices. Well, I have come to the conclusion that such is not the case. The fact is, that when pork was up to 8, 9 and 9i cts., as it has been during the last two years, the packers were losing money, and the only reason why they continued to buy and slaughter, was because they could not afford to shut down their packing houses. At the present price, no doubt the packers
would get even to a certain extent and the farmers will suffer; but we have to take the bitter with the sweet as every one else has to do in other lines of business. I do not believe that the packers purposely raise the prices in order to encourage the farmers to grow hogs and then cut the prices down; but I believe that just as quick as hogs, cattle or other things go up in price, the farmers rush in and grow them and then the price goes down. It is simply a case of supply and demand. Two years ago I was about the only one in my section growing hogs to any large extent, but this fall everybody was growing them, and in consequence, the price has gone down considerably.
Some one said also this afternoon that Die prices would break in Toronto 25 cents and yet in Chicago and East Buffalo they would go up 5 to 10c. per 100 lbs. Well, I have followed the market as closely as any one in this House, and I do know that last fall, when the prices started going down in Toronto, they did go up once or twice in Chicago and in East Buffalo, but very shortly after they came down again in both these places as well as in Toronto. Why? When the prices were going up 5 to 10 cts., the receipts in Chicago were 10,000 a day, but as soon as the receipts went up to 15,000,	20,000 and
25,000' per day, down went the price in Chicago just as it did in Toronto.
To-day, just as during the past four or five years, so far as Ontario is concerned at any rate, we would be better off if there were no duty on hogs going into 'the United States. There are very few articles growing on the Ontario farms which would not be benefited by a removal of the duty in the United States, because the consumption there has become so large that it absorbs to a very great extent all their animal ^products, although they do export some of these products and do export dead meat.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: If the consumption there absorbs all their products, how is it that they exported last year $203,000,000 worth?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I have said that they consume to a very large extent their own animal products, and you will find that the United States export in this line is falling off every year. In fact some of the American statisticians say that by 1915 that export will have entirely disappeared. I am not a prophet nor the son of a prophet and will not vouch for the prediction; but for years I have followed the market, for years I have followed the exports of the United States and Canada, and I do know that the American exports are falling off just as rapidly as ours.
My hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher). has said that there has

been no falling off in the production of cattle and hogs in this country as compared with 1903, when our exports were at their highest, but that the decrease in the exports was due entirely to the local consumption. From my knowledge of the question, I agree with him. But to make sure I went out to the library and turned up the market quotations in the Toronto daily papers in 1905 and 1910 for the months of September and October. To my surprise I found that in 13 weeks of September and October 1905, there were shipped into Toronto 1,253 car loads of cattle, and in the same period in 1910, 1,845 carloads of cattle. You can judge by these figures whether the Minister of Agriculture was correct in his statement that the Canadian consumption was increasing.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Has the hon. gentleman any knowledge of the_ number of cars that came from the Northwest with cattle to the Toronto market this fall?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I am quite well aware that a great number of these cars came from the Northwest, but I do not see how that affects the argument. We are speaking simply of the Dominion of Canada and that brings me to a most important point, namely, that the farmers of Ontario bought at a very high price all those feeders from Manitoba and the west. They were able to absorb, not only their own stock, but hundreds of carloads of cattle from Manitoba and the west which the farmers of the west could not feed or thought they could not, although I understand that the Manitoba people, after they began to ship, found out that they had more feed than they thought.
As regards the falling off in shipments of butter, my hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture was exactly right. There is no reason for the falling off except that the farmers, at least of Ontario, have found that it does not pay them to make butter. Labour is too scarce, for one thing. And they are trying to relieve their wives and families of the labour of making butter, for another thing. And the price of cheese has run high, as any hon. member will see who will look back over the market quotations. It pays the farmer of Ontario, and of Canada generally, as well to make cheese as to make butter-yes, and a little better, as I know from experience. Some hon. members' said we did not consume much cheese. But we are consuming more cheese than we used to do. In the last five years, Canada has consumed more cheese than in any ten years before that. Even the farmers themselves are consuming more cheese than they did a few years ago.
The whole question, as I understand the amendment, is whether we should encour-Mr. NESBITT.
age agriculture by having the government go into the packing and chilled meat business. I believe we should assist thd farmers, if we can find a consistent wayf to do it,, in getting their cattle and allj other products to market. And I do not! think any person can find fault with the government on that score, unless he be a very narrow partisan indeed. The government has done a great deal to improve the means of transportation. And, so far as the farmers are concerned, whom I have the honour to represent, all they ask, essentially, is transportation. They don't ask any body to send out soil surveyors for them. The farmers I have the honour to represent know how to survey their own soil. And they know what to grow on their own soil. They would not thank the Minister of Agriculture to send out men to tell them what to grow. They know what their soil will grow and what it will grow most of, and grow most profitably. What they ask this government to do is to see to it that the cars, and not only the cars but the boats, are in well iced and otherwise in condition to take their goods to the English market, or whatever market they are destined for. No man on either side, I believe, can fairly accuse the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher) of having failed to put forth his best efforts to fill that want. And I believe he has been successful. Many things crop up in which the minister can assist the farmer. As I have said, I do not doubt that every year, yes, and every day, he sees something in which he can help the farmers to a certain extent. Of course, he is limited by the means placed at his disposal. I have told him frankly that I thought it was money well spent to do anything he can to assist the farmer. The farmers do not want such assistance as a great many hon. gentlemen here ask the government to give. The farmers do not believe in paternal government any more than the manufacturers do. They do not want the Minister of Agriculture to tell them how to run their farms. They do ask that the results of successful experiments made at the Experimental Farms shall be transmitted to them, and transmitted to them individually. They cannot afford, with their limited means, to make experiments themselves, but, when they are told the facts concerning a successful experiment, they are as capable of applying the information as any other class in this country. So far as the farmers of North Oxford are concerned, there are not many of them who are not just as capable of running their farms as any man on the floor of this House, no matter what his education may have been. And they are doing it; they are increasing their output in every way-they are increasing

their beef cattle, their hogs and even their sheep. A good deal has been said this afternoon as to why the farmers of Canada do not grow more sheep. It is a simple matter. In the first place, as the Minister of Agriculture told you, the climate is against it. It means a great deal of care when ewes are lambing, and it is often difficult to raise lambs in this country. But, as soon as lambs reach a price at which it pays the farmers to raise them, you will see how quickly the farmers will increase their flocks of sheep. Last year and the year before were the first years, for some time, at least, when it paid the farmers to raise sheep. This year, many farmers in my section of country got $5 a head in June for their lambs. That paid them well, I never figured it out exactly but I believe that at $5, $5.25 and $5.50 in June and July, the farmers would make a hundred per cent. And, let me tell you, there will be a lot more lambs raised in Oxford next spring than there were last spring and the spring before. Why? Because the prices pay the farmer, and the farmer knows what pays him as well as any hon. member of this House can tell him. As I have said, I believe the Minister of Agriculture was right when he said that there had not been a falling off in the animal products of this country, but, on the contrary, an increase. One reason why I believe that is because there has been an enormous increase in home consumption in the last ten years, not only in meat but in dairy products. And that increase of consumption has not been among the people of the cities only, but among the farmers also. The farmers' are living much better than they did a few years ago, and this fact accounts, in part', for the increased consumption of fowls! eggs, milk, butter, cheese, beef, lamb and' other things that are good to eat. And in our section, at any rate, they are living a^ well as any one.


Mr. OWEN.: What about the twelve million pounds of mess pork that come into this country from the United States?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: That is heavy pork that goes to the lumber woods, pork that we do not raise here, except some old stags *or sows we do not want any longer. Any man who can raise a hog to 180 or 200 pounds in six months does not need to raise a lot of stags and,sell them off for fat pork-and that is what we get from the other side of the line, to a large extent.


Charles Lewis Owen: Does the hon. gentleman mean to say that they are imported from the United States, and then exported?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: No, I do not say so. Now, as to this alleged combine of the pork packers to keep down the price of hogs, I
do not believe that there is any such combine. I believe that with hogs at over 8 cents per pound the packers lose money, and that, I think, is very well illustrated, even by the price of bacon. The bacon these packers sell in our own country, I agree, they do not lose money on, because they get a high price in the cities here. But, remember, bacon, is only one part of the hog, not the whole hog by any manner of means. People pay a high price for bacon, and are able to pay it. Go into the clubs, the trains, the hotels, see how many people order bacon for breakfast. It is a credit to the country that there are so many people who can afford it; it was not so a few years ago; there was nothing like the consumption of bacon a few years ago that there is now. But, within the last ten years, or five years at any rate, it has not paid to export bacon with hogs at eight cents per pound or more on foot. Now, as to the Minister of Agriculture and what he ought to do for the farmer, I think, in the first place, this question of chilled meat should be discussed not from a partisan standpoint, but on a commercial basis.


Charles Lewis Owen: From a farmers' standpoint.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Yes, from a farmers' standpoint, which is a commercial basis. The business cannot stand on any other basis; if it does not pay commercially, it is bound to fail whether run by a government, or run by an individual. A business that cannot be run by individuals and made to pay has a mighty poor chance, in my judgment, to be run by any government and made to pay. I am not speaking from a partisan standpoint. It would not matter if hon. gentlemen opposite were in power to-morrow, they could not take up a business that could not be run by a private corporation on a paying basis and run it successfully as a government. I do not believe the government of this country, or of any country, should go into commercial business. I am that much of an individualist. I do not believe to any great extent in paternal government, and I do not believe that the government should go into the chilled meat industry until it can be proven absolutely to them that it would pay them and assist the farmer. If they did we would probably see hon. gentlemen opposite talking and talking, ...week in and week out, trying to show how they are losing money, and probably how corruption was creeping in. That would be something to talk about


Charles Lewis Owen: Don't you think it would be in the interest of the farmers of this country to urge upon the Minister of Agriculture the necessity of increasing the duty

on dressed pork coming from the United States to 4 cents a pound, the same as the duty on pork going from Canada into the United States?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: No, I do not think so. I will answer the hon. gentleman squarely. As a farmer, I am absolutely content with the duty of 2 cents a pound, and I may say to the hon. gentleman that I have asked that question at every farmers' meeting held in my Tiding for the past two vears, and I have not found one farmer who wanted the duty increased on pork coming in from the United States,


Mr. BLAIN.: I would suggest that my hon. friend could find some person to give him an opinion nearer than any one in his own constituency, for instance, his hon. friend sitting at his left now, who took occasion last year, or the year before, to ask for an increase of duty.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I can't help that. I am giving the hon. gentleman my own opinion. I do think, though, that if we could get the duty taken off pork going into the United States by taking the duty off pork coming into Canada it would benefit the farmers of Ontario to such an extent that you could hardly calculate it. I base this statement on the prices of pork in the United States during the last five years.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: Do I understand the hon. gentleman to say that he would advocate the free admission of Canadian pork into the United States on condition of the free admission of American pork into Canada?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Yes.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: The price of our pork is a good deal higher than theirs.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Is it? Sir, the hon. gentleman cannot show me in any chief market in the United States where their pork is not higher to-day than it is in anyf chief market in Canada.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: Is it not a fact that Canadian pork brings a better price in the British markets than American pork?


Edward Walter Nesbitt: No, it is not a fact. It is not a fact that Canadian beef brings a better price than American beef. But it is a fact that American beef brings from 4 to a cent a pound more in England than Canadian beef. That is a fact, as the hon. gentleman will see by the quotations.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: Let me inform the hon. gentleman that the Minister of Agriculture's own commission stated that Canadian beef brought a better price in the British market than American beef.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I cannot help that. I am giving the market quotations. Now, Mr. OWEN. '
Sir, I have only to say, in conclusion, that I hope the Minister of Agriculture will do everything he can to assist the farmers of Canada, not alone the farmers of Ontario, but of all Canada, in reducing the transportation price of their goods to market. That is the main thing we want to-day. We also want as much information as we can get concerning experiments that have been carried on successfully, either in stock raising or producing grain at the experimental farms throughout Canada.


Mr. JOHN HEBEON (Macleod).: My excuse for addressing the House on this subject is the fact that a portion of my constituency is vitally interested in it. Perhaps if I were in the fortunate position of my hon. friend from North Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt), who has just taken his seat, I might not be here to complain about conditions in the northwest. He has certainly-painted a very rosy picture of the conditions of the farmers in his own locality. I am sorry to say, however, that the farmers in the part of the country where I reside do not consider themselves as occupying so favourable a position. Now, the great expansion of the grain growing industry in the west is something of which we are all proud. Its growth in recent years has been so phenomenal and so extensively advertised that it has in some measure overshadowed every other branch of agriculture. More especially has it overshadowed the cattle raising industry, which, though, perhaps, not so remunerative to individuals, is of just as great economic value to the nation. I may say that it is only within the last seven or eight years that farmers have come into our country and taken possession of the soil for the purpose of agriculture, but the advance has certainly been phenomenal during that short period. Places which were oncp noted for growing a splendid quality of beef, perhaps the best in Canada, if not the best on the continent, axe now noted for growing a very special quality of wheat. That is partially because of people abandoning cattle raising and going into wheat growing. Grain growing is a great industry, and if we consider its relative importance in the world's trade with dairying and cattle raising, we must come to the conclusion that the latter is the basic industry, upon the success of which our whole fabric of agriculture rests. I think we all agree that without cattle to consume a large portion of the products of the farm, the raising of grain would eventually become a failure. Although our fields are fertile at the present time, we will have to face that condition the same as other countries are facing it to-day. Let us examine the trade figures. Last year we exported, of animals and their produce, $53,926,515. In 1903 the figures were $69,817,542. This is a falling off in 6 years of

$16,000,000 in our exports of animals and their products.
Our exports of agricultural products last year were $90,000,000 in round numbers of which $88,000,000 in round numbers was the value of bread-stuffs. These figures in 1903 amounted to only $44,624,000. It will thus be seen that while the value of our exports of agricultural products is increasing, the value of our exports of animal products is declining. This line of products has doubled practically in six years. We find also that in the chief market of the world, Great Britain, the imports, in 1875 and in 1908 were as follow :
Imports of Imports
Year.	Cereals.	of Meats.1875	$284,000,000	$ 83,500,0001908	
368,000,000	247,000,000
From these figures we deduct that Great Britain is every year increasing her imports of meat while we are increasing our export of cereals at the expense of our cattle trade. These figures speak for themselves and go to show that we are working along in the opposite direction to what would be the natural course of events if we were working for the best advantage of the people of this country, taking advantage of the best market of the world in two lines of products for the production of which the country is equally adapted.
I have here two publications authorized by this government, one an Atlas in Canada, dated 1910 and the other the Report of Dr. Rutherford, chief of the veterinary service, and live stock commissioner for Canada. At page 50 of the Atlas I find a picture of a herd of steers and a beautiful ranch and I read beneath it :
More than 71,000 head of cattle, over $3,000,000, are the handsome figures representing in 1906 the sales of surplus stock by farmers in this newly-settled Alberta country. These figures will look small, however, a few years hence, when the fine grazing and even climate of the districts west of Edmonton and Calgary become as well known and highly appreciated as they will be soon.
This beautiful picture of the ranch was drawn in 1906. At page 53 of the same work I find :
From the ranches of the province 75,000 head of cattle were sold last year, the total value being over three million dollars and over one million dollars was received in the sale of horses marketed during the year.
The number of cattle exported from Alberta in 1903 was 18,500, valued at $825,000; in 1905 this number was increased to 74,300, valued at three and a half million dollars.
That was an increase from 1903 to 1905, in two years, from 18,000 to 74,000 head. These are fine figures and this a very rosy picture. But let me turn to the special report of Dr. J. G. Rutherford, issued in
1909, under authority of the Minister of Agriculture whose name appears in large letters on the front page. On page 2, under the head ' History of Canadian "Ranches ', the first sentence reads :
The ranching industry in Canada is rapidly passing. In Saskatchewan and Alberta the handwriting is already on the wall, and in these provinces it is only a matter of time until even the districts still regarded as unfit for general agriculture will, through modern methods of dry farming or by means of irrigation, be brought under cultivation.
There is no question regarding the truth of the statements of this paragraph of the report of Dr. Rutherford, because this ranch country which at one time extended over perhaps half a million square miles of our province has dwindled down until it is contained in an area of perhaps 10,000 square miles with Medicine Hat in Alberta about the centre of the ranching business. So you may see from the ranching point of view that the handwriting is certainly on the wall and that the industry will very soon be a thing of the past.
This is not a new question, it has been placed before the government on various occasions in the last four or five years, it has been brought to the attention of the Minister of Agriculture and the government again and again. We are about tired of calling for aid and are almost reconciled to our fate. Our only hope is that a change of government and a new policy may come before the cattle trade in the west-is killed altogether. What we want is a government that will take an interest in the agricultural interests of this country and a Minister of Agriculture who will be ready to see that the farmers of Canada get what they are entitled to. The farming interests constitute a large percentage of our population, it is the producing element of our population and at present the farmers are certainly getting very little recognition from this government, they are not getting what they should get, and I see no hope for the people of our country except a change of government which I think will certainly come on the first opportunity the people have to express their will. It is not only in the west that complaints are being made. Only the other day at a meeting of live-stock men in Guelph it was pointed out that government neglect was killing this great industry in every part of Canada. I take it that the chief aim of a government is not to collect taxation, not to help grafters or friends, but to place the national industries of the country on a sound and stable basis. The stock-raising business is one of the most important industries that a country can possess. Every one knows that unless we soon undertake mixed farming in the west, it will not be many years until we will
124.3

cease to grow the grain of which we are now so proud. The grain-growers are crowding out the ranch-men and cattle-rangers but the grain men will soon need the cattle to restore to the soil the fertility which grain-growing takes away from it. That is a maxim known to every man interested in agriculture. This government has been warned again and again 'by its own officials against neglecting this industry but nothing has 'been done. Why is the cattle <and live-stock trade of this country declining? Because the business from an international standpoint is passing through a change in conditions. There has been a great revolution in the trade, in the manner of handling the export of meat and this government has not realized it. New methods must he' adopted if we are to hold our own and succeed. In the old days the cattle were driven off the range, shipped in cars to the seaboard and alive to the old country. Those that were in good condition were killed on arrival and those that were not were sent out to British farms to graze and fatten and were ultimately slaughtered and sold as British beef.
A strong agitation sprang up in the old country against this system. The farmers there wanted protection. Even in free trade England they got their protection under an assumed name. It was claimed that this system endangered the health of British herds, and an embargo was placed on foreign cattle. This was done and all foreign cattle sent to England have to be slaughtered on arrival. This has virtually killed the cattle trade in western cattle.


Mr.  R. G.@: Matthews, secretary of the Western Stock Grower's Association, in an address before the great meeting of the National Live Stock Association in Ottawa, 1908, said:
We are within reasonable distance of the end, and it is only a question of a short time under present conditions when the western provinces will he importing beef instead of exporting it.
At present it costs from $3 to $32 to land a head of cattle from the west to Liverpool. When they get there they do not bring as much as other cattle because of the long journey and the shrinkage. Mr. Greig, of Winnipeg, who is well posted on this subject, some time ago gave the price in Liverpool as follows:
American cattle	 13 00 cents per lb.
Canadian cattle	 12 30	"
Canadian ranch cattle.. .. 10-28	"
As soon as the embargo was placed upon cattle other countries began to equip themselves to meet the changed conditions in trade. First to adjust themselves to the changes, came the consuming countries, England, France and Germany. They in-Mr. HERRON.
augurated large systems of cold storage warehouses. The exigencies of the law would not permit of the cattle being held alive in England to meet market conditions, so it was arranged that the beef that was slaughtered would be held for the market, and thus steady prices. It is now estimated that Great Britain passes annually through its cold storage warehouses over a billion dollars worth of meat products. No sooner were these warehouses established in England than foreign shippers of live stock began to realize that it would be much to their own advantage to go into the cold storage business also and kill the cattle at home. Now the bulk of meats shipped from the Argentine Republic and from the United States, that used formerly to be shipped on the hoof, are shipped in cold storage. In both the Argentine Republic and the United States the trade in live stock had been well organized and it was not very hard to get the money to build cold storage and embark in the new business. Private enterprises worked out the problem, but at the same time the business resolved itself into trusts. The ' Big Six ' packing houses now handle all the meat products of the United States, which is said to amount to $1,300,000,000 annually that passes through cold storage for home and foreign shipments. The value of these cold storage warehouses and freezers is placed at $30,000,000. In 1899 the trade had required 9,164 cars. Now there are over 100,000 refrigerator cars in use.
In the Argentine Republic the ' Big Eight ' companies do the chilled meat trade, both domestic and foreign. This foreign chilled meat trade in 1907 amounted to" $40,000,000, an increase in seven years of $32,000,000. The live stock export trade in 1900 amounted only to $8,444,410. It will thus be seen that cold storage in the Argentine in less than ten years has increased exports 500 per cent.
In the days when cattle were shipped into Great Britain on the hoof - from Canada, the Argentine and United States, the Australian and New Zealand trade did not amount to much. The distance was too great to ship cattle alive, and the only trade that could be carried on was frozen mutton. The geographical position of Canada, and her nearness to the British market gives her a vast advantage. The manner in which this trade in frozen mutton was conducted by New Zealand, however, showed the way to the Argentine and the United States, when they inaugurated their chilled meat trade. Owing to the distance New Zealand and Australia are from the British market their meat products have to be sent in a frozen state which take from their value about 50 per cent, whereas Canadian meat products are

practically the same value on the British market as fresh slaughtered meat. The embargo placed on cattle by the British government, gave Australia and New Zealand an opportunity to participate in the chilled meat trade, and both these countries have become extensive shippers. New Zealand with her small population now ships about $21,000,000 worth of chilled meat per year; Australia about $10,000,000 worth per year. In 1878, 32 years ago, New Zealand did not ship one dollar's worth.
In these countries, the cattle trade was much in the same position as it is at present in western Canada. The government however, in the face of tremendous depression in trade, and hard times, faced the situation, and these countries, Australia and New Zealand, began establishing cold storage depots throughout the country, where mutton, beef and farm produce could be gathered, chilled and shipped to the British markets. The result has more than justified this paternal action. Business has expended, and to-day we are purchasing New Zealand butter and Australia's chilled and frozen mutton in British Columbia and Alberta.
Now, what lessons are we to learn from the experience of other countries? We know that our trade is adversely affected. We know that that trade is iso affected by the lack of proper transportation facilities. We know now that there is not -sufficient private capital available to take a hold of the business in a proper manner in the west; and we know that, if it should, the farmers and ranchers would soon be in the clutches of trusts, that we would have another Big Six or Big Eight doing the cold meat business for us, and that we would have to take whatever price the dealers chose to pay to us for our live stock.
The conditions which prevail in our western country, with its enormous influx of new settlers, and the great opportunities for speculation, which are open to people with money, are such that it will be impossible to raise money there to establish the necessary facilities for the shipping of meat in proper condition. It is because of the lack of these facilities that the meat industry of that country has sunk to such a deplorable position as it is in to-day, and unless the government sees its way to do something to revive that industry, it i;s going to be in a very bad condition in the near future.
With the examples of these other countries before us, we must come to the conclusion that this government should follow the example of New Zealand or Australia. Cold storage warehouses should be established by the government and the railways should be compelled to supply us with refrigerator cars. This is the only solution of this question. It will take a'
long time for private enterprises to build this trade up as it should be. In the meantime, we may be left hopelessly behind in the markets of the world, as far as chilled meat trade is concerned.
The hon. Minister of Agriculture may say that the number of cattle in the west is not sufficient to justify any expenditure upon cold storage warehouses by the government. If the government showed any disposition to provide these facilities, it would not be very long until there would be plenty of cattle in the west. The growth of the trade of New Zealand and Australia proves this. This is an illustration of the old proverb, where there is a will there is_ a way. If the minister took a proper interest in that country, he would find a way to help the ranchers; and there is no doubt that if he encouraged that business as he might and should, tire supply would, in a short time, be ample to fulfil all the requirements.. There would be no difficulty about the supply if there were only a steady market and a better mode of transportation.
The Prime Minister says that he is opposed to government ownership, but is in favour of government control. I suppose he means by that, that he is not in favour of the government owning utilities, but prefers the trusts to control the government, which is not exactly what he says, but is how it works out.
For my part, I believe in the government establishing these warehouses, and operating them as part of our transportation system. This plan has worked successfully in New Zealand and Australia and there is no reason why it should not work out successfully here. But under present conditions anything is better than nothing.
The western farms, if they are going to be the graneries of the world, must have fertile fields. To accomplish this, we must have cattle raising as well as gra'in growing. In order to succeed in cattle raising we must adopt modern methods, and it is not too much for us to expect or to ask from this government to do what has been done in other colonies successfully, and establish cold storage warehouses in the west, in order to encourage the export of chilled meats to the markets of the world. The farmer then will be pocketing the difference in the freight and the shrinkage which in itself is a very large profit, and Canada will very soon take its former position in the foreign markets as a meat and produce exporting country.
I have here a private letter from which I wish to read a short extract to show the experience of a very large shipper of cattle from our country to the old country. He says:-	,

1248'
I will now endeavour to give you whatever little information I have along these lines. I have myself seen cattle loaded here in Alberta, and thirty days afterwards I saw the same cattle being slaughtered at Liverpool, England, and while I have no figures to designate the exact shrinkage in this particular shipment, it was almost impossible to recognize them as being the same cattle. They had lost very materially in weight, and showed that they had suffered from the hardships of the trip. We have no positive figures of the shrinkage of the cattle from here to Liverpool, but my judgment would be that they would lose fully 20 per cent.
I have also a clipping from the Edmon^ ton * News ' of February 19, 1910, which gives a very good description of the situation as it was in Alberta at that time:-
One of the most important matters before the people of Alberta is that of chilled meat. It is absolutely essential to the prosperity of the province, both in town and country, that the value of our flocks and herds should not only be maintained but increased, and there never was a more opportune time than now to strengthen the hands of the farmer and stock-raiser in the production of beef and mutton.
It is roughly computed that the average price of first-class beef for the last three years has been from 3 to 3} cents on foot, hardly a paying proposition to the stock-raiser. The figure average would not be at all likely to go over 3J cents per pound. This is a most unsatisfactory state of affairs when we consider our many and great natural advantages-
What seems to be mostly required is a stable and steady market for live stock the year round. This can only be obtained by cold storage and chilled meat exportation. By this latter method not only would the grower obtain a far better price for his beef cattle, but the markets would be steady and such as he could depend upon. It would be a fairly safe estimate to make, that good, well-fed cattle could be sustained in price at 5 cents per pound, and would seldom if ever go below that mark. The difference between selling a good 3-year-old steer of, say 1,200 pounds weight, between 3 cents and 5 cents per pound is $36 in one case, $60 in the other, a differ ence of $24.	_
Counting the cost of rearing, attention and feed, three-year-old steers, sold at 3 cents per pound, represent in most cases a deficit, while if the same animals are sold at 4 j, even or 5 cents per pound and over, they represent a healthy state of trade and are a source of profit to their owner who is encouraged to go on and bring others into the business.
This extra money earned would not only benefit the producer, but would also be found circulating in all branches of trade and would be a benefit to the whole community.
A question was raised by one speaker in reference to the prices of meat in the various large markets of the world. On the date on which this article appeared, beef was selling in Winnipeg at $3.76 per 100 pounds, while the same class of 'beef Mr. HERRON.
was selling at Chicago at $6,27 per 100 pounds. This shows that for some reason or other the market in our country is in a very unhealthy state. If this government will not do something for the farming interest, that interest is certainly bound to suffer. If our grain fields are to be maintained, if we are to continue a wheat producing country, our farmers must have stock with which to replenish the land; now under present conditions I know from experience in the province in which I live that there are farmers in that province who are growing as high as 20,000 bushels of wheat and yet who do not own 10 head of cattle. I know of dozens more who grow 10,000 bushels of wheat each and have not more than five or ten head of cattle. If the government were willing to do something for the farmers, if the Minister of Agriculture were in earnest, I can see no reason wny we would not have in Alberta one of the greatest cattle producing countries in the west. Such a system would benefit local consumers as well as add to the profits of the producers. Just to show the climatic conditions we enjoy, I might point out that in the early days we had thousands of cattle ranging at large over the hills with no provision for feed and shelter except what nature provided. That state of things continued during a number of years which shows that by handling this business in a proper way we would become one of the greatest cattle producing countries in the world. We have the area and the climatic conditions, we have everything at our hands for the purpose. The hon. minister has said that the reason the government are not establishing these cold storage plants is because there is not sufficient supply for them. Well, the supply will come if we had only a steady market. It has been shown by other gentlemen who have addressed the House that at certain seasons of the year when cattle and hogs are slaughtered, as soon as the first consignments are put on the market down go the prices ; and I have shown that prices have gone as low for cattle as 14 cents a pound on the hoof and for hogs as low as 34 cents. Under such conditions it is impossible for farmers to raise cattle, so that if the government will not do somettnng to encourage this industry it will soon become a thing of the past and the whole country will suffer even from a wheat producing standpoint.


Mr. A. W. SMITH (North Middlesex).: To a considerable extent, Mr. Speaker, I am in sympathy with the resolution offered by my hon. friend from East Grey (Mr. Sproule). I am always in sympathy with anything w-hich has a tendency to benefit the farmer. I agree with the hon. gentleman that not enough has been done in the

farming interest, but I am convinced that more has been done than my hon. friend is [DOT]willing to admit. I regret exceedingly the doleful tone in which he introduced his resolution and the despairing view he took with regard to the live-stock of Canada. With his statement of the case I am not at all prepared to agree, and am convinced that the deductions he made from the figures he was able to produce were not warranted. The fact that our export of live-stock has decreased, he considers an indication of the decay and the unprofitableness of the live-stock industry. This is not a correct diagnosis of the case. The fact that less cattle are exported from Canada does not mean at all that our production of cattle has decreased, but what it does mean is that they are being consumed in Canada instead of exported. In proof of this let me point to the facts as I find them in the United States report. The advanced report of their census, taken this year regarding live-stock, would indicate that the number of cattle in the United States has increased by several millions as compared with several years ago ; and yet reading down the Trade -and Commerce report I notice that in 1900 the United States exported to Great Britain and other foreign countries nearly 6,000,000 hundred weight of pork, bacon and other animal products, whereas, in 1909 they exported only some 3,326,000 hundred weight. From Canada I find that in 1900 we exported 748,000 hundred weight and in 1909 only 497,000 hundred weight, which is not nearly the ratio of decrease that occurred in the United States, where notwithstanding the large decrease in exports, the number of cattle had increased as shown by their census so largely in those ten years. It cannot, therefore, be inferred that Canada's production is decreasing in pork, bacon, hams, cattle and sheep and their meat equivalents.
Take the exports of beef from the United States, in 1900 there were 5,693,000 hundred weight exported to Great Britain, and in 1909, 2,404,000 hundred weight, while from the Dominion of Canada the exports were 708,000 hundred weight in 1900 and 715,000 hundred weight in 1909, which would indicate that the increase in cattle and beef and other products had been greater in Canada than in the United States, instead of decreasing as the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule) has tried to make out, taking our exports as a basis.
Taking the exports to Great Britain of mutton, I find that from the United States, in 1900, 82,000 cwt. were exported, -and in 1909 that had been reduced to 6,000 cwt., whilst in the Dominion of Canada 26,000 cwt. in 1900 had been reduced to 2,000 cwt. in 1909, a decrease quite in correspondence with the decrease in the United States, yet it is claimed that the increase in the United 40
States of live sheep is almost one-eighth in the same period of time, from which I think I can easily conclude that the number of sheep has not decreased in Canada. As a matter of fact, the farmers engaged in livestock and who combine that with other branches of their farming are undoubtedly our most prosperous farmers. The hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule) indicated that in other branches of agriculture there was prosperity among the farmers because of their export of products being larger than that of livestock. That is not the case. Any person conversant with the farming community will know that when he wants to see the most decided indications of prosperity among the farmers he must look almost invariably to those engaged in livestock in some way. Further than that, the financial condition of the livestock men, or those who make livestock a considerable part of their business, is better than that of those engaged in other lines of farming. Notwithstanding the assumption that the livestock industry of our Dominion is going to the dogs, as a matter of fact, there is a decided increase in the interest taken in all branches of livestock, and particularly in the one referred to by the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule) as being in a very distressed condition-the sheep industry. We find that there is a marked revival in this industry. And there is good reason for it. For a few years past the profits of sheep raising have been much greater than they were before, and this has been an incentive to a large number of farmers to introduce small flocks. Those in the west engaged largely in grain growing are adopting this method. In proof of this I may state that during the present year in the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan a number of carloads of sheep have been introduced by the assistance of the livestock associations, which have been assisted in turn by the government. These sheep were sold by auction. Though the promoters of the scheme anticipated that there would be a deficit on the transaction the grain growing farmers were so anxious to secure the foundations of flocks of sheep that there was a profit from the transaction. In every country where grain farming has been carried to -an extreme the impoverishment of the soil has followed. The people, after they have taken the cream from the soil by grain growing, fall back on live stock to revive the soil and bring it into a state of fertility. One of the chief reasons why the livestock interests are prospering is the increase in the price. All kinds of livestock are higher than they were fourteen years ago. Take, for instance, horses. At that time, if we were able to sell them at all, they were bought very largely jor export, and at a very small price. And the number of horses exported and the prices that we obtained at that



time made horses a very considerable item in the exports of farm products. To-day we export scarcely any horses, and yet our production is a great deal larger and the prices we obtain are higher. Now, these horses, instead of being exported, are bought and taken out to western Canada. There they are purchased very largely by the farmers and still more largely, probably, for construction on the great Transcontinental and other railways. The number of cattle exported from the Dominion is undoubtedly considerably less than it was some years ago. There is good reason for this. The price is higher than it was at that time, so that the farmer is actually making more money from the produce of the farm in the shape of cattle than he was at that time. The home consumption is so much greater now than it was then that it absorbs all classes of cattle. The butcher cattle of our Toronto and Montreal markets are selling at almost as high prices as the cattle for export. The reason is that there is not sufficient supply of butcher cattle on the market, and the buyers are obliged to take some of those 'which otherwise would be exported. Then, with regard to the western cattle, as the hon. member for North Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt) pointed out, so great has been the demand for home consumption that not only have large numbers of cattle been kept here of the class that were formerly exported, but they have taken the feeder class of cattle, which formerly were taken to the country and returned prime export animals and' have used them for consumption in Canada. This has necessitated the importation from the west of a large number of cattle. Hundreds and hundreds of carloads have been brought into Ontario and sold to the Ontario farmers .as feeders. The result has been higher prices for western cattle than have * prevailed in the western provinces for many years.
Now, with regard to the sheep industry, while the Minister of Agriculture said there were certain reasons, some of them climatic, why that industry has not increased as rapidly as it might, I think that on the whole, we have not much reason to complain. It is to be remembered that our sheep breeders have been highly successful in all the large exhibitions held in the United States, where our Canadian animals have succeeded in winning the highest trophies. Year after year ^Canadian breeders bring their sheep into competition with the best that can be produced in any country, and have been able to carry away the highest honours. Particularly is this the case with regard to sheep for mutton. During the last seven years five times has the grand championship of America for the best mutton sheep been won by Canadians. (The same remark may be made with regard to horses, and to a cer-Mr. SMITH (Middlesex).
tain extent, with regard to cattle. While we have not come into competition with the United States to a great extent with respect to swine, yet when our product has been brought face to face with the American product we have been able to secure very satisfactory results. This would indicate that we are not behind the Americans in the production of the best class of sheep, horses, cattle or swine. I think one of the reasons why our farmers do not engage more largely in sheep-raising, is that they find many other lines of the live stock industry more profitable than sheep-raising, and naturally they choose those lines which give the best returns. On the whole we are able to show that the raising of sheep, mutton sheep particularly, is being profitably carried on ,in Canada.
One paragraph of the motion of the hon. member for East Grey calls upon the government to pay greater attention to cold storage transportation. On this point I think the Minister of Agriculture was quite correct when he said that so far as cold storage transportation is concerned, it is quite equal to the' requirements of the country at the present time. I have no doubt that as the requirements of the country call for greater cold storage facilities, they will be provided by the government. As to the question of abattoirs, or slaughter houses, I think the position of the Minister of Agriculture is quite sound, I do not think the time has yet arrived when the farmers of Canada are able to guarantee a sufficient number of cattle, sheep or swine to warrant the government in expending for abattoirs so large a sum of money as has been mentioned. Some hon. members opposite have spoken of the $8,000,000 proposed to be expended for this purpose as a paltry sum. I consider it as a considerable sum, especially as it would be expended in the way of experiment. As in respect to cold storage facilities, so in respect to abattoirs, I have no_ doubt that just as soon as the necessity arises the government will furnish all the assistance that is required. It is from the province of Alberta that the most urgent requests have come to the government for the establishment of government owned abattoirs. Let me point out that the provincial government of Alberta have been urged very strongly to provide packing houses under government control, or built by the government, for the use of the people. After a considerable amount of discussion the provincial government in 1908 made this proposition, that just so soon as the farmers of Alberta were prepared to guarantee a sufficient number of hogs to warrant the government in providing the packing houses, that would be done, and up to this time no such guarantee has been provided. And yet during these last two years the farmers

of Alberta have been receiving for their hogs a larger price than in any previous year. This I think is an argument in support of the position that the time has not yet arrived when the farmers of the Dominion of Canada are able to guarantee a sufficient number of cattle, sheep or swine to warrant the government in undertaking an enterprise of that kind.
As I said in the beginning of my remarks, I am to a large extent in sympathy with the motion of my hon. friend from East Grey. While I would be willing to support him in any move having for its object the benefit of the farmers, yet, after all that the government of Canada and the Minister of Agriculture have succeeded in doing for the farmers, I would certainly be unwilling to support a motion practically censuring them for not doing anything at all. For this reason I shall be obliged to vote against the motion.


William Henry Sharpe: Mr. Speaker, I hope the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat (Mr. Smith, iunmiie-sex, N.) will forgive me if I do not follow him in his argument, but I shall endeavour to meet some of the points advanced by him as I go along. I wish to congratulate the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule) for bringing this matter before the government at this time, because the chilled meat trade in Western Canada is a very important question. The minister said this afternoon that he was pleased and satisfied with the conditions throughout Canada in connection with the dead meat business. If so the hon. gentleman is easily satisfied or else he does not understand the conditions. He practically admitted in his speech this afternoon that as far as his own department is concerned it was a failure, and that he had not been making good as Minister of Agriculture. I would ask him if he has ever had this question of the chilled meat trade investigated in connection with Australia, the Argentine Republic or the United States? This is something that he should do, he should go into it very fully. He said this afternoon that he had always followed out the suggestions made by his employees. I understand that Dr. Rutherford advised the government to establish a cold storage system for chilled meat throughout Canada. I may be wrong in this, but I understand that to be a fact.
The reason for the high price of beef in Canada to-day is that the meat combine of Western Canada and the hog combine of Western Canada have driven the producers out of the business. The minister has been asked time and time again to investigate the meat trade of Canada. Delegation after delegation has come to Ottawa and made this request and in each case the minister has refused to investigate. Then the farmers of Manitoba took the matter up in con-40^
nection with the provincial government ; they asked the Roblin government to investigate it, a provincial commission was appointed, that commission travelled from one end of the province to the other, thoroughly investigating the conditions. Did they find that the farmers were satisfied and making money out of the cattle trade? No, they did not, they found that on every beef that a farmer raised to 3 years old he lost $5.80. They also found that the dealer made $13.60 on each beef, and that the abattoir people or the beef combine of Western Canada made $23.10 on every head of cattle on which the producer was losing $5.80. These are the actual conditions in Western Canada to-day and these are the conditions with which the Minister of Agriculture says he is perfectly satisfied. I am told that in Montreal the public abattoir slaughters the beef and hands it out to the retailer for one dollar a head, but we in Western Canada have to pay $23.10 for the same service. I say it is a shame that such conditions should exist. I represent a rural constituency and I know of lots of farmers throughout my constituency who in the past have kept 50, 75 and 100 head of cattle, but who are now entirely going out of that business because there is absolutely no money in it for them. The scarcity of beef and pork in this country to-day and the high price of these products is due to the driving of these men from the business. The same conditions pertain to Alberta and Saskatchewan as you have been told here to-night. We have to compete not only with the beef combine and the pork combine in Western Canada; even the transportation companies are standing in with these large dealers and opposing everything in connection with a private man shipping cattle in any shape or form. How do they do it? A man will come into a station and ask for cars. The agent will say: Yes, we will have cars here for you on a certain day. The man then drives in his stock, perhaps 300 or 400 head, and he will have to hold these cattle there for days at a time. The transportation companies will not supply the cars as they agreed to do. If any person doubts this statement, let him look at the report of the second general convention of the National Live Stock Association. In it he will find that the conditions are just as I say. They hold the cars back and will not supply them. Then the dealer, the agent of the beef combine, will come along and will offer the man in the first place $27.50 a head for his stock. He refuses to take it and then after a few days the agent returns and offers him $40. There is no car in sight, but the producer refuses this price also. Then they hold him up a day or two longer and the agent offers him $42. He has to take this price because he is feeding this stock with hay at $6, $8

and $10 a ton. This is the way in which we are being held up not only by the beef trust but by the transportation companies as well, and this is the condition with which the minister is satisfied.
The minister has also been asked time and time again to open up new markets. There are resolutions in this report asking him to open new markets, and I would like to know if he has done it, if he has ever made any attempt to open a market for the thoroughbred stock of this country. The Live Stock Association of Canada have again and again asked him to go into the cold storage business and investigate it, and I think it is time the minister was doing something of this kind to assist the cold storage industry-or else he should go to the Senate and allow some other man to do it. The minister's reply is at page 95 of this report. The reason he there gives to the stock men for not going into the cold storage business in this country is not as he has told us here to-day. He says in this report that he will not go into this business because he might have to spend some money in Liverpool. I say it makes no difference where he spends the money of this country if it will relieve the situation and help out the settlers throughout Canada. Seemingly he will not help the producer either at home or abroad.
The Minister of Agriculture has changed a good deal since last year or the year before in stating his reasons why the export of farm products is decreasing year after year. To-day, he says the decrease is because of home consumption, but in 1909 he said it was because the farmers of Canada were slipshod, indifferent, lazy and careless. To-day he has changed his tune. Sir, when the Minister of Agriculture calls the farmers of this country slipshod, lazy and careless he is far beside the mark. I would account for the decrease in our exports because of the fact that the minister and the government have not gone into this question thor-1 oughly and worked ft out to a successful issue as they should have done. Last year or the year before the minister sent a commission to England, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark and Holland to look into the swine business, but he knows as well as I know, and I know as well as he knows, that we can grow as good pork in Canada as can be grown anywhere in the world, and that no pork products bring a higher price on the market than do ours. But, he wanted to give these friends of his a jaunt to the old country and so he sent them off on this commission, which cost' the people of Canada $8,242.11, and I have no hesitation in saying that the report they brought back is absolutely not worth one cent. Again, the minister put the cart before the horse. If he had sent his Mr. SHARPE (Lisgar).
commission to Australia, to the Argentine republic, or to the United States to inquire into how they handle their cold storage and chilled meat business, there might have been some benefit accruing to the country, but as usual, the minister went the wrong way about it. The hon. gentleman from North Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt) said the government should not do this, that, and the other thing, but in my opinion one of the functions of the govern-' ment is to stand between the consumer and the producer to see that there is no undue toll taken by the one from the other, and if they find that one class of our people is being robbed by the other it is their duty to come to the relief of the oppressed. The hon. member for Ottawa (Mr. McGiverin) gave us figures some time ago to show the great prosperity of Canada, but he forgot to tell us that the exportation of everything raised and grown on the farms of this country, except wheat,! is decreasing every year. Canada is a farming country, and surely such a condition should not exist. I shall give to the House figures in connection with some of the most important branches of the live stock industry on the farm to show how their exportation is decreasing year by
year.
EXPORT OE HAMS AND BACON. Year.	Value.
1903	$15,906,000
1909	 8,835,000


EXPORTS OF CHEESE.
[Stage Direction]
Year.	-	Value.
1903	$24,776,400
1909	 20,000,000

[Stage Direction]
Year.	Value.
1903	 $1,655,000
1909	 169,000

[Stage Direction]
Year.	Value.
1903	 $1,447,170
1909	 367,250

[Stage Direction]
Year.	Value.
1903	 $2,109,380
1909	 707,000

[Stage Direction]
Year.	Value.
1903	  $7,086,000
1909	 1,087,000
From these figures it will be seen that as the minister said this afternoon, our export of butter is getting very close to the vanishing point. Then, let us look at our exports of cattle:-

[Stage Direction]
Year.	Value.
1906	$11,600,000
1907	 10,900,000
1909	   9,300,000
Here we have a gradual decrease all the way down the line. Last year we shipped

94,314 head of cattle from Canada, and this year we only shipped 72,555 head, or a decrease of 21,759 head in one year. What is the matter; what is wrong with the trade of this country? The Minister of Agriculture says the decrease is accounted for by the increase in home consumption, but Australia and the Argentine republic are expanding just as fast as Canada, and yet the official records of these countries show that instead of the exports of these countries going down year after year, as our exports are, they are growing every year. I would like to ask the Minister of Agriculture if home consumption is decreasing the exports of the farm products of this country, why does not the increased home consumption also decrease the exports of the manufactured products of Canada which are constantly increasing. Well, Sir, the reason to my', mind for the existence of such a condition in Canada simply is that the government is allowing the mergers, the combines, the banks, the loan companies, the insurance companies, the manufacturers, the grain men, and the railway companies, to eat the very life's blood out of the people and to drive them out of the business of raising agricultural products. Tomorrow the farmers from western Canada and from eastern Canada as well will be in Ottawa; their motto is: Equal rights to all and special privileges to none, and what they are coming here to preach to this government is that the combines and the mergers and all the rest of it have thriven under this government as never before in this country.
The right h-on. First Minister was in western Canada during the past summer, and while there, he was told some pretty plain things. Some of the people went so far as to read to him some of the old speeches he had made in 1894, when he was out there the last time before, and it was not very good medicine for the Prime Minister to have to swallow after sixteen years had passed away. The promises lie had made to the people of western Canada during that last trip he had forgotten, or at least he had not carried out, and he certainly did not like to hear them read to him 'the second time. After hearing all that these men had to say to him in western Canada, he invited them to come here; and if he were in his place, I would like to aisk him, what does he expect them to say to him on Friday, when they arrive, that they have not already said to him on his tour in western Canada, during the last summer? They have said to him everything ithat was possible for one man to say to another. They talked very plainly and told him just what they meant and what they expected; but he asked them to come here. What does he expect them to
say to him when they arrive, that they did not say in western Canada? Or was it only a bluff that the old man was trying to work on the farmers of western Canada? I am rather inclined to think it was. But the farmers of western Canada have called the bluff, and they are coming here good and strong; -and I want to say, Mr. Speaker, 'that they are on no fool's errand -they mean business. The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark), told us the other night about the great crowds who went to hear the Prime Minister when he was in western Canada, -and the great reception that he got at every point; but my hon. friend forgot to tell us how disappointed those old supporters of his went away from the meetings. The pleasant smile was there, the smooth speech was there, but the substance which the western farmer wanted, was not there at all. There was no light held out to the western farmer in any speech which the Prime Minister made from one end of the western provinces to the -other. You talk about the Chinese Empire waking up, Mr. Speaker. Why, it is not a patch to the way in which the farmers of western Canada are waking up on this occasion. I want to tell the Prime Minister that if he does not awake to the responsibilities which rest upon him at the present time, the western farmers who are coming heTe, will make him and his government give up their places to a better set of men.
Mr. M. S. SCHELL. (South Oxford).: Mr. .Speaker, we all agree as to the importance of the -subject that has been introduced by the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule), and we are all ready to join with him in urging upon the government at all times any efforts that may be necessary for the promotion of the agricultural interests of the Dominion of Canada. The Minister of Agriculture and the government have accomplished a great deal. I do not think they pretend that they have accomplished all that they can do, or that they propose to do. The hon. member for East Grey has proposed in the resolution that the agricultural, horticultural and animal industries of Canada will be -greatly benefited by the establishment of abattoirs. He enlarged somewhat on the position of the province of Alberta, especially as a stock-raising province, and deplored the condition of the sheep and cattle industries of that province, contending that it was not producing any considerable quantity in proportion to its facilities to its possibilities aind its population. He went on to make comparisons with Australia and with Montana-very unfair comparisons, I think; because any one who understands the conditions of agriculture in either Montana or Australia would not for a moment, make a comparison between those countries and Alberta. After con-

vlncing 'himself that there were very few sheep or cattle raised in Alberta, he concluded that thiis government should at once establish abattoirs in that province to take care of the cattle -and sheep which it is not raising, a very illogical and unsound position. I, for one, am not prepared to support any proposition for the expenditure of $8,000,000 or $10,000,000 or $15,000,000, as he intimated he would be willing to spend for the establishment of abattoirs under government supervision. In the first place, I am -sure that the eastern part of the Dominion of Canada is not suffering for abattoirs, and I am -equally sure that there -is no ground for supposing that the province of Alberta is needing abattoirs, because it has not the cattle nor the sheep to slaughter continuously if it had them. An abattoir will only pay when you have a supply of cattle or sheep or hogs, a-s the case may be, that will enable -the operators to run them continuously. He knows perfectly well that cattle are not being fed during tire winter months in Alberta, and consequently, even if the cattle industry were fostered to a considerable extent, and the people were raising enough -cattl-e to warrant the establishment of an abattoir, their present system of feeding these cattle would not justify the establishment of such an institution. The government of Alberta made very careful inquiry into this question, and concluded that it would not pay them as a government to tak-e this matter in hand, and I believe they were wise and sound in their conclusion." If there is a chance to make money in the -establishment of any business, I believe there is enough capital in the Domlnii-on -of Canada seeking investment to undertake the establishment of -such a business. We have men of large capital who are engaged in the handling of stock, in the killing and curing of meat, wh-o would be quite" willing to undertake thi-s tou-sin-e-ss if they saw that it would pay them to do so.
Coming to the eastern section of the province of Ontario, my hon. friend from Dundas (Mr. Broder) deplored the lessening in the number of cows kept in that province. It is true he admitted that a very severe drought which we had in the eastern part of the province accounted in a measure for the depletion of its herds, and I am not prepared to say that in this he was not right. I have no quarrel whatever with him on that point, and I do not think it bears upon the resolution, but I want to take exception to the conclusion he drew that we are not producing as much cheese, butter and milk in the province of Ontario to-day as we did formerly. Whatever the west may be doing, whether the farmers there are raising as many cattle or sheep as formerly or not, I do not think bears directly on the question before the House, but I assert with all assurance that Mr. M. S. SCHELL.
there is more cheese, butter and milk produced in Ontario to-day than at any period in its history. I have before me a statement made by the secretary of the Western Dairymen's Association recently, in which he gave the figures of the production of cheese and butter this year. He says that this year's cheese output will exceed that of 1909, which w-as 661 tons greater than in 1908. Out of 189 factories, 105 reported an increase. The total output of creamery butter in western Ontario in 1910 was 9,552,000 lbs., an increase of 1,602,000 over 1909, a very large increase for the western half of the province. Now, the eastern part of the province may not have made a like increase, but I believe that if you had the figures you would find that the product which has gone through our factories is larger this year than ever. In addition, we find that our farmers have been exporting cream to the United States' to an extent equivalent to nearly 2,000 boxes of cheese in a year. In addition we have very large milk condensing factories lately established in Ontario. We have one in the town of Ingersoll, which will take in from 90,000 to 100,000 lbs. of milk on an average, but which, in the midsummer, takes in a great deal more than that. We have another large one in Tillsonburg, in the county of Oxford, and there is -also one at Aylmer, in the -county of Elgin, which adjoins Oxford county, which also utilizes a large quantity of milk for condensing purposes. If all these items were taken into consideration it would be found beyond doubt that our dairy production is considerably larger than it has been in former years.
You h-ave been given statements, Sir, showing that the increased home consumption accounts for the lessening of the amount exported, and n-o one will take exception to the figures presented to this House. They may take exception to a certain extent, but every one must admit that, as compared with 1903, which was the banner year in our cheese exports, we have one and a half million more people to feed, so that even if they only consumed $8 or $10 of dairy products per -capita in a year that of itself would mean sufficient, if it were taken into account, to make up a larger amount of exports.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Do these million and a half not raise enough to feed themselves?


Malcolm Smith Schell: They have largely gone to the western provinces and my hon. friend knows that in the west about 99 per cent have gone into grain raising almost exclusively. That was shown by my hon. friend from Pincher Creek (Mr. Herron) when he stated that he knew of many farmers producing 20,000 bushels of wheat who had only 5 or 8 head of cattle. The very fact of this great increase in our popu-

lation directing attention almost exclusively to grain raising and not producing an equivalent proportion of stock, as compared to the rest of the Dominion, answers my hon. friend's question. That- is not all. The increased development of our manufacturing industries, brought about bv the general prosperity and development of our resources, has caused a verv considerable growth of consuming population in the older provinces. Take the city of Montreal, with a population to-day of half a million; take Toronto, with a population of 350,000 in each of these cities the population has almost doubled in the last 8 or 9 years- take the cities of Hamilton, Brantford, Berlin and other manufacturing towns of Ontario, the people living there have to be fed, and where are they to get their extra supplies? The west cannot supply them, because they are not devoting their energies to the production of meat products and therefore it is the provinces of Ontario and Quebec which have to produce these meat products, and this accounts for the export from these provinces diminishing. The unsoundness of the arguments of hon. gentlemen opposite must be apparent to the most casual observer if he looks into the facts honestly and fairly. How are the million, or very nearly so, in our cities to be fed except wTith the products from the farms of Ontario and Quebec? No one will deny that the condition of the people to-day is better than it ever was before; no one will deny that their purchasing power has increased about 100 per cent; no one will deny that the labouring man gets $2 a day where he used to get $1. Instead ftf buying a pint of milk, he buys a quart; instead of buying a pound of butter or cheese, he buys two pounds, and in making that statement I speak from personal knowledge. I have labouring men (in my mind), and I know that to-day they aTe consuming twice the quantities of dairy products that they did even six or eight years ago. These are facts that stand out and have to be met. Any man who will consider for a moment must admit that the reason why we are not exporting in the same ratio as before is to be found in the conditions to which I refer.
Now, I wish to deal briefly with one statement of the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Sharpe). He seemed to take exception to the commission that the Minister of Agriculture sent to Europe to inquire into the hog industry. In one breath these gentlemen complain that the Minister of Agriculture is not spending enough money to promote the interests of agriculture, and in the next they complain about the money that is spent. Here was a commission composed of the brightest, clearest-headed, most capable men engaged in the production and handling of our hog products in the province of Ontario. That
the hon. gentleman should say that it was a waste of money and a mistake on the part of the minister to send these men to Europe to inquire into the markets and conditions there is a surprising fact to me. He asks why the minister did not send them to Australia, to the Argentine, and to the United States to inquire into the cold storage systems of these countries. The hon. gentleman has evidently not oeen keeping himself posted, or he would know that we have a better system of cold storage than exists in any of these countries. There is no difficulty in proving that. In the first place, take Australia and New Zealand. Their system of cold storage is simply one for carrying frozen or chilled meat, a very simple plan of cold storage installation. And the same applies to the Argentine. As to the United States, they are not in it with the Dominion of Canada. They have not a system nearly as well worked out, or under equally good supervision, or as well equipped to meet the requirements, as the system that we have established. Whether it is in transportation by car or in transportation by steamship, we are in an infinitely superior position to the United States or either of the other countries to which the hon. gentleman refers. We find that the American shippers are using our cold storage system between Montreal and Europe in preference to the system between New York or Boston and British ports. They send their tender fruits by our route. Are'they paying the same rate of freight? No, they are paying a considerably higher rate of freight to send these goods by-Montreal than would be necessary to send them by New York or Boston. Do you find the Canadian shippers of the Niagara peninsula shipping by New York? Not at all. They could ship by New York or Boston at a rate of threepence per barrel of apples cheaper than by Montreal, and other products in the'same proportion, but our shippers use our own ports. Late in the season, when the supply of apples is very large and the wreather becomes cool, they do sometimes ship by Boston. But they are not using New York practically at all. We find also that our iced car service^ is proving of immense value and it is being very largely used by our shippers. In 1909 iceing charges of $5 a car were paid on 720 cars by the government, this covering all the cars that were applied for by shippers. In connection with the fruit car service, these charges were paid on 153 cars. This service, as hon. members know, is available during the warmer months, and the figures give us a clear idea of the appreciation with -which the service is regarded by producers. Not onlv are these cars supplied, but the government has established routes, so that the people throughout the various parts of the Dominion are enabled to take advan-

tage of the service. A car may start at any station and the government have provided that portions of cars may be picked up at different stations, and, in that way, the country is (well served. The Canadian Pacific railway have, for instance, 24 routes, the Grand Trunk 20, the Canadian Northern 6, the Central Vermont 5, the Intercolonial 3, the Quebec Central 2, and the Quebec, Montreal and Southern 2, the Napierville Junction 1, the Pere Marquette 1-a total of 64. Of course, as soon as the shipments fall off, the service is discontinued.
In connection also with the cold storage facilities that are afforded in transporting our goods to European ports, I want to say that the government has taken a very advanced position. In providing for inspectors at ports, both on this side and at the ports of embarkation in Europe, I think the government has gone further than any other government of which I am aware of. These inspectors are appointed for the purpose of taking the temperatures of the apartments on ship board in which the products are placed. Not only are the cars supplied with ice for perishable products, but a check is provided on the manner in which the steamship' companies handle the goods, to see that, they are properly unloaded from the cars, properly cared for in the sheds, and pro-, perly loaded on the steamships. Every possible care is taken to insure that these! goods shall arrive in the English market in the best possible condition.
Now, I have said that we have the best system of cold storage on our steamships1 that exists in any country. The government have taken hold of this matter in? a very intelligent and progressive spirit.! This system has been in vogue, not only ioi the last two or three years, but ever since the government came into power in, 1896. ^ At that time there was not a single chemical refrigerator plant on any steam-, ship plying between Canadian and European ports. Prior to 1896, I am willing to admit that ice was used to some extent, but a chemical refrigerator service was not installed until after that date. This government entered into contracts with steamship companies to provide this ser-, vice. Several steamships were fitted up, and after a contract lasting three years, the service was demonstrated to be of such value that the. government did not find it necessary to continue a subsidy to the steamships in order to secure the installation of this service, but the companies, m their own interest, fitted it up at their own expense. The consequence is that every steamship, I believe, that carries our products from Canadian ports to Europe, has this service installed.
I have here some figures that may be of


Malcolm Smith Schell: interest in connection with this subject. I find that there are thirteen steamers, carrying our products to Liverpool; three of them belong to the Allan Line, running between Montreal and Liverpool. There is the White Star Dominion Line, with some five or six steamers plying between Montreal and Liverpool. There is the Canadian Pacific Railway Line, of which there are three steamers operating between those ports. During the last season all these steamers made seventy-six sailings. They have a combined cold storage capacity of 2,067,510 cubic feet. There are eight steamers of the Donaldson Line and the Allan Line going to London. Those eight steamers made fifty-seven sailings, and they had a combined cold storage capacity of 984,850 cubic feet. There are eight steamers going to Glasgow. They made fifty-three sailings, and have a combined cold storage capacity of 939,422 cubic feet. There are six steamers going to Bristol, which made twenty-eight sailings during the season. They have a cold storage capacity of 866,060 cubic feet. To South Africa there are four steamers operating, which made six sailings last year, with a cold storage capacity of 269,294 cubic feet. There was also one steamer to Manchester, five sailings, with a cold storage space of 15,000 cubic feet. There is also cool storage provided for, this costs less than cold storage. To Liverpool there is a cool storage capacity of 281,424 cubic feet; to London, of 2,601,459 cubic feet; to Bristol, of 652,435 cubic feet. There is a total cold storage capacity of 5,142,139 cubic feet, and a total cool storage capacity of 2,535,318 cubic feet. The fact of the matter is that not only are the steamships thus equipped, not only have we the best possible system that is known to-day in any country, and better than is used in any other country, but this system is under government supervision and government inspection, and to a certain extent under government control, at least to the extent that the steamship companies allow the inspectors every opportunity to see whether the service on the ship is up to date, and affords all the facilities that are expected of it. In order to demonstrate the actual condition of the cold storage service, the government have installed what are known as thermograph records, which records are absolutely correct. These are placed on the steamer at Montreal, and make automatic markings of the temperature at all times. They are put in storage, put under lock and key at Montreal, and they cannot be tampered with during the voyage. The inspectors at Liverpool or London or Bristol or Glasgow, for there are inspectors at all these points, go to the steamshiDS when they arrive, take out these thermograph records and make a re-

port thereon. Not only is the report kept at this end, but it is kept at the other end of the route. These reports are returned to the Department of Agriculture and are here on file for the examination of any member of the House or any person who would take the trouble or is sufficiently interested to inquire into this question. I have here a sheet which represents the record for one vessel. I shall not read from it at length, but I wish to show from it the completeness of the record in reference to articles of commerce that are stored in the holds in which these are placed. The record shows the condition in which the goods arrived at the point of export, the chamber in which they were stored in the vessel, whether it was cold storage or cool storage or ordinary storage, showing even the exact place in the vessel in which the goods were stored.


An hon. MEMBER.: Read it.


Malcolm Smith Schell: If you wish to read it you can have it to read at your leisure. I shall not detain the House at any length, but I shall read for your satisfaction if you are anxious to know something. This report is for the ' Lakonia ' of the Donaldson Line sailing Monday, October 31, 1910. It gives a description of the vessel and how it is equipped. Among the articles shipped we find 644 boxes and 527 half boxes of Canadian pears, also barrels and boxes and half boxes of United States pears, and some barrels of United States apples. That report says they were in good condition when they went on board. But here is a further report showing the thermograph record that was placed in the different compartments of this steamer. The number of the thermograph record is placed opposite the articles that were stored in the particular chamber, and from the record you can see just how the temperature was maintained while the goods were in transit. Here is a record of goods put in ordinary storage. An even temperature was maintained from the day the thermograph record was put in until the goods arrived in Glasgow. One day it ran down five or six degrees, then it went up again and ranged about 50 all the way through.


Mr. BOYCE.: Are these original records?


Malcolm Smith Schell: Yes.


Arthur Cyril Boyce: Where did you obtain them?


Malcolm Smith Schell: I got them from the Department of Agriculture, and if the hon. gentleman wishes for some he can go and get five or six hundred or more; they are on file and he can examine them to his own satisfaction.
Here is another record of ordinary storage on this steamer. The thermograph was
placed October 19, in a steamer sailing the 21st, arriving the 31st. This record was placed in No. 5 between decks with apples in ordinary storage. The temperature was about 54 and it did not vary two degrees in all the journey between Montreal and Glasgow. Here is a full report giving the condition, the most ample report that you can imagine, which the inspectors prepare and forward to the department for their information as to whether the goods are being properly cared for-and it must be remembered that these records are accessible to the shipper, who of course is anxious to know whether his goods are being properly taken care of, especially if he is paying for cold storage. Even in ordinary storage he is glad to know what the temperature is.
Here is a record for the cold storage chambers in the same steamer. This one was placed with apples and pears, tender fruits, for which the shippers deemed it advisable to pay the extra cost of cold storage. Any one who knows anything about the export of tender fruits is aware that in order to prevent decay and to ensure their landing in sound condition, just as they left the port of shipment, it is necessary to keep them at a very moderate temperature, and at the same time it is important that the temperature does not go down below 32 degrees, because if it goes down below 32, the apples, pears or other fruits will be frozen, they will at least be chilled and will deteriorate much more speedily as soon as they are taken out of the chamber on the other side; even if they were not absolutely frozen they would soon go off in condition and be of very, little value. The necessity of maintaining an even temperature is such that the steamship companies are held responsible; if the temperature goes below 32, or a safe degree of temperature, they have to stand the loss. How could a shipper know whether a steamship company handled his goods properly or not, if he had not some check? There is no such check on any steamer going from New York or Boston; no other country has a similar service. What was the result? From Canada this year we have shipped successfully the ten-derest fruits that we did not think were capable of being handled with profit to the English market. Peaches were shipped from the Niagara district in boxes of 6 pounds, 20 peaches to a box, and sold at 80c. net back to the shipper in the Niagara peninsula, 4c. apiece for our peaches. This was an experiment, yet our friends say the Department or the Minister of Agriculture is not hunting for new markets. What do you want better than that? Our pears are the same, they are being handled and sold in the European markets with a profit; we can ship the tendarest fruits 1 that we can handle in our Canadian mar-

kets with profit and success to the European markets, with almost equal assurance that they will land in sound condition.
I said it was necessary to maintain an even temperature. I have here the record of a thermograph placed with apples and pears. Almost immediately after the steamer left Montreal the temperature was below 40; it starts just a little above 40, because you lunderstand that w/hen the doors are opened putting in the goods, the temperature rises and it takes a little time to get the temperature down to the normal, but when the doors are closed and the system has been put in complete operation, we find that the temperature runs below 40 and it does not vary 2 degrees in all the transit between Montreal and Glasgow. Here is another record of a thermograph placed with [DOT] apples and pears. It has maintained an even temperature a little higher, hut still below 40. and it is considered that anything between 40 and 34 is quite safe and suitable.
Here is another record below 40, it ranges from 39 to 38; on only one day was it just above 40. The temperature is so even, that the system is as nearly absolutely perfect as any system of cold storage can be. I wish to further emphasize the fact that the Americans are using our cold storage in preference to that on steamships from their own ports, and I shall give a few figures in connection with the quantity of goods exported in cold storage.
Shipments of perishable products in cold storage and cooled air from the port of Montreal, season 1909	(U.S.A. products included.)
In Cold In Cooled
Storage. Air.
Apples (bbls.) Canadian.. .. 5,138	2,447
Apples (boxes) Canadian.. .. 3,304		
Butter (pkgs.) Canadian.. .. 39,218	79
Cheese (boxes) Canadian	 268,470
Meats (boxes) Canadian.. .. 10,906	10,689
Meats (boxes) U.S.A	 43,107	3,689
Lard (pkgs.) U.S.A	 16,026		
Tender fruits (boxes) Cana-
Tender fruits (boxes)U.S.A.. 27,274 Beef (quarters) Canadian... 341
In explanation of these figures, I may point out that they do not use cold storage to any extent for the exportation of cheese because it is not a very perishable article, and if cheese is maintained in the temperature provided bv the cooled air service it is considered by exporters quite ample, and as the rates are lower they largely use the cooled air service. It will be noted that there were, therefore, four times as many boxes of American meats as of Canadian meats in the cold storage chambers. There was no export of Canadian lard because we used all the lard we produced at home.
It will also be seen from these figures Mr. SCHELL.
that nearly three times as many boxes of tender fruits came from the United States as were forwarded gy Canadian shippers. If any of our friends are still skeptical about our service being the best- service provided on this or any other continent they can be supplied with any amount of evidence similar to this, and I submit no better evidence can be found. I have before me a bundle of records from other steamers, and they are open for examination by any lion, gentleman wrho wishes to examine them. Now, Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to take up much time in discussing this question, because the resolution has a practical bearing on the question of cold storage, and I suppose that is what we are called to vote on. While many hon. gentlemen have expressed their appreciation of anything that may have been done for the farmers of Canada along educational lines, I want to say that there is no one more appreciative of this work than I am, or who is more anxious that the work of education in agriculture on the broadest possible lines should be continued, not only by the Dominion Minister of Agriculture, who has done a good deal in that connection, but by the authorities of the provinces as weil. I might mention something that has been done by our Minister of Agriculture for the benefit of the apple growing industry of this country. Some 7 or 8 years ago he sent Mr. McNeill to the county of Oxford to conduct experimental work in spraying our orchards, and Mr. McNeill was assisted by Mr. Harris, of Ingersoll, who bad had considerable experience in that particular work. As a result of the efforts of these two' gentlemen an association was formed at Burgessville, in the county of Oxford, which has been carrying out the work, the foundation of which was laid by Messrs. McNeill and Harris. This association has been producing thousands of barrels of apples, and this year, while the crop has been a comparative failure in many parts of Ontario, the members of the association have had a large crop and have been able to sell their pack at very remunerative prices. Orchards that were not sprayed were as a rule onlv poor, but this association had for sale 4,000 barrels of apples of such high quality that they commanded $3 per barrel on board the car. Mr. Harris has carried on this work on his own account; he has been renting orchards, spraying the trees and taking care of them, and he also had 4,000 barrels of apples which he sold at $3 per barrel on hoard the cars to a former member of this House for shipment to the northwest. This excellent educative work has not been confined simply to the county of Oxford. Not only the association to which I haye referred, but individual farmers, recognizing the benefits which accrue from the proper

care of their orchards, have been enabled to double their crop, and on account of the better quality of the fruit they have been able to double the price per barrel of their apples. As a result of this educative work of the Minister of Agriculture the quantity of fruit produced has increased 100 or 200 per cent, and the quality is so improved that far better prices are obtained. I am sorry that more farmers in the province of Ontario and in the Dominion at large do not properly appreciate what may be accomplished in this direction. I am closely identified with this work, not only as a grower, but as a shipper and handler of fruit; I know what I am talking about, and I say that here is a field for intelligent educative work that means thousands and thousands of dollars of increased revenue to the Dominion of Canada, if that work is conducted on intelligent lines.
Now, I might mention here that there are on the Agricultural Committee of this House many members who profess great consideration for the agricultural interests, but when a meeting of the committee is called a bare dozen members present themselves to hear the addresses delivered to that committee towards the close of the session. These gentlemen profess to be very anxious to serve the farmers, but judging by their attendance at that committee they are not as sincere as they profess to be in advancing the agricultural interests of the Dominion. I may say that a gentleman from the county of Norfolk has promised me that he will appear before the committee to give not only his personal experience but the result of the work carried on in the county of Norfolk in connection with an association of farmers there who are intelligently and extensively following the proper system of spraying and caring for their orchards. When he comes before that committee, I venture to say that every member of it will feel that he has missed something if he does not attend and hear what is being done in the county of Norfolk in this connection. There is wide room for educational work along various lines, and 1 would not for a moment advocate the spending of less money. I believe that the money that has been expended by the Minister of Agriculture has resulted in increased revenue to the Dominion by a hundredfold or a thousandfold. The Department of Agriculture is one which is absolutely above suspicion as to a single dollar ever having been misappropriated in any direction; a department has never be.en better or more intelligently administered; a department that will bear the closest scrutiny by any member of this House, no matter what phase of the subject he may undertake to criticise; a department which you can go through from one end to the other, and
I challenge you to say that you have seen any negligence in its administration. Thousands and millions of dollars are expended in this Dominion for various purposes that receive the approval of the public at large, although they do not return in wealth to the country one tithe of what the money does that is being expended from time to time by the Department of Agriculture; and if any more money can be expended in the interests of agriculture I am in favour of spending it, whether it is $1,000 or $100,000, or even $1,000,000. I know that there is a limit to the amount of money available, and no minister can spend all he would like to spend. I dare say the Minister of Agriculture could spend more money if he had it. Any expenditure in the line of educative work, of demonstration, of experimental work that has for its object the promotion of the agricultural interests of the Dominion of Canada will receive my hearty support at all times ; but a resolution drawn up as this one is with the skill of a lawyer in a most plausible way, on its face not honest in its criticism and its statement of the facts, is one which I cannot see my way to support.


Glenlyon Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I feel that the ground has been so well covered that I should not trespass to any great extent on the good nature of the House, but being a farmer and a cattleman from the west, and a representative of that class, I deem it my duty to rise and voice their sentiments. In this connection I find it strange that all the Liberal members from the west, representing the same interests that I do in that western country, have been silent in this debate. The farmers whom these Liberal members represent will be represented here in a day or two by men chosen by the farmers of the northwestern provinces to come here and ask from this government exactly what is embodied in this resolution; and I fancy that these Liberal members will have a hard question to answer when they are asked by those representatives of the farmers why they did not speak in favour of what the farmers are demanding from this government. The hon. member for South Oxford (Mr. Schell), in referring to this question of abattoirs and cold storage warehouses, said that it was a matter which the local governments of the various provinces could take up very much better than the Dominion government, on the ground that they were nearer the points concerned and knew more about the local conditions. Surely, the hon. member forgot that the western provinces asked for the control of their lands, their timber and their fisheries, and that it was denied to them by this government. That was the

one point in his address that I thought worth referring to. I listened with considerable surprise to our very voluable Minister of Agriculture when he was detailing to us what he had done in the interest of the farmers and spoke of the growth of the industry of agriculture in all its branches. I wondered if he remembered a little speech which he made here, and which is recorded in 'Hansard, when, speaking of these same farmers, he told this House that the reason they were not more successful and that agriculture in Canada was not on a better plane, was that these farmers were indifferent, lazy, careless and slip-shod in their methods. Yet the hon. minister sits there and smiles. I think that as a farmer I could almost demand an apology for such language. As a representative of farmers I feel that he owes it to me and my class. The hon. minister referred to the cold storage system as being very efficient at present as far as it goes. Well, it may be as far as it goes, but the great complaint we make is that it does not go far enough. In fact it does not go any distance and is almost at a vanishing point.
In speaking of the sheep industry, the Minister of Agriculture said that sheep require a larger range than other stock. When he makes that statement, he displays a lack of knowledge rather surprising in one holding his position, for it is well known among farmers that sheep will live where nothing else will. They are close feeding animals and the reason why they were not allowed to be kept on the great western ranges was because they ate the grass down too close for other stock to live upon. The hon. minister said that sheep were a class of domestic animals that do not pay. Again he is at fault because there is no class which multiplies so rapidly and pays so well. That will not be denied by any one at all conversant with the subject. In drawing a comparison between the sheep industry in Alberta and Montana, he said that the industry in Montana was a forced one and that he did not believe in forced industry. Well, when I heard that statement I could not help thinking of the experiments made by the hon. gentleman with squirt guns for the fattening of hens. That I fancy might well be called a forced industry, and yet it was one on which the hon. gentleman was wont to wax enthusiastic.
Let me now take up a few minutes in referring to the cattle industry of the west. In 1906 or 1905, being a farmer myself, knowing the conditions of the cattle industry, I got up in the local House and drew the attention of the government to the fact that that industry was dying because a combine had been formed which was eating the life out of it. I pointed Mr. CAMPBELL.
out that the buyers had formed a combine and that the farmers could not get for their steers as much as they actually cost. The government, on my representations, appointed a joint commission with the government of the province of Alberta, the province of Saskatchewan having refused to come in. That joint commission took evidence from all sources-from farmers, railway companies, dealers of all kinds, large and small, and made a report to the effect that the industry was cramped owing to the existence of a semi-monopoly. They called it a semi-monopoly because they could not actually prove that it was really a monopoly, but in my opinion it was a monopoly and a combine which was grinding the farmers so that they could not make a living by raising stock. The commission reported that it was necessary, if the governments of Alberta and Manitoba desired to keep alive that great industry, that something should be done. The commission pointed out that these governments should aid in some way the building of abattoirs and the establishment of union stock yards, thus making the handling of stock as cheap as possible, and creating an open market. The Manitoban government, on the finding of that commission, voted a certain amount for the purpose of aiding any company which would build an abattoir, and give the government control of the rates. However, no company took hold of the venture, and lately again the Manitoba government appointed a commission to go further into the matter together with the town of St. Boniface, and possibly Winnipeg, and the Manitoba government intends in the near future to assist liberally the building of public abattoirs and the establishment of a free market where a man can sell his stock to advantage. Such conditions do not exist now, but will I hope in the near future. In Manitoba practically, until within the last year, the condition was such that many farmers sacrificed their herds of cattle, sold them off and killed their calves, so as not to be at the expense of raising them. That was a most unfortunate condition of things. All the industry required was a little fostering, and all we ask the Minister of Agriculture is to give it some little of his care, and get some money out of the public treasury to assist the particular class he represents. In many cases we make large expenditures which are not justified, but never yet have I found fault with any reasonable expenditure for the benefit of the people. The Minister of Agriculture is a representative of the farming community, on that community he spends $700,000, whereas the Minister of Militia spends $7,000,000 for purposes of war. Are not our farmers of more importance than these gold-braided officials we see swaggering

around? Are they not more useful? They at least produce something. The Minister of Militia (Sir Frederick Borden) will say that he needs these $7,000,000 in order to get efficient service. But why not cut down our war expenditure, even if we thereby get a less efficient militia service,
' and spend the money in improving the condition of our farmers. Two years ago I was representing the Western Live Stock Shippers Association and went around the various stock yards in the United States- St. Paul, Minneapolis and Chicago-and then came down to Toronto and Montreal. A question I was asked to look into by the live stock shippers was the question of cold storage and the shipping of chilled beef to the old country. I found in Chicago that Swift & Co. were the only people that were shipping chilled meat. I could not get very close to their officials to find out how the business was doing, but I heard unofficially that their first experience was that the business was not a success. Later on, they sent to the old country their own representatives and opened shops all through the big centres and handled their own chilled meat. This plan proved a great success. I met Mr. Harris, of Toronto, head, at that time, of the Harris Abattoir Co. Mr. Harris had shipped some 250 head in four different shipments of chilled meat and had lost in the neighborhood of $25,000. I took down what he had to say about it, and I read from my report:
Unquestionably, it is the proper way, the only right way to handle our meat trade, as there is no bruised meat and no dead cattle, and freight charges are much less. But still I lost money. I found when I got my stuff over there to England, I was in the hands of Ali Baba and the forty thieves

I hope he was not referring to this government.
-only there were four hundred of them, and I was lucky to get off with the loss I mentioned. There is only one way to handle the chilled meat trade, and that is to establish shops to handle it in the old country, just as Swift & Co. are doing, and thus get rid of the robbers or make them work for you.
If a very wealthy man, head of a very wealthy firm, lost money in shipping under the conditions that are spoken of so highly by some of the speakers on the government side, the minister cannot expect the farmers of the west to take that chance themselves. And if the farmers of the west who know that the live stock industry must be fostered in order to keep up the fertility of the soil, desire that their money be spent in this way, it is surely not very much for us to ask the minister to meet their requirements in that regard. When he was speaking this afternoon he practically refused to give this help that we are asking for the
farmers. In his speech, he referred to some proposition made to him two years ago under which the government were to guarantee the bonds of a company that was to build a line of chilled meat storehouses. He said he did not believe it was a good thing for the government to' guarantee the bonds of companies if the companies were not ready to stand the loss themselves. I think that is the meaning of what he said, was it not?
Well, I take it, silence gives consent: I could hardly believe my ears when I heard that. My mind reverted to what1 happened on the St. Lawrence near Quebec-a bridge fell and six and a half millions of money guaranteed by this government went into the river. And the contractors got off scot free, and, I think, got a bonus for losing the bridge.
It is about time for this House to adjourn, and so I shall not speak at greater length. I would just point out to the minister that there is no class of people in Canada who have to work so hard for what they get, as the farmers. There is no class that has bothered this House of parliament less than the farmers have done, or have put up with more abuse even from the Minister of Agriculture. No class depends so much upon the interest of the land, and I do not think there is any class that has been hoodwinked so much by the ministry as the farmers. And when I speak of the ministry, I refer to this ministry, for they are past masters at the business of hoodwinking. Let me tell the minister, before sitting down, that he may goldbrick this House in this matter by stress of what may be called majorite bru-tale when it comes to a vote. But he will find in a day or two that five or six hundred farmers are here asking for the same as we are asking for. They are of all creeds, of many nationalities and of all parties in politics. He will not be able to goldbrick them; he will have to give them a straight answer. I would respectfully ask the members on the other side of this House to forget their partisan politics and vote in support of the interest of the farmers of this country.


Mr. W. H. WHITE. (Victoria, Alberta).: I do not intend, at this late hour, to take up muich of the time of the House. I am in perfect sympathy with the resolution of the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule); I had a resolution much along the same lines myself. I should have been glad to support this resolution had it been placed on the Order Paper in the ordinary way, and members given an opportunity to know when it might be brought oh and to make preparation to discuss it. I might go on to explain that there is a grievance in the western country so far as the cattle business is concerned, and to give some

information concerning it, and shoul.d have been glad to do so, had the resolution come on in the regular way. But, as the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher), has pointed out, this is a want -of confidence motion, and therefore, I am sorry to say, I will have to vote against it.
House divided on amendment (Mr. Sproule).
YEAS:
Messieurs
Armstrong,
Arthurs,
Barker,
Barnard,
Beattie,
Best,
Blain,
Borden (Halifax), Boyce,
Bradbury,
Broder,
Burrell,
Campbell,
Chisholm (Huron), Cowan,
Crosby,
Crocket,
Currie (Simcoe), Daniel,
Doherty,
Donnelly,
Edwards,
Elson,
Fraser, .
Goodeve,
Haggart (Winnipeg), Henderson,
Herron,
J amoson,
Kidd,
Lalor,
Lor tie,
Macdonald,
McCall,
McCarthy,
Maddin,
Magrath,
Meighen,
Middlebro,
Monk,
Nantcl,
Northrup
Osier,
Owen,
Perley,
Reid (Grenville), 'Rhodes,
Roche,
Russell,
Schaffner,
Sexsmith.
Sharpe (Lisgar), Sharpe (Ontario), Smyth,
Sproule,
Stanfield,
Staples,
Stewart,
Taylor (New Westminster),
Thoburn,
Thornton.
Wallace,
White (Renfrew), Wilcox,
Wilson (Lennox and Addington) and Wright.-66.
NAYS:
Messieurs
Allard,
Allen,
Aylesworth,
Beland,
Bickerdike,
Black,
Borden
(Sir Frederick), Brown,
Bureau,
Carrier,
Car veil,
Cash,
Champagne,
Chew,
Chisholm (Antigonish) Chisholm (Inverness), Clark (Red Deer), Congdon,
Currie
(Prince Edward),
McGiverin,
McIntyre,
McKenzie,
McLean '(Huron), McMillan,
Major,
Marcile (Bagot), Martin (Wellington), Mayrand,
Meigs,
Michaud,
Miller,
Molloy,
Murphy,
Nesbitt,
Neely,
Oliver,
Papineau,
Pardee,
Parent,
Paterson,
Mr. WHITE (Victoria, Alta.)
Delisle,
Demers,
Devlin,
Dubeau,
Fisher,
Fortier,
Fowke,
Gauvreau,
Geoff rion,
Gervais,
Gilbert,
Girard,
Graham,
Harris,
Hartj%
Hodgins,
Hunt,
King,
Knowles,
Kyte,
Lachance,
Lafortune,
Lanetot (Laprairie-Napierville), Lanetot (Richelieu), Laurier (Sir Wilfrid), Law,
LeBlanc,
Loggie,
Lovell,
Low,
Macdonald,
MacNutt,
McAllister,
McCoig,
McColl,
McCraney,
Tickup,
Proulx,
Prowse,
Pugsley,
Rankin,
Reid (Restigouche), Richards,
Rivet,
Robb,
Rose (Middlesex), 1 Ross (Rimouski),,
Roy (Dorchester),
Roy (Montmagny), Rutan,
Savoie,
Schell,
Sealey,
Seguin,
Sinclair,
Smith (Middlesex), Smith (Nanaimo), Smith (Stormont), Talbot,
Templeman,
Tobin,
Todd,
Tolmie,
Turcotte (Nicolet), Turcotte (Quebec county), Turgeon,
Turriff.
Verville,
Warburton,
White
(Victoria, Alta.) and. Wilson (Laval).-111.
PAIRS:
Ministerial.	Opposition.
Messieurs
Fielding,
Lemieux,
Brodeur,
Emmerson,
Gordon (Kent), Guthrie,
Clarke (Essex), Sperry,
Lapointe,
Gladu,
McLean (Sunbury), Martin (Regina), German,
Ecrement,
Douglas,
Beauparlant,
Stratton,
Martin (St. Mary's), Conmee,
Ethier,
Foster,
Porter,
Haggart (Lanark), Lake,
Taylor (Leeds), Clare,
Ames,
Crothers,
Lancaster,
Lennox,
Marshall,
Hughes,
Bristol,
Blondin,
Lewis,
Paquet,
Gordon (Nipissing), Worthington,
Price,
Forget,
Amendment negatived. Motion agreed to and House went into Committee of Supply-
Progress reported.
On motion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, House adjourned at 12:30 a.m., Wednesday.


Wednesday, December 14, 1910.